Marching through Arcadia and encountering heavy snowstorms and many hardships in crossing the pass of Mount Olygyrtus, he reached Caphyae in the night of the third day.
Having rested his troops here for two days and being joined by the young Aratus and the Achaeans he had collected, so that his whole force was now about ten thousand strong, he advanced on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Psophis&groupId=917&placeId=1646">Psophis</a> through the territory of Cleitor, collecting missiles and ladders from the towns he passed through.
<a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Psophis&groupId=917&placeId=1646">Psophis</a> is an undisputably Arcadian foundation of great antiquity in the district of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Azanis&groupId=385&placeId=725">Azanis</a> lying in the interior of the <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Peloponnese&groupId=861&placeId=1552">Peloponnese</a> taken as a whole, but on the western borders of Arcadia itself and coterminous with the up-country of western <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Achaea&groupId=272&placeId=533">Achaea</a>.
It commands with great advantage the territory of the Eleans, with whom it was then politically united.
Philip, reaching it in three days from Caphyae, encamped on the hills opposite, from which once can securely view the whole town and its environs.
When he observed the great strength of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Psophis&groupId=917&placeId=1646">Psophis</a>, the king was at a loss what to do;
for on its western side there descends a violent torrent, impassable for the greater part of the winter, and rendering the city very strongly protected and difficult of approach on this side, owing to the depth of the bed it has gradually formed for itself, descending as it does from a height.
On the eastern side of the town flows the Eymantus, a large and rapid stream of which many fables are told by various authors.
The torrent falls into the Erymanthus to the south of the city, so that three faces of the city are surrounded and protected by the rivers in the manner I have described.
On the fourth or northern side rises a steep hill protected by walls, serving very efficiently as a natural citadel. The town has also walls of unusual size and admirable construction,
and besides all these advantages it had just received a reinforcement of Eleans, and Euripidas was present having taken refuge there after his flight.
Walbank Commentary