Description of Greece

​For those going from Mycenae to Argos, there is on the left by the road a hero-shrine of Perseus. Indeed, here too he receives honors from the neighbors, but the greatest are in Seriphos and among the Athenians, who have a sanctuary of Perseus and an altar of Dictys and Clymene, called the saviors of Perseus. In the Argolid, for those who have gone on a little from this hero-shrine, there is on the right the tomb of Thyestes; on it is a ram of stone, because Thyestes held the golden lamb , having committed adultery with his brother’s wife. But reason did not restrain Atreus from meting out an equal measure, but he perpetrated the slaughter of the children of Thyestes and the banquet celebrated in song.

​Later, I cannot say for certain whether Aegisthus began the injustice, or whether there was previously the murder of Tantalus, the son of Thyestes, by Agamemnon; they say that he lived with Clytemnestra, having received her as a virgin from Tyndareus. I am not willing to condemn them as having been evil by nature; but if the pollution of Pelops and the avenging spirit of Myrtilus followed them to such an extent, then these things were consistent with what the Pythia said to Glaucus, the Spartan son of Epicydes, who had planned to swear a false oath, when she said that justice descends even to his descendants.

​Going on a little from the Rams—for so they call the tomb of Thyestes—there is on the left a place called Mysia, and a sanctuary of Demeter Mysia, taking its name from a man Mysius, who also, as the Argives say, was a host to Demeter. Now, this has no roof; but inside it is another temple of baked brick, and there are wooden statues of Core, Pluton, and Demeter. For those who go on there is the river Inachus, and for those who have crossed it, an altar of Helios. From there you will come to a gate named after the nearby sanctuary; and the sanctuary is of Eileithyia.

​I know of no other Greeks except the Argives who were divided into three kingdoms. For during the reign of Anaxagoras, the Argive son of Megapenthes, a madness fell upon the women, and they wandered throughout the country after fleeing from their homes, until Melampus, the son of Amythaon, cured them of the disease, on the condition that he himself and his brother Bias should have an equal share of the kingdom with Anaxagoras. Now, from Bias five men ruled over four generations down to Cyanippus, the son of Aegialeus, being Neleids on their mother’s side; and from Melampus there were six generations and an equal number of men down to Amphilochus, the son of Amphiaraus.

​But the native race, the Anaxagoridae, reigned longer. For Iphis, the son of Alector, the son of Anaxagoras, left the rule to Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus, the son of his brother. And when Amphilochus, after the capture of Ilium, migrated to those who are now called Amphilochians, and Cyanippus died childless, thus Cylarabes, the son of Sthenelus, held the kingdom alone. However, he too left no children, but Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, seized Argos, since he dwelt nearby and had, besides his paternal domain, won over most of the Arcadians, and had also taken over the kingdom in Sparta, and a Phocian allied force was always ready at hand for his assistance.

​And Orestes ruled over the Lacedaemonians because the Lacedaemonians themselves committed it to him; for they deemed it right that the grandsons of Tyndareus through his daughters should hold the rule, rather than Nicostratus and Megapenthes, who were born to Menelaus from a slave woman. And when Orestes died, Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus, held the rule. As for Penthilus, the illegitimate son of Orestes, Cinaethon wrote in his epic verses that Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus, bore him.

​In the time of this Tisamenus, the Heracleidae returned to the Peloponnese, namely Temenus and Cresphontes, sons of Aristomachus, and the children of the third brother, Aristodemus, who had died before. Now, in claiming Argos and the kingdom of Argos, it seems to me most justly, because Tisamenus was a Pelopid, whereas the Heracleidae were of old Perseids. And they pointed out that Tyndareus himself had been expelled by Hippocoon, and they said that Heracles, having killed Hippocoon and his sons, had entrusted the land to Tyndareus; and they spoke other similar things about Messenia, that this too had been given as a trust to Nestor by Heracles when he captured Pylos.

​So they expelled Tisamenus from Lacedaemon and Argos, and from Messenia the descendants of Nestor, namely Alcmaeon, the son of Sillus, the son of Thrasymedes, and Peisistratus, the son of Peisistratus, and the children of Paeon, the son of Antilochus, and with them Melanthus, the son of Andropompus, the son of Borus, the son of Penthilus, the son of Periclymenus. Tisamenus then went with his army and his sons into what is now Achaea.

​The rest of the Neleidae, except Peisistratus—for I do not know to whom he withdrew—arrived in Athens, and the families of the Paeonidae and Alcmaeonidae were named after them. And Melanthus also held the kingdom, having taken it from Thymoetes, the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoetes was the last of the Theseidae to reign over the Athenians.