Description of Greece

​The sanctuary of Apollo Thearios, they said, Pittheus constructed, and it is the oldest of those I know. Now, there is also an ancient temple of Athena for the Phocaeans in Ionia, which Harpagus the Mede once burned, and an ancient one of Pythian Apollo for the Samians; except that they were built much later than the one among the Troezenians. The image in our time is an offering of Auliscus, and the work is of Hermon of Troezen; and of this Hermon are also the wooden images of the Dioscuri.

​And there stand in a portico of the marketplace women of stone, both themselves and their children. These are the women and children whom the Athenians gave to the Troezenians to keep safe, when they decided to abandon the city and not to await the Mede advancing with an army on foot. But they say that these are not of all the women—for they were not indeed very many—but that they dedicated images only of those who excelled in dignity.

​In front of the temple of Apollo there is a building, called the Tent of Orestes. For before he was purified from the blood of his mother, no one of the Troezenians was willing to receive him into his house; but having seated him here they purified him and feasted him, until they cleansed him. And even now, the descendants of those who purified him dine here on specified days. And when the purifications were buried a little way from the tent, they say that from them grew a laurel tree, which indeed still exists in our day, the one in front of this tent.

​And they say they purified Orestes with other purifications and with the water from the fountain of the Horse. For the Troezenians also have a fountain called of the Horse, and the story concerning it is different from that of the Boeotians. For these too say that the earth sent up the water when the horse Pegasus touched the ground with his hoof, and that Bellerophon came to Troezen to ask Pittheus for his daughter Aethra, but before the marriage occurred, it happened that he fled from Corinth.

​And Hermes is here, called Polygius. At this image, they say Heracles placed his club; and—for it was of wild olive—this indeed, to whomsoever it is credible, took root in the earth and sprouted again, and the wild olive tree is still growing. And they say that Heracles, having found the wild olive by the Saronis, cut his club from it . There is also a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Saviour; they say that Aetius, the son of Anthas, built it when he was king. And they name the water Chrysorrhoas; and when a drought befell them for nine years, during which the god did not rain, they say that the other waters were dried up, but this Chrysorrhoas even then continued to flow in like manner.