Kitap 2
25.10
On the straight road to Epidaurus is a village Lessa, in which is a temple of Athena with a wooden image exactly like the one on the citadel Larisa. Above Lessa is Mount Arachnaeus, which long ago, in the time of Inachus, was named Sapyselaton.See the Greek text, in which the name Sapyselaton is formed from the two wordsσάπυς ἐλάτων. On it are altars to Zeus and Hera. When rain is needed they sacrifice to them here.
26.1
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.
26.2
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,A poem attributed to Hesiod. the father of Epidaurus was Argus, son of Zeus, while the Epidaurians maintain that Epidaurus was the child of Apollo.
26.3
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.
