CHAPTER LIV

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The boundary between the districts of the Lacedæmonians and Tegea is the river Alpheus, which rises at Phylace, and not far from its source another river flows into it formed from several unimportant streams, and that is why the place is called the Meeting of the Waters. And the Alpheus seems in the following particular to be contrary in its nature to all other rivers, it is frequently lost in the ground and comes up again. For starting from Phylace and the Meeting of the Waters it is lost in the plain of Tegea, and reappears again at Asea, and after mixing its stream with the Eurotas is a second time lost in the ground: and emerging again at what the Arcadians call the Wells, and flowing by the districts of Pisa and Olympia, it falls into the sea beyond Cyllene, the arsenal of the people of Elis. Nor can the Adriatic, though a big and stormy sea, bar its onward passage, for it reappears at Ortygia in Syracuse, and mixes its waters with the Arethusa.

The straight road, leading to Thyrea and the villages in the Thyreatic district, is memorable for containing the tomb of Orestes the son of Agamemnon, the people of Tegea say that a Spartan removed his remains from thence, but in our day there is no tomb within the walls. The river Garates also flows by the road, when you have crossed it and gone on ten stades you come to a temple of Pan, and near it an oak also sacred to Pan.

The road from Tegea to Argos is very well adapted for carriages and is in fact quite a high road. The first thing you come to on it is a temple and statue of Æsculapius, and after turning to the left for about a stade you come to a temple of Pythian Apollo quite fallen to decay and in ruins. And on the high road are many oaks and a temple of Demeter, called Demeter of Corythes, in a grove of oaks, and near it is a temple to Mystic Dionysus. And next comes Mount Parthenium, on which is shown an enclosure sacred to Telephus, where they say he was exposed as a boy and brought up by a doe. And at a little distance is the temple of Pan, where both the Athenians and people of Tegea say that Pan appeared to Philippides and had an interview with him. Mount Parthenium also has tortoises admirably adapted for making lyres of, which the men who live on the mountain fear to take and will not allow strangers to take, for they consider them sacred to Pan. When you have crossed over the mountain top you come in what is now arable land to the boundary between the districts of Tegea and Argos, _viz_. Hysiæ in Argolis.

These are the divisions of the Peloponnese, and the towns in the divisions, and the most notable things in each town.

## BOOK IX.--BŒOTIA.

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