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Pausanias Description of Greece 2.5.1
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[2.5.1] On the summit of the Acrocorinthus is a temple of Aphrodite.
The images are Aphrodite
armed, Helius, and Eros
with a bow. The spring, which is behind the temple, they say was the gift
of Asopus
to Sisyphus.
The latter knew, so runs the legend, that Zeus
had ravished Aegina,
the daughter of Asopus,
but refused to give information to the seeker before he had a spring given
him on the Acrocorinthus. When Asopus
granted this request Sisyphus
turned informer, and on this account he receives--if anyone believes the
story--punishment in Hades.
I have heard people say that this spring and Peirene are the same, the
water in the city flowing hence under-ground. [2.5.2]
This Asopus
rises in the Phliasian territory, flows through the Sicyonian, and empties
itself into the sea here. His daughters, say the Phliasians,
were Corcyra,
Aegina,
and Thebe.
Corcyra
and Aegina
gave new names to the islands called Scheria
and Oenone,
while from Thebe
is named the city below the Cadmea.
The Thebans
do not agree, but say that Thebe
was the daughter of the Boeotian,
and not of the Phliasian, Asopus. [2.5.3]
The other stories about the river are current among both the Phliasians
and the Sicyonians,
for instance that its water is foreign and not native, in that the Maeander,
descending from Celaenae
through Phrygia
and Caria,
and emptying itself into the sea at Miletus,
goes to the Peloponnesus and forms the Asopus.
I remember hearing a similar story from the Delians,
that the stream which they call Inopus
comes to them from the Nile.
Further, there is a story that the Nile
itself is the Euphrates,
which disappears into a marsh, rises again beyond Aethiopia and becomes
the Nile. [2.5.4]
Such is the account I heard of the Asopus.
When you have turned from the Acrocorinthus into the mountain road you
see the Teneatic gate and a sanctuary of Eilethyia. The town called Tenea
is just about sixty stades distant. The inhabitants say that they are Trojans
who were taken prisoners in Tenedos
by the Greeks,
and were permitted by Agamemnon
to dwell in their present home. For this reason they honor Apollo
more than any other god.
[2.5.5] As you go from Corinth,
not into the interior but along the road to Sicyon,
there is on the left not far from the city a burnt temple. There have,
of course, been many wars carried on in Corinthian
territory, and naturally houses and sanctuaries outside the wall have been
fired. But this temple, they say, was Apollo's, and Pyrrhus
the son of Achilles
burned it down. Subsequently I heard another account, that the Corinthians
built the temple for Olympian
Zeus,
and that suddenly fire from some quarter fell on it and destroyed it. [2.5.6]
The Sicyonians,
the neighbours of the Corinthians at this part of the border, say about
their own land that Aegialeus
was its first and aboriginal inhabitant, that the district of the Peloponnesus
still called Aegialus
was named after him because he reigned over it, and that he founded the
city Aegialea
on the plain. Their citadel, they say, was where is now their sanctuary
of Athena;
further, that Aegialeus
begat Europs,
Europs
Telchis,
and Telchis
Apis. [2.5.7]
This Apis
reached such a height of power before Pelops
came to Olympia
that all the territory south of the Isthmus
was called after him Apia.
Apis
begat Thelxion,
Thelxion
Aegyrus,
the Thurimachus,
and Thurimachus
Leucippus.
Leucippus
had no male issue, only a daughter Calchinia.
There is a story that this Calchinia
mated with Poseidon;
her child was reared by Leucippus,
who at his death handed over to him the kingdom. His name was Peratus.
[2.5.8] What is reported of Plemnaeus,
the son of Peratus,
seemed to me very wonderful. All the children borne to him by his wife
died the very first time they wailed. At last Demeter
took pity on Plemnaeus,
came to Aegialea
in the guise of a strange woman, and reared for Plemnaeus
his son Orthopolis.
Orthopolis
had a daughter Chrysorthe,
who is thought to have borne a son named Coronus
to Apollo.
Coronus
had two sons, Corax
and a younger one Lamedon.
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