Gortys (Arcadia)

Gortys, also called Gortyna, was a town of ancient Arcadia in the district of Cynuria, situated near the river Gortynius, known nearer its source as the Lusius, a tributary of the Alpheius noted for the coldness of its waters. Tradition held that the town was founded by Gortys, a son of Stymphalus. Pausanias described it in his own time as a village, though it had formerly been a substantial city; most of its inhabitants were resettled to Megalopolis after the founding of that city in 371 BCE, but Gortys remained significant enough that Polybius records its capture by the Elean general Euripidas during the Social War in 219 BCE, when it was subject to Thelpusa. It contained a celebrated temple of Asclepius built of Pentelic marble with statues of Asclepius and Hygieia by Scopas, a temple to which Cicero alludes in connection with the tomb of one of the three figures he counted as Asclepius.