Geography

​There is a northernmost cape of Eleia, Araxos, sixty stadia distant from the Achaean city of Dyme. We therefore establish this as the starting point of the coast of the Eleians; and next after this, as one proceeds toward the west, is Kyllene, the port of the Eleians, which has an ascent to the present city of one hundred and twenty stadia. Homer also mentions this Kyllene, calling Otos ‘the Kyllenian leader of the Epeians’. For he was not likely to represent him, being from the Arcadian mountain, as a leader of the Epeians. Kyllene is a village of moderate size, possessing the Asclepius of Kolotes, a wonderful wooden statue overlaid with ivory. After Kyllene is Cape Chelonatas, the westernmost point of the Peloponnesus. Before it lies a small island and shallows on the boundary between Hollow Elis and the Pisatans, whence for one sailing to Cephallenia it is eighty stadia. And somewhere there flows also the river Elison or Elisa, in the said boundary.

​Between Chelonatas and Kyllene, the river Peneius empties, and also the Selleeis, mentioned by the poet, which flows from Pholoe; upon which is the city of Ephyra, a fourth Ephyra, different from those in Thesprotia, Thessaly, and Corinth, situated on the road to Lasion, being either the same as Boinoa (for they are accustomed to call Oinoe thus) or near it, and distant one hundred and twenty stadia from the city of the Eleians; and it is from this Ephyra that the mother of Tlepolemos the son of Herakles seems to be spoken of: “whom he brought out of Ephyra from the river Selleeis” (for it was rather there that the campaigns of Herakles took place, and near those other cities there is no river Selleeis); and also that of Meges: “which Phyleus once brought out of Ephyra from the river Selleeis” and it was from this city too that the man-slaying drugs came; for the poet says that Odysseus went to Ephyra: “seeking a man-slaying drug, so that he might have it to smear his arrows” and the suitors say of Telemachos: “or whether he wishes to go to the fertile soil of Ephyra, so that he may bring from there soul-destroying drugs.” Indeed, Nestor too, in his narrative of the war against them, introduces the daughter of Augeas, the king of the Epeians, as a sorceress: “I was the first to slay a man, the spearman Mulios; he was the son-in-law of Augeas, and had to wife his eldest daughter, who knew all the drugs that the wide earth nourishes.” There is also a river Selleeis near Sicyon, and an Ephyra as a village nearby, and in the Agraia of Aetolia an Ephyra as a village, whose inhabitants are called Ephyroi; and others among the Perrhaebi near Macedonia, who are the Krannonians, and the Thesprotian Ephyra from Kichyros, which was formerly called Ephyra.

​And Apollodorus, when teaching the manner in which the poet is accustomed to distinguish homonyms—as in the case of Orchomenos, calling the Arcadian one ‘rich in sheep’ and the Boeotian one ‘Minyeian’, and adding ‘Thracian’ to Samos: “between Samos and Imbros,” in order to separate it from the Ionian—says that the Thesprotian Ephyra is likewise distinguished by ‘from afar’ and ‘from the river Selleeis’. But these statements do not agree with those made by Demetrius of Skepsis, from whom he borrows most of his material; for Demetrius says there is no river Selleeis among the Thesprotians, but in Eleia, beside the Ephyra there, as we said before. This point, therefore, which he has stated, requires examination; as does also his statement about Oechalia, because he says that, although there is not only one, there is only one city of Eurytos the Oechalian—meaning, clearly, the Thessalian one, of which he says: “and they that held Oechalia, the city of Eurytos the Oechalian.” Which, then, is the one from which he set forth, when the Muses near Dorion “meeting Thamyris the Thracian, they put an end to his song.” For if it is the Thessalian one, the Skepsian is again wrong in speaking of a certain Arcadian one, which they now call Andania; but if the latter is right, the Arcadian city also has been called the city of Eurytos, so that there is not only one; yet Apollodorus says there is only one.