Qualla: Cleitor

Cleitor: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pausanias went to the Aroanius river at dusk specifically to hear the fish sing. He waited until sunset, the hour when, according to local tradition, the spotted fish the Greeks called ποικιλίαι were most vocal. He saw them caught. He never heard a note. The traveler, who had documented temples and tombs and monuments across Greece with the patience of a man who believed in what he was looking for, left the riverbank disappointed — and wrote down the story anyway, because enough respected sources had mentioned these singing fish that he felt obliged to take the claim seriously. Athenaeus cited it. Pliny the Elder mentioned it. The fish were probably trout, famous for their spotted scales, and their singing was almost certainly the sound of water. But the fact that Cleitor was known across the ancient Mediterranean partly for its musical river fish tells you something about how strange and particular a place this was.

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Cleitor: The Valley and Its Shape

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cleitor occupied an enclosed upland plain in northern Arcadia, in the valley of the Aroanius river — known today as the Phoniatiko. The river rose in the Aroanian Mountains to the northeast, which formed the boundary with the territory of Pheneus, and flowed through Cleitorian te...

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Cleitor: A City That Refused to Lose

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The mythological founder of Cleitor was a hero of the same name, son of the Arcadian king Azan — which placed the city at the heart of the ancient district of Azania, one of the oldest-named regions of Arcadia. The Cleitorians were celebrated among the Peloponnesians for what anc...

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Cleitor: The Fountain That Killed Thirst for Wine

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The territory of Cleitor contained a celebrated fountain. Those who drank from it, the Greeks believed, permanently lost their taste for wine. This was not a minor local legend. The fountain of Cleitor appears in ancient sources as one of the strange properties of Azania, alongsi...

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Cleitor: Temples, Theatre, and Walls

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Pausanias describes Cleitor's religious life efficiently. The three principal temples were those of Demeter, Asclepius, and Eileithyia. Four stadia outside the city stood a temple of the Dioscuri — Castor and Pollux — whom the Cleitorians called the great gods, an honorific that ...

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