Description of Greece: A Pausanias Reader, Scrolls 1–10
Translation based on the original rendering by W. H. S. Jones, 1918 (Scroll 2 with H.A. Ormerod), containing some of the footnotes of Jones.
The translation is edited, with revisions, by Gregory Nagy [*]
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Scroll I. Attica
{1.1.1} Belonging to the Greek mainland [ēpeiros], facing the Cyclades Islands and the Aegean Sea, is the headland [akrā] named Sounion, jutting out from the land of Attica. When one has rounded the headland [akrā] one sees a harbor and a temple [nāos] of Athena of-Sounion [Souniás] on the peak [koruphē] of the headland [akrā]. Farther on is Laurion, where once the Athenians had silver mines, and a small uninhabited island called the Island of Patroklos. [1] You see, a fortification was built on it and a palisade constructed by Patroklos, who was admiral in command of the Egyptian trireme ships sent by Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, to help the Athenians, when Antigonos, son of Demetrios, was ravaging their country, which he had invaded with an army, and at the same time was blockading them by sea with a fleet. [2]
{1.1.2} The [harbor city] Peiraieus was a deme [dēmos] from early times, though it was not a seaport [epineion] before Themistocles became an archon [arkhōn] of the Athenians. [3] Their seaport [epi-neion] had been Phaleron, for at this place the sea comes nearest to Athens, and from here it is said that Menestheus sailed off with his fleet for Troy, and before him Theseus, when he went off to give compensation to Minos for the death of Androgeōs. But when Themistocles became archon [arkhōn], since he thought that the [harbor city] Peiraieus was more conveniently situated for those who sail, and had three harbors [limenes] as against one at Phaleron, he made it [= Peiraieus] the Athenian seaport [epi-neion]. Even up to my time there were ship-sheds [neōs oikoi] there, and near the largest harbor [limēn] is the tomb of Themistocles. For it is said that the Athenians repented of their treatment of Themistocles, and that his relatives took up his bones and brought them from Magnesia. And the children of Themistocles certainly returned [to Athens] and set up in the Parthenon a painting [graphē] in which [the figure] of Themistocles has been painted [graphesthai].
{1.1.3} Worthy of viewing [théā] in the Peiraieus is a precinct [temenos] of Athena and Zeus. Both their statues [agalmata] are of bronze; Zeus holds a scepter and a Nike, Athena a spear. Here is [a painting of] Leosthenes and [of] his sons, painted [graphein] by Arkesilaos. This Leosthenes at the head of the Athenians and the united Greeks defeated the Macedonians in Boeotia and again outside Thermopylae forced them into Lamia over against Oitē, and hemmed them in there. [4] It [= the painting] is in the long portico [stoā], where is located an agora for those living near the sea—those farther away from the harbor [limēn] have another—but behind the portico near the sea stand a Zeus and a [personified] Dēmos, the work [ergon] of Leokhares. And by the sea Konon [5] built a sanctuary [hieron] of Aphrodite, after he had crushed the Lacedaemonian warships off Knidos in the Carian peninsula. [6] You see, the people of Knidos honor [tīmân] Aphrodite greatly, and they have sanctuaries [hiera] of the goddess; the oldest is to her as Doritis [‘Bountiful’], the next in age as Akraia [‘of the Headland’], while the newest is to the Aphrodite called ‘of Knidos’ by people generally, but Euploia [‘Good Sailing’] by the people of Knidos themselves.
{1.1.4} The Athenians have also another harbor [limēn], at Mounukhia, with a temple [nāos] of Artemis of Mounukhia, and yet another at Phaleron, as I have already stated, and near it is a sanctuary [hieron] of Demeter. Here there is also a temple [nāos] of Athena Skiras, and one of Zeus some distance away, and altars of the gods named Unknown [Agnōstoi], and of heroes [hērōes], and of the children of Theseus and Phaleros; for this Phaleros is said by the Athenians to have sailed with Jason to Kolkhis. There is also an altar [bōmos] of Androgeōs, son of Minos, though it is called that of Hērōs; those, however, who pay special attention to the study of their local-antiquities [enkhōria] know that it belongs to Androgeōs.
{1.1.5} Twenty stadium-lengths away is the headland [akrā] called Kōlias; to this place, when the Persian fleet was destroyed, the wreckage was carried down by the waves. There is here a statue [agalma] of the Aphrodite surnamed Kōlias, together with goddesses [theai] called Genetyllides [presiding-over-childbirth]. And I am of opinion that the goddesses of the people of Phokaia in Ionia, whom they call Gennaides, are the same as those at Kōlias. On the way from Phaleron to Athens there is a temple [nāos] of Hērā with neither doors nor roof. It is said that Mardonios, son of Gobryas, burned it. But the statue [agalma] there today is, as report goes, the work of Alkamenes. [7] So that this, at any rate, cannot have been desecrated by the Persians.
{1.2.1} As one enters the city, there is a tomb [mnēma] of Antiope the Amazon. This Antiope, Pindar says, was abducted [harpazein] by Peirithoös and Theseus, but Hegias of Troizen has created-poetically [poieîn] about her such things as I will now tell. Hēraklēs was besieging Themiskyra at [the river] Thermodon, and could not take it, but Antiope, having-conceived-a-passion [erastheisa] for Theseus, who was aiding Hēraklēs in his campaign, surrendered the stronghold. These things has Hegias created-poetically [poieîn]. But the Athenians assert that when the Amazons came [to attack Athens], Antiope was shot by Molpadia [the Amazon], while Molpadia was killed by Theseus. The Athenians have a tomb [mnēma] of Molpadia as well.
{1.2.2} As you go up from the Peiraieus you see the ruins of the walls that Konon restored after the naval battle offshore from [the island of] Knidos. You see, those [walls] that had been built by Themistocles after the retreat of the Persians were destroyed during the rule [arkhē] of the so-called Thirty. [8] Along the road are some very well-known tombs [taphoi]: that of Menander, son of Diopeithes, and a cenotaph [mnēma kenon ‘empty tomb’] of Euripides. He [= Euripides] himself went to King Arkhelaos [of Macedonia] and lies buried in Macedonia; as for the way [tropos] he died—many have narrated it—let it be as they say.
{1.2.3} You see, even in his time [= the era of Euripides] poets [poiētai] could live in the company of kings, as earlier still Anacreon resided in the company of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos; also, Aeschylus and Simonides were sent to Hieron at Syracuse. Residing in the company of Dionysius, tyrant in Sicily at a later period, was Philoxenos, and, residing in the company of Antigonos, [9] ruler of Macedonia, were Antagoras of Rhodes and Aratos of Soloi. As for Hesiod and Homer, they either did not have the good fortune of residing in the company of kings or else purposely neglected doing so, Hesiod because of his countryside ways [agroikiā] and reluctance to travel, while Homer, having traveled very far and wide, considered the aid provided by the powerful in the acquisition of wealth to be less important than his fame [doxa] among the hoi polloi. And yet Homer, too, in what he composed [poieîn], makes Demodokos live in the compnay of Alkinoos, and [he makes] Agamemnon leave behind [when the king departed for Troy] a poet [poiētēs] to attend his wife. Not far from the gates is a tomb [taphos], on which is positioned a soldier [stratiōtēs] standing by a horse. Who it is I do not know, but both horse and soldier were carved by Praxiteles.
{1.2.4} On entering the city there is a building for the preparation of the processions [pompai], which are arranged [pempein] in some cases every year, in other cases at longer intervals. Close by is a temple [nāos] of Demeter, with statues [agalmata] of the goddess herself and of her daughter, and of Iakkhos holding a torch. On the wall, in Attic letters, is written that they are works of Praxiteles. Not far from the temple [nāos] is Poseidon on horseback, hurling a spear against the giant [gigas] Polubōtēs, concerning whom is prevalent among the people of Kos the myth [mūthos] about the promontory [akrā] of Khelōnē. But the inscription of our time assigns the likeness [eikōn] to another, and not to Poseidon. Extending from the gate to the Kerameikos there are porticoes [stoai], and in front of them bronze likenesses [eikones] of such as had some title to fame [doxa], both men and women.
{1.2.5} One of the porticoes [stoai] contains shrines [hiera] of gods, and a gymnasium named after Hermes. In it is the abode [oikiā] of Poulutiōn, at which it is said that a mystical-rite [teletē] was once performed [drân] by Athenians of considerable fame, corresponding to the mystical-rite performed at Eleusis. But in my time it was devoted to the worship of Dionysus. This Dionysus they call Melpomenos [from melpesthai ‘sing and dance’], on the same principle as they call Apollo Mousēgētēs ‘Leader of the Muses’. Here there are statues [agalmata] of Athena Paiōniā), of Zeus, of Mnemosyne [‘Memory’] and of the Muses, an Apollo, the votive-offering [anathēma] and work [ergon] of Euboulides, and Akratos, a superhuman force [daimōn] who is one of the attendants of Dionysus [Jones mistakenly says “Apollo” here]; it is only a face [prosōpon] of him, worked-into [en-oikodomeîn] the wall [toikhos]. Situated beyond the precinct [temenos] of Apollo is a building [oikēma] that contains terracotta statues [agalmata]: Amphiktyon, king of Athens, in the act of celebrating-at-a-feast [hestiân] Dionysus and other gods. Here also is Pēgasos of Eleutherai, who introduced the god to the Athenians. Participating-in-the-action [sun-lambanesthai] was the oracle [manteion] at Delphi, which called-to-mind [ana-mnē-sai] that the god once dwelled [epi-dēmeîn] in Athens in the days of Ikarios.
{1.2.6} Amphiktyon acquired the kingdom [basileiā] thus. It is said that Aktaios was the first to become-king [basileuein] of what is now Attica. When Aktaios died, Kekrops received-by-relay [ek-dekhesthai] the rulership [arkhē], housed-together [sun-oikeîn] as he was with the daughter of Aktaios, and there were born to him daughters, Hersē, Aglauros and Pandrosos, and a son Erysikhthon. This son did not become king [basileuein] of the Athenians, but happened to die while his father lived, and the one who inherited-by-relay [ek-dekhesthai] the kingdom of Kekrops was Kranaos, who surpassed at the time the other Athenians with his power. They say that Kranaos had daughters, and among them Atthis; and from her they call the region Attica, which before was named Aktaia. And Amphiktyon, leading an insurrection against Kranaos, although he had his daughter as wife, deposed him from rulership [arkhē]. Afterwards he himself was deposed as the result of an insurrection organized by Erikhthonios and his followers. They say that Erikhthonios was not born of humans [anthrōpoi], but that his parents were Hephaistos and Earth [Gē].
{1.3.1} The locale [khōrion] known as the Kerameikos has its name from the hero Keramos, and they say that he too was son of Dionysus and Ariadne. First on the right is what is called the Royal Portico [Sto ā Basileios], where is seated the archon-king [arkhōn basileus] when holding the yearly rulership [arkhē] that is named after the arkhōn basileus. On the tiling [keramos] of this portico [stoā] are statues [agalmata] made of terracotta, Theseus throwing Skiron into the sea and Day [Hēmerā] carrying away Kephalos, who they say was most beautiful and was abducted [harpazein] by Day, who conceived-a-passion [erasthēnai] for him. His son was Phaethon, afterwards abducted [harpazein] by Aphrodite) […] and he was made a guardian [phulax] of her temple [nāos]. That is what is said by Hesiod, among others, in his verses [epos plural] having to do with women.
{1.3.2} Near the portico [stoā] stand [the statues of] Konon, Timotheus his son, and Euagoras, [10] King of Cyprus, who exacted a gift of Phoenician trireme ships to be given to Konon by King Artaxerxes. This he did as an Athenian whose ancestry connected him with Salamis, for he traced-his-lineage [geneālogeîn] back to Teukros as also to the daughter of Kinyras. Here stand [the statue of] Zeus, called Zeus Eleutherios [‘of Freedom’], and [the statue of] Hadrian as King [basileus], who made-public-displays [apo-deiknusthai] of his benefactions to all the populations that he ruled [arkhein]—and especially to the city of the Athenians.
{1.3.3} Another portico [stoā] is built behind [the one I just talked about], and this one has paintings [graphai] of the gods called the Twelve. On the wall opposite are painted [graphesthai] Theseus, [personified] Democracy [Dēmokratiā], and [personified] Dēmos. The painting [graphē] represents Theseus as the one who established for the Athenians a system of governance [politeuesthai] on-an-equal-footing [ex isou]. In other ways as well did the story [phēmē] spread among the people—the story that Theseus bestowed upon them the management of their own affairs [pragmata], and that from his time onward the people continued to have-a-democratic government [dēmokrateîsthai], until the emergence of Peisistratos, who became-tyrant [turanneîn]. [11] Granted, the majority of people tell and are told many other things as well—things that are not true [alēthē], since people are ignorant of scientific-research [historiā] and consider trustworthy whatever they have heard, from childhood onward, in choruses [khoroi] and tragedies [tragōidiai]. There are stories like that also concerning Theseus, who himself became king, and afterwards, when Menestheus died, the descendants of Theseus remained rulers even to the fourth generation [geneā]. But if I cared about tracing-lineages [geneālogeîn] I should have included in the counting, besides these, the kings starting from Melanthos extending all the way to Kleidikos the son of Aisimides.
{1.3.4} Also painted [graphesthai] here is the exploit, near Mantineia, of the Athenians who were sent to help the Lacedaemonians. [12] Xenophon among others has written a history of the whole war—the taking of the Kadmeia, the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at Leuktra, how the Boeotians invaded the Peloponnesus, and the contingent sent to the Lacedaemonians from the Athenians. The painting [graphē] shows a cavalry battle, in which the most famous men are, among the Athenians, Grylos the son of Xenophon, and, in the Boeotian cavalry, Epameinondas the Theban. These paintings [graphai] were painted [graphein] for the Athenians by Euphranor, and he also did the Apollo surnamed Patrōos [‘Ancestral’] in the temple [nāos] close by. In front of the temple [nāos] is an Apollo that Leokhares made [poieîn]; [also in front is] another Apollo, called Alexikakos [‘averter of evil’], made by Kalamis. They say that the god received this name because, by way of an oracular pronouncement [manteion] from Delphi, he stopped the pestilential disease [nosos] that afflicted the Athenians at the time of the Peloponnesian War. [13]
{1.3.5} Here is built also a sanctuary [hieron] of the Mother of the gods; she [= her statue] is by Pheidias. Close by is the council-chamber [bouleutērion] of those called the Five Hundred, who for a term of a year act-as-councilors [bouleuein] on behalf of the Athenians. In it are a wooden-statue [xoanon] of Zeus Boulaios and an Apollo, the work [tekhnē] of Peisias, and a [personified] Dēmos, a work [ergon] by Lyson. As for the lawgivers [thesmothetai], they were painted [graphein] by Protogenes [14] of Kaunos, and Olbiades painted Kallippos, who led the Athenians to Thermopylae to stop the incursion of the Gauls [Galatai] into Greece. [15]
{1.4.1} These Gauls [Galatai] inhabit the most remote portions of Europe, near a great sea that is not navigable all the way to its extremities [perata], and has tides and fauna quite unlike those of other seas. Through their territory [khōrā] flows the river Ēridanos, on the banks of which the Daughters of Hēlios [‘Sun’] are customarily thought to be lamenting the experience [pathos] of their brother Phaethon. It was late before the name Gauls [Galatai] prevailed; for in ancient times they were called Celts [Keltoi] both among themselves and by others. An army of them gathered and turned towards the Ionian Sea. They dispossessed the Illyrian people and all who dwelled as far away as Macedonia, along with the Macedonians themselves. Then they overran Thessaly. And when they drew near to Thermopylae, the Greeks in general made no move to prevent the incursion of the barbarians, since previously they had been severely defeated by Alexander and Philip. Further, Antipatros and Kassandros [16] afterwards crushed the Greeks, so that, because of their weakness, each state thought it was not shameful to take no part in the defense.
{1.4.2} But the Athenians, although they were more exhausted than any of the Greeks by the long Macedonian war, and had been generally unsuccessful in their battles, nevertheless set forth to Thermopylae with such Greeks as joined them, having made the Kallippos I mentioned their general. Occupying the pass where it was narrowest, they tried to keep the foreigners from entering Greece; but the Celts, having discovered the path by which Ephialtes of Trakhis once led the Persians, [17] overwhelmed the men of Phokis stationed there and crossed Oitē unperceived by the Greeks.
{1.4.3} Then it was that the Athenians put the Greeks under the greatest obligation, and although outflanked offered resistance to the foreigners on two sides. But the Athenians in the fleet suffered most, for the Lamian gulf is a swamp near Thermopylae—the reason being, I think, the hot water that here runs into the sea. These then were more distressed, and the reason is this: taking the Greeks on board, they were forced to sail through the mud, weighed downas they were by arms and men.
{1.4.4} So, they tried to save Greece in the way described, but the Gauls, now south of the Gates [= Thermopylae], cared not at all to capture the other towns, but were very eager to plunder Delphi and the treasures of the god. They were opposed by the people of Delphi themselves and by the men of Phokis who originated from the cities around Mount Parnassus; a force of Aetolians also joined the defenders, for the Aetolians at this time were preeminent for their vigorous resistance. When the forces engaged, not only were thunderbolts [keraunoi] and rocks broken off from Parnassus hurled against the Gauls, but terrifying-shapes [deimata] that looked like armed warriors appeared to the foreigners. They say that two of these apparitions, Hyperokhos and Amadokos, came from the Hyperboreans, and that the third was Pyrrhos son of Achilles. Because of this help in battle the Delphians sacrifice [enagizein] to Pyrrhos [as to a hero], although formerly they held even his tomb [mnēma] in dishonor [atīmiā], as being that of an enemy. [18]
{1.4.5} The greater number of the Gauls crossed over to Asia [Minor] by ship and plundered its coasts. Some time after, the inhabitants of Pergamon, which was called in ancient times Teuthrania, drove the Gauls into this region, away from the sea. Now this population occupied the country on the farther side of the river Sangarios, capturing Ankyra, a city of the Phrygians, which Midas son of Gordios had founded in former time. And the anchor [ankura], which Midas found, was even as late as my time in the sanctuary [hieron] of Zeus, as well as a spring [krēnē] called the Spring of Midas, water from which they say Midas mixed with wine to capture Silenos. Well then, the Pergamenes took Ankyra and Pessinos which is situated under Mount Agdistis, where they say that Attis lies buried.
{1.4.6} They [= the Pergamenes] have spoils-of-war [captured] from the Gauls, and a painting [graphē] that portrays their deed [ergon] against them. The land they dwell in was, they say, in ancient times sacred [hierā] to the Kabeiroi, and they claim that they are themselves Arcadians, being descended from those who crossed into Asia [Minor] with Telephos. Of the wars that they have waged no story [phēmē] has been made public to the world-at-large, except that they have accomplished three most notable achievements: the subjection of the coastal region of Asia [Minor], the expulsion of the Gauls from there, and the exploit of Telephos against the followers of Agamemnon, at a time when the Greeks, after failing to reach Troy, were plundering the plain called Mēion, thinking it Trojan territory. Now I will return from my digression.
{1.5.1} Near to the council-chamber [bouleutērion] of the Five Hundred is what is called Tholos [‘Round House’]; here the presidents [prutaneis] sacrifice [thuein], and there are a few small statues [agalmata] made of silver. Farther up stand statues [andriantes] of heroes [hērōes], from whom afterwards the Athenian subdivisions [phūlai] received their names. Who the man was who established ten phūlai instead of four, and changed their old names to new ones—all this is told by Herodotus [5.69]. [19]
{1.5.2} The heroes known as the eponymous ones [epōnumoi] are [1] Hippothoön son of Poseidon and of Alope daughter of Kerkyon, [2] Antiokhos, whose father was Hēraklēs and whose mother was Meda daughter of Phylas, thirdly, [3] Ajax son of Telamon, and, among the Athenians, [4] Leōs, who is said to have given up [as human sacrifice] his daughters in accordance with what was-said-in-his-oracular-way [khrē-] by the god [Apollo] in order to achieve a salvation [sōtēriā] that was to be communal [koinē] for all; also among the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] is [5] Erekhtheus, who conquered the Eleusinians in battle, and killed their general, Immarados the son of Eumolpos; there is also [6] Aigeus, and [7] Oineus the bastard son of Pandion, and [8] Akamas, one of the children of Theseus.
{1.5.3} I saw also among the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] the likenesses [eikones] of [9] Kekrops and [10] Pandion, but I do not know who among those who have these names are given the honor [tīmē] [of being venerated as an eponymous hero. I say this because there was an earlier Kekrops who was-ruler [arkhein]—his wife was the daughter of Aktaios—and there was also a later Kekrops—the one who led-a-colonizing-expedition [met-oikeîn] to Euboea. This one was son of Erekhtheus son of Pandion son of Erikhthonios. And there was a king Pandion who was son of Erikhthonios, and another who was son of Kekrops the second. This man [Pandion] was deposed from his rule [arkhē] by the Mētionidai, and when he fled to Megara—for he had as wife the daughter of Pylas king of Megara—his children were banished with him. And Pandion is said to have fallen ill there [in Megara] and died, and on the coast of the region of Megara is his tomb [mnēma], situated on the cliff called the rock of Athena the Aithuia.
{1.5.4} But his sons [= the sons of Pandion] expelled the Mētionidai, and returned from their exile at Megara. Then Aigeus, as the eldest, became king of the Athenians. As for his daughters [by contrast with his sons], on the other hand, there was no benevolent [agathos] superhuman-force [daimōn] to help him raise them, nor did they [= these daughters] leave him with any sons who could avenge him [the same way that his sons avenged him against the Mētionidai]. And yet it was for the sake of [his own] power [dunamis] that he [Pandion] had made a marriage-alliance [kēdos] with the man from Thrace [= Tereus, king of Thrace]. Well, there is no way [poros] for a mortal to evade what is sent by a god as a thing that the god deems to be fitting to send. They say that Tereus, though he was married to Procne, violated Philomela. Thus, [Thracian that he was,] he transgressed Greek custom [nomos]. And, on top of that, he mutilated the body [sōma] of the daughter [of Pandion,] [cutting out her tongue]. By doing so, his action led the women [= the daughters of Pandion] to resort to [what was for them] the necessity of retribution [dikē]. There is also another statue [andrias] of Pandion on the Acropolis, and it is worthy of viewing [théā].
{1.5.5} These are the Athenian eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] who belong to the ancients [arkhaioi]. [20] And of later date than these they have subdivisions [phūlai] named after the following: Attalos [21] the Mysian [22] and Ptolemy the Egyptian, [23] and within my own time* [24] the emperor Hadrian as King [basileus], [25] who was most observant in giving honor [tīmē] to divinity [tò theion] and who contributed very much to the happiness [eudaimoniā] of those whom he ruled [arkhein]. He never voluntarily entered upon a war, but he reduced the Hebrews [Hebraioi] who lived beyond Syria; they had rebelled. [26] As for the sanctuaries [hiera] of the gods that in some cases he built from the beginning, in others adorned [epi-kosmeîn] them with offerings [anathēmata] and furnishings, and the gifts [dōreai] he gave to Greek cities, and sometimes even to foreigners who asked him, all these acts are inscribed in his honor in the sanctuary [hieron] at Athens that is common [koinon] to all the gods.
{1.6.1} But as for what pertains to Attalos and Ptolemy, it is more ancient in point of time, so that the story [phēmē] no longer remains, and those who attended these kings for the writing-up [sun=graphē] of their deeds fell into neglect even before [= before the story failed]. So, it occurred to me to highlight [dēloûn] their deeds also, and how the rule [arkhē] of Egypt, of the Mysians, and of the neighboring peoples fell into the hands of the ancestors [of these rulers].
{1.6.2} [27] The Macedonians consider Ptolemy to be the son of Philip, the son of Amyntas, though putatively the son of Lagos, asserting that his mother was pregnant when she was married off to Lagos by Philip. And among the distinguished acts of Ptolemy in Asia they mention that it was he who, of all the companions of Alexander, was foremost in helping him when in danger among the Oxydrakai. After the death of Alexander, [28] by withstanding those who would have conferred all his empire [arkhē] upon Aridaios, the son of Philip, he became chiefly responsible for the division of the various nations [ethnē] into the kingdoms [basileiai].
{1.6.3} He crossed over to Egypt in person, and killed Kleomenes, whom Alexander had appointed satrap of that country, considering him a friend of Perdikkas, and therefore not faithful to himself; and the Macedonians who had been entrusted with the task of carrying the corpse [nekros] of Alexander to Aigai, he persuaded to hand it over to him. And he proceeded to entomb [thaptein] it, in the ritual-way [nomos] of the Macedonians, in Memphis, but, knowing that Perdikkas would make war, he kept Egypt garrisoned. And Perdikkas took Aridaios, son of Philip, and the boy Alexander, whom Rōxanē, daughter of Oxyartes, had borne to Alexander, to create some decorum for the military campaign, but really he was plotting to take from Ptolemy his kingdom in Egypt. But being expelled from Egypt, and having lost his reputation as a soldier, and being in other respects unpopular with the Macedonians, he was killed by his bodyguards.
{1.6.4} The death of Perdikkas immediately raised Ptolemy to power, who both reduced the Syrians and Phoenicia, and also welcomed Seleukos, son of Antiokhos, who was in exile, having been expelled by Antigonos; he further himself prepared to attack Antigonos. He prevailed on Kassandros, son of Antipatros, and Lysimakhos, who was king in Thrace, to join in the war, on the grounds that Seleukos was in exile and that the growth of the power of Antigonos was dangerous to them all.
{1.6.5} For a time Antigonos prepared for war, and was by no means confident of the issue; but on learning that the revolt of Cyrene had called Ptolemy to Libya, he immediately reduced the Syrians and Phoenicians by a sudden attack, handed them over to Demetrios, his son, a man who for all his youth had already a reputation for good sense, and went down to the Hellespont. But he led his army back without crossing, on hearing that Demetrios had been overcome by Ptolemy in battle. But Demetrios had not altogether evacuated the country before Ptolemy, and having surprised a force of Egyptians, killed a few of them. Then on the arrival of Antigonos Ptolemy did not wait for him but returned to Egypt.
{1.6.6} When the winter was over, Demetrios sailed to Cyprus and overcame in a naval action Menelaos, [29] the satrap of Ptolemy, and afterwards Ptolemy himself, who had crossed over to bring help. Ptolemy fled to Egypt, where he was besieged by Antigonos on land and by Demetrios with a fleet. In spite of his extreme peril Ptolemy saved his empire [arkhē] by making a stand with an army at Pēlousion while offering resistance with warships from the river. Antigonos now abandoned all hope of reducing Egypt, under the circumstances, and dispatched Demetrios against the Rhodians with a fleet and a large army, hoping, if the island were won, to use it as a base against the Egyptians. But the Rhodians displayed daring and ingenuity in the face of the besiegers, while Ptolemy helped them with all the forces he could muster.
{1.6.7} Antigonos thus failed to reduce Egypt or, later, Rhodes, and shortly afterwards he offered battle to Lysimakhos, and to Kassandros and the army of Seleukos, but he lost most of his forces, and was himself killed, having suffered most by reason of the length of the war with Eumenes. Of the kings who put down Antigonos I hold that the most unholy [an-hosios] was Kassandros, who although he had recovered the throne of Macedonia with the aid of Antigonos, nevertheless came to fight against a benefactor.
{1.6.8} After the death of Antigonos, Ptolemy again reduced the Syrians and Cyprus, and also restored Pyrrhos to Thesprotia on the mainland. Cyrene rebelled; but Magas, the son of Berenikē (who was at this time married to Ptolemy) captured Cyrene in the fifth year of the rebellion. If this Ptolemy really was the son of Philip, son of Amyntas, he must have inherited from his father his madness [tò epi-manes] for women, for, while wedded to Eurydikē, the daughter of Antipatros, although he had children he went into a state-of-passion [erōs] for Berenikē, whom Antipatros had sent to Egypt with Eurydikē. Having conceived-a-passion [erastheis] for this woman, he had children by her, and when his end drew near he left the kingdom of Egypt to Ptolemy (after whom the Athenians name their phulē) being the son of Berenikē and not of the daughter of Antipatros.
{1.7.1} This Ptolemy, having-conceived-a-passion [erastheis] for Arsinoe, his full sister, married her, violating Macedonian custom [nomizomena] in doing so, but following that of his Egyptian subjects. Secondly he put to death his brother Argaios, who was, it is said, plotting against him; and it was he who brought down from Memphis the corpse [nekros] of Alexander. [30] He put to death another brother also, son of Eurydikē, on discovering that he was creating disaffection among the Cypriotes. Then Magas, the half-brother of Ptolemy, who had been entrusted with the governorship of Cyrene by his mother Berenikē—she had borne him to Philip, a Macedonian but of no note and of lowly origin—induced the people of Cyrene to revolt from Ptolemy and marched against Egypt.
{1.7.2} Ptolemy fortified the entrance into Egypt and awaited the attack of the Cyrenaeans. But while on the march Magas was informed that the Marmaridai, a tribe of Libyan nomads, had revolted, and thereupon fell back upon Cyrene. Ptolemy resolved to pursue, but was checked owing to the following circumstance. When he was preparing to meet the attack of Magas, he engaged mercenaries, including some four thousand Gauls. Discovering that they were plotting to seize Egypt, he led them through the river to a deserted island. There they perished at one another’s hands or by famine.
{1.7.3} Magas, who was married to Apame, daughter of Antiokhos, son of Seleukos, persuaded Antiokhos to break the treaty that his father Seleukos had made with Ptolemy and to attack Egypt. When Antiokhos resolved to attack, Ptolemy dispatched forces against all the subjects of Antiokhos—he sent plunderers to overrun the lands of the weaker, and an army to hold back the stronger—so that Antiokhos never had an opportunity to attack Egypt. I have already stated how this Ptolemy sent a fleet to help the Athenians against Antigonos and the Macedonians, but it did very little to save Athens. His children were born of Arsinoe—not his sister, but the daughter of Lysimakhos. His sister who had wedded him happened to die before this, leaving no issue, and there is in Egypt a district called Arsinoites after her.
{1.8.1} It is pertinent to add here a report about Attalos, because he too is one of the Athenian eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi]. A Macedonian by the name of Dokimos, a general of Antigonos, who afterwards surrendered both himself and his property to Lysimakhos, had a Paphlagonian eunuch called Philetairos. All that Philetairos did to further the revolt from Lysimakhos, and how he won over Seleukos, will form an episode in my account of Lysimakhos. Attalos, however, son of Attalos and nephew of Philetairos, received the kingdom from his cousin Eumenes, who handed it over. The greatest of his achievements was his forcing the Gauls to withdraw from the seacoast into the region that they still hold.
{1.8.2} After the likenesses [eikones] of the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] come statues [agalmata] of gods, Amphiaraos, and Eirene [‘Peace’] carrying the boy Ploutos [‘Wealth’[. Here stands a bronze figure of Lycurgus (Lukourgos), son of Lykophron, and of Kallias, who, as most of the Athenians say, brought about the peace between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. [31] Here also is Demosthenes, whom the Athenians forced to retire to Kalaureia, the island off Troizen, and then, after receiving him back, banished again after the disaster at Lamia.
{1.8.3} Exiled for the second time [32] Demosthenes crossed once more to Kalaureia, and committed suicide there by taking poison, being the only Greek exile whom Arkhias failed to bring back to Antipatros and the Macedonians. This Arkhias was a man from Thourioi who undertook the unholy [an-hosion] task of bringing to Antipatros for punishment those who had opposed the Macedonians before the Greeks met with their defeat in Thessaly. Such was Demosthenes’ reward for his great devotion [eu-noia] to Athens. I think it is well said, the saying that no man who has unsparingly thrown himself into political-life [politeiā] trusting in the loyalty of the democracy [tà tou dēmou] has ever met with a beautiful death.
{1.8.4} Near the likeness [eikōn] of Demosthenes is a sanctuary [hieron] of Ares, where are placed two statues [agalmata] of Aphrodite, one of Ares made by Alkamenes, and one of Athena made by a man from Paros by the name of Lokros. There is also a statue [agalma] of Enyo, made by the sons of Praxiteles. About the temple stand [images of] Hēraklēs, Theseus, Apollo binding his hair with a fillet [tainiā], and statues [andriantes] of Kalades, who it is said to have framed laws for the Athenians, and of Pindar, and this likeness [eikōn] [of Pindar] is one of the rewards the Athenians gave him for praising [ep-aineîn] them in a song that he made [poieîn].
{1.8.5} Close by stand statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who killed Hipparkhos. [33] The reason [aitiā] for this deed and the way it was done have been related by others; of the statues [andriantes] some were made by Kritios, the old ones being the work of Antenor. When Xerxes captured Athens after the Athenians had abandoned the city he took away these statues also among the spoils, but they were afterwards restored to the Athenians by Antiokhos.
{1.8.6} Before the entrance of the theater [theatron] that they call the Odeum [ōideion] are statues of Egyptian kings. They are all alike called Ptolemy, but each has his own surname. For they call one Philometor, and another Philadelphos, while the son of Lagos is called Soter, a name given him by the Rhodians. Of these, Philadelphos is he whom I have mentioned before among the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi], and near him is a likeness [eikōn] of his sister Arsinoe.
{1.9.1} The one called Philometor is eighth in descent from Ptolemy son of Lagos, and his surname was given him in sarcastic mockery [khleuasmos], for we know of none of the kings who was so hated by his mother. Although he was the eldest of her children she would not allow him to be called to the throne, but prevailed on his father before the call came to send him to Cyprus. Among the reasons assigned for Kleopatra’s enmity towards her son is her expectation that Alexander the younger of her sons would prove more subservient, and this consideration induced her to urge the Egyptians to choose Alexander as king.
{1.9.2} When the people [plēthos] offered opposition, she dispatched Alexander for the second time to Cyprus, ostensibly as general, but really because she wished by this means to make Ptolemy more afraid of her. Finally she covered with wounds those eunuchs she thought were best disposed [toward her, and thus least likely to object], and she presented them to the people [plēthos], pretending that she was the victim of Ptolemy’s machinations, and that he had treated the eunuchs in such a fashion. The people of Alexandria rushed to kill Ptolemy, and when he escaped on board a ship, made Alexander, who returned from Cyprus, their king.
{1.9.3} Retribution for the exile of Ptolemy came upon Kleopatra, for she was put to death by Alexander, whom she herself had made to be king of the Egyptians. When the deed was discovered, and Alexander fled in fear of the citizens, Ptolemy returned and for the second time assumed control of Egypt. He made war against the Thebans, who had revolted, reduced them two years after the revolt, and treated them so cruelly that they were left not even a memorializing [hupomnēma] of their former prosperity, which had so grown that they once surpassed in wealth the richest of the Greeks, even the sanctuary [hieron] of Delphi and the people of Orkhomenos. Shortly after this Ptolemy met with his appointed fate [moira], and the Athenians, who had been benefited by him in many ways, which I need not stop to relate, set up a bronze [statue] of him and of Berenikē, his only legitimate child.
{1.9.4} Next in line after the Egyptians are set up the statues of Philip and of his son Alexander. The events of their lives were too important to make digressive remarks [parerga] in what is another story. In the case of the Egyptians, they had their tokens of gratitude bestowed upon them because the honor [tīmē] they received was genuine and because they were benefactors, but it was rather the sycophancy [kolakeiā] of the people [plēthos] that resulted in tokens of gratitude to Philip and Alexander, since they set up a [statue of] Lysimakhos also not so much out of goodwill [eunoiā] as because they thought it would serve their immediate ends.
{1.9.5} This Lysimakhos was a Macedonian by birth and one of Alexander’s bodyguards [doruphoroi], whom Alexander once in anger shut up in a chamber with a lion, and afterwards found that he had overpowered the beast. Henceforth he always treated him with respect, and honored him as much as the noblest Macedonians. After the death of Alexander, Lysimakhos ruled those of the Thracians, who are neighbors of the Macedonians, who had been under the sway of Alexander and before him of Philip. These would comprise but a small part of Thrace. If populations be compared with populations no people except the Celts are more numerous than the Thracians taken all together, and for this reason no one before the Romans reduced the whole Thracian population. But the Romans have subdued all Thrace, and they also hold such Celtic territory as is worth possessing, but they have intentionally overlooked the parts that they consider useless through excessive cold or barrenness.
{1.9.6} Then Lysimakhos made war against his neighbors, first the Odrysai, secondly the Getai and their king Dromikhaites. Engaging with men not unversed in warfare and far his superiors in number, he himself escaped from a position of extreme danger, but his son Agathokles, who was serving with him then for the first time, was taken prisoner by the Getai. Lysimakhos met with other reverses afterwards, and attaching great importance to the capture of his son made peace with Dromikhaites, yielding to the king of the Getai the parts of his empire beyond the Istros, and, chiefly under compulsion, giving him his daughter in marriage. Others say that not Agathokles but Lysimakhos himself was taken prisoner, regaining his liberty when Agathokles made a treaty with the king of the Getai on his behalf. On his return he married to Agathokles Lysandra, the daughter of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, and of Eurydikē.
{1.9.7} He also crossed with a fleet to Asia (Minor) and helped to overthrow the empire [arkhē] of Antigonos. [34] And he founded the modern city of Ephesos, extending as far as the coast, bringing to it as settlers people of Lebedos and Kolophon, after destroying their cities, so that the iambic poet Phoenix composed-a-lament [thrēneîn] for the capture of Kolophon. Mermesianax, the one who wrote [graphein] elegies [elegeia], was, I think, no longer living, otherwise he too would certainly have been moved by the taking of Kolophon to make-a-lament [oduresthai]. Lysimakhos also went to war with Pyrrhos-son-of-Aiakidēs. Waiting for his departure from Epeiros—Pyrrhos was of a very roving disposition—he ravaged Epeiros until he reached the royal tombs [thēkai].
{1.9.8} The next parts of the story are not credible [pista] to me, but Hieronymos of Kardia writes [graphein] that he [= Lysimachus] destroyed the tombs [thēkai] and cast out the bones of the corpses. But this Hieronymos has a reputation generally of being biased against all the kings [basileîs] except for Antigonos, and of being unfairly partial towards him. As to the treatment of the tombs [taphoi] of the people of Epeiros, it is perfectly plain that it was malice that made him record that a Macedonian destroyed the tombs [thēkai] of the dead. Besides, Lysimakhos was surely aware that they were the ancestors not of Pyrrhos only but also of Alexander. In fact, Alexander was a native of Epeiros and descended from the lineage of the Aiakidai on his mother’s side, and the subsequent alliance between Pyrrhos and Lysimakhos proves that even as enemies they were not irreconcilable. Possibly Hieronymos had grievances against Lysimakhos, especially for his destroying the city of the people of Kardia and founding Lysimakheia in its stead on the isthmus of the Thracian Chersonesus.
{1.10.1} As long as Aridaios reigned, and after him Kassandros and his sons, friendly relations continued between Lysimakhos and Macedon. But when the kingdom devolved upon Demetrios, son of Antigonos, Lysimakhos, henceforth expecting that war would be declared upon him by Demetrios, resolved to take aggressive action. He was aware that Demetrios inherited a tendency to aggrandize, and he also knew that he visited Macedonia at the summons of Alexander and Kassandros, and on his arrival murdered Alexander himself [35] and ruled the Macedonians in his stead.
{1.10.2} For these reasons he clashed with Demetrios at Amphipolis and came near to being pushed out from Thrace, [36] but after Pyrrhos came to his aid he mastered Thrace and afterwards extended his empire at the expense of the Nestians and Macedonians. The greater part of Macedonia was under the control of Pyrrhos himself, who came from Epeiros with an army and was at that time on friendly terms with Lysimakhos. When, however, Demetrios crossed over into Asia (Minor) and made war on Seleukos, the alliance between Pyrrhos and Lysimakhos lasted only as long as Demetrios continued hostilities; when Demetrios submitted to Seleukos, the friendship between Lysimakhos and Pyrrhos was broken, and when war broke out Lysimakhos fought against Antigonos son of Demetrios and against Pyrrhos himself, had much the better of the struggle, conquered Macedonia and forced Pyrrhos to retreat to Epeiros.
{1.10.3} Erotic-passion [erōs] has a way of bringing many calamities [sumphrorai] for humans . Lysimakhos, although by this time of mature age and considered happy [eudaimōn] in respect of his children, and although Agathokles had children by Lysandra, nevertheless married Lysandra’s sister Arsinoe. This Arsinoe, fearing for her children, lest on the death of Lysimakhos they should fall into the hands of Agathokles, is said for this reason to have plotted against Agathokles. People have already written [graphein] about how Arsinoe got into a state of erotic-passion [erōs] for Agathokles, and, being unsuccessful, they say that she plotted against his life. They say also that Lysimakhos discovered later his wife’s machinations, but by now, toward the end, he had no resources left, having lost all who were near-and-dear [philoi] to him.
{1.10.4} Since Lysimakhos, then, entrusted to Arsinoe the murder of Agathokles, Lysandra fled to Seleukos, taking along her children and her brothers, who were taking refuge with Ptolemy and who finally adopted this course. They were accompanied on their escape to Seleukos by Alexander, who was the son of Lysimakhos by an Odrysian woman. So, going up to Babylon, they entreated Seleukos to make war on Lysimakhos. And, at the same time, Philetairos, to whom the property of Lysimakhos had been entrusted, aggrieved at the death of Agathokles and suspicious of the treatment he would receive at the hands of Arsinoe, seized Pergamon-on-the-Kaïkos, and sending a herald offered both the property and himself to Seleukos.
{1.10.5} Lysimakhos, hearing of all these things, lost no time in crossing into Asia (Minor), [37] and, taking the initiative, he attacked Seleukos, suffered a severe defeat, and was killed. Alexander, his son by the Odrysian woman, after interceding long with Lysandra, won possession of his body and afterwards conveyed [komizein] it to the Chersonesus and buried it, where his tomb is still to be seen between the village of Kardia and Paktye.
{1.11.1} Such were the things that happened in connection with Lysimakhos. The Athenians have also a likeness [eikōn] of Pyrrhos. This Pyrrhos was not related to Alexander, except by way of genealogy [genos]. Pyrrhos was son of Aiakidēs, son of Arybbas, but Alexander was son of Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemos, and the father of Neoptolemos and Arybbas was Alketas, son of Tharypos. And from Tharypos to Pyrrhos, son of Achilles, are fifteen generations [geneai]. Now, Pyrrhos was the first who after the capture of Troy disdained to return to Thessaly, but sailing to Epeiros dwelled there following the oracular-pronouncements [khrēsmoi] of Helenos. By Hermione Pyrrhos had no child, but by Andromache he had Molossos, Pielos, and Pergamos, who was the youngest. Helenos also had a son, Kestrinos, being married to Andromache after the killing of Pyrrhos at Delphi.
{1.11.2} Helenos on his death passed his rulership [arkhē] to Molossos, son of Pyrrhos, so that Kestrinos with volunteers from the people of Epeiros took possession of the region beyond the river Thyamis, while Pergamos crossed into Asia (Minor) and killed Areios, despot in Teuthrania, who fought with him in single combat for the rulership [arkhē], and gave his name to the city which is still called after him. [38] For Andromache, who accompanied him, there is still a hero-shrine [hērōion] in the city. [39] Pielos remained behind in Epeiros, and to him as ancestor Pyrrhos-son-of-Aiakidēs and his fathers traced their descent, and not to Molossos.
{1.11.3} Down to the time of Alketas, son of Tharypos, Epeiros too was under one king. But the sons of Alketas after a quarrel agreed to rule with equal authority, remaining faithful to their compact; and afterwards, when Alexander, son of Neoptolemos, died among the Leukanoi, and Olympias returned to Epeiros through fear of Antipatros, it was Aiakidēs, son of Arybbas, who continued in allegiance to Olympias and joined in her campaign against Aridaios and the Macedonians, although the men of Epeiros refused to accompany him.
{1.11.4} Olympias on her victory behaved in-unholy-ways [an-hosia] in the matter of the death of Aridaios, and in even more-unholy-ways [an-hosia] with regard to certain Macedonian men, and for this reason was considered to have deserved her subsequent treatment at the hands of Kassandros; so Aiakidēs at first was not received even by the people of Epeiros because of their hatred of Olympias, and when afterwards they forgave him, his return to Epeiros was next opposed by Kassandros. When a battle occurred at Oineadai between Philip-brother-of-Kassandros and Aiakidēs, it was Aiakidēs who was wounded and who shortly after met what was fated [tò khreōn]. [40]
{1.11.5} The people of Epeiros accepted Alketas as their king, being the son of Arybbas and the elder brother of Aiakidēs, but of an uncontrollable temper [thūmos] and on this account banished by his father. Immediately on his arrival he began to take out his insanity [mainesthai] on the people of Epeiros, until they rose up and put him and his children to death at night. After killing him they brought back Pyrrhos-son-of-Aiakidēs. No sooner had he arrived than Kassandros made war on him, while he was young in years and before he had consolidated his empire [arkhē]. When the Macedonians attacked him, Pyrrhos went to Ptolemy, son of Lagos, in Egypt. Ptolemy gave him as wife the half-sister of his children, and restored him by way of an Egyptian force.
{1.11.6} The first Greeks that Pyrrhos attacked on becoming king were the people of Corcyra. He saw that the island was near his own territory, and he did not wish others to have a base from which to attack him. My account of Lysimakhos has already related how he [= Pyrrhos] fared, after taking Corcyra, in his war with Lysimakhos—how he expelled Demetrios and ruled Macedonia until he was in turn expelled by Lysimakhos, the most important of his achievements until he waged war against the Romans,
{1.11.7} being the first Greek we know of to do so. For no further battle, it is said, took place between Aeneas and Diomedes with his Argives. One of the many ambitions of the Athenians was to reduce all Italy, but the disaster at Syracuse [41] prevented an encounter then with the Romans. Alexander, son of Neoptolemos, of the same family as Pyrrhos but older, died among the Leukanoi before he could engage the Romans in battle.
{1.12.1} So Pyrrhos was the first to cross the Ionian Sea from Greece to attack the Romans. [42] And even he crossed on the invitation of the people of Tarentum. For they were already involved in a war with the Romans, but were no match for them unaided. Pyrrhos was already in their debt, because they had sent a fleet to help him in his war with Corcyra, but the most cogent arguments of the envoys of Tarentum were their accounts of Italy, how its prosperity was equal to that of the whole of Greece, and their plea that it was unholy [an-hosion] to dismiss them when they had come as friends and suppliants in their hour of need. When the envoys urged these considerations, Pyrrhos remembered the capture of Troy, which he took to be an omen of his success in the war, as he was a descendant of Achilles making war upon a settlement [apoikiā] of Trojans.
{1.12.2} Pleased with this proposal, and being a man who never lost time when once he had made up his mind, he immediately proceeded to man war ships and to prepare transports to carry horses and men-at-arms. There are books [biblia] written by men of no renown when it comes to writing-things-up [sun-graphē], which are called commentaries [hupomnēmata]. When I read these I marveled [thaumazein] greatly both at the personal bravery of Pyrrhos in battle, and also at the forethought [pronoia] he displayed whenever a conflict was imminent. So, on this occasion also when crossing to Italy with a fleet he eluded the observation of the Romans, and for some time after his arrival they were unaware of his presence; it was only when the Romans made an attack upon the people of Tarentum that he appeared on the scene with his army, and his unexpected assault naturally threw his enemies into confusion.
{1.12.3} And being perfectly aware that he was no match for the Romans, he prepared to let loose against them his elephants. The first European to acquire elephants was Alexander, after subduing Poros and the power of the Indians; after his death others of the kings got them but Antigonos more than any; Pyrrhos captured his beasts in the battle with Demetrios. When on this occasion they came in sight the Romans were seized with panic, and did not believe they were animals.
{1.12.4} For although the use of ivory in arts and crafts all men obviously have known for a long time, the actual beasts, before the Macedonians crossed into Asia, nobody had seen at all except for the Indians themselves, for the Libyans, and for their neighbors. This is proved by Homer, who describes the couches and houses of the more prosperous kings as ornamented with ivory, but never mentions the beast; but if he had seen or heard about it he would, in my opinion, have been much more likely to speak of it than of the battle between the dwarf-men and cranes. [43]
{1.12.5} Pyrrhos was brought over to Sicily by an embassy of the Syracusans. The Carthaginians had crossed over and were destroying the Greek cities, and had set up a siege of Syracuse, the only city now remaining. When Pyrrhos heard this from the envoys he abandoned Tarentum and the Italiots on the coast, and crossing into Sicily forced the Carthaginians to raise the siege of Syracuse. In his self-conceit, although the Carthaginians, being Phoenicians of Tyre by ancient descent, were more experienced seafarers than any other non-Greek people of that day, Pyrrhos was nevertheless encouraged to engage them in a naval battle, employing the people of Epeiros, the majority of whom, even after the capture of Troy, knew nothing of the sea nor even as yet how to use salt. Witness the words of Homer in the Odyssey:
Nothing they know of the sea, and they mix not salt with what they eat. [44]
{1.13.1} Defeated on this occasion, Pyrrhos retreated with the remainder of his vessels to Tarentum. Here he met with a serious reverse. And his withdrawal, for he knew that the Romans would not let him depart without striking a blow, he contrived in the following manner. On his return from Sicily and his defeat, he first sent various dispatches to Asia (Minor) and to Antigonos, asking some of the kings for troops, some for money, and Antigonos for both. When the envoys returned and their dispatches were delivered, he summoned those in authority, whether from Epeiros or from Tarentum, and without reading any of the dispatches declared that reinforcements would come. A report spread quickly even to the Romans that Macedonians and men from Asia (Minor) also were crossing to the aid of Pyrrhos. The Romans, on hearing this, made no move, but Pyrrhos, on the approach of that very night, crossed to the headlands of the mountain called Keraunion.
{1.13.2} After the defeat in Italy, Pyrrhos gave his forces a rest and then declared war on Antigonos, his chief ground of complaint being the failure to send reinforcements to Italy. Overpowering the native troops of Antigonos and his Gallic mercenaries he pursued them to the coast cities, and himself reduced upper Macedonia and the Thessalians. The extent of the fighting and the decisive character of the victory of Pyrrhos are shown best by the Celtic armor dedicated in the sanctuary of Itonian Athena between Pherai and Larisa, with this inscription on them:
These shields did the Molossian one, as a gift to Itonian Athena,
{1.13.3} hang up, Pyrrhos did, taking them from the bold Gauls [Galatai],
having destroyed the entire army of Antigonos. No big wonder [thauma],
since the Aiakidai are masters of the spear, even now as also in the past.
{1.13.3} hang up, Pyrrhos did, taking them from the bold Gauls [Galatai],
having destroyed the entire army of Antigonos. No big wonder [thauma],
since the Aiakidai are masters of the spear, even now as also in the past.
These shields then are here, but the shields of the Macedonians themselves he dedicated to Dodonian Zeus. They too have an inscription:
These [shields] once ravaged the golden land of Asia,
and they brought slavery upon the Greeks.
Now ownerless they lie by the columns of the temple [nāos] of Zeus,
spoils from boastful Macedonia.
and they brought slavery upon the Greeks.
Now ownerless they lie by the columns of the temple [nāos] of Zeus,
spoils from boastful Macedonia.
Pyrrhos came very near to reducing Macedonia entirely, but,
{1.13.4} being usually readier to do what came first to hand, he was prevented by Kleonymos. This Kleonymos, who persuaded Pyrrhos to abandon his Macedonian adventure and to go to the Peloponnesus, was a Lacedaemonian who led a hostile army into the Lacedaemonian territory for a reason I will relate after giving the descent of Kleonymos. Pausanias, who was in command of the Greeks at Plataea, [45] was the father of Pleistoanax, he of Pausanias, and he of Kleombrotos, who was killed at Leuktra fighting against Epameinondas and the Thebans. Kleombrotos was the father of Agesipolis and Kleomenes, and, Agesipolis dying without issue, Kleomenes ascended the throne.
{1.13.5} Kleomenes had two sons, the elder being Akrotatos and the younger Kleonymos. Now Akrotatos died first; and when afterwards Kleomenes died, a claim to the throne was put forward by Areus son of Akrotatos, and Kleonymos took steps to induce Pyrrhos to enter the country. Before the battle of Leuktra [46] the Lacedaemonians had suffered no disaster, so that they even refused to admit that they had yet been defeated in a land battle. For Leonidas, they said, had won the victory, [47] but his followers were insufficient for the entire destruction of the Persians; the achievement of Demosthenes and the Athenians on the island of Sphakteria [48] was no victory, but only a trick in war.
{1.13.6} Their first reverse took place in Boeotia, and they afterwards suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Antipatros and the Macedonians. [49] Thirdly the war with Demetrios [50] came as an unexpected misfortune to their land. Invaded by Pyrrhos and seeing a hostile army for the fourth time, they arrayed themselves to meet it along with the Argives and Messenians who had come as their allies. Pyrrhos won the day, and came near to capturing Sparta without further fighting, but desisted for a while after ravaging the land and carrying off plunder. [51] The citizens prepared for a siege, and Sparta even before this in the war with Demetrios had been fortified with deep trenches and strong stakes, and at the most vulnerable points with buildings as well.
{1.13.7} Just about this time, while the Laconian war was dragging on, Antigonos, having recovered the Macedonian cities, hastened to the Peloponnesus being well aware that if Pyrrhos were to reduce Lacedaemon and the greater part of the Peloponnesus, he would not return to Epeiros but to Macedonia to make war there again. When Antigonos was about to lead his army from Argos into Laconia, Pyrrhos himself reached Argos. Victorious once more he dashed into the city along with the exiles, and his formation not unnaturally was broken up.
{1.13.8} When the fighting was now taking place by sanctuaries and houses, and in the narrow lanes, between detached bodies in different parts of the city, Pyrrhos, left by himself, was wounded in the head. It is said that his death [52] was caused by a blow from a tile thrown by a woman. The Argives however declare that it was not a woman who killed him but Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is what the Argives themselves relate about his end, and Lykeas, the exegete [ex-hēgetēs] for the local-population {epikhōrioi], has also said so in hexameters [epē]. They [= the Argives] have a sanctuary [hieron] of Demeter, built in accordance with an oracular-saying [khrēnai], on the spot where Pyrrhos died,
{1.13.9} and, in there, Pyrrhos is buried. I consider it a wonder [thauma] that, of those who are called Aiakidai, three met their end [teleutē] in the same kinds of way through the agency of the god [ek tou theou]—if, as Homer says, Achilles was killed by Alexander, son of Priam, and by Apollo, and if the people of Delphi were bidden by the Pythia to slay Pyrrhos, son of Achilles, and if the end of the son of Aiakidēs was such as the Argives say and as Lykeas has said-in-poetry [poieîn]. What Hieronymos of Kardia has written [graphein], however, is different, since a man who associates with royalty cannot help being partial in what he writes up [sun-graphein]. If Philistos had just-cause [aitiā dikaiā] in suppressing the most unholy [an-hosia] deeds of Dionysius, because he expected to be restored to Syracuse from exile, surely Hieronymos may be fully forgiven for writing [graphein] to please Antigonos.
{1.14.1} In this way did the period when the people of Epeiros reached their zenith come-to-a-catastrophic-end [kata-strephein]. As you enter the Odeum [ōideion], you find situated there, among other things that are also worthy of viewing [théā], a figure of Dionysus. Nearby is a fountain [krēnē] called Enneakrounos [‘Nine Streams’]; the way it is now is the way it had been arranged [kosmeîsthai] by Peisistratos. Unlike the cisterns [phreata] that are found all over the city, this fountain is really a freshwater spring [pēgē]. Looming over the fountain [krēnē] are two shrines [nāoi]. One of them is sacred to Demeter and the Maiden [Korē]. Inside the other one, a statue [agalma] of Triptolemos has been set up. I will write down [graphein] the things that pertain to him [= Triptolemos], but I will omit whatever part of the things-that-are-said [logos] pertains to Dēiopē.
{1.14.2} The Greeks [Hellēnes] who dispute [amphisbēteîn], more than anyone else, the claims made by the people of Athens regarding their antiquity [arkhaiotēs] and also regarding the gifts they say they have received from the gods [theoi], are the people of Argos, just as among those who are non-Greeks [barbaroi] the Egyptians compete with the Phrygians. So, it is said [by the people of Argos] that when Demeter came to Argos she was received by Pelasgos into his home [oikos], and that Khrysanthis, knowing about the abduction [harpagē] of the Maiden [Korē], related-the-story [di-hēgeîsthai] to her. They say that, at a later point, Trokhilos, revealer-of-the-mysteries [hierophantēs], fled from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica, and married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubouleus and Triptolemos. This is what-is-said [logos] by the people of Argos. But the people of Athens and those who inhabit Athens with them […] know that Triptolemos, son of Keleus, was the first to sow-seed [speirein] for getting cultivated grain-to-be-harvested [karpos].
{1.14.3} There are on one hand verses [epē] of Musaeus—if in fact even these verses really belong to Musaeus—that say, in the singing [āidesthai = aeidesthai], that Triptolemos is the son of Ōkeanos and Earth. There are on the other hand verses of Orpheus—again, I do not think that these verses belong to Orpheus—saying that Eubouleus and Triptolemos are sons of Dysaules, and that because they made-revelations [mēnuein] to Demeter about her daughter, she gave them as her gift the sowing [speirein] of grains-to-be-harvested [karpoi]. But Khoirilos, an Athenian, who made [poieîn] a drama [drâma] called Alopē, says that Kerkyon and Triptolemos were brothers, that their mother was the daughter of Amphiktyon, and that the father of Triptolemos was Raros—while the father of Kerkyon was Poseidon. I was getting ready to go further in connection with this thing-that-is-said [logos], telling about however many things the sacred-place [hieron] has available for interpretation [ex-hēgēsis]—I mean, the sacred place that is called Eleusinion, but a vision [opsis] that came from a dream [oneirar] held me back. As for things that it is divinely-allowed [hosion] to write down [graphein] in addressing everyone, I will turn [apo-trepesthai] to these things while turning away from other things.
{1.14.4} In front of the temple [nāos], where is also the statue [agalma] of Triptolemos, is a bronze bull being led as it were to sacrifice [thusiā], and what has been made [pe-poíētai] there is a seated figure of Epimenides of Knossos, who they say came to a field [agros], entered a cave [spēlaion] there, and fell-asleep [koimâsthai]. The sleep [hupnos] did not leave him before the fortieth year, and afterwards he made [poieîn] verses [epē] and purified [kathairein] Athens and other cities. But Thales, who stopped the plague [nosos] for the Lacedaemonians, was not related to Epimenides in any way, and did not belong to the same city. The one I mentioned first was from Knossos, but Thales was from Gortyn, according to Polymnastos of Kolophon, who composed [poieîn] verses [epē] with reference to him for the Lacedaemonians.
{1.14.5} Still farther off is a shrine [nāos] of Eúkleia ‘goddess of good glory [kleos]’, this too being a thank-offering [anathēma] having to do with [the victory over] the Persians [Mēdoi] who had landed at Marathon. It is in-responsiveness-to [epi + dative case] this victory [nīkē] that the Athenians have- their most lofty -thoughts [phroneîn ‘have thoughts’ + malista ‘most of all’]. A special example is Aeschylus. When the completion [teleutē] of his life was coming into view for him, he reminisced [mnēmoneuein] not about any of his other deeds, even though he had reached such heights of glory [doxa] with his poetry [poiēsis] and with his participation in the naval battles of Artemision and at Salamis. Instead, he just wrote down [graphein] [in an epigram] his name, his father’s name, the name of his city of origin [= Athens], and how he had as his witnesses for affirming his manly-valor [andreiā] the grove [alsos] at Marathon—and the Persians [Mēdoi] who had landed there.
{1.14.6} Looming over the Kerameikos and the portico [stoā] called the King’s Portico [Stoā Baslileios] is a temple [nāos] of Hephaistos. No wonder [thauma], I thought, that next to it stands a statue [agalma] of Athena, because I know the thing-that-is-said [logos] in-responsiveness-to [epi + dative case] Erikhthonios. And when I saw that the statue [agalma] of Athena had gray [glaukoi] eyes I made-inquiries-and-found-out [heuriskein] that the myth [mūthos] comes from the Libyans. For it has been said by the Libyans that the goddess is the daughter of Poseidon and of the [personified] lake [limnē] Tritonis, so that, for this reason, she has gray [glaukoi] eyes like Poseidon.
{1.14.7} Nearby is a sanctuary [hieron] of Aphrodite the celestial one [Ouraniā]; the first humans [anthrōpoi] to establish the custom of worshipping [sebesthai] her were the Assyrians, and then, after the Assyrians, the Paphians of Cyprus and the Phoenicians who live at Askalon in Palestine [Palaistinē]; it is from the Phoenicians that the people of Kythēra learned the practice of worshipping [sebesthai] her. Among the Athenians it was Aigeus who established [kathistasthai] the practice, who thought that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had suffered their misfortune [sumphorā] because of the wrath [mēnīma] of Aphrodite the celestial one [Ouraniā]. The statue [agalma], as it exists even in my time, is of Parian marble and is the work [ergon] of Pheidias. One of the Athenian demes [dēmoi] is that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Aktaios, founded their sanctuary [hieron] of the celestial one [Ouraniā]. But the traditions current among the demes [dēmoi] often differ altogether from those of the city [polis].
