Greek Texts & Translations

Thelpusa is some forty stades distant from this sanctuary. It is said that it was named after Thelpusa, a nymph, and that she was a daughter of Ladon. The Ladon rises in springs within the territory of Cleitor, as my account has already set forth. It flows first beside a place Leucasium and Mesoboa, through Nasi to Oryx, also called Halus, and from Halus it descends to Thaliades and a sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter.

This sanctuary is on the borders of Thelpusa. In it are images, each no less than seven feet high, of Demeter, her daughter, and Dionysus, all alike of stone. After the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess the Ladon flows by the city Thelpusa on the left, situated on a high hill, in modern times so deserted that the market-place, which is at the extremity of it, was originally, they say, right in the very middle of it. Thelpusa has a temple of Asclepius and a sanctuary of the twelve gods; the greater part of this, I found, lay level with the ground.

After Thelpusa the Ladon descends to the sanctuary of Demeter in Onceium. The Thelpusians call the goddess Fury, and with them agrees Antimachus also, who wrote a poem about the expedition of the Argives against Thebes. His verse runs thus:— There, they say, is the seat of Demeter Fury.
Antimachus, unknown location.

Now Oncius was, according to tradition, a son of Apollo, and held sway in Thelpusian territory around the place Oncium; the goddess has the surname Fury for the following reason.

When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Oncius; realizing that he was outwitted, Poseidon too changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter.

At first, they say, Demeter was angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the Ladon. So the goddess has obtained two surnames, Fury because of her avenging anger, because the Arcadians call being wrathful “being furious,” and Bather (Lusia) because she bathed in the Ladon. The images in the temple are of wood, but their faces, hands and feet are of Parian marble.

The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch; her height I conjecture to be nine feet. Lusia seemed to be six feet high. Those who think the image to be Themis and not Demeter Lusia are, I would have them know, mistaken in their opinion. Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not wont to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon Horse.

They quote verses from the Iliad
and from the Thebaid
in confirmation of their story. In the Iliad
there are verses about Areion himself: Not even if he drive divine Areion behind,
The swift horse of Adrastus, who was of the race of the gods.
Hom. Il. 23.346In the Thebaid
it is said that Adrastus fled from Thebes: >Wearing wretched clothes, and with him dark-maned Areion.
Thebaid, unknown location.They will have it that the verses obscurely hint that Poseidon was father to Areion, but Antimachus says that Earth was his mother:

Adrastus, son of Talaus, son of Cretheus,
The very first of the Danai to drive his famous horses,
Swift Caerus and Areion of Thelpusa,
Whom near the grove of Oncean Apollo
Earth herself sent up, a marvel for mortals to see.
Antimachus, unknown location.

But even though sprung from Earth the horse might be of divine lineage and the color of his hair might still be dark. Legend also has it that when Heracles was warring on Elis he asked Oncus for the horse, and was carried to battle on the back of Areion when he took Elis, but afterwards the horse was given to Adrastus by Heracles. Wherefore Antimachus says about Areion: Adrastus was the third lord who tamed him.
Antimachus, unknown location.