Description of Greece

​To approach by sea, Aegina is the most difficult of the Greek islands; for sunken rocks and reefs rise all around it. They say that Aeacus contrived this on purpose through fear of piratical raids from the sea, and so that it should not be without danger for hostile men. Near the harbor in which they anchor most, there is a temple of Aphrodite, and in the most conspicuous part of the city is the so-called Aeaceium, a quadrangular enclosure of white stone.

​At the entrance are carved those who were once sent to Aeacus by the Greeks; and the others tell the same cause as the Aeginetans. A drought pressed upon Greece for a time, and the god sent no rain either upon the land outside the Isthmus or upon the Peloponnesians, until they sent to Delphi to ask what the cause was and at the same time to petition for a release from the evil. To these the Pythia said to propitiate Zeus, and that, if he were to hearken to them, Aeacus must be the supplicant.

​Thus they sent from each city to petition Aeacus; and he, having sacrificed to Zeus Panhellenius and prayed, caused rain to fall on the land of Greece, and the Aeginetans made these images of those who came to him. Within the enclosure, olives have grown from of old, and there is an altar not rising much from the ground; and that this altar is also the tomb of Aeacus is told as a secret.

​Beside the Aeaceium is the tomb of Phocus, a mound surrounded in a circle by a basement, and on it lies a rough stone; and when Telamon and Peleus induced Phocus to go to a pentathlon contest, and it came to the turn of Peleus to hurl the stone—for this was their substitute for a discus—he intentionally hit Phocus. They did this to favor their mother; for they themselves were born of the daughter of Sciron, but Phocus was not of the same mother, but of a sister of Thetis, if indeed the Greeks tell the truth. And to me, Pylades seems for this reason also, and not only out of friendship for Orestes, to have planned the murder of Neoptolemus.

​At that time, when Phocus died from being struck by the discus, the sons of Endeis fled, embarking on a ship; but Telamon afterwards, sending a herald, denied that he had plotted the death of Phocus. Aeacus, however, would not allow him to land on the island, but commanded him, standing on his ship, or if he wished, having heaped up a mound in the sea, to make his defense from there. Thus, having sailed by night into the harbor called Cryptus, he made a mound. And this, having been completed, still remains to our day; but having been judged not guiltless of the end of Phocus, he sailed away for the second time to Salamis.

​Not far from the harbor of Cryptus is a theater worth seeing, very near in size and other workmanship to that of the Epidaurians. Behind this is built one side of a stadium, which itself supports the theater and serves in proportion as a support for it.