Court and
Facade
of the Fountainhouse
Pausanias
describes the Peirene fountain as follows: "On leaving the market-place
(agora) along the road to Lechaeum you come to a gateway, on which are
two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon the son of Helius (Sun), the
other Helius himself. A little farther away from the gateway, on the right
as you go in, is a bronze Heracles. After this is the entrance to the
water of Peirene. The legend about Peirene is that she was a woman who
became a spring because of her tears shed in lamentation for her son Cenchrias,
who was unintentionally killed by Artemis. The spring is ornamented with
white marble, and there have been made chambers like caves, out of which
the water flows into an open-air well. It is pleasant to drink,
and they say that the Corinthian bronze, when red-hot, is tempered by
this water, since bronze [ ] the Corinthians have not.
Moreover near Peirene are an image and a sacred enclosure of Apollo; in
the latter is a painting of the exploit of Odysseus against the suitors.