Description of Greece

​The road leading from Argos to Mantinea is not the same as the one to Tegea, but starts from the gates near Deiras. On this road is built a double sanctuary, having one entrance towards the setting sun and another towards the east. On this side (the east) lies a wooden image of Aphrodite, and towards the setting sun (the west) that of Ares. They say that the images are the dedications of Polynices and of those Argives who joined him in the campaign to help him.

​For those who have gone on from there, after they have crossed a winter torrent called Charadrus, there is Oenoe, which has its name, as the Argives say, from Oeneus. For they say that Oeneus, who had reigned in Aetolia, was driven from his kingdom by the sons of Agrius and came to Diomedes at Argos. Diomedes helped him in other matters by making a campaign into Calydonia, but said he was unable to remain with him, and urged him, if he wished, to follow him to Argos. When Oeneus arrived, Diomedes cared for him in all other ways, as it was fitting to care for the father of one’s father, and when he died, buried him here. From him, indeed, the place is called Oenoe by the Argives.

​Above Oenoe is Mount Artemision, and there is a sanctuary of Artemis on the peak of the mountain. In this mountain are also the springs of the Inachus; for there are indeed in reality springs for it, but the water does not flow very far along the land.

​In this direction indeed there was nothing more worth seeing; but there is another road from the gates near Deiras to Lyrceia. To this place, it is said, Lynceus alone of the fifty brothers escaped in safety; and when he was saved, he raised a torch from here. It had been agreed between him and Hypermnestra that he should raise the torch if, escaping Danaus, he should reach safety anywhere; and they say that she herself also lit another from Larissa, making it clear that she herself also was no longer in any danger. On this account, the Argives hold a festival of torches every year.

​The place was then called Lynceia, but later, when Lyrcus—who was a bastard son of Abas—dwelt in it, it got its name from him; and there are other things of no great account among the ruins, and a portrait of Lyrcus upon a stele. From Argos to this place is about sixty stades, and from Lyrceia there is another equal distance to Orneae. Of the city of Lyrceia indeed, since it was already deserted at the time of the Greek expedition against Ilion, Homer made no mention in the Catalogue; but Orneae—for it was still inhabited—just as it lay in the territory of Argolis, so also in his verses he catalogued it before both Phlius and Sicyon.