Description of Greece

​Of the Arcadians, the parts toward Argolis are held by the Tegeans and the Mantineans, and these and the rest of the Arcadian people inhabit the inland region of the Peloponnese. For the Corinthians dwell first upon the isthmus; and the neighbors to the Corinthians on the side of the sea are the Epidaurians; and facing Epidaurus, Troezen, and Hermione is the Argolic gulf and all the coastal parts of Argolis; and bordering on this land are the periokoi of the Lacedaemonians, and bordering on them is Messenia, for it goes down as far as the sea to Mothone and Pylos and as far as Kyparissiai.

​Toward Lechaeum, the Sicyonians dwell adjacent to the Corinthians, as the outermost inhabitants of this part of Argolis; and after Sicyon, the next are the Achaeans who dwell along the coast; and the other extremity of the Peloponnese, opposite the Echinades, is inhabited by the Eleans; and of the Elean land, toward Olympia and the mouths of the Alpheius, there are boundaries with Messenia, while toward Achaea they border on the Dymaeans.

​Inside of these listed regions that extend to the sea, the Arcadians dwell, shut off from the sea on all sides; wherefore Homer also says that they arrived at Troy having received ships from Agamemnon and not in their own ships.

​And the Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first to be born in this land. But it is reasonable to hold that other people also were born along with Pelasgus, and that Pelasgus himself was not born alone; for what kind of people would Pelasgus have ruled? However, in stature, strength, and beauty Pelasgus excelled, and in judgment he was superior to the others, and for these reasons it seems to me that he was chosen by them to rule. And it has also been written by Asius concerning him as follows: “The black earth brought forth godlike Pelasgus on the high-foliaged mountains, that there might be a race of mortals.”

​And Pelasgus, having become king, conceived first the making of huts, so that people would not shiver with cold or be rained upon, nor suffer from the heat; and secondly, it was he who invented the tunics made from sheepskins, which even now they still use around Euboea and in Phocis, as many as are in want of livelihood. And indeed, Pelasgus put an end to the people eating the still green parts of leaves, grasses, and roots that were not even edible, but some of them deadly;

​and he discovered the fruit of the oaks, not of all indeed, but the acorns of the phegos, to be food. And this diet from this Pelasgus remained for some to such an extent that even the Pythia, when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, spoke these verses: “There are many acorn-eating men in Arcadia, who will prevent you; but I do not begrudge you.” And they say that when Pelasgus was king, the land also received the name Pelasgia.