Description of Greece

​The cape called Scyllaeum, named after the daughter of Nisus, is about eighty stades distant. For when Minos took Nisaea and Megara because she had betrayed them, he declared that he would no longer have her as his wife and ordered the Cretans to cast her out of the ship; and when she was dead, the waves cast her up on this cape. They do not point out any tomb of hers, but they say that her body was left to be torn to pieces by the sea-birds.

​As you sail from Scyllaeum toward the city, there is another cape, Boucephala, and after the cape there are islands, first Halioussa—which affords a harbour suitable for ships to anchor in—and after it Pityoussa, and the third they call Aristera. As you sail past these, there is again a cape, Colyergeia, projecting from the mainland, and after it an island called Tricrana, and a mountain projecting into the sea from the Peloponnese, Bouporthmus. On Bouporthmus is built a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter, and also one of Athena;

​the surname of the goddess is Promachorma. Off Bouporthmus lies an island called Aperopia, and not far from Aperopia is another island, Hydrea. After this a crescent-shaped shore of the mainland extends, and after the shore a peninsula to Poseidium, beginning from the sea on the east and projecting toward the west; it also has harbours in itself. The length of the peninsula is about seven stades, and the width where it is widest is not more than three stades.

​Here was the former city of the Hermionians. They still have sanctuaries there even now: one of Poseidon at the beginning of the peninsula, and as you go up from the sea to the high ground, a temple of Athena, and beside it the foundations of a stadium; in it they say the sons of Tyndareus competed. There is also another sanctuary of Athena, not large, whose roof has fallen in. There is also a temple of Helius, and another of the Graces, and one has been built for Sarapis and Isis; and there are enclosures of large selected stones, within which they perform secret rites for Demeter.

​So many are the things the Hermionians have there; but the city of our day is about four stades distant from the cape on which is the sanctuary of Poseidon, lying first on level ground and then gently rising to a slope, which is now part of Pron; for they call this mountain Pron. Indeed, a wall stands around the whole of Hermione; other things also presented themselves for writing, and those of which I myself deemed most worthy to make mention. There is a temple of Aphrodite surnamed Pontia and Limenia, both being the same goddess, and the statue is of white marble, large in size and worthy of seeing for its craftsmanship.

​And there is another temple of Aphrodite; she has other honours as well from the Hermionians, and it is established for all virgins, and for any widow who is about to go to a husband, to sacrifice here before marriage. There are also sanctuaries built of Demeter Thermasia, one on the borders toward the Troezenian land, as I have already mentioned, and the other also in the city itself.