{1.15.1} As you go to the portico [stoā] that they call painted [poikilē], because of its paintings [graphai], there is a bronze statue of Hermes of-the-Marketplace [agoraios], and near it a gate [pulē]. Placed over it [= the gate] is a trophy [tropaion] erected by the Athenians, who in a cavalry action overcame Pleistarkhos, to whose command his brother Kassandros had entrusted his cavalry and mercenaries. This portico [stoā] contains [wall paintings that represent], first, the Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oinoe in the Argive territory. What has been painted [graphesthai] is not the critical-point [akmē] of the struggle [agōn] nor when the action [ergon] had advanced as far as the display [epideixis] of deeds of valor, but the beginning of the fight when the combatants were about to close in on each other.
{1.15.2} On the middle wall are [wall paintings that represent] the Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. So it seems that only the women did not lose through their defeats their reckless courage in the face of danger; Themiskyra was taken by Hēraklēs, and afterwards the army that they [= the Amazons] dispatched to Athens was destroyed, but nevertheless they [= the Amazons] came to Troy to fight all the Greeks [Hellēnes] as well as the Athenians themselves. Next after the Amazons are shown the Greeks [Hellēnes] when they have taken Troy [Ilion], and the kings assembled on account of the outrage [tolmēma] committed by Ajax against Cassandra. The painting [graphē] includes Ajax himself, Cassandra, and other captive women.
{1.15.3} At the concluding part of the painting [graphē] are [represented] the men who fought at Marathon, namely, the men from [the city of] Plataea-in-Boeotia and the men from all the territory-of-Athens [= Attica]. They are at the moment of coming into contact in hand-to-hand combat with the foreigners [barbaroi, = the Persians]. At this point, the two sides are evenly matched for the action [ergon], but then, in a close-up of the battle [makhē], the foreigners [barbaroi] are starting to turn and run, heading for the marshland [helos] and crowding each other [into the morass]. At the outer edges of the painting are [represented] the [beached] ships of the Phoenician navy and the Greeks [Hellēnes] who are slaughtering those of the foreigners [barbaroi] who are scrambling to climb on board. And at this point is painted [graphesthai] also the hero [hērōs] by the name of Marathon, after whom the plain [pedíon] called Marathon gets its name. Also represented [eikazesthai] is Theseus as he appeared when he was coming back up from under the earth. Also, Athena and Hēraklēs. Let me explain: you see [= gar], the people of Marathon were the first to establish-the-custom-of-venerating [nomizein] Hēraklēs as a god [theos]. Featured most prominently in the painting [graphē] are Kallimakhos, who had been elected commander-in-chief [polem-arkhos] by the Athenians, and Miltiades, one of the generals [stratēgoi]. Also [featured is] a hero [hērōs] called Ekhetlos, about whom I will make mention [mnēmē] at a later point as well. [53]
{1.15.4} Here are dedicated bronze shields, and some have an inscription [saying] that they are taken from the Skiōnaioi and their allies, [54] while others, smeared with pitch lest they should be worn by age and rust, are said to be those of the Lacedaemonians who were taken prisoners in the island of Sphakteria. [55]
{1.16.1} Here are placed bronze statues [andriantes], one, in front of the portico [stoā], of Solon, who wrote [graphein] the laws [nomoi] for the Athenians, [56] and, a little farther away, one of Seleukos, whose future prosperity was foreshadowed by signs [sēmeia] that were not at all unclear [aphanes-]. When he was about to set forth from Macedonia with Alexander, and was sacrificing [thuein] at Pella to Zeus, the wood [xula] that was placed on the altar [bōmos] moved all-by-itself [automato-] toward the statue [agalma] and caught-fire [haptesthai] without the application of fire. After Alexander died, Seleukos, in fear of Antigonos, who had arrived at Babylon, fled to Ptolemy, son of Lagos, and then returned again to Babylon. On his return he overcame the army of Antigonos and killed Antigonos himself, afterwards capturing Demetrios, son of Antigonos, who had advanced with an army.
{1.16.2} After these successes, which were shortly followed by the fall of Lysimakhos, he [= Seleukos] entrusted to his son Antiokhos all his empire [arkhē] in Asia (Minor), and himself proceeded rapidly towards Macedonia, having with him an army both of Greeks and of foreigners [barbaroi]. But Ptolemy, brother of Lysandra, had taken refuge with him from Lysimakhos; this man [= Ptolemy], who was in any case prone to be-daring [tolmân] and for this reason was called Thunderbolt [Keraunos], [accomplished quite a daring act] when the army of Seleukos had advanced as far as Lysimakheia: he [= Ptolemy] killed Seleukos by stealth. Then he turned over to the [other] kings [basileîs] his possessions [= the possessions of Seleukos], [57] while he [= Ptolemy] ruled-as-king [basileuein] over Macedonia until, being as far as we know the first of the kings [basileîs] to dare [tolmân] to face the Gauls [Galatai] in battle, he was killed by these foreigners [barbaroi]. [58] The empire [arkhē] was restored-to-safety [sōzesthai] by Antigonos son of Demetrios.
{1.16.3} I am persuaded that Seleukos was the most righteous [dikaios], and in particular the most pious-in-ritual [eu-sebēs] of the kings [baslileîs]. For one thing, it was Seleukos who sent-back [kata-pempein] to Brankhidai for the people of Miletus the bronze Apollo that had been carried [ana-komizesthai] by Xerxes to Ecbatana in Persia. For another thing, when he founded [oikizein] Seleukeia on the river Tigris and brought to it Babylonians as settlers [sunoikoi], he spared the wall [teikhos] of Babylon as well as the sanctuary [hieron] of Bēl, near which he permitted the Chaldaeans to settle [oikeîn].
{1.17.1} In the Agora of the Athenians there are things that are not meaningful [epi-sēma] to all [though they are meaningful to me]. Among such things is an altar [bōmos] [sacred] to Pity [Eleos] [personified]. Of all the other gods [theoi] he [= Eleos] is the most helpful [ōphelimos] in the life [bios] of-humans [anthrōpinos] and in the vicissitudes of their affairs [pragmata], but only the Athenians, alone among the Greeks [Hellēnes], assign [nemein] to him [= Eleos] honors [tīmai] [of worship]. And they [= the Athenians] have institutionalized not only those things that pertain to love-of-humanity [philanthrōpiā] but they also piously-engage-in-rituals [eusebeîn] more than the others. You see, they also have an altar [bōmos] [sacred] to Decency [Aidōs] [personified], one to Special-Wording [Phēmē] [personified], and one to Initiative [Hormē] [personified]. It is clear [dēla], visibly [enargōs] so, that those who excel in piously-engaging-in-ritual [eu-sebeîn] have an equally great share in good [khrēstē] fortune [tukhē].
{1.17.2} Not far from the Agora is a gymnasium that is named after Ptolemy, its founder. In this gymnasium are stone Hermai worthy of viewing [théā] and a likeness [eikōn] in bronze of Ptolemy. Here also is Juba the Libyan and Khrysippos [59] of Soloi. Close by the gymnasium is a sanctuary [hieron] of Theseus, where are paintings [graphai] of Athenians battling Amazons. [The story of] this war [polemos] has also been crafted [poieîsthai] for them on the shield [aspis] of their [statue of] Athena and upon the base [bathron] of the [statue of] Olympian Zeus. There has also been painted [graphesthai] in the sanctuary [hieron] of Theseus the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithai. Theseus has already killed a Centaur, but, for the others [= the other fighters], the fighting is still undecided.
{1.17.3} The painting [graphē] on the third wall [of the sanctuary of Theseus] is not clear [saphēs] for those who have not inquired-about-and-learned [punthanesthai] what is said [legein]. It [= the lack of clarity] is due partly to the passage of time and partly to the fact that Mikon [the painter] did not paint [graphein] the entirety of what is said to have happened. When Minos was bringing to Crete Theseus and the rest of the group-that-was sent [stolos], which was a group of young-ones [paides], he [= Minos] conceived a passion [erâsthai] for Periboia, and, when Theseus opposed him with the greatest kind of opposition [imaginable], he [= Minos] got angry and hurled insults at him [= Theseus], saying that he [= Theseus] was not the son of Poseidon, claiming that he [= Theseus] could not bring-back-to-safety [ana-sōzein] for him the signet-ring [sphrāgis] that he [= Minos] happened to be wearing, if he [= Minos] threw it into the sea. Saying these things, Minos is said to have thrown the signet-ring [sphrāgis], but they say that Theseus came up [for air] from out of the sea holding that signet-ring [sphrāgis] and holding also a gold garland [stephanos] that Amphitrite gave him.
{1.17.4} With regard to the end [teleutē] of Theseus many things have been said, and these things are not [mutually] consistent. They say he was kept tied-down [deesthai] until he was brought-back [an-agein] by Hēraklēs [to the light of day], but, of all the things I heard, the most believable [pithanon] is as follows. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king, and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peirithoös—he too was taking part in the expedition, being eager for the marriage—were taken captive. The Thesprotian king kept them tied-down [deein] at Kikhyros.
{1.17.5} Among the things worthy of seeing [théā] at Thesprotia are a sanctuary [hieron] of Zeus at Dodona and an oak [phēgos] sacred [hierā] to the god [theos]. Near Kikhyros is a lake called Akherousia, and a river called Akheron. There is also Kokytos, a stream of water [hudōr] that is the-farthest-away-from-giving-any-pleasure [aterpestaton]. I think it was because Homer had seen these places that he acted boldly in putting into his poetry [poiēsis] the things having to do with Hadēs, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus held-back [ekhesthai], the sons of Tyndareus [= the Dioskouroi] led their armed forces against Aphidna, captured it, and restored Menestheus to the kingship.
{1.17.6} Now Menestheus took no account of the children of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea, but he was aware that Theseus, if ever he was-brought-back-to-safety [ana-komizesthai] from Thesprotia, would be a powerful antagonist, and so he curried favor with the people [dēmos], with the result that Theseus, when he had been brought-back-home-to-safety [ana-sōzesthai], was expelled [after his homecoming]. Theseus now set-off-on-a-voyage [stellesthai] to [reach a man called] Deukalion in Crete. Being carried off-course by winds to the island of Skyros he was treated splendidly by the inhabitants, thanks to the fame [doxa] of his lineage [genos] and to the worthiness of his own achievements. For this very reason, Lykomedes plotted his death. And-from-what-I-have-just-said-you-can-now-see-why [men dē] the Athenians had their hero-precinct [sēkos] [of Theseus]. This was after the Persians landed at Marathon. It was when Kimon, son of Miltiades, removed the population of Skyros, thus exacting vindication [dikē] for the death of Theseus, and brought-to-safety [komizein] his bones to Athens.{1.18.1} The sanctuary [hieron] of the Dioskouroi is ancient. They themselves are represented as standing, while their sons are seated on horses. Here Polygnotus [60] painted [graphein] the marriage of the daughters of Leukippos, which was [a story that was] pertinent to them [= the Dioskouroi], while Mikon painted those who sailed with Jason to the land of Kolkhis. He [=Mikon] focused his [artistic] effort on Akastos and the horses of Akastos.
{1.18.2} Looming over the sanctuary [hieron] of the Dioskouroi is a sacred-enclosure [temenos] of Aglauros. It was to Aglauros and her sisters, Herse and Pandrosos, that they say Athena gave Erikhthonios, whom she had hidden in a box [kibōtos], forbidding them to pry curiously into what was entrusted to their charge. Pandrosos, they say, obeyed, but the other two opened the box [kibōtos], and went mad [mainesthai] when they saw Erikhthonios, and they threw themselves down the steepest part of the Acropolis. Here it was that the Persians [Mēdoi] climbed [up the Acropolis] and killed the Athenians who thought that they understood the oracle [61] better than did Themistocles, and fortified the Acropolis with logs and stakes. [62]
{1.18.3} Close by is the Prytaneion [‘city hall’], in which the laws of Solon are inscribed, and statues [agalmata] are placed of the goddesses Eirene [‘Peace’] and Hestia [‘Hearth’], while among the statues-of-humans [andriantes] is Autolykos, a contestant in the pankration. [63] And, you see [gar], the likenesses of Miltiades and Themistocles have had their inscriptions reinscribed to refer to a Roman and a Thracian.
{1.18.4} As you descend from here to the lower part of the city, there is a sanctuary [hieron] of Serapis, whose worship the Athenians introduced from Ptolemy. Of the Egyptian sanctuaries [hiera] of Serapis the most famous is at Alexandria, the oldest at Memphis. Into the second of these two neither stranger nor priest may enter, until they make-a-funeral-for [thaptein] Apis. Not far from the sanctuary of Serapis is the place where they say that Peirithoös and Theseus made their pact before setting forth to Lacedaemon and afterwards to Thesprotia.
{1.18.5} Close by is built a temple [nāos] of Eileithuia, who they say came from the Hyperboreans to Delos as a helper [boēthoos] to Leto in her labor; and from Delos the name spread to other populations. The people of Delphi sacrifice [thuein] to Eileithuia and sing a hymn [humnos] of Olen. But the Cretans customarily-think [nomizein] that Eileithuia was born at Amnisos in the territory of Knossos, and that Hērā was her mother. Only among the Athenians are the wooden-figures [xoana] of Eileithuia draped [kaluptesthai] all the way to the feet. The women told me that two [of these xoana] are Cretan, being offerings [anathēmata] of Phaedra, and that the third [xoanon], which is the oldest, Erysikhthon brought [komizein] from Delos.
{1.18.6} Before you enter the sanctuary [hieron] of Olympian Zeus—Hadrian as ‘King’ [basileus] of the Romans dedicated [anatithenai] the temple [nāos] and the statue [agalma] [of Zeus], so worthy of viewing [théa], which in size exceeds all other statues [agalmata] except for the colossi [kolossoi] in Rhodes and in Rome, and is made of ivory and gold with an artistic skill [tekhnē] that is remarkable when the size is taken into account—before you enter, as I say, there are statues [eikones] of Hadrian, two of Thasian stone, two of Egyptian. In front of the columns [kiones] stand bronze statues that the Athenians call apoikoi poleis. The whole perimeter of the precinct is about four stadium-lengths, and it is full of statues; for every city has dedicated a likeness [eikōn] of Hadrian as King [basileus], but the Athenians have surpassed them all in dedicating [anatithenai], in the back part of the temple, the colossus [kolossos] [of Zeus], so worthy of viewing [théā].
{1.18.7} Within the perimeter are antiquities: a bronze Zeus, a shrine [nāos] of Kronos and Rhea, and an enclosure [temenos] of Earth [Gē] surnamed Olympian [Olumpiā]. There is an opening in the floor here, which is the width of a cubit, and they say that it was here that the water flowed off after the cataclysm that occurred in the time of Deukalion, and into it they cast every year ground wheat mixed with honey.
{1.18.8} On top of a column [kiōn] is a statue [andrias] of Isocrates, in whose memory [mnēmē] three things are to be noted: his being most-painstaking [epiponōtatos] in continuing to have students [mathētai] up to the end of his ninety-eight years, his being most-moderate [sōphronestatos] in keeping aloof from politics [politeiā] and from officiousness in public-affairs [koina], and his being most-devoted-to-freedom [eleutherōtatos] in dying a voluntary death, distressed as he was at the news of the battle at Khairōneia. [64] There are also statues in Phrygian marble of Persians supporting a bronze tripod; both the figures and the tripod are worthy of viewing [théā]. The ancient sanctuary [hieron] of Olympian Zeus the Athenians say was built by Deukalion, and they show as a sign [sēmeion]—that Deukalion resided [oikeîn] in Athens—a tomb [taphos] that is not far from the present temple [nāos].
{1.18.9} Hadrian constructed other buildings also for the Athenians: a temple [nāos] of Hērā and Zeus Panhellēnios [‘belonging to all Hellenes’], a sanctuary [hieron] that was common [koinon] to all the gods, and, most famous of all, a hundred columns [kiones] of Phrygian marble. The walls [toikhoi] too are constructed of the same material as the porticoes [stoai]. And there are rooms there adorned with a gilded roof and with alabaster stone, as well as with statues [agalmata] and paintings [graphai]. In them are kept books [biblia]. There is also a gymnasium named after Hadrian; of this too the columns [kiones] are a hundred in number, from the Libyan quarries.
{1.19.1} Close to the temple of Olympian Zeus is a statue [agalma] of the Pythian Apollo. There is further a sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Delphinios. The story has it that when the temple was finished with the exception of the roof Theseus arrived in the city, a stranger as yet to everybody. When he came to the temple of the Delphinian, wearing a tunic that reached to his feet and with his hair neatly plaited, those who were building the roof mockingly inquired what a marriageable virgin was doing wandering about by herself. The only answer that Theseus made was to loose, it is said, the oxen from the cart close by, and to throw them higher than the roof of the temple they were building.
{1.19.2} Concerning the district called The Gardens, and the temple of Aphrodite, there is no story that is told by them, nor yet about the Aphrodite which stands near the temple. Now the shape of it is square, like that of the Hermai, and the inscription declares that Aphrodite the celestial one [Ourania] is the oldest of those called Fates. But the statue [agalma] of Aphrodite in the Gardens is the work of Alkamenes, and one of the most note worthy things in Athens.
{1.19.3} There is also the place called Kynosarges, sacred to Hēraklēs; the story of the white dog may be known by reading the oracle. There are altars of Hēraklēs and Hebe, who they think is the daughter of Zeus and wife to Hēraklēs. An altar has been built to Alkmene and to Iolaos, who shared with Hēraklēs most of his labors. The Lyceum [Lukeion] has its name from Lykos [Lukos], the son of Pandion, but it was considered sacred to Apollo from the beginning down to my time, and here was the god first named Lykios [Lukios]. It is said that the Termilai also, to whom Lykos came when he fled from Aigeus, were called Lykioi [Lukioi] after him.
{1.19.4} Behind the Lyceum is a monument of Nisos, who was killed while king of Megara by Minos, and the Athenians carried him here and buried him. About this Nisos there is a legend. His hair, they say, was red, and it was fated that he should die on its being cut off. When the Cretans attacked the country, they captured by assault the other cities of the region of Megara, but Nisaia, in which Nisos had taken refuge, they besieged. The story says how the daughter of Nisos, falling in love here with Minos, cut off her father’s hair.
{1.19.5} Such is the legend. The rivers that flow through Athenian territory are the Ilissos and its tributary the Eridanos, whose name is the same as that of the Celtic river. This Ilissos is the river by which Oreithyia was playing when, according to the story, she was carried off by the North Wind. With Oreithyia he lived in wedlock, and be cause of the tie between him and the Athenians he helped them by destroying most of the foreigners’ warships. The Athenians hold that the Ilissos is sacred to other deities as well, and on its bank is an altar of the Muses of Ilissos. The place too is pointed out where the Peloponnesians killed Kodros, son of Melanthos and king of Athens.
{1.19.6} Across the Ilissos is a district called Agrai and a temple of Artemis Agrotera (the Huntress). They say that Artemis first hunted here when she came from Delos, and for this reason the statue [agalma] holds a bow. A marvel to the eyes, though not so impressive to hear of, is a race-course of white marble, the size of which can best be estimated from the fact that beginning in a crescent on the heights above the Ilissos it descends in two straight lines to the river bank. This was built by Herodes, an Athenian, and the greater part of the Pentelic quarry was exhausted in its construction.
{1.20.1} Leading from the Prytaneion is a road called Tripods. The place takes its name from the shrines, large enough to hold the tripods which stand upon them, of bronze, but containing very remarkable works of art, including a Satyr, of which Praxiteles is said to have been very proud. Phryne once asked of him the most beautiful of his works, and the story goes that lover-like he agreed to give it, but refused to say which he thought the most beautiful. So a slave of Phryne rushed in saying that a fire had broken out in the studio of Praxiteles, and the greater number of his works were lost, though not all were destroyed.
{1.20.2} Praxiteles at once started to rush through the door crying that his labor was all wasted if indeed the flames had caught his Satyr and his Love. But Phryne ordered him to stay and be of good courage, for he had suffered no grievous loss, but had been trapped into confessing which were the most beautiful of his works. So Phryne chose the statue of Love; while a Satyr is in the temple of Dionysus close by, a boy holding out a cup. The Love standing with him and the Dionysus were made by Thymilos.
{1.20.3} The oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is near the theater. Within the precincts are two temples and two statues of Dionysus, the Eleuthereus (Deliverer) and the one Alkamenes made of ivory and gold. There are paintings here—Dionysus bringing Hephaistos up to the sky [ouranos]. One of the Greek legends is that Hephaistos, when he was born, was thrown down by Hērā. In revenge he sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hērā sat down she was held fast, and Hephaistos refused to listen to any other of the gods save Dionysus—in him he reposed the fullest trust—and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to the sky [ouranos]. Besides this picture there are also represented Pentheus and Lycurgus (Lukourgos) paying the penalty of their insolence to Dionysus, Ariadne asleep, Theseus putting out to sea, and Dionysus on his arrival to carry off Ariadne.
{1.20.4} Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theater is a structure that is said to be a replica of Xerxes’ tent. It has been rebuilt, for the old building was burned by the Roman general Sulla when he took Athens. [65] The cause of the war was this. Mithridates was king over the foreigners around the Black Sea. Now the grounds on which he made war against the Romans, how he crossed into Asia, and the cities he took by force of arms or made his friends, I must leave for those to find out who wish to know the history of Mithridates, and I shall confine my narrative to the capture of Athens.
{1.20.5} There was an Athenian, Aristion, whom Mithridates employed as his envoy to the Greek cities. He induced the Athenians to join Mithridates rather than the Romans, although he did not induce all, but only the lower orders, and only the turbulent among them. The respectable Athenians fled to the Romans of their own accord. In the engagement that ensued the Romans won a decisive victory; Aristion and the Athenians they drove in flight into the city, Arkhelaos and the foreigners into the Peiraieus. This Arkhelaos was another general of Mithridates, whom earlier than this the Magnesians, who inhabit the region of Mount Sipylos, wounded when he raided their territory, killing most of the foreigners as well. So Athens was invested.
{1.20.6} Taxilos, a general of Mithridates, was at the time besieging Elateia in Phokis, but on receiving the news he withdrew his troops towards Attica. Learning this, the Roman general entrusted the siege of Athens to a portion of his army, and with the greater part of his forces advanced in person to meet Taxilos in Boeotia. On the third day from this, news came to both the Roman armies; Sulla heard that the Athenian fortifications had been stormed, and the besieging force learned that Taxilos had been defeated in battle near Khairōneia. When Sulla returned to Attica he imprisoned in the Kerameikos the Athenians who had opposed him, and one chosen by lot out of every ten he ordered to be led to execution.
{1.20.7} Sulla abated nothing of his wrath against the Athenians, and so a few effected an escape to Delphi, and asked if the time were now come when it was fated for Athens also to be made desolate, receiving from the Pythia the response about the wine skin. Afterwards Sulla was smitten with the disease which I learn attacked Pherecydes the Syrian. Although Sulla’s treatment of the Athenian people was so savage as to be unworthy of a Roman, I do not think that this was the cause of his calamity, but rather the vengeance of the suppliants’ Protector, for he had dragged Aristion from the sanctuary of Athena, where he had taken refuge, and killed him. Thus was Athens sorely afflicted by the war with Rome, but she flourished again when Hadrian was emperor.
{1.21.1} In the theater the Athenians have portrait statues of poets, both tragic and comic, but they are mostly of undistinguished persons. With the exception of Menander no poet of comedy represented here won a reputation, but tragedy has two illustrious representatives, Euripides and Sophocles. There is a legend that after the death of Sophocles the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica, and their commander saw in a vision Dionysus, who ordered him to honor, with all the customary honors of the dead, the new Siren. He interpreted the dream as referring to Sophocles and his poetry, and down to the present day people are used to liken to a Siren whatever is enchanting in both poetry and prose.
{1.21.2} The likeness of Aeschylus is, I think, much later than his death and than the painting that depicts the action at Marathon. Aeschylus himself said that, when he was a young man and once fell asleep while he was guarding the grapes in a vineyard, Dionysus appeared to him and ordered him to make [poieîn] tragedy. When day came, in obedience to the vision, he made an attempt and hereafter found composing [poieîn] quite easy.
{1.21.3} Such were his words. On the South wall, as it is called, of the Acropolis, which faces the theater, there is dedicated a gilded head of Medusa the Gorgon, and round it is crafted an aegis. At the top of the theater is a cave in the rocks under the Acropolis. This also has a tripod over it, wherein are Apollo and Artemis slaying the children of Niobe. This Niobe I myself saw when I had gone up to Mount Sipylos. When you are near it is a beetling crag, with not the slightest resemblance to a woman, mourning or otherwise; but if you go further away you will think you see a woman in tears, with head bowed down.
{1.21.4} On the way to the Athenian Acropolis from the theater is the tomb of Kalos. Daidalos murdered this Kalos, who was his sister’s son and a student of his craft, and therefore he fled to Crete; afterwards he escaped to Kokalos in Sicily. The sanctuary of Asklepios is worth seeing both for its paintings and for the statues [agalmata] of the god and his children. In it there is a spring, by which they say that Poseidon’s son Halirrhothios deflowered Alkippe the daughter of Ares, who killed the ravisher and was the first to be put on his trial for the shedding of blood.
{1.21.5} Among the votive offerings there is a Sauromatic breastplate. On seeing this a man will say that no less than Greeks are foreigners skilled in the arts. For the Sauromatai have no iron, neither mined by them selves nor yet imported. They have, in fact, no dealings at all with the foreigners around them. To meet this deficiency they have contrived inventions. In place of iron they use bone for their spear-blades, and cornel-wood for their bows and arrows, with bone points for the arrows. They throw a lasso round any enemy they meet, and then turning round their horses upset the enemy caught in the lasso.
{1.21.6} Their breastplates they make in the following fashion. Each man keeps many mares, since the land is not divided into private allotments, nor does it bear anything except wild trees, as the people are nomads. These mares they not only use for war, but also sacrifice them to the local gods and eat them for food. Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as it were python scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have seen a pine-cone still green. He will not be mistaken if he liken the product from the hoof to the segments that are seen on the pine-cone. These pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of horses and oxen, and then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as those of the Greeks. For they can withstand blows of missiles and those struck in close combat.
{1.21.7} Linen breastplates are not so useful to fighters, for they let the iron pass through, if the blow be a violent one. They aid hunters, how ever, for the teeth of lions or leopards break off in them. You may see linen breastplates dedicated in other sanctuaries, notably in that at Gryneion, where there is a most beautiful grove of Apollo, with cultivated trees, and all those which, although they bear no fruit, are pleasing to smell or look upon.
{1.22.1} After the sanctuary of Asklepios, as you go by this way towards the Acropolis, there is a temple of Themis. Before it is raised a sepulchral mound to Hippolytus. The end of his life, they say, came from curses. Everybody, even a foreigner who has learned Greek, knows about the love of Phaedra and the wickedness the nurse dared commit to serve her. The Troizenians too have a tomb of Hippolytus, and their legend about it is this.
{1.22.2} When Theseus was about to marry Phaedra, not wishing, should he have children, Hippolytus either to be their subject or to be king in their stead, sent him to Pittheus to be brought up and to be the future king of Troizen. Afterwards Pallas and his sons rebelled against Theseus. After putting them to death he went to Troizen for purification, and Phaedra first saw Hippolytus there. Falling in love with him she contrived the plot for his death. The Troizenians have a myrtle with every one of its leaves pierced; they say that it did not grow originally in this fashion, the holes being due to Phaedra’s disgust with love and to the pin that she wore in her hair.
{1.22.3} When Theseus had united into one state the many Athenian demes [dēmoi], he established the cults of Aphrodite surnamed ‘common to the district’ [Pan-dēmos] and of Persuasion. The old statues [agalmata] no longer existed in my time, but those I saw were the work of no inferior artists. There is also a sanctuary of Earth Kourotrophos and of Demeter Chloe [Khloē]. You can learn all about their names by conversing with the priests.
{1.22.4} There is but one entry to the Acropolis. It affords no other, being precipitous throughout and having a strong wall. The gateway has a roof of white marble, and down to the present day it is unrivalled for the beauty and size of its stones. Now as to the statues of the horsemen, I cannot tell for certain whether they are the sons of Xenophon or whether they were made merely to beautify the place. On the right of the gateway is a temple of Wingless Nike. From this point the sea is visible, and here it was that, according to legend, Aigeus threw himself down to his death.
{1.22.5} For the ship that carried the young people to Crete began her voyage with black sails; but Theseus, who was sailing on an adventure against the bull of Minos, as it is called, had told his father beforehand that he would use white sails if he should sail back victorious over the bull. But the loss of Ariadne made him forget the signal. Then Aigeus, when from this eminence he saw the vessel borne by black sails, thinking that his son was dead, threw himself down to destruction. There is in Athens a sanctuary dedicated to him, and called the hero-shrine of Aigeus.
{1.22.6} On the left of the gateway is a building with pictures. Among those not effaced by time I found Diomedes taking the Athena from Troy, and Odysseus in Lemnos taking away the bow of Philoctetes. There in the pictures is Orestes killing Aigisthos, and Pylades killing the sons of Nauplios who had come to help Aigisthos. And there is Polyxena about to be sacrificed near the tomb of Achilles. Homer did well in passing by this barbarous act. I think too that he showed poetic insight in making Achilles capture Skyros, differing entirely from those who say that Achilles lived in Skyros with the maidens, as Polygnotus has represented in his picture. He also painted Odysseus coming upon the women washing clothes with Nausikaa at the river, just like the description in Homer. There are other pictures, including a portrait of Alcibiades,
{1.22.7} and in the picture are emblems of the victory his horses won at Nemeā. There is also Perseus journeying to Seriphos, and carrying to Polydektes the head of Medusa, the legend about whom I am unwilling to relate in my description of Attica. Included among the paintings—I omit the boy carrying the water-jars and the wrestler of Timainetos [66] —is Musaeus. I have read verses in which Musaeus receives from the North Wind the gift of flight, but, in my opinion, Onomacritus wrote them, and there are no certainly genuine works of Musaeus except a hymn to Demeter written for the Lykomidai.
{1.22.8} Right at the very entrance [Propylaia] to the Acropolis are a Hermes (called Hermes of the Propylaia) and statues of the Graces [Kharites], which they say were sculpted by Socrates, the son of Sophroniskos, who the Pythia testified was the wisest of men, a title she refused to Anakharsis, although he desired it and came to Delphi to win it.
{1.23.1} Among the sayings of the Greeks is one that there were seven wise men. Two of them were the despot of Lesbos and Periandros the son of Kypselos. And yet Peisistratos and his son Hippias were more humane than Periandros, wiser too in warfare and in statecraft, until, on account of the murder of Hipparkhos, Hippias vented his passion against all and sundry, including a woman named Leaina [meaning ‘Lioness’].
{1.23.2} What I am about to say has never before been committed to writing, but is generally credited among the Athenians. When Hipparkhos died, Hippias tortured Leaina to death, because he knew she was the mistress of Aristogeiton, and therefore could not possibly, he held, be in ignorance of the plot. As a recompense, when the tyranny of the Peisistratidai was at an end, the Athenians put up a bronze lioness in memory of the woman, which they say Kallias dedicated and Kalamis made.
{1.23.3} Close by is a bronze statue of Diitrephes shot through by arrows. [67] Among the acts reported of this Diitrephes by the Athenians is his leading back home the Thracian mercenaries who arrived too late to take part in the expedition of Demosthenes against Syracuse. He also made a landing at Euripos-at-Khalkis, where the Boeotians had an inland town Mykalessos, marched up to this town from the coast, and captured it. Of the inhabitants the Thracians put to the sword not only the combatants but also the women and children. I have evidence to bring. All the Boeotian towns which the Thebans sacked were inhabited in my time, as the people escaped just before the capture; so if the foreigners had not exterminated the people of Mykalessos the survivors would have afterwards reoccupied the town.
{1.23.4} I was greatly surprised to see the statue of Diitrephes pierced with arrows, because the only Greeks whose custom it is to use that weapon are the Cretans. For the men of Opountian Lokris, whom Homer represents as coming to Troy with bows and slings, we know were armed as heavy infantry by the time of the Persian wars. Neither indeed did the Malians continue the practice of the bow; in fact, I believe that they did not know it before the time of Philoctetes, and gave it up soon after. Near the statue of Diitrephes—I do not wish to write of the less distinguished portraits—are statues [agalmata] of gods; of Hygieia, whom legend calls daughter of Asklepios, and of Athena, also surnamed Hygieia.
{1.23.5} There is also a smallish stone, just large enough to serve as a seat to a little man. On it legend says Silenos rested when Dionysus came to the land. The oldest of the Satyrs they call Silenoi. Wishing to know better than most people who the Satyrs are I have inquired from many about this very point. Euphemos of Caria said that on a voyage to Italy he was driven out of his course by winds and was carried into the outer sea, beyond the course of seamen. He affirmed that there were many uninhabited islands, while in others lived wild men. The sailors did not wish to make a landing at the latter,
{1.23.6} because, having made a landing before, they had some experience of the inhabitants, but on this occasion they had no choice in the matter. The islands were called Satyrides by the sailors, and the inhabitants were red haired, and had upon their flanks tails not much smaller than those of horses. As soon as they caught sight of their visitors, they ran down to the ship without uttering a cry and assaulted the women in the ship. At last the sailors in fear cast a foreign woman on to the island. Her the Satyrs outraged not only in the usual way, but also in a most shocking manner.
{1.23.7} I remember looking at other things also on the Athenian Acropolis, a bronze boy holding the sprinkler, by Lykios son of Myron, and Myron’s Perseus after beheading Medusa. There is also a sanctuary of Brauronian Artemis; the statue [agalma] is the work of Praxiteles, but the goddess derives her name from the deme [dēmos] of Brauron. The old wooden image is in Brauron, the Artemis-in-Tauroi as she is called.
{1.23.8} There is the horse called Dourios [‘Wooden’] set up there, made of bronze. That the work of Epeios was a contrivance to make a breach in the Trojan wall is known to everybody who does not attribute utter nonsense to the Phrygians. But legend says of that horse that it contained the most valiant of the Greeks, and the design of the bronze figure fits in well with this story. Menestheus and Teukros are peeping out of it, and so are the sons of Theseus.
{1.23.9} Of the statues that stand after the horse, the likeness of Epikharinos who practiced the race in armor was made by Kritios, while Oinobios performed a kind service for Thucydides the son of Oloros. [68] He succeeded in getting a decree passed for the return of Thucydides to Athens, who was treacherously murdered as he was returning, and there is a monument to him not far from the gate known as the Melitides.
{1.23.10} The stories of Hermolykos the athlete who competed in the pankration and of Phormion [69] the son of Asopikhos I omit, as others have told them. About Phormion, however, I have a detail to add. Quite one of the best men in Athens and distinguished for the fame of his ancestors he chanced to be heavily in debt. So he withdrew to the deme [dēmos] Paiania and lived there until the Athenians elected him to command a naval expedition. But he refused the office on the ground that before his debts were discharged he lacked the spirit to face his troops. So the Athenians, who were absolutely determined to have Phormion as their commander, paid all his creditors.
{1.24.1} In this place is a statue of Athena striking Marsyas the Silenos for taking up the aulos [‘double-reed’] that the goddess wished to be cast away for good. Opposite these I have mentioned is represented the fight which legend says Theseus fought with the so-called Bull of Minos, whether this was a man or a beast of the nature he is said to have been in the accepted story. For even in our time women have given birth to far more extraordinary monsters than this.
{1.24.2} There is also a statue of Phrixos the son of Athamas carried ashore to the land of Kolkhis by the ram. Having sacrificed the animal to some god or other, presumably to the one called by the Orkhomenians Laphystios, he has cut out the thighs in accordance with Greek custom and is watching them as they burn. Next come other statues, including one of Hēraklēs strangling the serpents as the legend describes. There is Athena too coming up out of the head of Zeus, and also a bull dedicated by the Council of the Areiopagos on some occasion or other, about which, if one cared, one could make many conjectures.
{1.24.3} I have already stated that the Athenians are far more devoted to religion than other men. They were the first to surname Athena Ergane (Worker); they were the first to set up limbless Hermai, and the temple of their goddess is shared by the Spirit of Good men. Those who prefer artistic workmanship to mere antiquity may look at the following: a man wearing a helmet, by Kleoitas, whose nails the artist has made of silver, and a statue [agalma] of Earth beseeching Zeus to rain upon her; perhaps the Athenians themselves needed showers, or may be all the Greeks had been plagued with a drought. There also are set up Timotheus the son of Konon and Konon himself; Procne too, who has already made up her mind about the boy, and Itys as well—a group dedicated by Alkamenes. Athena is represented displaying the olive plant, and Poseidon the wave,
{1.24.4} and there is a statue [agalma] of Zeus, one made by Leokhares [70] and another one called Polieus (‘of the city’), the customary mode of sacrificing to whom I will give without adding the traditional reason thereof. Upon the altar of Zeus Polieus they place barley mixed with wheat and leave it unguarded. The ox, which they keep already prepared for sacrifice, goes to the altar and partakes of the grain. One of the priests they call the ox-slayer, who kills the ox and then, casting aside the axe here according to the ritual runs away. The others bring the axe to trial, as though they know not the man who did the deed.
{1.24.5} Their ritual, then, is such as I have described. As you enter the temple that they name the Parthenon, all the sculptures you see on what is called the [east] pediment [aetos] show the birth of Athena, but those on the rear [= west] pediment show the contest between Athena and Poseidon over the ownership of the land [of Athens]. The statue [agalma] itself is made of ivory and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness [eikōn] of the Sphinx—the tale of the Sphinx I will give when I come to my description of Boeotia—and on either side of the helmet are griffins [grupes] in relief.
{1.24.6} These griffins, Aristeas [71] of Prokonnesos says in his poem, fight for the gold with the Arimaspi beyond the Issedones. The gold which the griffins guard, he says, comes out of the earth; the Arimaspi are men all born with one eye; griffins are beasts like lions, but with the beak and wings of an eagle. I will say no more about the griffins.
{1.24.7} The statue [agalma] of Athena is standing, with a tunic [khitōn] reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Nike about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent [drakōn]. This serpent [drakōn] would be Erikhthonios. On the pedestal of the statue [agalma] is the birth of Pandora in relief. Hesiod and others have sung how this Pandora was the first woman; before Pandora was born there was as yet no womankind. The only portrait statue I remember seeing here is one of the emperor Hadrian, and at the entrance one of Iphikrates, [72] who accomplished many remarkable achievements.
{1.24.8} Opposite the temple is a bronze Apollo, and the statue [agalma] is said to be the work of Pheidias. They call it the Locust God, because once when locusts were devastating the land the god said that he would drive them from Attica. That he did drive them away they know, but they do not say how. I myself know that locusts have been destroyed three times in the past on Mount Sipylos, and not in the same way. Once a gale arose and swept them away; on another occasion violent heat came on after rain and destroyed them; the third time sudden cold caught them and they died.
{1.25.1} Such were the fates I saw befall the locusts. On the Athenian Acropolis is a statue of Pericles, the son of Xanthippos, and one of Xanthippos himself, who fought against the Persians at the naval battle of Mykale. [73] But that of Pericles stands apart, while near Xanthippos stands Anacreon of Teos, the first poet after Sappho of Lesbos to devote himself to love songs, and his posture is as it were that of a man singing when he is drunk. Deinomenes [74] made the two female figures which stand near, Io, the daughter of Inakhos, and Kallisto, the daughter of Lykaon, of both of whom exactly the same story is told, to wit, love of Zeus, wrath of Hērā, and metamorphosis, Io becoming a cow and Kallisto a bear.
{1.25.2} By the south wall are represented the legendary war with the giants, who once dwelled about Thrace and on the isthmus of Pallene, the battle between the Athenians and the Amazons, the engagement with the Persians at Marathon and the destruction of the Gauls in Mysia. [75] Each is about two cubits, and all were dedicated by Attalos. There stands too Olympiodoros, who won fame for the greatness of his achievements, especially in the crisis when he displayed a brave confidence among men who had met with continuous reverses, and were therefore in despair of winning a single success in the days to come.
{1.25.3} For the disaster at Khairōneia [76] was the beginning of misfortune for all the Greeks, and especially did it enslave those who had been blind to the danger and such as had sided with Macedon. Most of their cities Philip captured; with Athens he nominally came to terms, but really imposed the severest penalties upon it, taking away the islands and putting an end to its maritime empire. For a time the Athenians remained passive, during the reign of Philip and subsequently of Alexander. But when on the death of Alexander the Macedonians chose Aridaios to be their king, though the whole empire had been entrusted to Antipatros, the Athenians now thought it intolerable if Greece should be for ever under the Macedonians, and themselves embarked on war besides inciting others to join them.
{1.25.4} The cities that took part were, of the Peloponnesians, Argos, Epidaurus, Sikyon, Troizen, the Eleians, the Phliasians, Messene; on the other side of the Corinthian isthmus the people of Lokris, the people of Phokis, the Thessalians, Karystos, the Acarnanians belonging to the Aetolian League. The Boeotians, who occupied the Thebaid territory now that there were no Thebans left to dwell there, in fear lest the Athenians should injure them by founding a settlement on the site of Thebes, refused to join the alliance and lent all their forces to furthering the Macedonian cause.
{1.25.5} Each city ranged under the alliance had its own general, but as commander-in-chief was chosen the Athenian Leosthenes, both because of the fame of his city and also because he had the reputation of being an experienced soldier. He had already proved himself a general benefactor of Greece. All the Greeks that were serving as mercenaries in the armies of Darius and his satraps Alexander had wished to deport to Persia, but Leosthenes was too quick for him, and brought them by sea to Europe. On this occasion too his brilliant actions surpassed expectation, and his death produced a general despair which was chiefly responsible for the defeat. A Macedonian garrison was set over the Athenians, and occupied first Mounukhia and afterwards Peiraieus also and the Long Walls. [77]
{1.25.6} On the death of Antipatros Olympias came over from Epeiros, killed Aridaios, and for a time occupied the throne; but shortly afterwards she was besieged by Kassandros, taken and delivered up to the people. Of the acts of Kassandros when he came to the throne my narrative will deal only with such as concern the Athenians. He seized the fort of Panactum in Attica and also Salamis, and established as tyrant in Athens Demetrios the son of Phanostratos, a man who had won a reputation for wisdom. This tyrant was put down by Demetrios the son of Antigonos, a young man of strong Greek sympathies.
{1.25.7} But Kassandros, inspired by a deep hatred of the Athenians, made a friend of Lakhares, who up to now had been the popular champion, and induced him also to arrange a tyranny. We know no tyrant who proved so cruel to man and so impious to the gods. Although Demetrios the son of Antigonos was now at variance with the Athenian people, he notwithstanding deposed Lakhares too from his tyranny, who, on the capture of the fortifications, escaped to Boeotia. Lakhares took golden shields from the Acropolis, and stripped even the statue [agalma] of Athena of its removable ornament; he was accordingly suspected of being a very wealthy man,
{1.25.8} and was murdered by some men of Coronea for the sake of this wealth. After freeing the Athenians from tyrants Demetrios the son of Antigonos did not restore the Peiraieus to them immediately after the flight of Lakhares, but subsequently overcame them and brought a garrison even into the upper city, fortifying the place called the Museum [Mouseion]. This is a hill right opposite the Acropolis within the old city boundaries, where legend says Musaeus used to sing, and, dying of old age, was buried. Afterwards a monument also was erected here to a Syrian. At the time to which I refer Demetrios fortified and held it.
{1.26.1} But afterwards a few men called to mind their forefathers, and the contrast between their present position and the ancient glory of Athens, and without more ado forthwith elected Olympiodoros to be their general. He led them against the Macedonians [78] , both the old men and the youths, and trusted for military success more to enthusiasm than to strength. The Macedonians came out to meet him, but he overcame them, pursued them to the Museum, and captured the position.
{1.26.2} So Athens was delivered from the Macedonians, and though all the Athenians fought memorably, Leokritos the son of Protarkhos is said to have displayed most daring in the engagement. For he was the first to scale the fortification, and the first to rush into the Museum; and when he fell fighting, the Athenians did him great honor, dedicating his shield to Zeus of Freedom and in inscribing on it the name of Leokritos and his exploit.
{1.26.3} This is the greatest achievement of Olympiodoros, not to mention his success in recovering Peiraieus and Mounukhia; and again, when the Macedonians were raiding Eleusis he collected a force of Eleusinians and defeated the invaders. Still earlier than this, when Kassandros had invaded Attica, Olympiodoros sailed to Aetolia and induced the Aetolians to help. This allied force was the main reason why the Athenians escaped war with Kassandros. Olympiodoros has not only honors in Athens, both on the Acropolis and in the town hall but also a portrait at Eleusis. Likewise the people of Phokis who originate from Elateia dedicated at Delphi a bronze statue of Olympiodoros for help in their revolt from Kassandros.
{1.26.4} Near the statue of Olympiodoros stands a bronze statue [agalma] of Artemis surnamed Leukophryne, dedicated by the sons of Themistocles; for the Magnesians, whose city the King had given him to rule, hold Artemis Leukophryne in honor. But my narrative must not linger, as my task is a general description of all Greece. Endoios was an Athenian by birth and a pupil of Daidalos, who also, when Daidalos was in exile because of the death of Kalos, followed him to Crete. Made by him is a statue [agalma] of Athena seated, with an inscription that Kallias dedicated the image, but Endoios made it.
{1.26.5} There is also a building called the Erekhtheion. Before the entrance is an altar of Zeus the Most High, on which they never sacrifice a living creature but offer cakes, not being accustomed to use any wine either. Inside the entrance are altars, one to Poseidon, on which in obedience to an oracle they sacrifice also to Erekhtheus, the second to the hero Boutes, and the third to Hephaistos. On the walls are paintings representing members of the clan Boutadai; there is also inside—the building is double—sea-water in a cistern. This is no great marvel, for other inland regions have similar wells, in particular Aphrodisias in Caria. But this cistern is remarkable for the noise of waves it sends forth when a south wind blows. On the rock is the outline of a trident. Legend says that these appeared as evidence in support of Poseidon’s claim to the land.
{1.26.6} Both the city and the whole of the land are alike sacred to Athena; for even those who in their demes [dēmoi] have an established worship of other gods nevertheless hold Athena in honor. But the most holy thing that was so considered by all many years before the unification of the demes [dēmoi] is the statue [agalma] of Athena which is on what is now called the Acropolis, but in early days the Polis (City). A tale [phēmē] concerning it says that it fell from the sky [ouranos]; whether this is true or not I shall not discuss. A golden lamp [lúkhnon] for the goddess was made by Kallimakhos. [79]
{1.26.7} Having filled the lamp with oil, they wait until the same day next year, and the oil is sufficient for the lamp during the interval, although it is lit up both day and night. The wick in it is of Carpasian flax, [80] the only kind of flax which is fire-proof, and a bronze palm above the lamp reaches to the roof and draws off the smoke. The Kallimakhos who made the lamp, although not of the first rank of artists, was yet of unparalleled cleverness, so that he was the first to drill holes through stones, and gave himself the title of Refiner of Art, or perhaps others gave the title and he adopted it as his.
{1.27.1} In the temple of Athena Polias (of the City) is a wooden Hermes, said to have been dedicated by Kekrops, but not visible because of myrtle boughs. The votive offerings worth noting are, of the old ones, a folding chair made by Daidalos, Persian spoils, namely the breastplate of Masistios, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea, [81] and a scimitar said to have belonged to Mardonios. Now Masistios I know was killed by the Athenian cavalry. But Mardonios was opposed by the Lacedaemonians and was killed by a Spartan; so the Athenians could not have taken the scimitar to begin with, and furthermore the Lacedaemonians would scarcely have let them carry it off.
{1.27.2} About the olive they have nothing to say except that it was testimony the goddess produced when she contended for their land. Legend also says that when the Persians set Athens on fire the olive was burned down, but on the very day it was burned it grew again to the height of two cubits. Adjoining the temple of Athena is the temple of Pandrosos, the only one of the sisters to be faithful to the trust.
{1.27.3} I was much amazed at something that is not generally known, and so I will describe the circumstances. Two maidens dwell not far from the temple of Athena Polias, called by the Athenians Bearers of the Sacred Offerings. For a time they live with the goddess, but when the festival comes round they perform at night the following rites. Having placed on their heads what the priestess of Athena gives them to carry—neither she who gives nor they who carry have any knowledge what it is—the maidens descend by the natural underground passage that goes across the adjacent precincts, within the city, of Aphrodite in the Gardens. They leave down below what they carry and receive something else which they bring back covered up. These maidens they henceforth let go free, and take up to the Acropolis others in their place.
{1.27.4} By the temple of Athena is the simulacrum of an old woman about a cubit high, the inscription calling her a handmaid of Lysimakhe, and large bronze statues [agalmata] of men facing each other for a fight, one of whom they call Erekhtheus, the other Eumolpos; and yet those Athenians who are acquainted with antiquity must surely know that this victim of Erekhtheus was Immaradus, the son of Eumolpos.
{1.27.5} On the pedestal are also statues of Theainetos, who was seer to Tolmides, and of Tolmides himself, who when in command of the Athenian fleet inflicted severe damage upon the enemy, especially upon the Peloponnesians who dwell along the coast, burned the dock-yards at Gythion and captured Boiai, belonging to the ‘provincials’ [perioikoi], and the island of Cythera. He made a descent on Sikyonia, and, attacked by the citizens as he was ravaging the country, he put them to flight and chased them to the city. Returning afterwards to Athens, he conducted Athenian colonists to Euboea and Naxos and invaded Boeotia with an army. Having ravaged the greater part of the land and reduced Khairōneia by way of a siege, he advanced into the territory of Haliartos, where he was killed in battle and all his army defeated. [82] Such was the history of Tolmides that I learned.
{1.27.6} There are also old statues [agalmata] of Athena, no limbs of which indeed are missing, but they are rather black and too fragile to bear a blow. For they too were caught by the flames when the Athenians had gone on board their ships and the King captured the city emptied of its able-bodied inhabitants. There is also a boar-hunt (I do not know for certain whether it is the Calydonian boar) and Kyknos fighting with Hēraklēs. This Kyknos is said to have killed, among others, Lykos the Thracian, a prize having been proposed for the winner of the duel, but near the river Peneios he was himself killed by Hēraklēs.
{1.27.7} One of the Troizenian legends about Theseus is the following. When Hēraklēs visited Pittheus at Troizen, he laid aside his lion’s skin to eat his dinner, and there came in to see him some Troizenian children with Theseus, then about seven years of age. The story goes that when they saw the skin the other children ran away, but Theseus slipped out not much afraid, seized an axe from the servants and straightway attacked the skin in earnest, thinking it to be a lion.
{1.27.8} This is the first Troizenian legend about Theseus. The next is that Aigeus placed boots and a sword under a rock as tokens for the child, and then sailed away to Athens; Theseus, when sixteen years old, pushed the rock away and departed, taking what Aigeus had deposited. There is a representation of this legend on the Acropolis, everything in bronze except the rock.
{1.27.9} There is another deed [ergon] that they [= the Athenians] have represented-in-the-form-of-a-dedicatory-offering [ana-tithenai], and here is the tale [logos] that pertains to that deed. The land of the Cretans and especially the part that is next to the river Tethris was ravaged by a bull. You see, beasts [thēria] in ancient times were much more formidable for humans. For example, there is the Nemean lion. And the lion of Parnassus. And so many serpents [drakontes] in many parts of Greece [Hellas]. And then there are the boars of Calydon and Erymanthos.
Also the one from Krommyon in the land of Corinth. Itwas said that some [of these beasts] were sent up from the earth down below, that others were sacred [hiera] to the gods, while still others had been let loose for the punishment [tīmōriā] of humankind. In the case of this bull as well, the Cretans say that it was sent by Poseidon to their land because, although Minos was ruler [arkhōn] of the Greek [Hellēnikē] Sea, he did not give more honor [tīmē] to Poseidon than to the other gods.
{1.27.10} Anyway, they say that this bull was conveyed [komizesthai] from Crete to the Peloponnesus, and became one of what are called the Twelve Labors [āthloi] of Hēraklēs. When he was set loose on the Plain of the Argives he fled [pheugein] through the isthmus of Corinth and then fled [pheugein] further into the land of Attica as far as the Attic deme [dēmos] of Marathon, killing everyone he encountered, including Androgeōs, son of Minos. Minos then sailed against Athens with his navy, not believing that the Athenians were innocent of the death of Androgeōs, and oppressed them so badly that it was finally agreed that they [= the Athenians] would bring seven girls [parthenoi] and seven boys [paides] to the Minotaur who was said to dwell [oikeîn] in the Labyrinth [laburinthos] at Knossos. But, later on, Theseus is said to have driven the bull of Marathon to the Acropolis, where he sacrificed [thuein] it to the goddess [Athena]. And the dedicatory-offering [ana-thēma] [that signals this deed] is from the deme [dēmos] of Marathon.
{1.28.1} Why they set up a bronze statue of Kylon in spite of his plotting a tyranny [83] , I cannot say for certain; but I infer that it was because he was very beautiful to look upon, and of no undistinguished fame, having won an Olympian victory in the double foot-race, while he had married the daughter of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara.
{1.28.2} Above and beyond the things that I have listed so far in my inventory, there are two tithes [dekatai] dedicated by the Athenians in the aftermath of wars. There is first a bronze statue [agalma] of Athena, tithe [dekatē] from the [victory over the] Persians who landed at Marathon. It is the work [tekhnē] of Pheidias, but the reliefs upon the shield, including the fight between Centaurs and Lapithai, are said to be the metalwork of someone named Mys, [84] for whom they say Parrhasios son of Euenor designed this and the rest of his works [erga]. The point of the spear of this Athena and the crest of her helmet are already visible to those sailing to Athens as they pass by Cape Sounion. The other tithe [dekatē] is a bronze chariot, offered by the Boeotians and by the people of Khalkis in Euboea. [85] There are two other offerings, a statue of Pericles, the son of Xanthippos, and the best worth seeing of the works of Pheidias, the statue [agalma] of Athena called Lemnian after those who dedicated it.
{1.28.3} All the Acropolis is surrounded by a wall; a part was constructed by Kimon, son of Miltiades, but all the rest is said to have been built round it by the Pelasgians, who once lived under the Acropolis. The builders, they say, were Agrolas and Hyperbios. On inquiring who they were I could discover nothing except that they were Sicilians originally who emigrated to Akarnania.
{1.28.4} Descending, not to the lower city, but to just beneath the Propylaia [‘Gateway’], you see a fountain [pēgē] and near it a sacred space [hieron] of Apollo in a cave [spēlaion]. It was here, according to traditional-thinking [nomizein], that Apollo had sex with Kreousa, daughter of Erekhtheus. [There seems to be a gap here in the text.] When the Persians had landed in Attica, Philippides was sent as a messenger [from Marathon] to Lacedaemon. When he returned [to Marathon], he said that the Lacedaemonians had postponed sending out [any reinforcements], on the grounds that it was their custom not to go out to fight before the circle of the moon was full. Philippides went on to say that near Mount Parthenios he had been met by Pan, who told him that he is kindly-disposed [eu-nous] to the Athenians and would come as their ally [summakhos] to Marathon. This deity, then, gets honored [tīmâsthai] in return for this message [angeliā].
{1.28.5} There is also the Hill of Ares [Areiopagos], so named because Ares was the first to be tried here; my narrative has already told that he killed Halirrhothios, and what were his grounds for this act. Afterwards, they say, Orestes was tried for killing his mother, and there is an altar to Athena Areia ([‘Warlike’]), which he dedicated on being acquitted. The unhewn stones on which stand the defendants and the prosecutors, they call the stone of Hubris [‘Outrage’] and the stone of Anaideia [‘Shamelessness’].
{1.28.6} Close by is a sanctuary of the goddesses which the Athenians call the Semnai [‘the august ones’], but Hesiod in the Theogony calls them Erinyes [‘Furies’]. It was Aeschylus who first represented them with snakes in their hair. But on the statues [agalma] neither of these nor of any of the under-world deities is there anything terrible. There are statues [agalmata ]of Pluto [Ploutōn], Hermes, and Earth, by which sacrifice those who have received an acquittal on the Hill of Ares; sacrifices are also offered on other occasions by both citizens and aliens.
{1.28.7} Within the precincts is a monument to Oedipus, whose bones, after diligent inquiry, I found were brought from Thebes. The account of the death of Oedipus in the drama of Sophocles I am prevented from believing by Homer, who says that after the death of Oedipus Mekisteus came to Thebes and took part in the funeral games.
{1.28.8} The Athenians have other law courts as well, which are not so famous. We have the Parabystum and the Triangle; the former is in an obscure part of the city, and in it the most trivial cases are tried; the latter is named from its shape. The names of Green Court and Red Court, due to their colors, have lasted down to the present day. The largest court, to which the greatest numbers come, is called Heliaia. One of the other courts that deal with bloodshed is called […] Palladium, into which are brought cases of involuntary homicide. All are agreed that Demophon was the first to be tried there, but as to the nature of the charge accounts differ.
{1.28.9} It is reported that after the capture of Troy Diomedes was returning home with his fleet when night overtook them as in their voyage they were off Phaleron. The Argives landed, under the impression that it was hostile territory, the darkness preventing them from seeing that it was Attica. Thereupon they say that Demophon, he too being unaware of the facts and ignorant that those who had landed were Argives, attacked them and, having killed a number of them, went off with the Palladium. An Athenian, however, not seeing before him in the dark, was knocked over by the horse of Demophon, trampled upon and killed. Whereupon Demophon was brought to trial, some say by the relatives of the man who was trampled upon, others say by the Argive commonwealth.
{1.28.10} At Delphinium are tried those who claim that they have committed justifiable homicide, the plea put forward by Theseus when he was acquitted, after having killed Pallas, who had risen in revolt against him, and his sons. Before Theseus was acquitted it was the established custom among all men for the shedder of blood to go into exile, or, if he remained, to be put to a similar death. The Court in the Prytaneion, as it is called, where they try iron and all similar inanimate things, had its origin, I believe, in the following incident. It was when Erekhtheus was king of Athens that the ox-slayer first killed an ox at the altar of Zeus Polieus. Leaving the axe where it lay he went out of the land into exile, and the axe was forthwith tried and acquitted, and the trial has been repeated year by year down to the present.
{1.28.11} Furthermore, it is also said that inanimate objects have on occasion of their own accord inflicted righteous retribution upon men, of this the scimitar of Cambyses affords the best and most famous instance. [86] Near the sea at the Peiraieus is Phreattys. Here it is that men in exile, when a further charge has been brought against them in their absence, make their defense on a ship while the judges listen on land. The legend is that Teukros first defended himself in this way before Telamon, urging that he was guiltless in the matter of the death of Ajax. Let this account suffice for those who are interested to learn about the law courts.
{1.29.1} Near the Hill of Ares is shown a ship built for the procession of the Panathenaia. This ship, I suppose, has been surpassed in size by others, but I know of no builder who has beaten the vessel at Delos, with its nine banks of oars below the deck.
{1.29.2} Outside the city, too, in the demes [dēmoi] and on the roads, the Athenians have sanctuaries of the gods, and tombs of heroes and of men. The nearest is the Academy, once the property of a private individual, but in my time a gymnasium. As you go down to it you come to a precinct of Artemis, and wooden images of Ariste (Best) and Kalliste (Fairest). In my opinion, which is supported by the poems of Pamphos, these are surnames of Artemis. There is another account of them, which I know but shall omit. Then there is a small temple, into which every year on fixed days they carry the statue [agalma] of Dionysus Eleuthereus.
{1.29.3} Such are their sanctuaries here, and of the tombs the first is that of Thrasyboulos son of Lykos, in all respects the greatest of all famous Athenians, whether they lived before him or after him. The greater number of his achievements I shall pass by, but the following facts will suffice to bear out my assertion. He put down what is known as the tyranny of the Thirty, [87] setting out from Thebes with a force amounting at first to sixty men; he also persuaded the Athenians, who were torn by factions, to be reconciled, and to abide by their compact. His is the first tomb, and after it come those of Pericles, Khabrias, [88] and Phormion. [89]
{1.29.4} There is also a monument [mnēma] for all the Athenians who happened to die in war, whether in battles [makhai] at sea or on land, except for those who had their struggle [agōnizesthai] at Marathon. These, on account of their manly valor [andragathiā], have their burial-places [taphoi] on the field-of-battle [khōrā], but the others lie along the road to the Academy [Akadēmiā], and over their burial-places [taphoi] stand slabs [stēlai] that say [by way of inscriptions] the name and the deme [dēmos] of each. First were buried those who in Thrace, after a victorious advance as far as Drabeskos, [90] were unexpectedly attacked by the Edonians and slaughtered. There is also a legend that they were struck by lightning.
