Description of Greece

​In the gymnasium which is in the market-place, not far off, is dedicated a Heracles of stone, the work of Scopas. There is also in another place a sanctuary of Heracles; the whole enclosure here they call Paidize, and in the middle of the enclosure is the sanctuary, and in it an ancient wooden image, the work of Laphaes the Phliasian. Concerning the sacrifice, they are accustomed to act as follows. They say that Phaestus, having come to the Sicyonian land, found them making offerings to Heracles as to a hero; Phaestus therefore did not think fit to do any of the same things, but to sacrifice to him as to a god. And even now still, the Sicyonians, having slaughtered a lamb and burned the thighs upon the altar, eat some of the meat as from a sacrificial victim, and make offerings of some of the meat as to a hero. Of the festival which they hold for Heracles, they call the former of the days †[name corrupt]†, and the latter they call Heracleia.

​From here there is a road to a sanctuary of Asclepius. To those entering the enclosure, on the left is a double building; Hypnos lies in the former room, and of him nothing else but the head is still left. The inner room is consecrated to Carnean Apollo, and into it there is no entrance except for the priests. In the portico lies a bone of a sea-monster, of great size, and after it an image of Oneirus and Hypnos putting a lion to sleep, with the surname Epidotes. To those entering the Asclepieum by the other entrance, on one side is a sitting image of Pan, and on the other stands Artemis.

​To those who have entered, the god is beardless, of gold and ivory, the work of Calamis; he holds a sceptre in one hand, and in the other a fruit of the cultivated pine. And they say that the god was brought to them from Epidaurus on a yoke of mules, fashioned like a serpent, and that the woman who brought him was Nicagora, a Sicyonian, the mother of Agasicles and wife of Echetimus. Here are images of no great size suspended from the roof; and they say that the woman on the serpent is Aristodama, the mother of Aratus, and they believe Aratus to be a son of Asclepius.

​Now this enclosure provided so many things for memory, but beyond it is another, sacred to Aphrodite; in it is first an image of Antiope; for they wish that her children were Sicyonians and because of them they want Antiope herself also to belong to them. After this is already the temple of Aphrodite. Into it enter a female temple-keeper, for whom it is no longer lawful to go to a husband, and a virgin holding an annual priesthood; they call the virgin the lutrophoros; but for the others it is appointed in the same way both to see the goddess from the entrance and to pray from there.

​The sitting image Canachus the Sicyonian made, who also wrought the Apollo at Didyma of the Milesians and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans; it is made of gold and ivory, bearing a polos on her head, and of her hands she holds a poppy in one and an apple in the other. Of the victims they sacrifice the thighs except for pigs, and the other parts they consecrate with juniper wood, and while the thighs are burning, they consecrate together with them a leaf of the paederos.

​And the paederos is a herb in the open air of the enclosure, and it grows nowhere else on earth, neither in any other land nor in Sicyonian territory. Its leaves are smaller than those of the beech, but larger than those of the holm-oak, and their shape is like those of the oak; and one side is somewhat blackish, and the other is white; you would most of all liken its color to the leaves of the white poplar.

​And ascending from these things to the gymnasium, there is on the right a temple of Pheraean Artemis; and they say the wooden image was brought from Pherae. This gymnasium Cleinias built for them, and they still train the ephebi here. There lies also an Artemis of white stone wrought only to the waist, and a Heracles whose lower parts are fashioned like the square Hermae.