Hēraklēs accomplished no brilliant feat in the war with Augeias. For the sons of Aktor were in the prime of courageous manhood and always put to flight the allies under Hēraklēs, until the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce, and the sons of Aktor came as envoys to the meeting. Hēraklēs set an ambush for them at Kleonai and murdered them. As the murderer was unknown, Moline, more than any of the other children, devoted herself to detecting him.

When she discovered him, the Eleians demanded satisfaction for the crime from the Argives, for at the time Hēraklēs had his home at Tiryns. When the Argives refused them satisfaction, the Eleians as an alternative pressed the Corinthians entirely to exclude the Argive people from the Isthmian Games. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have laid curses on her countrymen, should they refuse to boycott the Isthmian festival. The curses of Moline are respected right down to the present day, and it is a custom that no athlete competes in the Isthmian Games.

There are two other accounts differing from the one that I have given. According to one of them, Kypselos, the tyrant of Corinth, dedicated to Zeus a golden image at Olympia. As Kypselos died before inscribing his own name on the offering, the Corinthians asked of the Eleians leave to inscribe the name of Corinth on it but were refused. Angry with the Eleians, they proclaimed that they must keep away from the Isthmian Games. But how could the Corinthians themselves take part in the Olympic Games if the Eleians against their will were shut out by the Corinthians from the Isthmian Games?

The other account is this. Prolaos, a distinguished Eleian, had two sons, Philanthos and Lampos, by his wife Lysippe. These two came to the Isthmian Games¹ to compete in the boys’ pankration, and one of them intended to wrestle. Before they entered the ring, they were strangled or done to death in some other way by their fellow competitors. Hence, the curses of Lysippe on the Eleians, should they not voluntarily keep away from the Isthmian Games. But this story too proves on examination to be silly.

For Timon, a man of Elis, won victories in the pentathlon at the Greek Games, and at Olympia, there is even a statue of him, with an elegiac inscription giving the garlands he won and also the reason why he secured no Isthmian victory. The inscription sets forth the reason thus: