Listed 7 sub titles with search on: Ancient literary sources for wider area of: "EPIDAVROS Municipality ARGOLIS" .
EPIDAVROS (Ancient city) ARGOLIS
[...] Artemisia was her name, and she was the daughter of Lygdamis; on her fathers' side she was of Halicarnassian lineage, and on her mothers' Cretan. She was the leader of the men of Halicarnassus and Cos and Nisyrus and Calydnos, and provided five ships. Her ships were reputed to be the best in the whole fleet after the ships of Sidon, and she gave the king the best advice of all his allies. The cities that I said she was the leader of are all of Dorian stock, as I can show, since the Halicarnassians are from Troezen, and the rest are from Epidaurus.
At Lessa the Argive territory joins that of Epidaurus. But before
you reach Epidaurus itself you will come to the sanctuary of Asclepius. Who dwelt
in this land before Epidaurus came to it I do not know, nor could I discover from
the natives the descendants of Epidaurus either. But the last king before the
Dorians arrived in the Peloponnesus was, they say, Pityreus, a descendant of Ion,
son of Xuthus, and they relate that he handed over the land to Deiphontes and
the Argives without a struggle.
He went to Athens with his people and dwelt there, while Deiphontes
and the Argives took possession of Epidauria. These on the death of Temenus seceded
from the other Argives; Deiphontes and Hyrnetho through hatred of the sons of
Temenus, and the army with them, because it respected Deiphontes and Hyrnetho
more than Ceisus and his brothers. Epidaurus, who gave the land its name, was,
the Eleans say, a son of Pelops but, according to Argive opinion and the poem
the Great Eoeae,1 the father of Epidaurus was Argus, son of Zeus, while the Epidaurians
maintain that Epidaurus was the child of Apollo.
That the land is especially sacred to Asclepius is due to the following
reason. The Epidaurians say that Phlegyas came to the Peloponnesus, ostensibly
to see the land, but really to spy out the number of the inhabitants, and whether
the greater part of them was warlike. For Phlegyas was the greatest soldier of
his time, and making forays in all directions he carried off the crops and lifted
the cattle.
When he went to the Peloponnesus, he was accompanied by his daughter,
who all along had kept hidden from her father that she was with child by Apollo.
In the country of the Epidaurians she bore a son, and exposed him on the mountain
called Nipple at the present day, but then named Myrtium. As the child lay exposed
he was given milk by one of the goats that pastured about the mountain, and was
guarded by the watch-dog of the herd. And when Aresthanas (for this was the herdsman's
name) discovered that the tale of the goats was not full, and that the watch-dog
also was absent from the herd, he left, they say, no stone unturned, and on finding
the child desired to take him up. As he drew near he saw lightning that flashed
from the child, and, thinking that it was something divine, as in fact it was,
he turned away. Presently it was reported over every land and sea that Asclepius
was discovering everything he wished to heal the sick, and that he was raising
dead men to life.
There is also another tradition concerning him. Coronis, they say,
when with child with Asclepius, had intercourse with Ischys, son of Elatus. She
was killed by Artemis to punish her for the insult done to Apollo, but when the
pyre was already lighted Hermes is said to have snatched the child from the flames.
The third account is, in my opinion, the farthest from the truth;
it makes Asclepius to be the son of Arsinoe, the daughter of Leucippus. For when
Apollophanes the Arcadian, came to Delphi and asked the god if Asclepius was the
son of Arsinoe and therefore a Messenian, the Pythian priestess gave this response:
Asclepius, born to bestow great joy upon mortals,
Pledge of the mutual love I enjoyed with Phlegyas' daughter,
Lovely Coronis, who bare thee in rugged land Epidaurus.
This oracle makes it quite certain that Asclepius was not a son of
Arsinoe, and that the story was a fiction invented by Hesiod, or by one of Hesiod's
interpolators, just to please the Messenians.
There is other evidence that the god was born in Epidaurus for I find
that the most famous sanctuaries of Asclepius had their origin from Epidaurus.
In the first place, the Athenians, who say that they gave a share of their mystic
rites to Asclepius, call this day of the festival Epidauria, and they allege that
their worship of Asclepius dates from then. Again, when Archias, son of Aristaechmus,
was healed in Epidauria after spraining himself while hunting about Pindasus,
he brought the cult to Pergamus.
From the one at Pergamus has been built in our own day the sanctuary
of Asclepius by the sea at Smyrna. Further, at Balagrae of the Cyreneans there
is an Asclepius called Healer, who like the others came from Epidaurus. From the
one at Cyrene was founded the sanctuary of Asclepius at Lebene, in Crete. There
is this difference between the Cyreneans and the Epidaurians, that whereas the
former sacrifice goats, it is against the custom of the Epidaurians to do so.
That Asclepius was considered a god from the first, and did not receive
the title only in course of time, I infer from several signs, including the evidence
of Homer, who makes Agamemnon say about Machaon:
Talthybius, with all speed go summon me hither Machaon,
Mortal son of Asclepius. (Hom. Il. 4.193)
As who should say, "human son of a god." (Paus. 2.26.1-10)
In Argolis; Dorian, its situation, Aesculapius born in, worship of Aesculapius derived from, city of, Epidaurians, being expelled by Argives, settle in Samos, revolt from Macedonia, join Achaean League, dedicate image of Apollo at Delphi, taken by Periander, quarrel with Athens, its colonies, Epidaurians in the Greek forces against Xerxes and Mardonius, Periphetes the Clubman in, Limera, city of Free Laconians
Epidaurus used to be called Epicarus, for Aristotle says that Carians
took possession of it, as also of Hermione,
but that after the return of the Heracleidae the Ionians who had accompanied the
Heracleidae from the Attic
Tetrapolis (1) to Argos
took up their abode with these Carians.
Epidaurus, too, is an important city, and particularly because of the fame of
Asclepius, who is believed to cure diseases of every kind and always has his temple
full of the sick, and also of the votive tablets on which the treatments are recorded,
just as at Cos and Tricce.
The city lies in the recess of the Saronic
Gulf, has a circular coast of fifteen stadia, and faces the summer risings
of the sun. It is enclosed by high mountains which reach as far as the sea, so
that on all sides it is naturally fitted for a stronghold. Between Troezen
and Epidaurus there was a strong hold called Methana,
and also a peninsula of the same name. In some copies of Thucydides the name is
spelled "Methone," the same as the Macedonian
city (2) in which Philip, in the siege, had his eye knocked out.
And it is on this account, in the opinion of Demetrius of Scepsis,
that some writers, being deceived, suppose that it was the Methone in the territory
of Troezen against which
the men sent by Agamemnon to collect sailors are said to have uttered the imprecation
that its citizens might never cease from their wall-building, since, in his opinion,
it was not these citizens that refused, but those of the Macedonian
city, as Theopompus says; and it is not likely, he adds, that these citizens who
were near to Agamemnon disobeyed him. (Strabo 8.6.15)
1. Attic Tetrapolis = Marathon,
Oenoe, Probalinthus,
Tricorythus
2. Macedonian city = Methone
Arriving at Epidaurus in Peloponnese they ravaged most of the territory, and even had hopes of taking the town by an assault: in this however they were not successful.from which incursions were henceforth made upon the country of Troezen, Haliae, and Epidaurus. After walling off this spot the fleet sailed off home.
In compliance with this suggestion they went and brought back the Argives from Epidaurus, and afterwards reassembled, but without succeeding any better in coming to a conclusion; and the Argives a second time invaded Epidaurus and plundered the country.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!