2.15.1 These are the things that I found most worthy of mention among the Phliasians. On the road from Corinth to Argos is a small city Kleonai. They say that Kleones was a son of Pelops, though there are some who say that Kleone was one of the daughters of Asopos, that flows by the side of Sikyon. Be this as it may, one or other of these two accounts for the name of the city. Here there is a sanctuary of Athena, and the statue [agalma] is a work of Skyllis and Dipoinos.^* Some hold them to have been the pupils of Daidalos, but others will have it that Daidalos took a wife from Gortyn, and that Dipoinos and Skyllis were his sons by this woman. Kleonai possesses this sanctuary and the tomb of Eurytos and Kteatos. The story is that as they were going as ambassadors from Elis to the Isthmian contest they were here shot by Hēraklēs, who charged them with being his adversaries in the war against Augeias.

2.15.2 From Kleonai to Argos are two roads; one is direct and only for men who are physically fit, the other goes along the pass called Trētos, is narrow like the other, being surrounded by mountains, but is nevertheless more suitable for vehicles. In these mountains is still shown the cave of the famous lion, and the place [khōrion] called Neméā is distant some fifteen stadium-lengths. In Neméā is a temple [nāos] of Nemean [] Zeus, which is worthy of viewing [théā], but I found that the roof had caved in and that there was no longer any statue [agalma] [of Zeus] left. Around the temple is a grove of cypress trees, and here it is, they say, that Opheltes was placed by his nurse in the grass and killed by the serpent [drakōn].

2.15.3 The Argives offer-sacrifices [thuein] to Zeus the Nemean [Nemeios] in Nemeā, and elect a priest of Nemean Zeus; moreover they offer a prize for a race in armor at the winter celebration of the Nemean games. In this place is the tomb of Opheltes; around it is a fence of stones, and within the enclosure are altars. There is also a mound of earth which is the tomb of Lycurgus [Lykourgos] the father of Opheltes. The spring [pēgē] they call Adrasteia for some reason [aitiā] or other, perhaps because Adrastos found it. The land was named, they say, after Nemeā, who was another daughter of Asopos. Above Nemeā is Mount Apesas, where they say that Perseus first made-sacrifice [thuein] to Zeus of Apesas.

2.15.4 Going upland to [the pass called] Trētos and then down again along the road to Argos, you see on the left the ruins [ereipia] of Mycenae. The Greeks are generally aware that the founder [oikistēs] of Mycenae was Perseus, but I will also write down the cause [aitiā] of its foundation [oikismos] and the pretext [prophasis] that theArgives gave when they at a later point destroyed Mycenae. In the region now called Argolis, some things most ancient are not memorialized [mnēmoneuein] while other things are, and here is one such thing: they say that Inakhos was once their king and that he named the river Inakhos after himself and that he sacrificed to Hērā.

2.15.5 There is also another tale [logos] told [legesthai] that goes like this… that Phoroneus was the first to be born in this land, and that Inakhos, the father of Phoroneus, was not a man but the river. This river, with the rivers Kephisos and Asterion, arbitrated [dikazein] concerning possession of the land between Poseidon and Hērā. They decided [krinein] that the land belonged to Hērā, and so Poseidon made their waters disappear. For this reason neither Inakhos nor either of the other rivers I have mentioned provides any water except whenver the god [= Zeus] makes rain. In summer their streams are dry except for those at Lerna. Phoroneus, the son of Inakhos, was the first to gather together humans [anthrōpoi] into a commonality [koinon], who up to that time had been scattered and living-in-settlements[oikeîn] all by themselves. The place into which they were first gathered was named the City [Astu] of Phoroneus.