Description of Greece

​For one going forward twenty stades from there, the stream of the Eurotas comes closest to the road, and there is the monument of Ladas, who surpassed his contemporaries in swiftness of foot. Indeed, he was also crowned at Olympia, winning the long-distance race, but in my opinion, falling ill immediately after his victory, he was being carried home, and his death having occurred here, his tomb is above the highway. As for the one of the same name as this man, who himself also won a victory at Olympia, though not in the long-distance race but in the stade race, the records of the Eleans concerning the Olympic victors say that he was an Achaean from Aegium.

​For one going on towards Pellana, there is a place called Characoma, and after this Pellana, anciently a city. They say Tyndareus dwelt here when he was fleeing from Sparta from Hippocoon and his sons. Having seen things worthy of sight there, I know a sanctuary of Asclepius and the spring Pellanis. Into this they say a maiden fell while drawing water, and she having disappeared, her hair-veil appeared in another spring, Langia.

​Belemina, as it is called, is a hundred stades distant from Pellana. Of the Laconian territory, Belemina is by nature the most watered; the water of the Eurotas flows through it, and it also provides abundant springs of its own.

​For those going down to the sea to Gythium, there is for the Lacedaemonians a village called Croceae and a quarry. It is not a single continuous stretch of rock, but stones are dug up, in shape resembling river pebbles, difficult to work on the one hand, but if they are worked, they would adorn even the temples of the gods; and for swimming pools and waterworks they contribute especially to beauty. Of the gods there, before the village stands a statue of Zeus Croceatas made of stone, and the Dioscuri are in bronze at the quarry.

​After Croceae, for those turning to the right from the straight road to Gythium, you will come to a town, Aegiae; they say Homer in his verses names this town Augeiae. There is here a lake called of Poseidon, and by the lake is a temple and statue of the god. They are afraid to catch the fish, saying that the fisherman who caught them was turned from a man into a fisherman-fish.

​Gythium is thirty stades distant from Aegiae, and being situated on the sea, it belongs now to the Free Laconians, whom the Emperor Augustus released from slavery to the Lacedaemonians in Sparta, whose subjects they had been. Indeed, the whole Peloponnese is surrounded by the sea except for the Isthmus of the Corinthians; and the coastal waters of Laconia provide shellfish for dyeing purple, most suitable after the Phoenician sea.

​The number of the Free Laconians is eighteen cities; first for those going down from Aegiae to the sea is Gythium, and after it Teuthrone and Las and Pyrrhichus, and on Taenarum, Caenepolis and Oetylus and Leuctra and Thalamae, and in addition Alagonia and Gerenia; and those beyond Gythium on the sea: Asopus, Acriae, Boeae, Zarax, Epidaurus Limera, Brasiae, Geronthrae, Marios. These then are the remaining of the Free Laconians, out of once twenty-four cities; and the others, upon which my account may also come, let one know that they contribute to Sparta and are not autonomous like those mentioned before.

​The Gytheates say that no human was the founder of their city, but that Heracles and Apollo, having come into conflict over the tripod, when they were reconciled, founded the city in common after their strife; and in their marketplace there are statues of Apollo and Heracles, and near them Dionysus. Elsewhere is Apollo Carneios, and a sanctuary of Ammon, and a bronze statue of Asclepius, there being no roof on the temple, and a spring of the god, and a holy sanctuary of Demeter, and a statue of Poseidon Earth-holder.

​The one whom the Gytheates name the Old Man, saying that he dwells in the sea, I found to be Nereus; and Homer provided them with the origin of this name in the Iliad, in the words of Thetis: “Plunge now into the wide bosom of the sea, to see the old man of the sea and the dwellings of our father.” And there are also gates called Castorides here, and in the acropolis a temple and statue of Athena have been made.