A Dryad nymph whom Pausanias names as the wife of Arcas — no mortal woman, but a tree-nymph — by whom the eponym of Arcadia had three sons: Azan, Apheidas, and Elatus, the founders of the land's three houses.1
Pausanias is careful to set her apart: Arcas' bride was no mortal woman but a nymph, and of the nymphs a Dryad — distinct from the Epimeliads and the Naiads. Before this marriage Arcas had fathered an illegitimate son, Autolaus; with Erato he begot Azan, Apheidas, and Elatus.2
Her motherhood is written into the map of Arcadia. When Arcas portioned out the land among the three, the district of Azania took its name from Azan, and Tegea with its country fell to Apheidas — so that the poets, Pausanias notes, call Tegea 'the lot of Apheidas,' while Elatus held Mount Cyllene before crossing to Phocis. From these sons ran the later succession: Cleitor through Azan, Aleus through Apheidas, and the five sons of Elatus.3
Apart from the lineage, Pausanias preserves her other office. In the precinct of Despoina near Acacesium he records that a prophetess Erato delivered the oracles of Pan, and that hexameter verses went under her name at the god's Arcadian shrine — the ground of her standing as Pan's priestess and mouthpiece.4
Her claim rests on Pausanias alone. Apollodorus tells Arcas' family without her: he gives the king two sons, Elatus and Aphidas, born of Leanira daughter of Amyclas, or of Meganira daughter of Croco, or — on the authority of Eumelus — of a nymph named Chrysopelia. He omits Azan altogether and never speaks of Erato, so that her marriage and her sons stand on the Periegete's word against this rival reckoning.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story