ELIS (MYTHICAL HISTORY)

[5.1.1] I. The Greeks who say that the Peloponnesus has five, and only five,
divisions must agree that Arcadia contains both Arcadians and Eleans, that the
second division belongs to the Achaeans, and the remaining three to the Dorians. Of
the races dwelling in Peloponnesus the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. When
the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from
Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old
Aegialus, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other
hand, have from the beginning to to the present time continued in possession of
their own country.

[5.1.2] The rest of Peloponnesus belongs to immigrants. The modern Corinthians are
the latest inhabitants of Peloponnesus, and from my time1 to the time when they
received their land from the Roman Emperor2 is two hundred and seventeen years. The
Dryopians reached the Peloponnesus from Parnassus, the Dorians from Oeta.

[5.1.3] The Eleans we know crossed over from Calydon and Aetolia generally. Their
earlier history I found to be as follows. The first to rule in this land, they say,
was Aethlius, who was the son of Zeus and of Protogeneia, the daughter of
Deucalion, and the father of Endymion.

[5.1.4] The Moon, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty
daughters. Others with greater probability say that Endymion took a wife Asterodia
others say she was Cromia, the daughter of Itonus, the son of Amphictyon; others
again, Hyperippe, the daughter of Arcas but all agree that Endymion begat Paeon,
Epeius, Aetolus, and also a daughter Eurycyda. Endymion set his sons to run a race
at Olympia for the throne; Epeius won, and obtained the kingdom, and his subjects
were then named Epeans for the first time.

[5.1.5] Of his brothers they say that Aetolus remained at home, while Paeon, vexed
at his defeat, went into the farthest exile possible, and that the region beyond
the river Axius was named after him Paeonia. As to the death of Endymion, the
people of Heracleia near Miletus do not agree with the Eleans for while the Eleans
show a tomb of Endymion, the folk of Heracleia say that he retired to Mount Latmus
and give him honor, there being a shrine of Endymion on Latmus.

[5.1.6] Epeius married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, and begat a daughter
Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeius the following events also
occurred. Oenomaus was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be
Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa
he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia.

[5.1.7] On the death of Oenomaus, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and
its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeius. The Eleans
said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of' Hermes in Peloponnesus and to
sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death
of Myrtilus.

[5.1.8] Aetolus, who came to the throne after Epeius, was made to flee from
Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional
homicide. For Apis, the son of Jason, from Pallantium in Arcadia, was run over and
killed by the chariot of Aetolus at the games held in honor of Azan. Aetolus, son
of Endymion, gave to the dwellers around the Achelous their name, when he fled to
this part of the mainland. But the kingdom of the Epeans fell to Eleius, the son of
Eurycyda, daughter of Endymion and, believe the tale who will, of Poseidon. It was
Eleius who gave the inhabitants their present name of Eleans in place of Epeans.