you go out of the temple is a mirror fixed to the wall: if any one looks into this mirror, he will see himself very obscurely or not at all, but the statues of the goddesses and the throne he will see quite clearly. And by the temple of Despœna as you ascend a little to the right is the Hall, where the Arcadians perform her Mystic rites, and sacrifice to her victims in abundance. Each sacrifices what animal he has got: nor do they cut the throats of the victims as in other sacrifices, but each cuts off whatever limb of the victim he lights on. The Arcadians worship Despœna more than any of the gods, and say that she was the daughter of Poseidon and Demeter. Her general appellation is Despœna, a name they also give to the Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, but her private name is Persephone, as Homer[40] and still earlier Pamphus have given it, but that name of Despœna I feared to write down for the uninitiated. And beyond the Hall is a grove sacred to Despœna surrounded by a stone wall: in the grove are several kinds of trees, as olives and oak from one root, which is something above the gardener’s art. And beyond the grove are altars of Poseidon Hippius as the father of Despœna, and of several other of the gods. And the inscription on the last altar is that it is common to all the gods. From thence you ascend by a staircase to the temple of Pan, which has a portico and a not very large statue. To Pan as to all the most powerful gods belongs the property of answering prayer and of punishing the wicked. In his temple a never ceasing fire burns. It is said that in ancient times Pan gave oracular responses, and that his interpreter was the Nymph Erato, who married Arcas the son of Callisto. They also quote some of Erato’s lines, which I have myself perused. There too is an altar to Ares, and two statues of Aphrodite in a temple, one of white marble, the more ancient one of wood. There are also wooden statues of Apollo and Athene, Athene has also a temple. [39] Iliad, xiv. 277-279. [40] _e.g._ Odyssey, x. 491, 494, 509. CHAPTER XXXVIII. And a little higher up is the circuit of the walls of Lycosura, which contains a few inhabitants. It is the oldest of the towns of the earth either on the mainland or in islands, and the first the sun saw, and all mankind made it their model for building towns.