{1.29.5} Among the generals were Leagros, to whom was entrusted chief command of the army, and Sophanes of Decelea, who killed when he came to the help of the Aeginetans Eurybates the Argive, who won the prize in the pentathlon [91] at the Nemean games. This was the third expedition which the Athenians dispatched out of Greece. For against Priam and the Trojans war was made with one accord by all the Greeks; but by themselves the Athenians sent armies, first with Iolaos to Sardinia, secondly to what is now Ionia, and thirdly on the present occasion to Thrace.
{1.29.6} Before the monument is a slab on which are horsemen fighting. Their names are Melanopos and Makartatos, who met their death fighting against the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians on the borders of Eleon and Tanagra. There is also a tomb of Thessalian horsemen who, by reason of an old alliance, came when the Peloponnesians with Arkhidamos invaded Attica with an army for the first time, [92] and close by that of Cretan bowmen. Again there are monuments to Athenians: to Cleisthenes, who invented the system of the phulai at present existing, [93] and to horsemen who died when the Thessalians shared the fortune of war with the Athenians.
{1.29.7} Here too lie the men of Kleone, who came with the Argives into Attica; [94] the occasion whereof I shall set forth when in the course of my narrative I come to the Argives. There is also the tomb of the Athenians who fought against the Aeginetans before the Persian invasion. It was surely a just decree even for a democracy when the Athenians actually allowed slaves a public funeral, and to have their names inscribed on a slab, which declares that in the war they proved good men and true to their masters. There are also monuments of other men, their fields of battle lying in various regions. Here lie the most renowned of those who went against Olynthus, [95] and Melesandros who sailed with a fleet along the Maeander into upper Caria; [96]
{1.29.8} also those who died in the war with Kassandros, and the Argives who once fought as the allies of Athens. It is said that the alliance between the two peoples was brought about thus. Sparta was once shaken by an earthquake, and the Helots seceded to Ithome. [97] After the secession the Lacedaemonians sent for help to various places, including Athens, which dispatched picked troops under the command of Kimon, the son of Miltiades. These the Lacedaemonians dismissed, because they suspected them.
{1.29.9} The Athenians regarded the insult as intolerable, and on their way back made an alliance with the Argives, the immemorial enemies of the Lacedaemonians. Afterwards, when a battle was imminent at Tanagra, [98] the Athenians opposing the Boeotians and Lacedaemonians, the Argives reinforced the Athenians. For a time the Argives had the better, but night came on and took from them the assurance of their victory, and on the next day the Lacedaemonians had the better, as the Thessalians betrayed the Athenians.
{1.29.10} It occurred to me to tell of the following men also, firstly Apollodoros, commander of the mercenaries, who was an Athenian dispatched by Arsites, satrap of Phrygia by the Hellespont, and saved their city for the Perinthians when Philip had invaded their territory with an army. [99] He, then, is buried here, and also Euboulos [100] the son of Spintharos, along with men who though brave were not attended by good fortune; some attacked Lakhares when he was tyrant, others planned the capture of the Peiraieus when in the hands of a Macedonian garrison, but before the deed could be accomplished were betrayed by their accomplices and put to death.
{1.29.11} Here also lie those who fell near Corinth. [101] The god [theos] showed most distinctly here and again at Leuktra [102] that those whom the Greeks call brave are as nothing if Good Fortune be not with them, seeing that the Lacedaemonians, who had on this occasion overcome Corinthians and Athenians, and furthermore Argives and Boeotians, were afterwards at Leuktra so utterly overthrown by the Boeotians alone. After those who were killed in Corinth, we come across elegiac verses declaring that one and the same slab has been erected to those who died in Euboea and Chios, [103] and to those who perished in the remote parts of the continent of Asia, or in Sicily.
{1.29.12} The names of the generals are inscribed with the exception of Nikias, and among the private soldiers are included the Plataeans along with the Athenians. This is the reason why Nikias was passed over, and my account is identical with that of Philistos, who says that while Demosthenes made a truce for the others and excluded himself, attempting to commit suicide when taken prisoner, Nikias voluntarily submitted to the surrender. [104] For this reason Nikias had not his name inscribed on the slab, being condemned as a voluntary prisoner and an unworthy soldier.
{1.29.13} On another slab are the names of those who fought in the region of Thrace and at Megara [105] , and when Alcibiades persuaded the Arcadians in Mantineia and the Eleians to revolt from the Lacedaemonians [106] , and of those who were victorious over the Syracusans before Demosthenes arrived in Sicily. Here were buried also those who fought in the sea-fights near the Hellespont [107] , those who opposed the Macedonians at Khairōneia [108] , those who were killed at Delium in the territory of Tanagra [109] , the men Leosthenes led into Thessaly, those who sailed with Kimon to Cyprus [110] , and of those who with Olympiodoros [111] expelled the garrison not more than thirteen men.
{1.29.14} The Athenians declare that when the Romans were waging a border war they sent a small force to help them, and later on five Attic warships assisted the Romans in a naval action against the Carthaginians. Accordingly these men also have their tomb here. The achievements of Tolmides and his men, and the manner of their death, I have already set forth, and any who are interested may take note that they are buried along this road. Here lie too those who with Kimon achieved the great feat of winning a land and naval victory on one and the same day. [112]
{1.29.15} Here also are buried Konon and Timotheus, father and son, the second pair thus related to accomplish illustrious deeds, Miltiades and Kimon being the first; Zeno too, the son of Mnaseas and Khrysippos [113] of Soloi, Nikias the son of Nikomedes, the best painter from life of all his contemporaries, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who killed Hipparkhos, the son of Peisistratos; there are also two orators, Ephialtes, who was chiefly responsible for the abolition of the privileges of the Areiopagos [114] , and Lycurgus (Lykourgos), [115] the son of Lykophron;
{1.29.16} Lycurgus (Lykourgos) provided for the state-treasury six thousand five hundred talents more than Pericles, the son of Xanthippos, collected, and furnished for the procession of the goddess golden figures of Nike and ornaments for a hundred girls; for war he provided arms and missiles, besides increasing the fleet to four hundred warships. As for buildings, he completed the theater that others had begun, while during his political life he built ship-sheds [neōs oikoi] at the dockyards in Peiraieus. He built also the gymnasium near what is called the Lyceum. Everything made of silver or gold became part of the plunder that Laoites made away with when he became tyrant, but the buildings remained to my time.
{1.30.1} Before the entrance to the Academy is an altar to Eros, with an inscription that Kharmos was the first Athenian to dedicate an altar to that god. The altar within the city called the altar of Ant-eros they say was dedicated by resident aliens, because the Athenian Meles, spurning the love of Timagoras, a resident alien, ordered him to ascend to the highest point of the rock and cast himself down. Now Timagoras took no account of his life, and was ready to gratify the youth in any of his requests, so he went and cast himself down. When Meles saw that Timagoras was dead, he suffered such pangs of remorse that he threw himself from the same rock and so died. From this time the resident aliens worshipped as Ant-eros the avenging spirit of Timagoras.
{1.30.2} In the Academy is an altar to Prometheus, and from it they run to the city carrying burning torches. The contest is while running to keep the torch still alight; if the torch of the first runner goes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but the second runner has. If his torch also goes out, then the third man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no one is left to be winner. There is an altar to the Muses, and another to Hermes, and one insider to Athena, and they have built one to Hēraklēs. There is also an olive tree, accounted to be the second that appeared.
{1.30.3} Not far from the Academy is the monument of Plato, to whom the god [theos] foretold [pro-sēmainein] that he would be the best [aristos] when it comes to philosophy. The manner of the foretelling [pro-sēmainein] was this. On the night before Plato was to become his pupil Socrates dreamed that saw a swan [kuknos] fly into his insides [kolpos]. Now the swan is a bird with a reputation for the art of the Muses [mousikē], because, they say, a practitioner of the art of the Muses [mousikos] by the name of Swan [Kuknos] became king of the Ligyes on the other side of the Eridanos beyond the Celtic territory, and after his death by the will of Apollo he was changed into the bird. I am ready to believe that a practitioner of the art of the Muses [mousikos] became king of the Ligyes, but I cannot believe that a bird was generated out of a man.
{1.30.4} In this part of the country is seen the tower of Timon, the only man to see that there is no way to be happy except to shun other men. There is also pointed out a place called the Kolōnos Hippios [‘Hill of Horses’], the first point in Attica, they say, that Oedipus reached—this account too differs from that given by Homer, but it is nevertheless current tradition—and an altar to Poseidon Hippios [‘Horse God’], and to Athena Hippia [‘Horse Goddess’], and a hero-shrine [hērōion] that is sacred to Peirithoos and Theseus, Oedipus and Adrastos. The grove and temple of Poseidon were burned by Antigonos [116] when he invaded Attica, who at other times also ravaged the land of the Athenians.
{1.31.1} The small demes [dēmoi] of Attica, which were founded severally as chance would have it, presented the following noteworthy features. At Alimus is a sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver and of the Maiden, and at Zoster (Waistband) on the coast is an altar to Athena, as well as to Apollo, to Artemis and to Leto. The story is that Leto did not give birth to her children here, but loosened her waistband with a view to her delivery, and the place received its name from this incident. Prospalta has also a sanctuary of the Maiden and Demeter, and Anagyrus a sanctuary of the Mother of the gods. At Cephale the chief cult is that of the Dioskouroi, for the in habitants call them the Great gods.
{1.31.2} At Prasiai is a temple of Apollo. Hither they say are sent the first-fruits of the Hyperboreans, and the Hyperboreans are said to hand them over to the Arimaspi, the Arimaspi to the Issedones, from these the Scythians bring them to Sinope, thence they are carried by Greeks to Prasiai, and the Athenians take them to Delos. The first-fruits are hidden in wheat straw, and they are known of none. There is at Prasiai a monument to Erysikhthon, who died on the voyage home from Delos, after the sacred mission thither.
{1.31.3} How Amphiktyon banished Cranaus, his kinsman by marriage and king of Athens, I have already related. They say that fleeing with his supporters to the deme [dēmos] of Lamptrai he died and was buried there, and at the present day there is a monument to Kranaos at Lamptrai. At Potamoi in Attica is also the tomb of Ion the son of Xouthos—for he too dwelled among the Athenians and was their commander-in-chief in the war with Eleusis.
{1.31.4} Such is the legend. Phlya and Myrrhinus have altars of Apollo Dionysodotos, Artemis Light-bearer, Dionysus Flower-god, the Ismenian nymphs and Earth, whom they name the Great goddess; a second temple contains altars of Demeter Anesidora (Sender-up of Gifts), Zeus Ktesios (God of Gain), Tithrone Athena, the Maiden First-born and the goddesses styled August. The wooden image at Myrrhinοus is of Κolainis.
{1.31.5} Athmonia worships Artemis Amarysia. On inquiry I discovered that the guides knew nothing about these deities, so I give my own conjecture. Amarynthos is a town in Euboea, the inhabitants of which worship Amarysia, while the festival of Amarysia which the Athenians celebrate is no less splendid than the Euboean. The name of the goddess, I think, came to Athmonia in this fashion and the Kolainis in Myrrhinous is named after Kolainos. I have already written that many of the inhabitants of the demes [dēmoi] say that they were ruled by kings even before the reign of Kekrops. Now Kolainos, say the Myrrhinusians, is the name of a man who ruled before Kekrops became king.
{1.31.6} There is a deme [dēmos] called Akharnai, where they worship Apollo Agyieus (God of Streets) and Hēraklēs, and there is an altar of Athena Hygieia. And they call upon the name of Athena Horse-goddess and Dionysus Singer and Dionysus Ivy, saying that the plant ivy first appeared there.
{1.32.1} The Attic mountains are Pentelikos, where there are quarries, Parnes, where there is hunting of wild boars and of bears, and Hymettos, which grows the most suitable pasture for bees, except that of the Alazones. [117] For these people have actually bees ranging free, tamely following the other creatures when they go to pasture. These bees are not kept shut up in hives, and they work in any part of the land they happen to visit. They produce a solid mass from which you cannot separate either wax or honey. Such then is its nature.
{1.32.2} The Athenians have also statues [agalmata]of gods on their mountains. On Pentelikos is a statue [agalma] of Athena, on Hymettos one of Zeus Hymettios. There are altars both of Zeus Rain-god and of Apollo Foreseer. On Parnes is a bronze Zeus Parnethios, and an altar to Zeus Semaleus (Sign-giving). There is on Parnes another altar, and on it they make sacrifice, calling Zeus sometimes Rain-god, sometimes Averter of Ills. Ankhesmos is a mountain of no great size, with a statue [agalma] of Zeus Ankhesmios.
{1.32.3} Before turning to a description of the islands, I follow up further on matters having to do with the demes [dēmoi] [of Attica]. There is a deme [dēmos] called Marathon, equally distant from the city [polis] of the Athenians and from Karystos in Euboea. It was at this point in Attica that the foreigners [barbaroi, = Persians] landed, were defeated [krateîsthai] in battle, and lost some of their ships as they were trying to pull away [from the shore]. [118] On the plain [pedíon] is the tomb [taphos] of the Athenians, and upon it are slabs [stēlai] with [inscriptions of] the names of those killed, organized by way of their subdivisions [phūlai]; and there is another tomb for the men of Plataea from Boeotia and also for the slaves. You see, slaves too fought there, and it was the first time that this happened.
{1.32.4} There is also an individual monument [mnēma] for one man, Miltiades son of Kimon, although his end [teleutē] happened later, after he had failed to capture Paros and for this reason had been put on trial by the Athenians. At this place [= Marathon] every night you can hear horses neighing and you can sense that men are fighting in combat. No one who has deliberately set out to experience this vision [théā] in-full-view [en-argēs] has ever really had any success, but still, if something is experienced in some alternative way by someone who has no ear for such things, this is no cause for anger [orgē] on the part of the spirits [daimones]. The people of Marathon worship [sebesthai] both those who died in the fighting, calling them heroes [hērōes], and also [the hero] Marathon, from whom the deme [dēmos] derives its name, and then Hēraklēs, saying that they were the first among the Greeks to establish-the-custom-of-venerating [nomizein] him as a god [theos].
{1.32.5} They [= the people of Marathon] tell about something that happened at the battle [makhē] [of Marathon]. It was the presence of a man who had the looks [eidos] of a farmer [agr-oikos]—and implements [skeuē] to match. Wielding a plough [arotron] he slaughtered with it many of the foreigners [barbaroi, = Persians], and then, after having done what-was-done [ergon] he disappeared [= became a-phanēs]. When the Athenians consulted the god [Apollo], he did not give-an-oracular-answer [khrēsai] with regard to him [= the man with the plough] but simply commanded them to honor [tīmân] Ekhetlaios (= he of the plough-handle) as a hero [hērōs]. A trophy-column [tropaion] of white marble has been made [to mark the turning-point or tropaion of the battle of Marathon]. The Athenians say that they buried the Persians, since it is a universally [pantōs] holy-thing [hosion] for the corpse [nekros] of a human to be covered by the earth, but I could not find any tomb [taphos] for them. There was neither a tumulus [khōma] nor any other marker [sēmeion] to be seen. They must have carried them [= the dead Persians], just as they found them, to some ditch and tossed them in.
{1.32.6} In Marathon is a spring [pēgē] called Makaria, and what they say about it is as follows. When Hēraklēs left Tiryns, fleeing from Eurystheus, he went to live with his friend Keyx, who was king of Trakhis. When Hēraklēs departed the life of humans [anthrōpoi], Eurystheus demanded his children. But the king of Trakhis sent them to Athens, saying that he was weak while Theseus was hardly powerless to protect them. The arrival of the children as suppliants [hiketai] caused for the first time war between Peloponnesians and Athenians, since Theseus refused to give them up [= the children of Hēraklēs] at the demand of Eurystheus. And they say that an oracle [khrēsmos] was given the Athenians that one of the children of Hēraklēs must die a voluntary death, or else victory [nīkē] could not be theirs. Then Makaria, daughter of Deianeira and Hēraklēs, slaughtered [apo-sphazein] herself and gave to the Athenians the upper hand [kratos] in the war and to the spring [pēgē] her own name.
{1.32.7} There is at Marathon a lake [limnē] which for the most part is marshy [hel-ōdēs]. Into this lake fell the foreigners [barbaroi, = the Persians] as they were turning and running [after the battle], since they did not know their way around the roads, and it is said that much of the slaughter [phonos] that followed was because of this. Above the lake are the stone stables of the horses of Artaphernes, and there are marks [sēmeia] of his tent [skēnē] on the rocks. Out of the lake flows a river, providing near the lake itself water suitable for cattle, but near its mouth it becomes saline and full of sea fish. A little beyond the plain is the Hill of Pan and a Cave of Pan, which is worth seeing [théā]. The entrance to it is narrow, but farther in are chambers and baths and the so-called Pan’s herd of goats, which are rocks that look very much like goats.
{1.33.1} At some distance from Marathon is Brauron, where, according to the legend, Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, landed carrying the statue [agalma] of Artemis when she fled from Tauroi; leaving the statue [agalma] there she came to Athens also and afterwards to Argos. There is indeed an old wooden image of Artemis here, but who in my opinion have the one taken from the foreigners I will set forth in another place.
{1.33.2} About sixty stadium-lengths from Marathon as you go along the road by the sea to Oropos stands Rhamnous. The houses [oikēseis] for human habitation are on the coast, but a little way inland is a sacred space [hieron] of Nemesis, who of all the gods [theoi] is the most inexorable toward humans who-commit-outrage [hubristai]. It is thought that the wrath [mēnīma] of this goddess [theos feminine] countered the foreigners [barbaroi, = Persians] who landed at Marathon. Scornfully thinking that nothing stood in the way of their capturing Athens, they were bringing a piece of Parian marble for the making [poiēsis] of a trophy [tropaion], as if their task were already finished.
{1.33.3} Of this marble Pheidias made a statue [agalma] of Nemesis, and on the head of the goddess [theos feminine] is a garland [stephanos] picturing deer and small statues [agalmata] of Nike. In her left hand she holds an apple branch, in her right hand a cup on which are crafted the figures of Aethiopians. As to the Aethiopians, I could hazard no guess myself, nor could I accept the statement of those who are convinced that the Aethiopians have been carved upon the cup because of the river Okeanos. For the Aethiopians, they say, dwell near it, and Okeanos is the father of Nemesis.
{1.33.4} It is not the river Okeanos, but the farthest part of the sea navigated by man, near which dwell the Iberians and the Celts, and Okeanos surrounds the island of Britain. But of the Aethiopians beyond Syene, those who live farthest in the direction of the Red Sea are the Ichthyophagoi (Fish-eaters), and the gulf round which they live is called after them. The most righteous of them inhabit the city Meroe and what is called the Aethiopian plain. These are they who show the Table of the Sun, [119] and they have neither sea nor river except the Nile.
{1.33.5} There are other Aethiopians who are neighbors of the Mauroi and extend as far as the Nasamones. For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus calls the Atlantes, and those who profess to know the measurements of the earth, named the Lixitai, are the Libyans who live the farthest close to Mount Atlas, and they do not till the ground at all, but live on wild vines. But neither these Aethiopians nor yet the Nasamones have any river. For the water near Atlas, which provides a beginning to three streams, does not make any of the streams a river, as the sand swallows it all up at once. So the Aethiopians dwell near no river Okeanos.
{1.33.6} The water from Atlas is muddy, and near the source were crocodiles of not less than two cubits, which when the men approached dashed down into the spring. The thought has occurred to many that it is the reappearance of this water out of the sand which gives the Nile to Egypt. Mount Atlas is so high that its peaks are said to touch the sky [ouranos], but is inaccessible because of the water and the presence everywhere of trees. Its region indeed near the Nasamones is known, but we know of nobody yet who has sailed along the parts facing the sea. I must now resume.
{1.33.7} Neither this nor any other ancient statue [agalma] of Nemesis has wings, for not even the holiest wooden images of the Smyrnaeans have them, but later artists, convinced that the goddess manifests herself most as a consequence of love, give wings to Nemesis as they do to Love. I will now go on to describe what is figured on the pedestal of the statue [agalma], having made this preface for the sake of clearness. The Greeks say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, while Leda suckled and nursed her. The father of Helen the Greeks like everybody else hold to be not Tyndareus but Zeus.
{1.33.8} Having heard this legend Pheidias has represented Helen as being led to Nemesis by Leda, and he has represented Tyndareus and his children with a man Hippeus by name standing by with a horse. There are Agamemnon and Menelaos and Pyrrhos, the son of Achilles and first husband of Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Orestes was passed over because of his crime against his mother, yet Hermione stayed by his side in everything and bore him a child. Next upon the pedestal is one called Epochus and another youth; the only thing I heard about them was that they were brothers of Oinoe, from whom the deme [dēmos] has its name.
{1.34.1} The land of Oropus, between Attica and the land of Tanagra, which originally belonged to Boeotia, in our time belongs to the Athenians, who always fought for it but never won secure possession until Philip gave it to them after taking Thebes. The city is on the coast and affords nothing remarkable to record. About twelve stadium-lengths from the city is a sanctuary of Amphiaraos.
{1.34.2} Legend says that when Amphiaraos was exiled from Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot. Only they say that the incident did not happen here, the place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes to Khalkis. The divinity of Amphiaraos was first established among the Oropians, from whom afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them, such as Elaious in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaos, and Lebadea of the Boeotians dedicated to Trophonios. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue [agalma] of Amphiaraos.
{1.34.3} The altar shows parts. One part is to Hēraklēs, Zeus, and Apollo Healer, another is given up to heroes and to wives of heroes, the third is to Hestia and Hermes and Amphiaraos and the children of Amphilokhos. But Alkmaion, because of his treatment of Eriphyle, is honored neither in the temple of Amphiaraos nor yet with Amphilokhos. The fourth portion of the altar is to Aphrodite and Panacea, and further to Iaso, Hygieia and Athena Healer. The fifth is dedicated to the nymphs and to Pan, and to the rivers Akhelōos and Kephisos. The Athenians too have an altar to Amphilokhos in the city, and there is at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle of his which is the most trustworthy of my day.
{1.34.4} The Oropians have near the temple a spring, which they call the Spring of Amphiaraos; they neither sacrifice into it nor are accustomed to use it for purifications or for lustral water. But when a man has been cured of a disease through a response the custom is to throw silver and coined gold into the spring, for by this way they say that Amphiaraos rose up after he had become a god. Iophon of Knossos, a guide, produced responses in hexameter verse, saying that Amphiaraos gave them to the Argives who were sent against Thebes. These verses unrestrainedly appealed to popular taste. Except those whom they say Apollo inspired of old none of the seers uttered oracles, but they were good at explaining dreams and interpreting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims.
{1.34.5} My opinion is that Amphiaraos devoted himself most to the exposition of dreams. It is manifest that, when his divinity was established, it was a dream oracle that he set up. One who has come to consult Amphiaraos is accustomed first to purify himself. The mode of purification is to sacrifice to the god, and they sacrifice not only to him but also to all those whose names are on the altar. And when all these things have been first done, they sacrifice a ram, and, spreading the skin under them, go to sleep and await enlightenment in a dream.
{1.35.1} There are islands not far from Attica. Of the one called the Island of Patroklos I have already given an account. [120] There is another when you have sailed past Sounion with Attica on the left. On this they say that Helen landed after the capture of Troy,
{1.35.2} and for this reason the name of the island is Helene. Salamis lies over against Eleusis, and stretches as far as the territory of Megara. It is said that the first to give this name to the island was Cychreus, who called it after his mother Salamis, the daughter of Asopos, and afterwards it was colonized by the Aeginetans with Telamon. Philaios the son of Eurysakes the son of Ajax, is said to have handed the island over to the Athenians, having been made an Athenian by them. Many years afterwards the Athenians drove out all the Salaminians, having discovered that they had been guilty of treachery in the war with Kassandros, [121] and mainly of set purpose had surrendered to the Macedonians. They sentenced to death Aiskhetades, who on this occasion had been elected general for Salamis, and they swore never to forget the treachery of the Salaminians.
{1.35.3} There are still the remains of a marketplace, a temple of Ajax and his statue [agalma] in ebony. Even at the present day the Athenians pay honors to Ajax himself and to Eurysaces, for there is an altar of Eurysaces also in Athens. In Salamis is shown a stone not far from the harbor, on which they say that Telamon sat when he gazed at the ship in which his children were sailing away to Aulis to take part in the joint expedition of the Greeks.
{1.35.4} Those who dwell about Salamis say that it was when Ajax died that the flower first appeared in their country. It is white and tinged with red, both flower and leaves being smaller than those of the lily; there are letters on it like to those on the iris. About the judgment concerning the armor I heard a story of the Aeolians who afterwards settled at Ilion, to the effect that when Odysseus suffered shipwreck the armor was cast ashore near the tomb of Ajax. As to the hero’s size, a Mysian was my informant.
{1.35.5} He said that the sea flooded the side of the tomb facing the beach and made it easy a enter the tomb, and he told me to form an estimate of the size of the corpse in the following way. The bones on his knees, called by doctors the knee-pan, were in the case of Ajax as big as the discus of a boy in the pentathlon. I saw nothing to wonder at in the stature of those Celts who live farthest of on the borders of the land which is uninhabited because of the cold; these people, the Cabares, are no bigger than Egyptian corpses. But I will relate all that appeared to me worth seeing.
{1.35.6} For the Magnesians on the Lethaios, Protophanes, one of the citizens, won at Olympia in one day victories in the pankration [122] and in wrestling. Into the tomb of this man robbers entered, thinking to gain some advantage, and after the robbers people came in to see the corpse, which had ribs not separated but joined together from the shoulders to the smallest ribs, those called by doctors bastard. Before the city of the Milesians is an island called Lade, and from it certain islets are detached. One of these they call the islet of Asterios, and say that Asterios was buried in it, and that Asterios was the son of Anax, and Anax the son of Earth. Now the corpse is not less than ten cubits.
{1.35.7} But what really caused me surprise is this. There is a small city of upper Lydia called The Doors of Temenus. There a crest broke away in a storm, and there appeared bones the shape of which led one to suppose that they were human, but from their size one would never have thought it. At once the story spread among the multitude that it was the corpse of Geryon, the son of Khrysaor, and that the seat also was his. For there is a man’s seat carved on a rocky spur of the mountain. And a torrent they called the river Okeanos, and they said that men ploughing met with the horns of cattle, for the story is that Geryon reared excellent cows.
{1.35.8} And when I criticized the account and pointed out to them that Geryon is at Gadeira, where there is, not his tomb, but a tree showing different shapes, the guides of the Lydians related the true story, that the corpse is that of Hyllos, a son of Earth, from whom the river is named. They also said that Hēraklēs from his sojourning with Omphale called his son Hyllos after the river.
{1.36.1} But I will return to my subject. In Salamis is a sanctuary of Artemis, and also a trophy erected in honor of the victory which Themistocles the son of Neokles won for the Greeks. [123] There is also a sanctuary of Cychreus. When the Athenians were fighting the Persians at sea, a serpent is said to have appeared in the fleet, and the god in an oracle told the Athenians that it was Cychreus the hero.
{1.36.2} Before Salamis there is an island called Psyttalea. Here they say that about four hundred of the Persians landed, and when the fleet of Xerxes was defeated, these also were killed after the Greeks had crossed over to Psyttalea. The island has no artistic statue [agalma], only some roughly carved-wooden-images [xoana] of Pan.
{1.36.3} As you go to Eleusis from Athens along what the Athenians call the Sacred Way you see the tomb of Anthemokritos. [124] The Megarians committed against him a most wicked deed, for when he had come as a herald to forbid them to encroach upon the land in future they put him to death. For this act the wrath of the Two Goddesses lies upon them even to this day, for they are the only Greeks that not even the emperor Hadrian could make more prosperous.
{1.36.4} After the tombstone of Anthemokritos comes the tomb of Molottos, who was deemed worthy of commanding the Athenians when they crossed into Euboea [125] to reinforce Plutarch, [126] and also a place called Skiron, which received its name for the following reason. The Eleusinians were making war against Erekhtheus when there came from Dodona a seer called Skiros, who also set up at Phaleron the ancient sanctuary of Athena Skiras. When he fell in the fighting the Eleusinians buried him near a torrent, and the hero has given his name to both place and torrent.
{1.36.5} Close by is the tomb of Kephisodoros, who was champion of the people and opposed to the utmost Philip, the son of Demetrios, king of Macedon. Kephisodoros induced to become allies of Athens two kings, Attalos the Mysian and Ptolemy the Egyptian, and, of the self-governing peoples, the Aetolians with the Rhodians and the Cretans among the islanders.
{1.36.6} As the reinforcements from Egypt, Mysia, and Crete were for the most part too late, and the Rhodians, whose strength lay only in their fleet, were of little help against the Macedonian men-at-arms, Kephisodoros sailed with other Athenians to Italy and begged aid of the Romans. [127] They sent a force and a general, who so reduced Philip and the Macedonians that afterwards Perseus, the son of Philip, lost his throne and was himself taken prisoner to Italy. This Philip was the son of Demetrios. Demetrios was the first of this house to hold the throne of Macedon, having put to death Alexander, son of Kassandros, as I have related in a former part of my account.
{1.37.1} After the tomb of Kephisodoros is the tomb of Heliodoros Halis. [128] A portrait of this man is also to be seen in the great temple of Athena. Here too is the tomb of Themistocles, son of Poliarkhos, and grandson of the Themistocles who fought the sea fight against Xerxes and the Persians. Of the later descendants I shall mention none except Acestium. She, her father Xenokles, his father Sophocles, and his father Leon, all of them up to her great-grandfather Leon won the honor of being torch-bearer, and in her own lifetime she saw as torch-bearers, first her brother Sophocles, after him her husband Themistocles, and after his death her son Theophrastus. Such was the fortune, they say, that happened to her.
{1.37.2} A little way past the tomb of Themistocles is a precinct sacred to Lacius, a hero, a deme [dēmos] called after him Lakiadai, and the tomb of Nikokles of Tarentum, who won a unique reputation as a harpist. There is also an altar of Zephyrus and a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter. With them Athena and Poseidon are worshipped. There is a legend that in this place Phytalus welcomed Demeter in his home, for which act the goddess gave him the fig tree. This story is borne out by the inscription on the tomb of Phytalus:
Hero and king, Phytalus here welcome gave to Demeter, August goddess, when first she created fruit of the harvest;
Sacred fig is the name which mortal men have assigned it.
Whence Phytalos and his lineage have received honors immortal.
Sacred fig is the name which mortal men have assigned it.
Whence Phytalos and his lineage have received honors immortal.
{1.37.3} Before you cross the Kephisos you come to the tomb of Theodoros, the best tragic actor of his day. [129] By the river is a statue [agalma] of Mnesimache, and a votive statue [anathēma] of her son cutting his hair as a gift for Kephisos. That this habit has existed from ancient times among all the Greeks may be inferred from the poetry of Homer, [130] who makes Peleus vow that on the safe return of Achilles from Troy he will cut off the young man’s hair as a gift for the Spercheus.
{1.37.4} Across the Kephisos is an ancient altar of Zeus Meilichios (Gracious). At this altar Theseus obtained purification at the hands of the descendants of Phytalus after killing brigands, including Sinis who was related to him through Pittheus. Here is the tomb of Theodektes [131] of Phaselis, and also that of Mnesitheus. They say that he was a skillful physician and dedicated statues [agalmata], among which is a representation of Iakkhos. On the road stands a small temple called that of Cyamites. [132] I cannot state for certain whether he was the first to sow beans, or whether they gave this name to a hero because they may not attribute to Demeter the discovery of beans. Whoever has been initiated at Eleusis or has read what are called the Orphica [133] knows what I mean.
{1.37.5} Of the tombs, the largest and most beautiful are that of a Rhodian who settled in Athens, and the one made by the Macedonian Harpalos, who ran away from Alexander and crossed with a fleet from Asia to Europe. On his arrival in Athens he was arrested by the citizens, but ran away after bribing among others the friends of Alexander. But before this he married Pythonikē, whose family I do not know, but she was a courtesan in Athens and in Corinth. His love for her was so great that when she died he made her a tomb which is the most noteworthy of all the old Greek tombs.
{1.37.6} There is a sanctuary in which are set statues [agalmata] of Demeter, her daughter, Athena, and Apollo. At the first it was built in honor of Apollo only. For legend says that Kephalos, the son of Deion, having helped Amphitryon to destroy the Teleboans, was the first to dwell in that island which now is called after him Kephallenia, and that he resided till that time at Thebes, exiled from Athens because he had killed his wife Procris. In the tenth generation afterwards Khalkinos and Daitos, descendants of Kephalos, sailed to Delphi and asked the god for permission to return to Athens.
{1.37.7} He ordered them first to sacrifice to Apollo in that spot in Attica where they should see a man-of-war running on the land. When they reached the mountain called the Many-colored Mountain a snake was seen hurrying into its hole. In this place they sacrificed to Apollo; afterwards they came to Athens and the Athenians made them citizens. After this is a temple of Aphrodite, before which is a note worthy wall of unfinished stone.
{1.38.1} The streams called Rheitoi are rivers only in so far as they are currents, for their water is sea water. It is a reasonable belief that they flow beneath the ground from the Euripus of the people of Kalkhis, and fall into a sea of a lower level. They are said to be sacred to the Maiden and to Demeter, and only the priests of these goddesses are permitted to catch the fish in them. Anciently, I learn, these streams were the boundaries between the land of the Eleusinians and that of the other Athenians,
{1.38.2} and the first to dwell on the other side of the Rheitoi was Crocon, where at the present day is what is called the palace of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Saesara, daughter of Keleus. Not all of them say this, but only those who belong to the deme [dēmos] of Skambonidai. I could not find the tomb of Crocon, but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in identifying the tomb of Eumolpos. This Eumolpos they say came from Thrace, being the son of Poseidon and Khione. Khione they say was the daughter of the wind Boreas and of Oreithyia. Homer says nothing about the lineage of Eumolpos, but in his poems styles him ‘manly’.
{1.38.3} When the Eleusinians fought with the Athenians, Erekhtheus, king of the Athenians, was killed, as was also Immaradus, son of Eumolpos. These were the terms on which they concluded the war: the Eleusinians were to have in dependent control of the mysteries, but in all things else were to be subject to the Athenians. The ministers of the Two Goddesses were Eumolpos and the daughters of Keleus, whom Pamphos and Homer agree in naming Diogenia, Pammerope, and the third Saesara. Eumolpos was survived by Keryx, the younger of his sons whom the Kerykes themselves say was a son of Aglauros, daughter of Kekrops, and of Hermes, not of Eumolpos.
{1.38.4} There is also a shrine of the hero Hippothoön, after whom the phulē is named, and close by one of Zarex. The latter they say learned music from Apollo, but my opinion is that he was a Lacedaemonian who came as a stranger to the land, and that after him is named Zarax, a town in the Laconian territory near the sea. If there is a native Athenian hero called Zarex, I have nothing to say concerning him.
{1.38.5} At Eleusis flows a Kephisos which is more violent than the Kephisos I mentioned above, and by the side of it is the place they call Erineus, saying that Pluto [Ploutōn] descended there to the lower world after carrying off the Maiden. Near this Kephisos Theseus killed a brigand named Polypemon and surnamed Procrustes.
{1.38.6} The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemos, of Artemis of the Portal, and of Poseidon Father, and a well called Kallikhoron (beautiful place for dance and song), where first the women of the Eleusinians danced and sang in praise of the goddess. They say that the plain called Rharium was the first to be sown and the first to grow crops, and for this reason it is the custom to use sacrificial barley and to make cakes for the sacrifices from its produce. Here there is shown a threshing-floor called that of Triptolemos and an altar.
{1.38.7} My dream forbade the description of the things within the wall of the sanctuary, and the uninitiated are of course not permitted to learn that which they are prevented from seeing. The hero Eleusis, after whom the city is named, some assert to be a son of Hermes and of Daeira, daughter of Okeanos; there are poets, however, who have made Ogygus father of Eleusis. Ancient legends, deprived of the help of poetry, have given rise to many fictions, especially concerning the pedigrees of heroes.
{1.38.8} When you have turned from Eleusis to Boeotia you come to the Plataean land, which borders on Attica. Formerly Eleutherai formed the boundary on the side towards Attica, but when it came over to the Athenians henceforth the boundary of Boeotia was Kithairon. The reason why the people of Eleutherai came over was not because they were reduced by war, but because they desired to share Athenian citizenship and hated the Thebans. In this plain is a temple of Dionysus, from which the old wooden image was carried off to Athens. The image at Eleutherai at the present day is a copy of the old one.
{1.38.9} A little farther on is a small cave, and beside it is a spring of cold water. The legend about the cave is that Antiope after her labor placed her babies into it; as to the spring, it is said that the shepherd who found the babies washed them there for the first time, taking off their swaddling clothes. Of Eleutherai there were still left the ruins of the wall and of the houses. From these it is clear that the city was built a little above the plain close to Kithairon.
{1.39.1} There is another road from Eleusis, which leads to Megara. As you go along this road you come to a well called Anthium (Flowery Well). Pamphos in his poems describes how Demeter in the likeness of an old woman sat at this well after the abduction of her daughter, how the daughters of Keleus thence took her as an Argive woman to their mother, and how Metaneira thereupon entrusted to her the rearing of her son.
{1.39.2} A little farther on from the well is a sanctuary of Metaneira, and after it are tombs of those who went against Thebes. For Creon, who at that time ruled in Thebes as guardian of Laodamas the son of Eteokles, refused to allow the relatives to take up and bury their dead. But Adrastos having supplicated Theseus, the Athenians fought with the Boeotians, and Theseus being victorious in the fight carried the dead to the Eleusinian territory and buried them here. The Thebans, however, say that they voluntarily gave up the dead for burial and deny that they engaged in battle.
{1.39.3} After the tombs of the Argives is the tomb of Alope, who, legend says, being mother of Hippothoön by Poseidon was on this spot put to death by her father Kerkyon. He is said to have treated strangers wickedly, especially in wrestling with them against their will. So even to my day this place is called the Wrestling Ground of Kerkyon, being a little way from the tomb of Alope. Kerkyon is said to have killed all those who tried a bout with him except Theseus, who out matched him mainly by his skill. For Theseus was the first to discover the art of wrestling, and through him afterwards was established the teaching of the art. Before him men used in wrestling only size and strength of body. Such in my opinion are the most famous legends and sights among the Athenians, and from the beginning my narrative has picked out of much material the things that deserve to be recorded.
{1.39.4} Next to Eleusis is the district called Megaris. This too belonged to Athens in ancient times, Pylas the king having left it to Pandion. My evidence is this; in the land is the tomb of Pandion, and Nisos, while giving up the rule over the Athenians to Aigeus, the eldest of all the family, was himself made king of Megara and of the territory as far as Corinth. Even at the present day the port of the Megarians is called Nisaia after him. Subsequently in the reign of Kodros the Peloponnesians made an expedition against Athens. Having accomplished nothing brilliant, on their way home they took Megara from the Athenians, and gave it as a dwelling-place to such of the Corinthians and of their other allies as wished to go there.
{1.39.5} In this way the Megarians changed their customs and dialect and became Dorians, and they say that the city received its name when Car the son of Phoroneus was king in this land. It was then they say that sanctuaries of Demeter were first made by them, and then that men used the name Megara (Chambers). This is their history according to the Megarians themselves. But the Boeotians declare that Megareus, son of Poseidon, who dwelled in Onkhestos, came with an army of Boeotians to help Nisos wage the war against Minos; that falling in the battle he was buried on the spot, and the city was named Megara from him, having previously been called Nisa.
{1.39.6} In the twelfth generation after Car the son of Phoroneus the Megarians say that Lelex arrived from Egypt and became king, and that in his reign the tribe Leleges received its name. Lelex they say begat Kleson, Kleson Pylas and Pylas Skiron, who married the daughter of Pandion and afterwards disputed with Nisos, the son of Pandion, about the throne, the dispute being settled by Aiakos, who gave the kingship to Nisos and his descendants, and to Skiron the leadership in war. They say further that Nisos was succeeded by Megareus, the son of Poseidon, who married Iphinoe, the daughter of Nisos, but they ignore altogether the Cretan war and the capture of the city in the reign of Nisos.
{1.40.1} There is in the city a fountain, which was built for the citizens by Theagenes, [134] whom I have mentioned previously as having given his daughter in marriage to Kylon the Athenian. This Theagenes upon becoming tyrant built the fountain, which is noteworthy for its size, beauty and the number of its pillars. Water flows into it called the water of the Sithnid nymphs. The Megarians say that the Sithnid nymphs are native, and that one of them mated with Zeus; that Megaros, a son of Zeus and of this nymph, escaped the flood in the time of Deukalion, and made his escape to the heights of Gerania. The mountain had not yet received this name, but was then named Gerania (Crane Heights) because cranes were flying and Megaros swam towards the cry of the birds.
{1.40.2} Not far from this fountain is an ancient sanctuary, and in our day likenesses [eikónes] stand in it of Roman emperors, and a bronze statue [agalma] is there of Artemis surnamed Savior. There is a story that a detachment of the army of Mardonios, having over run Megaris, [135] wished to return to Mardonios at Thebes, but that by the will of Artemis night came on them as they marched, and missing their way they turned into the hilly region. Trying to find out whether there was a hostile force near they shot some missiles. The rock near groaned when struck, and they shot again with greater eagerness,
{1.40.3} until at last they used up all their arrows thinking that they were shooting at the enemy. When the day broke, the Megarians attacked, and being men in armor fighting against men without armor who no longer had even a supply of missiles, they killed the greater number of their opponents. For this reason they had an image made of Artemis Savior. Here are also statues [agalmata] of the gods named the Twelve, said to be the work of Praxiteles. But the image of Artemis herself was made by Strongylion.
{1.40.4} After this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympieion you see a note worthy temple. But the statue [agalma] of Zeus was not finished, for the work was interrupted by the war of the Peloponnesians against the Athenians, in which the Athenians every year ravaged the land of the Megarians with a fleet and an army, damaging public revenues and bringing private families to dire distress. The face of the statue [agalma] of Zeus is of ivory and gold, the other parts are of clay and gypsum. The artist is said to have been Theokosmos, a native, helped by Pheidias. Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons and Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny, and that he apportions the seasons as is due. Behind the temple lie half-worked pieces of wood, which Theokosmos intended to overlay with ivory and gold in order a complete the statue [agalma] of Zeus.
{1.40.5} In the temple itself is dedicated a bronze ram of a galley. This ship they say that they captured off Salamis in a naval action with the Athenians. The Athenians too admit that for a time they evacuated the island before the Megarians, saying that afterwards Solon [136] wrote elegiac poems and encouraged them, and that thereupon the Athenians challenged their enemies, won the war and recovered Salamis. But the Megarians say that exiles from themselves, whom they call Dorycleans, reached the colonists in Salamis and betrayed the island to the Athenians.
{1.40.6} After the precinct of Zeus, when you have ascended the citadel, which even at the present day is called Caria from Car, son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysus Nyktelios (Nocturnal), a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia (She who turns humans to love), an oracle called that of Night and a temple of Zeus Konios (Dusty) without a roof. The statue [agalma] of Asklepios and also that of Hygieia were made by Bryaxis. Here too is what is called the Chamber of Demeter, built, they say, by Kar when he was king.
{1.41.1} On coming down from the citadel, where the ground turns northwards, is the tomb of Alkmene, near the Olympieum. They say that as she was walking from Argos to Thebes she died on the way at Megara, and that the Herakleidai fell to disputing, some wishing to carry the corpse of Alkmene back to Argos, others wishing to take it to Thebes, as in Thebes were buried Amphitryon and the children of Hēraklēs by Megara. But the god in Delphi gave them an oracle that it was better for them to bury Alkmene in Megara.
{1.41.2} From this place the local guide took us to a place which he said was named Rhous (Stream), for that water once flowed here from the mountains above the city. But Theagenes, who was tyrant at that time, turned the water into another direction and made here an altar to Akhelōos. Close by is the tomb of Hyllos, son of Hēraklēs, who fought a duel with an Arcadian, Ekhemos the son of Aeropos. Who the Ekhemos was who killed Hyllos I will tell in another part of my narrative, but Hyllos also is buried at Megara. These events might correctly be called an expedition of the Herakleidai into the Peloponnesus in the reign of Orestes.
{1.41.3} Not far from the tomb of Hyllos is a temple of Isis, and beside it one of Apollo and of Artemis. They say that Alkathoos made it after killing the lion from Kithairon, as he is called. By this lion they say many were killed, including Euhippos, the son of Megareus their king, whose elder son Timalkos had before this been killed by Theseus while on a campaign with the Dioskouroi against Aphidna. Megareus they say promised that he who killed the lion of Kithairon should marry his daughter and succeed him in the kingdom. Alkathoos therefore, son of Pelops, attacked the beast and overcame it, and when he came to the throne he built this sanctuary, surnaming Artemis as Agrotera [‘Huntress’] and Apollo Agraios [‘Hunter’].
{1.41.4} Such is the account of the Megarians; but although I wish my account to agree with theirs, yet I cannot accept everything they say. I am ready to believe that a lion was killed by Alkathoos on Kithairon, but what historian has recorded that Timalkos the son of Megareus came with the Dioskouroi to Aphidna? And supposing he had gone there, how could one hold that he had been killed by Theseus, when Alcman wrote a poem on the Dioskouroi, [137] in which he says that they captured Athens and carried into captivity the mother of Theseus, but Theseus himself was absent?
{1.41.5} Pindar in his poems agrees with this account, saying that Theseus, wishing to be related to the Dioskouroi, carried off Helen and kept her until he departed to carry out with Peirithoos the marriage that they tell of. Whoever has studied genealogy finds the Megarians guilty of great silliness, since Theseus was a descendant of Pelops. The fact is that the Megarians know the true story but conceal it, not wishing it to be thought that their city was captured in the reign of Nisos, but that both Megareus, the son-in-law of Nisos, and Alkathoos, the son-in-law of Megareus, succeeded their respective fathers-in-law as king.
{1.41.6} It is evident that Alkathoos arrived from Elis just at the time when Nisos had died and the Megarians had lost everything. Witness to the truth of my statements the fact that he built the wall afresh from the beginning, the old one round the city having been destroyed by the Cretans. Let so much suffice for Alkathoos and for the lion, whether it was on Kithairon or elsewhere that the killing took place that caused him to make a temple to Artemis Agrotera and Apollo Agraios. On going down from this sanctuary you see the shrine of the hero Pandion. My narrative has already told how Pandion was buried on what is called the Rock of Athena Aithuia (Gannet). He receives honors from the Megarians in the city as well.
{1.41.7} Near the shrine of the hero Pandion is the tomb of Hippolyte. I will record the account the Megarians give of her. When the Amazons, having marched against the Athenians because of Antiope, were over come by Theseus, most of them met their death in the fight, but Hippolyte, the sister of Antiope and on this occasion the leader of the women, escaped with a few others to Megara. Having suffered such a military disaster, being in despair at her present situation and even more hopeless of reaching her home in Themiskyra, she died of a broken heart, and the Megarians gave her burial. The shape of her tomb is like an Amazonian shield. {1.41.8} Not far from this is the tomb of Tereus, who married Procne the daughter of Pandion. The Megarians say that Tereus was king of the region around what is called Pagai(Springs) of Megaris, but my opinion, which is confirmed by extant evidence, is that he ruled over Daulis beyond Khairōneia, for in ancient times the greater part of what is now called Greece was inhabited by foreigners. When Tereus did what he did to Philomela and Itys suffered at the hands of the women, Tereus found himself unable to seize them.
{1.41.9} He committed suicide in Megara, and the Megarians forthwith raised him a barrow, and every year sacrifice to him, using in the sacrifice gravel instead of barley meal; they say that the bird called the hoopoe appeared here for the first time. The women came to Athens, and while lamenting their sufferings and their revenge, perished through their tears; their reported metamorphosis into a nightingale and a swallow is due, I think, to the fact that the note of these birds is plaintive and like a lamentation.
{1.42.1} The Megarians have another citadel, which is named after Alkathoos. As you ascend this citadel you see on the right the tomb of Megareus, who at the time of the Cretan invasion came as an ally from Onkhestos. There is also shown a hearth of the gods called Prodomeis (Builders before). They say that Alkathoos was the first to sacrifice to them, at the time when he was about to begin the building of the wall.
{1.42.2} Near this hearth is a stone, on which they say Apollo laid his lyre when he was helping Alkathoos in the building. I am confirmed in my view that the Megarians used to be tributary to the Athenians by the fact that Alkathoos appears to have sent his daughter Periboia with Theseus to Crete in payment of the tribute. On the occasion of his building the wall, the Megarians say, Apollo helped him and placed his lyre on the stone; and if you happen to hit it with a pebble it sounds just as a lyre does when struck.
{1.42.3} This made me marvel, but the colossus in Egypt made me marvel far more than anything else. In Egyptian Thebes, on crossing the Nile to the so called Pipes, I saw a statue [agalma], still sitting, which gave out a sound. The many call it Memnon, who they say from Aethiopia overran Egypt and as far as Susa. The Thebans, however, say that it is a statue [agalma], not of Memnon, but of a native named Phamenoph, and I have heard some say that it is Sesostris. This statue [agalma] was broken in two by Cambyses, and at the present day from head to middle it is thrown down; but the rest is seated, and every day at the rising of the sun it makes a noise, and the sound one could best liken to that of a harp or lyre when a string has been broken.
{1.42.4} The Megarians have a council chamber which once, they say, was the tomb of Timalkos, who just now I said was not killed by Theseus. On the top of the citadel is built a temple of Athena, with a statue [agalma] gilded except the hands and feet; these and the face are of ivory. There is another sanctuary built here, of Athena Nike, and yet a third of Athena Aiantis. About the last the Megarian guides have omitted to record anything, but I will write what I take to be the facts. Telamon the son of Aiakos married Periboia the daughter of Alkathoos; so my opinion is that Ajax, who succeeded to the throne of Alkathoos, made the statue [agalma] of Athena.
{1.42.5} The ancient temple of Apollo was of brick, but the emperor Hadrian afterwards built it of white marble. The Apollo called Pythian and the one called Dekatephoros (Bringer of Tithes) are very like the Egyptian wooden images, but the one surnamed Arkhegetes (Founder) resembles Aeginetan works. They are all alike made of ebony. I have heard a man of Cyprus, who was skilled at sorting herbs for medicinal purposes, say that the ebony does not grow leaves or bear fruit, or even appear in the sunlight at all, but consists of underground roots which are dug up by the Aethiopians, who have men skilled at finding ebony.
{1.42.6} There is also a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros (Lawgiver). On going down from it you see the tomb of Kallipolis, son of Alkathoos. Alkathoos had also an elder son, Ischepolis, whom his father sent to help Meleagros to destroy the wild beast in Aetolia. There he died, and Kallipolis was the first to hear of his death. Running up to the citadel, at the moment when his father was preparing a fire to sacrifice to Apollo, he flung the logs from the altar. Alkathoos, who had not yet heard of the fate of Ischepolis, judged that Kallipolis was guilty of impiety, and forthwith, angry as he was, killed him by striking his head with one of the logs that had been flung from the altar.
{1.42.7} On the road to the Town-hall is the shrine of the heroine Ino, about which is a fencing of stones, and beside it grow olives. The Megarians are the only Greeks who say that the corpse of Ino was cast up on their coast, that Kleso and Tauropolis, the daughters of Kleson, son of Lelex, found and buried it, and they say that among them first was she named Leukothea, and that every year they offer her sacrifice.
{1.43.1} They say that there is also a shrine of the heroine Iphigenia; for she too according to them died in Megara. Now I have heard another account of Iphigenia that is given by Arcadians and I know that Hesiod, in his poem A Catalogue of Women, says that Iphigenia did not die, but by the will of Artemis is Hekate. With this agrees the account of Herodotus, that the Tauroi near Scythia sacrifice castaways to a maiden who they say is Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. Adrastos also is honored among the Megarians, who say that he too died among them when he was leading back his army after taking Thebes, and that his death was caused by old age and the fate of Aigialeus. A sanctuary of Artemis was made by Agamemnon when he came to persuade Calchas, who dwelled in Megara, to accompany him to Troy.
{1.43.2} In the Town-hall are buried, they say, Euhippos the son of Megareus and Ischepolis the son of Alkathoos. Near the Town-hall is a rock. They name it Anaklethris (Recall), because Demeter (if the story be credible) here too called her daughter back when she was wandering in search of her. Even in our day the Megarian women hold a performance that is a mimic representation of the legend.
{1.43.3} In the city are tombs of Megarians. They made one for those who died in the Persian invasion, and what is called the Aisymnion (Shrine of Aisymnos) was also a tomb of heroes. When Agamemnon’s son Hyperion, the last king of Megara, was killed by Sandion for his greed and violence, they resolved no longer to be ruled by one king, but to have elected magistrates and to obey one another in turn. Then Aisymnos, who had a reputation second to none among the Megarians, came to the god in Delphi and asked in what way they could be prosperous. The oracle in its reply said that they would fare well if they took counsel with the majority. This utterance they took to refer to the dead, and built a council chamber in this place in order that the tomb of their heroes might be within it.
{1.43.4} Between this and the hero-shrine of Alkathoos, which in my day the Megarians used as a record office, was the tomb, they said, of Pyrgo, the wife of Alkathoos before he married Euaikhme, the daughter of Megareus, and the tomb of Iphinoe, the daughter of Alkathoos; she died, they say, a maid. It is customary for the girls to bring libations to the tomb of Iphinoe and to offer a lock of their hair before their wedding, just as the daughters of the Delians once cut their hair for Hekaerge and Opis.
{1.43.5} Beside the entrance to the sanctuary of Dionysus is the tomb of Astykrateia and Manto. They were daughters of Polyidus, son of Koiranos, son of Abas, son of Melampos, who came to Megara to purify Alkathoos when he had killed his son Kallipolis. Polyidus also built the sanctuary of Dionysus, and dedicated a wooden image that in our day is covered up except the face, which alone is exposed. By the side of it is a Satyr of Parian marble made by Praxiteles. This Dionysus they call Patrous (Paternal); but the statue [agalma] of another, that they surname Dasyllios, they say was dedicated by Euchenor, son of Koiranos, son of Polyidus.
{1.43.6} After the sanctuary of Dionysus is a temple of Aphrodite, with an ivory statue [agalma] of Aphrodite surnamed Praxis (Action). This is the oldest object in the temple. There is also Persuasion and another goddess, whom they name Consoler, works of Praxiteles. By Scopas are Love and Desire and Yearning, if indeed their functions are as different as their names. Near the temple of Aphrodite is a sanctuary of Fortune, the image being one of the works of Praxiteles. In the temple close by are Muses and a bronze Zeus by Lysippos.
{1.43.7} The Megarians have also the tomb of Koroibos. The poetical story of him, although it equally concerns Argos, I will relate here. They say that in the reign of Krotopos at Argos, Psamathe, the daughter of Krotopos, bore a son to Apollo, and being in dire terror of her father, exposed the child. He was found and destroyed by sheepdogs of Krotopos, and Apollo sent Vengeance to the city to punish the Argives. They say that she used to snatch the children from their mothers, until Koroibos to please the Argives slew Vengeance. Whereat as a second punishment plague fell upon them and stayed not. So Koroibos of his own accord went to Delphi to submit to the punishment of the god for having slain Vengeance.
{1.43.8} The Pythia would not allow Koroibos to return to Argos, but ordered him to take up a tripod and carry it out of the sanctuary, and where the tripod should fall from his hands, there he was to build a temple of Apollo and to dwell himself. At Mount Gerania the tripod slipped and fell unawares. Here he dwelled in the village called the Little Tripods. The tomb of Koroibos is in the marketplace of the Megarians. The story of Psamathe and of Koroibos himself is carved on it in elegiac verses and further, upon the top of the tomb is represented Koroibos slaying Vengeance. These are the oldest stone statues [agalmata] I am aware of having seen among the Greeks.
{1.44.1} Near Koroibos is buried Orsippos who won the foot-race at Olympia by running naked when all his competitors wore waistbands according to ancient custom. [138] They say also that Orsippos when general afterwards annexed some of the neighboring territory. My own opinion is that at Olympia he intentionally let the waistband slip off him, realizing that a naked man can run more easily than one girt.
{1.44.2} As you go down from the marketplace you see on the right of the street called Straight a sanctuary of Apollo Prostaterios (Protecting). You must turn a little aside from the road to discover it. In it is a noteworthy Apollo, Artemis also, and Leto, and other statues [agalmata], made by Praxiteles. In the old gymnasium near the gate called the Gate of the Nymphs is a stone of the shape of a small pyramid. This they name Apollo Karinos, and here there is a sanctuary of the Eileithuiai. Such are the sights that the city had to show.
{1.44.3} When you have gone down to the port, which to the present day is called Nisaia, you see a sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros (Sheep-bearer or Apple-bearer). One of the accounts given of the surname is that those who first reared sheep in the land named Demeter Malophoros. The roof of the temple one might conclude has fallen in through age. There is a citadel here, which also is called Nisaia. Below the citadel near the sea is the tomb of Lelex, who they say arrived from Egypt and became king, being the son of Poseidon and of Libya, daughter of Epaphus. Parallel to Nisaia lies the small island of Minoa, where in the war against Nisos anchored the fleet of the Cretans.
{1.44.4} The hilly part of Megaris borders upon Boeotia, and in it the Megarians have built the city Pagai and another one called Aigosthena. As you go to Pagai, on turning a little aside from the highway, you are shown a rock with arrows stuck all over it, into which the Persians once shot in the night. In Pagai a noteworthy relic is a bronze statue [agalma] of Artemis surnamed Savior, in size equal to that at Megara and exactly like it in shape. There is also a hero-shrine of Aigialeus, son of Adrastos. When the Argives made their second attack on Thebes he died at Glisas early in the first battle, and his relatives carried him to Pagaiin Megaris and buried him, the shrine being still called the Aigialeion.
{1.44.5} In Aigosthena is a sanctuary of Melampos, son of Amythaon, and a small figure of a man carved upon a slab. To Melampos they sacrifice and hold a festival every year. They say that he divines neither by dreams nor in any other way. Here is something else that I heard in Erenea, a village of the Megarians. Autonoe, daughter of Kadmos, left Thebes to live here owing to her great grief at the death of Aktaion, the manner of which is told in legend, and at the general misfortune of her father’s house. The tomb of Autonoe is in this village.
{1.44.6} On the road from Megara to Corinth are tombs, including that of the Samian aulos-player Telephanes, [139] said to have been made by Kleopatra, daughter of Philip, son of Amyntas. There is also the tomb of Car, son of Phoroneus, which was originally a mound of earth, but afterwards, at the command of the oracle, it was adorned with mussel stone. The Megarians are the only Greeks to possess this stone, and in the city also they have made many things out of it. It is very white, and softer than other stone; in it throughout are sea mussels. Such is the nature of the stone. The road called Skironian to this day and named after Skiron, was made by him when he was war minister of the Megarians, and originally they say was constructed for the use of active men. But the emperor Hadrian broadened it, and made it suitable even for chariots to pass each other in opposite directions.
{1.44.7} There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially at the narrow part of the road. As to the Molurian, it is said that from it Ino flung her self into the sea with Melikertes, the younger of her children. Learkhos, the elder of them, had been killed by his father. One account is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that he vented on Ino and her children unbridled rage when he learned about the famine that befell the Orkhomenians and the supposed death of Phrixos, the cause of which was not divine power [tò theion] but the fact that Ino, the step-mother, had intrigued for all these things.
{1.44.8} Then it was that she fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they say, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors were offered to Melikertes, then renamed Palaimon, including the celebration of the Isthmian games. The Molurian dock they thought sacred to Leukothea and Palaimon; but those after it they consider accursed, in that Skiron, who dwelled by them, used to cast into the sea all the strangers he met. A tortoise used to swim under the rocks to seize those that fell in. Sea tortoises are like land tortoises except in size and for their feet, which are like those of seals. Retribution for these deeds overtook Skiron, for he was cast into the same sea by Theseus.
{1.44.9} On the top of the mountain is a shrine [nāos] of Zeus surnamed Aphesios ([derived from the verb aphienai ‘release’] Releaser). It is said that, on the occasion of the drought that once afflicted the Greeks [Hellēnes], Aiakos in obedience to oracular instructions sacrificed in Aegina to Zeus Pan-Hellēnios, and that Zeus created-a-release-from [aphienai], saving [komizen] them [from the drought] and thus gaining the name Aphesios [derived from the verb aphienai ‘release’]. Here there are also statues [agalmata] of Aphrodite, Apollo, and Pan.
