Description of Greece

​After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas, the son of Callisto, succeeded to the rule. He introduced cultivated crops from Triptolemus, taught the making of bread, and also how to weave clothing and other things related to wool-working, having learned them from Dristas. Because of his reign, the country was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia, and the people were called Arcadians instead of Pelasgians.

​They said that he did not live with a mortal woman, but with a Dryad nymph; for indeed they used to call some nymphs Dryads and Epimeliads, and others of them Naiads, and Homer in his epics makes mention of Naiad nymphs most of all. This nymph they call Erato, and from her they say Azan, Apheidas, and Elatus were born to Arcas.

​But even before this, a natural son, Autolaus, had been born to him. When his children grew up, Arcas divided the country among them into three shares, and from Azan the portion Azania was named; from these, they say, colonized those who dwell around the cave in Phrygia called Steunos and the river Pencalas. Apheidas obtained by lot Tegea and the land adjoining it; and because of this, poets also call Tegea the allotment of Apheidas.

​Elatus obtained the mountain Cyllene, which was then still nameless; but later in time Elatus migrated to what is now called Phocis, and he helped the Phocians when they were hard pressed in war by the Phlegyans, and became the founder of the city Elateia. They say that Azan had a son Cleitor, Apheidas had Aleus, and Elatus had five: Aepytus, Pereus, Cyllen, Ischys, and Stymphalus.

​At the death of Azan, the son of Arcas, games were held for the first time; whether there were other contests I do not know, but horse races were held. Now Cleitor, the son of Azan, dwelt in Lycosura and was the most powerful of the kings, and he founded the city of Cleitor after himself; while Aleus held his ancestral portion.

​Of the children of Elatus, they call the mountain Cyllene after Cyllen, and after Stymphalus both a spring is named and the city of Stymphalus by the spring. The details concerning the death of Ischys, the son of Elatus, I have already made clear earlier in my Argolic history. They say that Pereus had no male child, but that a daughter, Neaera, was born to him; she was taken to wife by Autolycus, who dwelt on Mount Parnassus and was said to be a son of Hermes, though in truth he was a son of Daedalion.

​Since Cleitor, the son of Azan, had no children, the kingdom of the Arcadians devolved upon Aepytus, the son of Elatus. When this Aepytus went out to hunt, no beast of the stronger sort, but a seps, which he did not notice, killed him. I myself once saw this snake; it is like the smallest viper, ash-colored, mottled with spots that are not continuous; its head is broad and its neck narrow, it has a larger belly and a short tail; both this snake and another called the horned snake progress by sidling, just like crabs.

​After Aepytus, Aleus held the rule; for Agamedes and Gortys, the sons of Stymphalus, were the fourth generation from Arcas, whereas Aleus, the son of Apheidas, was the third. Aleus built the ancient sanctuary to Athena Alea in Tegea and established his royal seat there; while Gortys, the son of Stymphalus, founded the city Gortyna by a river, and the river is also called Gortynius. To Aleus were born male children, Lycurgus, Amphidamas, and Cepheus, and a daughter, Auge.

​With this Auge, according to the account of Hecataeus, Heracles united whenever he came to Tegea; and at last she was detected having given birth to a child by Heracles, and Aleus put her together with the child into a chest and cast them into the sea. She arrived at the court of Teuthras, a ruling prince in the plain of Caicus, and lived with Teuthras, who had fallen in love with her. Even now there is a tomb of Auge in Pergamum above the Caicus, a mound of earth enclosed by a stone basement, and on the tomb there is a bronze figure representing a naked woman.

​After the death of Aleus, Lycurgus, his son, obtained the kingdom by right of primogeniture; and he left a memory of himself by slaying the warrior Areithous by craft and not by justice. When sons, Ancaeus and Epochus, were born to him, the latter was overtaken by his fate through sickness, while Ancaeus shared in the voyage with Jason to the Colchians, and later, while helping Meleager to dispatch the beast in Calydon, was killed by the boar. Lycurgus indeed reached extreme old age, having lived to see both his children die.