Description of Greece

​Alea is after Stymphalus, and it also participates in the Argolic confederacy. They declare that Aleus, the son of Apheidas, was their founder. The sanctuaries of the gods there are of Ephesus Artemis and Athena Alea, and there is a temple and statue of Dionysus. For him, they celebrate the Skieria festival every other year, and during the festival of Dionysus, according to an oracle from Delphi, women are scourged, just as the Spartan youths are at the altar of Orthia.

​As I showed in my account concerning the Orchomenians, first there is the straight road along the ravine, and after this on the left of the flooded water. In the plain of Caphyae a dyke of earth has been made, by which the water from the territory of Orchomenus is kept out so as not to cause damage to the cultivated land of the Caphyans. Along the inside of the dyke another water flows by, in volume enough to be a river, and going down into a chasm of the earth, it rises again near the place called Nasoi; the place where it rises is named Rheunos, and when it has emerged there, the water from it forms the perennial river Tragos.

​It is clear that the name of the city came from Cepheus, the son of Aleus, but the name Caphyae has prevailed in the speech of the Arcadians. The Caphyans say that they were originally from the Attic land, and being expelled by Aegeus from Athens, they fled to Arcadia, and becoming suppliants of Cepheus, they settled here. The town itself is at the edge of the plain, at the foot of mountains that are not very high. The Caphyans have sanctuaries of the gods: of Poseidon, and of Artemis under the surname Knakalesia.

​They also have a mountain Knakalos, where they celebrate an annual festival for Artemis. A little above the city is a spring, and by the spring a large and beautiful plane tree grows; they call it Menelais, saying that Menelaus, when gathering his army for Troy, came here and planted the plane tree by the spring; in our day, they also call the spring Menelais, in the same way as the plane tree.

​If, following the stories of the Greeks, I must enumerate how many trees are still left alive and flourishing, the oldest of them is the willow growing in the Samian sanctuary of Hera, and after it the oak in Dodona, the olive on the Acropolis, and the one belonging to the Delians; third in point of antiquity, the Syrians would assign to the laurel in their country; but of the other trees, this plane tree is the oldest.

​About a stade away from Caphyae is the place Condylea, and there is a grove and temple of Artemis there, anciently called Condyleatis; they say that the goddess was renamed for the following reason. Children playing around the sanctuary—their number they do not record—happened upon a small cord, and having tied the cord around the neck of the image, they said that Artemis was hanging herself.

​Detecting what had been done by the children, the Caphyans stoned them to death; and after they had done this, a disease fell upon the women, so that the children in the womb were cast out dead before birth, until the Pythia declared that they must bury the children and make yearly sacrifices to them, for they had died unjustly. The Caphyans still perform all these things according to that oracle, and from that time they call the goddess at Condyleae—for they say this too was added to the response—Apangomene.

​Going up from Caphyae about seven stades, you will descend to the place called Nasoi; and fifty stades further on from there is the Ladon. You will cross the river and arrive at the oak forest of Soron, passing through the places called Argeathae and Lycuntes, and Scotane.

​Soron leads on the way toward Psophis; and this forest and all the other oak forests that the Arcadians have produce wild beasts of these kinds: wild boars, bears, and tortoises of immense size; from these you could make lyres equal to those made from the Indian tortoise. Near the ends of Soron are the ruins of the village of Paus, and not much further away are the places called Seirae; Seirae is the boundary of the land for the Cleitorians against the Psophidians.