{1.44.10} Farther on is the tomb of Eurystheus. The story is that he fled from Attica after the battle with the Herakleidai and was killed here by Iolaos. When you have gone down from this road you see a sanctuary of Apollo Latous, after which is the boundary between Megara and Corinth, where legend says that Hyllos, son of Hēraklēs, fought a duel with the Arcadian Ekhemos.
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Scroll II. Corinth
{2.1.1} The Corinthian land is a portion of the Argive, and is named after Korinthos. That Korinthos was a son of Zeus I have never known anybody say seriously except the majority of the Corinthians. Eumēlos, the son of Amphilytos, [140] of the family called Bakkhidai, who is said to have composed the epic poem, says in his Corinthian History (if indeed the history be his) that Ephyra, the daughter of Okeanos, dwelled first in this land; that afterwards Marathon, the son of Epopeus, the son of Aloeus, the son of Hēlios [Sun], fleeing from the lawless violence of his father, migrated to the sea coast of Attica; that on the death of Epopeus he came to Peloponnesus, divided his kingdom among his sons, and returned to Attica; and that Asopia was renamed after Sikyon, and Ephyraia after Korinthos.
{2.1.2} Corinth is no longer inhabited by any of the old Corinthians, but by colonists sent out by the Romans. This change is due to the Achaean League. [141] The Corinthians, being members of it, joined in the war against the Romans, which Kritolaos, when appointed general of the Achaeans, brought about by persuading to revolt both the Achaeans and the majority of the Greeks outside the Peloponnesus. When the Romans won the war, they carried out a general disarmament of the Greeks [142] and dismantled the walls of such cities as were fortified. Corinth was laid waste by Mummius, who at that time commanded the Romans in the field, and it is said that it was afterwards refounded by Caesar, [143] who was the author of the present constitution of Rome. Carthage, too, they say, was refounded in his reign.
{2.1.3} In the Corinthian territory is also the place called Cromyon from Cromus the son of Poseidon. Here they say that Phaia was bred; overcoming this sow was one of the traditional achievements of Theseus. Farther on the pine still grew by the shore at the time of my visit, and there was an altar of Melikertes. At this place, they say, the boy was brought ashore by a dolphin; Sisyphus found him lying and gave him burial on the Isthmus, establishing the Isthmian games in his honor.
{2.1.4} At the beginning of the Isthmus is the place where the brigand Sinis used to take hold of pine trees and draw them down. All those whom he overcame in fight he used to tie to the trees, and then allow them to swing up again. Thereupon each of the pines used to drag to itself the bound man, and as the bond gave way in neither direction but was stretched equally in both, he was torn in two. This was the way in which Sinis himself was slain by Theseus. For Theseus rid of evildoers the road from Troizen to Athens, killing those whom I have enumerated and, in sacred Epidaurus, Periphetes, thought to be the son of Hephaistos, who used to fight with a bronze club.
{2.1.5} The Corinthian Isthmus stretches on the one hand to the sea at Kenkhreai, and on the other to the sea at Lekhaion. For this is what makes the region to the south mainland. He who tried to make the Peloponnesus an island gave up before digging through the Isthmus. Where they began to dig is still to be seen, but into the rock they did not advance at all. So it still is mainland as its nature is to be. Alexander the son of Philip wished to dig through Mimas, and his attempt to do this was his only unsuccessful project. The people of Knidos began to dig through their isthmus, but the Pythian priestess stopped them. So difficult it is for man to alter by violence the things that belong to the gods [tà theia].
{2.1.6} A legend of the Corinthians about their land is not peculiar to them, for I believe that the Athenians were the first to relate a similar story to glorify Attica. The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a dispute with Hēlios [Sun] about the land, and that Briareos arbitrated between them, assigning to Poseidon the Isthmus and the parts adjoining, and giving to Hēlios the height above the city. Ever since, they say, the Isthmus has belonged to Poseidon.
{2.1.7} Worth seeing here are a theater and a white-marble race-course. Within the sanctuary of the god stand on the one side portrait statues of athletes who have won victories at the Isthmian games, on the other side pine trees growing in a row, the greater number of them rising up straight. On the temple, which is not very large, stand bronze Tritons. In the front part of the temple are statues [agalmata], two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite, and a Sea, which also is of bronze. The offerings inside were dedicated in our time by Herodes the Athenian, four horses, gilded except for the hoofs, which are of ivory,
{2.1.8} and two gold Tritons beside the horses, with the parts below the waist of ivory. On the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is the boy Palaimon upright upon a dolphin. These too are made of ivory and gold. On the middle of the base on which the car is has been crafted a Sea holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side are the nymphs called Nereids. I know that there are altars to these in other parts of Greece, and that some Greeks have even dedicated to them precincts by shores, where honors are also paid to Achilles. In Gabala is a holy sanctuary of Doto, where there was still remaining the robe by which the Greeks say that Eriphyle was bribed to wrong her son Alkmaion.
{2.1.9} Among the reliefs on the base of the statue of Poseidon are the sons of Tyndareus, because these too are saviors of ships and of sea-faring men. The other offerings are statues [agalmata] of Calm and of Sea, a horse like a whale from the breast onward, Ino and Bellerophontes, and the horse Pegasus [Pegasos].
{2.2.1} Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaimon, with statues [agalmata] in it of Poseidon, Leukothea, and Palaimon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaimon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.
{2.2.2} The tombs of Sisyphus and of Neleus—for they say that Neleus came to Corinth, died of disease, and was buried near the Isthmus—I do not think that anyone would look for after reading Eumēlos. For he says that not even to Nestor did Sisyphus show the tomb of Neleus, because it must be kept unknown to everybody alike, and that Sisyphus is indeed buried on the Isthmus, but that few Corinthians, even those of his own day, knew where the tomb was. The Isthmian games were not interrupted even when Corinth had been laid waste by Mummius, but so long as it lay deserted the celebration of the games was entrusted to the Sikyonians, and when it was rebuilt the honor was restored to the present inhabitants.
{2.2.3} The names of the Corinthian harbors were given them by Lekhes and Cenchrias, said to be the children of Poseidon and Peirene the daughter of Akhelōos, though in the poem called The Great Ehoiai Peirene is said to be a daughter of Oibalos. In Lechaion are a sanctuary and a bronze statue [agalma] of Poseidon, and on the road leading from the Isthmus to Cenchreae a temple and ancient wooden-statue [xoanon]of Artemis. In Kenkhreai are a temple and a stone statue [agalma] of Aphrodite, after it on the mole running into the sea a bronze statue of Poseidon, and at the other end of the harbor sanctuaries of Asklepios and of Isis. Right opposite Kenkhreai is Helen’s Bath. It is a large stream of salt, tepid water, flowing from a rock into the sea.
{2.2.4} As one goes up to Corinth are tombs, and by the gate is buried Diogenes of Sinope, whom the Greeks surname the Dog. Before the city is a grove of cypresses called Craneum. Here are a precinct of Bellerophontes, a temple of Aphrodite Melainis and the tomb of Lais, upon which is set a lioness holding a ram in her fore-paws.
{2.2.5} There is in Thessaly another tomb which claims to be that of Lais, for she went to that country also when she fell in love with Hippostratos. The story is that originally she was of Hycara in Sicily. Taken captive while yet a girl by Nikias and the Athenians, she was sold and brought to Corinth, where she surpassed in beauty the courtesans of her time, and so won the admiration of the Corinthians that even now they claim Lais as their own.
{2.2.6} The things worthy of mention in the city include the extant remains of antiquity, but the greater number of them belong to the period of its second ascendancy. On the marketplace, where most of the sanctuaries are, stand Artemis surnamed Ephesian and wooden images of Dionysus, which are covered with gold with the exception of their faces; these are ornamented with red paint. They are called Lysius and Baccheus,
{2.2.7} and I too give the story told about them. They say that Pentheus treated Dionysus despitefully, his crowning outrage being that he went to Kithairon, to spy upon the women, and climbing up a tree beheld what was done. When the women detected Pentheus, they immediately dragged him down, and joined in tearing him, living as he was, limb from limb. Afterwards, as the Corinthians say, the Pythian priestess commanded them by an oracle to discover that tree and to worship it equally with the god. For this reason they have made these images from the tree.
{2.2.8} There is also a temple of Fortune, with a standing statue [agalma] of Parian marble. Beside it is a sanctuary for all the gods. Hard by is built a fountain, on which is a bronze Poseidon; under the feet of Poseidon is a dolphin spouting water. There is also a bronze Apollo surnamed Clarius and a statue [agalma] of Aphrodite made by Hermogenes of Cythera. There are two bronze, standing statues [agalmata] of Hermes, for one of which a temple has been made. The images of Zeus also are in the open; one had not a surname, another they call Khthonios (of the Lower World) and the third Most High.
{2.3.1} In the middle of the marketplace is a bronze Athena, on the pedestal of which are made-in-relief-figures [agalmata] of the Muses. Above the marketplace is a temple of Octavia the sister of Augustus, who was emperor of the Romans after Caesar, the founder of the modern Corinth.
{2.3.2} On leaving the marketplace along the road to Lekhaion you come to a gateway, on which are two gilded chariots, one carrying Phaethon the son of Hēlios [Sun], the other Hēlios himself. A little farther away from the gateway, on the right as you go in, is a bronze Hēraklēs. After this is the entrance to the water of Peirene. The legend about Peirene is that she was a woman who became a spring because of her tears shed in lamentation for her son Cenchrias, who was unintentionally killed by Artemis.
{2.3.3} The spring is ornamented with white marble, and there have been made chambers like caves, out of which the water flows into an open-air well. It Is pleasant to drink, and they say that the Corinthian bronze, when red-hot, is tempered by this water, since bronze … the Corinthians have not. Moreover near Peirene are a statue [agalma] and a sacred enclosure of Apollo; in the latter is a painting of the exploit of Odysseus against the suitors.
{2.3.4} Proceeding on the direct road to Lekhaion we see a bronze statue [agalma] of a seated Hermes. By him stands a ram, for Hermes is the god who is thought most to care for and to increase flocks, as Homer puts it in the Iliad:
Son was he of Phorbas, the dearest of Trojans to Hermes,
Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance.
Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance.
Iliad 14.490
The story told at the mysteries of the Mother about Hermes and the ram I know but do not relate. After the image of Hermes come Poseidon, Leukothea, and Palaimon on a dolphin.
{2.3.5} The Corinthians have baths in many parts of the city, some put up at the public charge and one by the emperor Hadrian. The most famous of them is near the Poseidon. It was made by the Spartan Eurykles, who beautified it with various kinds of stone, especially the one quarried at Krokeai in Laconia. On the left of the entrance stands a Poseidon, and after him Artemis hunting. Throughout the city are many springs [krēnai], for the Corinthians have a copious supply of flowing water, besides the water which the emperor Hadrian brought from Lake Stymphalos, but the most noteworthy is the one by the side of the statue [agalma] of Artemis. Over it is a Bellerophontes, and the water flows through the hoof of the horse Pegasus [Pegasos].
{2.3.6} As you go along another road from the marketplace [agorā], which leads to Sikyon, you can see on the right of the road a temple [nāos] of Apollo, which has a bronze statue [agalma] of him. A little farther along the way is a well called the Spring [krēnē] of Glauke. Into this well they say she [= Glauke] threw herself, thinking that the water would be a cure for [the pain that she was suffering from] the magical drugs [pharmaka] of Medea. Above this spring [krēnē] has been built what is called the Odeum [ōideion], beside which is the tomb [mnēma] of Medea’s children. Their names were Mermeros and Pheres, and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians because—as is also said—they had brought to Glauke the gifts [dōra] [from Medea].
{2.3.7} And, since their death was violent and unjust, the infant offspring [nēpia tekna] of the Corinthians kept on being destroyed by them [= the ghosts of the children of Medea] until, in accordance with what the god [= Apollo] said-as-an-oracular pronouncement [khrēnai], yearly sacrifices [thusiai] were established in their honor and a figure of Terror [Deima] was set-up-in-compensation [epi-stēnai]. This figure still exists, even in my time: it is the image [eikōn] of a woman rather frightful to look at. After Corinth was destroyed by the Romans and the old Corinthians were wiped out, the new settlers no longer observed the custom of offering those sacrifices [thusiai] to the sons of Medea, nor do their children [who are initiated into the hero cult of the children of Medea] cut their hair for them or wear black clothes.
{2.3.8} On the occasion referred to Medea went to Athens and lived with Aigeus, but subsequently she was detected plotting against Theseus and fled from Athens also; coming to the land then called Aria she caused its inhabitants to be named after her Medes. The son, whom she brought with her in her flight to the Arii, they say she had by Aigeus, and that his name was Mēdos. Hellanicus, however, calls him Polyxenos and says that his father was Jason.
{2.3.9} The Greeks have an epic poem called Naupactia. In this Jason is represented as having removed his home after the death of Pelias from Iolkos to Corcyra, and Mermerus, the elder of his children, to have been killed by a lioness while hunting on the mainland opposite. Of Pheres is recorded nothing. But Kinaithon of Lacedaemon, another writer of pedigrees in verse, said that Jason’s children by Medea were a son Medeus and a daughter Eriopis; he too, however, gives no further information about these children.
{2.3.10} Eumēlos said that Hēlios [Sun] gave the Asopian land to Aloeus and Ephyraia to Aietes. When Aietes was departing for Kolkhis he entrusted his land to Bounos, the son of Hermes and Alkidameiā, and when Bounos died Epopeus the son of Aloeus extended his kingdom to include the Ephyraeans. Afterwards, when Korinthos, the son of Marathon, died childless, the Corinthians sent for Medea from Iolkos and bestowed upon her the kingdom.
{2.3.11} Through her Jason was king in Corinth, and Medea, as her children were born, carried each to the sanctuary of Hērā and concealed them, doing so in the belief that so they would be immortal. At last she learned that her hopes were vain, and at the same time she was detected by Jason. When she begged for pardon he refused it, and sailed away to Iolkos. For these reasons Medea too departed, and handed over the kingdom to Sisyphus.
{2.4.1} This is the account that I read, and not far from the tomb is the temple of Athena Khalinitis (Bridler). For Athena, they say, was the divinity who gave most help to Bellerophontes, and she delivered to him Pegasus [Pegasos], having herself broken in and bridled him. The statue [agalma] of hers is of wood [xoanon], but face, hands and feet are of white marble.
{2.4.2} That Bellerophontes was not an absolute king, but was subject to Proitos and the Argives is the belief of myself and of all who have read carefully the Homeric poems. [144] When Bellerophontes migrated to Lycia it is clear that the Corinthians none the less were subject to the despots at Argos or Mycenae. By themselves they provided no leader for the campaign against Troy, but shared in the expedition as part of the forces, Mycenaean and other, led by Agamemnon.
{2.4.3} Sisyphus had other sons besides Glaukos, the father of Bellerophontes a second was Ornytion, and besides him there were Thersandros and Almus. Ornytion had a son Phokos, reputed to have been begotten by Poseidon. He migrated to Tithorea in what is now called Phokis, but Thoas, the younger son of Ornytion, remained behind in Corinth. Thoas begat Damophon, Damophon begat Propodas, and Propodas begat Doridas and Hyanthidas. While these were kings the Dorians took the field against Corinth, their leader being Aletes, the son of Hippotas, the son of Phylas, the son of Antiokhos, the son of Hēraklēs. So Doridas and Hyanthidas gave up the kingship to Aletes and remained in Corinth, but the Corinthian people were conquered in battle and expelled by the Dorians.
{2.4.4} Aletes himself and his descendants reigned for five generations to Bacchis, the son of Prumnis, and, named after him, the Bakkhidai reigned for five more generations to Telestes, the son of Aristodemos. Telestes was killed in hate by Arieus and Perantas, and there were no more kings, but Prytanes (‘Presidents’) taken from the Bakkhidai and ruling for one year, until Kypselos, the son of Eetion, became tyrant and expelled the Bakkhidai. [145] Kypselos was a descendant of Melas, the son of Antasus. Melas from Gonoussa above Sikyon joined the Dorians in the expedition against Corinth. When the god expressed disapproval Aletes at first ordered Melas to withdraw to other Greeks, but afterwards, mistaking the oracle, he received him as a settler. Such I found to be the history of the Corinthian kings.
{2.4.5} Now the sanctuary of Athena Khalinitis is by their theater, and near is a naked wooden image of Hēraklēs, said to be a work of Daidalos. All the works of this artist, although rather uncouth to look at, are nevertheless distinguished by a kind of inspiration. Above the theater is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed in the Latin tongue Capitolinus, which might be rendered into Greek , ‘Koruphaios’. Not far from this theater is the ancient gymnasium, and a spring called Lerna. Pillars stand around it, and seats have been made to refresh in summer time those who have entered it. By this gymnasium are temples of Zeus and Asklepios. The statues [agalmata] of Asklepios and of Hygieia are of white marble, that of Zeus is of bronze.
{2.4.6} The Acrocorinth is a mountain peak above the city, assigned to Hēlios by Briareos when he acted as adjudicator, and handed over, the Corinthians say, by Hēlios to Aphrodite. As you go up this Acrocorinth you see two precincts of Isis, one if Isis surnamed Pelagian (Marine) and the other of Egyptian Isis, and two of Serapis, one of them being of Serapis called ‘Canopus’. After these are altars to Hēlios, and a sanctuary of Necessity and Force, into which it is not customary to enter.
{2.4.7} Above it are a temple of the Mother of the gods and a throne; the image and the throne are made of stone. The temple of the Fates and that of Demeter and the Maiden have statues [agalmata] that are not exposed to view. Here, too, is the temple of Hērā Bounaia set up by Bounos the son of Hermes. It is for this reason that the goddess is called Bounaia.
{2.5.1} As you go up to the summit of the Acrocorinth, there is a shrine [nāos] of Aphrodite. The statues [agalmata] there are Aphrodite herself, armed, also Hēlios, also Eros with a bow. The spring [pēgē], which is behind the shrine [nāos], they say was the gift of Asopos to Sisyphus, who knew, so they also say, that Zeus had abducted Aegina, the daughter of Asopos, but refused to give information to the seeker before he had some spring-water given him on the Acrocorinth. When Asopos granted this request, Sisyphus turned informer, and because of that he receives—if anyone believes it—punishment in Hādēs. I have heard people say that this spring-water and Peirene are the same, and that the water in the city flows there underground all the way from here.
{2.5.2} This Asopos rises in the Phliasian territory, flows through the Sikyonian, and empties itself into the sea here. His daughters, say the Phliasians, were Corcyra, Aegina, and Thebe. Corcyra and Aegina gave new names to the islands called Scheria and Oinone, while from Thebe is named the city below the Kadmeia. The Thebans do not agree, but say that Thebe was the daughter of the Boeotian, and not of the Phliasian, Asopos.
{2.5.3} The other stories about the river are current among both the Phliasians and the Sikyonians, for instance that its water is foreign and not native, in that the Maeander, descending from Kelainai through Phrygia and Caria, and emptying itself into the sea at Miletus, goes to the Peloponnesus and forms the Asopos. I remember hearing a similar story from the Delians, that the stream which they call Inopus comes to them from the Nile. Further, there is a story that the Nile itself is the Euphrates, which disappears into a marsh, rises again beyond Aethiopia and becomes the Nile.
{2.5.4} Such is the account I heard of the Asopos. When you have turned from the Acrocorinth into the mountain road you see the Teneatic gate and a sanctuary of Eileithuia. The town called Tenea is just about sixty stadium-lengths distant. The inhabitants say that they are Trojans who were taken prisoners in Tenedos by the Greeks, and were permitted by Agamemnon to dwell in their present home. For this reason they honor Apollo more than any other god.
{2.5.5} As you go from Corinth, not into the interior but along the road to Sikyon, there is on the left not far from the city a burned temple. There have, of course, been many wars carried on in Corinthian territory, and naturally houses and sanctuaries outside the wall have been fired. But this temple, they say, was Apollo’s, and Pyrrhos the son of Achilles burned it down. Subsequently I heard another account, that the Corinthians built the temple for Olympian Zeus, and that suddenly fire from some quarter fell on it and destroyed it.
{2.5.6} The Sikyonians, the neighbors of the Corinthians at this part of the border, say about their own land that Aigialeus was its first and aboriginal inhabitant, that the district of the Peloponnesus still called Aigialos was named after him because he reigned over it, and that he founded the city Aigialeia on the plain. Their citadel, they say, was where is now their sanctuary of Athena; further, that Aigialeus begat Europs, Europs Telchis, and Telchis Apis.
{2.5.7} This Apis reached such a height of power before Pelops came to Olympia that all the territory south of the Isthmus was called after him Apia. Apis begat Thelxion, Thelxion Aigyros, the Thourimakhos, and Thourimakhos Leukippos. Leukippos had no male issue, only a daughter Calchinia. There is a story that this Calchinia mated with Poseidon; her child was reared by Leukippos, who at his death handed over to him the kingdom. His name was Peratos.
{2.5.8} What is reported of Plemnaios, the son of Peratos, seemed to me very wonderful. All the children borne to him by his wife died the very first time they wailed. At last Demeter took pity on Plemnaios, came to Aigialeia in the guise of a strange woman, and reared for Plemnaios his son Orthopolis. Orthopolis had a daughter Khrysorthe, who is thought to have borne a son named Koronos to Apollo. Koronos had two sons, Korax and a younger one Lamedon.
{2.6.1} Korax died without issue, and at about this time came Epopeus from Thessaly and took the kingdom. In his reign the first hostile army is said to have invaded the land, which before this had enjoyed unbroken peace. The reason was this. Antiope, the daughter of Nykteus, had a name among the Greeks for beauty, and there was also a report that her father was not Nykteus but Asopos, the river that separates the territories of Thebes and Plataea.
{2.6.2} This woman Epopeus carried off but I do not know whether he asked for her hand or adopted a bolder policy from the beginning. The Thebans came against him in arms, and in the battle Nykteus was wounded. Epopeus also was wounded, but won the day. Nykteus they carried back ill to Thebes, and when he was about to die he appointed to be regent of Thebes his brother Lykos for Labdacus, the son of Polydoros, the son of Kadmos, being still a child, was the ward of Nykteus, who on this occasion entrusted the office of guardian to Lykos. He also besought him to attack Aigialeia with a larger army and bring vengeance upon Epopeus; Antiope herself, if taken, was to be punished.
{2.6.3} As to Epopeus, he forthwith offered sacrifice for his victory and began a temple of Athena, and when this was complete he prayed the goddess to make known whether the temple was finished to her liking, and after the prayer they say that olive oil flowed before the temple. Afterwards Epopeus also died of his wound, which he had neglected at first, so that Lykos had now no need to wage war. For Lamedon, the son of Koronos, who became king after Epopeus, gave up Antiope. As she was being taken to Thebes by way of Eleutherai, she was delivered there on the road.
{2.6.4} On this matter Asios the son of Amphiptolemos [146] says in his poem:
Zethus and Amphion had Antiope for their mother,
Daughter of Asopos, the swift, deep-eddying river,
Having conceived of Zeus and Epopeus, shepherd of peoples. [147]
Daughter of Asopos, the swift, deep-eddying river,
Having conceived of Zeus and Epopeus, shepherd of peoples. [147]
Homer traces their descent to the more august side of their family, and says that they were the first founders of Thebes, in my opinion distinguishing the lower city from the Kadmeia.
{2.6.5} When Lamedon became king he took to wife an Athenian woman, Pheno, the daughter of Klytios. Afterwards also, when war had arisen between him and Arkhandros and Arkhiteles, the sons of Achaeus, he brought in as his ally Sikyon from Attica, and gave him Zeuxippe his daughter to wife. This man became king, and the land was named after him Sikyonia, and the city Sikyon instead of Aigiale. But they say that Sikyon was not the son of Marathon, the son of Epopeus, but of Metion the son of Erekhtheus. Asios confirms their statement, while Hesiod makes Sikyon the son of Erekhtheus, and Ibycus says that his father was Pelops.
{2.6.6} Sikyon had a daughter Khthonophyle, and they say that she and Hermes were the parents of Polybus. Afterwards she married Phlias, the son of Dionysus, and gave birth to Androdamas. Polybus gave his daughter Lysianassa to Talaos the son of Bias, king of the Argives; and when Adrastos fled from Argos he came to Polybus at Sikyon, and afterwards on the death of Polybus he became king at Sikyon. When Adrastos returned to Argos, Ianiskos, a descendant of Klytios the father-in-law of Lamedon, came from Attica and was made king, and when Ianiskos died he was succeeded by Phaistos, said to have been one of the children of Hēraklēs.
{2.6.7} After Phaistos in obedience to an oracle migrated to Crete, the next king is said to have been Zeuxippos, the son of Apollo and the nymph Syllis. On the death of Zeuxippos, Agamemnon led an army against Sikyon and king Hippolytus, the son of Rhopalus, the son of Phaistos. In terror of the army that was attacking him, Hippolytus agreed to become subject to Agamemnon and the Mycenaeans. This Hippolytus was the father of Lacestades. Phalkes the son of Temenus, with the Dorians, surprised Sikyon by night, but did Lacestades no harm, because he too was one of the Herakleidai, and made him partner in the kingdom.
{2.7.1} From that time the Sikyonians became Dorians and their land a part of the Argive territory. The city built by Aigialeus on the plain was destroyed by Demetrios the son of Antigonos, [148] who founded the modern city near what was once the ancient citadel. The reason why the Sikyonians grew weak it would be wrong to seek; we must be content with Homer’s saying about Zeus:
Many, indeed, are the cities of which he has leveled the strongholds.
Iliad 2.117 and 9.24
When they had lost their power there came upon them an earthquake, which almost depopulated their city and took from them many of their famous sights. It damaged also the cities of Caria and Lycia, and the island of Rhodes was very violently shaken, so that it was thought that the Sibyl had had her utterance about Rhodes [149] fulfilled.
{2.7.2} When you have come from the Corinthian to the Sikyonian territory you see the tomb of Lykos the Messenian, whoever this Lykos may be; for I can discover no Messenian Lykos who practiced the pentathlon or won a victory at Olympia. This tomb is a mound of earth, but the Sikyonians themselves usually bury their dead in a uniform manner. They cover the body in the ground, and over it they build a basement of stone upon which they set pillars. Above these they put something very like the pediment of a temple. They add no inscription, except that they give the dead man’s name without that of his father and bid him farewell.
{2.7.3} After the tomb of Lykos, but on the other side of the Asopos, there is on the right the Olympium, and a little farther on, to the left of the road, the tomb of Eupolis, the Athenian comic poet. Farther on, if you turn in the direction of the city, you see the tomb of Xenodice, who died in childbirth. It has not been made after the native fashion, but so as to harmonize best with the painting, which is very well worth seeing.
{2.7.4} Farther on from here is the tomb of the Sikyonians who were killed at Pellene, at Dyme of the Achaeans, in Megalopolis and at Sellasia. [150] Their story I will relate more fully presently. By the gate they have a spring in a cave, the water of which does not rise out of the earth, but flows down from the roof of the cave. For this reason it is called the Dripping Spring.
{2.7.5} On the modern citadel is a sanctuary of Fortune of the Height, and after it one of the Dioskouroi. Their statues [agalmata] and that of Fortune are of wood [xoana]. On the stage of the theater built under the citadel is a statue of a man with a shield, who they say is Aratos, the son of Kleinias. After the theater is a temple of Dionysus. The god is of gold and ivory, and by his side are Bacchic women [Bakkhai] of white marble. These women they say are sacred [hierai] to Dionysus and are-maddened [mainesthai] by his inspiration. The Sikyonians have also some statues [agalmata] that are kept secret. These one night in each year they carry to the temple of Dionysus from what they call the Kosmeterion, and they do so with lighted torches and hymns [humnoi] that are local [epikhōrioi]
{2.7.6} The first is the one named Baccheus, set up by Androdamas, the son of Phlias, and this is followed by the one called Lysios (Deliverer), brought from Thebes by the Theban Phanes at the command of the Pythian priestess. Phanes came to Sikyon when Aristomakhos, the son of Kleodaios, failed to understand the oracle [151] given him, and therefore failed to return to the Peloponnesus. As you walk from the temple of Dionysus to the marketplace you see on the right a temple of Artemis of the lake. A look shows that the roof has fallen in, but the inhabitants cannot tell whether the statue [agalma] had been saved [komizesthai] and taken elsewhere or whether it was destroyed on the spot.
{2.7.7} Within the marketplace is a sanctuary of Persuasion; this too has no statue [agalma]. The worship of Persuasion was established among them for the following reason. When Apollo and Artemis had killed Pythō they came to Aigialeia to obtain purification. Dread coming upon them at the place now named Fear, they turned aside to Carmanor in Crete, and the people of Aigialeia were smitten by a plague. When the seers ordered them to propitiate Apollo and Artemis,
{2.7.8} they sent seven boys and seven girls as suppliants to the river Sythas. They say that the deities, persuaded by these, came to what was then the citadel, and the place that they reached first is the sanctuary of Persuasion. Conformable with this story is the ceremony they perform at the present day; the children go to the Sythas at the feast of Apollo, and having brought, as they pretend, the deities to the sanctuary of Persuasion, they say that they take them back again to the temple of Apollo. The temple stands in the modern marketplace, and was originally, it is said, made by Proitos, because in this place his daughters recovered from their madness.
{2.7.9} It is also said that in this temple Meleagros dedicated the spear with which he slew the boar. There is also a story that the aulos [‘double-reed’] of Marsyas is dedicated here. When the Silenos met with his disaster, the river Marsyas carried the aulos [‘double-reed’] to the Maeander; reappearing in the Asopos it was cast ashore in the Sikyonian territory and given to Apollo by the shepherd who found them. I found none of these offerings still in existence, for they were destroyed by fire when the temple was burned. The temple that I saw, and its statue [agalma], were dedicated by Pythokles.
{2.8.1} The precinct near the sanctuary of Persuasion that is devoted to Roman emperors was once the house of the tyrant Kleon. He became tyrant in the modern city there was another tyranny while the Sikyonians still lived in the lower city, [152] that of Cleisthenes, the son of Aristonymos, the son of Myron. Before this house is a hero-shrine of Aratos, [153] whose achievements eclipsed those of all contemporary Greeks. His history is as follows.
{2.8.2} After the despotism of Kleon, many of those in authority were seized with such an ungovernable passion for tyranny that two actually became tyrants together, Euthydemos and Timokleidas. These were expelled by the people, who made Kleinias, the father of Aratos, their champion. A few years afterwards Abantidas became tyrant. Before this time Kleinias had met his death, and Aratos went into exile, either of his own accord or because he was compelled to do so by Abantidas. Now Abantidas was killed by some natives, and his father Paseas immediately became tyrant.
{2.8.3} He was killed by Nikokles, who succeeded him. [154] This Nikokles was attacked by Aratos with a force of Sikyonian exiles and Argive mercenaries. Making his attempt by night, he eluded some of the defenders in the darkness; the others he overcame, and forced his way within the wall. Day was now breaking, and taking the populace with him he hastened to the tyrant’s house. This he easily captured, but Nikokles himself succeeded in making his escape. Aratos restored equality of political rights to the Sikyonians, striking a bargain for those in exile; he restored to them their houses and all their other possessions which had been sold, compensating the buyers out of his own purse.
{2.8.4} Moreover, as all the Greeks were afraid of the Macedonians and of Antigonos, the guardian of Philip, the son of Demetrios, he induced the Sikyonians, who were Dorians, to join the Achaean League. He was immediately elected general by the Achaeans, and leading them against the the people of Lokris in Amphissa and into the land of the Aetolians, their enemies, he ravaged their territory. Corinth was held by Antigonos, and there was a Macedonian garrison in the city, but he threw them into a panic by the suddenness of his assault, winning a battle and killing among others Persaios, the commander of the garrison, who had studied philosophy under Zeno, the son of Mnaseas.
{2.8.5} When Aratos had liberated Corinth, the League was joined by the Epidaurians and Troizenians inhabiting Argolian Acte, and by the Megarians among those beyond the Isthmus, while Ptolemy made an alliance with the Achaeans. The Lacedaemonians and king Agis, the son of Eudamidas, surprised and took Pellene by a sudden onslaught, but when Aratos and his army arrived they were defeated in an engagement, evacuated Pellene, and returned home under a truce.
{2.8.6} After his success in the Peloponnesus, Aratos thought it a shame to allow the Macedonians to hold unchallenged Peiraieus, Mounukhia, Salamis, and Sounion; but not expecting to be able to take them by force he bribed Diogenes, the commander of the garrisons, to give up the positions for a hundred and fifty talents, himself helping the Athenians by contributing a sixth part of the sum. He induced Aristomakhos also, the tyrant of Argos, to restore to the Argives their democracy and to join the Achaean League; he captured Mantineia from the Lacedaemonians who held it. But no man finds all his plans turn out according to his liking, and even Aratos was compelled to become an ally of the Macedonians and Antigonos in the following way.
{2.9.1} Kleomenes, the son of Leonidas, the son of Kleonymos, having succeeded to the kingship at Sparta, resembled Pausanias [155] in being dissatisfied with the established constitution and in aiming at a tyranny. A more fiery man than Pausanias, and no coward, he quickly succeeded by spirit and daring in accomplishing all his ambition. He poisoned Eurydamidas, the king of the other royal house, while yet a boy, raised to the throne by means of the ephors his brother Epikleidas, destroyed the power of the senate, and appointed in its stead a nominal Council of Fathers. Ambitious for greater things and for supremacy over the Greeks, he first attacked the Achaeans, hoping if successful to have them as allies, and especially wishing that they should not hinder his activities.
{2.9.2} Engaging them at Dyme beyond Patrai, Aratos being still leader of the Achaeans, he won the victory. [156] In fear for the Achaeans and for Sikyon itself, Aratos was forced by this defeat to bring in Antigonos as an ally. Kleomenes had violated the peace which he had made with Antigonos and had openly acted in many ways contrary to treaty, especially in laying waste Megalopolis. So Antigonos crossed into the Peloponnesus and the Achaeans met Kleomenes at Sellasia. [157] The Achaeans were victorious, the people of Sellasia were sold into slavery, and Lacedaemon itself was captured. Antigonos and the Achaeans restored to the Lacedaemonians the constitution of their fathers;
{2.9.3} but of the children of Leonidas, Epikleidas was killed in the battle, and Kleomenes fled to Egypt. Held in the highest honor by Ptolemy, he came to be cast into prison, being convicted of inciting Egyptians to rebel against their king. He made his escape from prison and began a riot among the Alexandrians, but at last, on being captured, he fell by his own hand. The Lacedaemonians, glad to be rid of Kleomenes, refused to be ruled by kings any longer, but the rest of their ancient constitution they have kept to the present day. Antigonos remained a constant friend of Aratos, looking upon him as a benefactor who had helped him to accomplish brilliant deeds.
{2.9.4} But when Philip succeeded to the throne, since Aratos did not approve of his violent treatment of his subjects, and in some cases even opposed the accomplishment of his purposes, he killed Aratos by giving him secretly a dose of poison. This fate came upon Aratos at Aigion, from which place he was carried to Sikyon and buried, and there is still in that city the hero-shrine of Aratos. Philip treated two Athenians, Eurykleides and Mikon, in a similar way. These men also, who were orators enjoying the confidence of the people, he killed by poison.
{2.9.5} After all, Philip himself in his turn was fated to suffer disaster through the fatal cup. Philip’s son, Demetrios, was poisoned by Perseus, his younger son, and grief at the murder brought the father also to his tomb. I mention the incident in passing, with my mind turned to the inspired words of the poet Hesiod, that he who plots mischief against his neighbor directs it first to himself.
{2.9.6} After the hero-shrine of Aratos is an altar to Isthmian Poseidon, and also a Zeus Meilichios (Gracious) and an Artemis named Patroa (Paternal), both of them very inartistic works. The Meilichios is like a pyramid, the Artemis like a pillar. Here too stand their council-chamber and a portico called Cleisthenean from the name of him who built it. It was built from spoils by Cleisthenes, who helped the Amphiktyones in the war at Cirrha. [158] In the marketplace under the open sky is a bronze Zeus, a work of Lysippos, and by the side of it a gilded Artemis.
{2.9.7} Hard by is a sanctuary of Apollo Lykios (wolf-god), now fallen into ruins and not worth any attention. For wolves once so preyed upon their flocks that there was no longer any profit therefrom, and the god, mentioning a certain place where lay a dry log, gave an oracle that the bark of this log mixed with meat was to be set out for the beasts to eat. As soon as they tasted it the bark killed them, and that log lay in my time in the sanctuary of the Wolf-god, but not even the guides of the Sikyonians knew what kind of tree it was.
{2.9.8} Next after this are bronze portrait statues, said to be the daughters of Proitos, but the inscription I found referred to other women. Here there is a bronze Hēraklēs, made by Lysippos the Sikyonian, and hard by stands Hermes of the Marketplace.
{2.10.1} In the gymnasium not far from the marketplace is dedicated a stone Hēraklēs made by Scopas. There is also in another place a sanctuary of Hēraklēs. The whole of the enclosure here they name Paidizē; in the middle of the enclosure is the sanctuary, and in it is an old wooden figure carved by Laphaēs the Phliasian. I will now describe the ritual at the festival. The story is that on coming to the Sikyonian land Phaistos found the people giving offerings to Hēraklēs as to a hero. Phaistos then refused to do anything of the kind, but insisted on sacrificing to him as to a god. Even at the present day the Sikyonians, after slaying a lamb and burning the thighs upon the altar, eat some of the meat as part of a victim given to a god, while the rest they offer as to a hero. The first day of the festival in honor of Hēraklēs they name …; the second they call Herakleia.
{2.10.2} From here is a way to a sanctuary of Asklepios. On passing into the enclosure you see on the left a building with two rooms. In the outer room lies a figure of Sleep, of which nothing remains now except the head. The inner room is given over to the Carnean Apollo; into it none may enter except the priests. In the portico lies a huge bone of a sea-monster, and after it a statue [agalma] of the Dream-god and [a statue of] Sleep, surnamed Epidotes (Bountiful), lulling to sleep a lion. Within the sanctuary on either side of the entrance is a statue [agalma] of Pan seated, and, on the other side, [a statue of] Artemis standing.
{2.10.3} When you have entered you see the god, a beardless figure of gold and ivory made by Kalamis. He holds a staff in one hand, and a cone of the cultivated pine in the other. The Sikyonians say that the god was carried to them from Epidaurus on a carriage drawn by two mules, that he was in the likeness of a serpent, and that he was brought by Nicagora of Sikyon, the mother of Agasikles and the wife of Ekhetīmos. Here are small figures [agalmata] hanging from the roof. She who is on the serpent they say is Aristodama, the mother of Aratos, whom they hold to be a son of Asklepios.
{2.10.4} Such are the noteworthy things that this enclosure presented to me, and opposite is another enclosure, sacred to Aphrodite. The first thing inside is a statue [agalma] of Antiope. They say that her sons were Sikyonians, and because of them the Sikyonians will have it that Antiope herself is related to themselves. After this is the sanctuary of Aphrodite, into which enter only a female verger, who after her appointment may not have intercourse with a man, and a virgin, called the Bath-bearer, holding her sacred office for a year. All others are accustomed to behold the goddess from the entrance, and to pray from that place.
{2.10.5} The statue [agalma], which is seated, was made by the Sikyonian Kanakhos, who also fashioned the Apollo at Didyma of the Milesians, and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans. It is made of gold and ivory, having on its head a polos, [159] and carrying in one hand a poppy and in the other an apple. They offer the thighs of the victims, excepting pigs; the other parts they burn for the goddess with juniper wood, but as the thighs are burning they add to the offering a leaf of the paideros.
{2.10.6} This is a plant in the open parts of the enclosure, and it grows nowhere else either in Sikyonia or in any other land. Its leaves are smaller than those of the esculent oak, but larger than those of the holm; the shape is similar to that of the oak-leaf. One side is of a dark color, the other is white. You might best compare the color to that of white-poplar leaves.
{2.10.7} Ascending from here to the gymnasium you see in the right a sanctuary of Artemis Pheraia. It is said that the wooden image was brought from Pherai. This gymnasium was built for the Sikyonians by Kleinias, and they still train the youths here. White marble images are here, an Artemis crafted only to the waist, and a Hēraklēs whose lower parts are similar to the square Hermai.
{2.11.1} Turning away from here towards the gate called Holy you see, not far from the gate, a temple of Athena. Dedicated long ago by Epopeus, it surpassed all its contemporaries in size and splendor. Yet the memory of even this was doomed to perish through lapse of time—it was burned down by lightning—but the altar there, which escaped injury, remains down to the present day as Epopeus made it. Before the altar a barrow has been raised for Epopeus himself, and near the tomb are the gods Averters of evil. Near them the Greeks perform such rites as they are accustomed to do in order to avert misfortunes. They say that the neighboring sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo was also made by Epopeus, and that of Hērā after it by Adrastos. I found no statues [agalmata] remaining in either. Behind the sanctuary of Hērā he built an altar to Pan, and one to Hēlios [Sun] made of white marble.
{2.11.2} On the way down to the plain is a sanctuary of Demeter, said to have been founded by Plemnaios as a thank-offering to the goddess for the rearing of his son. A little farther away from the sanctuary of Hērā founded by Adrastos is a temple of Apollo Karneios. Only the pillars are standing in it; you will no longer find there walls or roof, nor yet in that of Hērā Pioneer. This temple was founded by Phalkes, son of Temenus, who asserted that Hērā guided him on the road to Sikyon.
{2.11.3} On the direct road from Sikyon to Phleious, on the left of the road and just about ten stadium-lengths from it, is a grove called Puraiā, and in it a sanctuary of Hērā Protectress and the Maiden. Here the men celebrate a festival by themselves, giving up to the women the temple called Nymphon for the purposes of their festival. In the Nymphon are statues [agalmata] of Dionysus, Demeter, and the Maiden, with only their faces exposed. The road to Titane is sixty stadium-lengths long, and too narrow to be used by carriages drawn by a yoke.
{2.11.4} At a distance along it, in my opinion, of twenty stadium-lengths, to the left on the other side of the Asopos, is a grove of holm oaks and a temple of the goddesses named by the Athenians the August, and by the Sikyonians the Kindly Ones. On one day in each year they celebrate a festival to them and offer sheep big with young as a burned offering, and they are accustomed to use a libation of honey and water, and flowers instead of garlands. They practice similar rites at the altar of the Fates; it is in an open space in the grove.
{2.11.5} On turning back to the road, and having crossed the Asopos again and reached the summit of the hill, you come to the place where the natives say that Titan first dwelled. They add that he was the brother of Hēlios [Sun], and that after him the place got the name Titane. My own view is that he proved clever at observing the seasons of the year and the times when the sun increases and ripens seeds and fruits, and for this reason was held to be the brother of Hēlios. Afterwards Alexanor, the son of Machaon, the son of Asklepios, came to Sikyonia and built the sanctuary of Asklepios at Titane.
{2.11.6} The neighbors are chiefly servants of the god, and within the enclosure are old cypress trees. One cannot learn of what wood or metal the statue [agalma] is, nor do they know the name of the maker, though one or two attribute it to Alexanor himself. Of the statue [agalma] can be seen only the face, hands, and feet, for it has about it a tunic of white wool and a cloak. There is a similar statue [agalma] of Hygieia; this, too, one cannot see easily because it is so surrounded with the locks of women, who cut them off and offer them to the goddess, and with strips of Babylonian raiment. With whichever of these a votary here is willing to make propitiations, the same instructions have been given to him, to worship this image which they are pleased to call Hygieia.
{2.11.7} There are statues [agalmata] also of Alexanor and of Euamerion; to the former they give offerings as to a hero after the setting of the sun; to Euamerion, as being a god, they give burned sacrifices. If I conjecture aright, the Pergamenes, in accordance with an oracle, call this Euamerion Telesphoros (Accomplisher) while the Epidaurians call him Akesis (Cure). There is also a wooden image of Coronis, but it has no fixed position anywhere in the temple. While to the god are being sacrificed a bull, a lamb, and a pig, they remove Coronis to the sanctuary of Athena and honor her there. The parts of the victims which they offer as a burned sacrifice, and they are not content with cutting out the thighs, they burn on the ground, except the birds, which they burn on the altar.
{2.11.8} In the gable at the ends are figures of Hēraklēs and of Victories. In the portico are dedicated statues [agalmata] of Dionysus and Hekate, with Aphrodite, the Mother of the gods, and Fortune. These are wooden, but Asklepios, surnamed Gortynian, is of stone. They are unwilling to enter among the sacred serpents through fear, but they place their food before the entrance and take no further trouble. Within the enclosure is a bronze statue of a Sikyonian named Granianus, who won the following victories at Olympia: the pentathlon twice, the foot-race, the double-course foot-race twice, once without and once with the shield.
{2.12.1} In Titane there is also a sanctuary of Athena, into which they bring up the image of Coronis. In it is an old wooden figure of Athena, and I was told that it, too, was struck by lightning. The sanctuary is built upon a hill, at the bottom of which is an Altar of the Winds, and on it the priest sacrifices to the winds one night in every year. He also performs other secret rites at four pits, taming the fierceness of the blasts, and he is said to chant as well charms of Medea.
{2.12.2} On reaching Sikyon from Titane, as you go down to the shore you see on the left of the road a temple of Hērā having now neither statue [agalma] nor roof. They say that its founder was Proitos, the son of Abas. When you have gone down to the harbor called the Sikyonians’ and turned towards Aristonautai, the Port of Pellene, you see a little above the road on the left hand a sanctuary of Poseidon. Farther along the highway is a river called the Helisson, and after it the Sythas, both emptying themselves into the sea.
{2.12.3} Phliasia borders on Sikyonia. The city is just about forty stadium-lengths distant from Titane, and there is a straight road to it from Sikyon. That the Phliasians are in no way related to the Arcadians is shown by the passage in Homer that deals with the list of the Arcadians, in which the Sikyonians are not included among the Arcadian confederates. As my narrative progresses it will become clear that they were Argive originally, and became Dorian later after the return of the Herakleidai to the Peloponnesus. I know that most of the traditions concerning the Phliasians are contradictory, but I shall make use of those which have been most generally accepted.
{2.12.4} They say that the first man in this land was Aras, who sprang from the soil. He founded a city around that hillock which even down to our day is called the Arantine Hill, not far distant from a second hill on which the Phliasians have their citadel and their sanctuary of Hebe. Here, then, he founded a city, and after him in ancient times both the land and the city were called Arantia. While he was king, Asopos, said to be the son of Celusa and Poseidon, discovered for him the water of the river which the present inhabitants call after him Asopos. The tomb of Aras is in the place called Celeae, where they say is also buried Dysaules of Eleusis.
{2.12.5} Aras had a son Aoris and a daughter Araethyrea, who, the Phliasians say, were experienced hunters and brave warriors. Araethyrea died first, and Aoris, in memory of his sister, changed the name of the land to Araethyrea. This is why Homer, in making a list of Agamemnon’s subjects, has the verse: Orneaiwas their home and Araethyrea the delightful. [160] The tombs of the children of Aras are, in my opinion, on the Arantine Hill and not in any other part of the land. On the top of them are far-seen tombstones, and before the celebration of the mysteries of Demeter the people look at these tombs and call Aras and his children to the libations.
{2.12.6} The Argives say that Phlias, who has given the land its third name, was the son of Ceisus, the son of Temenus. This account I can by no means accept, but I know that he is called a son of Dionysus, and that he is said to have been one of those who sailed on the Argo. The verses of the Rhodian poet confirm me in my opinion:
Came after these Phlias from Araethyrea to the muster;
Here did he dwell and prosper, because Dionysus his father
Cared for him well, and his home was near to the springs of Asopos.
Here did he dwell and prosper, because Dionysus his father
Cared for him well, and his home was near to the springs of Asopos.
The account goes on to say that the mother of Phlias was Araethyrea and not Khthonophyle. The latter was his wife and bore him Androdamas.
{2.13.1} On the return of the Herakleidai disturbances took place throughout the whole of the Peloponnesus except Arcadia, so that many of the cities received additional settlers from the Dorian lineage, and their inhabitants suffered yet more revolutions. The history of Phleious is as follows. The Dorian Rhegnidas, the son of Phalkes, the son of Temenus, attacked it from Argos and Sikyonia. Some of the Phliasians were inclined to accept the offer of Rhegnidas, which was that they should remain on their own estates and receive Rhegnidas as their king, giving the Dorians with him a share in the land.
{2.13.2} Hippasus and his party, on the other hand, urged the citizens to defend themselves, and not to give up many advantages to the Dorians without striking a blow. The people, however, accepted the opposite policy, and so Hippasus and any others who wished fled to Samos. Great-grandson of this Hippasus was Pythagoras, the celebrated sage. For Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarkhos, the son of Euphranor, the son of Hippasus. This is the account the Phliasians give about themselves, and the Sikyonians in general agree with them.
{2.13.3} I will now add an account of the most remarkable of their famous sights. On the Phliasian citadel is a grove of cypress trees and a sanctuary which from ancient times has been held to be peculiarly holy. The earliest Phliasians named the goddess to whom the sanctuary belongs Ganymeda; but later authorities call her Hebe, whom Homer [161] mentions in the duel between Menelaos and Alexander, saying that she was the cup-bearer of the gods; and again he says, in the descent of Odysseus to Hades, [162] that she was the wife of Hēraklēs. Olen, [163] in his hymn to Hērā, says that Hērā was reared by the Seasons, and that her children were Ares and Hebe. Of the honors that the Phliasians pay to this goddess the greatest is the pardoning of suppliants.
{2.13.4} All those who seek sanctuary here receive full forgiveness, and prisoners, when set free, dedicate their fetters on the trees in the grove. The Phliasians also celebrate a yearly festival which they call Ivy-cutters. There is no statue [agalma], either kept in secret or openly displayed, and the reason for this is set forth in a sacred legend of theirs though on the left as you go out is a temple of Hērā with a statue [agalma] of Parian marble.
{2.13.5} On the citadel is another enclosure, which is sacred to Demeter, and in it are a temple and statue [agalma] of Demeter and [one of] her daughter. Here there is also a bronze statue [agalma] of Artemis, which appeared to me to be ancient. As you go down from the citadel you see on the right a temple of Asklepios with a statue [agalma] of the god as a beardless youth. Below this temple is built a theater. Not far from it is a sanctuary of Demeter and old, seated statues [agalmata].
{2.13.6} On the marketplace is a votive offering, a bronze she-goat for the most part covered with gold. The following is the reason why it has received honors among the Phliasians. The constellation which they call the Goat on its rising causes continual damage to the vines. In order that they may suffer nothing unpleasant from it, the Phliasians pay honors to the bronze goat on the marketplace and adorn the image with gold. Here also is the tomb of Aristias, the son of Pratinas. [164] This Aristias and his father Pratinas composed satyric plays more popular than any save those of Aeschylus.
{2.13.7} Behind the marketplace is a building which the Phliasians name the House of Divination. Into it Amphiaraos entered, slept the night there, and then first, say the Phliasians, began to divine. According to their account Amphiaraos was for a time an ordinary person and no diviner. Ever since that time the building has been shut up. Not far away is what is called the Omphalos (Navel), the center of all the Peloponnesus, if they speak the truth about it. Farther on from the Omphalos they have an old sanctuary of Dionysus, a sanctuary of Apollo, and one of Isis. The statue [agalma] of Dionysus is visible to all, and so also is that of Apollo, but the image of Isis only the priests may behold.
{2.13.8} The Phliasians tell also the following legend. When Hēraklēs came back safe from Libya, bringing the apples of the Hesperides, as they were called, he visited Phleious on some private matter. While he was staying there Oineus came to him from Aetolia. He had already allied himself to the lineage of Hēraklēs, and after his arrival on this occasion either he entertained Hēraklēs or Hēraklēs entertained him. Be this as it may, displeased with the drink given him Hēraklēs struck on the head with one of his fingers the boy Cyathus, the cup-bearer of Oineus, who died on the spot from the blow. A chapel keeps the memory of the deed fresh among the Phliasians; it is built by the side of the sanctuary of Apollo, and it contains statues [agalmata] made of stone representing Cyathus holding out a cup to Hēraklēs.
{2.14.1} Celeae is some five stadium-lengths distant from the city, and here they celebrate the mysteries in honor of Demeter, not every year but every fourth year. The initiating priest is not appointed for life, but at each celebration they elect a fresh one, who takes, if he cares to do so, a wife. In this respect their custom differs from that at Eleusis, but the actual celebration is modeled on the Eleusinian rites. The Phliasians themselves admit that they copy the ‘performance’ at Eleusis.
{2.14.2} They say that it was Dysaules, the brother of Keleus, who came to their land and established the mysteries, and that he had been expelled from Eleusis by Ion, when Ion, the son of Xuthus, was chosen by the Athenians to be commander-in-chief in the Eleusinian war. Now I cannot possibly agree with the Phliasians in supposing that an Eleusinian was conquered in battle and driven away into exile, for the war terminated in a treaty before it was fought out, and Eumolpos himself remained at Eleusis.
{2.14.3} But it is possible that Dysaules came to Phleious for some other reason than that given by the Phliasians. I do not believe either that he was related to Keleus, or that he was in any way distinguished at Eleusis, otherwise Homer would never have passed him by in his poems. For Homer is one of those who have written in honor of Demeter, and when he is making a list of those to whom the goddess taught the mysteries he knows nothing of an Eleusinian named Dysaules. These are the verses:
She to Triptolemos taught, and to Diokles, driver of horses,
Also to mighty Eumolpos, to Keleus, leader of peoples,
Cult of the holy rites, to them all her mystery telling.
Also to mighty Eumolpos, to Keleus, leader of peoples,
Cult of the holy rites, to them all her mystery telling.
{2.14.4} At all events, this Dysaules, according to the Phliasians, established the mysteries here, and he it was who gave to the place the name Celeae. I have already said that the tomb of Dysaules is here. So the tomb of Aras was made earlier, for according to the account of the Phliasians Dysaules did not arrive in the reign of Aras, but later. For Aras, they say, was a contemporary of Prometheus, the son of Iapetos, and three generations of men older than Pelasgus the son of Arkas and those called in Athens aboriginals. On the roof of what is called the Anactorum they say is dedicated the chariot of Pelops.
{2.15.1} These are the things that I found most worthy of mention among the Phliasians. On the road from Corinth to Argos is a small city Kleonai. They say that Kleones was a son of Pelops, though there are some who say that Kleone was one of the daughters of Asopos, that flows by the side of Sikyon. Be this as it may, one or other of these two accounts for the name of the city. Here there is a sanctuary of Athena, and the statue [agalma] is a work of Skyllis and Dipoinos. [165] Some hold them to have been the pupils of Daidalos, but others will have it that Daidalos took a wife from Gortyn, and that Dipoinos and Skyllis were his sons by this woman. Kleonai possesses this sanctuary and the tomb of Eurytos and Kteatos. The story is that as they were going as ambassadors from Elis to the Isthmian contest they were here shot by Hēraklēs, who charged them with being his adversaries in the war against Augeias.
{2.15.2} From Kleonai to Argos are two roads; one is direct and only for men who are physically fit, the other goes along the pass called Trētos, is narrow like the other, being surrounded by mountains, but is nevertheless more suitable for vehicles. In these mountains is still shown the cave of the famous lion, and the place [khōrion] called Neméā is distant some fifteen stadium-lengths. In Neméā is a temple [nāos] of Nemean [Nemeios] Zeus, which is worth seeing [théā], but I found that the roof had caved in and that there was no longer any statue [agalma] [of Zeus] left. Around the temple is a grove of cypress trees, and here it is, they say, that Opheltes was placed by his nurse in the grass and killed by the serpent [drakōn].
{2.15.3} The Argives offer-sacrifices [thuein] to Zeus the Nemean [Nemeios] in Nemeā, and elect a priest of Nemean Zeus; moreover they offer a prize for a race in armor at the winter celebration of the Nemean games. In this place is the tomb of Opheltes; around it is a fence of stones, and within the enclosure are altars. There is also a mound of earth which is the tomb of Lycurgus [Lykourgos] the father of Opheltes. The spring [pēgē] they call Adrasteia for some reason [aitiā] or other, perhaps because Adrastos found it. The land was named, they say, after Nemeā, who was another daughter of Asopos. Above Nemeā is Mount Apesas, where they say that Perseus first made-sacrifice [thuein] to Zeus of Apesas.
{2.15.4} Going upland to [the pass called] Trētos and then down again along the road to Argos, you see on the left the ruins [ereipia] of Mycenae. The Greeks are generally aware that the founder [oikistēs] of Mycenae was Perseus, but I will also write down the cause [aitiā] of its foundation [oikismos] and the pretext [prophasis] that theArgives gave when they at a later point destroyed Mycenae. In the region now called Argolis, some things most ancient are not memorialized [mnēmoneuein] while other things are, and here is one such thing: they say that Inakhos was once their king and that he named the river Inakhos after himself and that he sacrificed to Hērā.
{2.15.5} There is also another tale [logos] told [legesthai] that goes like this… that Phoroneus was the first to be born in this land, and that Inakhos, the father of Phoroneus, was not a man but the river. This river, with the rivers Kephisos and Asterion, arbitrated [dikazein] concerning possession of the land between Poseidon and Hērā. They decided [krinein] that the land belonged to Hērā, and so Poseidon made their waters disappear. For this reason neither Inakhos nor either of the other rivers I have mentioned provides any water except whenver the god [= Zeus] makes rain. In summer their streams are dry except for those at Lerna. Phoroneus, the son of Inakhos, was the first to gather together humans [anthrōpoi] into a commonality [koinon], who up to that time had been scattered and living-in-settlements[oikeîn] all by themselves. The place into which they were first gathered was named the City [Astu] of Phoroneus.
{2.16.1} Argos, the maternal grandson of Phoroneus became king [basileus] after Phoroneus andgave his own name to the land. Argos fathered Peirasos and Phorbas, Phorbas fathered Triopas, and Triopas fathered Iasos and Agenor. Io, the daughter of Iasos, went to Egypt, whether the circumstances be as Herodotus writes or as the Greeks say. After Iasos, Krotopos the son of Agenor came to power [arkhē] and fathered Sthenelas, but Danaos sailed from Egypt against Gelanor the son of Sthenelasand put a stop to the succession of the descendants of Agenor to kingship. What followed is known to all alike the crime that the daughters of Danaos committed against their male cousins, and how, after the death of Danaos, Lynkeus succeeded him.
{2.16.2} Then there was Abas the son of Lynkeus, and his own sons Akrisios and Proitos divided the kingship [basileiā] between themselves. Akrisios remained where he was at Argos, and Proitos took over the Hēraion, Mideiā, Tiryns, and the Argive coastal region. Traces [sēmeia] of the residence [oikēsis] of Proitos in Tiryns remain to the present day. Afterwards Akrisios, learning that Perseus himself was not only alive but accomplishing [apodeiknusthai] great deeds, withdrew to Larisa, by [the river] Pēneios. And Perseus, wishing at all costs to see the father of his mother and to greet him with fair words and deeds, visited him at Larisa. Being in the prime of life and proud of being the inventor of the discus, he showed off [apodeiknusthai] [his skill in throwing the discus] in front of everybody, and Akrisios, through the agency of some superhuman force [daimōn], stepped unnoticed into the path of the discus.
{2.16.3} So the prediction of the god to Akrisios found its fulfillment [telos], nor was the-thing-that-had-been-prophesied [tò khreōn] prevented by his precautions against his daughter and the son of his daughter. Perseus felt shame because of what-was-said [phēmē] about the homicide, and so, on his return to Argos, he induced Megapenthes, the son of Proitos, to make an exchange of kingdoms; taking over for himself the rule [arkhē] of the kindom of Megapenthes, he founded [ktizein] Mycenae. For on its site the pommel [myces = mukēs] fell out of his sword, and he regarded this as a sign [sēmeion] to establish the foundation [oikismos] of a citadel [polis]. I have also heard the following account. He was thirsty, and the thought occurred to him to pick up a mushroom [myces = mukēs] from the ground. Water flowed from that spot, and, taking delight in drinking from it, he gave to the place the name of Mycenae.
{2.16.4} Homer in the Odyssey [2.120] mentions a woman [gunē] named Mycene [Mukēnē] in the following verse:
Τυρώ τ’ Ἀλκμήνη τε ἐϋστέφανός τε Μυκήνη
Tyro and Alkmēnē and the fair-garlanded lady Mycene [Mukēnē], the-one-with-the-beautiful-garlands [eu-stephanos].
Tyro and Alkmēnē and the fair-garlanded lady Mycene [Mukēnē], the-one-with-the-beautiful-garlands [eu-stephanos].
She is said to have been the daughter of Inakhos and the wife of Arestōr in the {Hesiodic] poetry [epē] that the Greeks call the Great Ēhoiai. So they say that the name of the citadel [polis] originated from her [= Mycene = Mukēnē]. But the tradition that is attributed to Acusilaus (Akousilaos), that Myceneus [Mukēneus] was the son of Sparton [Spartōn], and Sparton of Phoroneus, I cannot accept [apo-dekhesthai], because the Lacedaemonians themselves do not accept it either. I say this because, although the Lacedaemonians have at Amyklai an image [eikōn] of a woman [gunē] named Spartē, even they would be amazed at the mere mention of a Spartōn, son of Phoroneus.
