Description of Greece

​Four stades distant from Acacesium is the sanctuary of Despoina. First, there is at this place a temple of Artemis Hegemone, and a bronze image holding torches—we estimate it to be about six feet high—and from here there is an entrance into the sacred enclosure of Despoina. As people go toward the temple, there is a portico on the right, and on the wall are reliefs made of white marble; on the first are carved the Fates and Zeus surnamed Leader of the Fates, and on the second Heracles depriving Apollo of the tripod. What things I have heard to have happened concerning them, I will declare this also when in the Phocian narrative we reach the parts relating to Delphi.

​In the portico by the temple of Despoina, between the reliefs already mentioned, there is a painted tablet containing details concerning the mysteries; on the third there are Nymphs and Pans, and on the fourth Polybius, the son of Lycortas. He has an inscription to the effect that, in the beginning, Greece would not have fallen at all if it had obeyed Polybius in everything, and that when she erred, help came to her through him alone. In front of the temple is an altar to Demeter and another to Despoina, and after it one to the Great Mother.

​The images of the goddesses themselves, Despoina and Demeter, as well as the throne on which they sit, and the footstool under their feet, are likewise of a single stone; and nothing, either of the ornaments on the clothing or of all that is worked around the throne, is of any other stone joined with iron and glue, but all is a single stone. This stone was not brought in by them, but they say that in consequence of a vision in a dream they found it within the enclosure by digging up the ground. The size of each of the images is about equal to that of the image of the Mother at Athens.

​These also are the works of Damophon. Now Demeter carries a torch in her right hand, and has laid her other hand upon Despoina; Despoina has a sceptre and the so-called chest on her knees, and she holds the chest with her right hand. On either side of the throne, Artemis stands by Demeter, clad in a deer skin and having a quiver on her shoulders, and in her hands she holds a torch in one, and two serpents in the other; by Artemis lies a dog, of such a kind as are fit for hunting.

​By the image of Despoina stands Anytus, presenting the appearance of an armed man; and those around the sanctuary say that Despoina was brought up by Anytus, and that Anytus also was one of the so-called Titans. Homer was the first to introduce the Titans into poetry, saying that they are gods under what is called Tartarus, and the verses are in the Oath of Hera; and Onomacritus, receiving the name of the Titans from Homer, both composed orgies for Dionysus and made the Titans to be the actual perpetrators of the sufferings of Dionysus.