Description of Greece

​And in this part of the city there is a temple of Dionysus surnamed Calydonius; for the image of Dionysus also was brought from Calydon. When Calydon was still inhabited, others of the Calydonians became priests to the god, and indeed Coresus too, whom of all men it befell to suffer most unjustly from love. He loved the maiden Callirhoe; but as much love as Coresus had for Callirhoe, so much hatred did the maiden have for him.

​When, though Coresus made all kinds of entreaties and all sorts of promises of gifts, the mind of the maiden was not turned, he finally betook himself as a suppliant to the image of Dionysus. And the god heard the prayer of the priest, and the Calydonians immediately became out of their minds as if from intoxication, and death seized them while they were raving. So they fled to the oracle at Dodona; for to those who inhabited this mainland, the Aetolians and their neighbors the Acarnanians and Epeirots, the doves and the revelations from the oak seemed to share most in truth.

​At that time, the responses given from Dodona declared that this was the wrath of Dionysus, and that there would be no release before Coresus should sacrifice to Dionysus either Callirhoe herself or someone who dared to die in her stead. But when the maiden could find no way to safety, she fled in the second place to those who had brought her up; failing of these also, nothing further was left for her but to be slain.

​When all the other things that had been prophesied from Dodona for the sacrifice had been prepared beforehand, she was led to the altar like a sacrificial victim, and Coresus stood ready for the sacrifice, but yielding to love and not to anger, he dispatched himself instead of Callirhoe. He indeed displayed a deed of the men whom we know, being most genuinely disposed toward love.

​And when Callirhoe saw Coresus dead, the mind of the maiden changed—for pity for Coresus and shame for what had been done to him entered her—and she cut her own throat into the spring which is in Calydon, not far from the harbor, and from her, people of later times call the spring Callirhoe.

​Near the theatre there has been made for the Patreans a precinct of a native woman. There are images of Dionysus here, equal in number to the ancient towns and bearing the same names; for their names are Mesateus, Antheus, and Aroeus. These images they carry during the festival of Dionysus to the temple of Aisymnetes; and this temple is on the right of the road as you go from the marketplace to the parts of the city by the sea.

​To one going lower down from the Aisymnetes, there is another temple and a stone image; it is called that of Soteria, and they say that Eurypylus, having escaped his madness, originally founded it. By the harbor there is a temple of Poseidon and an upright stone image. Besides all the names made by poets for the adornment of their verses, and those which individual peoples bestow on him as their own local titles, Poseidon has the following surnames common to all: Pelagaeus, Asphalius, and Hippius.