{2.16.5} It was envy that caused the Argives to destroy Mycenae. For at the time of the Persian invasion the Argives made-no-move [hēsukhazein], but the Mycenaeans sent eighty men to Thermopylae who shared in the achievement [ergon] of the Lacedaemonians. This act-of-eagerness-for-distinction [philo-tīmēma] brought ruin upon them by aggravating the Argives. There still remain, however, parts of the circumference-wall [peribolos], including the gate [pulē], on top of which stand lions. These [walls], too, are said to be the work [erga] of the Cyclopes, who made for Proitos the [circumference-] wall [teikhos] at Tiryns.
{2.16.6} Inside the ruins [ereipia] of Mycenae is a spring [krēnē] called Perseiā; there are also underground chambers [hupo-gaia oikodomēmata] of Atreus and his offspring [paides], in which were stored the treasuries [thēsauroi] of their possessions. The tomb [taphos] of Atreus is there, along with the tombs of those who, besides Agamemnon, returned with him from Troy and were slaughtered by Aigisthos after they had been wined and dined by him at a banquet. As for the tomb [mnēma] of Cassandra [Kassandrā], there is a rival claim to it by the Lacedaemonians who dwell [oikeîn] in the vicinity of Amyklai. There is [at Mycenae] another tomb [mnēma] [besides the tombs in the Treasury of Atreus] that specifically belongs to Agamemnon, and there is also another tomb belonging to Eurymedon his charioteer, while still another one is shared by Teledāmos and Pelops, twin sons, they say, of Cassandra,
{2.16.7} whom while they were still infants [nēpioi] Aigisthos slaughtered after he slaughtered their parents. As for Electra … Orestes married her off to Pylades, and Hellanicus adds that the children of Pylades by Electra were Medon and Strophios. Clytemnestra and Aigisthos were buried at some little distance from the [circumference-]wall [teikhos]. They were thought unworthy of a place inside it [= the circumference-wall], which is where Agamemnon himself and those who were slaughtered with him had been placed.
{2.17.1} Fifteen stadium-lengths distant from Mycenae is on the left the Hēraion. Alongside the road flows the rivulet called ‘the-water-that-makes-free’ [Eleutherion]. The women who attend the sacred space [hieron] use it [= the water] in purifications [katharsia] and for sacrifices [thusai] that are mystical [apo-rrhētoi]. The sacred space [hieron] itself is on a lower part of Euboea. Euboea is the name they give to the hill here, saying that Asterion the river had three daughters, Euboea, Prosymna, and Akraia, and that they were nurses [trophoi] of Hērā.
{2.17.2} The hill opposite the Hēraion they name after Akraia, while the environs of the sacred space [hieron] they name after Euboea, and, further, the land beneath the Hēraion they name after Prosymna. This on flows above the Hēraion, and falling into a cleft disappears. On its banks grows a plant, which also is called asterion. They offer the plant itself to Hēra, and from its leaves they weave garlands [stephanoi] for her.
{2.17.3} It is said that the architect of the temple [nāos] was Eupolemos, an Argive. The sculptures carved above the columns [kiones] refer not only to the birth [genesis] of Zeus and the battle between the gods and the giants but also to the Trojan war and the capture of Ilion. Before the entrance stand statues [andriantes] of women who have been priestesses [hiereiai] of Hērā and of various heroes [hērōes], including Orestes. I say it this way because the statue that has an inscription on it claiming that it represents the Emperor Augustus is really, they say, the statue of Orestes. In the front-part-of-the-temple [pro-nāos] are on the one side ancient statues [agalmata] of the Graces [Kharites], and on the right a couch [klinē] of Hērā and a votive offering [anathēma], that is, the shield [aspis] that Menelaos once took from Euphorbos at Troy. [166]
{2.17.4} The statue [agalma] of Hērā is seated on a throne [thronos]; it [= the statue] is huge in size, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polycleitus. She is wearing [on her head] a garland [stephanos] that features Graces [Kharites] and Seasons [Hōrai] worked upon it, and in one hand she holds a pomegranate while in the other a scepter [skēptron]. About the pomegranate … I must let go of this subject, since its story [logos] is somewhat mystical [apo-rrhētos]. The presence of a cuckoo seated on the scepter [skēptron] they explain by telling how, when Zeus lusted [erân] for Hērā as virgin [parthenos], he changed himself into this bird, and she caught it to be her plaything [paignion]. This story [logos] and similar things said about the gods I write down without accepting [apodekhesthai] them, but I write them down nevertheless.
{2.17.5} By the side of Hērā stands what is said to be a statue [agalma] of Hēbē fashioned by Naukydes; it, too, is of ivory and gold. By its side is an old statue [agalma] of Hērā on a pillar [kiōn]. The oldest statue is made of wild-pear wood, and was dedicated in Tiryns by Peirasos, son of Argos, and when the Argives destroyed Tiryns they carried it away to the Hēraion. I myself saw it, a small, seated statue [agalma].
{2.17.6} Of the votive offerings [anathēmata] the following are worth speaking-about [logos]. There is an altar [bōmos] upon which is worked in relief the legendary [legomenon] wedding of Hēbē and Hēraklēs. This is of silver, but the peacock dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian is of gold and gleaming stones. He dedicated it because they hold the bird to be sacred to Hērā. Also deposited here are a golden garland [stephanos] and a purple robe [peplos], offerings [anathēmata] of Nero.
{2.17.7} Above this temple are the foundations of the earlier temple and such parts of it as were spared by the flames. It had burned down because sleep overpowered Khryseis, the priestess of Hērā, when the lamp before the garlands set fire to them. Khryseis went to Tegea and supplicated Athena Alea. Although so great a disaster had befallen them the Argives did not take down the statue of Khryseis; it is still in position in front of the burned temple.
{2.18.1} By the side of the road from Mycenae to Argos there is on the left hand a hero-shrine [hērōion] of Perseus. He gets honors [tīmai], as I discovered, from the local-population-nearby [proskhōrioi] here as well [as inside the walls of Mycenae], but the greatest honors are paid to him in Seriphos and among the Athenians, who have a precinct [temenos] sacred to Perseus and an altar [bōmos] of Dictys and Klymene, who are called the saviors [sōtēres] of Perseus. Advancing a little way in the Argive territory from this hero-shrine [hērōion] one sees on the right the tomb [taphos] of Thyestes. On it is a ram [krios] made of stone, because Thyestes obtained a golden lamb [arēn] after seducing his brother’s wife. Atreus was not restrained by prudence [logismos] from retaliating, but contrived the slaughter of the children of Thyestes and the banquet that is sung about in songs.
{2.18.2} But as to what followed, I cannot say for certain whether Aigisthos began the injustice [adikiā] or whether Agamemnon was first to commit injustice in killing Tantalos the son of Thyestes. It is said that Tantalos had lived-with [sun-oikeîn]Clytaemnestra, having received her from Tyndareus when she was still a virgin. I myself do not wish to condemn them of having been wicked by nature [phusis]; but if the pollution [miasma] of Pelops and the avenging spirit of Myrtilos dogged their steps so long, it was after all only consistent that the Pythian priestess said to the Spartan Glaukos, the son of Epikydes, who consulted her about breaking his oath, that the punishment for this also comes upon the descendants.
{2.18.3} A short distance beyond the Rams [krioi]—this is the name they give to the tomb of Thyestes—there is on the left a place [khōrion] called Mysia and a sanctuary [hieron] of Demeter Mysia, so named after a man Mysios who, say the Argives, was another one of those who acted as a host [xenos] to Demeter. In any case, this sanctuary has no roof, but inside it is another shrine [nāos], built of baked brick, in it are wooden-statues of the Maiden [Korē], Pluto [Ploutōn], and Demeter. Farther on is the river called Inakhos, and on the other side of it an altar [bōmos] of Hēlios [the Sun]. After this you will come to a gate [pulē] named after the sanctuary [hieron] that is near it. This sanctuary belongs to Eileithuia.
{2.18.4} The Argives are the only Greeks that I know of who have been divided into three kingdoms. For in the reign of Anaxagoras, son of Argeus, son of Megapenthes, the women were smitten with madness, and straying from their homes they roamed about the country, until Melampos the son of Amythaon cured them of the plague on condition that he himself and his brother Bias had a share of the kingdom equal to that of Anaxagoras. Now descended from Bias five men, Neleids on their mother’s side, occupied the throne for four generations down to Kyanippos, son of Aigialeus, and descended from Melampos six men in six generations down to Amphilokhos, son of Amphiaraos.
{2.18.5} But the native house of the lineage of Anaxagoras ruled longer than the other two. For Iphis, son of Alector, son of Anaxagoras, left the throne to Sthenelus, son of Capaneus his brother. After the capture of Troy, Amphilokhos migrated to the people now called the Amphilochians, and, Kyanippos having died without issue, Cylarabes, son of Sthenelus, became sole king. However, he too left no offspring, and Argos was seized by Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who was a neighbor. Besides his ancestral dominion, he had extended his rule over the greater part of Arcadia and had succeeded to the throne of Sparta; he also had a contingent of allies from Phokis always ready to help him.
{2.18.6} When Orestes became king of the Lacedaemonians, they themselves consented to accept him for they considered that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a claim to the throne prior to that of Nikostratos and Megapenthes, who were sons of Menelaos by a slave woman. On the death of Orestes, there succeeded to the throne Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and of Hermione, the daughter of Menelaos. The mother of Penthilos, the bastard son of Orestes, was, according to the poet Cinaethon, Erigone, the daughter of Aigisthos.
{2.18.7} It was in the reign of this Tisamenus that the Herakleidai returned to the Peloponnesus; they were Temenus and Kresphontes, the sons of Aristomakhos, together with the sons of the third brother, Aristodemos, who had died. Their claim to Argos and to the throne of Argos was, in my opinion, most just, because Tisamenus was descended from Pelops, but the Herakleidai were descendants of Perseus. Tyndareus himself, they made out, had been expelled by Hippokoön, and they said that Hēraklēs, having killed Hippokoön and his sons, had given the land in trust to Tyndareus. They gave the same kind of account about Messenia also, that it had been given in trust to Nestor by Hēraklēs after he had taken Pylos.
{2.18.8} So they expelled Tisamenus from Lacedaemon and Argos, and the descendants of Nestor from Messenia, namely Alkmaion, son of Sillus, son of Thrasymedes, Peisistratos, son of Peisistratos, and the sons of Paion, son of Antilokhos, and with them Melanthos, son of Andropompus, son of Borus, son of Penthilos, son of Periclymenus. So Tisamenus and his sons went with his army to the land that is now Achaea.
{2.18.9} To what people Peisistratos retreated I do not know, but the rest of the Neleidai went to Athens, and the clans of the Painonidai and of the Alkmaionidai were named after them. Melanthos even came to the throne, having deposed Thymoetes the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoetes was the last Athenian king descended from Theseus.
{2.19.1} It is not to my purpose that I should set forth here the history of Kresphontes and of the sons of Aristodemos. But Temenus openly employed, instead of his sons, Delphontes, son of Antimakhos, son of Thrasyanor, son of Ktesippos, son of Hēraklēs, as general in war and as adviser on all occasions. Even before this he had made him his son-in-law, while Hyrnetho was his favorite daughter; he was accordingly suspected of intending to divert the throne to her and Delphontes. For this reason his sons plotted against him, and Ceisus, the eldest of them, seized the kingdom.
{2.19.2} But from the earliest times the Argives have loved freedom and self-government, and they limited to the utmost the authority of their kings, so that to Medon, the son of Ceisus, and to his descendants was left a kingdom that was such only in name. Meltas, the son of Lacedas, the tenth descendant of Medon, was condemned by the people and deposed altogether from the kingship.
{2.19.3} The most famous building in the city of Argos is the sanctuary of Apollo Lykios (wolf-god). The modern statue [agalma] was made by the Athenian Attalos, but the original temple and wooden-statue [xoanon] were the offering of Danaos. I am of opinion that in those days all statues called xoana, especially Egyptian ones, were made of wood. The reason why Danaos founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lykios was this. On coming to Argos he claimed the kingdom against Gelanor, the son of Sthenelas. Many plausible arguments were brought forward by both parties, and those of Sthenelas were considered as fair as those of his opponent; so the people, who were sitting in judgment, put off, they say, the decision to the following day.
{2.19.4} At dawn a wolf fell upon a herd of oxen that was pasturing before the wall, and attacked and fought with the bull that was the leader of the herd. It occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull and Danaos like the wolf, for as the wolf will not live with men, so Danaos up to that time had not lived with them. It was because the wolf overcame the bull that Danaos won the kingdom. Accordingly, believing that Apollo had brought the wolf on the herd, he founded a sanctuary of Apollo Lykios.
{2.19.5} Here is dedicated the throne of Danaos, and here Is placed a statue of Biton, in the form of a man carrying a bull on his shoulders. According to the poet Lykeas, when the Argives were holding a sacrifice to Zeus at Nemeā, Biton by sheer physical strength took up a bull and carried it there. Next to this statue is a fire which they keep burning, calling it the fire of Phoroneus. For they do not admit that fire was given to mankind by Prometheus, but insist in assigning the discovery of fire to Phoroneus.
{2.19.6} As to the wooden images of Aphrodite and Hermes, the one they say was made by Epeios, while the other is a votive offering of Hypermnestra. She was the only one of the daughters of Danaos who neglected his command, [167] and was accordingly brought to justice by him, because be considered that his life was in danger so long as Lynkeus was at large, and that the refusal to share in the crime of her sisters increased the disgrace of the contriver of the deed. On her trial she was acquitted by the Argives, and to commemorate her escape she dedicated an image of Aphrodite, the Bringer of Nike.
{2.19.7} Within the temple is a statue of Ladas, the swiftest runner of his time, and one of Hermes with a tortoise which he has caught to make a lyre. Before the temple is a pit with a relief representing a fight between a bull and a wolf, and with them a maiden throwing a rock at the bull. The maiden is thought to be Artemis. Danaos dedicated these, and some pillars hard by and wooden images of Zeus and Artemis.
{2.19.8} Here are tombs; one is that of Linos, the son of Apollo by Psamathe, the daughter of Krotopos; the other, they say, is that of Linos the poet. The story of the latter Linos is more appropriate to another part of my narrative, and so I omit it here, while I have already given the history of the son of Psamathe in my account of Megara. After these is an image of Apollo, God of Streets, and an altar of Zeus, God of Rain, where those who were helping Polyneikes in his efforts to be restored to Thebes swore an oath together that they would either capture Thebes or die. As to the tomb of Prometheus, their account seems to me to be less probable than that of the Opuntians, but they hold to it nevertheless.
{2.20.1} Passing over a statue [eikōn] of Creugas, a boxer, and a trophy that was set up to celebrate a victory over the Corinthians, you come to a seated statue [agalma] of Zeus Meilikhios (Gracious), made of white marble by Polycleitus. [168] I discovered that it was made for the following reason. Ever since the Lacedaemonians began to make war upon the Argives there was no cessation of hostilities until Philip, the son of Amyntas, forced them to stay within the original boundaries of their territories. Before this, if the Lacedaemonians were not engaged on some business outside the Peloponnesus, they were always trying to annex a piece of Argive territory; or if they were busied with a war beyond their borders it was the turn of the Argives to retaliate.
{2.20.2} When the hatred of both sides was at its height, the Argives resolved to maintain a thousand picked men. The commander appointed over them was the Argive Bryas. His general behavior to the men of the people was violent, and a girl who was being taken to the bridegroom he seized from those who were escorting her and ravished. When night came on, the girl waited until he was asleep and put out his eyes. Detected in the morning, she took refuge as a suppliant with the people. When they did not give her up to the Thousand for punishment both sides took up arms; the people won the day, and in their anger left none of their opponents alive. [169] Subsequently they had recourse to purifications for shedding kindred blood; among other things they dedicated a statue [agalma] of Zeus Meilikhios.
{2.20.3} Hard by are Kleobis and Biton carved in relief on stone, themselves drawing the carriage and taking in it their mother to the sanctuary of Hērā. Opposite them is a sanctuary of Nemean Zeus, and an upright bronze statue [agalma] of the god made by Lysippos. Going forward from this you see on the right the tomb of Phoroneus, to whom even in our time they bring offerings as to a hero. Over against the Nemean Zeus is a temple of Fortune, which must be very old if it be the one in which Palamedes dedicated the dice that he had invented.
{2.20.4} The tomb near this they call that of the maenad Chorea, saying that she was one of the women who joined Dionysus in his expedition against Argos, and that Perseus, being victorious in the battle, put most of the women to the sword. To the rest they gave a common grave, but to Chorea they gave burial apart because of her high rank.
{2.20.5} A little farther on is a sanctuary of the Seasons. On coming back from here you see statues of Polyneikes, the son of Oedipus, and of all the chieftains who with him were killed in battle at the wall of Thebes. These men Aeschylus has reduced to the number of seven only, although there were more chiefs than this in the expedition, from Argos, from Messene, with some even from Arcadia. But the Argives have adopted the number seven from the drama of Aeschylus, and near to their statues are the statues of those who took Thebes: Aigialeus, son of Adrastos; Promakhos, son of Parthenopaeus, son of Talaos; Polydoros, son of Hippomedon; Thersandros; Alkmaion and Amphilokhos, the sons of Amphiaraos; Diomedes, and Sthenelus. Among their company were also Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, and Adrastos and Timeas, sons of Polyneikes.
{2.20.6} Not far from the statues are shown the tomb of Danaos and a cenotaph of the Argives who met their death at Troy or on the journey home. Here there is also a sanctuary of Zeus the Savior. Beyond it is a building where the Argive women bewail Adonis. On the right of the entrance is the sanctuary of Kephisos. It is said that the water of this river was not utterly destroyed by Poseidon, but that just in this place, where the sanctuary is, it can be heard flowing under the earth.
{2.20.7} Beside the sanctuary of Kephisos is a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes. The ground behind it is called even at the present time the Place of Judgment, because it was here that they say Hypermnestra was brought to judgment by Danaos. Not far from this is a theater. In it are some noteworthy sights, including a representation of a man killing another, namely the Argive Perilaos, the son of Alcenor, killing the Spartan Othryadas. Before this, Perilaos had succeeded in winning the prize for wrestling at the Nemean games.
{2.20.8} Above the theater is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and before the image is a slab with a representation crafted on it in relief of Telesilla, the lyric poetess. Her books lie scattered at her feet, and she herself holds in her hand an helmet, which she is looking at and is about to place on her head. Telesilla was a distinguished woman who was especially renowned for her poetry. It happened that the Argives had suffered an awful defeat at the hands of Kleomenes, the son of Anaxandrides, and the Lacedaemonians. Some fell in the actual fighting; others, who had fled to the grove of Argos, also perished. At first they left sanctuary under an agreement, which was treacherously broken, and the survivors, when they realized this, were burned to death in the grove. So when Kleomenes led his troops to Argos there were no men to defend it. [170]
{2.20.9} But Telesilla mounted on the wall all the slaves and such as were incapable of bearing arms through youth or old age, and she herself, collecting the arms in the sanctuaries and those that were left in the houses, armed the women of vigorous age, and then posted them where she knew the enemy would attack. When the Lacedaemonians came on, the women were not dismayed at their battlecry, but stood their ground and fought valiantly. Then the Lacedaemonians, realizing that to destroy the women would be an invidious success while defeat would mean a shameful disaster, gave way before the women.
{2.20.10} This fight had been foretold by the Pythian priestess in the oracle quoted by Herodotus, who perhaps understood to what it referred and perhaps did not:
But when the time shall come that the female conquers in battle,
Driving away the male, and wins great glory in Argos,
Many an Argive woman will tear both cheeks in her sorrow.
Such are the words of the oracle referring to the exploit of the women.
Driving away the male, and wins great glory in Argos,
Many an Argive woman will tear both cheeks in her sorrow.
Such are the words of the oracle referring to the exploit of the women.
{2.21.1} Having descended thence, and having turned again to the marketplace, we come to the tomb of Cerdo, the wife of Phoroneus, and to a temple of Asklepios. The sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Persuasion, is another offering of Hypermnestra after winning the trial to which she was brought by her father because of Lynkeus. Here there is also a bronze statue of Aeneas, and a place called Delta. I intentionally do not discuss the origin of the name, because I could not accept the traditional accounts.
{2.21.2} In front of it stands an altar of Zeus Phyxios, and near is the tomb of Hypermnestra, the mother of Amphiaraos, the other tomb being that of Hypermnestra, the daughter of Danaos, with whom is also buried Lynkeus. Opposite these is the tomb of Talaos, the son of Bias; the history of Bias and his descendants I have already given.
{2.21.3} A sanctuary of Athena Trumpet they say was founded by Hegeleos. This Hegeleos, according to the story, was the son of Tyrsenus, and Tyrsenus was the son of Hēraklēs and the Lydian woman; Tyrsenus invented the trumpet, and Hegeleos, the son of Tyrsenus, taught the Dorians with Temenus how to play the instrument, and for this reason gave Athena the surname Trumpet. Before the temple of Athena is, they say, the tomb of Epimenides. The Argive story is that the Lacedaemonians made war upon the people of Knossos and took Epimenides alive; they then put him to death for not prophesying good luck to them, and the Argives taking his body buried it here.
{2.21.4} The building of white marble in just about the middle of the marketplace is not, as the Argives declare, a trophy in honor of a victory over Pyrrhos of Epeiros, but it can be shown that his body was burned here, and that this is his monument, on which are carved in relief the elephants and his other instruments of warfare. This building then was set up where the pyre stood, but the bones of Pyrrhos lie in the sanctuary of Demeter, beside which, as I have shown in my account of Attica, his death occurred. At the entrance to this sanctuary of Demeter you can see a bronze shield of Pyrrhos hanging dedicated over the door.
{2.21.5} Not far from the building in the marketplace of Argos is a mound of earth, in which they say lies the head of the Gorgon Medusa. I omit the miraculous, but give the rational parts of the story about her. After the death of her father, Phorcus, she reigned over those living around Lake Tritonis, going out hunting and leading the Libyans to battle. On one such occasion, when she was encamped with an army over against the forces of Perseus, who was followed by picked troops from the Peloponnesus, she was assassinated by night. Perseus, admiring her beauty even in death, cut off her head and carried it to show the Greeks.
{2.21.6} But Prokles, the son of Eucrates, a Carthaginian, thought a different account more plausible than the preceding. It is as follows. Among the incredible monsters to be found in the Libyan desert are wild men and wild women. Prokles affirmed that he had seen a man from them who had been brought to Rome. So he guessed that a woman wandered from them, reached Lake Tritonis, and harried the neighbors until Perseus killed her; Athena was supposed to have helped him in this exploit, because the people who live around Lake Tritonis are sacred to her.
{2.21.7} In Argos, by the side of this monument of the Gorgon, is the tomb of Gorgophone (Gorgon-kilIer), the daughter of Perseus. As soon as you hear the name you can understand the reason why it was given her. On the death of her husband, Perieres, the son of Aeolus, whom she married when a virgin, she married Oibalos, being the first woman, they say, to marry a second time; for before this wives were accustomed, on the death of their husbands, to live as widows.
{2.21.8} In front of the tomb is a trophy of stone made to commemorate a victory over an Argive Laphaes. When this man was tyrant I write what the Argives themselves say concerning themselves—the people rose up against him and cast him out. He fled to Sparta, and the Lacedaemonians tried to restore him to power, but were defeated by the Argives, who killed the greater part of them and Laphaes as well. Not far from the trophy is the sanctuary of Leto; the statue [agalma] is a work of Praxiteles.
{2.21.9} The statue [eikōn] of the maiden beside the goddess they call Chloris (Pale), saying that she was a daughter of Niobe, and that she was called Meliboea at the first. When the children of Amphion were destroyed by Apollo and Artemis, she alone of her sisters, along with Amyclas, escaped; their escape was due to their prayers to Leto. Meliboea was struck so pale by her fright, not only at the time but also for the rest of her life, that even her name was accordingly changed from Meliboea to Chloris.
{2.21.10} Now the Argives say that these two built originally the temple to Leto, but I think that none of Niobe’s children survived, for I place more reliance than others on the poetry of Homer, one of whose verses bears out my view:Though they were only two, yet they gave all to destruction. [171] So Homer knows that the house of Amphion was utterly overthrown.
{2.22.1} The temple of Hērā Anthea (Flowery) is on the right of the sanctuary of Leto, and before it is a tomb of women. They were killed in a battle against the Argives under Perseus, having come from the Aegean Islands to help Dionysus in war; for which reason they are surnamed Haliai (Women of the Sea). Facing the tomb of the women is a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Pelasgian from Pelasgus, son of Triopas, its founder, and not far from the sanctuary is the tomb of Pelasgus.
{2.22.2} Opposite the tomb is a small bronze vessel supporting ancient images [agalmata] of Artemis, Zeus, and Athena. Now Lykeas in his poem says that the statue [agalma] is of Zeus Mekhaneus (Contriver), and that here the Argives who set out against Troy swore to persist in the war until they either took Troy or met their end fighting. Others have said that in the bronze vessel lie the bones of Tantalos.
{2.22.3} Now that the Tantalos is buried here who was the son of Thyestes or Broteas (both accounts are given) and married Clytaemnestra before Agamemnon did, I will not gainsay; but the tomb of him who legend says was son of Zeus and Pluto [Ploutōn]—it is worth seeing—is on Mount Sipylos. I know because I saw it. Moreover, no constraint came upon him to flee from Sipylos, such as afterwards forced Pelops to run away when Ilus the Phrygian launched an army against him. But I must pursue the inquiry no further. The ritual performed at the pit hard by they say was instituted by Nikostratos, a native. Even at the present day they throw into the pit burning torches in honor of the Maiden who is daughter of Demeter.
{2.22.4} Here is a sanctuary of Poseidon, surnamed Prosklystios (Flooder), for they say that Poseidon inundated the greater part of the country because Inakhos and his assessors decided that the land belonged to Hērā and not to him. Now it was Hērā who induced Poseidon to send the sea back, but the Argives made a sanctuary to Poseidon Prosklystios at the spot where the tide ebbed.
{2.22.5} Going on a little further you see the tomb of Argos, reputed to be the son of Zeus and Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus. After these comes a temple of the Dioskouroi. The statues [agalmata] represent the Dioskouroi themselves and their sons, Anaxis and Mnasinous, and with them are their mothers, Hilaeira and Phoebe. They are of ebony wood, and were made by Dipoinos and Skyllis. The horses, too, are mostly of ebony, but there is a little ivory also in their construction.
{2.22.6} Near the Lords is a sanctuary of Eilethyia, dedicated by Helen when, Theseus having gone away with Peirithoos to Thesprotia, Aphidna had been captured by the Dioskouroi and Helen was being brought to Lacedaemon. For it is said that she was with child, was delivered In Argos, and founded there the sanctuary of Eilethyia, giving the daughter she bore to Clytaemnestra, who was already wedded to Agamemnon, while she herself subsequently married Menelaos.
{2.22.7} And on this matter the poets Euphorion of Khalkis and Alexander of Pleuron, and even before them, Stesichorus of Himera, agree with the Argives in asserting that Iphigenia was the daughter of Theseus. [172] Over against the sanctuary of Eilethyia is a temple of Hekate, and the statue [agalma] is a work of Scopas. This one is of stone, while the bronze statues [agalmata] opposite, also of Hekate, were made respectively by Polycleitus and his brother Naukydes, son of Mothon.
{2.22.8} As you go along a straight road to a gymnasium, called Cylarabis after the son of Sthenelus, you come to the tomb of Licymnius, the son of Electryon, who, Homer says, was killed by Tleptolemos, the son of Hēraklēs for which homicide Tleptolemos was banished from Argos. On turning a little aside from the road to Cylarabis and to the gate there, you come to the tomb of Sacadas, who was the first to play at Delphi the Pythian tune of the aulos [‘double-reed’];
{2.22.9} the hostility of Apollo to players of the aulos [‘double-reed’], which had lasted ever since the rivalry of Marsyas the Silenos, is supposed to have stayed because of this Sacadas. In the gymnasium of Cylarabes is an Athena called Pania; they show also the tombs of Sthenelus and of Cylarabes himself. Not far from the gymnasium has been built a common grave of those Argives who sailed with the Athenians to enslave Syracuse and Sicily.
{2.23.1} As you go from here along a road called Hollow there is on the right a temple of Dionysus; the statue [agalma], they say, is from Euboea. For when the Greeks, as they were returning from Troy, met with the shipwreck at Caphereus, those of the Argives who were able to escape to land suffered from cold and hunger. Having prayed that someone of the gods should prove himself a savior in their present distress, straightway as they advanced they came upon a cave of Dionysus; in the cave was a statue [agalma] of the god, and on this occasion wild she-goats had gathered there to escape from the storm. These the Argives killed, using the flesh as food and the skins as raiment. When the storm was over and the Argives, having refitted their ships, were returning home, they took with them the wooden image from the cave, and continue to honor it to the present day.
{2.23.2} Very near to the temple of Dionysus you will see the house of Adrastos, farther on a sanctuary of Amphiaraos, and opposite the sanctuary the tomb of Eriphyle. Next to these is a precinct of Asklepios, and after them a sanctuary of Baton. Now Baton belonged to the same family as Amphiaraos, to the Melampodidai, and served as his charioteer when he went forth to battle. When the rout took place at the wall of Thebes, the earth opened and received Amphiaraos and his chariot, swallowing up this Baton at the same time.
{2.23.3} Returning from Hollow Street, you see what they say is the tomb of Hyrnetho. If they allow that it is merely a cenotaph erected to the memory of the lady, their account is likely enough but if they believe that the corpse lies here I cannot credit it, and leave anyone to do so who has not learned the history of Epidaurus.
{2.23.4} The most famous sanctuary of Asklepios at Argos contains at the present day a white-marble statue [agalma] of the god seated, and by his side stands Hygieia. There are also seated figures of Xenophilus and Straton, who made the statues [agalmata]. The original founder of the sanctuary was Sphyrus, son of Makhaon and brother of the Alexanor who is honored among the Sikyonians in Titane.
{2.23.5} The Argives, like the Athenians and Sikyonians, worship Artemis Pheraia, and they, too, assert that the statue [agalma] of the goddess was brought from Pherai in Thessaly. But I cannot agree with them when they say that in Argos are the tombs of Deianeira, the daughter of Oineus, and of Helenos, son of Priam, and that there is among them the statue [agalma] of Athena that was brought from Troy, thus causing the capture of that city. For the Palladium, as it is called, was manifestly brought to Italy by Aeneas. As to Deianeira, we know that her death took place near Trakhis and not in Argos, and her tomb is near Herakleia, at the foot of Mount Oitē.
{2.23.6} The story of Helenos, son of Priam, I have already given: that he went to Epeiros with Pyrrhos, the son of Achilles; that, wedded to Andromache, he was guardian to the children of Pyrrhos and that the district called Kestrine received its name from Kestrinos, son of Helenos. Now even the guides of the Argives themselves are aware that their account is not entirely correct. Nevertheless they hold to their opinion, for it is not easy to make the multitude change their views. The Argives have other things worth seeing;
{2.23.7} for instance, an underground building over which was the bronze chamber which Akrisios once made to guard his daughter. Perilaos, however, when he became tyrant, pulled it down. Besides this building there is the tomb of Krotopos and a temple of Cretan Dionysus. For they say that the god, having made war on Perseus, afterwards laid aside his enmity, and received great honors at the hands of the Argives, including this precinct set specially apart for himself.
{2.23.8} It was afterwards called the precinct of the Cretan god, because, when Ariadne died, Dionysus buried her here. But Lykeas says that when the temple was being rebuilt an earthenware coffin was found, and that it was Ariadne’s. He also said that both he himself and other Argives had seen it. Near the temple of Dionysus is a temple of Aphrodite the celestial one [Ourania].
{2.24.1} The citadel they call Larisa, after the daughter of Pelasgus. After her were also named two of the cities in Thessaly, the one by the sea and the one by the river Pēneios. As you go up the citadel you come to the sanctuary of Hērā of the Height, and also a temple of Apollo, which is said to have been first built by Pythaeus when he came from Delphi. The present statue [agalma] is a bronze standing figure called Apollo Deiradiotes, because this place, too, is called Deiras (Ridge). Oracular responses are still given here, and the oracle acts in the following way. There is a woman who prophesies, being debarred from intercourse with a man. Every month a lamb is sacrificed at night, and the woman, after tasting the blood, becomes inspired by the god.
{2.24.2} Adjoining the temple of Apollo Deiradiotes is a sanctuary of Athena Oxyderces (Sharp-sighted), dedicated by Diomedes, because once when he was fighting at Troy the goddess removed the mist from his eyes. Adjoining it is the race-course, in which they hold the games in honor of Nemean Zeus and the festival of Hērā. As you go to the citadel there is on the left of the road another tomb of the children of Aigyptos. For here are the heads apart from the bodies, which are at Lerna. For it was at Lerna that the youths were murdered, and when they were dead their wives cut off their heads, to prove to their father that they had done the dreadful deed.
{2.24.3} On the top of Larisa is a temple of Zeus, surnamed Larisaean, which has no roof; the wooden statue [agalma] I found no longer standing upon its pedestal. There is also a temple of Athena worth seeing. Here are placed votive offerings, including a wooden image of Zeus, which has two eyes in the natural place and a third on its forehead. This Zeus, they say, was a paternal god of Priam, the son of Laomedon, set up in the uncovered part of his court, and when Troy was taken by the Greeks Priam took sanctuary at the altar of this god. When the spoils were divided, Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus, received the image, and for this reason it has been dedicated here.
{2.24.4} The reason for its three eyes one might infer to be this. That Zeus is king in the sky [ouranos] is a saying common to all men. As for him who is said to rule under the earth, there is a verse of Homer which calls him, too, Zeus:
Zeus of the Underworld [kata-khthonios], and the dreaded [epainē] Persephoneia.
Iliad 9.457
The god in the sea, also, is called Zeus by Aeschylus, the son of Euphorion. So whoever made the image made it with three eyes, as signifying that this same god rules in all the three ‘allotments’ of the Universe, as they are called.
{2.24.5} From Argos are roads to various parts of the Peloponnesus, including one to Teges on the side towards Arcadia. On the right is Mount Lykone, which has trees on it, chiefly cypresses. On the top of the mountain is built a sanctuary of Artemis Orthia (of the Steep), and there have been made white-marble statues [agalmata] of Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, which they say are works of Polycleitus. On descending again from the mountain you see on the left of the highway a temple of Artemis.
{2.24.6} A little farther on there is on the right of the road a mountain called Chaon. At its foot grow cultivated trees, and here the water of the Erasinos rises to the surface. Up to this point it flows from Stymphalos in Arcadia, just as the Rheitoi, near the sea at Eleusis, flow from the Euripus. At the places where the Erasinos gushes forth from the mountain they sacrifice to Dionysus and to Pan, and to Dionysus they also hold a festival called Tyrbe (Throng).
{2.24.7} On returning to the road that leads to Tegea you see Cenchreae on the right of what is called the Wheel. Why the place received this name they do not say. Perhaps in this case also it was Cenchrias, son of Peirene, that caused it to be so called. Here are common graves of the Argives who conquered the Lacedaemonians in battle at Hysiai. [173] This fight took place, I discovered, when Peisistratos was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the fourth year of the twenty-seventh Olympiad, in which the Athenian, Eurybotos, won the foot-race. On coming down to a lower level you reach the ruins of Hysiai, which once was a city in Argolis, and here it is that they say the Lacedaemonians suffered their reverse.
{2.25.1} The road from Argos to Mantineia is not the same as that to Tegea, but begins from the gate at the Ridge. On this road is a sanctuary built with two rooms, having an entrance on the west side and another on the east. At the latter is a wooden-statue [xoanon] of Aphrodite, and at the west entrance one of Ares. They say that the statues [agalmata] are votive offerings of Polyneikes and of the Argives who joined him in the campaign to redress his wrongs.
{2.25.2} Farther on from here, across the torrent called Kharadros (Gully), is Oinoe, named, the Argives say, after Oineus. The story is that Oineus, who was king in Aetolia, on being driven from his throne by the sons of Agrios, took refuge with Diomedes at Argos, who aided him by an expedition into Calydonia, but said that he could not remain with him, and urged Oineus to accompany him, if he wished, to Argos. When he came, he gave him all the attention that it was right to give a father’s father, and on his death buried him here. After him the Argives name the place Oinoe.
{2.25.3} Above Oinoe is Mount Artemisios, with a sanctuary of Artemis on the top. On this mountain are also the springs of the river Inakhos. For it really has springs, though the water does not run far.
{2.25.4} Here I found nothing else that is worth seeing. There is another road, that leads to Lyrcea from the gate at the Ridge. The story is that to this place came Lynkeus, being the only one of the fifty brothers to escape death, and that on his escape he raised a beacon here. Now to raise the beacon was the signal he had agreed with Hypermnestra to give if he should escape Danaos and reach a place of safety. She also, they say, lighted a beacon on Larisa as a sign that she too was now out of danger. For this reason the Argives hold every year a beacon festival.
{2.25.5} At the first the place was called Lyncea; its present name is derived from Lyrcus, a bastard son of Abas, who afterwards dwelled there. Among the ruins are several things not worth mentioning, besides a figure of Lyrcus upon a slab. The distance from Argos to Lyrcea is about sixty stadium-lengths, and the distance from Lyrcea to Orneaiis the same. Homer in the Catalogue makes no mention of the city Lyrcea, because at the time of the Greek expedition against Troy it already lay deserted; Omeae, however, was inhabited, and in his poem he places it [174] on the list before Phleious and Sikyon, which order corresponds to the position of the towns in the Argive territory.
{2.25.6} The name is derived from Orneus, the son of Erekhtheus. This Orneus begat Peteos, and Peteos begat Menestheus, who, with a body of Athenians, helped Agamemnon to destroy the kingdom of Priam. From him then did Orneai get its name, and afterwards the Argives removed all its citizens, who thereupon came to live at Argos. At Orneaiare a sanctuary and an upright wooden image of Artemis; there is besides a temple devoted to all the gods in common. On the further side of Orneaiare Sikyonia and Phliasia.
{2.25.7} On the way from Argos to Epidauria there is on the right a building made very like a pyramid, and on it in relief are created shields of the Argive shape. Here took place a fight for the throne between Proitos and Akrisios; the contest, they say, ended in a draw, and a reconciliation resulted afterwards, as neither could gain a decisive victory. The story is that they and their hosts were armed with shields, which were first used in this battle. For those that fell on either side was built here a common tomb, as they were fellow citizens and kinsmen.
{2.25.8} Going on from here and turning to the right, you come to the ruins of Tiryns. The Tirynthians also were removed by the Argives, who wished to make Argos more powerful by adding to the population. The hero Tiryns, from whom the city derived its name, is said to have been a son of Argos, a son of Zeus. The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unfinished stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together.
{2.25.9} Going down seawards, you come to the chambers of the daughters of Proitos. On returning to the highway you will reach Medea on the left hand. They say that Electryon, the father of Alkmene, was king of Medea, but in my time nothing was left of it except the foundations.
{2.25.10} On the straight road to Epidaurus is a village Lessa, in which is a temple of Athena with a wooden image exactly like the one on the citadel Larisa. Above Lessa is Mount Arachnaeus, which long ago, in the time of Inakhos, was named Sapyselaton. On it are altars to Zeus and Hērā. When rain is needed they sacrifice to them here.
{2.26.1} At Lessa the Argive territory joins that of Epidaurus. But before you reach Epidaurus itself you will come to the sanctuary of Asklepios. Who dwelled in this land before Epidaurus came to it I do not know, nor could I discover from the natives the descendants of Epidaurus either. But the last king before the Dorians arrived in the Peloponnesus was, they say, Pityreus, a descendant of Ion, son of Xuthus, and they relate that he handed over the land to Deiphontes and the Argives without a struggle.
{2.26.2} He went to Athens with his people and dwelled there, while Deiphontes and the Argives took possession of Epidauria. These on the death of Temenus seceded from the other Argives; Deiphontes and Hyrnetho through hatred of the sons of Temenus, and the army with them, because it respected Deiphontes and Hyrnetho more than Ceisus and his brothers. Epidaurus, who gave the land its name, was, the Eleians say, a son of Pelops but, according to Argive opinion and the poem the Great Eoeae, the father of Epidaurus was Argos, son of Zeus, while the Epidaurians maintain that Epidaurus was the child of Apollo.
{2.26.3} That the land is especially sacred to Asklepios is due to the following reason. The Epidaurians say that Phlegyas came to the Peloponnesus, ostensibly to see the land, but really to spy out the number of the inhabitants, and whether the greater part of them was warlike. For Phlegyas was the greatest soldier of his time, and making forays in all directions he carried off the crops and lifted the cattle.
{2.26.4} When he went to the Peloponnesus, he was accompanied by his daughter, who all along had kept hidden from her father that she was with child by Apollo. In the country of the Epidaurians she bore a son, and exposed him on the mountain called Nipple at the present day, but then named Myrtium. As the child lay exposed he was given milk by one of the goats that pastured about the mountain, and was guarded by the watchdog of the herd. And when Aresthanas (for this was the herdsman’s name)
{2.26.5} discovered that the tale of the goats was not full, and that the watchdog also was absent from the herd, he left, they say, no stone unturned, and on finding the child desired to take him up. As he drew near he saw lightning that flashed from the child, and, thinking that it was something divine, as in fact it was, he turned away. Presently it was reported over every land and sea that Asklepios was discovering everything he wished to heal the sick, and that he was raising dead men to life.
{2.26.6} There is also another tradition concerning him. Coronis, they say, when with child with Asklepios, had intercourse with Ischys, son of Elatos. She was killed by Artemis to punish her for the insult done to Apollo, but when the pyre was already lighted Hermes is said to have snatched the child from the flames.
{2.26.7} The third account is, in my opinion, the farthest from the truth; it makes Asklepios to be the son of Arsinoe, the daughter of Leukippos. For when Apollophanes the Arcadian, came to Delphi and asked the god if Asklepios was the son of Arsinoe and therefore a Messenian, the Pythian priestess gave this response: —O Asklepios, born to bestow great joy upon mortals, Pledge of the mutual love I enjoyed with Phlegyas’ daughter, Lovely Coronis, who bare thee in rugged land Epidaurus. This oracle makes it quite certain that Asklepios was not a son of Arsinoe, and that the story was a fiction invented by Hesiod, or by one of Hesiod’s interpolators, just to please the Messenians.
{2.26.8} There is other evidence that the god was born in Epidaurus for I find that the most famous sanctuaries of Asklepios had their origin from Epidaurus. In the first place, the Athenians, who say that they gave a share of their mystic rites to Asklepios, call this day of the festival Epidauria, and they allege that their worship of Asklepios dates from then. Again, when Arkhias, son of Aristaechmus, was healed in Epidauria after spraining himself while hunting about Pindasus, he brought the cult to Pergamon.
{2.26.9} From the one at Pergamon has been built in our own day the sanctuary of Asklepios by the sea at Smyrna. Further, at Balagraiof the Cyreneans there is an Asklepios called Healer, who like the others came from Epidaurus. From the one at Cyrene was founded the sanctuary of Asklepios at Lebene, in Crete. There is this difference between the Cyreneans and the Epidaurians, that whereas the former sacrifice goats, it is against the custom of the Epidaurians to do so.
{2.26.10} That Asklepios was considered a god from the first, and did not receive the title only in course of time, I infer from several signs, including the evidence of Homer, who makes Agamemnon say about Makhaon:Talthybios, with all speed go summon me hither Makhaon, mortal son of Asklepios. [175] As who should say, ‘human son of a god’.
{2.27.1} The sacred grove of Asklepios is surrounded on all sides by boundary marks. No death or birth takes place within the enclosure the same custom prevails also in the island of Delos. All the offerings, whether the offerer be one of the Epidaurians themselves or a stranger, are entirely consumed within the bounds. At Titane too, I know, there is the same rule.
{2.27.2} The statue [agalma] of Asklepios [inside his temple] is, in size, half as big as the Olympian Zeus in Athens, and is made of ivory and gold. An inscription reveals that the artist was Thrasymedes, a Parian, son of Arignotos. The god is sitting on a seat throne [thronos] grasping a staff [baktēriā]; the other hand he is holding over the head of the serpent [drakōn]; there is also a figure of a dog lying by his side. On the throne [thronos] are worked in relief the deeds [erga] of Argive heroes [hērōes]—Bellerophontes against the Chimaera, and Perseus, who has cut off the head of Medusa. Over on the side of the temple is the place where the suppliants [hiketai] of the god fall asleep [= go into a state of incubation].
{2.27.3} Nearby [= near the Temple of Asklepios] has been built a circular building [oikēma … peripheres] of white marble, called Tholos, which is worth seeing [théā]. In it is a picture by Pausias representing Love, who has cast aside his bow and arrows, and is carrying instead of them a lyre that he has taken up. Here there is also another work of Pausias, Drunkenness drinking out of a crystal cup. You can see even in the painting a crystal cup and a woman’s face through it. Within the enclosure [peribolos] stood slabs [stēlai]; in my time six remained, but in ancient times there were more. On them are inscribed the names of both men and women who have been healed by Asklepios, also the disease also from which each suffered, also the means of cure. The dialect is Doric.
{2.27.4} Apart from the others is an ancient [arkhaiā] slab [stēlē]. It says [that is, the inscription on it says] that Hippolytus dedicated twenty horses to the god. What is said by the people of Aricia agrees with the inscription on this slab, that when Hippolytus was killed because of the curses of Theseus, Asklepios resurrected [an-histanai] him from the dead. On coming to life again he refused to forgive his father for rejecting his entreaties, and he went to the people of Aricia in Italy. There he became king and devoted a precinct to Artemis, where down to my time the prize for the victor in single combat was the priesthood of the goddess. The contest was open to no freeman, but only to slaves who had run away from their masters.
{2.27.5} The people of Epidaurus have a theater [theātron] within the sacred space [hieron], and it is in my opinion very much worth seeing [théā]. I say this because, while the Roman theaters are far superior to those anywhere else in their splendor, and the Arcadian theater at Megalopolis is unequalled for size, what architect could seriously rival Polycleitus in symmetry [harmoniā] and beauty? It was Polycleitus who built both this theater [theātron] and the circular building [oikēma … peripheres]. Within the grove are a temple of Artemis, a statue [agalma] of Epione, a sanctuary of Aphrodite and Themis, a race-course consisting, like most Greek race-courses, of a bank of earth, and a fountain worth seeing for its roof and general splendor.
{2.27.6} A Roman senator, Antoninus, made in our own day a bath of Asklepios and a sanctuary of the gods they call Bountiful. [176] He made also a temple to Hygieia, Asklepios, and Apollo, the last two surnamed Egyptian. He moreover restored the portico that was named the Portico of Cotys, which, as the brick of which it was made had been unburned, had fallen into utter ruin after it had lost its roof. As the Epidaurians about the sanctuary were in great distress, because their women had no shelter in which to be delivered and the sick breathed their last in the open, he provided a dwelling, so that these grievances also were redressed. Here at last was a place in which without sin a human being could die and a woman be delivered.
{2.27.7} Above the grove are the Nipple and another mountain called Cynortium; on the latter is a sanctuary of Maleatian Apollo. The sanctuary itself is an ancient one, but among the things Antoninus made for the Epidaurians are various appurtenances for the sanctuary of the Maleatian, including a reservoir into which the rainwater collects for their use.
{2.28.1} The serpents, including a peculiar kind of a yellowish color, are considered sacred to Asklepios, and are tame with men. These are peculiar to Epidauria, and I have noticed that other lands have their peculiar animals. For in Libya only are to be found land crocodiles at least two cubits long; from India alone are brought, among other creatures, parrots. But the big snakes that grow to more than thirty cubits, such as are found in India and in Libya, are said by the Epidaurians not to be serpents, but some other kind of creature.
{2.28.2} As you go up to Mount Coryphum you see by the road an olive tree called Twisted. It was Hēraklēs who gave it this shape by bending it round with his hand, but I cannot say whether he set it to be a boundary mark against the Asinaeans in Argolis, since in no land, which has been depopulated, is it easy to discover the truth about the boundaries. On the Top of the mountain there is a sanctuary of Artemis Coryphaea (of the Peak), of which Telesilla made mention in an ode.
{2.28.3} On going down to the city of the Epidaurians, you come to a place where wild olives grow; they call it Hyrnethium. I will relate the story of it, which is probable enough, as given by the Epidaurians. Ceisus and the other sons of Temenus knew that they would grieve Deiphontes most if they could find a way to part him and Hyrnetho. So Cerynes and Phalkes (for Agraios, the youngest, disapproved of their plan) came to Epidaurus. Staying their chariot under the wall, they sent a herald to their sister, pretending that they wished to parley with her.
{2.28.4} When she obeyed their summons, the young men began to make many accusations against Deiphontes, and besought her much that she would return to Argos, promising, among other things, to give her to a husband in every respect better than Deiphontes, one who ruled over more subjects and a more prosperous country. But Hyrnetho, pained at their words, gave as good as she had received, retorting that Deiphontes was a dear husband to her, and had shown himself a blameless son-in-law to Temenus; as for them, they ought to be called the murderers of Temenus rather than his sons.
{2.28.5} Without further reply the youths seized her, placed her in the chariot, and drove away. An Epidaurian told Deiphontes that Cerynes and Phalkes had gone, taking with them Hyrnetho against her will; he himself rushed to the rescue with all speed, and as the Epidaurians learned the news they reinforced him. On overtaking the runaways, Deiphontes shot Cerynes and killed him, but he was afraid to shoot at Phalkes, who was holding Hyrnetho, lest he should miss him and become the slayer of his wife; so he closed with them and tried to get her away. But Phalkes, holding on and dragging her with greater violence, killed her, as she was with child.
{2.28.6} Realizing what he had done to his sister, he began to drive the chariot more recklessly, as he was anxious to gain a start before all the Epidaurians could gather against him. Deiphontes and his children—for before this children had been born to him, Antimenes, Xanthippos, and Argeus, and a daughter, Orsobia, who, they say, afterwards married Pamphylos, son of Aigimios—took up the dead body of Hyrnetho and carried it to this place, which in course of time was named Hyrnethium.
{2.28.7} They built for her a hero-shrine, and bestowed upon her various honors; in particular, the custom was established that nobody should carry home, or use for any purpose, the pieces that break off the olive trees, or any other trees, that grow there; these are left there on the spot to be sacred to Hyrnetho.
{2.28.8} Not far from the city is the tomb of Melissa, who married Periandros, the son of Kypselos, and another of Prokles, the father of Melissa. He, too, was tyrant of Epidaurus, as Periandros, his son-in-law, was tyrant of Corinth. [177]
{2.29.1} The most noteworthy things which I found the city of Epidaurus itself had to show are these. There is, of course, a precinct of Asklepios, with statues [agalmata] of the god [theos] himself and of Epione. Epione, they say, was the wife of Asklepios. These are of Parian marble, and are set up in the open. There is also in the city a temple of Dionysus and one of Artemis. The figure of Artemis one might take to be the goddess hunting. There is also a sanctuary of Aphrodite, while the one at the harbor, on a height that juts out into the sea, they say is Hērā’s. The Athena on the citadel, a wooden image worth seeing, they surname Cissaea (Ivy Goddess).
{2.29.2} The Aeginetans dwell in the island that is situated opposite the mainland of Epidauros. It is said that in the beginning there were no humans in it; but after Zeus brought to it, when uninhabited, Aegina, daughter of Asopos, its name was changed from Oinone to Aegina; and when Aiakos, on growing up, asked Zeus for settlers, the god, they say, raised up the inhabitants out of the earth. They can mention no king of the island except Aiakos, since we know of none even of the sons of Aiakos who stayed there; for to Peleus and Telamon befell exile for the murder of Phokos, while the sons of Phokos made their home about Parnassus, in the land that is now called Phokis.
{2.29.3} This name had already been given to the land, at the time when Phokos, son of Ornytion, came to it a generation previously. In the time, then, of this Phokos only the district about Tithorea and Parnassus was called Phokis, but in the time of Aiakos the name spread to all from the borders of the Minyaiat Orkhomenos to Skarphea among the people of Lokris [= Lokroi].
{2.29.4} From Peleus sprang the kings in Epeiros; but as for the sons of Telamon, the lineage of Ajax is undistinguished, because he was a man who lived a private life; though Miltiades, who led the Athenians to Marathon, [178] and Kimon, the son of Miltiades, achieved renown; but the lineage of Teukros continued to be the royal house in Cyprus down to the time of Euagoras. Asios the epic poet says that to Phokos were born Panopeus and Crisus. To Panopeus was born Epeios, who made, according to Homer, the wooden horse; and the grandson of Crisus was Pylades, whose father was Strophios, son of Crisus, while his mother was Anaxibia, sister of Agamemnon. Such was the pedigree of the Aiakidai (lineage of Aiakos), as they are called, but they departed from the beginning to other lands.
{2.29.5} Subsequently a division of the Argives who, under Deiphontes, had seized Epidaurus, crossed to Aegina, and, settling among the old Aeginetans, established in the island Dorian manners and the Dorian dialect. Although the Aeginetans rose to great power, so that their navy was superior to that of Athens, and in the Persian war supplied more ships than any state except Athens, yet their prosperity was not permanent but when the island was depopulated by the Athenians, [179] they took up their abode at Thyrea, in Argolis, which the Lacedaemonians gave them to dwell in. They recovered their island when the Athenian warships were captured in the Hellespont, [180] yet it was never given them to rise again to their old wealth or power.
{2.29.6} Of the Greek islands, Aegina is the most difficult of access, for it is surrounded by sunken rocks and reefs which rise up. The story is that Aiakos devised this feature of set purpose, because he feared piratical raids by sea, and wished the approach to be perilous to enemies. Near the harbor in which vessels mostly anchor is a temple of Aphrodite, and in the most conspicuous part of the city what is called the shrine of Aiakos, a quadrangular enclosure of white marble.
{2.29.7} Made-in-relief at the entrance are the envoys whom the Greeks once dispatched to Aiakos. The reason for the embassy given by the Aeginetans is the same as that which the other Greeks assign. A drought had for some time afflicted Greece, and no rain fell either beyond the Isthmus or in the Peloponnesus, until at last they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what was the cause and to beg for deliverance from the evil. The Pythian priestess ordered them to propitiate Zeus, saying that he would not listen to them unless the one to supplicate him were Aiakos.
{2.29.8} And so envoys came with a request to Aiakos from each city. By sacrifice and prayer to Zeus, God of all the Greeks (Panhellenios), he caused rain to fall upon the earth, and the Aeginetans made these likenesses of those who came to him. Within the enclosure are olive trees that have grown there from of old, and there is an altar which is raised but a little from the ground. That this altar is also the tomb of Aiakos is told as a holy secret.
{2.29.9} Beside the shrine of Aiakos is the tomb of Phokos, a barrow surrounded by a basement, and on it lies a rough stone. When Telamon and Peleus had induced Phokos to compete at the pentathlon, and it was now the turn of Peleus to hurl the stone, which they were using for a discus, he intentionally hit Phokos. The act was done to please their mother; for, while they were both born of the daughter of Skiron, Phokos was not, being, if indeed the report of the Greeks be true, the son of a sister of Thetis. I believe it was for this reason, and not only out of friendship for Orestes, that Pylades plotted the murder of Neoptolemos.
{2.29.10} When this blow of the discus killed Phokos, the sons of Endeis boarded a ship and fled. Afterwards Telamon sent a herald denying that he had plotted the death of Phokos. Aiakos, however, refused to allow him to land on the island, and bade him to make his defense standing on board ship, or if he wished, from a mole raised in the sea. So he sailed into the harbor called Secret, and proceeded to make a mole by night. This was finished, and still remains at the present day. But Telamon, being condemned as implicated in the murder of Phokos, sailed away a second time and came to Salamis.
{2.29.11} Not far from the Secret Harbor is a theater worth seeing; it is very similar to the one at Epidaurus, both in size and in style. Behind it is built one side of a race-course, which not only itself holds up the theater, but also in turn uses it as a support.
{2.30.1} There are three temples close together, one of Apollo, one of Artemis, and a third of Dionysus. Apollo has a naked wooden image of native workmanship, but Artemis is dressed, and so, too, is Dionysus, who is, moreover, represented with a beard. The sanctuary of Asklepios is not here, but in another place, and his statue [agalma] is of stone, and seated.
{2.30.2} Of the gods, the Aeginetans worship most Hekate, in whose honor every year they celebrate mystic rites which, they say, Orpheus the Thracian established among them. Within the enclosure is a temple; its wooden-statue [xoanon] is the work of Myron, [181] and it has one face and one body. It was Alkamenes, [182] in my opinion, who first made three statues [agalmata] of Hekate attached to one another, a figure called by the Athenians Epipurgidia (on the Tower); it stands beside the temple of the Wingless Nike.
{2.30.3} In Aegina, as you go towards the mountain [oros] of Zeus, god of all the Hellenes, you reach a sanctuary [hieron] of Aphaia, in whose honor Pindar composed an ode for the Aeginetans. The Cretans say (the story of Aphaia is Cretan) that Carmanor, who purified Apollo alter he had killed Pythō, was the father of Euboulos, and that the daughter of Zeus and of Carme, the daughter of Euboulos, was Britomartis. She took delight, they say, in running and in the chase, and was very dear to Artemis. Fleeing from Minos, who had fallen in love with her, she threw herself into nets which had been cast (aphemena) for a draught of fishes. She was made a goddess by Artemis, and she is worshipped, not only by the Cretans, but also by the Aeginetans, who say that Britomartis shows herself in their island. Her surname among the Aeginetans is Aphaia; in Crete it is Dictynna (Goddess of Nets).
{2.30.4} The Mountain [oros] of all the Hellenes, except for the sanctuary of Zeus, has, I found, nothing else worthy of mention. This sanctuary, they say, was made for Zeus by Aiakos. The story of Auxesia and Damia, how the Epidaurians suffered from drought, how in obedience to an oracle they had these wooden-statues [xoana]images made of olive wood that they received from the Athenians, how the Epidaurians left off paying to the Athenians what they had agreed to pay, on the ground that the Aeginetans had the statues [agalmata], how the Athenians perished who crossed over to Aegina to fetch them—all this, as Herodotus has described it accurately and in detail, I have no intention of relating, because the story has been well told already; but I will add that I saw the statues [agalmata], and sacrificed to them in the same way as it is customary to sacrifice at Eleusis.
{2.30.5} So much I must relate about Aegina, for the sake of Aiakos and his exploits. Bordering on Epidauria are the Troizenians, unrivalled glorifiers of their own country. They say that Orus was the first to be born in their land. Now, in my opinion, Orus is an Egyptian name and utterly un-Greek; but they assert that he became their king, and that the land was called Oraea after him and that Althepus, the son of Poseidon and of Leis, the daughter of Orus, inheriting the kingdom after Orus, named the land Althepia.
{2.30.6} During his reign, they say, Athena and Poseidon disputed about the land, and after disputing held it in common, as Zeus commanded them to do. For this reason they worship both Athena, whom they name both Polias (Urban) and Sthenias (Strong), and also Poseidon, under the surname of King. And moreover their old coins have as device a trident and a face of Athena.
{2.30.7} After Althepus, Saron became king. They said that this man built the sanctuary for Saronian Artemis by a sea which is marshy and shallow, so that for this reason it was called the Phoebaean lagoon. Now Saron was very fond of hunting. As he was chasing a doe, it so chanced that it dashed into the sea and he dashed in alter it. The doe swam further and further from the shore, and Saron kept close to his prey, until his ardor brought him to the open ocean. Here his strength failed, and he was drowned in the waves. The body was cast ashore at the grove of Artemis by the Phoebaean lagoon, and they buried it within the sacred enclosure, and after him they named the sea in these parts the Saronic instead of the Phoebaean lagoon.
{2.30.8} They know nothing of the later kings down to Hyperes and Anthas. These they assert to be sons of Poseidon and of Alcyone, daughter of Atlas, adding that they founded in the country the cities of Hyperea and Anthea; Aitios, however, the son of Anthas, on inheriting the kingdoms of his father and of his uncle, named one of the cities Poseidonias. When Troizen and Pittheus came to Aitios there were three kings instead of one, but the sons of Pelops enjoyed the balance of power.
{2.30.9} Here is evidence of it. When Troizen died, Pittheus gathered the inhabitants together, incorporating both Hyperea and Anthea into the modern city, which he named Troizen after his brother. Many years afterwards the descendants of Aitios, son of Anthas, were dispatched as colonists from Troizen, and founded Halicarnassus and Myndus in Caria. Anaphlystos and Sphettos, sons of Troizen, migrated to Attica, and the demes [dēmoi] are named after them. As my readers know it already, I shall not relate the story of Theseus, the grandson of Pittheus. There is, however, one incident that I must add.
