A road leads from here to the temple of Æsculapius. In the precincts there is on the left hand a double building: in the outer room is a statue of _Sleep_, and there is nothing of it remaining but the head. And the inner room is dedicated to Carnean Apollo, and none but the priests may enter it. In the Porch is the huge bone of a sea-monster, and next it the statue of _Dream_, and _Sleep_, called _the Bountiful_, lulling a lion to rest. And as you go up to the temple of Æsculapius, on one side is a statue of Pan seated, on the other one of Artemis erect. At the entrance is the god himself (Æsculapius) beardless, in gold and ivory, the work of Calamis: he has his sceptre in one hand, and in the other the fruit of the pine-tree. And they say that the god was brought to them from Epidaurus by a pair of mules, and that he was like a dragon, and that he was brought by Nicagora a native of Sicyon, the mother of Agasicles, and the wife of Echetimus. There are also some small statues fastened to the ceiling. The woman seated on the dragon is they say Aristodama the mother of Aratus, and they consider Aratus the son of Æsculapius. Such are the notable things to be seen in these precincts. And there are other precincts there sacred to Aphrodite: and in them first is the statue of Antiope. For they say her sons were born at Sicyon, and this is the connection with Antiope. Next is the temple of Aphrodite. None may enter into it but a maiden Sacristan, who must never marry, and another maiden who performs the annual rites. This maiden they call bath-carrier. All others alike must only look at the goddess from the porch and worship her there. Her figure seated is the design of Canachus a native of Sicyon, (who also designed the Didymæan Apollo for the Milesians, and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans). It is in gold and ivory. The goddess wears on her head a cap, and in one hand holds a poppy, in the other an apple. And they offer in sacrifice to her the thighs of any victims but wild boars, all other parts they burn with juniper wood, and when they burn the thighs they burn up together with them the leaves of pæderos; which is a plant that grows in the precincts of the goddess’ temple in the open air, and grows in no other land, nor in any other part of Sicyonia. And its leaves are smaller than the leaves of the beech, but larger than those of the holm oak, and their shape is that of the oak-leaf, partly black, partly white like the silvery white of the poplar tree. And as you go hence to the gymnasium, on the right is the temple of Pheræan Artemis: the wooden statue of the goddess was they say brought from Pheræ. Clinias built this gymnasium, and they educate boys there still. There is an Artemis also in white stone, carved only down to the waist, and a Hercules in his lower parts like the square Hermæ. CHAPTER XI.