Greek Texts & Translations

Aetolus, who came to the throne after Epeius, was made to flee from Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional homicide. For Apis, the son of Jason, from Pallantium in Arcadia, was run over and killed by the chariot of Aetolus at the games held in honor of Azan. Aetolus, son of Endymion, gave to the dwellers around the Achelous their name, when he fled to this part of the mainland. But the kingdom of the Epeans fell to Eleius, the son of Eurycyda, daughter of Endymion and, believe the tale who will, of Poseidon. It was Eleius who gave the inhabitants their present name of Eleans in place of Epeans.

Eleius had a son Augeas. Those who exaggerate his glory give a turn to the name Eleius and make Helius ^note to be the father of Augeas. This Augeas had so many cattle and flocks of goats that actually most of his land remained untilled because of the dung of the animals. Now he persuaded Heracles to cleanse for him the land from dung, either in return for a part of Elis or possibly for some other reward.

Heracles accomplished this feat too, turning aside the stream of the Menius into the dung. But, because Heracles had accomplished his task by cunning, without toil, Augeas refused to give him his reward, and banished Phyleus, the elder of his two sons, for objecting that he was wronging a man who had been his benefactor. He made preparations himself to resist Heracles, should he attack Elis; more particularly he made friends with the sons of Actor and with Amarynceus. Amarynceus, besides being a good soldier,

had a father, Pyttius, of Thessalian descent, who came from Thessaly to Elis. To Amarynceus, therefore, Augeas also gave a share in the government of Elis; Actor and his sons had a share in the kingdom and were natives of the country. For the father of Actor was Phorbas, son of Lapithus, and his mother was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeius. Actor named after her the city of Hyrmina, which he founded in Elis.

When she discovered him, the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time Heracles had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleans as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive people from the Isthmian games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and no athlete of Elis is wont to compete in the Isthmian games.

There are two other accounts, differing from the one that I have given. According to one of them Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, dedicated to Zeus a golden image at Olympia. As Cypselus died before inscribing his own name on the offering, the Corinthians asked of the Eleans leave to inscribe the name of Corinth on it, but were refused. Wroth with the Eleans, they proclaimed that they must keep away from the Isthmian games. But how could the Corinthians themselves take part in the Olympic games if the Eleans against their will were shut out by the Corinthians from the Isthmian games?

The other account is this. Prolaus, a distinguished Elean, had two sons, Philanthus and Lampus, by his wife Lysippe. These two came to the Isthmian games ^note to compete in the boys' pancratium, and one of them intended to wrestle. Before they entered the ring they were strangled or done to death in some other way by their fellow competitors. Hence the curses of Lysippe on the Eleans, should they not voluntarily keep away from the Isthmian games. But this story too proves on examination to be silly.

For Timon, a man of Elis, won victories in the pentathlum at the Greek games, and at Olympia there is even a statue of him, with an elegiac inscription giving the crowns he won and also the reason why he secured no Isthmian victory. The inscription sets forth the reason thus:— But from going to the land of Sisyphus he was hindered by a quarrel
About the baleful death of the Molionids.