Psophis has been the northernmost western city of Arcadia in the valley of the Erymanthos river (after Tripotama). The city is located in the NW of Arkadia, fairly isolated from the other Arkadian cities. The city lay up at the meeting of three rivers in a beautiful landscape. The city wall and the theater can be called antique, both not very impressive. Little or nothing is known about the history of the city, and Psophis derived his only claim to fame from the legend of Aglaos, the happiest man on earth. Polybios (4.70-72) does, however, provide a fairly comprehensive description of the city after an attack on Philippos V on Phophis in the so-called Alliance War (220-217 BC). Polybios 2.52 describes a battle for the walls of Kaphyai on a plain with a river, with canals or ditches on the other side of the river. Possibly the ditches of Polybios were used to drain the water from the plain, and this system was so neglected in the period between the battle at Kaphyai and Pausanias that the majority was flooded. The dike then served to at least protect the agricultural land closest to Kaphyai from the water.
Photos above from left to right the little monastery at Psophis (2x), on the left the (in the photo unrecognizable) remains of the theater (note the retaining wall in the middle of the theater, cf. the map); on the right the remains of the city walls and a medieval bridge at Psophis.