{2.30.10} On the return of the Herakleidai, the Troizenians too received Dorian settlers from Argos. They had been subject at even an earlier date to the Argives; Homer, too, in the Catalogue, says that their commander was Diomedes. For Diomedes and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, who were guardians of the boy Kyanippos, son of Aigialeus, led the Argives to Troy. Sthenelus, as I have related above, came of a more illustrious family, called the Anaxagoridai, and he had the best claim to the Kingdom of Argos. Such is the story of the Troizenians, with the exception of the cities that claim to be their colonies. I will now proceed to describe the appointments of their sanctuaries and the remarkable sights of their country.
{2.31.1} In the marketplace of Troizen is a temple of Artemis Savior [Sōteira], with statues [agalmata] of the goddess. It was said that the temple was founded and the name Savior given by Theseus when he returned from Crete after overcoming Asterion the son of Minos. This victory he considered the most noteworthy of his achievements, not so much, in my opinion, because Asterion was the bravest of those killed by Theseus, but because his success in unraveling the difficult Maze and in escaping unnoticed after the exploit made credible the saying that it was divine providence that brought Theseus and his company back in safety.
{2.31.2} In this temple are altars to the gods said to rule under the earth. It is here that they say Semele was brought out of Hades by Dionysus, and that Hēraklēs dragged up the Hound of Hades. [183] But I cannot bring myself to believe even that Semele died at all, seeing that she was the wife of Zeus; while, as for the so-called Hound of Hades, I will give my views in another place.
{2.31.3} Behind the temple is the tomb of Pittheus, on which are placed three seats of white marble. On them they say that Pittheus and two men with him used to sit in judgment. Not far off is a sanctuary of the Muses, made, they told me, by Ardalus, son of Hephaistos. This Ardalus they hold to have invented the aulos [‘double-reed’], and after him they name the Muses Ardalides. Here, they say, Pittheus taught the art of rhetoric, and I have myself read a book purporting to be a treatise by Pittheus, published by a citizen of Epidaurus. Not far from the Muses’ Hall is an old altar, which also, according to report, was dedicated by Ardalus. Upon it they sacrifice to the Muses and to Sleep, saying that Sleep is the god that is dearest to the Muses.
{2.31.4} Near the theater a temple of Artemis Lykaia (Wolfish) was made by Hippolytus. About this surname I could learn nothing from the local guides, but I gathered that either Hippolytus destroyed wolves that were ravaging the land of Troizen, or else that Lykaia is a surname of Artemis among the Amazons, from whom he was descended through his mother. Perhaps there may be another explanation that I am unaware of. The stone in front of the temple, called the Sacred Stone, they say is that on which nine men of Troizen once purified Orestes from the stain of matricide.
{2.31.5} Not far from Artemis Lykaia are altars close to one another. The first of them is to Dionysus, surnamed, in accordance with an oracle, Saotes (Savior); the second is named the altar of the Themides (Laws), and was dedicated, they say, by Pittheus. They had every reason, it seems to me, for making an altar to Hēlios Eleutherios (Sun, God of Freedom), seeing that they escaped being enslaved by Xerxes and the Persians.
{2.31.6} The sanctuary of Thearian Apollo, they told me, was set up by Pittheus; it is the oldest I know of. Now the people of Phokaia, too, in Ionia have an old temple of Athena, which was once burned by Harpagus the Persian, and the Samians also have an old one of Pythian Apollo; these, however, were built much later than the sanctuary at Troizen. The modern statue [agalma] was dedicated by Auliskos, and made by Hermon of Troizen. This Hermon made also the wooden images of the Dioskouroi.
{2.31.7} Under a portico in the marketplace are set up women; both they and their children are of stone. They are the women and children whom the Athenians gave to the Troizenians to be kept safe, when they had resolved to evacuate Athens and not to await the attack of the Persians by land. They are said to have dedicated likenesses, not of all the women—for, as a matter of fact, the statues are not many—but only of those who were of high rank.
{2.31.8} In front of the sanctuary of Apollo is a building called the Booth of Orestes. For before he was purified for shedding his mother’s blood, no citizen of Troizen would receive him into his home; so they lodged him here and gave him entertainment while they purified him, until they had finished the purification. Down to the present day the descendants of those who purified Orestes dine here on appointed days. A little way from the booth were buried, they say, the means of purifying, and from them grew up a bay tree, which, indeed, still remains, being the one before this booth.
{2.31.9} Among the means of purifying which they say they used to purify Orestes was water from Hippocrene (Horse’s Fount) for the Troizenians too have a fountain called the Horse’s, and the legend about it does not differ from the one which prevails in Boeotia. For they, too, say that the earth sent up the water when the horse Pegasus [Pegasos] struck the ground with his hoof, and that Bellerophontes came to Troizen to ask Pittheus to give him Aithra to wife, but before the marriage took place he was banished from Corinth.
{2.31.10} Here there is also a Hermes called Polygius. Against this statue [agalma], they say, Hēraklēs leaned his club. Now this club, which was of wild olive, taking root in the earth (if anyone cares to believe the story), grew up again and is still alive; Hēraklēs, they say, discovering the wild olive by the Saronic Sea, cut a club from it. There is also a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Savior, which, they say, was made by Aitios, the son of Anthas, when he was king. To a water they give the name River of Gold. They say that when the land was afflicted with a drought for nine years, during which no rain fell, all the other waters dried up, but this River of Gold even then continued to flow as before.
{2.32.1} To Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, is devoted a very famous precinct, in which is a temple with an old statue [agalma]. Diomedes, they say, made these, and, moreover, was the first to sacrifice to Hippolytus. The Troizenians have a priest of Hippolytus, who holds his sacred office for life, and annual sacrifices have been established. They also observe the following custom. Every girl before marriage cuts off a lock for Hippolytus, and, having cut it, she brings it to the temple and dedicates it. They will not have it that he was dragged to death by his horses, and, though they know his tomb, they do not show it. But they believe that what is called the Charioteer in the sky is the Hippolytus of the legend, such being the honor he enjoys from the gods.
{2.32.2} Within this enclosure is a temple of Apollo Seafaring, an offering of Diomedes for having weathered the storm that came upon the Greeks as they were returning from Troy. They say that Diomedes was also the first to hold the Pythian games in honor of Apollo. Of Damia and Auxesia (for the Troizenians, too, share in their worship) they do not give the same account as the Epidaurians and Aeginetans, but say that they were maidens who came from Crete. A general insurrection having arisen in the city, these too, they say, were stoned to death by the opposite party; and they hold a festival in their honor that they call Stoning.
{2.32.3} In the other part of the enclosure is a race-course called that of Hippolytus, and above it a temple of Aphrodite Spy. For from here, whenever Hippolytus practiced his exercises, Phaedra, who was in love with him, used to gaze upon him. Here there still grew the myrtle, with its leaves, as I have described above, pierced with holes. When Phaedra was in despair and could find no relief for her passion, she used to vent her spleen upon the leaves of this myrtle.
{2.32.4} There is also the tomb of Phaedra, not far from the tomb of Hippolytus, which is a barrow near the myrtle. The statue [agalma] of Asklepios was made by Timotheus, but the Troizenians say that it is not Asklepios, but a likeness [eikōn] of Hippolytus. I remember, too, seeing the house of Hippolytus; before it is what is called the Fountain of Hēraklēs, for Hēraklēs, say the Troizenians, discovered the water.
{2.32.5} On the citadel is a temple of Athena, called Sthenias. The woodenstatue [xoanon] itself of the goddess was made by CalIon, of Aegina. [184] Kallon was a pupil of Tectaeus and Angelion, who made the statue [agalma] of Apollo for the Delians. Angelion and Tectaeus were trained in the school of Dipoinos and Skyllis.
{2.32.6} On going down from here you come to a sanctuary of Pan Lyterios (Releasing), so named because he showed to the Troizenian magistrates dreams which supplied a cure for the epidemic that had afflicted Troizenia, and the Athenians more than any other people. Having crossed the sanctuary, you can see a temple of Isis, and above it one of Aphrodite of the Height. The temple of Isis was made by the Halicarnassians in Troizen, because this is their mother-city, but the statue [agalma] of Isis was dedicated by the people of Troizen.
{2.32.7} On the road that leads through the mountains to Hermione is a spring of the river Hyllicus, originally called Taurios (Bull-like), and a rock called the Rock of Theseus; when Theseus took up the boots and sword of Aigeus under it, it, too, changed its name, for before it was called the altar of Zeus Sthenios (Strong). Near the rock is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Nymphia (Bridal), made by Theseus when he took Helen to wife.
{2.32.8} Outside the wall there is also a sanctuary of Poseidon Nurturer (Phytalmios). For they say that, being angry with them, Poseidon smote the land with barrenness, brine (halme) reaching the seeds and the roots of the plants (phuta), [185] until, appeased by sacrifices and prayers, he ceased to send up the brine upon the earth. Above the temple of Poseidon is Demeter Lawbringer (Thesmophoros), set up, they say, by Althepus.
{2.32.9} On going down to the harbor at what is called Celenderis, you come to a place called Birthplace (Genethlion), where Theseus is said to have been born. Before this place is a temple of Ares, for here also did Theseus conquer the Amazons in battle. These must have belonged to the army that strove in Attica against Theseus and the Athenians.
{2.32.10} As you make your way to the Psiphaean Sea you see a wild olive growing, which they call the Bent Rhakos. The Troizenians call rhakos every kind of barren olive—kotinos, phylia, or elaious—and this tree they call Bent because it was when the reins caught in it that the chariot of Hippolytus was upset. Not far from this stands the sanctuary of Saronian Artemis, and I have already given an account of it. I must add that every year they hold in honor of Artemis a festival called Saronia.
{2.33.1} The Troizenians possess islands, one of which is near the mainland, and it is possible to wade across the channel. This was formerly called Sphaeria, but its name was changed to Sacred Island for the following reason. In it is the tomb of Sphairos, who, they say, was charioteer to Pelops. In obedience forsooth to a dream from Athena, Aithra crossed over into the island with libations for Sphairos. After she had crossed, Poseidon is said to have had intercourse with her here. So for this reason Aithra set up here a temple of Athena Apaturia, [186] and changed the name from Sphaeria to Sacred Island. She also established a custom for the Troizenian girls of dedicating their waistbands before wedlock to Athena Apaturia.
{2.33.2} Kalaureia, they say, was sacred to Apollo of old, at the time when Delphi was sacred to Poseidon. Legend adds that the two gods exchanged the two places. They still say this, and quote an oracle:
Delos and Kalaureia alike you love to dwell in,
Pythō, too, the holy, and Taenarum swept by the high winds.
Pythō, too, the holy, and Taenarum swept by the high winds.
At any rate, there is a holy sanctuary of Poseidon here, and it is served by a maiden priestess until she reaches an age fit for marriage.
{2.33.3} Within the enclosure is also the tomb of Demosthenes. His fate, and that of Homer before him, have, in my opinion, showed most plainly how spiteful the deity is; for Homer, after losing his sight, was, in addition to this great affliction, cursed with a second—a poverty which drove him in beggary to every land; while to Demosthenes it befell to experience exile in his old age and to meet with such a violent end. Now, although concerning him, not only others, but Demosthenes himself, have again and again declared that assuredly he took no part of the money that Harpalos brought from Asia,
{2.33.4} yet I must relate the circumstances of the statement made subsequently. Shortly after Harpalos ran away from Athens and crossed with a squadron to Crete, he was put to death by the servants who were attending him, though some assert that he was assassinated by Pausanias, a Macedonian. The steward of his money fled to Rhodes, and was arrested by a Macedonian, Philoxenos, who also had demanded Harpalos from the Athenians. Having this slave in his power, he proceeded to examine him, until he learned everything about such as had allowed themselves to accept a bribe from Harpalos. On obtaining this information he sent a dispatch to Athens,
{2.33.5} in which he gave a list of such as had taken a bribe from Harpalos, both their names and the sums each had received. Demosthenes, however, he never mentioned at all, although Alexander held him in bitter hatred, and he himself had a private quarrel with him. So Demosthenes is honored in many parts of Greece, and especially by the dwellers in Kalaureia.
{2.34.1} Stretching out far into the sea from Troizenia is a peninsula, on the coast of which has been founded a little town called Methana. Here there is a sanctuary of Isis, and on the marketplace is a statue [agalma] of Hermes, and also one of Hēraklēs. Some thirty stadium-lengths distant from the town are hot baths. They say that it was when Antigonos, son of Demetrios, was king of Macedon that the water first appeared, and that what appeared at once was not water, but fire that gushed in great volume from the ground, and when this died down the water flowed; indeed, even at the present day it wells up hot and exceedingly salt. A bather here finds no cold water at hand, and if he dives into the sea his swim is full of danger. For wild creatures live in it, and it swarms with sharks.
{2.34.2} I will also relate what astonished me most in Methana. The wind called Lips, striking the budding vines from the Saronic Gulf, blights their buds. So while the wind is still rushing on, two men cut in two a rooster whose feathers are all white, and run round the vines in opposite directions, each carrying half of the rooster. When they meet at their starting place, they bury the pieces there.
{2.34.3} Such are the means they have devised against the Lips. The islets, nine in number, lying off the land are called the Isles of Pelops, and they say that when it rains one of them is not touched. If this be the case I do not know, though the people around Methana said that it was true, and I have seen before now men trying to keep off hail by sacrifices and spells.
{2.34.4} Methana, then, is a peninsula of the Peloponnesus. Within it, bordering on the land of Troizen, is Hermione. The founder of the old city, the Hermionians say, was Hermion, the son of Europs. Now Europs, whose father was certainly Phoroneus, Herophanes of Troizen said was an illegitimate child. For surely the kingdom of Argos would never have devolved upon Argos, Niobe’s son, the grandchild of Phoroneus, in the presence of a legitimate son.
{2.34.5} But even supposing that Europs was a legitimate child who died before Phoroneus, I am quite sure that his son was not likely to stand a fair chance against Niobe’s child, whose father was supposed to be Zeus. Subsequently the Dorians from Argos settled, among other places, at Hermion, but I do not think there was war between the two peoples, or it would have been spoken of by the Argives.
{2.34.6} There is a road from Troizen to Hermion by way of the rock which aforetime was called the altar of Zeus Sthenios (Strong) but afterwards Theseus took up the tokens, and people now call it the Rock of Theseus. As you go, then, along a mountain road by way of this rock, you reach a temple of Apollo surnamed Platanistios (God of the Plane tree Grove), and a place called Eilei, where are sanctuaries of Demeter and of her daughter Kore (Maiden). Seawards, on the borders of Hermionis, is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Thermasia (Warmth).
{2.34.7} Just about eighty stadium-lengths away is a headland Scyllaeum, which is named alter the daughter of Nisos. For when, owing to her treachery, Minos had taken Nisaia and Megara, he said that now he would not have her to wife, and ordered his Cretans to throw her from the ship. She was drowned, and the waves cast up her body on this headland. They do not show a tomb of her, but say that the sea birds were allowed to tear the corpse to pieces.
{2.34.8} As you sail from Scyllaeum in the direction of the city, you reach another headland, called Bucephala (Ox-head), and, after the headland, islands, the first of which is Haliussa (Salt Island). This provides a harbor where there is good anchorage. After it comes Pityussa (Pine Island), and the third they call Aristerae. On sailing past these you come to another headland, Colyergia, jutting out from the mainland, and after it to an island, called Tricrana (Three Heads), and a mountain, projecting into the sea from the Peloponnesus, called Buporthmus (Oxford). On Buporthmus has been built a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter, as well as one of Athena, surnamed Promakhorma (Champion of the Anchorage).
{2.34.9} Before Buporthmus lies an island called Aperopia, not far from which is another island, Hydrea. After it the mainland is skirted by a crescent-shaped beach and after the beach there is a spit of land up to a sanctuary of Poseidon, beginning at the sea on the east and extending westwards. It possesses harbors, and is some seven stadium-lengths long, and not more than three stadium-lengths in breadth where it is broadest.
{2.34.10} Here the Hermionians had their former city. They still have sanctuaries here: one of Poseidon at the east end of the spit, and a temple of Athena further inland by the side of the latter are the foundations of a race-course, in which legend says the sons of Tyndareus contended. There is also another sanctuary of Athena, of no great size, the roof of which has fallen in. There is a temple to Hēlios [Sun], another to the Graces, and a third to Serapis and Isis. There are also circuits of large unhewn stones, within which they perform mystic ritual to Demeter.
{2.34.11} Such are the possessions of the Hermionians in these parts. The modern city is just about four stadium-lengths distant from the headland, upon which is the sanctuary of Poseidon, and it lies on a site which is level at first, gently rising up a slope, which presently merges into Prone, for so they name this mountain. A wall stands all round Hermione, a city which I found afforded much to write about, and among the things which I thought I myself must certainly mention are a temple of Aphrodite, surnamed both Pontia (of the Deep Sea) and Limenia (of the Harbor), and a white-marble statue [agalma] of huge size, and worth seeing for its artistic excellence.
{2.34.12} There is also another temple of Aphrodite. Among the honors paid her by the Hermionians is this custom: girls, and widows about to remarry, all sacrifice to her before wedding. Sanctuaries have also been built of Demeter Thermasia (Warmth), one at the border towards Troizenia, as I have stated above, while there is another in Hermione itself.
{2.35.1} Near the latter is a temple of Dionysus of the Black Goatskin. In his honor every year they hold a competition in music, and they offer prizes for swimming-races and boat-races. There is also a sanctuary of Artemis surnamed Iphigenia, and a bronze Poseidon with one foot upon a dolphin. Passing by this into the sanctuary of Hestia, we see no statue [agalma], but only an altar, and they sacrifice to Hestia upon it.
{2.35.2} Of Apollo there are three temples and three statues [agalmata]. One has no surname; the second they call Pythaeus, and the third Horios (of the Borders). The name Pythaeus they have learned from the Argives, for Telesilla tells us that they were the first Greeks to whose country came Pythaeus, who was a son of Apollo. I cannot say for certain why they call the third Horios, but I conjecture that they won a victory, either in war or by arbitration, in a dispute concerning the borders (horoi) of their land, and for this reason paid honors to Apollo Horios.
{2.35.3} The sanctuary of Fortune is said by the Hermionians to be the newest in their city; a colossus of Parian marble stands there. Of their wells, one is very old; nobody can see the water flowing into it, but it would never run dry, even if everybody descended and drew water from it. Another well they made in our own day, and the name of the place from which the water flows into it is Leimon (Meadow).
{2.35.4} The object most worthy of mention is a sanctuary of Demeter on Pron. This sanctuary is said by the Hermionians to have been founded by Klymenos, son of Phoroneus, and Khthonia, sister of Klymenos. But the Argive account is that when Demeter came to Argolis, while Atheras and Mysios afforded hospitality to the goddess, Colontas neither received her into his home nor paid her any other mark of respect. His daughter Khthonia disapproved of this conduct. They say that Colontas was punished by being burned up along with his house, while Khthonia was brought to Hermion by Demeter, and made the sanctuary for the Hermionians.
{2.35.5} At any rate, the goddess herself is called Khthonia, and Khthonia is the name of the festival they hold in the summer of every year. The manner of it is this. The procession is headed by the priests of the gods and by all those who hold the annual magistracies; these are followed by both men and women. It is now a custom that some who are still children should honor the goddess in the procession. These are dressed in white, and wear wreaths upon their heads. Their wreaths are woven of the flower called by the natives kosmosandalon, which, from its size and color, seems to me to be an iris; it even has inscribed upon it the same letters of mourning. [187]
{2.35.6} Those who form the procession are followed by men leading from the herd a full-grown cow, fastened with ropes, and still untamed and frisky. Having driven the cow to the temple, some loose her from the ropes that she may rush into the sanctuary, others, who hitherto have been holding the doors open, when they see the cow within the temple, close the doors.
{2.35.7} Four old women, left behind inside, are they who dispatch the cow. Whichever gets the chance cuts the throat of the cow with a sickle. Afterwards the doors are opened, and those who are appointed drive up a second cow, and a third after that, and yet a fourth. All are dispatched in the same way by the old women, and the sacrifice has yet another strange feature. On whichever of her sides the first cow falls, all the others must fall on the same.
{2.35.8} Such is the manner in which the sacrifice is performed by the Hermionians. Before the temple stand a few statues [eikónes] of the women who have served Demeter as her priestess, and on passing inside you see seats on which the old women wait for the cows to be driven in one by one, and statues [agalmata], of no great age, of Athena and Demeter. But the thing itself that they worship more than all else, I never saw, nor yet has any other man, whether stranger or Hermionian. The old women may keep their knowledge of its nature to themselves.
{2.35.9} There is also another temple, all round which stand statues. This temple is right opposite that of Khthonia, and is called that of Klymenos, and they sacrifice to Klymenos here. I do not believe that Klymenos was an Argive who came to Hermion. ‘Klymenos’ is the surname of the god, whoever legend says is king in the underworld.
{2.35.10} Beside this temple is another; it is of Ares, and has a statue [agalma] of the god, while to the right of the sanctuary of Khthonia is a portico, called by the natives the Portico of Echo. It is such that if a man speaks it reverberates at least three times. Behind the temple of Khthonia are three places which the Hermionians call that of Klymenos, that of Pluto [Ploutōn], and the Acherusian Lake. All are surrounded by fences of stones, while in the place of Klymenos there is also a chasm in the earth. Through this, according to the legend of the Hermionians, Hēraklēs brought up the Hound of Hades.
{2.35.11} At the gate through which there is a straight road leading to Mases, there is a sanctuary of Eileithuia within the wall. Every day, both with sacrifices and with incense, they magnificently propitiate the goddess, and, moreover, there is a vast number of votive gifts offered to Eileithuia. But the statue [agalma] no one may see, except, perhaps, the priestesses.
{2.36.1} Proceeding about seven stadium-lengths along the straight road to Mases, you reach, on turning to the left, a road to Halice. At the present day Halice is deserted, but once it, too, had inhabitants, and there is mention made of citizens of Halice on the Epidaurian slabs on which are inscribed the cures of Asklepios. I know, however, no other authentic document in which mention is made either of the city Halice or of its citizens. Well, to this city also there is a road, which lies midway between Pron and another mountain, called in old days Thornax; but they say that the name was changed because, according to legend, it was here that the transformation of Zeus into a cuckoo took place.
{2.36.2} Even to the present day there are sanctuaries on the tops of the mountains: on Mount Cuckoo one of Zeus, on Pron one of Hērā. At the foot of Mount Cuckoo is a temple, but there are no doors standing, and I found it without a roof or a statue [agalma] inside. The temple was said to be Apollo’s. by the side of it runs a road to Mases for those who have turned aside from the straight road. Mases was in old days a city, even as Homer [188] represents it in the catalogue of the Argives, but in my time the Hermionians were using it as a seaport.
{2.36.3} From Mases there is a road on the right to a headland called Strouthos (Sparrow Peak). From this headland by way of the summits of the mountains the distance to the place called Philanorium and to the Boleoi is two hundred and fifty stadium-lengths. These Boleoi are heaps of unhewn stones. Another place, called Twins, is twenty stadium-lengths distant from here. There is here a sanctuary of Apollo, a sanctuary of Poseidon, and in addition one of Demeter. The statues [agalmata] are of white marble, and are upright.
{2.36.4} Next comes a district, belonging to the Argives, that once was called Asinaia, and by the sea are ruins of Asine. When the Lacedaemonians and their king Nikandros, son of Kharillos, son of Polydektes, son of Eunomos, son of Prytanis, son of Eurypon, invaded Argolis with an army, the Asinaeans joined in the invasion, and with them ravaged the land of the Argives. When the Lacedaemonian expedition departed home, the Argives under their king Eratos attacked Asine.
{2.36.5} For a time the Asinaeans defended themselves from their wall, and killed among others Lysistratos, one of the most notable men of Argos. But when the wall was lost, the citizens put their wives and children on board their vessels and abandoned their own country; the Argives, while leveling Asine to the ground and annexing its territory to their own, left the sanctuary of Apollo Pythaeus, which is still visible, and by it they buried Lysistratos.
{2.36.6} Distant from Argos forty stadium-lengths and no more is the sea at Lerna. On the way down to Lerna the first thing on the road is the Erasinos, which empties itself into the Phrixos, and the Phrixos into the sea between Temenium and Lerna. About eight stadium-lengths to the left from the Erasinos is a sanctuary of the Lords Dioskouroi (Sons of Zeus). Their wooden images have been made similar to those in the city.
{2.36.7} On returning to the straight road, you will cross the Erasinos and reach the river Kheimarros (Winter-torrent). Near it is a circuit of stones, and they say that Pluto [Ploutōn], after carrying off, according to the story, Kore, the daughter of Demeter, descended here to his fabled kingdom underground. Lerna is, I have already stated, by the sea, and here they celebrate mysteries in honor of Lernaean Demeter.
{2.36.8} There is a sacred grove beginning on the mountain they call Pontinos. Now Mount Pontinos does not let the rainwater flow away, but absorbs it into itself. From it flows a river, also called Pontinos. Upon the top of the mountain is a sanctuary of Athena Saitis, now merely a ruin; there are also the foundations of a house of Hippomedon, who went to Thebes to redress the wrongs of Polyneikes, son of Oedipus.
{2.37.1} At this mountain begins the grove, which consists chiefly of plane trees, and reaches down to the sea. Its boundaries are, on the one side the river Pantinos, on the other side another river, called Amymane, after the daughter of Danaos. Within the tomb are statues [agalmata] of Demeter Prosymne and of Dionysus. Of Demeter there is a seated statue [agalma] of no great size.
{2.37.2} Both are of stone, but in another temple is a seated wooden-statue [xoanon] of Dionysus Saotes (Savior), while by the sea is a stone statue [agalma] of Aphrodite. They say that the daughters of Danaos dedicated it, while Danaos himself made the sanctuary of Athena by the Pontinos. The mysteries of the Lernaeans were established, they say, by Philammon. Now the words which accompany the ritual are evidently of no antiquity
{2.37.3} and the inscription also, which I have heard is written on the heart made of orichalcum, was shown not to be Philammon’s by Arriphon, an Aetolian of Triconium by descent, who now enjoys a reputation second to none among the Lycians; excellent at original research, he found the clue to this problem in the following way: the verses, and the prose interspersed among the verses, are all written in Doric. But before the return of the Herakleidai to the Peloponnesus the Argives spoke the same dialect as the Athenians, and in Philammon’s day I do not suppose that even the name Dorians was familiar to all Greek ears.
{2.37.4} All this was proved in the demonstration. At the source of the Amymone grows a plane tree, beneath which, they say, the hydra (water-snake) grew. I am ready to believe that this beast was superior in size to other water-snakes, and that its poison had something in it so deadly that Hēraklēs treated the points of his arrows with its gall. It had, however, in my opinion, one head, and not several. It was Peisandros [189] of Camirus who, in order that the beast might appear more frightful and his poetry might be more remarkable, represented the hydra with its many heads.
{2.37.5} I saw also what is called the Spring of Amphiaraos and the Alcyonian Lake, through which the Argives say Dionysus went down to Hades to bring up Semele, adding that the descent here was shown him by Palymnus. There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even Nero, who had ropes made several stadium-lengths long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth.
{2.37.6} This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away. The circumference of the lake is not great, being about one-third of a stadium-length. Upon its banks grow grass and rushes. The nocturnal rites performed every year in honor of Dionysus I must not divulge to the world at large.
{2.38.1} Temenium is in Argive territory, and was named after Temenus, the son of Aristomakhos. For, having seized and strengthened the position, he waged therefrom with the Dorians the war against Tisamenus and the Achaeans. On the way to Temenium from Lerna the river Phrixos empties itself into the sea, and in Temenium is built a sanctuary of Poseidon, as well as one of Aphrodite; there is also the tomb of Temenus, which is worshipped by the Dorians in Argos.
{2.38.2} Fifty stadium-lengths, I conjecture, from Temenium is Nauplia, which at the present day is uninhabited; its founder was Nauplios, reputed to be a son of Poseidon and Amymone. Of the walls, too, ruins still remain and in Nauplia are a sanctuary of Poseidon, harbors, and a spring called Canathus. Here, say the Argives, Hērā bathes every year and recovers her virginity.
{2.38.3} This is one of the sayings told as a holy secret at the mysteries which they celebrate in honor of Hērā. The story told by the people in Nauplia about the ass, how by nibbling down the shoots of a vine he caused a more plenteous crop of grapes in the future, and how for this reason they have carved an ass on a rock, because he taught the pruning of vines—all this I pass over as trivial.
{2.38.4} From Lerna there is also another road, which skirts the sea and leads to a place called Genesium. By the sea is a small sanctuary of Poseidon Genesios. Next to this is another place, called Apobathmi (Steps). The story is that this is the first place in Argolis where Danaos landed with his daughters. From here we pass through what is called Anigraea, along a narrow and difficult road, until we reach a tract on the left which stretches down to the sea;
{2.38.5} it is fertile in trees, especially the olive. As you go up inland from this is a place where three hundred picked Argives fought for this land with an equal number of specially chosen Lacedaemonian warriors. [190] All were killed except one Spartan and two Argives, and here were raised the tombs for the dead. But the Lacedaemonians, having fought against the Argives with all their forces, won a decisive victory; at first they themselves enjoyed the fruits of the land, but afterwards they assigned it to the Aeginetans, when they were expelled from their island by the Athenians. [191] In my time Thyreatis was inhabited by the Argives, who say that they recovered it by the award of an arbitration. [192]
{2.38.6} As you go from these common graves you come to Athene, where Aeginetans once made their home, another village Neris, and a third Eua, the largest of the villages, in which there is a sanctuary of Polemocrates. This Polemocrates is one of the sons of Makhaon, and the brother of Alexanor; he cures the people of the district, and receives honors from the neighbors.
{2.38.7} Above the villages extends Mount Parnon, on which the Lacedaemonian border meets the borders of the Argives and Tegeatae. On the borders stand stone figures of Hermes, from which the name of the place is derived. A river called Tanaus, which is the only one descending from Mount Parnon, flows through the Argive territory and empties itself into the Gulf of Thyrea.
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Scroll III. Laconia
{3.1.1} After the figures of Hermes we reach Laconia on the west. According to the tradition of the Lacedaemonians themselves, Lelex, an aboriginal was the first king in this land, after whom his subjects were named Leleges. Lelex had a son Myles, and a younger one Polycaon. Polycaon retired into exile, the place of this retirement and its reason I will set forth elsewhere. On the death of Myles his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne. He led down to the sea by means of a trench the stagnant water on the plain, and when it had flowed away, as what was left formed a river-stream, he named it Eurotas. [193]
{3.1.2} Having no male issue, he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while according to report his father was none other than Zeus. Lacedaemon was wedded to Sparta, a daughter of Eurotas. When he came to the throne, he first changed the names of the land and its inhabitants, calling them after himself, and next he founded and named after his wife a city, which even down to our own day has been called Sparta.
{3.1.3} Amyclas, too, son of Lacedaemon, wished to leave some memorial behind him, and built a town in Laconia. Hyakinthos, the youngest and most beautiful of his sons, died before his father, and his tomb is in Amyklai below the image of Apollo. On the death of Amyclas the empire came to Aigalus, the eldest of his sons, and afterwards, when Aigalus died, to Cynortas. Cynortas had a son Oibalos.
{3.1.4} He took a wife from Argos, Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, and begat a son Tyndareus, with whom Hippokoön disputed about the kingship, claiming the throne on the ground of being the eldest. With the end of Icarius and his partisans he had surpassed Tyndareus in power, and forced him to retire in fear; the Lacedaemonians say that he went to Pellana, but a Messenian legend about him is that he fled to Aphareus in Messenia, Aphareus being the son of Perieres and the brother of Tyndareus on his mother’s side. The story goes on to say that he settled at Thalamaiin Messenia, and that his children were born to him when he was living there.
{3.1.5} Subsequently Tyndareus was brought back by Hēraklēs and recovered his throne. His sons too became kings, as did Menelaos the son of Atreus and son-in-law of Tyndareus, and Orestes the husband of Hermione the daughter of Menelaos. On the return of the Herakleidai in the reign of Tisamenus, son of Orestes, both districts, Messene and Argos, had kings put over them; Argos had Temenus and Messene Kresphontes. In Lacedaemon, as the sons of Aristodemos were twins, there arose two royal houses; for they say that the Pythian priestess approved.
{3.1.6} Tradition has it that Aristodemos himself died at Delphi before the Dorians returned to the Peloponnesus, but those who glorify his fate assert that he was shot by Apollo for not going to the oracle, having learned from Hēraklēs, who met him before he arrived there, that the Dorians would make this return to the Peloponnesus. But the more correct account is that Aristodemos was murdered by the sons of Pylades and Electra, who were cousins of Tisamenus son of Orestes.
{3.1.7} The names given to the sons of Aristodemos were Prokles and Eurysthenes, and although they were twins they were bitter enemies. Their enmity reached a high pitch, but nevertheless they combined to help Theras, the son of Autesion and the brother of their mother Argeia and their guardian as well, to found a colony. This colony Theras was dispatching to the island that was then called Kalliste, [194] and he hoped that the descendants of Membliarus would of their own accord give up the kingship to him. This as a matter of fact they did,
{3.1.8} taking into account that the lineage of Theras went back to Kadmos himself, while they were only descendants of Membliarus, who was a man of the people whom Kadmos left in the island to be the leader of the settlers. And Theras changed the name of the island, renaming it after himself, and even at the present day the people of Thera every year offer to him as their founder the sacrifices that are given to a hero. Prokles and Eurysthenes were of one mind in their eagerness to serve Theras; but in all else their purposes were always widely different.
{3.1.9} Even if they had agreed together, I should never have ventured to include their descendants in a common list; for they did not altogether coincide in respect of age, so that cousins, cousins’ children, and later generations were not born so as to make the steps in one pedigree coincide with those of the other. So I shall give the history of each house by itself separately, instead of combining them both in one narrative.
{3.2.1} Eurysthenes, the elder of the sons of Aristodemos, had, they say, a son Agis, after. whom the lineage of Eurysthenes is called the Agiadae. In his time, when Patreus the son of Preugenes was founding in Achaea a city which even at the present day is called Patraifrom this Patreus, the Lacedaemonians took part in the settlement. They also joined in an expedition oversea to found a colony. Gras the son of Ekhelas the son of Penthilos the son of Orestes was the leader, who was destined to occupy the land between Ionia and Mysia, called at the present day Aeolis; his ancestor Penthilos had even before this seized the island of Lesbos that lies over against this part of the mainland.
{3.2.2} When Ekhestratos, son of Agis, was king at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians removed all the Cynurians of military age, alleging as a reason that freebooters from the Cynurian territory were harrying Argolis, the Argives being their kinsmen, and that the Cynurians themselves openly made forays into the land. The Cynurians are said to be Argives by descent, and tradition has it that their founder was Cynurus, son of Perseus.
{3.2.3} Not many years afterwards Labotas, son of Ekhestratos, became king in Sparta. This Labotas Herodotus, in his history of Croesus, says was in his childhood the ward of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) the lawgiver, but he calls him Leobotes and not Labotas. It was then that the Lacedaemonians first resolved to make war upon the Argives, bringing as charges against them that they were annexing the Cynurian territory which they themselves had captured, and were causing revolts among their subjects the Perioeci (Dwellers around). On this occasion neither of the belligerents, according to the account, achieved anything worthy of mention,
{3.2.4} and the next kings of this house, Doryssus, son of Labotas, and Agesilaos, son of Doryssus, were soon both killed. Lycurgus (Lykourgos) too laid down their laws for the Lacedaemonians in the reign of Artesilaos; some say that he was taught how to do this by the Pythian priestess, others that he introduced Cretan institutions. The Cretans say that these laws of theirs were laid down by Minos, and that Minos was not without divine aid in his deliberations concerning them. Homer too, I think, refers in riddling words to the legislation of Minos in the following verses:
Knossos too, great city, among them, where Minos for nine years
Ruled as king, and enjoyed familiar converse with great Zeus.
Ruled as king, and enjoyed familiar converse with great Zeus.
Odyssey 19.178
{3.2.5} Of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) I shall make further mention later. Agesilaos had a son Arkhelaos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians took by force of arms Aigys, a city of the Perioeci, and sold the inhabitants into slavery, suspecting them of Arcadian sympathies. Kharilaos, the king of the other house, helped Arkhelaos to destroy Aigys, but the exploits he achieved when leading the Lacedaemonians by himself, these too I shall relate when my narrative comes to treat of those called the Eurypontidai.
{3.2.6} Arkhelaos had a son Teleklos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians conquered in war and reduced Amyklai, Pharis, and Geranthrae, cities of the Perioeci, which were still in the possession of the Achaeans. The inhabitants of Pharis and Geranthrae, panic-stricken at the onslaught of the Dorians, made an agreement to retire from the Peloponnesus under a truce, but those of Amyklai were not driven out at the first assault, but only after a long and stubborn resistance, in which they distinguished themselves by glorious achievements. To this heroism the Dorians bore witness by raising a trophy against the Amyklaians, implying that their success was the most memorable exploit of that time. Not long after this Teleklos was murdered by Messenians in a sanctuary of Artemis. This sanctuary was built on the frontier of Laconia and Messenia, in a place called Limniai(Lakes).
{3.2.7} After the death of Teleklos, Alkamenes his son succeeded to the throne, and the Lacedaemonians sent to Crete Kharmidas the son of Euthys, who was a distinguished Spartan, to put down the civil strife among the Cretans, to persuade them to abandon the weak, inland towns, and to help them to people instead those that were conveniently situated for the coasting voyage. They also laid waste Helos, an Achaean town on the coast, and won a battle against the Argives who came to give aid to the Helots.
{3.3.1} On the death of Alkamenes, Polydoros his son succeeded to the throne, and the Lacedaemonians sent colonies to Croton in Italy and to the people of Lokris [= Lokroi] by the Western headland. The war called the Messenian reached its height in the reign of this king. As to the causes of the war, the Lacedaemonian version differs from the Messenian.
{3.3.2} The accounts given by the belligerents, and the manner in which this war ended, will be set forth later in my narrative. For the present I must state thus much; the chief leader of the Lacedaemonians in the first war against the Messenians was Theopompos the son of Nikandros, a king of the other house. When the war against Messene had been fought to a finish, and Messenia was enslaved to the Lacedaemonians, Polydoros, who had a great reputation at Sparta and was very popular with the masses—for he never did a violent act or said an insulting word to anyone, while as a judge he was both upright and humane—
{3.3.3} his fame having by this time spread throughout Greece, was murdered by Polemarkhos, a member of a distinguished family in Lacedaemon, but, as he showed, a man of an unscrupulous temper. After his death Polydoros received many signal marks of respect from the Lacedaemonians. However, Polemarkhos too has a tomb in Sparta; either he had been considered a good man before this murder, or perhaps his relatives buried him secretly.
{3.3.4} During the reign of Eurycrates, son of Polydoros, the Messenians submitted to be subjects of the Lacedaemonians, neither did any trouble befall from the Argive people. But in the reign of Anaxandros, son of Eurycrates—for destiny was by this time driving the Messenians out of all the Peloponnesus—the Messenians revolted from the Lacedaemonians. For a time they held out by force of arms, but at last they were overcome and retired from the Peloponnesus under a truce. The remnant of them left behind in the land became the slaves of the Lacedaemonians, with the exception of those in the towns on the coast.
{3.3.5} The incidents of the war which the Messenians waged after the revolt from the Lacedaemonians it is not pertinent that I should set forth in the present part of my narrative. Anaxandros had a son Eurycrates, and this second Eurycrates a son Leon. While these two kings were on the throne the Lacedaemonians were generally unsuccessful in the war with Tegea. But in the reign of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, the Lacedaemonians won the war with Tegea in the following manner. A Lacedaemonian, by name Lichas, came to Tegea when there chanced to be a truce between the cities. [195]
{3.3.6} When Lichas arrived the Spartans were seeking the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle. Now Lichas inferred that they were buried in a smithy, the reason for this inference being this. Everything that he saw in the smithy he compared with the oracle from Delphi, likening to the winds the bellows, for that they too sent forth a violent blast, the hammer to the “stroke,” the anvil to the “counterstroke” to it, while the iron is naturally a “woe to man,” because already men were using iron in warfare. In the time of those called heroes the god would have called bronze a woe to man.
{3.3.7} Similar to the oracle about the bones of Orestes was the one afterwards given to the Athenians, that they were to bring back Theseus from Scyros to Athens otherwise they could not take Scyros. Now the bones of Theseus were discovered by Kimon the son of Miltiades, who displayed similar sharpness of wit, and shortly afterwards took Scyros.
{3.3.8} I have evidence that in the heroic age weapons were universally of bronze in the verses of Homer [196] about the axe of Peisandros and the arrow of Meriones. My statement is likewise confirmed by the spear of Achilles dedicated in the sanctuary of Athena at Phaselis, and by the sword of Memnon in the temple of Asklepios at Nikomedeia. The point and butt-spike of the spear and the whole of the sword are made of bronze. The truth of these statements I can vouch for.
{3.3.9} Anaxandrides the son of Leon was the only Lacedaemonian to possess at one and the same time two wives and two households. For his first consort, though an excellent wife, had the misfortune to he barren. When the ephors told him to put her away he firmly refused to do so, but made this concession to them, that he would take another wife in addition to her. The fruit of this union was a son, Kleomenes; and the former wife, who up to this time had not conceived, after the birth of Cieomenes bore Dorieus, then Leonidas, and finally Kleombrotos.
{3.3.10} And when Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, believing Dorieus to be both of a sounder judgment than Kleomenes and a better soldier, much against their will rejected him as their king, and obeyed the laws by giving the throne to the elder claimant Kleomenes.
{3.4.1} Now Dorieus could not bear to stay at Lacedaemon and be subject to his brother, and so he went on a colonizing expedition. As soon as he became king, Kleomenes gathered together an army, both of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of their allies, and invaded Argolis. The Argives came out under arms to meet them, but Kleomenes won the day. Near the battlefield was a grove sacred to Argos, son of Niobe, and on being routed some five thousand of the Argives took refuge therein. Kleomenes was subject to fits of mad excitement, and on this occasion he ordered the Helots to set the grove on fire, and the flames spread all over the grove, which, as it burned, burned up the suppliants with it.
{3.4.2} He also conducted campaigns against Athens, by the first of which he delivered the Athenians from the sons of Peisistratos and won a good report among the Greeks both for himself personally and for the Lacedaemonians; [197] while the second campaign was to please an Athenian, Isagoras, by helping him to establish a tyranny over Athens. [198] When he was disappointed, and the Athenians fought strenuously for their freedom, Kleomenes devastated the country, including, they say, the district called Orgas, which was sacred to the deities in Eleusis. He advanced as far as Aegina, and proceeded to arrest such influential Aeginetans as had shown Persian sympathies, and had persuaded the citizens to give earth and water to king Dareios, son of Hystaspes.
{3.4.3} While Kleomenes was occupied in Aegina, Demaratos, the king of the other house, was slandering him to the Lacedaemonian populace. On his return from Aegina, Kleomenes began to intrigue for the deposition of king Demaratos. He bribed the Pythian prophetess to frame responses about Demaratos according to his instructions, and instigated Leotykhides, a man of royal birth and of the same family as Demaratos, to put in a claim to the throne.
{3.4.4} Leotykhides seized upon the remark that Ariston in his ignorance blurted out when Demaratos was born, denying that he was his child. On the present occasion the Lacedaemonians, according to their wont, referred to the oracle at Delphi the claim against Demaratos, and the prophetess gave them a response which favored the designs of Kleomenes.
{3.4.5} So Demaratos was deposed, not rightfully, but because Kleomenes hated him. Subsequently Kleomenes met his end in a fit of madness for seizing a sword he began to wound himself, and hacked and maimed his body all over. The Argives assert that the manner of his end was a punishment for his treatment of the suppliants of Argos; the Athenians say that it was because he had devastated Orgas; the Delphians put it down to the bribes he gave the Pythian prophetess, persuading her to give lying responses about Demaratos.
{3.4.6} It may well be too that the wrath of heroes and the wrath of gods united together to punish Kleomenes since it is a fact that for a personal wrong Protesilaos, a hero not a bit more illustrious than Argos, punished at Elaeus Artayctes, a Persian; while the Megarians never succeeded in propitiating the deities at Eleusis for having encroached upon the sacred land. As to the tampering with the oracle, we know of nobody, with the exception of Kleomenes, who has had the audacity even to attempt it.
{3.4.7} Kleomenes had no male issue, and the kingdom devolved on Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides and full brother of Dorieus. At this time Xerxes led his host against Greece, and Leonidas with three hundred Lacedaemonians met him at Thermopylae. Now although the Greeks have waged many wars, and so have foreigners among themselves, yet there are but few that have been made more illustrious by the exceptional valor of one man, in the way that Achilles shed luster on the Trojan war and Miltiades on the engagement at Marathon. But in truth the success of Leonidas surpassed, in my opinion, all later as well as all previous achievements.
{3.4.8} For Xerxes, the proudest of all who have reigned over the Medes, or over the Persians who succeeded them, the achiever of such brilliant exploits, was met on his march by Leonidas and the handful of men he led to Thermopylae, [199] and they would have prevented him from even seeing Greece at all, and from ever burning Athens, if the man of Trakhis had not guided the army with Hydarnes by the path that stretches across Oitē, and enabled the enemy to surround the Greeks; so Leonidas was overwhelmed and the foreigners passed along into Greece.
{3.4.9} Pausanias the son of Kleombrotos never became king. For while guardian of Pleistarkhos, the son of Leonidas, who was a child when his father died, he led the Lacedaemonians to Plataea, and afterwards with their fleet to the Hellespont. [200] I cannot praise too highly the way in which Pausanias treated the Coan lady, who was the daughter of a man of distinction among the people of Kos, Hegetorides the son of Antagoras, and the unwilling concubine of a Persian, Pharandates the son of Teaspis.
{3.4.10} When Mardonios fell in the battle of Plataea, and the foreigners were destroyed, Pausanias sent the lady back to Kos, and she took with her the apparel that the Persian had procured for her as well as the rest of her belongings. Pausanias also refused to dishonor the body of Mardonios, as Lampon the Aeginetan advised him to do.
{3.5.1} Shortly after Pleistarkhos the son of Leonidas came to the throne he died, and the kingdom devolved on Pleistoanax, son of the Pausanias who commanded at Plataea. Pleistoanax had a son Pausanias; he was the Pausanias who invaded Attica, ostensibly to oppose Thrasyboulos and the Athenians, but really to establish firmly the despotism of those to whom the government had been entrusted by Lysander. [201] Although he won a battle against the Athenians holding the Peiraens, yet immediately after the battle he resolved to lead his army back home, and not to bring upon Sparta the most disgraceful of reproaches by increasing the despotic power of wicked men.
{3.5.2} When he returned from Athens with only a fruitless battle to his credit, he was brought to trial by his enemies. The court that sat to try a Lacedaemonian king consisted of the senate, “old men” as they were called, twenty eight in number, the members of the ephorate, and in addition the king of the other house. Fourteen senators, along with Agis, the king of the other house, declared that Pausanias was guilty; the rest of the court voted for his acquittal.
{3.5.3} Shortly after this the Lacedaemonians gathered an army against Thebes; the reason for so doing will be given in my account of Agesilaos. On this occasion Lysander came to Phokis, took along with him the entire army of Phokis, and without any further delay entered Boeotia and began assaults upon the wall of Haliartos, the citizens of which refused to revolt from Thebes. Already a band of Thebans and Athenians had secretly entered the city; these came out and offered battle before the wall, and there fell here several Lacedaemonians, including Lysander himself.
{3.5.4} Pausanias was too late for the fight, having been collecting forces from Tegea and Arcadia generally; when he finally reached Boeotia, although he heard of the defeat of the forces with Lysander and of the death of Lysander himself, he nevertheless led his army against Thebes and purposed to take the offensive. Thereupon the Thebans offered battle, and Thrasyboulos was reported to be not far away with the Athenians. He was waiting for the Lacedaemonians to take the offensive, on which his intention was to launch an attack himself against their rear.
{3.5.5} So Pausanias, fearing lest he should be caught between two enemy forces, made a truce with the Thebans and took up for burial those who had fallen under the wall of Haliartos. The Lacedaemonians disapproved of this decision, but the following reason leads me to approve it. Pausanias was well aware that the disasters of the Lacedaemonians always took place when they had been caught between two enemy forces, and the defeats at Thermopylae and on the island of Sphakteria made him afraid lest he himself should prove the occasion of a third misfortune for them.
{3.5.6} But when his fellow citizens charged him with his slowness in this Boeotian campaign, he did not wait to stand his trial, but was received by the people of Tegea as a suppliant of Athena Alea. Now this sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the Peloponnesians, and afforded peculiar safety to its suppliants, as the Lacedaemonians showed in the case of Pausanias and of Leotykhides before him, and the Argives in the case of Khrysis; they never wanted even to ask for these refugees, who were sitting as suppliants in the sanctuary, to be given up.
{3.5.7} When Pausanias fled, his sons Agesipolis and Kleombrotos were still quite boys, and Aristodemos, their nearest relative, was their guardian. This Aristodemos was in command of the Lacedaemonians when they won their success in Corinth.
{3.5.8} When Agesipolis grew up and came to the throne, the first Peloponnesians against whom he waged war were the Argives. When he led his army from the territory of Tegea into that of Argos, the Argives sent a herald to make for them with Agesipolis a certain ancestral truce, which from ancient times had been an established custom between Dorians and Dorians. But Agesipolis did not make the truce with the herald, but advancing with his army proceeded to devastate the land. Then there was an earthquake, but not even so would Agesipolis consent to take away his forces. And yet more than any other Greeks were the Lacedaemonians (in this respect like the Athenians) frightened by signs from the sky [dio-sēmeiai].
{3.5.9} By the time that he was encamping under the wall of Argos, the earthquakes were still occurring, some of the troops had actually been killed by lightning, and some moreover had been driven out of then senses by the thunder. In this circumstance he reluctantly withdrew from Argive territory, and began another campaign, attacking Olynthus. Victorious in the war, having captured most of the cities in Khalkidike, and hoping to capture Olynthus itself, he was suddenly attacked by a disease which ended in his death. [202]
{3.6.1} As Agesipolis died childless, the kingdom devolved upon Kleombrotos, who was general in the battle at Leuktra against the Boeotians. [203] Kleombrotos showed personal bravery, but fell when the battle was only just beginning. In great disasters Providence is peculiarly apt to cut off early the general, just as the Athenians lost Hippocrates the son of Ariphron, who commanded at Delium, and later on Leosthenes in Thessaly. [204]
{3.6.2} Agesipolis, the elder of the sons of Kleombrotos, is not a striking figure in history, and was succeeded by his younger brother Kleomenes. His first son was Akrotatos, his second Kleonymos. Akrotatos did not outlive his father, and when Kleomenes afterwards died, there arose a dispute about the throne between Kleonymos the son of Kleomenes and Areus the son of Akrotatos. So the senators acted as arbitrators, and decided that the dignity was the inheritance of Areus the son of Akrotatos, and not of Kleonymos.
{3.6.3} Deprived of his kingship Kleonymos became violently angry, and the ephors tried to soothe his feelings by bestowing upon him various honors, especially the leadership of the armies, so as to prevent his becoming one day an enemy of Sparta. But at last he committed many hostile acts against his fatherland, and induced Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs to invade Laconia.
{3.6.4} While Areus the son of Akrotatos was king in Sparta, Antigonos the son of Demetrios attacked Athens with an army and a fleet. [205] To the help of the Athenians there came the Egyptian expedition with Patroklos, and every available man of the Lacedaemonians with Areus their king at their head.
{3.6.5} Antigonos invested Athens and prevented the Athenian reinforcements from entering the city; so Patroklos dispatched messengers urging Areus and the Lacedaemonians to take the offensive against Antigonos. On their doing so, he would himself, he said, attack the Macedonians in rear; but before such a move it was not fair for Egyptian sailors to attack Macedonians on land. The Lacedaemonians were eager to make the venture, both because of their friendship for Athens and also because they were ambitious to hand down to posterity a famous achievement,
{3.6.6} but as their supplies were exhausted Areus led his army back home, thinking that desperate measures should be reserved for one’s own advantage and not risked recklessly for the benefit of others. After they had held out as long as they could, Antigonos made peace with the Athenians, on condition that he brought a garrison into the Museum to be a guard over them. After a time Antigonos himself removed the garrison from Athens of his own accord while Areus begat Akrotatos, and Akrotatos Areus, who died of disease when he was just about eight years old.
{3.6.7} And as the only male representative of the house of Eurysthenes was Leonidas the son of Kleonymos, by this time a very old man, the Lacedaemonians gave him the throne. Leonidas, it so happened, had a bitter opponent in Lysander, a descendant of Lysander the son of Aristokritos. This Lysander won over to his side Leonidas’ son-in-law Kleombrotos. After gaining his support he brought various charges against Leonidas, in particular that when a boy he had sworn to his father Kleonymos to ruin Sparta.
{3.6.8} So Leonidas ceased to be king and Kleombrotos came to the throne in his stead. Now if Leonidas had given way to impulse and retired, like Demaratos the son of Ariston, either to the king of Macedonia or to the Egyptian king, he would have profited nothing even by the Spartans changing their minds. But as it was, when the citizens sentenced him to exile, he went to Arcadia, whence not many years later he was recalled by the Lacedaemonians, who made him king again.
{3.6.9} Now how Kleomenes the son of Leonidas performed daring feats of valor, and how after him the Spartans ceased to be ruled by kings, I have already shown in my account of Aratos of Sikyon. My narrative also included the manner of his death in Egypt.
{3.7.1} So of the lineage of Eurysthenes, called the Agiadae, Kleomenes the son of Leonidas was the last king in Sparta. I will now relate what I have heard about the other house. Prokles the son of Aristodemos called his son Sous, whose son Eurypon they say reached such a pitch of renown that this house, hitherto called the Prokleidai, came to be named after him the Eurypontidai.
{3.7.2} The son of Eurypon was Prytanis, in whose reign began the enmity of the Lacedaemonians against the Argives, although even before this quarrel they made war against the Cynurians. During the generations immediately succeeding this, while Eunomos the son of Prytanis and Polydektes the son of Eunomos were on the throne, Sparta continued at peace,
{3.7.3} but Kharillos the son of Polydektes devastated the land of the Argives—for he it was who invaded Argolis—and not many years afterwards, under the leadership of Kharillos, took place the campaign of the Spartans against Tegea, when lured on by a deceptive oracle the Lacedaemonians hoped to capture the city and to annex the Tegean plain from Arcadia.
{3.7.4} After the death of Kharillos, Nikandros his son succeeded to the throne, in whose reign the Messenians murdered, in the sanctuary of the Lady of the Lake, Teleklos the king of the other house. Nikandros also invaded Argolis with an army, and laid waste the greater part of the land. The Asinaeans took part in this action with the Lacedaemonians, and shortly after were punished by the Argives, who inflicted great destruction on their fatherland and drove out the inhabitants.
{3.7.5} About Theopompos, the son of Nikandros, who ascended the throne after him, I shall have more to say later on, when I come to the history of Messenia. While Theopompos was still king in Sparta there also took place the struggle of the Lacedaemonians with the Argives for what is called the Thyreatid district. Theopompos personally took no part in the affair, chiefly because of old age and sorrow, for while he was yet alive Arkhidamos died.
{3.7.6} Nevertheless Arkhidamos did not die childless, but left a son Zeuxidamos, whose son Anaxidamos succeeded to the throne. In his reign the Messenians were expelled from the Peloponnesus, being vanquished for the second time by the Spartans. Anaxidamos begat Arkhidamos, and Arkhidamos begat Agesikles. It was the lot of both of these to pass all their lives in peace, undisturbed by any wars.
{3.7.7} Ariston, son of Agesikles, married a wife who, they say, was the ugliest girl in Sparta, but became the most beautiful of her women, because Helen changed her; seven months only after his marriage with her Ariston had born to him a son, Demaratos. As he was sitting in council with the ephors there came to him a servant with the news that a child was born to him. Ariston, forgetting the lines in the Iliad about the birth of Eurystheus, or else never having understood them at all, declared that because of the number of months the child was not his.
{3.7.8} Afterwards he repented of his words. Demaratos, a king of good repute at Sparta, particularly for his helping Kleomenes to free Athens from the Peisistratidai, [206] became a private citizen through the thoughtlessness of Ariston and the hatred of Kleomenes. He retired to king Dareios in Persia, and they say that his descendants remained in Asia for a long time.
{3.7.9} Leotykhides, on coming to the throne in place of Demaratos, took part with the Athenians and the Athenian general Xanthippos, the son of Ariphron, in the engagement of Mykale, [207] and afterwards undertook a campaign against the Aleuadaiin Thessaly. Although his uninterrupted victories in the fighting might have enabled him to reduce all Thessaly, he accepted bribes from the Aleuadae. [208]
{3.7.10} Or, being brought to trial in Lacedaemon he voluntarily went into exile to Tegea, where he sought sanctuary as a suppliant of Athena Alea. Zeuxidamos, the son of Leotykhides, died of disease while Leotykhides was still alive and before he retired into exile so his son Arkhidamos succeeded to the throne after the departure of Leotykhides for Tegea. This Arkhidamos did terrible damage to the land of the Athenians, invading Attica with an army every year, on each occasion carrying destruction from end to end; he also besieged and took Plataea, which was friendly to Athens. [209]
{3.7.11} Nevertheless he was not eager that war should be declared between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, but to the utmost of his power tried to keep the truce between them unbroken. [210] It was Sthenelaidas, an influential Spartan who was an ephor at the time, who was chiefly responsible for the war. Greece, that still stood firm, was shaken to its foundations by this war, and afterwards, when the structure had given way and was far from sound, was finally overthrown by Philip the son of Amyntas.
{3.8.1} Arkhidamos left sons when he died, of whom Agis was the elder and inherited the throne instead of Agesilaos. Arkhidamos had also a daughter, whose name was Kyniska; she was exceedingly ambitious to succeed at the Olympic games, and was the first woman to breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Kyniska other women, especially women of Lacedaemon, have won Olympic victories, but none of them was more distinguished for their victories than she.
{3.8.2} The Spartans seem to me to be of all men the least moved by poetry and the praise of poets. For with the exception of the epigram upon Kyniska, of uncertain authorship, and the still earlier one upon Pausanias that Simonides wrote on the tripod dedicated at Delphi, there is no poetic composition to commemorate the doings of the royal houses of the Lacedaemonians.
{3.8.3} In the reign of Agis the son of Arkhidamos the Lacedaemonians had several grievances against the people of Elis, being especially exasperated because they were debarred from the Olympic games and the sanctuary at Olympia. So they dispatched a herald commanding the people of Elis to grant home-rule to Lepreum and to any other of their neighbors [211] that were subject to them. The people of Elis replied that, when they saw the cities free that were neighbors of Sparta, they would without delay set free their own subjects; whereupon the Lacedaemonians under king Agis invaded the territory of Elis.
{3.8.4} On this occasion there occurred an earthquake, and the army retired home after advancing as far as Olympia and the Alpheus but in the next year Agis devastated the country and carried off most of the loot. Xenias, a man of Elis who was a personal friend of Agis and the state-friend [212] of the Lacedaemonians, rose up with the rich citizens against the people but before Agis and his army could come to their aid, Thrasydaeus, who at this time championed the interests of the popular party at Elis, overthrew in battle Xenias and his followers and cast them out of the city.
{3.8.5} When Agis led back his army, he left behind Lysistratos, a Spartan, with a portion of his forces, along with the Eleian refugees, that they might help the Lepreans to ravage the land. In the third year of the war [213] the Lacedaemonians under Agis again prepared to invade the territory of Elis. So Thrasydaeus and the Eleians, reduced to dire extremities, agreed to forgo their supremacy over their neighbors, to dismantle the fortifications of their city, and to allow the Lacedaemonians to sacrifice to the god and to compete in the games at Olympia.
{3.8.6} Agis used also to make continual incursions into Attica, and established the fortified post at Decelea to annoy the Athenians. [214] When the Athenian navy was destroyed at Aigospotamoi, [215] Lysander, the son of Aristokritos, and Agis violated the oaths which the Lacedaemonians as a state had sworn by the gods to the Athenians, and it was on their own initiative, and without the approval of the Spartan state, that they put before their allies the proposal to destroy Athens root and branch.
{3.8.7} Such were the most remarkable military achievements of Agis. The rash remark that Ariston made about Demaratos was also made by Agis about his son Leotykhides; at the suggestion of some evil spirit he said in the hearing of the ephors that he did not believe Leotykhides to be his son. Yet Agis, too, repented afterwards; he was at the time being carried home sick from Arcadia, and when he reached Heraia, he not only called the people to witness that he sincerely believed Leotykhides to be his very own son, but also with prayers and tears charged them to take the tidings to the Lacedaemonians.
