And on the left of the temple of Despœna is Mount Lycæus, which some of the Arcadians call Olympus and others the Sacred Hill. They say Zeus was reared on this mountain: and there is a spot on it called Cretea on the left of the grove of Parrhasian Apollo, and the Arcadians maintain that this was the Crete where Zeus was reared, and not the island of Crete as the Cretans hold. And the names of the Nymphs, by whom they say Zeus was brought up, were (they say) Thisoa and Neda and Hagno. Thisoa gave her name to a town in Parrhasia, and in my time there is a village called Thisoa in the district of Megalopolis, and Neda gave her name to the river Neda, and Hagno gave her name to the spring on Mount Lycæus, which like the river Ister has generally as much water in summer as in winter. But should a drought prevail for any length of time, so as to be injurious to the fruits of the earth and to trees, then the priest of Lycæan Zeus prays to the water and performs the wonted sacrifice, and lowers a branch of oak into the spring just on the surface, and when the water is stirred up a steam rises like a mist, and after a little interval the mist becomes a cloud, and collecting other clouds soon causes rain to fall upon Arcadia. There is also on Mount Lycæus a temple of Pan and round it a grove of trees, and a Hippodrome in front of it, where in old times they celebrated the Lycæan games. There are also here the bases of some statues, though the statues are no longer there: and an elegiac couplet on one of the bases says it is the statue of Astyanax who was an Arcadian. Mount Lycæus among other remarkable things has the following. There is an enclosure sacred to Lycæan Zeus into which men may not enter, and if any one violates this law he will not live more than a year. It is also still stated that inside this enclosure men and beasts alike have no shadow, and therefore when any beast flees into this enclosure the hunter cannot follow it up, but remaining outside and looking at the beast sees no shadow falling from it. As long indeed as the Sun is in Cancer there is no shadow from trees or living things at Syene in Ethiopia, but this sacred enclosure on Mount Lycæus is the same in reference to shadows during every period of the year. There is on the highest ridge of the mountain a mound of earth, the altar of Lycæan Zeus, from which most of the Peloponnese is visible: and in front of this altar there are two pillars facing east, and some golden eagles upon them of very ancient date. On this altar they sacrifice to Lycæan Zeus secretly: it would not be agreeable to me to pry too curiously into the rites, let them be as they are and always have been.