Pausanias Analysis

About a stade's distance from the tomb of Epaminondas stands a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Charmon. Among the Arcadians, in the woodlands there are various sorts of oak trees; some they call broad-leaved, others phegos (oak), and a third kind whose bark is so thin and especially light that from it they make floats for anchors and nets used in the sea. This type of oak bark is termed "phellos" by certain of the Ionians and by Hermesianax, who composed elegiac poetry.

From Mantineia there is a road to Methydrium—a place that is no longer a city, but now merely a village incorporated into the territory of Megalopolis. Thirty stades further along, there is a plain called Alcimedon, and above this plain rises Mount Ostrakina. On the mountain is a cave, where Alcimedon, one of those called heroes, dwelt.

According to the Phigalians, Heracles had intercourse with Phialo, the daughter of this Alcimedon. When Alcimedon perceived that she had borne a child, he exposed her on the mountain to perish, along with the child she had borne; the Arcadians call this child Aechmagoras. As the child lay exposed and cried aloud, a bird, the jay, heard his weeping and began to imitate his cries.

Once, when Heracles was traveling along this road, he heard the sound of the kissa (jay)—for he believed that the wailing belonged to a child rather than a bird—and promptly turned in the direction of the cry. Recognizing the bird, he freed it from its bonds and rescued the child. From that time forward, the nearby spring was named "Kissa" after the bird. A place called Petrosaka lies forty stades distant from the spring; Petrosaka serves as a boundary between Megalopolis and Mantineia.

Besides these named roads, there are two other ways to Orchomenus. On one of them is the stadium called Ladas, in which Ladas trained himself in running. Next to it is a sanctuary of Artemis, and on the right side of the road a high earthen mound. They claim this mound is the tomb of Penelope, although they do not agree with the account given about her in the poem entitled Thesprotis.

In this particular poem it is said that Penelope bore to Odysseus, after his return from Troy, a child named Ptoliporthes ("Sacker of Cities"). But the version told by the Mantineans about Penelope claims that Odysseus condemned her for bringing loose suitors into his house. Having been rejected by him, she initially went to Lacedaemon and later, over time, migrated from Sparta to Mantinea, where she ended her life.

Next to this tomb is a small plain, and within the plain is a hill on which still stand the ruins of ancient Mantinea. This place is now called by us "Ptolis." A short distance from it along the road that leads north is the spring Alalcomeneia. From Ptolis at a distance of thirty stades are the remains of a village named Maira and the tomb of Maira—if indeed it is here and not in the Tegean territory that she was buried. For the more plausible account belongs to the claim of the Tegeans rather than the Mantineans: that Maira, the daughter of Atlas, was buried among them. Yet perhaps another Maira, a descendant of the Maira who was daughter of Atlas, arrived later in Mantinean territory.

There still remains the road leading to Orchomenus, along which lies Mount Anchisia, and at the foot of this mountain is the tomb of Anchises. For, as the story goes, when Aeneas was sailing towards Sicily, he brought his ships to Laconia, founded the cities Aphrodisias and Etis, and, upon some fitting pretext, Anchises his father came along with him to this place, ended his life here, and was buried on this spot. Accordingly, the mountain, named after Anchises, is called Anchisia.

In support of this belief, the Aeolians who possess Ilium in our time make no claim anywhere among themselves concerning the tomb of Anchises. Near the tomb of Anchises are ruins of a temple of Aphrodite, and the boundaries between Mantineia and Orchomenus run through Anchisia as well.