Pausanias Analysis

As you go along from the sources of the river, the first place you encounter is the district of Maratha, and afterward Gortys, which in my time was a village, though in earlier days it was a city. There is here a temple of Asclepius, built of Pentelic marble; the god himself, represented without a beard, and an image of Hygieia, are the works of Skopas. The local inhabitants also relate that Alexander, the son of Philip, dedicated his breastplate and spear to Asclepius; and in my time at least, the breastplate and the spearhead still remained.

Through Gortyna flows a river which is named by those who dwell near its sources the Lousios—after the baths in which Zeus himself is said to have been bathed at his birth; those who live farther downstream call it the Gortynios after the village Gortys. This Gortynios has the coldest water of all rivers. The Ister and the Rhine, indeed, and also the Hypanis, the Borysthenes, and all other rivers whose streams freeze during the winter season, might justly, in my opinion, be called winter rivers, as they flow for the greater part of the year through snow-covered land, and the air around these streams is filled with frost.

Those rivers whose course traverses land enjoying a mild climate, offering in summer water that refreshes people who drink or bathe in it but is not troublesome in winter—I call such rivers providers of cold water. Indeed, cold is also the water of the Cydnus, which flows by Tarsus, and of the Melas near Side in Pamphylia. As for the Ales in Colophon, even elegiac poets have sung of its coldness. But the Gortynius surpasses these rivers in the coldness of its water—especially during the summer season. Its sources lie in Theisoa, neighboring Methydrium, and as it mixes its current into the Alpheius, people call the place Rheiteai.

Adjacent to the territory of Theisoa is a village called Teuthis; Teuthis, however, was formerly a town. During the Trojan War, the inhabitants here contributed a leader of their own: his name was Teuthis, although some assert it was Ornytus. When favorable winds to Ilium did not arise for the Greeks from Aulis, but a violent wind constrained them and held them back for a considerable time, Teuthis came into dispute with Agamemnon and was on the point of leading back the Arcadians whom he commanded.

At this place, they say, Athena appeared resembling Melas, the son of Opus, and sought to deter Teuthis from his journey back home. But he, his anger swelling within him, struck the goddess with his spear in her thigh, and nevertheless withdrew his army from Aulis, leading them back again. When he returned home, it is said that the goddess herself appeared to him wounded in the thigh. After this event Teuthis fell ill with a wasting disease, and from that time onward the land yielded no fruit whatsoever for these Arcadians alone.

After some time, other oracles came to them from Dodona instructing them on the rituals they must perform to appease the goddess, and accordingly they crafted a statue of Athena bearing a wound upon her thigh. This very statue I myself have seen, its thigh bound up with a purple bandage. There are other sanctuaries in Teuthis as well, one of Aphrodite and another of Artemis.

These things, then, stand in this place. On the road leading from Gortys to Megalopolis is a memorial constructed for those who died in battle against Cleomenes. This memorial the Megalopolitans call "Paraibasion" (Treaty-violation), because Cleomenes broke a truce made with them. Next to the Paraibasion is a plain extending approximately sixty stades. On the right side of the road lie the ruins of a city called Brenthe, from which the river Brentheates flows forth and, after running about five stades, joins the Alpheios.