2.7.1 From that time the Sikyonians became Dorians and their land a part of the Argive territory. The city built by Aigialeus on the plain was destroyed by Demetrios the son of Antigonos,^* who founded the modern city near what was once the ancient citadel. The reason why the Sikyonians grew weak it would be wrong to seek; we must be content with Homer’s saying about Zeus:

2.7.2 When you have come from the Corinthian to the Sikyonian territory you see the tomb of Lykos the Messenian, whoever this Lykos may be; for I can discover no Messenian Lykos who practiced the pentathlon or won a victory at Olympia. This tomb is a mound of earth, but the Sikyonians themselves usually bury their dead in a uniform manner. They cover the body in the ground, and over it they build a basement of stone upon which they set pillars. Above these they put something very like the pediment of a temple. They add no inscription, except that they give the dead man’s name without that of his father and bid him farewell.

2.7.3 After the tomb of Lykos, but on the other side of the Asopos, there is on the right the Olympium, and a little farther on, to the left of the road, the tomb of Eupolis, the Athenian comic poet. Farther on, if you turn in the direction of the city, you see the tomb of Xenodice, who died in childbirth. It has not been made after the native fashion, but so as to harmonize best with the painting, which is very well worth seeing.

2.7.4 Farther on from here is the tomb of the Sikyonians who were killed at Pellene, at Dyme of the Achaeans, in Megalopolis and at Sellasia.^* Their story I will relate more fully presently. By the gate they have a spring in a cave, the water of which does not rise out of the earth, but flows down from the roof of the cave. For this reason it is called the Dripping Spring.

2.7.5 On the modern citadel is a sanctuary of Fortune of the Height, and after it one of the Dioskouroi. Their statues [agalmata] and that of Fortune are of wood [xoana]. On the stage of the theater built under the citadel is a statue of a man with a shield, who they say is Aratos, the son of Kleinias. After the theater is a temple of Dionysus. The god is of gold and ivory, and by his side are Bacchic women [Bakkhai] of white marble. These women they say are sacred [hierai] to Dionysus and are-maddened [mainesthai] by his inspiration. The Sikyonians have also some statues [agalmata] that are kept secret. These one night in each year they carry to the temple of Dionysus from what they call the Kosmeterion, and they do so with lighted torches and hymns [humnoi] that are local [epikhōrioi]

2.7.6 The first is the one named Baccheus, set up by Androdamas, the son of Phlias, and this is followed by the one called Lysios (Deliverer), brought from Thebes by the Theban Phanes at the command of the Pythian priestess. Phanes came to Sikyon when Aristomakhos, the son of Kleodaios, failed to understand the oracle^* given him, and therefore failed to return to the Peloponnesus. As you walk from the temple of Dionysus to the marketplace you see on the right a temple of Artemis of the lake. A look shows that the roof has fallen in, but the inhabitants cannot tell whether the statue [agalma] had been saved [komizesthai] and taken elsewhere or whether it was destroyed on the spot.

2.7.7 Within the marketplace is a sanctuary of Persuasion; this too has no statue [agalma]. The worship of Persuasion was established among them for the following reason. When Apollo and Artemis had killed Pythō they came to Aigialeia to obtain purification. Dread coming upon them at the place now named Fear, they turned aside to Carmanor in Crete, and the people of Aigialeia were smitten by a plague. When the seers ordered them to propitiate Apollo and Artemis,

2.7.8 they sent seven boys and seven girls as suppliants to the river Sythas. They say that the deities, persuaded by these, came to what was then the citadel, and the place that they reached first is the sanctuary of Persuasion. Conformable with this story is the ceremony they perform at the present day; the children go to the Sythas at the feast of Apollo, and having brought, as they pretend, the deities to the sanctuary of Persuasion, they say that they take them back again to the temple of Apollo. The temple stands in the modern marketplace, and was originally, it is said, made by Proitos, because in this place his daughters recovered from their madness.

2.7.9 It is also said that in this temple Meleagros dedicated the spear with which he slew the boar. There is also a story that the aulos [‘double-reed’] of Marsyas is dedicated here. When the Silenos met with his disaster, the river Marsyas carried the aulos [‘double-reed’] to the Maeander; reappearing in the Asopos it was cast ashore in the Sikyonian territory and given to Apollo by the shepherd who found them. I found none of these offerings still in existence, for they were destroyed by fire when the temple was burned. The temple that I saw, and its statue [agalma], were dedicated by Pythokles.