Phigalia is surrounded by mountains, on the left by Cotilius, on the right by the projecting mountain Elaion. Cotilius is about 40 stades from Phigalia, and on it is a place called Bassæ, and a temple of Apollo the Helper, the roof of which is of stone. This temple would stand first of all the temples in the Peloponnese, except that at Tegea, for the beauty of the stone and neatness of the structure. And Apollo got his title of Helper in reference to a pestilence, as among the Athenians he got the title of Averter of Ill because he turned away from them some pestilence. He helped the Phigalians about the time of the Peloponnesian war, as both titles of Apollo shew plainly, and Ictinus the builder of the temple at Phigalia was a contemporary of Pericles, and the architect of what is called the Parthenon at Athens. I have already mentioned the statue of Apollo in the market-place at Megalopolis. And there is a spring of water on Mount Cotilius, from which somebody has written that the river Lymax takes its rise, but he can neither have seen the spring himself, nor had his account from any one who had seen it. I have done both: and the water of the spring on Mount Cotilius does not travel very far, but in a short time gets lost in the ground altogether. Not that it occurred to me to inquire in what part of Arcadia the river Lymax rises. Above the temple of Apollo the Helper is a place called Cotilum, where there is a temple of Aphrodite lacking a roof, as also a statue of the goddess. [43] Iliad, i. 314. [44] Iliad, xviii. 398, 399, 405. CHAPTER XLII.