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Excavations on the Probable Sites of Basilis and Bathos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

Pausanias (viii. 29), on the way between Gortys and Megalopolis, after mentioning the ruins of Brenthe, from which the stream Brentheatis ran into the Alpheius, goes on to say: ‘After crossing the Alpheius the country is that called Trapezuntian and there are ruins of the city of Trapezus. Then, turning down on the left to the Alpheius from Trapezus, close to the river is a place called Bathos, where they perform a rite to the Great Goddesses every third year. And there is a spring there called Olympias, which does not flow every other year, and near the spring fire comes up. Now the Arcadians say that the reputed battle of the Giants and Gods took place here and not in Thracian Pallene. … And from the place called Bathos the city called Basilis is distant about ten stades; its founder was Kypselos, who gave his daughter in marriage to Kresphontes, the son of Aristomachos. But in my time Basilis was in ruins, and among them were remains of a shrine of Eleusinian Demeter. Going on from there you will again cross the Alpheius….' Two other mentions are made of Basilis by ancient authors. Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v.) refers to this account of Pausanias, and Nikander (ap. Athen. xii. 8), without giving any name, tells us that in a town founded by Kypselos on the Alpheius certain Parrhasii set up a shrine and altar to Demeter Eleusinia, and that there was a competition of beauty for women there, first won by Erodice, the wife of Kypselos, in which the competitors were called chrysophoroi.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1893

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References

1 Vide Leake, , Morea, ii. p. 28Google Scholar and 292, 293; Bursiau ii. p. 240; Curtius i. pp. 304 f.

3 Cf. Philippson, , Der Pelop. p. 254Google Scholar; Bursian ii. p. 240.

3 Vide Waldstein, , Excavations of American School at Heraion of Argos, Pl. VIII., Nos. 4, 14, 15, 16.Google Scholar

4 Many similar pots may be turned up in the unexcavated soil at Eleusis in a few minutes with the hand.

5 The stone is the same as that used in the principal buildings of Megalopolis.

6 Vide K. Bötticher, Tektonik, taf. iv. fig. 3.

7 Vide Stuart and Revett, Ant. of Athens, iii. Pl. X.