XLV. On the Road to Olympia.—

The Erymanthus, descending from the lofty mountains of north-western Arcadia, flows between hills into the broad open valley of the Alpheus and joins that river on its northern bank. At its junction with the Alpheus it flows over gravel between abrupt cliffs of pudding-stone. Its water, seen at least from the southern side of the wide valley on a sunny day, is of a bright blue colour. After fording the river and climbing the farther bank, the path leads through open pastures, and then, to avoid a great bend of the river, ascends a pass or woody gorge, where fine oaks and pines, now singly now in clumps, are scattered in wild variety. When we have reached the summit and begin to descend again towards the Alpheus, a series of magnificent views of the river winding between wooded hills opens up before us. For beyond the meeting of its waters with the Erymanthus, the valley of the Alpheus assumes a softer and gayer aspect. Moderate heights rise on the right bank, their gentle slopes thickly wooded with trees and shrubs of the most varied sorts. Pine-trees, maples, planes, and tall lentisk bushes succeed each other, varied here and there by fields and green pastures. Across the Alpheus lie the beautiful wooded hills of Triphylia, where many a picturesque village is seen nestling among pine-woods, and many a height, crowned by church or ruins, stands out abruptly and precipitously above the river. The whole country, with its woods and streams, and the broad river flowing majestically through the middle of the landscape, is like a great park. The illusion, however, is broken by the path, which scrambles up hill and down dale, struggles through thickets, and splashes through streams and torrents, in a fashion which resembles anything rather than the trim well-kept walks and avenues of an English park. Such is the scenery and such the path by which Pausanias is now moving westward towards Olympia.

Dio Chrysostom has described how he lost his way in this charming country and fell in with an old dame of the Meg Merrilies type who professed to have the gift of second sight. He says: “Going on foot from Heraea to Pisa by the side of the Alpheus, I was able, up to a certain point, to make out the path. But by and by I found myself in a forest and on broken ground, with many tracks leading to sheepfolds and cattle-pens. And meeting with no one of whom I could ask the way I strayed from the path and wandered up and down. It was high noon; and seeing on a height a clump of oaks, as it might be a grove, I betook myself thither, in the hope that from thence I might spy some path or house. Here then I found stones piled carelessly together, and skins of sacrificed animals hanging up, with clubs and staves, the offerings, as I supposed, of shepherds; and a little way off, seated on the ground, was a tall and stalwart dame, somewhat advanced in years, in rustic attire, with long grey hair. Of her I asked what these things might be. She answered, very civilly, in a broad Doric accent, that the spot was sacred to Hercules, and as for herself, she had a son a shepherd and often minded the sheep herself; that by the grace of the Mother of the Gods she had the gift of second sight, and all the herdsmen and farmers of the neighbourhood came to ask her about their crops and cattle.”