Description of Greece

​The image of Erinys holds the so-called cista and a torch in her right hand, and we estimate her height to be nine feet; on the other hand, the image of Lousia appeared to be six feet. Let those who believe the image to be of Themis and not of Demeter Lousia know that their assumption is in vain. And they say that Demeter bore from Poseidon a daughter, whose name they do not think it lawful to speak to the uninitiated, and the horse Arion; and that because of this, Poseidon was named Hippios among them, the first of the Arcadians.

​They adduce verses from the Iliad and from the Thebaid as testimonies for their account; in the Iliad, it has been written concerning Arion himself: “Not even if from behind one should drive divine Arion, the swift horse of Adrastus, who was of divine descent.” And in the Thebaid, how Adrastus fled from Thebes: “Wearing sad garments with black-maned Arion.” Therefore, the verses wish to hint that Poseidon is the father of Arion, but Antimachus says that he is a child of Gaia, saying:

” Adrastus, son of Talaus, descendant of Cretheus, was the very first of the Danaans to drive his praised horses, swift Caerus and Thelpusian Arion, whom near the grove of Apollo Onceius Gaia herself brought forth, a wonder for mortals to behold.”

​But it would be possible, even for a horse that grew up from the earth, both to have its descent from a god and for its hair to resemble black in color. And the following is also said: that Heracles, when making war against the Eleans, asked Oncus for the horse, and took Elis riding on Arion into battles, and that the horse was given later by Heracles to Adrastus. With reference to this, Antimachus wrote concerning Arion: “Who indeed was once subdued under his third master, Adrastus.”

​Now the Ladon, leaving the temple of Erinys on the left, will pass by the temple of Apollo Onceiates on the left, and on the right past the temple of Asclepius the Child, where there is the tomb of Trygon; and they say Trygon was the nurse of Asclepius. For they say that in Thelpusa, Autolaus, the bastard son of Arcas, happening upon Asclepius who had been exposed as a child, took up the infant; and because of this, I thought it more probable that Asclepius is represented as a child, which indeed I showed in my account of the Epidaurians.

​And there is a river Touthoa; and the Touthoa also empties into the Ladon at the boundary of the Thelpusians toward the Heraeans, a place called “Pedion” by the Arcadians. And where the Ladon itself discharges into the Alpheus, it is named Coracon Nesos. Some have thought that Enispe, Stratia, and Rhipe, which were enumerated by Homer, were once islands in the Ladon inhabited by men; but let those who have believed this know that they are mistaken.

​For the Ladon could never produce islands equal even to a ferry-boat. Indeed, for the sake of beauty it is second to no river, neither of the barbarian ones nor of the Greek, but in size it is not so great as to allow islands to appear in it, as in the Ister and the Eridanus.