It is mentioned by Homer as one of the towns of the Epeians;[3] and if we are to believe Dionysius Periegetes, it was the port from which the Pelasgians sailed to Italy.
[4] Pausanias, moreover, mentions it as visited at an early period by the merchants of Aegina,[5] and as the port from which the exiled Messenians after the conclusion of the Second Messenian War, sailed away to found a colony in Italy or Sicily.
[8] Its name occurs on other occasions, clearly showing that it was the principal port in this part of Peloponnesus.
[9][10][11][12] Strabo describes Cyllene as an inconsiderable village, having an ivory statue of Asclepius by Colotes, a contemporary of Pheidias.
[13] This statue is not mentioned by Pausanias, who speaks, however, of temples of Asclepius, Aphrodite, and the most venerated, one of Hermes having a Herma (with a carved phallus).