Description of Greece

​Beyond Lessa, the Epidaurian territory adjoins the Argive; and before you come to the city itself, you will arrive at the sanctuary of Asclepius. I do not know who inhabited this land before Epidaurus came into it; nor indeed was I able to learn from the natives about the descendants of Epidaurus. But last of all, before the Dorians arrived in the Peloponnese, they say that Pityreus, a descendant of Ion son of Xuthus, reigned as king. They say that he handed over the land without a fight to Deiphontes and the Argives.

​And while he (Pityreus) arrived at Athens along with his citizens and settled there, Deiphontes and the Argives held the Epidaurian territory. But they were separated from the other Argives after the death of Temenus, Deiphontes and Hyrnetho because of their hatred towards the sons of Temenus, and the army with them because they favored Deiphontes and Hyrnetho more than Ceisus and his brothers. As for Epidaurus, after whom the name was given to the land, according to the Eleans, he was a son of Pelops; but according to the opinion of the Argives and the epic poem, ‘The Great Eoiae’, the father of Epidaurus was Argos, the son of Zeus; while the Epidaurians themselves claim Epidaurus as a child of Apollo.

​That the land is especially sacred to Asclepius has happened according to a story like this. The Epidaurians say that Phlegyas came to the Peloponnese, on the pretext of sightseeing in the country, but in fact to spy out the number of inhabitants and to see if the majority of the people were fit for war. For Phlegyas was indeed the most warlike of the men of that time, and making incursions on each occasion against whomsoever he happened to attack, he carried off the crops and drove away the booty.

​When he arrived in the Peloponnese, his daughter followed him, still keeping it secret from her father that she was pregnant by Apollo. When she gave birth in the land of the Epidaurians, she exposed the child on this mountain which indeed they call Titthion in our time, but then it was called Myrtion. While it lay exposed, one of the goats that were pastured around the mountain gave it milk, and the dog that guarded the flock of goats watched over it.

​Aresthanas—for this was the name of the shepherd—when he did not find the number of his goats agreeing and at the same time the dog was absent from the flock, they say that Aresthanas went to every length in his search, and on finding the child, he desired to lift it up. And as he came near, he saw a lightning flash shining from the child, and thinking it to be something divine, as indeed it was, he turned away. At once the child’s fame was reported over all land and sea, that he discovered all other cures for those who were sick, and that he raised the dead.

​There is also another story told about him, that Coronis, while pregnant with Asclepius, cohabited with Ischys son of Elatus, and that she died under Artemis punishing her insult to Apollo; but when the pyre was already kindled, Hermes is said to have snatched the child from the flame.

​The third of the stories is in my opinion least true, which by poetry makes Asclepius a son of Arsinoe, the daughter of Leucippus. For to Apollophanes the Arcadian, when he came to Delphi and asked the god if Asclepius was born of Arsinoe and was a citizen for the Messenians, the Pythia gave this oracle: “O Asclepius, born as a great joy to all mortals, whom the daughter of Phlegyas, the lovely Coronis, bore to me in love, having mingled in rocky Epidaurus.” This oracle shows most clearly that Asclepius was not a son of Arsinoe, but that Hesiod, or someone who interpolated into the poems of Hesiod, composed this genealogy to please the Messenians.

​And this also bears witness to me that the god was born in Epidaurus; for I find that the most famous sanctuaries of Asclepius (Asclepieia) have arisen from Epidaurus. For on the one hand, the Athenians, saying they shared the initiation with Asclepius, call this day ‘Epidauria’ and say that Asclepius was from that time considered a god by them; and on the other hand, Archias son of Aristaechmus, having been cured of a sprain that befell him while hunting around Mount Pindasus in the Epidaurian territory, introduced the god to Pergamum.

​And from that of the Pergamenes, there arose in my time the Asclepieion by the sea for the Smyrnaeans. And the sanctuary in Balagrae of the Cyrenaeans is also called ‘Asclepius the Physician’, and this one too is from Epidaurus. And from the one among the Cyrenaeans is the Asclepieion in Lebene of the Cretans. The difference between the Cyrenaeans and the Epidaurians is this much, that the Cyrenaeans sacrifice goats, which is not established for the Epidaurians.

​That Asclepius was considered a god from the beginning, and did not acquire the reputation in course of time, I find both from other proofs, and the words spoken by Agamemnon concerning Machaon in Homer bear witness to me: “Talthybius, summon Machaon hither as quickly as possible, the man who is the son of Asclepius,” as if he would say a man who is the child of a god.