2.17.1 Fifteen stadium-lengths distant from Mycenae is on the left the Hēraion. Alongside the road flows the rivulet called ‘the-water-that-makes-free’ [Eleutherion]. The women who attend the sacred space [hieron] use it [= the water] in purifications [katharsia] and for sacrifices [thusai] that are mystical [apo-rrhētoi]. The sacred space [hieron] itself is on a lower part of Euboea. Euboea is the name they give to the hill here, saying that Asterion the river had three daughters, Euboea, Prosymna, and Akraia, and that they were nurses [trophoi] of Hērā.

2.17.2 The hill opposite the Hēraion they name after Akraia, while the environs of the sacred space [hieron] they name after Euboea, and, further, the land beneath the Hēraion they name after Prosymna. This on flows above the Hēraion, and falling into a cleft disappears. On its banks grows a plant, which also is called asterion. They offer the plant itself to Hēra, and from its leaves they weave garlands [stephanoi] for her.

2.17.3 It is said that the architect of the temple [nāos] was Eupolemos, an Argive. The sculptures carved above the columns [kiones] refer not only to the birth [genesis] of Zeus and the battle between the gods and the giants but also to the Trojan war and the capture of Ilion. Before the entrance stand statues [andriantes] of women who have been priestesses [hiereiai] of Hērā and of various heroes [hērōes], including Orestes. I say it this way because the statue that has an inscription on it claiming that it represents the Emperor Augustus is really, they say, the statue of Orestes. In the front-part-of-the-temple [pro-nāos] are on the one side ancient statues [agalmata] of the Graces [Kharites], and on the right a couch [klinē] of Hērā and a votive offering [anathēma], that is, the shield [aspis] that Menelaos once took from Euphorbos at Troy.^*

2.17.4 The statue [agalma] of Hērā is seated on a throne [thronos]; it [= the statue] is huge in size, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polyclitus [Polykleitos]. She is wearing [on her head] a garland [stephanos] that features Graces [Kharites] and Seasons [Hōrai] worked upon it, and in one hand she holds a pomegranate while in the other a scepter [skēptron]. About the pomegranate … I must let go of this subject, since its story [logos] is somewhat mystical [apo-rrhētos]. The presence of a cuckoo seated on the scepter [skēptron] they explain by telling how, when Zeus lusted [erân] for Hērā as virgin [parthénos], he changed himself into this bird, and she caught it to be her plaything [paignion]. This story [logos] and similar things said about the gods I write down without accepting [apodekhesthai] them, but I write them down nevertheless.

2.17.5 By the side of Hērā stands what is said to be a statue [agalma] of Hēbē fashioned by Naukydes; it, too, is of ivory and gold. By its side is an old statue [agalma] of Hērā on a column [kiōn]. The oldest statue is made of wild-pear wood, and was dedicated in Tiryns by Peirasos, son of Argos, and when the Argives destroyed Tiryns they carried it away to the Hēraion. I myself saw it, a small, seated statue [agalma].

2.17.6 Of the votive offerings [anathēmata] the following are worth speaking-about [logos]. There is an altar [bōmos] upon which is worked in relief the storied [legomenon] wedding of Hēbē and Hēraklēs. This is of silver, but the peacock dedicated by ‘King’ [basileus] Hadrian is of gold and gleaming stones. He dedicated it because they hold the bird to be sacred to Hērā. Also deposited here are a golden garland [stephanos] and a purple robe [peplos], offerings [anathēmata] of Nero.

2.17.7 Above this temple are the foundations of the earlier temple and such parts of it as were spared by the flames. It had burned down because sleep overpowered Khryseis, the priestess of Hērā, when the lamp before the garlands set fire to them. Khryseis went to Tegea and supplicated Athena Aléā. Although so great a disaster had befallen them the Argives did not take down the statue of Khryseis; it is still in position in front of the burned temple.