Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 2.djvu/41

B. viii. c. in. 33. ELIS. 33 greatest part of the inhabitants removed to Epidamnus and Apollonia. Above and so very near Olympia, is Pholoe, an Arcadian mountain, that the country at its foot belongs to the Pisatis. Indeed the whole of the Pisatis and a great part of Triphylia border upon Arcadia. For this reason, most of the places, which have the name of Pylian in the Catalogue of the Ships, seem to be Arcadian. Persons, however, who are well informed, say, that the river Erymanthus, one of those that empty them- selves into the Alpheius, is the boundary of Arcadia, and that the places called Pylian are beyond the Erymanthus. 33. According to Ephorus, " JEtolus, being banished by Salmoneus, king of the Epeii, and the Pisatse, from Eleia to JEtolia, called the country after his own name, and settled the cities there. His descendant Oxylus was the friend of Temenus, and the Heracleidae his companions, and was their guide on their journey to Peloponnesus ; he divided among them the hostile territory, and suggested instructions relative to the acquisition of the country. In return for these services he was to be requited by the restoration of Elis, which had be- longed to his ancestors. He returned with an army collected out of -ZEtolia, for the purpose of attacking the Epeii, who occupied Elis. On the approach of the Epeii in arms, when the forces were drawn up in array against each other, there ad- vanced in front, and engaged in single combat according to an ancient custom of the Greeks, Pyraechmes, an ^Etolian, and Degmenus, an Epeian : the latter was lightly armed with a bow, and thought to vanquish easily from a distance a heavy- armed soldier ; the former, when he perceived the stratagem of his adversary, provided himself with a sling, and a scrip filled with stones. The kind of sling also happened to have been lately invented by the JEtolians. As a sling reaches its object at a greater distance than a bow, Degmenus fell ; the -ZEtolians took possession of the country, and ejected the Epeii. They assumed also the superintendence of the temple at Olympia, which the Epeii exercised ; and on account of the friendship which subsisted between Oxylus and the Heracleidas, it was generally agreed upon, and confirmed by an oath, that the Eleian territory was sacred to Jupiter, and that any one who invaded that country with an army, was a sacrilegious person : he also was to be accounted sacrilegious, who did not VOL. II. D