Description of Greece

​The theatre is ancient, and between the marketplace and the Menius is the theatre and a sanctuary of Dionysus. The image is the work of Praxiteles; and among the gods, the Eleans worship Dionysus most of all, and they say that the god visits them at the festival of the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival, which they name Thyia, is about eight stades distant from the city. The priests bring three cauldrons, empty, into the building and set them down in the presence of the citizens and any foreigners who happen to be in the town; and the priests themselves and any of the others who wish put seals on the doors of the building, and on the next day ​they are able to recognize the seals, and on entering the building they find the cauldrons filled with wine. This was sworn to as being as stated by the most reputable men of the Eleans, and with them by foreigners also, since I myself did not arrive at the time of the festival. The Andrians also say that every other year, at the festival of Dionysus, wine flows of its own accord from the sanctuary. If one must believe the Greeks in these matters, one might by the same reasoning accept also what the Ethiopians above Syene say about the Table of the Sun.

​On the acropolis of the Eleans is a sanctuary of Athena; her image is of ivory and gold. They say it is the work of Pheidias, and a cock has been made upon her helmet, because cocks are most ready to fight; but the bird might also be considered sacred to Athena Ergane (the Worker).

​Cyllene is distant one hundred and twenty stades from Elis; it lies facing towards Sicily and provides a suitable harbor for ships. Being the port of the Eleans, it received its name from an Arcadian man. In the catalogue of the Eleans, Homer made no mention of Cyllene, but in his later verses he has shown that he knows Cyllene as being a town:

” And Polydamas slew Otus of Cyllene, the comrade of Phyleus’ son, leader of the great-hearted Epeians.” The sanctuaries of the gods in Cyllene are one of Asclepius and another of Aphrodite; and the image of Hermes, whom the people here worship exceedingly, is an erect phallus upon the pedestal.

​The Elean country is fertile in other crops, and not least is it good for growing fine linen. Hemp, flax, and fine linen are sown by those whose land is suitable for growing them. The threads from which the Seres make their garments are not from any bark, but are produced in another manner of this kind. There is in their country a small creature which the Greeks call ser, but by the Seres themselves it is named something else and not ser;

​its size is twice that of the largest beetle, but in other respects it resembles the spiders which weave under the trees, and indeed it has eight feet just like spiders. The Seres breed these creatures, having prepared houses suitable for both winter and summer; the work of the creatures is found to be a fine thread wound around their feet.

​They breed them for four years, providing them with millet for food, and in the fifth year—for they know they will not live much longer—they give them green reed to eat; this is the most agreeable food of all to the creature, and when it has gorged itself on the reed, it bursts from fullness, and after it has died they find the greater part of the thread inside. The island of Seria is known to lie in the recess of the Red Sea.

​But I have also heard that it is not the Red Sea, but a river which they name Ser, that makes this island, just as the Delta of Egypt is enclosed by the Nile and not by a single sea; they say that the island of Seria is another such island. The Seres themselves and those who inhabit the neighboring islands, Abasa and Sacaea, are of the Ethiopian race; but some say they are not Ethiopians, but Scythians mixed with Indians.

​These things indeed are so told; and for a man going from Elis to Achaea, there are one hundred and fifty-seven stades to the river Larisus, and the river Larisus is in our time the boundary of the land for the Eleans against the Achaeans; but in still older times their boundary at the sea was the cape Araxus.