15.

Epidaurus was called Epitaurus [Epicarus?]. Aristotle says, that Carians occupied both this place and Hermione, but upon the return of the Heracleidæ those Ionians, who had accompanied them from the Athenian Tetrapolis to Argos, settled there together with the Carians.

Epidaurus203 was a distinguished city, remarkable particularly on account of the fame of Æsculapius, who was supposed to cure every kind of disease, and whose temple is crowded constantly with sick persons, and its walls covered with votive tablets, which are hung upon the walls, and contain accounts of the cures, in the same manner as is practised at Cos, and at Tricca. The city lies in the recess of the Saronic Gulf, with a coasting navigation of 15 stadia, and its aspect is towards the point of summer sunrise. It is surrounded with lofty mountains, which extend to the coast, so that it is strongly fortified by nature on all sides.

Between Trœzen and Epidaurus, there was a fortress Methana,204 and a peninsula of the same name. In some copies of Thucydides Methone is the common reading,205 a place of the same name with the Macedonian city, at the siege of which Philip lost an eye. Hence Demetrius of Scepsis is of opinion, that some persons were led into error by the name, and supposed that it was Methone near Trœzen. It was against this town, it is said, that the persons sent by Agamemnon to levy sailors, uttered the imprecation, that

“they might never cease to build walls,”

but it was not these people; but the Macedonians, according to Theopompus, who refused the levy of men; besides it is not probable that those, who were in the neighbourhood of Agamemnon, would disobey his orders.