{3.8.8} After the death of Agis, Agesilaos tried to keep Leotykhides from the throne, recalling to the minds of the Lacedaemonians what Agis once said about Leotykhides. But the Arcadians from Heraia arrived and bore witness for Leotykhides, stating what they had heard the dying Agis say.
{3.8.9} Yet further fuel for the controversy between Agesilaos and Leotykhides was supplied by the oracle that was delivered at Delphi to this effect:
“Sparta beware! though haughty, pay heed to the warning I give thee.
Never let thy sound limbs give birth to a kingdom that lame is.
Too long then shalt thou lie in the clutches of desperate hardships;
Turmoil of war shall arise, o’erwhelming men in its billows.”
Never let thy sound limbs give birth to a kingdom that lame is.
Too long then shalt thou lie in the clutches of desperate hardships;
Turmoil of war shall arise, o’erwhelming men in its billows.”
{3.8.10} Leotykhides on this occasion said that these words pointed to Agesilaos, who was lame in one of his feet, while Agesilaos interpreted them as alluding to the illegitimacy of Leotykhides. Although they might have done so, the Lacedaemonians did not refer the disputed point to Delphi; the reason was in my opinion that Lysander, the son of Aristokritos, an active supporter of Agesilaos, would have him king at all costs.
{3.9.1} So Agesilaos, son of Arkhidamos, became king, and the Lacedaemonians resolved to cross with a fleet to Asia in order to put down Artaxerxes, son of Dareios. [216] For they were informed by several of their magistrates, especially by Lysander, that it was not Artaxerxes but Cyrus who had been supplying the pay for the fleet during the war with Athens. Agesilaos, who was appointed to lead the expedition across to Asia and to be in command of the land forces, sent round to all parts of the Peloponnesus, except Argos, and to the Greeks north of the Isthmus, asking for allies.
{3.9.2} Now the Corinthians were most eager to take part in the expedition to Asia, but considering it a bad omen that their temple of Zeus surnamed Olympian had been suddenly burned down, they reluctantly remained behind. The Athenians excused themselves on the ground that their city was returning to its former state of prosperity after the Peloponnesian war and the epidemic of plague, and the news brought by messengers, that Konon, son of Timotheus, had gone up to the Persian king, strongly confirmed them in their policy of inactivity.
{3.9.3} The envoy dispatched to Thebes was Aristomelidas, the father of the mother of Agesilaos, a close friend of the Thebans who, when the wall of Plataea had been taken, had been one of the judges voting that the remnant of the garrison should be put to death. Now the Thebans like the Athenians refused, saying that they would give no help. When Agesilaos had assembled his Lacedaemonian forces and those of the allies, and at the same time the fleet was ready, he went to Aulis to sacrifice to Artemis, because Agamemnon too had propitiated the goddess here before leading the expedition to Troy.
{3.9.4} Agesilaos, then, claimed to be king of a more prosperous city than was Agamemnon, and to be like him overlord of all Greece, and that it would be a more glorious success to conquer Artaxerxes and acquire the riches of Persia than to destroy the empire of Priam. But even as he was sacrificing armed Thebans came upon him, threw dawn from the altar the still burning thighbones of the victims, and drove him from the sanctuary.
{3.9.5} Though vexed that the sacrifice was not completed, Agesilaos nevertheless crossed into Asia and launched an attack against Sardes for Lydia at this period was the most important district of lower Asia, and Sardes, pre-eminent for its wealth and resources, had been assigned as a residence to the satrap of the coast region, just as Susa had been to the king himself.
{3.9.6} A battle was fought on the plain of the Hermos with Tissaphernes, satrap of the parts around Ionia, in which Agesilaos conquered the cavalry of the Persians and the infantry, of which the muster on this occasion had been surpassed only in the expedition of Xerxes and in the earlier ones of Dareios against the Scythians and against Athens. The Lacedaemonians, admiring the energy of Agesilaos, added to his command the control of the fleet. But Agesilaos made his brother-in-law, Peisandros, admiral, and devoted himself to carrying on the war vigorously by land.
{3.9.7} The jealousy of some deity prevented him from bringing his plans to their conclusion. For when Artaxerxes heard of the victories won by Agesilaos, and how, by attending to the task that lay before him, he advanced with his army even further and further, he put Tissaphernes to death in spite of his previous services, and sent down to the sea Tithraustes, a clever schemer who had some grudge against the Lacedaemonians.
{3.9.8} On his arrival at Sardes he at once thought out a plan by which to force the Lacedaemonians to recall their army from Asia. He sent Timocrates, a Rhodian, to Greece with money, instructing him to stir up in Greece a war against the Lacedaemonians. Those who shared in this money are said to have been the Argives Kylon and Sodamas, the Thebans Androkleides, Ismenias and Amphithemis, the Athenians Cephalus and Epicrates, with the Corinthians who had Argive sympathies, Polyanthes and Timolaos.
{3.9.9} But those who first openly started the war were the peoplefrom Amphissa in Lokris. For there happened to be a piece of land the ownership of which was a matter of dispute between the people of Lokris and the people of Phokis. Egged on by Ismenias and his party at Thebes, the people of Lokris cut the ripe wheat in this land and drove off the what they had plundered. The men of Phokis on their side invaded Lokris with all their forces, and laid waste the land.
{3.9.10} So the people of Lokris brought in the Thebans as allies, and devastated Phokis. Going to Lacedaemon the men of Phokis inveighed against the Thebans, and set forth what they had suffered at their hands. The Lacedaemonians determined to make war against Thebes, chief among their grievances being the outrageous way the Thebans behaved towards Agesilaos when he was sacrificing at Aulis.
{3.9.11} The Athenians receiving early intimation of the Lacedaemonians’ intentions, sent to Sparta begging them to submit their grievances to a court of arbitration instead of appealing to arms, but the Lacedaemonians dismissed the envoys in anger. The sequel, how the Lacedaemonians set forth and how Lysander died, I have already described in my account of Pausanias. [217]
{3.9.12} And what was called the Corinthian war, which continually became more serious, had its origin in the expedition of the Lacedaemonians into Boeotia. [218] So these circumstances compelled Agesilaos to lead his army back from Asia. Crossing with his fleet from Abydos to Sestos he passed through Thrace as far as Thessaly, where the Thessalians, to please the Thebans, tried to prevent his further progress; there was also an old friendship between them and Athens.
{3.9.13} But Agesilaos put the Thessalian cavalry to flight and passed through Thessaly, and again made his way through Boeotia, winning a victory over Thebes and the allies at Coronea. When the Boeotians were put to flight, certain of them took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena surnamed Itonia. Agesilaos, although suffering from a wound received in the battle, did not sin against the suppliants.
{3.10.1} Not long afterwards the Corinthians in exile for pro-Spartan sympathies held the Isthmian games. The Corinthians in the city made no move at the time, through their fear of Agesilaos but when he marched to Sparta, they too celebrated the Isthmian games along with the Argives. Agesilaos again marched with an army against Corinth, and, as the festival Hyakinthia was at hand, he gave the Amycleans leave to go back home and perform the traditional rites in honor of Apollo and Hyakinthos. This battalion was attacked on the way and annihilated by the Athenians under Iphicrates.
{3.10.2} Agesilaos went also to Aetolia to give assistance to the Aetolians, who were hard pressed in a war with, the Acarnanians; [219] these he compelled to put an end to the war, although they had come very near capturing Calydon and the other towns of the Aetolians. Afterwards he sailed to Egypt, to protect the Egyptians who had revolted from the king of Persia. Agesilaos performed many noteworthy achievements in Egypt, but, being by this time ah old man, he died on the march. Then his dead body was brought home, the Lacedaemonians buried it with greater honors than they had given to any other king.
{3.10.3} In the reign of Arkhidamos, son of Agesilaos, the people of Phokis seized the sanctuary at Delphi. [220] To help in a war with Thebes the people of Phokis hired with its wealth independent mercenaries, but they here also aided publicly by the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, the latter calling to mind some old service rendered by the people of Phokis, the former, too, pretending to be friends when their real reason was, I think, hatred of the Thebans. Theopompos, son of Damasistratos, said that Arkhidamos himself had a share of the Delphic money, and further that Deinicha the wife of Arkhidamos, receiving a bribe from the chief men of Phokis, made Arkhidamos more ready to bring them reinforcements.
{3.10.4} To accept sacred money and to help men who had pillaged the most famous of oracles I do not hold praiseworthy, but the following incident does redound to his praise. The men of Phokis were contemplating the cruel course of killing the Delphians of vigorous age, enslaving the women and children, and levelling the city itself to the ground; it was due to the intercession of Arkhidamos that they escaped this fate at the hands of the men of Phokis.
{3.10.5} Arkhidamos afterwards also crossed over into Italy to help the people of Tarentum to wage war against their foreign neighbors. Here he was killed by the foreigners, and his corpse missed burial owing to the anger of Apollo. Agis, the elder son of this Arkhidamos, met his death fighting against Antipatros and the Macedonians, but while the younger son, Eudamidas, was king, the Lacedaemonians enjoyed peace. The history of Agis, son of Eudamidas, and of Eurydamidas, son of Agis, my account of Sikyon has already set forth.
{3.10.6} On the way from the Hermaithe whole of the region is full of oak trees. The name of the district, Scotitas (Dark), is not due to the unbroken woods but to Zeus surnamed Scotitas, and there is a sanctuary of Zeus Scotitas on the left of the road and about ten stadium-lengths from it. If you go back from the sanctuary to the road, advance a little and then turn again to the left, you come to an image of Hēraklēs and a trophy, which I was told Hēraklēs raised after killing Hippokoön and his sons.
{3.10.7} The third branch from the straight road is on the right, and leads to Caryae (Walnut trees) and to the sanctuary of Artemis. For Caryae is a region sacred to Artemis and the nymphs, and here stands in the open an image of Artemis Caryatis. Here every year the Lacedaemonian girls hold chorus-dances, and they have a traditional native dance. On returning, as you go along the highway, you come to the ruins of Sellasia. The people of this city, as I have stated already, were sold into slavery by the Achaeans after they had conquered in battle the Lacedaemonians under their king Kleomenes, the son of Leonidas. [221]
{3.10.8} In Thornax, which you will reach as you go along, is an image of Apollo Pythaeus, made after the style of the one at Amyklai; the fashion of it I will describe when I come to speak of the latter. For in the eyes of the Lacedaemonians the cult of the Amyklaian is the more distinguished, so that they spent on adorning the image in Amyklai even the gold which Croesus the Lydian sent for Apollo Pythaeus. [222]
{3.11.1} Farther on from Thornax is the city, which was originally named Sparta, but in course of time came to be called Lacedaemon as well, a name which till then belonged to the land. To prevent misconception, I added in my account of Attica that I had not mentioned everything in order, but had made a selection of what was most noteworthy. This I will repeat before beginning my account of Sparta; for from the beginning the plan of my work has been to discard the many trivial stories current among the several communities, and to pick out the things most worthy of mention—an excellent rule which I will never violate.
{3.11.2} The Lacedaemonians who live in Sparta have a marketplace worth seeing; the council-chamber of the senate, and the offices of the ephors, of the guardians of the laws, and of those called the Bidiaeans, are all in the marketplace. The senate is the council which has the supreme control of the Lacedaemonian constitution, the other officials form the executive. Both the ephors and the Bidiaeans are five in number; it is customary for the latter to hold competitions for the boys, particularly the one at the place called Platanistas (Plane tree Grove), while the ephors transact the most serious business, one of them giving his name to the year, just as in Athens this privilege belongs to one of those called the Nine Arkhontes.
{3.11.3} The most striking feature in the marketplace is the portico which they call Persian because it was made from spoils taken in the Persian wars. In course of time they have altered it until it is as large and as splendid as it is now. On the pillars are white-marble figures of Persians, including Mardonios, son of Gobryas. There is also a figure of Artemisia, daughter of Lygdamis and queen of Halicarnassus. It is said that this lady voluntarily joined the expedition of Xerxes against Greece and distinguished herself at the naval engagement off Salamis.
{3.11.4} On the marketplace are temples; there is one of Caesar, the first Roman to covet monarchy and the first emperor under the present constitution, and also one to his son Augustus, who put the empire on a firmer footing, and became a more famous and a more powerful man than his father. His name “Augustus” means in Greek sebastos (reverend).
{3.11.5} At the altar of Augustus they show a bronze statue of Agias. This Agias, they say, by divining for Lysander captured the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi with the exception of ten ships of war. [223] These made their escape to Cyprus; all the rest the Lacedaemonians captured along with their crews. Agias was a son of Agelokhos, a son of Tisamenus.
{3.11.6} Tisamenus belonged to the lineage of the Iamidai at Elis, and an oracle was given to him that he should win five most famous contests. So he trained for the pentathlon at Olympia, but came away defeated. And yet he was first in two events, beating Hieronymos of Andros in running and in jumping. But when he lost the wrestling bout to this competitor, and so missed the prize, he understood what the oracle meant, that the god granted him to win five contests in war by his divinations.
{3.11.7} The Lacedaemonians, hearing of the oracle the Pythian priestess had given to Tisamenus, persuaded him to migrate from Elis and to be state-diviner at Sparta. And Tisamenus won them five contests in war. [224] The first was at Plataea against the Persians; the second was at Tegea, when the Lacedaemonians had engaged the Tegeans and Argives; the third was at Dipaea, an Arcadian town in Maenalia, when all the Arcadians except the Mantineians were arrayed against them.
{3.11.8} His fourth contest was against the Helots who had rebelled and left the Isthmus for Ithome. [225] Not all the Helots revolted, only the Messenian element, which separated itself off from the old Helots. These events I shall relate presently. On the occasion I mention the Lacedaemonians allowed the rebels to depart under a truce, in accordance with the advice of Tisamenus and of the oracle at Delphi. The last time Tisamenus divined for them was at Tanagra, an engagement taking place with the Argives and Athenians. [226]
{3.11.9} Such I learned was the history of Tisamenus. On their marketplace the Spartans have images of Apollo Pythaeus, of Artemis and of Leto. The whole of this region is called Choros (Dancing), because at the Gymnopaediae, a festival which the Lacedaemonians take more seriously than any other, the boys perform dances in honor of Apollo. Not far from them is a sanctuary of Earth and of Zeus of the Marketplace, another of Athena of the Marketplace and of Poseidon surnamed Securer, and likewise one of Apollo and of Hērā.
{3.11.10} There is also dedicated a colossal statue of the Spartan People. The Lacedaemonians have also a sanctuary of the Fates, by which is the tomb of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. For when the bones of Orestes were brought from Tegea in accordance with an oracle they were buried here. Beside the tomb of Orestes is a statue of Polydoros, son of Alkamenes, a king who rose to such honor that the magistrates seal with his likeness everything that requires sealing.
{3.11.11} There is also Hermes of the Marketplace carrying Dionysus as a child, besides the old Courts of the Ephors, as they are called, in which are the tombs of Epimenides the Cretan and of Aphareus the son of Perieres. As to Epimenides, I think the Lacedaemonian story is more probable than the Argive. Here, where the Fates are, the Lacedaemonians also have a sanctuary of Hestia. There is also Zeus Hospitable and Athena Hospitable.
{3.12.1} As you go from the marketplace by the road they name the Aphetaid Road, you come to the so-called Booneta. [227] But my narrative must first explain why the road has this name.
{3.12.2} It is said that Icarius proposed a foot-race for the wooers of Penelope; that Odysseus won is plain, but they say that the competitors were let go (aphethenai) for the race along the Aphetaid Road. In my opinion, Icarius was imitating Danaos when he held the running-race. For Danaos contrived the following plan to solve the difficulty about his daughters. Nobody would take a wife from among them because of their pollution so Danaos sent round a notice that he would give away his daughters without bride-gifts, and that each suitor could choose the one whose beauty pleased him most. A few men came, among whom he held a foot-race the first comer was allowed to choose before all the others, after him the second, and so on to the last. The daughters that were left had to wait until other suitors arrived and competed in another foot-race.
{3.12.3} On this road the Lacedaemonians have, as I have already said, what is called the Booneta, which once was the house of their king Polydoros. When he died, they bought it from his widow, paying the price in oxen. For at that time there was as yet neither silver nor gold coinage, but they still bartered in the old way with oxen, slaves, and uncoined silver and gold.
{3.12.4} Those who sail to India say that the natives give other merchandise in exchange for Greek cargoes, knowing nothing about coinage, even though they have plenty of gold and of bronze.
On the opposite side of the office of the Bidiaeans is a sanctuary of Athena. Odysseus is said to have set up the image and to have named it Keleuthea (Lady of the Road), when he had beaten the suitors of Penelope in the foot-race. Of Keleuthea he set up sanctuaries, three in number, at some distance from each other.
{3.12.5} Farther along the Aphetaid Road are hero-shrines, of Iops, who is supposed to have been born in the time of Lelex or. Myles, and of Amphiaraos the son of Oikles. The last they think was made by the sons of Tyndareus, for that Amphiaraos was their cousin. There is a hero-shrine of Lelex himself. Not far from these is a precinct of Poseidon of Taenarum, which is the surname given him, and near by an image of Athena, which is said to have been dedicated by the colonists
{3.12.6} who left for Tarentum in Italy. As to the place they call the HeIlenium, it has been stated that those of the Greeks who were preparing to repel Xerxes when he was crossing into Europe deliberated at this place how they should resist. The other story is that those who made the expedition against Troy to please Menelaos deliberated here how they could sail out to Troy and exact satisfaction from Alexander for carrying off Helen.
{3.12.7} Near the Hellenium they point out the tomb of Talthybios. The Achaeans of Aigion too say that a tomb which they show on their marketplace belongs to Talthybios. It was this Talthybios whose wrath at the murder of the heralds, who were sent to Greece by king Dareios to demand earth and water, left its mark upon the whole state of the Lacedaemonians, but in Athens fell upon individuals, the members of the house of one man, Miltiades the son of Kimon. Miltiades was responsible for the death at the hands of the Athenians of those of the heralds who came to Attica.
{3.12.8} The Lacedaemonians have an altar of Apollo Acritas, and a sanctuary, surnamed Gasepton, of Earth. Above it is set up Maleatian Apollo. At the end of the Aphetaid Road, quite close to the wall, are a sanctuary of Dictynna and the royal tombs of those called the Eurypontidai. Beside the Hellenium is a sanctuary of Arsinoe, daughter of Leukippos and sister of the wives of Polydeukes and Castor (Kastor). At the place called the Forts is a temple of Artemis, and a little further on has been built a tomb for the diviners from Elis, called the Iamidai.
{3.12.9} There is also a sanctuary of Maron and of Alpheios. Of the Lacedaemonians who served at Thermopylae they consider that these men distinguished themselves in the fighting more than any save Leonidas himself. The sanctuary of Zeus Tropaean (He who turns to flight) was made by the Dorians, when they had conquered in war the Amyklaians, as well as the other Achaeans, who at that time occupied Laconia. The sanctuary of the Great Mother has paid to it the most extraordinary honors. After it come the hero-shrines of Hippolytus, son of Theseus, and of the Arcadian Aulon, son of Tlesimenes. Some say that Tlesimenes was a brother, others a son of Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion.
{3.12.10} Leading from the marketplace is another road, on which they have built what is called Scias (Canopy), where even at the present day they hold their meetings of the Assembly. This Canopy was made, they say, by Theodoros of Samos, who discovered the melting of iron and the moulding of images from it. [228] Here the Lacedaemonians hung the harp of Timotheus of Miletus, to express their disapproval of his innovation in harping, the addition of four strings to the seven old ones.
{3.12.11} By the Canopy is a circular building, and in it images of Zeus and Aphrodite surnamed Olympian. This, they say, was set up by Epimenides, but their account of him does not agree with that of the Argives, for the Lacedaemonians deny that they ever fought with the Cnossians.
{3.13.1} Hard by is the tomb of Cynortas son of Amyclas, together with the tomb of Castor (Kastor), and over the tomb there has also been made a sanctuary, for they say that it was not before the fortieth year after the fight with Idas and Lynkeus that divine honors were paid to the sons of Tyndareus. By the Canopy is also shown the tomb of Idas and Lynkeus. Now it fits in best with their history to hold that they were buried not here but in Messenia.
{3.13.2} But the disasters of the Messenians, and the length of their exile from the Peloponnesus, even after their return wrapped in darkness much of their ancient history, and their. ignorance makes it easy for any who wish to dispute a claim with them.
Opposite the Olympian Aphrodite the Lacedaemonians have a temple of the Savior Maiden. Some say that it was made by Orpheus the Thracian, others by Abairis when he had come from the Hyperboreans.
{3.13.3} Carneus, whom they surname “of the House,” had honors in Sparta even before the return of the Herakleidai, his seat being in the house of a seer, Crius (Ram) the son of Theokles. The daughter of this Crius was met as she was filling her pitcher by spies of the Dorians, who entered into conversation with her, visited Crius and learned from him how to capture Sparta.
{3.13.4} The cult of Apollo Carneus has been established among all the Dorians ever since Carnus, an Acarnanian by birth, who was a seer of Apollo. When he was killed by Hippotes the son of Phylas, the wrath of Apollo fell upon the camp of the Dorians Hippotes went into banishment because of the bloodguilt, and from this time the custom was established among the Dorians of propitiating the Acarnanian seer. But this Carnus is not the Lacedaemonian Carneus of the House, who was worshipped in the house of Crius the seer while the Achaeans were still in possession of Sparta.
{3.13.5} The poetess Praxilla represents Carneus as the son of Europa, Apollo and Leto being his nurses. There is also another account of the name; in Trojan Ida there grew in a grove of Apollo cornel trees, which the Greeks cut down to make the Wooden Horse. Learning that the god was angry with them they propitiated him with sacrifices and named Apollo Carneus from the cornel tree (craneia), a custom prevalent in the olden time making them transpose the r and the a.
{3.13.6} Not far from Carneus is what is called the image of Aphetaeus. Here they say was the starting-place of the race run by the suitors of Penelope. There is a place having its porticoes in the form of a square, where of old stuff used to be sold to the people. By this is an altar of Zeus Counsellor and of Athena Counsellor, also of the Dioskouroi, likewise surnamed Counsellors.
{3.13.7} Opposite is what is called the Knoll, with a temple of Dionysus of the Knoll, by which is a precinct of the hero who they say guided Dionysus on the way to Sparta. To this hero sacrifices are offered before they are offered to the god by the daughters of Dionysus and the daughters of Leukippos. For the other eleven ladies who are named daughters of Dionysus there is held a foot-race; this custom came to Sparta from Delphi.
{3.13.8} Not far from the Dionysus is a sanctuary of Zeus of Fair Wind, on the right of which is a hero-shrine of Pleuron. The sons of Tyndareus were descended on their mother’s side from Pleuron, for Asios in his poem says that Thestios the father of Leda was the son of Agenor the son of Pleuron. Not far from the hero-shrine is a hill, and on the hill a temple of Argive Hērā, set up, they say, by Eurydikē, the daughter of Lacedaemon and the wife of Akrisios the son of Abas. An oracular utterance caused to be built a sanctuary of Hērā Hyperchemia (she whose hand is above) at a time when the Eurotas was flooding a great part of the land.
{3.13.9} An old wooden image they call that of Aphrodite Hērā. A mother is accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess when a daughter is married. On the road to the right of the hill is a statue of Hetoimokles. Both Hetoimokles himself and his father Hipposthenes won Olympic victories for wrestling the two together won eleven, but Hipposthenes succeeded in beating his son by one victory.
{3.14.1} On going westwards from the marketplace is a cenotaph of Brasidas the son of Tellis. [229] Not far from it is the theater, made of white marble and worth seeing. Opposite the theater are two tombs; the first is that of Pausanias, the general at Plataea, the second is that of Leonidas. Every year they deliver speeches over them, and hold a contest in which none may compete except Spartans. The bones of Leonidas were taken by Pausanias from Thermopylae forty years after the battle. There is set up a slab with the names, and their fathers’ names, of those who endured the fight at Thermopylae against the Persians.
{3.14.2} There is a place in Sparta called Theomelida. In this part of the city are the tombs of the Agiad kings, and near is what is called the lounge of the Crotani, who form a part of the Pitanatans. Not far from the lounge is a sanctuary of Asklepios, called “in the place of the Agiadae.” Farther on is the tomb of Taenarus, after whom they say the headland was named that juts out into the sea. Here are sanctuaries of Poseidon Hippocurius (Horse-tending) and of Artemis Aiginaia (Goat-goddess?). On returning to the lounge you see a sanctuary of Artemis Issoria. They surname her also Lady of the Lake, though she is not really Artemis hut Britomartis of Crete. I deal with her in my account of Aegina.
{3.14.3} Very near to the tombs which have been built for the Agiadaiyou will see a slab, on which are written the victories in the foot-race won, at Olympia and elsewhere, by Khionis, a Lacedaemonian. [230] The Olympian victories were seven, four in the single-stadium-length race and three in the double-stadium-length race. [231] The race with the shield, that takes place at the end of the contest, was not at that time one of the events. It is said that Khionis also took part in the expedition of Battos of Thera, helped him to found Cyrene and to reduce the neighboring Libyans.
{3.14.4} The sanctuary of Thetis was set up, they say, for the following reason. The Lacedaemonians were making war against the Messenians, who had revolted, and their king Anaxander, having invaded Messenia, took prisoners certain women, and among them Kleo, priestess of Thetis. This Kleo the wife of Anaxandros asked for from her husband, and discovering that she had the wooden image of Thetis, she set up with her a temple for the goddess. This Leandris did because of a vision in a dream,
{3.14.5} but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in secret. The cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Lower World) the Lacedaemonians say was handed on to them by Orpheus, but in my opinion it was because of the sanctuary in Hermione [232] that the Lacedaemonians also began to worship Demeter Chthonia. The Spartans have also a sanctuary of Serapis, the newest sanctuary in the city, and one of Zeus surnamed Olympian.
{3.14.6} The Lacedaemonians give the name Running Course to the place where it is the custom for the young men even down to the present day to practice running. As you go to this Course from the tomb of the Agiadae, you see on the left the tomb of Eumedes—this Eumedes was one of the children of Hippokoön—and also an old image of Hēraklēs, to whom sacrifice is paid by the Sphaereis. These are those who are just passing from youth to manhood. In the Course are two gymnastic schools, one being a votive gift of Eurykles, a Spartan. Outside the Course, over against the image of Hēraklēs, there is a house belonging now to a private individual, but in olden times to Menelaos. Farther away from the Course are sanctuaries of the Dioskouroi, of the Graces, of Eileithuia, of Apollo Carneus, and of Artemis Leader.
{3.14.7} The sanctuary of Agnitas has been made on the right of the Course; Agnitas is a surname of Asklepios, because the god had a wooden image of agnus castus. The agnus is a willow like the thorn. Not far from Asklepios stands a trophy, raised, they say, by Polydeukes to celebrate his victory over Lynkeus. This is one of the pieces of evidence that confirm my statement that the sons of Aphareus were not buried in Sparta. At the beginning of the Course are the Dioskouroi Starters, and a little farther on a hero-shrine of Alcon, who they say was a son of Hippokoön.
Beside the shrine of Alcon is a sanctuary of Poseidon, whom they surname “of the House.”
{3.14.8} And there is a place called Platanistas (Plane tree Grove) from the unbroken ring of tall plane trees growing round it. The place itself, where it is customary for the youths to fight, is surrounded by a moat just like an island in the sea; you enter it by bridges. On each of the two bridges stand images; on one side an image of Hēraklēs, on the other a likeness of Lycurgus (Lykourgos). Among the laws Lycurgus (Lykourgos) laid down for the constitution are those regulating the fighting of the youths.
{3.14.9} There are other acts performed by the youths, which I will now describe. Before the fighting they sacrifice in the Phoebaeum, which is outside the city, not far distant from Therapne. Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalios, holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except the people of Kolophon; these too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch, to the Wayside Goddess. Both the sacrifice of the Kolophonians and that of the youths at Sparta are appointed to take place at night.
{3.14.10} At the sacrifice the youths set trained boars to fight; the company whose boar happens to win generally gains the victory in Plane tree Grove. Such are the performances in the Phoebaeum. A little before the middle of the next day they enter by the bridges into the place I have mentioned. They cast lots during the night to decide by which entrance each band is to go in. In fighting they use their hands, kick with their feet, bite, and gouge out the eyes of their opponents. Man to man they fight in the way I have described, but in the melee they charge violently and push one another into the water.
{3.15.1} At Plane tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of Kyniska, daughter of Arkhidamos king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot-race at Olympia. Behind the portico built by the side of Plane tree Grove are other hero-shrines, of Alcimus, of Enaraephorus, at a little distance away one of Dorceus, and close to it one of Sebrus.
{3.15.2} These are said to be sons of Hippokoön. The fountain near the hero-shrine of Dorceus they call Dorcean after him; the place Sebrium is named after Sebrus. On the right of Sebrium is the tomb of Alcman, the lyric poet, the charm of whose works was not in the least spoilt by the Laconian dialect, which is the least musical of them all.
{3.15.3} There are sanctuaries of Helen and of Hēraklēs; the former is near the tomb of Alcman, the latter is quite close to the wall and contains an armed image of Hēraklēs. The attitude of the image is due, they say, to the fight with Hippokoön and his sons. The enmity of Hēraklēs towards the lineage of Hippokoön is said to have sprung out of their refusing to purify him when he came to Sparta for purifying after the death of Iphitos.
{3.15.4} The following incident, too, helped to begin the feud. Oeonus, a young cousin of Hēraklēs—he was the son of Licymnius the brother of Alcmene—came to Sparta along with Hēraklēs, and went round to view the city. When he came to the house of Hippokoön, a house-dog attacked him. Oeonus happened to throw a stone which knocked over the dog. So the sons of Hippokoön ran out, and dispatched Oeonus with their clubs.
{3.15.5} This made Hēraklēs most bitterly angry with Hippokoön and his sons, and straightway, angry as he was, he set out to give them battle. On this occasion he was wounded, and made good his retreat by stealth but afterwards he made an expedition against Sparta and succeeded in avenging himself on Hippokoön, and also on the sons of Hippokoön for their murder of Oeonus. The tomb of Oeonus is built by the side of the sanctuary of Hēraklēs.
{3.15.6} As you go from the Course towards the east, there is a path on the right, with a sanctuary of Athena called Axiopoinos (Just Requital or Tit for Tat). For when Hēraklēs, in avenging himself on Hippokoön and his sons, had inflicted upon them a just requital for their treatment of his relative, he founded a sanctuary of Athena, and surnamed her Axiopoinos because the ancients used to call vengeance poinai. There is another sanctuary of Athena on another road from the Course. It was dedicated, they say, by Theras son of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersandros, when he was leading a colony to the island now called Thera after him, the name of which in ancient times was Kalliste (Fairest).
{3.15.7} Near is a temple of Hipposthenes, who won so many victories in wrestling. They worship Hipposthenes in accordance with an oracle, paying him honors as to Poseidon. Opposite this temple is an old image of Enyalios in fetters. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Victory; the former think that Enyalios will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, while the Athenians think that Victory, having no wings, will always remain where she is.
{3.15.8} In this fashion, and with such a belief have these cities set up the wooden images. In Sparta is a lounge called Painted, and by it hero-shrines of Kadmos the son of Agenor, and of his descendants Oiolykos, son of Theras, and Aigeus, son of Oiolykos. They are said to have been made by Maesis, Laeas and Europas, sons of Hyraeus, son of Aigeus. They made for Amphilokhos too his hero-shrine, because their ancestor Tisamenus had for his mother Demonassa, the sister of Amphilokhos.
{3.15.9} The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who surname Hērā Goat-eater, and sacrifice goats to the goddess. They say that Hēraklēs founded the sanctuary and was the first to sacrifice goats, because in his fight against Hippokoön and his children he met with no hindrance from Hērā, although in his other adventures he thought that the goddess opposed him. He sacrificed goats, they say, because he lacked other kinds of victims.
{3.15.10} Not far from the theater is a sanctuary of Poseidon God of Kin, and there are hero-shrines of Kleodaios, son of Hyllos, and of Oibalos. The most famous of their sanctuaries of Asklepios has been built near Boöneta, and on the left is the hero-shrine of Teleklos. I shall mention him again later in my history of Messenia. [233] A little farther on is a small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of Aphrodite armed. This is the only temple I know that has an upper storey built upon it.
{3.15.11} It is a sanctuary of Morpho, a surname of Aphrodite, who sits wearing a veil and with fetters on her feet. The story is that the fetters were put on her by Tyndareus, who symbolized by the bonds the faithfulness of wives to their husbands. The other account, that Tyndareus punished the goddess with fetters because he thought that from Aphrodite had come the shame of his daughters, I will not admit for a moment. For it were surely altogether silly to expect to punish the goddess by making a cedar figure and naming it Aphrodite.
{3.16.1} Near is a sanctuary of Hilaeira and of Phoebe. The author of the poem Cypria calls them daughters of Apollo. Their priestesses are young maidens, called, as are also the goddesses, Leukippides (Daughter of Leukippos). [234] One of the images was adorned by a Leucippis who had served the goddesses as a priestess. She gave it a face of modern workmanship instead of the old one; she was forbidden by a dream to adorn the other one as well. Here there his been hung from the roof an egg tied to ribands, and they say that it is the famous egg that legend says Leda brought forth.
{3.16.2} Each year the women weave a tunic for the Apollo at Amyklai, and they call Tunic the chamber in which they do their weaving. Near it is built a house, said to have been occupied originally by the sons of Tyndareus, but afterwards it was acquired by Phormion, a Spartan. To him came the Dioskouroi in the likeness of strangers. They said that they had come from Cyrene, and asked to lodge with him, requesting to have the chamber which had pleased them most when they dwelled among men.
{3.16.3} He replied that they might lodge in any other part of the house they wished, but that they could not have the chamber.
For it so happened that his virgin daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioskouroi, a table, and silphium upon it.
{3.16.4} Such is the story. As you go from the Tunic in the direction of the gate there is a hero-shrine of Kheilon, who is considered one of the Seven Sages, and also of Athenodoros, one of those who with Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides set out for Sicily. The reason of their setting out was that they held that the Erycine district belonged to the descendants of Hēraklēs and not to the foreigners who held it. The story is that Hēraklēs wrestled with Eryx on these terms: if Hēraklēs won, the land of Eryx was to belong to him but if he were beaten, Eryx was to depart with the cows of Geryon;
{3.16.5} for Hēraklēs at the time was driving these away, and when they swam across to Sicily he too crossed over in search of them near the bent olive tree. The good will [tò eumenes] emanating from the gods [theoi] was more partial to Hēraklēs than it was afterwards to Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides; Hēraklēs killed Eryx, but Dorieus himself and the greater part of his army were destroyed by the Egestaeans.
{3.16.6} The Lacedaemonians have also made a sanctuary for Lycurgus (Lykourgos), who drew up the laws, looking upon him as a god. Behind the temple is the tomb of Eukosmos, the son of Lycurgus (Lykourgos), and by the altar the tomb of Lathria and Anaxandra. Now these were themselves twins, and therefore the sons of Aristodemos, who also were twins likewise, took them to wife; they were daughters of Thersandros son of Agamedidas, king of the people of Kleonai and great-grandson of Ktesippos, son of Hēraklēs. Opposite the temple is the tomb of Theopompos son of Nikandros, and also that of Eurybiades, who commanded the Lacedaemonian warships that fought the Persians at Artemisium and Salamis. Near is what is called the hero-shrine of Astrabacus.
{3.16.7} The place named Limnaeum (Marshy) is sacred to Artemis Orthia (Upright). The wooden image there they say is that which once Orestes and Iphigenia stole out of the Tauric land, and the Lacedaemonians say that it was brought to their land because there also Orestes was king. I think their story more probable than that of the Athenians. For what could have induced Iphigenia to leave the image behind at Brauron? Or why did the Athenians, when they were preparing to abandon their land, fail to include this image in what they put on board their ships?
{3.16.8} And yet, right down to the present day, the fame of the Tauric goddess has remained so high that the Cappadocians dwelling on the Euxine claim that the image is among them, a like claim being made by those Lydians also who have a sanctuary of Artemis Anaeitis. But the Athenians, we are asked to believe, made light of the fact that it was plundered by the Persians. For the image at Brauron was brought to Susa, and afterwards Seleukos gave it to the Syrians of Laodicea, who still possess it.
{3.16.9} I will give other evidence that the Orthia in Lacedaemon is the wooden image from the foreigners. Firstly, Astrabacus and Alopecus, sons of Irbus, son of Amphisthenes, son of Amphikles, son of Agis, when they found the image straightway became insane. Secondly, the Spartan Limnatians, the Cynosurians, and the people of Mesoa and Pitane, while sacrificing to Artemis, fell to quarreling, which led also to bloodshed; many were killed at the altar and the rest died of disease.
{3.16.10} Whereat an oracle was delivered to them, that they should stain the altar with human blood. He used to be sacrificed upon whomsoever the lot fell, but Lycurgus (Lykourgos) changed the custom to a scourging of the boys, and so in this way the altar is stained with human blood. By them stands the priestess, holding the wooden image. Now it is small and light,
{3.16.11} but if ever the scourgers spare the lash because of a boy’s beauty or high rank, then at once the priestess finds the image grow so heavy that she can hardly carry it. She lays the blame on the scourgers, and says that it is their fault that she is being weighed down. So the image ever since the sacrifices in the Tauric land keeps its fondness for human blood. They call it not only Orthia, but also Lygodesma (Willow-bound), because it was found in a thicket of willows, and the encircling willow made the image stand upright.
{3.17.1} Not far from the Orthia is a sanctuary of Eileithuia. They say that they built it, and came to worship Eileithuia as a goddess, because of an oracle from Delphi.
The Lacedaemonians have no citadel rising to a conspicuous height like the Kadmeia at Thebes and the Larisa at Argos. There are, however, hills in the city, and the highest of them they call the citadel.
{3.17.2} Here is built a sanctuary of Athena, who is called both City-protecting and Lady of the Bronze House. The building of the sanctuary was begun, they say, by Tyndareus. On his death his children were desirous of making a second attempt to complete the building, and the resources they intended to use were the spoils of Aphidna. They too left it unfinished, and it was many years afterwards that the Lacedaemonians made of bronze both the temple and the image of Athena. The builder was Gitiadas, a native of Sparta, who also composed Dorian lyrics, including a hymn to the goddess. [235]
{3.17.3} On the bronze are made-in-relief many of the labors of Hēraklēs and many of the voluntary exploits he successfully carried out, besides the abduction of the daughters of Leukippos and other achievements of the sons of Tyndareus. There is also Hephaistos releasing his mother from the fetters. The legend about this I have already related in my history of Attica. [236] There are also represented nymphs bestowing upon Perseus, who is starting on his enterprise against Medusa in Libya, a cap and the shoes by which he was to be carried through the air. Also crafted are the birth of Athena, Amphitrite, and Poseidon, the largest figures, and those which I thought the best worth seeing.
{3.17.4} There is here another sanctuary of Athena; her surname is the Worker. As you go to the south portico there is a temple of Zeus surnamed Kosmetas (Orderer), and before it is the tomb of Tyndareus. The west portico has two eagles, and upon them are two Victories. Lysander dedicated them to commemorate both his exploits; the one was off Ephesos, when he conquered Antiokhos, the captain of Alcibiades, and the Athenian warships and the second occurred later, when he destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi.
{3.17.5} On the left of the Lady of the Bronze House they have set up a sanctuary of the Muses, because the Lacedaemonians used to go out to fight, not to the sound of the trumpet, but to the music of the flute and the accompaniment of lyre and harp. Behind the Lady of the Bronze House is a temple of Aphrodite Areia (Warlike). The wooden images are as old as any in Greece.
{3.17.6} On the right of the Lady of the Bronze House has been set up an image of Zeus Most High, the oldest image that is made of bronze. It is not created in one piece. Each of the limbs has been hammered separately; these are fitted together, being prevented from coming apart by nails. They say that the artist was Klearkhos of Rhēgion, who is said by some to have been a pupil of Dipoinos [237] and Skyllis, by others of Daidalos himself. By what is called the Scenoma (Tent) there is a statue of a woman, whom the Lacedaemonians say is Euryleonis. She won a victory at Olympia with a two-horse chariot.
{3.17.7} By the side of the altar of the Lady of the Bronze House stand two statues of Pausanias, the general at Plataea. His history, as it is known, I will not relate. The accurate accounts of my predecessors suffice; I shall content myself with adding to them what I heard from a man of Byzantium. Pausanias was detected in his treachery, and was the only suppliant of the Lady of the Bronze House who failed to win security, solely because he had been unable to wipe away a defilement of bloodshed.
{3.17.8} When he was cruising about the Hellespont with the Lacedaemonian and allied fleets, he fell in love with a Byzantine girl. And straightway at the beginning of night Kleonike —that was the girl’s name—was brought by those who had been ordered to do so. But Pausanias was asleep at the time and the noise awoke him. For as she came to him she unintentionally dropped her lighted lamp. And Pausanias, conscious of his treason to Greece, and therefore always nervous and fearful, jumped up then and struck the girl with his sword.
{3.17.9} From this defilement Pausanias could not escape, although he underwent all sorts of purifications and became a suppliant of Zeus Phyxios (God of Flight), and finally went to the wizards at Phigalia in Arcadia but he paid a fitting penalty to Kleonike and to the god. The Lacedaemonians, in fulfillment of a command from Delphi, had the bronze images made and honor the spirit Bountiful, saying that it was this Bountiful that turns aside the wrath that the God of Suppliants shows because of Pausanias.
{3.18.1} Near the statues of Pausanias is an image of Aphrodite Ambologera (Postponer of Old Age), which was set up in accordance with an oracle; there are also images of Sleep and of Death. They think them brothers, in accordance with the verses in the Iliad.
{3.18.2} As you go towards what is called the Alpium is a temple of Athena Ophthalmitis (Goddess of the Eye). They say that Lycurgus (Lykourgos) dedicated it when one of his eyes had been struck out by Alkandros, because the laws he had made happened not to find favor with Alkandros. Having fled to this place he was saved by the Lacedaemonians from losing his remaining eye, and so he made this temple of Athena Ophthalmitis.
{3.18.3} Farther on from here is a sanctuary of Ammon. From the first the Lacedaemonians are known to have used the oracle in Libya more than any other Greeks. It is said also that when Lysander was besieging Aphytis in Pallene Ammon appeared by night and declared that it would be better for him and for Lacedaemon if they ceased from warring against Aphytis. And so Lysander raised the siege, and induced the Lacedaemonians to worship the god still more. The people of Aphytis honor Ammon no less than the Ammonian Libyans.
{3.18.4} The story of Artemis Cnagia is as follows. Cnageus, they say, was a native who joined the Dioskouroi in their expedition against Aphidna. Being taken prisoner in the battle and sold into Crete, he lived as a slave where the Cretans had a sanctuary of Artemis; but in course of time he ran away in the company of the virgin priestess, who took the image with her. It is for this reason that they name Artemis Cnagia.
{3.18.5} But I am of opinion that Cnageus came to Crete in some other way, and not in the manner the Lacedaemonians state; for I do not think there was a battle at Aphidna at all, Theseus being detained among the Thesprotians and the Athenians not being unanimous, their sympathies inclining towards Menestheus. Moreover, even if a fight occurred, nobody would believe that prisoners were taken from the conquerors, especially as the victory was overwhelming, so that Aphidna itself was captured.
{3.18.6} I must now end my criticisms. As you go down to Amyklai from Sparta you come to a river called Tiasa. They hold that Tiasa was a daughter of Eurotas, and by it is a sanctuary of Graces, Phaenna and Cleta, as Alcman calls them in a poem. They believe that Lacedaemon founded the sanctuary for the Graces here, and gave them their names.
{3.18.7} The things worth seeing in Amyklai include a victor in the pentathlon, [238] named Ainetos, on a slab. The story is that he won a victory at Olympia, but died while the garland was being placed on his head. So there is the statue of this man; there are also bronze tripods. The older ones are said to be a tithe of the Messenian war.
{3.18.8} Under the first tripod stood an image of Aphrodite, and under the second an Artemis. The two tripods themselves and the reliefs are the work of Gitiadas. [239] The third was made by Gallon of Aegina, and under it stands an image of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter. Aristandros of Paros and Polycleitus of Argos [240] have statues here; the former a woman with a lyre, supposed to be Sparta, the latter an Aphrodite called “beside the Amyklaian.” These tripods are larger than the others, and were dedicated from the spoils of the victory at Aigospotamoi.
{3.18.9} Bathykles of Magnesia, [241] who made the throne of the Amyklaian, dedicated, on the completion of the throne, Graces and an image of Artemis Leucophryene. Whose pupil this Bathykles was, and who was king of Lacedaemon when he made the throne, I pass over; but I saw the throne and will describe its details.
{3.18.10} It is supported in front, and similarly behind, by two Graces and two Seasons. On the left stand Echidna and Typhos, on the right Tritons. To describe the reliefs one by one in detail would have merely bored my readers; but to be brief and concise (for the greater number of them are not unknown either) Poseidon and Zeus are carrying Taygete, daughter of Atlas, and her sister Alcyone. There are also reliefs of Atlas, the single combat of Hēraklēs and Kyknos, and the battle of the Centaurs at the cave of Pholus.
{3.18.11} I cannot say why Bathykles has represented the so-called Bull of Minos bound, and being led along alive by Theseus. There is also on the throne a band of Phaeacian dancers, and Demodocus singing. Perseus, too, is represented killing Medusa. Passing over the fight of Hēraklēs with the giant Thourios and that of Tyndareus with Eurytos, we have next the abduction of the daughters of Leukippos. Here are Dionysus, too, and Hēraklēs; Hermes is bearing the infant Dionysus to the sky [ouranos], and Athena is taking Hēraklēs to dwell henceforth with the gods.
{3.18.12} There is Peleus handing over Achilles to be reared by Kheiron, who is also said to have been his teacher. There is Cephalus, too, carried off by Day because of his beauty. The gods are bringing gifts to the marriage of Harmonia. There is created also the single combat of Achilles and Memnon, and Hēraklēs avenging himself upon Diomedes the Thracian, and upon Nessus at the river Euenus. Hermes is bringing the goddesses to Alexander to be judged. Adrastos and Tydeus are staying the fight between Amphiaraos and Lycurgus (Lykourgos) the son of Pronax.
{3.18.13} Hērā is gazing at Io, the daughter of Inakhos, who is already a cow, and Athena is running away from Hephaistos, who chases her. Next to these have been created two of the exploits of Hēraklēs—his slaying the hydra, and his bringing up the Hound of Hades. Anaxias and Mnasinous are each seated on horseback, but there is one horse only carrying Megapenthes, the son of Menelaos, and Nikostratos. Bellerophontes is destroying the beast in Lycia, and Hēraklēs is driving off the cows of Geryones.
{3.18.14} At the upper edge of the throne are created, one on each side, the sons of Tyndareus on horses. There are sphinxes under the horses, and beasts running upwards, on the one side a leopard, by Polydeukes a lioness. On the very top of the throne has been created a band of dancers, the Magnesians who helped Bathykles to make the throne.
{3.18.15} Underneath the throne, the inner part away from the Tritons contains the hunting of the Calydonian boar and Hēraklēs killing the children of Aktor. Calais and Zetes are driving the Harpies away from Phineus. Peirithous and Theseus have seized Helen, and Hēraklēs is strangling the lion. Apollo and Artemis are shooting Tityus.
{3.18.16} There is represented the fight between Hēraklēs and Oreios the Centaur, and also that between Theseus and the Bull of Minos. There are also represented the wrestling of Hēraklēs with Akhelōos, the fabled binding of Hērā by Hephaistos, the games Akastos held in honor of his father, and the story of Menelaos and the Egyptian Proteus from the Odyssey. [242] Lastly there is Admetos yoking a boar and a lion to his chariot, and the Trojans are bringing libations to Hector.
{3.19.1} The part of the throne where the god would sit is not continuous; there are several seats, and by the side of each seat is left a wide empty space, the middle, whereon the image stands, being the widest of them.
{3.19.2} I know of nobody who has measured the height of the image, but at a guess one would estimate it to be as much as thirty cubits. It is not the work of Bathykles, being old and uncouth; for though it has face, feet, and hands, the rest resembles a bronze pillar. On its head it has a helmet, in its hands a spear and a bow.
{3.19.3} The pedestal of the statue is fashioned into the shape of an altar and they say that Hyakinthos is buried in it, and at the Hyakinthia, before the sacrifice to Apollo, they devote offerings to Hyakinthos as to a hero into this altar through a bronze door, which is on the left of the altar. On the altar are made-in-relief, here an image of Biris, there Amphitrite and Poseidon. Zeus and Hermes are conversing; near stand Dionysus and Semele, with Ino by her side.
{3.19.4} On the altar are also Demeter, the Maiden, Pluto [Ploutōn], next to them Fates and Seasons, and with them Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis. They are carrying to the sky [ouranos] Hyakinthos and Polyboia, the sister, they say, of Hyakinthos, who died a virgin [parthenos]. Now this statue of Hyakinthos represents him as bearded, but Nikias, [243] son of Nikomedes, has painted him in the very prime of youthful beauty, hinting at the love of Apollo for Hyakinthos of which legend tells.
{3.19.5} Crafted on the altar is also Hēraklēs; he too is being led to the sky [ouranos] by Athena and the other gods. On the altar are also the daughters of Thestios, Muses and Seasons. As for the West Wind, how Apollo unintentionally killed Hyakinthos, and the story of the flower, we must be content with the legends, although perhaps they are not true history.
{3.19.6} Amyklai was laid waste by the Dorians, and since that time has remained a village; I found there a sanctuary and image of Alexandra worth seeing. Alexandra is said by the Amyklaians to be Cassandra, the daughter of Priam. Here is also a statue of Clytaemnestra, together with what is supposed to be the tomb of Agamemnon. The natives worship the Amyklaian god and Dionysus, surnaming the latter, quite correctly I think, Psilax. For psila is Doric for wings, and wine uplifts men and lightens their spirit no less than wings do birds.
Such I found were the things worth mentioning about Amyklai. Another road from the city leads to Therapne,
{3.19.7} and on this road is a wooden image of Athena Alea. Before the Eurotas is crossed, a little above the bank is shown a sanctuary of Zeus Wealthy. Across the river is a temple of Asklepios Cotyleus (of the Hip-joint); it was made by Hēraklēs, who named Asklepios Cotyleus, because he was cured of the wound in the hip-joint that he received in the former fight with Hippokoön and his sons. Of all the objects along this road the oldest is a sanctuary of Ares. This is on the left of the road, and the image is said to have been brought from Kolkhis by the Dioskouroi.
{3.19.8} They surname him Theritas after Thero, who is said to have been the nurse of Ares. Perhaps it was from the people of Kolkhis that they heard the name Theritas, since the Greeks know of no Thero, nurse of Ares. My own belief is that the surname Theritas [244] was not given to Ares because of his nurse, but because when a man meets an enemy in battle he must cast aside all gentleness, as Homer says of Achilles:
“And he is fierce as a lion.”
Iliad 24.41
{3.19.9} The name of Therapne is derived from the daughter of Lelex, and in it is a temple of Menelaos; they say that Menelaos and Helen were buried here. The account of the Rhodians is different. They say that when Menelaos was dead, and Orestes still a wanderer, Helen was driven out by Nikostratos and Megapenthes and came to Rhodes, where she had a friend in Polyxo,
{3.19.10} the wife of Tlepolemos. For Polyxo, they say, was an Argive by descent, and when she was already married to Tlepolemos shared his flight to Rhodes. At the time she was queen of the island, having been left with an orphan boy. They say that this Polyxo desired to avenge the death of Tlepolemos on Helen, now that she had her in her power. So she sent against her when she was bathing handmaidens dressed up as Furies, who seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, and for this reason the Rhodians have a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree.
{3.19.11} A story too I will tell which I know the people of Kroton tell about Helen. The people of Himera too agree with this account. In the Euxine at the mouths of the Ister is an island sacred to Achilles. It is called White Island, and its circumference is twenty stadium-lengths. It is wooded throughout and abounds in animals, wild and tame, while on it is a temple of Achilles with an image of him.
{3.19.12} The first to sail thither legend says was Leonymus of Kroton. For when war had arisen between the people of Kroton and the people of Lokris [= Lokroi] in Italy, the people of Lokris, in virtue of the relationship between them and the Opuntians, called upon Ajax son of Oileus to help them in battle. So Leonymus the general of the people of Kroton attacked his enemy at that point where he heard that Ajax was posted in the front line. Now he was wounded in the breast, and weak with his hurt came to Delphi. When he arrived the Pythian priestess sent Leonynios to White Island, telling him that there Ajax would appear to him and cure his wound.
{3.19.13} In time he was healed and returned from White Island, where, he used to declare, he saw Achilles, as well as Ajax the son of Oileus and Ajax the son of Telamon. With them, he said, were Patroklos and Antilokhos; Helen was wedded to Achilles, and had bidden him sail to Stesichorus at Himera, and announce that the loss of his sight was caused by her wrath.
{3.20.1} Therefore Stesichorus composed his recantation. In Therapne I remember seeing the fountain Messeis. Some of the Lacedaemonians, however, have declared that of old the name Messeis was given, not to the fountain at Therapne, but to the one we call Polydeucea. The fountain Polydeucea and a sanctuary of Polydeukes are on the right of the road to Therapne.
{3.20.2} Not far from Therapne is what is called Phoebaeum, in which is a temple of the Dioskouroi. Here the youths sacrifice to Enyalios. At no great distance from it stands a sanctuary of Poseidon surnamed Earth-embracer. Going on from here in the direction of Taygetos you come to a place called Alesiai(Place of Grinding) they say that Myles (Mill-man) the son of Lelex was the first human being to invent a mill, and that he ground wheat in this Alesiae. Here they have a hero-shrine of Lacedaemon, the son of Taygete.
{3.20.3} Crossing from here a river Phellia, and going past Amyklai along a road leading straight towards the sea, you come to the site of Pharis, which was once a city of Laconia. Turning away from the Phellia to the right is the road that leads to Mount Taygetos. On the plain is a precinct of Zeus Messapeus, who is surnamed, they say, after a man who served the god as his priest. Leaving Taygetos from here you come to the site of the city Bryseae. There still remains here a temple of Dionysus with an image in the open. But the image in the temple women only may see, for women by themselves perform in secret the sacrificial rites.
{3.20.4} Above Bryseairises Taletum, a peak of Taygetos. They call it sacred to Hēlios (the Sun), and among the sacrifices they offer here to Hēlios are horses. I am aware that the Persians also are accustomed to offer the same sacrifice. Not far from Taletum is a place called Euoras, the haunt of wild animals, especially wild goats. In fact all Taygetos is a hunting-ground for these goats and for boars, and it is well stocked with both deer and bears.
{3.20.5} Between Taletum and Euoras is a place they name Therai, where they say Leto from the Peaks of Taygetos … is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian. Here according to the Lacedaemonian story Hēraklēs was hidden by Asklepios while he was being healed of a wound. In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a work, they say, of Pelasgians.
{3.20.6} I know also of the following rite which is performed here. By the sea was a city Helos, which Homer too has mentioned in his list of the Lacedaemonians:
“These had their home in Amyklai, and in Helos the town by the seaside.”
Iliad 2.584
It was founded by Helios [Hĕlios not Hēlios], the youngest of the sons of Perseus, and the Dorians afterwards reduced it by siege. Its inhabitants became the first slaves of the Lacedaemonian state, and were the first to be called Helots [heilōtes], as in fact heilōtesthey were. The slaves afterwards acquired, although they were Dorians of Messenia, also came to be called Helots, just as the entire lineage of people who were called Hellenes [‘Greeks’] were named after the region in Thessaly once called Hellas.
{3.20.7} From this Helos, on stated days, they bring up to the sanctuary of the Eleusinian a wooden image of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter. Fifteen stadium-lengths distant from the sanctuary is Lapithaion, named after Lapithos, a native of the district. So this Lapithaion is on Taygetos, and not far off is Dereium, where is in the open an image of Artemis Dereatis, and beside it is a spring which they name Anonus. About twenty stadium-lengths past Dereum is Harpleia, which extends as far as the plain.
{3.20.8} On the road from Sparta to Arcadia there stands in the open an image of Athena surnamed Pareia, and after it is a sanctuary of Achilles. This it is not customary to open, but all the youths who are going to take part in the contest in Plane tree Grove are accustomed to sacrifice to Achilles before the fight. The Spartans say that the sanctuary was made for them by Prax, a grandson of Pergamos the son of Neoptolemos.
{3.20.9} Further on is what is called the Tomb of Horse. For Tyndareus, having sacrificed a horse here, administered an oath to the suitors of Helen, making them stand upon the pieces of the horse. The oath was to defend Helen and him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they should be wronged. When he had sworn the suitors he buried the horse here. Seven pillars, which are not far from this tomb … in the ancient manner, I believe, which they say are images of the planets. On the road is a precinct of Cranius surnamed Stemmatias, and a sanctuary of Mysian Artemis.
{3.20.10} The image of Modesty, some thirty stadium-lengths distant from the city, they say was dedicated by Icarius, the following being the reason for making it. When Icarius gave Penelope in marriage to Odysseus, he tried to make Odysseus himself settle in Lacedaemon, but failing in the attempt, he next besought his daughter to remain behind, and when she was setting forth to Ithaca he followed the chariot, begging her to stay.
{3.20.11} Odysseus endured it for a time, but at last he ordered Penelope either to accompany him willingly, or else, if she preferred her father, to go back to Lacedaemon. They say that she made no reply, but covered her face with a veil in reply to the question, so that Icarios, realizing that she wished to depart with Odysseus, let her go, and dedicated an image of Modesty; for Penelope, they say, had reached this point of the road when she veiled herself.
{3.21.1} Twenty stadium-lengths from here the stream of the Eurotas comes very near to the road, and here is the tomb of Ladas, the fastest runner of his day. He was garlanded at Olympia for a victory in the long race, and falling ill, I take it, immediately after the victory he was on his way home; his death took place here, and his tomb is above the highway. His namesake, who also won at Olympia a victory, not in the long race but in the short race, is stated in the Eleian records of Olympic victors to have been a native of Aigion in Achaea.
{3.21.2} Farther On in the direction of Pellana is what is called Kharkoma (Trench); and after it Pellana, which in the olden time was a city. They say that Tyndareus dwelled here when he fled from Sparta before Hippokoön and his sons. Remarkable sights I remember seeing here were a sanctuary of Asklepios and the spring Pellanis. Into it they say a girl fell when she was drawing water, and when she had disappeared the veil on her head reappeared in another spring, Lancia.
{3.21.3} A hundred stadium-lengths away from Pellana is The place called Belemina. It is naturally The best watered region of Laconia, seeing that The river Eurotas passes through it, while it has abundant springs of its own.
{3.21.4} As you go down to the sea towards Gythium you come to a village called Croceae and a quarry. It is not a continuous stretch of rock, but the stones they dig out are shaped like river pebbles; they are hard to work, but when worked sanctuaries of the gods might be adorned with them, while they are especially adapted for beautifying swimming-baths and fountains. Here before the village stands an image of Zeus of Croceae in marble, and the Dioskouroi in bronze are at the quarry.
{3.21.5} After Croceae, turning away to the right from the straight road to Gythium, you will reach a city Aegiae. They say that this is the city which Homer [245] in his poem calls Augeae. Here is a lake called Poseidon’s, and by the lake is a temple with an image of the god. They are afraid to take out the fish, saying that a fisherman in these waters turns into the fish called the fisher.
{3.21.6} Gythium is thirty stadium-lengths distant from Aigiai, built by the sea in the territory of the Free Laconians, whom the emperor Augustus freed from the bondage in which they had been to the Lacedaemonians in Sparta. All the Peloponnesus, except the Isthmus of Corinth, is surrounded by sea, but the best shell-fish for the manufacture of purple dye after those of the Phoenician sea are to be found on the coast of Laconia.
{3.21.7} The Free Laconians have eighteen cities; the first as you go down from Aigiai to the sea is Gythium; after it come Teuthrone and Las and Pyrrhikos; on Taenarum are Caenepolis, Oetylus, Leuktra and Thalamae, and in addition Alagoma and Gerenia. On the other side of Clythium by the sea are Asopos, Acriae, Boeae, Larax, Epidaurus Limera, Brasiae, Geronthraiand Marius. These are all that are left to the Free Laconians out of twenty-four cities which once were theirs. All the other cities with which my narrative will deal belong, it must be remembered, to Sparta, and are not independent like those I have already mentioned.
