Geography

​Each of the twelve parts was composed of seven or eight demes; so well-peopled did the country happen to be. Pellene lies sixty stadia above the sea, a strong fortress. There is also a village called Pellene, whence come the Pellenian cloaks, which they also offered as prizes in the games; it lies between Aegium and Pellene. Pellana is different from these, a Laconian place, inclining towards the Megalopolitis. Aegeira is situated on a hill. Bura lies above the sea about forty stadia, which happened to be swallowed up by an earthquake; and they say that the river in Italy was named after the spring Sybaris here. Aega (for indeed they call Aegae thus in the singular) is not inhabited now, but the Aegieans possess the territory. Aegium is sufficiently inhabited; and they relate here that Zeus was brought up by a goat, just as Aratus also says: “The sacred goat, which legend says held her breast to Zeus.” And he adds also that: “The interpreters of Zeus call her the Olenian goat,” showing the place because Olenus was near. Near this also is Ceryneia, established upon a high rock. Both these and Helice and the Amarion, the sacred grove of Zeus, where the Achaeans used to meet to consult on public affairs, belong to the Aegieans. And through the territory of the Aegieans flows the River Selinus, of the same name as that which flows in Ephesus past the Artemision, and that in what is now Eleia, which flows past the estate which Xenophon says he bought for Artemis according to an oracle; and another Selinus is that among the Hyblaean Megarians, whom the Carthaginians removed. Of the remaining Achaean cities or parts, Rhypes is not inhabited, but the Aegieans and Pharians possessed the territory called Rhypis; and from Rhypes was Myscellus, the founder of Croton; and to Rhypis belonged also Leuctrum, a deme of Rhypes. After these is Patrae, a notable city; and between them is Rhium, forty stadia distant from Patrae. The Romans recently, after the victory at Actium, settled a notable part of their army there, and it is now outstandingly well-peopled, being a Roman colony; and it has a moderate anchorage. Next is Dyme, a city without a harbor, the westernmost of all, whence also its name; formerly it was called Stratos; and the River Larisus divides it from Eleia near Buprasium, flowing from a mountain; this mountain some call Scollis, but Homer calls it the Olenian Rock. And since Antimachus called Dyme “Cauconis”, some understood it to be said epithetically from the Caucones who reached as far as here, just as we said above; but others from some River Caucon, as Thebes is called Dircaean and Asopidian, Argos Inachian, and Troy Simoisian. Dyme also received as inhabitants a mixed people a little before our time, whom Pompey had remaining from the pirate multitude, when he put down the robberies and settled some in Soli in Cilicia, others elsewhere, and indeed also here. Phara borders on the Dymaean territory. And those from this Phara are called Phareis, but those from the Messenian are called Pharaeatae; and in the Pharaic territory is the spring Dirce, of the same name as that in Thebes. Olenus is deserted, and lies between Patrae and Dyme; and the Dymaeans have the territory. Then Araxus, the promontory of Eleia, a thousand stadia from the Isthmus.