CHAPTER X

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There are roads leading from Mantinea to the other parts of Arcadia, I will describe the most notable things to see on each of them. As you go to Tegea on the left of the highroad near the walls of Mantinea is a place for horseracing, and at no great distance is the course where the games to Antinous take place. And above this course is the Mountain Alesium, so called they say from the wanderings of Rhea, and on the mountain is a grove of Demeter. And at the extreme end of the mountain is the temple of Poseidon Hippius, not far from the course in Mantinea. As to this temple I write what I have heard and what others have recorded about it. It was built in our day by the Emperor Adrian, who appointed overseers over the workmen, that no one might spy into the old temple nor move any portion of its ruins, and he ordered them to build the new temple round the old one, which was they say originally built to Poseidon by Agamedes and Trophonius, who made beams of oak and adjusted them together. And when they kept people from entering into this temple they put up no barrier in front of the entrance, but only stretched across a woollen thread, whether they thought this would inspire fear as people then held divine things in honour, or that there was some efficacy in this thread. And Æpytus the son of Hippothous neither leapt over this thread nor crept under it but broke through it and so entered the temple, and having acted with impiety was struck blind, (sea water bursting into his eyes from the outraged god), and soon after died. There is an old tradition that sea water springs up in this temple. The Athenians have a similar tradition about their Acropolis, and so have the Carians who dwell at Mylasa about the temple of their god, whom they call in their native dialect Osogo. The Athenians are only about 20 stades distant from the sea at Phalerum, and the seaport for Mylasa is 80 stades from that town, but the Mantineans are at such a very long distance from the sea that this is plainly supernatural there.

When you have passed the temple of Poseidon you come to a trophy in stone erected for a victory over the Lacedæmonians and Agis. This was the disposition of the battle. On the right wing were the Mantineans themselves, with an army of all ages under the command of Podares, the great grandson of that Podares who had fought against the Thebans. They had also with them the seer from Elis, Thrasybulus the son of Æneas of the family of the Iamidæ, who prophesied victory for the Mantineans, and himself took part in the action. The rest of the Arcadians were posted on the left wing, each town had its own commander, and Megalopolis had two, Lydiades and Leocydes. And Aratus with the Sicyonians and Achæans occupied the centre. And Agis and the Lacedæmonians extended their line of battle that they might not be outflanked by the enemy, and Agis and his staff occupied the centre. And Aratus according to preconcerted arrangement with the Arcadians fell back (he and his army) when the Lacedæmonians pressed them hard, and as they fell back they formed the shape of a crescent. And Agis and the Lacedæmonians were keen for victory, and _en masse_ pressed fiercely on Aratus and his division. And they were followed by the Lacedæmonians on the wings, who thought it would be a great stepping stone to victory to rout Aratus and his division. But the Arcadians meanwhile stole upon their flanks, and the Lacedæmonians being surrounded lost most of their men, and their king Agis the son of Eudamidas fell. And the Mantineans said that Poseidon appeared helping them, and that is why they erected their trophy as a votive offering to Poseidon. That the gods have been present at war and slaughter has been represented by those who have described the doings and sufferings of the heroes at Ilium, the Athenian poets have sung also that the gods took part in the battles at Marathon and Salamis. And manifestly the army of the Galati perished at Delphi through Apollo and the evident assistance of divine beings. So the victory here of the Mantineans may have been largely due to Poseidon. And they say that Leocydes, who with Lydiades was the general of the division from Megalopolis, was the ninth descendant from Arcesilaus who lived at Lycosura, of whom the Arcadians relate the legend that he saw a stag (which was sacred to the goddess Proserpine) of extreme old age, on whose neck was a collar with the following inscription,

“I was a fawn and captured, when Agapenor went to Ilium.”

This tradition shews that the stag is much longer-lived than the elephant.

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