Greek Texts & Translations

In a building right in front of the entrance are images, of bronze like the others, representing Poseidon, Heracles, Zeus and Athena. They are called gods from Argos. The Argives say it is because they were made in Argos; the people of Aegium themselves say that the images were deposited by the Argives with them on trust.

They say further that they were ordered to sacrifice each day to the images. But bethinking themselves of a trick they sacrificed a vast number of animals, but the victims they ate up at public feasts, so that they were not put to any expense. At last the Argives asked for the images to be returned, whereupon the people of Aegium asked for the cost of the sacrifices. As the Argives had not the means to pay, they left the images at Aegium.

By the sea at Aegium is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and after it one of Poseidon; there is also one of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter, and one to Zeus Homagyrius ( Assembler). Here are images of Zeus, of Aphrodite and of Athena. The surname Assembler was given to Zeus because in this place Agamemnon assembled the most eminent men in Greece, in order that they might consult together how to make war on the empire of Priam. Among the claims of Agamemnon to renown is that he destroyed Troy and the cities around her ^note with the forces that followed him originally, without any later reinforcements.

Adjoining Zeus the Assembler is a sanctuary of Demeter Panachaean. The beach, on which the people of Aegium have the sanctuaries I have mentioned, affords a plentiful supply of water from a spring; it is pleasing both to the eye and to the taste. They have also a sanctuary of Safety. Her image may be seen by none but the priests, and the following ritual is performed. They take cakes of the district from the goddess and throw them into the sea, saying that they send them to Arethusa at Syracuse.

There are at Aegium other images made of bronze, Zeus as a boy and Heracles as a beardless youth, the work of Ageladas of Argos. Priests are elected for them every year, and each of the two images remains at the house of the priest. In a more remote age there was chosen to be priest for Zeus from the boys he who won the prize for beauty. When his beard began to grow the honor for beauty passed to another boy. Such were the customs. Even in my time the Achaean assembly still meets at Aegium, just as the Amphictyons do at Thermopylae and at Delphi.

Going on further you come to the river Selinus, and forty stades away from Aegium is a place on the sea called Helice. Here used to be situated a city Helice, where the Ionians had a very holy sanctuary of Heliconian Poseidon. Their worship of Heliconian Poseidon has remained, even after their expulsion by the Achaeans to Athens, and subsequently from Athens to the coasts of Asia. At Miletus too on the way to the spring Biblis there is before the city an altar of Heliconian Poseidon, and in Teos likewise the Heliconian has a precinct and an altar, well worth seeing.

There are also passages in Homer ^note referring to Helice and the Heliconian Poseidon. But later on the Achaeans of the place removed some suppliants from the sanctuary and killed them. But the wrath of Poseidon visited them without delay; an earthquake promptly struck their land and swallowed up, without leaving a trace for posterity to see, both the buildings and the very site on which the city stood.

Warnings, usually the same in all cases, are wont to be sent by the god before violent and far-reaching earthquakes. Either continuous storms of rain or else continuous droughts occur before earthquakes for an unusual length of time, and the weather is unseasonable. In winter it turns too hot, and in summer along with a tendency to haze the orb of the sun presents an unusual color, slightly inclining to red or else to black.

Springs of water generally dry up; blasts of wind sometimes swoop upon the land and overturn the trees; occasionally great flames dart across the sky; the shapes of stars too appear such as have never been witnessed before, producing consternation in those that witness them; furthermore there is a violent rumbling of winds beneath the earth—these and many other warnings is the god wont to send before violent earthquakes occur.