Description of Greece

​And the Mantineans have a double temple, divided almost in the middle by a wall; in one part of the temple there is an image of Asclepius, the work of Alcamenes, and the other part is a sanctuary of Leto and her children; and Praxiteles made the images in the third generation after Alcamenes. On the pedestal of these are represented the Muses and Marsyas playing the flute. There, on a stele, Polybius the son of Lycortas is represented in relief;

​and of him we shall make mention also in what follows, and the Mantineans have also other sanctuaries, one of Zeus the Savior, and another of him who is called Epidotes; for they say he gives good things to men. And there is also a sanctuary of the Dioscuri, and in another place one of Demeter and Core; and there they keep a fire burning, taking care lest it should go out without their noticing. I also saw a temple of Hera near the theater;

​and Praxiteles made the images of her seated on a throne, and of Athena and Hebe, the daughter of Hera, standing beside her. And near the altar of Hera is also the tomb of Arcas, the son of Callisto; and they brought the bones of Arcas from Maenalus, an oracle having come to them from Delphi:

” There is a Maenalia cold with storms, where lies Arcas, from whom indeed all call themselves by name, where there is a three-way, a four-way, and a five-way road. There I bid you go, and with glad heart raising Arcas, bring him down to your lovely city; there indeed make a sacred precinct and sacrifices for Arcas.” And this place, where the tomb of Arcas is, they call the Altars of the Sun.

​And not far from the theater are monuments outstanding in fame, one called the Common Hearth, which has a circular shape; and they said Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus, lay buried there. Over the other stands a stele, and a horseman is represented on the stele, Grylus the son of Xenophon.

​And behind the theater there remained the ruins of a temple of Aphrodite, surnamed Alliance, and an image; and the inscription on the pedestal showed that she who dedicated the image was Nicippe, the daughter of Paseas. And the Mantineans built this sanctuary as a memorial for posterity of the naval battle they fought together with the Romans at Actium. They also worship Athena Alea, and they have both a sanctuary and an image of Athena Alea.

​And Antinous also came to be regarded by them as a god; and of the temples in Mantinea, the temple of Antinous is the newest. This was built with exceptional zeal by the Emperor Hadrian; and though I did not see him while he was still among men, I saw him in images and in paintings. He indeed has honors elsewhere also, and on the Nile there is an Egyptian city named after Antinous; and he obtained honors in Mantinea for the following reason. Antinous was by birth from Bithynium, which is beyond the river Sangarius; and the Bithynians are Arcadians and Mantineans by descent.

​For these reasons the Emperor established honors for him in Mantinea also, and there is both an annual festival and games for him every four years. And the Mantineans have a hall in the gymnasium containing images of Antinous, and in other respects it is worth seeing both for the stones with which it is adorned and for one who looks at the paintings; and most of the paintings represent Antinous, being made to resemble Dionysus in particular. Moreover, there is also there a copy of the painting in the Cerameicus, which represented the action of the Athenians at Mantinea.

​And the Mantineans have in their marketplace a bronze statue of a woman—whom the Mantineans call Diomeneia, daughter of Arcas—and a hero-shrine of Podares; and they say that he died in the battle against Epaminondas and the Thebans. And three generations before my time they transferred the inscription of the tomb to a man who was a descendant of that Podares and bore the same name, but lived at a time when he had already shared in the Roman citizenship.

​But the ancient Podares was still honored by the Mantineans in my time, as they said that Xenophon’s son Grylus proved the bravest both of themselves and of their allies in the battle, and next after Grylus was Cephisodorus of Marathon, who happened at that time to be cavalry commander for the Athenians, while they award the third place for bravery to Podares.