Description of Greece

​The Isthmus of the Corinthians extends on one side to the sea at Cenchreae, and on the other to the sea at Lechaeum; for this makes the land within a peninsula. He who undertook to make the Peloponnese an island gave up beforehand while digging through the Isthmus; and where they began to dig is clear, but they made no progress at all into the rocky part; so it remains as it was by nature, being a mainland even now. For Alexander the son of Philip, too, who wished to dig through Mimas, this work alone did not succeed; and the Pythian priestess stopped the Cnidians when they were digging their isthmus. Thus it is a difficult thing for a human to force the divine.

​This kind of story about their territory is not told by the Corinthians alone, but in my opinion the Athenians were the first to boast in this solemn way about Attica; and the Corinthians also say that Poseidon came to a dispute with Helios concerning the land, and that Briareus became an arbitrator between them, deciding that the Isthmus and all that was in this direction belonged to Poseidon, but giving to Helios the height which is above the city. From this, they say, the Isthmus belongs to Poseidon.

​Things worth seeing there include a theater, and a stadium of white stone. For one who has come to the sanctuary of the god, there stand on the one hand statues of athletes who have won at the Isthmian games, and on the other hand there are pine trees planted in a row, most of them rising in a straight line. Upon the temple, which is not of very great size, stand bronze Tritons. And there are images in the pronaos: two of Poseidon, and a third of Amphitrite, and Sea (Thalassa), she too being of bronze. The things inside were dedicated in our time by Herodes the Athenian: four gilded horses except for their hooves; and their hooves are of ivory.

​and there are two Tritons of gold beside the horses, these too being of ivory in the parts below the waist; and upon the chariot stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is a boy standing upright on a dolphin, namely Palaemon; these too are made of ivory and gold. On the pedestal on which the chariot stands, in the middle is carved Sea (Thalassa) holding up Aphrodite as a child, and on either side are the so-called Nereids. I know that there are altars to these in other parts of Greece too, and that some have even dedicated sanctuaries to them †...†, where there are also honors for Achilles; and the sanctuary of Doto in Gabala is a holy place, where there was still left a robe which the Greeks say Eriphyle received to the ruin of her son Alcmaeon.

​And carved upon the pedestal of Poseidon are also the sons of Tyndareus, because they too are saviors of ships and of seafaring men. The other dedicated offerings are an image of Galene and of Thalassa, and a horse made to resemble a sea-monster in the parts after the breast, and Ino, and Bellerophon, and the horse Pegasus.