Description of Greece

​For the Heraeans, Heraeus the son of Lycaon was the founder, and the city lies on the right of the Alpheus, for the most part on a gentle slope, but part of it also reaches down to the Alpheus itself. Running tracks have been made along the river, divided by myrtles and other cultivated trees, and the baths are there, and there are also temples of Dionysus; one of them they call Polites, and the other Auxites, and they have a building where they celebrate the ​mysteries of Dionysus. There is also a temple of Pan in Heraea, as he is native to the Arcadians, and of the temple of Hera, other ruins and the columns were still left; and of all the athletes who have been among the Arcadians, Damaretus of Heraea surpassed them in glory, who was the first to win the armed race at Olympia.

​And as you go down from Heraea to Elis, when you are about fifteen stades away from Heraea, you will cross the Ladon, and from here you will arrive at the Erymanthus in about twenty stades. The boundary for Heraea toward Elis is, according to the account of the Arcadians, the Erymanthus, but the Eleans say that the tomb of Coroebus limits the country for them.

​And when Iphitus renewed the Olympic games, which had been discontinued for a long time, and they held the Olympics again from the beginning, then prizes for the foot-race only were proposed for them, and Coroebus won; and there is an inscription on his tomb stating that Coroebus was the first of men to win at Olympia, and that his tomb has been made at the boundary of Elis.

​Aliphera is a town, not large; for it was abandoned by many inhabitants at the time of the founding of Megalopolis by the Arcadians. Therefore, going to this town from Heraea, you will cross the Alpheus, and having gone through a plain for about ten stades, you will reach a mountain, and again you will ascend through the mountain for about thirty stades to the town.

​For the Alipherians, the city got its name from Alipherus, the son of Lycaon, and there are temples of Asclepius and of Athena, whom they worship most of the gods, saying that she was born and brought up among them; and they set up an altar of Zeus Lecheates, because he gave birth to Athena there, and they call a spring Tritonis, making the story about the river Triton their own.

​The image of Athena is made of bronze, the work of Hypatodorus, worth seeing both for its size and for its art. And they also hold a festival to some one of the gods, but I think they hold it to Athena; in this festival they offer a preliminary sacrifice to Myagros, praying to the hero over the victims and calling upon Myagros; and when they have done this, the flies are no longer troublesome to them.

​And on the road leading from Heraea to Megalopolis is Melaeneae; this was founded by Melaeneus, the son of Lycaon, but it was deserted in my time, and it is flowed down by water. Forty stades above Melaeneae is Buphagium, and there the river Buphagus has its sources, flowing down into the Alpheus; and around the sources of the Buphagus is the boundary for the Heraeans toward the Megalopolitans.