{3.21.8} The people of Cythium say that their city had no human founder, but that Hēraklēs and Apollo, when they were reconciled after their strife for the possession of the tripod, united to found the city. In the marketplace they have images of Apollo and of Hēraklēs, and a Dionysus stands near them. In another part of the city are Carnean Apollo, a sanctuary of Ammon and a bronze image of Asklepios, whose temple is roofless, a spring belonging to the god, a holy sanctuary of Demeter and an image of Poseidon Earth-embracer.
{3.21.9} Him whom the people of Cythium name Old Man, saying that he lives in the sea, I found to be Nereus. They got this name originally from Homer, who says in a part of the Iliad, where Thetis is speaking:
Into the broad expanse, and into the bosom of ocean
Plunge, to behold the old man of the sea and the home of your father.
Plunge, to behold the old man of the sea and the home of your father.
Iliad 18.140-141
Here is also a gate called the Gate of Castor (Kastor), and on the citadel have been built a temple and image of Athena.
{3.22.1} Just about three stadium-lengths from Gythium is an unfinished stone. Legend has it that when Orestes sat down upon it his madness left him. For this reason the stone was named in the Dorian tongue Zeus Cappotas. Before Gythium lies the island Cranae, and Homer [246] says that when Alexander had carried off Helen he had intercourse with her there for the first time. On the mainland opposite the island is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Migonitis (Union), and the whole place is called Migonium.
{3.22.2} This sanctuary, they say, was made by Alexander. But when Menelaos had taken Ilion and had returned safe home eight years after the sack of Troy, he set up near the sanctuary of Migonitis an image of Thetis and the goddesses Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice). Above Migonium is a mountain called Larysiumi sacred to Dionysus, and at the beginning of spring they hold a festival in honor of Dionysus, and among the things they say about the ritual is that they find here a ripe bunch of grapes.
{3.22.3} Some thirty stadium-lengths beyond Gythium on the left there are on the mainland walls of a place called Trinasus (Three Islands), which was in my opinion a fort and not a city. Its name I think is derived from the islets which lie off the coast here, three in number. About eighty stadium-lengths beyond Trinasus I came to the ruins o Af Helos,
{3.22.4} and some thirty stadium-lengths farther is Acriae, a city on the coast. Well worth seeing here are a temple and marble image of the Mother of the Gods. The people of Acriae say that this is the oldest sanctuary of this goddess in the Peloponnesus, although the Magnesians, who live to the north of Mount Sipylos, have on the rock Koddinos the most ancient of all the images of the Mother of the gods. The Magnesians say that it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalos.
{3.22.5} The people of Acriae once produced an Olympian victor, Nikokles, who at two Olympian festivals carried off five prizes for running. There has been raised to him a monument between the gymnasium and the wall by the harbor.
{3.22.6} A hundred and twenty stadium-lengths inland from Acriae is Geronthrae. It was inhabited before the Herakleidai came to Peloponnesus, but the Dorians of Lacedaemon expelled the Achaean inhabitants and afterwards sent to it settlers of their own; but in my time it belonged to the Free Laconians. On the road from Acriae to Geronthraiis a village called Palaia (Old), and in Geronthraiitself are a temple and grove of Ares.
{3.22.7} Every year they hold a festival in honor of the God, at which women are forbidden to enter the grove. Around the marketplace are their springs of drinking-water. On the citadel is a temple of Apollo with the head of an ivory image. The rest of the image was destroyed by fire along with the former temple.
{3.22.8} Marius is another town of the Free Laconians, distant from Geronthraione hundred stadium-lengths. Here is an ancient sanctuary common to all the gods, and around it is a grove containing springs. In a sanctuary of Artemis also there are springs. In fact Marius has an unsurpassed supply of water. Above the town, and like it in the interior, is a village, Glyppia. From Geronthraito another village, Selinous, is a journey of twenty stadium-lengths.
{3.22.9} These places are inland from Acriae. By the sea is a city Asopos, sixty stadium-lengths distant from Acriae. In it is a temple of the Roman emperors, and about twelve stadium-lengths inland from the city is a sanctuary of Asklepios. They call the god Philolaos, and the bones in the gymnasium, which they worship, are human, although of superhuman size. On the citadel is also a sanctuary of Athena, surnamed Cyparissia (Cypress Goddess). At the foot of the citadel are the ruins of a city called the City of the Paracyparissian [247] Achaeans.
{3.22.10} There is also in this district a sanctuary of Asklepios, about fifty stadium-lengths from Asopos the place where the sanctuary is they name Hyperteleatum. Two hundred stadium-lengths from Asopos there juts out into the sea a headland, which they call Onugnathus (Jaw of an Ass). Here is a sanctuary of Athena, having neither image nor roof. Agamemnon is said to have made it. There is also the tomb of Cinadus, one of the pilots of the ship of Menelaos.
{3.22.11} After the peak there runs into the land the Gulf of Boeae, and the city of Boeae is at the head of the gulf. This was founded by Boeus, one of the Herakleidai, and he is said to have collected inhabitants for it from three cities, Etis, Aphrodisias and Side. Of the ancient cities two are said to have been founded by Aeneas when he was fleeing to Italy and had been driven into this gulf by storms. Etias, they allege, was a daughter of Aeneas. The third city they say was named after Side, daughter of Danaos.
{3.22.12} When the inhabitants of these cities were expelled, they were anxious to know where they ought to settle, and an oracle was given them that Artemis would show them where they were to dwell. When therefore they had gone on shore, and a hare appeared to them, they looked upon the hare as their guide on the way. When it dived into a myrtle tree, they built a city on the site of the myrtle, and down to this day they worship that myrtle tree, and name Artemis Savior.
{3.22.13} In the marketplace of Boeae is a temple of Apollo, and in another part of the town are temples of Asklepios, of Serapis, and of Isis. The ruins of Etis are not more than seven stadium-lengths distant from Boeae. On the way to them there stands on the left a stone image of Hermes. Among the ruins is a not insignificant sanctuary of Asklepios and Hygieia.
{3.23.1} Cythera lies opposite Boeae; to the promontory of Platanistos, the point where the island lies nearest to the mainland, it is a voyage of forty stadium-lengths from a promontory on the mainland called Onugnathus. In Cythera is a port Scandeia on the coast, but the town Cythera is about ten stadium-lengths inland from Scandeia. The sanctuary of Aphrodite the celestial one [Ourania] is most holy, and it is the most ancient of all the sanctuaries of Aphrodite among the Greeks. The goddess herself is represented by an armed image of wood.
{3.23.2} On the voyage from Boeae towards the point of Malea is a harbor called Nymphaeum, with a statue of Poseidon standing, and a cave close to the sea; in it is a spring of sweet water. There is a large population in the district. After doubling the point of Malea and proceeding a hundred stadium-lengths, you reach a place on the coast within the frontier of the Boeatae, which is sacred to Apollo and called Epidelium.
{3.23.3} For the wooden image which is now here, once stood in Delos. Delos was then a Greek market, and seemed to offer security to traders on account of the god; but as the place was unfortified and the inhabitants unarmed, Menophanes, an officer of Mithridates, attacked it with a fleet, to show his contempt for the god, or acting on the orders of Mithridates; for to a man whose object is gain what is sacred is of less account than what is profitable.
{3.23.4} This Menophanes put to death the foreigners residing there and the Delians themselves, and after plundering much property belonging to the traders and all the offerings, and also carrying women and children away as slaves, he razed Delos itself to the ground. As it was being sacked and pillaged, one of the barbarians wantonly flung this image into the sea; but the wave took it and brought it to land here in the country of the Boeatae. For this reason they call the place Epidelium.
{3.23.5} But neither Menophanes nor Mithridates himself escaped the wrath of the god. Menophanes, as he was putting to sea after the sack of Delos was sunk at once by those of the merchants who had escaped; for they lay in wait for him in ships. The god caused Mithridates at a later date to lay hands upon himself, when his empire had been destroyed and he himself was being hunted on all sides by the Romans. There are some who say that he obtained a violent death as a favor at the hands of one of his mercenaries. This was the reward of their impiety.
{3.23.6} The country of the Boeatae is adjoined by Epidaurus Limera, distant some two hundred stadium-lengths from Epidelium. The people say that they are not descended from the Lacedaemonians but from the Epidaurians of the Argolid, and that they touched at this point in Laconia when sailing on public business to Asklepios in Kos. Warned by dreams that appeared to them, they remained and settled here.
{3.23.7} They also say that a snake, which they were bringing from their home in Epidaurus, escaped from the ship, and disappeared into the ground not far from the sea. As a result of the portent of the snake together with the vision in their dreams they resolved to remain and settle here. There are altars to Asklepios where the snake disappeared, with olive trees growing round them.
{3.23.8} About two stadium-lengths to the right is the water of Ino, as it is called, in extent like a small lake, but going deeper into the earth. Into this water they throw cakes of barley meal at the festival of Ino. If good luck is portended to the thrower, the water keeps them under. But if it brings them to the surface, it is judged a bad sign.
{3.23.9} The craters in Aetna have the same feature; for they lower into them objects of gold and silver and also all kinds of victims. If the fire receives and consumes them, they rejoice at the appearance of a good sign, but if it casts up what has been thrown in, they think misfortune will befall the man to whom this happens.
{3.23.10} By the road leading from Boeae to Epidaurus Limera is a sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis (Of the Lake) in the country of the Epidaurians. The city lies on high ground, not far from the sea. Here the sanctuary of Artemis is worth seeing, also that of Asklepios with a standing statue of stone, a temple of Athena on the acropolis, and of Zeus with the title Savior in front of the harbor.
{3.23.11} A promontory called Minoa projects into the sea near [248] the town. The bay has nothing to distinguish it from all the other inlets of the sea in Laconia, but the beach here contains pebbles of prettier form and of all colors.
{3.24.1} A hundred stadium-lengths from Epidaurus is Zarax; though possessing a good harbor, it is the most ruinous of the towns of the Free Laconians, since it was the only town of theirs to be depopulated by Kleonymos the son of Kleomenes, son of Agesipolis. I have told the story of Kleomenes elsewhere. [249] There is nothing in Zarax except a temple of Apollo, with a statue holding a lyre, at the head of the harbor. [250]
{3.24.2} The road from Zarax follows the coast for about a hundred stadium-lengths, and there strikes inland. After an ascent of ten stadium-lengths inland are the ruins of the so-called Cyphanta, among which is a cave sacred to Asklepios; the image is of stone. There is a fountain of cold water springing from the rock, where they say that Atalanta, distressed by thirst when hunting, struck the rock with her spear, so that the water gushed forth.
{3.24.3} Brasiaiis the last town on the coast belonging to the Free Laconians in this direction. It is distant two hundred stadium-lengths by sea from Cyphanta. The inhabitants have a story, found nowhere else in Greece, that Semele, after giving birth to her son by Zeus, was discovered by Kadmos and put with Dionysus into a chest, which was washed up by the waves in their country. Semele, who was no longer alive when found, received a splendid funeral, but they brought up Dionysus.
{3.24.4} For this reason the name of their city, hitherto called Oreiatae, was changed to Brasiaiafter the washing up of the chest to land; so too in our time the common word used of the waves casting things ashore is ekbrazein. The people of Brasiaiadd that Ino in the course of her wanderings came to the country, and agreed to become the nurse of Dionysus. They show the cave where Ino nursed him, and call the plain the garden of Dionysus.
{3.24.5} The temples here are those of Asklepios and of Achilles, in whose honor they hold an annual festival. There is a small promontory at Brasiae, which projects gently into the sea; on it stand bronze figures, not more than a foot high, with caps on their heads. I am not sure whether they consider them to be Dioskouroi or Corybants. They are three in number; a statue of Athena makes a fourth.
{3.24.6} To the right of Gythium is Las, ten stadium-lengths from the sea and forty from Gythium. The site of the present town extends over the ground between the mountains called Ilios, Asia and Cnacadium; formerly it lay on the summit of Mount Asia. Even now there are ruins of the old town, with a statue of Hēraklēs outside the walls, and a trophy for a victory over the Macedonians. These formed a detachment of Philip’s army, when he invaded Laconia, but were separated from the main body and were plundering the coastal districts.
{3.24.7} Among the ruins is a temple of Athena named Asia, made, it is said, by Polydeukes and Castor (Kastor) on their return home from Kolkhis; for the people of Kolkhis had a shrine of Athena Asia. I know that the sons of Tyndareus took part in Jason’s expedition. As to the people of Kolkhis honoring Athena Asia, I give what I heard from the Lacedaemonians. Near the present town is a spring called Galaco (Milky) from the color of the water, and beside the spring a gymnasium, which contains an ancient statue of Hermes.
{3.24.8} On Mount Ilios is a temple of Dionysus, and of Asklepios at the very summit. On Cnacadium is an Apollo called Karneios.
Some thirty stadium-lengths from the Apollo is a place Hypsoi, within the Spartan frontier. Here is a sanctuary of Asklepios and of Artemis called Daphnaea (of the laurel).
{3.24.9} By the sea is a temple of Artemis Dictynna on a promontory, in whose honor they hold an annual festival. A river Smenus reaches the sea to the left of the promontory; its water is extremely sweet to drink; its sources are in Mount Taygetos, and it passes within five stadium-lengths of the town.
{3.24.10} At a spot called Arainos is the tomb of Las with a statue upon it. The natives say that Las was their founder and was killed by Achilles, and that Achilles put in to their country to ask the hand of Helen of Tyndareus. In point of fact it was Patroklos who killed Las, for it was he who was Helen’s suitor. We need not regard it as a proof that Achilles did not ask for Helen because he is not mentioned in the Catalogue of Women as one of her suitors.
{3.24.11} But at the beginning of his poem Homer says that Achilles came to Troy as a favor to the sons of Atreus, [251] and not because he was bound by the oaths which Tyndareus exacted; and in the Games he makes Antilokhos say that Odysseus was a generation older than he, [252] whereas Odysseus, telling Alkinoos of his descent to Hades and other adventures, said that he wished to see Theseus and Peirithous, men of an earlier age. [253] We know that Theseus carried off Helen, so that it is quite impossible that Achilles could have been her suitor.
{3.25.1} Beyond the tomb a river named Scyras enters the sea. Formerly it was without a name, but was so called, because Pyrrhos the son of Achilles put in here when he sailed from Scyros to wed Hermione. Across the river is an ancient shrine … further from an altar of Zeus. Inland, forty stadium-lengths from the river, lies Pyrrhikos, the name of which is said to be derived from Pyrrhos the son of Achilles;
{3.25.2} but according to another account Pyrrhikos was one of the gods called Kouretes. Others say that Silenus came from Malea and settled here. That Silenus was brought up in Malea is clear from these words in an ode of Pindar:
“The mighty one, the dancer, whom the mount of Malea nurtured, husband of Nais, Silenus.”
Pindar Frag. 156 (Schröder)
Not that Pindar said his name was Pyrrhikos; that is a statement of the men of Malea.
{3.25.3} At Pyrrhikos there is a well in the marketplace, considered to be the gift of Silenus. If this were to fail, they would be short of water. The sanctuaries of the gods, that they have in the country, are of Artemis, called Astrateia, because the Amazons stayed their advance (strateia) here, and an Apollo Amazonios. Both gods are represented by wooden images, said to have been dedicated by the women from Thermodon.
{3.25.4} From Pyrrhikos the road comes down to the sea at Teuthrone. The inhabitants declare that their founder was Teuthras, an Athenian. They honor Artemis Issoria most of the Gods, and have a spring Naia. The promontory of Taenarum projects into the sea 150 stadium-lengths from Teuthrone, with the harbors Achilleios and Psamathus. On the promontory is a temple like a cave, with a statue of Poseidon in front of it.
{3.25.5} Some of the Greek poets state that Hēraklēs brought up the hound of Hades here, though there is no road that leads underground through the cave, and it is not easy to believe that the gods possess any underground dwelling where the souls collect. But Hecataeus of Miletus gave a plausible explanation, stating that a terrible serpent lived on Taenarum, and was called the hound of Hades, because any one bitten was bound to die of the poison at once, and it was this snake, he said, that was brought by Hēraklēs to Eurystheus.
{3.25.6} But Homer, who was the first to call the creature brought by Hēraklēs the hound of Hades, [254] did not give it a name or describe it as of manifold form, as he did in the case of the Chimaera. [255] Later poets gave the name Cerberus, and though in other respects they made him resemble a dog, they say that he had three heads. Homer, however, does not imply that he was a dog, the friend of man, any more than if he had called a real serpent the hound of Hades.
{3.25.7} Among other offerings on Taenarum is a bronze statue of Arion the harper on a dolphin. Herodotus has told the story of Arion and the dolphin, as he heard it, in his history of Lydia. [256] I have seen the dolphin at Poroselene that rewards the boy for saving his life. It had been damaged by fishermen and he cured it.I saw this dolphin obeying his call and carrying him whenever he wanted to ride on it.
{3.25.8} There is a spring also on Taenarum but now it possesses nothing marvelous. Formerly, as they say, it showed harbors and ships to those who looked into the water. These sights in the water were brought to an end for good and all by a woman washing dirty clothes in it.
{3.25.9} From the point of Taenarum Caenepolis is distant forty stadium-lengths by sea. Its name also was formerly Taenarum. In it is a hall of Demeter, and a temple of Aphrodite on the shore, with a standing statue of stone. Thirty stadium-lengths distant is Thyrides, a headland of Taenarum, with the ruins of a city Hippola; among them is a sanctuary of Athena Hippolaitis. A little further are the town and harbor of Messa.
{3.25.10} From this harbor it is 150 stadium-lengths to Oetylus. The hero, from whom the city received its name, was an Argive by descent, son of Amphianax, the son of Antimakhos. In Oetylus the sanctuary of Sarapis, and in the marketplace a wooden image of Apollo Karneios are worth seeing.
{3.26.1} From Oetylus to Thalamaithe road is about eighty stadium-lengths long. On it is a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. They consult the oracle in sleep, and the goddess reveals whatever they wish to learn, in dreams. Bronze statues of Pasiphae and of Hēlios stand in the unroofed part of the sanctuary. It was not possible to see the one within the temple clearly, owing to the garlands, but they say this too is of bronze. Water, sweet to drink, flows from a sacred spring. Pasiphae is a title of the Moon, and is not a local goddess of the people of Thalamae.
{3.26.2} Twenty stadium-lengths from Thalamaiis a place called Pephnus on the coast. In front of it lies a small island no larger than a big rock, also called Pephnus. The people of Thalamaisay that the Dioskouroi were born here. I know that Alcman too says this in a song: but they do not say that they remained to be brought up in Pephnus, but that it was Hermes who took them to Pellana.
{3.26.3} In this little island there are bronze statues of the Dioskouroi, a foot high, in the open air. The sea will not move them, though in winter-time it washes over the rock, which is wonderful. Also the ants here have a whiter color than is usual. The Messenians say that this district was originally theirs, and so they think that the Dioskouroi belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians.
{3.26.4} Twenty stadium-lengths from Pephnus is Leuktra. I do not know why the city has this name. If indeed it is derived from Leukippos the son of Perieres, as the Messenians say, it is for this reason, I think, that the inhabitants honor Asklepios most of the gods, supposing him to be the son of Arsinoe the daughter of Leukippos. There is a stone statue of Asklepios, and of Ino in another place.
{3.26.5} Also a temple and statue have been erected to Cassandra the daughter of Priam, called Alexandra by the natives. There are wooden images of Apollo Karneios according to the same custom that prevails among the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. On the acropolis is a sanctuary and image of Athena, and there is a temple and grove of Eros in Leuktra. Water flows through the grove in winter-time, but the leaves which are shaken from the trees by the wind would not be carried away by the water even in flood.
{3.26.6} I record an event which I know to have taken place in my time on the coast of Leuktra. A fire carried by the wind into a wood destroyed most of the trees, and when the place showed bare, a statue of Zeus of Ithome was found to have been dedicated there. The Messenians say that this is evidence that Leuktra was formerly a part of Messenia. But it is possible, if the Lacedaemonians originally lived in Leuktra, that Zeus of Ithome might be worshipped among them.
{3.26.7} Cardamyle, which is mentioned by Homer in the Gifts promised by Agamemnon, [257] is subject to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, having been separated from Messenia by the emperor Augustus. It is eight stadium-lengths from the sea and sixty from Leuktra. Here not far from the beach is a precinct sacred to the daughters of Nereus. They say that they came up from the sea to this spot to see Pyrrhos the son of Achilles, when he was going to Sparta to wed Hermione. In the town is a sanctuary of Athena, and an Apollo Karneios according to the local Dorian custom.
{3.26.8} A city, called in Homer’s poems Enope, [258] with Messenian inhabitants but belonging to the league of the Free Laconians, is called in our time Gerenia. One account states that Nestor was brought up in this city, another that he took refuge here, when Pylos was captured by Hēraklēs.
{3.26.9} Here in Gerenia is a tomb of Makhaon, son of Asklepios, and a holy sanctuary. In his temple men may find cures for diseases. They call the holy spot Rhodos; there is a standing bronze statue of Makhaon, with a garland on his head which the Messenians in the local speech call kiphos. The author of the epic The Little Iliad says that Machaon was killed by Eurypylus, son of Telephus.
{3.26.10} I myself know that to be the reason of the practice at the temple of Asklepios at Pergamon, where they begin their hymns with Telephus but make no reference to Eurypylus, or care to mention his name in the temple at all, as they know that he was the slayer of Makhaon. It is said that the bones of Makhaon were brought home by Nestor, but that Podaleirios, as they were returning after the sack of Troy, was carried out of his course and reached Syrnus on the Carian mainland in safety and settled there.
{3.26.11} In the territory of Gerenia is a mountain, Calathium; on it is a sanctuary of Claea with a cave close beside it; it has a narrow entrance, but contains objects which are worth seeing. Thirty stadium-lengths inland from Gerenia is Alagonia, a town which I have already mentioned in the list of the Free Laconians. Worth seeing here are temples of Dionysus and of Artemis.
[ back ]
Scroll IV. Messenia
{3.1.1} After the figures of Hermes we reach Laconia on the west. According to the tradition of the Lacedaemonians themselves, Lelex, an aboriginal was the first king in this land, after whom his subjects were named Leleges. Lelex had a son Myles, and a younger one Polycaon. Polycaon retired into exile, the place of this retirement and its reason I will set forth elsewhere. On the death of Myles his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne. He led down to the sea by means of a trench the stagnant water on the plain, and when it had flowed away, as what was left formed a river-stream, he named it Eurotas. [193]
{3.1.2} Having no male issue, he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygete, after whom the mountain was named, while according to report his father was none other than Zeus. Lacedaemon was wedded to Sparta, a daughter of Eurotas. When he came to the throne, he first changed the names of the land and its inhabitants, calling them after himself, and next he founded and named after his wife a city, which even down to our own day has been called Sparta.
{3.1.3} Amyclas, too, son of Lacedaemon, wished to leave some memorial behind him, and built a town in Laconia. Hyakinthos, the youngest and most beautiful of his sons, died before his father, and his tomb is in Amyklai below the image of Apollo. On the death of Amyclas the empire came to Aigalus, the eldest of his sons, and afterwards, when Aigalus died, to Cynortas. Cynortas had a son Oibalos.
{3.1.4} He took a wife from Argos, Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, and begat a son Tyndareus, with whom Hippokoön disputed about the kingship, claiming the throne on the ground of being the eldest. With the end of Icarius and his partisans he had surpassed Tyndareus in power, and forced him to retire in fear; the Lacedaemonians say that he went to Pellana, but a Messenian legend about him is that he fled to Aphareus in Messenia, Aphareus being the son of Perieres and the brother of Tyndareus on his mother’s side. The story goes on to say that he settled at Thalamaiin Messenia, and that his children were born to him when he was living there.
{3.1.5} Subsequently Tyndareus was brought back by Hēraklēs and recovered his throne. His sons too became kings, as did Menelaos the son of Atreus and son-in-law of Tyndareus, and Orestes the husband of Hermione the daughter of Menelaos. On the return of the Herakleidai in the reign of Tisamenus, son of Orestes, both districts, Messene and Argos, had kings put over them; Argos had Temenus and Messene Kresphontes. In Lacedaemon, as the sons of Aristodemos were twins, there arose two royal houses; for they say that the Pythian priestess approved.
{3.1.6} Tradition has it that Aristodemos himself died at Delphi before the Dorians returned to the Peloponnesus, but those who glorify his fate assert that he was shot by Apollo for not going to the oracle, having learned from Hēraklēs, who met him before he arrived there, that the Dorians would make this return to the Peloponnesus. But the more correct account is that Aristodemos was murdered by the sons of Pylades and Electra, who were cousins of Tisamenus son of Orestes.
{3.1.7} The names given to the sons of Aristodemos were Prokles and Eurysthenes, and although they were twins they were bitter enemies. Their enmity reached a high pitch, but nevertheless they combined to help Theras, the son of Autesion and the brother of their mother Argeia and their guardian as well, to found a colony. This colony Theras was dispatching to the island that was then called Kalliste, [194] and he hoped that the descendants of Membliarus would of their own accord give up the kingship to him. This as a matter of fact they did,
{3.1.8} taking into account that the lineage of Theras went back to Kadmos himself, while they were only descendants of Membliarus, who was a man of the people whom Kadmos left in the island to be the leader of the settlers. And Theras changed the name of the island, renaming it after himself, and even at the present day the people of Thera every year offer to him as their founder the sacrifices that are given to a hero. Prokles and Eurysthenes were of one mind in their eagerness to serve Theras; but in all else their purposes were always widely different.
{3.1.9} Even if they had agreed together, I should never have ventured to include their descendants in a common list; for they did not altogether coincide in respect of age, so that cousins, cousins’ children, and later generations were not born so as to make the steps in one pedigree coincide with those of the other. So I shall give the history of each house by itself separately, instead of combining them both in one narrative.
{3.2.1} Eurysthenes, the elder of the sons of Aristodemos, had, they say, a son Agis, after. whom the lineage of Eurysthenes is called the Agiadae. In his time, when Patreus the son of Preugenes was founding in Achaea a city which even at the present day is called Patraifrom this Patreus, the Lacedaemonians took part in the settlement. They also joined in an expedition oversea to found a colony. Gras the son of Ekhelas the son of Penthilos the son of Orestes was the leader, who was destined to occupy the land between Ionia and Mysia, called at the present day Aeolis; his ancestor Penthilos had even before this seized the island of Lesbos that lies over against this part of the mainland.
{3.2.2} When Ekhestratos, son of Agis, was king at Sparta, the Lacedaemonians removed all the Cynurians of military age, alleging as a reason that freebooters from the Cynurian territory were harrying Argolis, the Argives being their kinsmen, and that the Cynurians themselves openly made forays into the land. The Cynurians are said to be Argives by descent, and tradition has it that their founder was Cynurus, son of Perseus.
{3.2.3} Not many years afterwards Labotas, son of Ekhestratos, became king in Sparta. This Labotas Herodotus, in his history of Croesus, says was in his childhood the ward of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) the lawgiver, but he calls him Leobotes and not Labotas. It was then that the Lacedaemonians first resolved to make war upon the Argives, bringing as charges against them that they were annexing the Cynurian territory which they themselves had captured, and were causing revolts among their subjects the Perioeci (Dwellers around). On this occasion neither of the belligerents, according to the account, achieved anything worthy of mention,
{3.2.4} and the next kings of this house, Doryssus, son of Labotas, and Agesilaos, son of Doryssus, were soon both killed. Lycurgus (Lykourgos) too laid down their laws for the Lacedaemonians in the reign of Artesilaos; some say that he was taught how to do this by the Pythian priestess, others that he introduced Cretan institutions. The Cretans say that these laws of theirs were laid down by Minos, and that Minos was not without divine aid in his deliberations concerning them. Homer too, I think, refers in riddling words to the legislation of Minos in the following verses:
Knossos too, great city, among them, where Minos for nine years
Ruled as king, and enjoyed familiar converse with great Zeus.
Ruled as king, and enjoyed familiar converse with great Zeus.
Odyssey 19.178
{3.2.5} Of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) I shall make further mention later. Agesilaos had a son Arkhelaos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians took by force of arms Aigys, a city of the Perioeci, and sold the inhabitants into slavery, suspecting them of Arcadian sympathies. Kharilaos, the king of the other house, helped Arkhelaos to destroy Aigys, but the exploits he achieved when leading the Lacedaemonians by himself, these too I shall relate when my narrative comes to treat of those called the Eurypontidai.
{3.2.6} Arkhelaos had a son Teleklos. In his reign the Lacedaemonians conquered in war and reduced Amyklai, Pharis, and Geranthrae, cities of the Perioeci, which were still in the possession of the Achaeans. The inhabitants of Pharis and Geranthrae, panic-stricken at the onslaught of the Dorians, made an agreement to retire from the Peloponnesus under a truce, but those of Amyklai were not driven out at the first assault, but only after a long and stubborn resistance, in which they distinguished themselves by glorious achievements. To this heroism the Dorians bore witness by raising a trophy against the Amyklaians, implying that their success was the most memorable exploit of that time. Not long after this Teleklos was murdered by Messenians in a sanctuary of Artemis. This sanctuary was built on the frontier of Laconia and Messenia, in a place called Limniai(Lakes).
{3.2.7} After the death of Teleklos, Alkamenes his son succeeded to the throne, and the Lacedaemonians sent to Crete Kharmidas the son of Euthys, who was a distinguished Spartan, to put down the civil strife among the Cretans, to persuade them to abandon the weak, inland towns, and to help them to people instead those that were conveniently situated for the coasting voyage. They also laid waste Helos, an Achaean town on the coast, and won a battle against the Argives who came to give aid to the Helots.
{3.3.1} On the death of Alkamenes, Polydoros his son succeeded to the throne, and the Lacedaemonians sent colonies to Croton in Italy and to the people of Lokris [= Lokroi] by the Western headland. The war called the Messenian reached its height in the reign of this king. As to the causes of the war, the Lacedaemonian version differs from the Messenian.
{3.3.2} The accounts given by the belligerents, and the manner in which this war ended, will be set forth later in my narrative. For the present I must state thus much; the chief leader of the Lacedaemonians in the first war against the Messenians was Theopompos the son of Nikandros, a king of the other house. When the war against Messene had been fought to a finish, and Messenia was enslaved to the Lacedaemonians, Polydoros, who had a great reputation at Sparta and was very popular with the masses—for he never did a violent act or said an insulting word to anyone, while as a judge he was both upright and humane—
{3.3.3} his fame having by this time spread throughout Greece, was murdered by Polemarkhos, a member of a distinguished family in Lacedaemon, but, as he showed, a man of an unscrupulous temper. After his death Polydoros received many signal marks of respect from the Lacedaemonians. However, Polemarkhos too has a tomb in Sparta; either he had been considered a good man before this murder, or perhaps his relatives buried him secretly.
{3.3.4} During the reign of Eurycrates, son of Polydoros, the Messenians submitted to be subjects of the Lacedaemonians, neither did any trouble befall from the Argive people. But in the reign of Anaxandros, son of Eurycrates—for destiny was by this time driving the Messenians out of all the Peloponnesus—the Messenians revolted from the Lacedaemonians. For a time they held out by force of arms, but at last they were overcome and retired from the Peloponnesus under a truce. The remnant of them left behind in the land became the slaves of the Lacedaemonians, with the exception of those in the towns on the coast.
{3.3.5} The incidents of the war which the Messenians waged after the revolt from the Lacedaemonians it is not pertinent that I should set forth in the present part of my narrative. Anaxandros had a son Eurycrates, and this second Eurycrates a son Leon. While these two kings were on the throne the Lacedaemonians were generally unsuccessful in the war with Tegea. But in the reign of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, the Lacedaemonians won the war with Tegea in the following manner. A Lacedaemonian, by name Lichas, came to Tegea when there chanced to be a truce between the cities. [195]
{3.3.6} When Lichas arrived the Spartans were seeking the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle. Now Lichas inferred that they were buried in a smithy, the reason for this inference being this. Everything that he saw in the smithy he compared with the oracle from Delphi, likening to the winds the bellows, for that they too sent forth a violent blast, the hammer to the “stroke,” the anvil to the “counterstroke” to it, while the iron is naturally a “woe to man,” because already men were using iron in warfare. In the time of those called heroes the god would have called bronze a woe to man.
{3.3.7} Similar to the oracle about the bones of Orestes was the one afterwards given to the Athenians, that they were to bring back Theseus from Scyros to Athens otherwise they could not take Scyros. Now the bones of Theseus were discovered by Kimon the son of Miltiades, who displayed similar sharpness of wit, and shortly afterwards took Scyros.
{3.3.8} I have evidence that in the heroic age weapons were universally of bronze in the verses of Homer [196] about the axe of Peisandros and the arrow of Meriones. My statement is likewise confirmed by the spear of Achilles dedicated in the sanctuary of Athena at Phaselis, and by the sword of Memnon in the temple of Asklepios at Nikomedeia. The point and butt-spike of the spear and the whole of the sword are made of bronze. The truth of these statements I can vouch for.
{3.3.9} Anaxandrides the son of Leon was the only Lacedaemonian to possess at one and the same time two wives and two households. For his first consort, though an excellent wife, had the misfortune to he barren. When the ephors told him to put her away he firmly refused to do so, but made this concession to them, that he would take another wife in addition to her. The fruit of this union was a son, Kleomenes; and the former wife, who up to this time had not conceived, after the birth of Cieomenes bore Dorieus, then Leonidas, and finally Kleombrotos.
{3.3.10} And when Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, believing Dorieus to be both of a sounder judgment than Kleomenes and a better soldier, much against their will rejected him as their king, and obeyed the laws by giving the throne to the elder claimant Kleomenes.
{3.4.1} Now Dorieus could not bear to stay at Lacedaemon and be subject to his brother, and so he went on a colonizing expedition. As soon as he became king, Kleomenes gathered together an army, both of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of their allies, and invaded Argolis. The Argives came out under arms to meet them, but Kleomenes won the day. Near the battlefield was a grove sacred to Argos, son of Niobe, and on being routed some five thousand of the Argives took refuge therein. Kleomenes was subject to fits of mad excitement, and on this occasion he ordered the Helots to set the grove on fire, and the flames spread all over the grove, which, as it burned, burned up the suppliants with it.
{3.4.2} He also conducted campaigns against Athens, by the first of which he delivered the Athenians from the sons of Peisistratos and won a good report among the Greeks both for himself personally and for the Lacedaemonians; [197] while the second campaign was to please an Athenian, Isagoras, by helping him to establish a tyranny over Athens. [198] When he was disappointed, and the Athenians fought strenuously for their freedom, Kleomenes devastated the country, including, they say, the district called Orgas, which was sacred to the deities in Eleusis. He advanced as far as Aegina, and proceeded to arrest such influential Aeginetans as had shown Persian sympathies, and had persuaded the citizens to give earth and water to king Dareios, son of Hystaspes.
{3.4.3} While Kleomenes was occupied in Aegina, Demaratos, the king of the other house, was slandering him to the Lacedaemonian populace. On his return from Aegina, Kleomenes began to intrigue for the deposition of king Demaratos. He bribed the Pythian prophetess to frame responses about Demaratos according to his instructions, and instigated Leotykhides, a man of royal birth and of the same family as Demaratos, to put in a claim to the throne.
{3.4.4} Leotykhides seized upon the remark that Ariston in his ignorance blurted out when Demaratos was born, denying that he was his child. On the present occasion the Lacedaemonians, according to their wont, referred to the oracle at Delphi the claim against Demaratos, and the prophetess gave them a response which favored the designs of Kleomenes.
{3.4.5} So Demaratos was deposed, not rightfully, but because Kleomenes hated him. Subsequently Kleomenes met his end in a fit of madness for seizing a sword he began to wound himself, and hacked and maimed his body all over. The Argives assert that the manner of his end was a punishment for his treatment of the suppliants of Argos; the Athenians say that it was because he had devastated Orgas; the Delphians put it down to the bribes he gave the Pythian prophetess, persuading her to give lying responses about Demaratos.
{3.4.6} It may well be too that the wrath of heroes and the wrath of gods united together to punish Kleomenes since it is a fact that for a personal wrong Protesilaos, a hero not a bit more illustrious than Argos, punished at Elaeus Artayctes, a Persian; while the Megarians never succeeded in propitiating the deities at Eleusis for having encroached upon the sacred land. As to the tampering with the oracle, we know of nobody, with the exception of Kleomenes, who has had the audacity even to attempt it.
{3.4.7} Kleomenes had no male issue, and the kingdom devolved on Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides and full brother of Dorieus. At this time Xerxes led his host against Greece, and Leonidas with three hundred Lacedaemonians met him at Thermopylae. Now although the Greeks have waged many wars, and so have foreigners among themselves, yet there are but few that have been made more illustrious by the exceptional valor of one man, in the way that Achilles shed luster on the Trojan war and Miltiades on the engagement at Marathon. But in truth the success of Leonidas surpassed, in my opinion, all later as well as all previous achievements.
{3.4.8} For Xerxes, the proudest of all who have reigned over the Medes, or over the Persians who succeeded them, the achiever of such brilliant exploits, was met on his march by Leonidas and the handful of men he led to Thermopylae, [199] and they would have prevented him from even seeing Greece at all, and from ever burning Athens, if the man of Trakhis had not guided the army with Hydarnes by the path that stretches across Oitē, and enabled the enemy to surround the Greeks; so Leonidas was overwhelmed and the foreigners passed along into Greece.
{3.4.9} Pausanias the son of Kleombrotos never became king. For while guardian of Pleistarkhos, the son of Leonidas, who was a child when his father died, he led the Lacedaemonians to Plataea, and afterwards with their fleet to the Hellespont. [200] I cannot praise too highly the way in which Pausanias treated the Coan lady, who was the daughter of a man of distinction among the people of Kos, Hegetorides the son of Antagoras, and the unwilling concubine of a Persian, Pharandates the son of Teaspis.
{3.4.10} When Mardonios fell in the battle of Plataea, and the foreigners were destroyed, Pausanias sent the lady back to Kos, and she took with her the apparel that the Persian had procured for her as well as the rest of her belongings. Pausanias also refused to dishonor the body of Mardonios, as Lampon the Aeginetan advised him to do.
{3.5.1} Shortly after Pleistarkhos the son of Leonidas came to the throne he died, and the kingdom devolved on Pleistoanax, son of the Pausanias who commanded at Plataea. Pleistoanax had a son Pausanias; he was the Pausanias who invaded Attica, ostensibly to oppose Thrasyboulos and the Athenians, but really to establish firmly the despotism of those to whom the government had been entrusted by Lysander. [201] Although he won a battle against the Athenians holding the Peiraens, yet immediately after the battle he resolved to lead his army back home, and not to bring upon Sparta the most disgraceful of reproaches by increasing the despotic power of wicked men.
{3.5.2} When he returned from Athens with only a fruitless battle to his credit, he was brought to trial by his enemies. The court that sat to try a Lacedaemonian king consisted of the senate, “old men” as they were called, twenty eight in number, the members of the ephorate, and in addition the king of the other house. Fourteen senators, along with Agis, the king of the other house, declared that Pausanias was guilty; the rest of the court voted for his acquittal.
{3.5.3} Shortly after this the Lacedaemonians gathered an army against Thebes; the reason for so doing will be given in my account of Agesilaos. On this occasion Lysander came to Phokis, took along with him the entire army of Phokis, and without any further delay entered Boeotia and began assaults upon the wall of Haliartos, the citizens of which refused to revolt from Thebes. Already a band of Thebans and Athenians had secretly entered the city; these came out and offered battle before the wall, and there fell here several Lacedaemonians, including Lysander himself.
{3.5.4} Pausanias was too late for the fight, having been collecting forces from Tegea and Arcadia generally; when he finally reached Boeotia, although he heard of the defeat of the forces with Lysander and of the death of Lysander himself, he nevertheless led his army against Thebes and purposed to take the offensive. Thereupon the Thebans offered battle, and Thrasyboulos was reported to be not far away with the Athenians. He was waiting for the Lacedaemonians to take the offensive, on which his intention was to launch an attack himself against their rear.
{3.5.5} So Pausanias, fearing lest he should be caught between two enemy forces, made a truce with the Thebans and took up for burial those who had fallen under the wall of Haliartos. The Lacedaemonians disapproved of this decision, but the following reason leads me to approve it. Pausanias was well aware that the disasters of the Lacedaemonians always took place when they had been caught between two enemy forces, and the defeats at Thermopylae and on the island of Sphakteria made him afraid lest he himself should prove the occasion of a third misfortune for them.
{3.5.6} But when his fellow citizens charged him with his slowness in this Boeotian campaign, he did not wait to stand his trial, but was received by the people of Tegea as a suppliant of Athena Alea. Now this sanctuary had been respected from early days by all the Peloponnesians, and afforded peculiar safety to its suppliants, as the Lacedaemonians showed in the case of Pausanias and of Leotykhides before him, and the Argives in the case of Khrysis; they never wanted even to ask for these refugees, who were sitting as suppliants in the sanctuary, to be given up.
{3.5.7} When Pausanias fled, his sons Agesipolis and Kleombrotos were still quite boys, and Aristodemos, their nearest relative, was their guardian. This Aristodemos was in command of the Lacedaemonians when they won their success in Corinth.
{3.5.8} When Agesipolis grew up and came to the throne, the first Peloponnesians against whom he waged war were the Argives. When he led his army from the territory of Tegea into that of Argos, the Argives sent a herald to make for them with Agesipolis a certain ancestral truce, which from ancient times had been an established custom between Dorians and Dorians. But Agesipolis did not make the truce with the herald, but advancing with his army proceeded to devastate the land. Then there was an earthquake, but not even so would Agesipolis consent to take away his forces. And yet more than any other Greeks were the Lacedaemonians (in this respect like the Athenians) frightened by signs from the sky [dio-sēmeiai].
{3.5.9} By the time that he was encamping under the wall of Argos, the earthquakes were still occurring, some of the troops had actually been killed by lightning, and some moreover had been driven out of then senses by the thunder. In this circumstance he reluctantly withdrew from Argive territory, and began another campaign, attacking Olynthus. Victorious in the war, having captured most of the cities in Khalkidike, and hoping to capture Olynthus itself, he was suddenly attacked by a disease which ended in his death. [202]
{3.6.1} As Agesipolis died childless, the kingdom devolved upon Kleombrotos, who was general in the battle at Leuktra against the Boeotians. [203] Kleombrotos showed personal bravery, but fell when the battle was only just beginning. In great disasters Providence is peculiarly apt to cut off early the general, just as the Athenians lost Hippocrates the son of Ariphron, who commanded at Delium, and later on Leosthenes in Thessaly. [204]
{3.6.2} Agesipolis, the elder of the sons of Kleombrotos, is not a striking figure in history, and was succeeded by his younger brother Kleomenes. His first son was Akrotatos, his second Kleonymos. Akrotatos did not outlive his father, and when Kleomenes afterwards died, there arose a dispute about the throne between Kleonymos the son of Kleomenes and Areus the son of Akrotatos. So the senators acted as arbitrators, and decided that the dignity was the inheritance of Areus the son of Akrotatos, and not of Kleonymos.
{3.6.3} Deprived of his kingship Kleonymos became violently angry, and the ephors tried to soothe his feelings by bestowing upon him various honors, especially the leadership of the armies, so as to prevent his becoming one day an enemy of Sparta. But at last he committed many hostile acts against his fatherland, and induced Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs to invade Laconia.
{3.6.4} While Areus the son of Akrotatos was king in Sparta, Antigonos the son of Demetrios attacked Athens with an army and a fleet. [205] To the help of the Athenians there came the Egyptian expedition with Patroklos, and every available man of the Lacedaemonians with Areus their king at their head.
{3.6.5} Antigonos invested Athens and prevented the Athenian reinforcements from entering the city; so Patroklos dispatched messengers urging Areus and the Lacedaemonians to take the offensive against Antigonos. On their doing so, he would himself, he said, attack the Macedonians in rear; but before such a move it was not fair for Egyptian sailors to attack Macedonians on land. The Lacedaemonians were eager to make the venture, both because of their friendship for Athens and also because they were ambitious to hand down to posterity a famous achievement,
{3.6.6} but as their supplies were exhausted Areus led his army back home, thinking that desperate measures should be reserved for one’s own advantage and not risked recklessly for the benefit of others. After they had held out as long as they could, Antigonos made peace with the Athenians, on condition that he brought a garrison into the Museum to be a guard over them. After a time Antigonos himself removed the garrison from Athens of his own accord while Areus begat Akrotatos, and Akrotatos Areus, who died of disease when he was just about eight years old.
{3.6.7} And as the only male representative of the house of Eurysthenes was Leonidas the son of Kleonymos, by this time a very old man, the Lacedaemonians gave him the throne. Leonidas, it so happened, had a bitter opponent in Lysander, a descendant of Lysander the son of Aristokritos. This Lysander won over to his side Leonidas’ son-in-law Kleombrotos. After gaining his support he brought various charges against Leonidas, in particular that when a boy he had sworn to his father Kleonymos to ruin Sparta.
{3.6.8} So Leonidas ceased to be king and Kleombrotos came to the throne in his stead. Now if Leonidas had given way to impulse and retired, like Demaratos the son of Ariston, either to the king of Macedonia or to the Egyptian king, he would have profited nothing even by the Spartans changing their minds. But as it was, when the citizens sentenced him to exile, he went to Arcadia, whence not many years later he was recalled by the Lacedaemonians, who made him king again.
{3.6.9} Now how Kleomenes the son of Leonidas performed daring feats of valor, and how after him the Spartans ceased to be ruled by kings, I have already shown in my account of Aratos of Sikyon. My narrative also included the manner of his death in Egypt.
{3.7.1} So of the lineage of Eurysthenes, called the Agiadae, Kleomenes the son of Leonidas was the last king in Sparta. I will now relate what I have heard about the other house. Prokles the son of Aristodemos called his son Sous, whose son Eurypon they say reached such a pitch of renown that this house, hitherto called the Prokleidai, came to be named after him the Eurypontidai.
{3.7.2} The son of Eurypon was Prytanis, in whose reign began the enmity of the Lacedaemonians against the Argives, although even before this quarrel they made war against the Cynurians. During the generations immediately succeeding this, while Eunomos the son of Prytanis and Polydektes the son of Eunomos were on the throne, Sparta continued at peace,
{3.7.3} but Kharillos the son of Polydektes devastated the land of the Argives—for he it was who invaded Argolis—and not many years afterwards, under the leadership of Kharillos, took place the campaign of the Spartans against Tegea, when lured on by a deceptive oracle the Lacedaemonians hoped to capture the city and to annex the Tegean plain from Arcadia.
{3.7.4} After the death of Kharillos, Nikandros his son succeeded to the throne, in whose reign the Messenians murdered, in the sanctuary of the Lady of the Lake, Teleklos the king of the other house. Nikandros also invaded Argolis with an army, and laid waste the greater part of the land. The Asinaeans took part in this action with the Lacedaemonians, and shortly after were punished by the Argives, who inflicted great destruction on their fatherland and drove out the inhabitants.
{3.7.5} About Theopompos, the son of Nikandros, who ascended the throne after him, I shall have more to say later on, when I come to the history of Messenia. While Theopompos was still king in Sparta there also took place the struggle of the Lacedaemonians with the Argives for what is called the Thyreatid district. Theopompos personally took no part in the affair, chiefly because of old age and sorrow, for while he was yet alive Arkhidamos died.
{3.7.6} Nevertheless Arkhidamos did not die childless, but left a son Zeuxidamos, whose son Anaxidamos succeeded to the throne. In his reign the Messenians were expelled from the Peloponnesus, being vanquished for the second time by the Spartans. Anaxidamos begat Arkhidamos, and Arkhidamos begat Agesikles. It was the lot of both of these to pass all their lives in peace, undisturbed by any wars.
{3.7.7} Ariston, son of Agesikles, married a wife who, they say, was the ugliest girl in Sparta, but became the most beautiful of her women, because Helen changed her; seven months only after his marriage with her Ariston had born to him a son, Demaratos. As he was sitting in council with the ephors there came to him a servant with the news that a child was born to him. Ariston, forgetting the lines in the Iliad about the birth of Eurystheus, or else never having understood them at all, declared that because of the number of months the child was not his.
{3.7.8} Afterwards he repented of his words. Demaratos, a king of good repute at Sparta, particularly for his helping Kleomenes to free Athens from the Peisistratidai, [206] became a private citizen through the thoughtlessness of Ariston and the hatred of Kleomenes. He retired to king Dareios in Persia, and they say that his descendants remained in Asia for a long time.
{3.7.9} Leotykhides, on coming to the throne in place of Demaratos, took part with the Athenians and the Athenian general Xanthippos, the son of Ariphron, in the engagement of Mykale, [207] and afterwards undertook a campaign against the Aleuadaiin Thessaly. Although his uninterrupted victories in the fighting might have enabled him to reduce all Thessaly, he accepted bribes from the Aleuadae. [208]
{3.7.10} Or, being brought to trial in Lacedaemon he voluntarily went into exile to Tegea, where he sought sanctuary as a suppliant of Athena Alea. Zeuxidamos, the son of Leotykhides, died of disease while Leotykhides was still alive and before he retired into exile so his son Arkhidamos succeeded to the throne after the departure of Leotykhides for Tegea. This Arkhidamos did terrible damage to the land of the Athenians, invading Attica with an army every year, on each occasion carrying destruction from end to end; he also besieged and took Plataea, which was friendly to Athens. [209]
{3.7.11} Nevertheless he was not eager that war should be declared between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, but to the utmost of his power tried to keep the truce between them unbroken. [210] It was Sthenelaidas, an influential Spartan who was an ephor at the time, who was chiefly responsible for the war. Greece, that still stood firm, was shaken to its foundations by this war, and afterwards, when the structure had given way and was far from sound, was finally overthrown by Philip the son of Amyntas.
{3.8.1} Arkhidamos left sons when he died, of whom Agis was the elder and inherited the throne instead of Agesilaos. Arkhidamos had also a daughter, whose name was Kyniska; she was exceedingly ambitious to succeed at the Olympic games, and was the first woman to breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Kyniska other women, especially women of Lacedaemon, have won Olympic victories, but none of them was more distinguished for their victories than she.
{3.8.2} The Spartans seem to me to be of all men the least moved by poetry and the praise of poets. For with the exception of the epigram upon Kyniska, of uncertain authorship, and the still earlier one upon Pausanias that Simonides wrote on the tripod dedicated at Delphi, there is no poetic composition to commemorate the doings of the royal houses of the Lacedaemonians.
{3.8.3} In the reign of Agis the son of Arkhidamos the Lacedaemonians had several grievances against the people of Elis, being especially exasperated because they were debarred from the Olympic games and the sanctuary at Olympia. So they dispatched a herald commanding the people of Elis to grant home-rule to Lepreum and to any other of their neighbors [211] that were subject to them. The people of Elis replied that, when they saw the cities free that were neighbors of Sparta, they would without delay set free their own subjects; whereupon the Lacedaemonians under king Agis invaded the territory of Elis.
{3.8.4} On this occasion there occurred an earthquake, and the army retired home after advancing as far as Olympia and the Alpheus but in the next year Agis devastated the country and carried off most of the loot. Xenias, a man of Elis who was a personal friend of Agis and the state-friend [212] of the Lacedaemonians, rose up with the rich citizens against the people but before Agis and his army could come to their aid, Thrasydaeus, who at this time championed the interests of the popular party at Elis, overthrew in battle Xenias and his followers and cast them out of the city.
{3.8.5} When Agis led back his army, he left behind Lysistratos, a Spartan, with a portion of his forces, along with the Eleian refugees, that they might help the Lepreans to ravage the land. In the third year of the war [213] the Lacedaemonians under Agis again prepared to invade the territory of Elis. So Thrasydaeus and the Eleians, reduced to dire extremities, agreed to forgo their supremacy over their neighbors, to dismantle the fortifications of their city, and to allow the Lacedaemonians to sacrifice to the god and to compete in the games at Olympia.
{3.8.6} Agis used also to make continual incursions into Attica, and established the fortified post at Decelea to annoy the Athenians. [214] When the Athenian navy was destroyed at Aigospotamoi, [215] Lysander, the son of Aristokritos, and Agis violated the oaths which the Lacedaemonians as a state had sworn by the gods to the Athenians, and it was on their own initiative, and without the approval of the Spartan state, that they put before their allies the proposal to destroy Athens root and branch.
{3.8.7} Such were the most remarkable military achievements of Agis. The rash remark that Ariston made about Demaratos was also made by Agis about his son Leotykhides; at the suggestion of some evil spirit he said in the hearing of the ephors that he did not believe Leotykhides to be his son. Yet Agis, too, repented afterwards; he was at the time being carried home sick from Arcadia, and when he reached Heraia, he not only called the people to witness that he sincerely believed Leotykhides to be his very own son, but also with prayers and tears charged them to take the tidings to the Lacedaemonians.
{3.8.8} After the death of Agis, Agesilaos tried to keep Leotykhides from the throne, recalling to the minds of the Lacedaemonians what Agis once said about Leotykhides. But the Arcadians from Heraia arrived and bore witness for Leotykhides, stating what they had heard the dying Agis say.
{3.8.9} Yet further fuel for the controversy between Agesilaos and Leotykhides was supplied by the oracle that was delivered at Delphi to this effect:
“Sparta beware! though haughty, pay heed to the warning I give thee.
Never let thy sound limbs give birth to a kingdom that lame is.
Too long then shalt thou lie in the clutches of desperate hardships;
Turmoil of war shall arise, o’erwhelming men in its billows.”
Never let thy sound limbs give birth to a kingdom that lame is.
Too long then shalt thou lie in the clutches of desperate hardships;
Turmoil of war shall arise, o’erwhelming men in its billows.”
{3.8.10} Leotykhides on this occasion said that these words pointed to Agesilaos, who was lame in one of his feet, while Agesilaos interpreted them as alluding to the illegitimacy of Leotykhides. Although they might have done so, the Lacedaemonians did not refer the disputed point to Delphi; the reason was in my opinion that Lysander, the son of Aristokritos, an active supporter of Agesilaos, would have him king at all costs.
{3.9.1} So Agesilaos, son of Arkhidamos, became king, and the Lacedaemonians resolved to cross with a fleet to Asia in order to put down Artaxerxes, son of Dareios. [216] For they were informed by several of their magistrates, especially by Lysander, that it was not Artaxerxes but Cyrus who had been supplying the pay for the fleet during the war with Athens. Agesilaos, who was appointed to lead the expedition across to Asia and to be in command of the land forces, sent round to all parts of the Peloponnesus, except Argos, and to the Greeks north of the Isthmus, asking for allies.
{3.9.2} Now the Corinthians were most eager to take part in the expedition to Asia, but considering it a bad omen that their temple of Zeus surnamed Olympian had been suddenly burned down, they reluctantly remained behind. The Athenians excused themselves on the ground that their city was returning to its former state of prosperity after the Peloponnesian war and the epidemic of plague, and the news brought by messengers, that Konon, son of Timotheus, had gone up to the Persian king, strongly confirmed them in their policy of inactivity.
{3.9.3} The envoy dispatched to Thebes was Aristomelidas, the father of the mother of Agesilaos, a close friend of the Thebans who, when the wall of Plataea had been taken, had been one of the judges voting that the remnant of the garrison should be put to death. Now the Thebans like the Athenians refused, saying that they would give no help. When Agesilaos had assembled his Lacedaemonian forces and those of the allies, and at the same time the fleet was ready, he went to Aulis to sacrifice to Artemis, because Agamemnon too had propitiated the goddess here before leading the expedition to Troy.
{3.9.4} Agesilaos, then, claimed to be king of a more prosperous city than was Agamemnon, and to be like him overlord of all Greece, and that it would be a more glorious success to conquer Artaxerxes and acquire the riches of Persia than to destroy the empire of Priam. But even as he was sacrificing armed Thebans came upon him, threw dawn from the altar the still burning thighbones of the victims, and drove him from the sanctuary.
{3.9.5} Though vexed that the sacrifice was not completed, Agesilaos nevertheless crossed into Asia and launched an attack against Sardes for Lydia at this period was the most important district of lower Asia, and Sardes, pre-eminent for its wealth and resources, had been assigned as a residence to the satrap of the coast region, just as Susa had been to the king himself.
{3.9.6} A battle was fought on the plain of the Hermos with Tissaphernes, satrap of the parts around Ionia, in which Agesilaos conquered the cavalry of the Persians and the infantry, of which the muster on this occasion had been surpassed only in the expedition of Xerxes and in the earlier ones of Dareios against the Scythians and against Athens. The Lacedaemonians, admiring the energy of Agesilaos, added to his command the control of the fleet. But Agesilaos made his brother-in-law, Peisandros, admiral, and devoted himself to carrying on the war vigorously by land.
{3.9.7} The jealousy of some deity prevented him from bringing his plans to their conclusion. For when Artaxerxes heard of the victories won by Agesilaos, and how, by attending to the task that lay before him, he advanced with his army even further and further, he put Tissaphernes to death in spite of his previous services, and sent down to the sea Tithraustes, a clever schemer who had some grudge against the Lacedaemonians.
{3.9.8} On his arrival at Sardes he at once thought out a plan by which to force the Lacedaemonians to recall their army from Asia. He sent Timocrates, a Rhodian, to Greece with money, instructing him to stir up in Greece a war against the Lacedaemonians. Those who shared in this money are said to have been the Argives Kylon and Sodamas, the Thebans Androkleides, Ismenias and Amphithemis, the Athenians Cephalus and Epicrates, with the Corinthians who had Argive sympathies, Polyanthes and Timolaos.
{3.9.9} But those who first openly started the war were the peoplefrom Amphissa in Lokris. For there happened to be a piece of land the ownership of which was a matter of dispute between the people of Lokris and the people of Phokis. Egged on by Ismenias and his party at Thebes, the people of Lokris cut the ripe wheat in this land and drove off the what they had plundered. The men of Phokis on their side invaded Lokris with all their forces, and laid waste the land.
{3.9.10} So the people of Lokris brought in the Thebans as allies, and devastated Phokis. Going to Lacedaemon the men of Phokis inveighed against the Thebans, and set forth what they had suffered at their hands. The Lacedaemonians determined to make war against Thebes, chief among their grievances being the outrageous way the Thebans behaved towards Agesilaos when he was sacrificing at Aulis.
{3.9.11} The Athenians receiving early intimation of the Lacedaemonians’ intentions, sent to Sparta begging them to submit their grievances to a court of arbitration instead of appealing to arms, but the Lacedaemonians dismissed the envoys in anger. The sequel, how the Lacedaemonians set forth and how Lysander died, I have already described in my account of Pausanias. [217]
{3.9.12} And what was called the Corinthian war, which continually became more serious, had its origin in the expedition of the Lacedaemonians into Boeotia. [218] So these circumstances compelled Agesilaos to lead his army back from Asia. Crossing with his fleet from Abydos to Sestos he passed through Thrace as far as Thessaly, where the Thessalians, to please the Thebans, tried to prevent his further progress; there was also an old friendship between them and Athens.
{3.9.13} But Agesilaos put the Thessalian cavalry to flight and passed through Thessaly, and again made his way through Boeotia, winning a victory over Thebes and the allies at Coronea. When the Boeotians were put to flight, certain of them took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena surnamed Itonia. Agesilaos, although suffering from a wound received in the battle, did not sin against the suppliants.
{3.10.1} Not long afterwards the Corinthians in exile for pro-Spartan sympathies held the Isthmian games. The Corinthians in the city made no move at the time, through their fear of Agesilaos but when he marched to Sparta, they too celebrated the Isthmian games along with the Argives. Agesilaos again marched with an army against Corinth, and, as the festival Hyakinthia was at hand, he gave the Amycleans leave to go back home and perform the traditional rites in honor of Apollo and Hyakinthos. This battalion was attacked on the way and annihilated by the Athenians under Iphicrates.
{3.10.2} Agesilaos went also to Aetolia to give assistance to the Aetolians, who were hard pressed in a war with, the Acarnanians; [219] these he compelled to put an end to the war, although they had come very near capturing Calydon and the other towns of the Aetolians. Afterwards he sailed to Egypt, to protect the Egyptians who had revolted from the king of Persia. Agesilaos performed many noteworthy achievements in Egypt, but, being by this time ah old man, he died on the march. Then his dead body was brought home, the Lacedaemonians buried it with greater honors than they had given to any other king.
{3.10.3} In the reign of Arkhidamos, son of Agesilaos, the people of Phokis seized the sanctuary at Delphi. [220] To help in a war with Thebes the people of Phokis hired with its wealth independent mercenaries, but they here also aided publicly by the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, the latter calling to mind some old service rendered by the people of Phokis, the former, too, pretending to be friends when their real reason was, I think, hatred of the Thebans. Theopompos, son of Damasistratos, said that Arkhidamos himself had a share of the Delphic money, and further that Deinicha the wife of Arkhidamos, receiving a bribe from the chief men of Phokis, made Arkhidamos more ready to bring them reinforcements.
{3.10.4} To accept sacred money and to help men who had pillaged the most famous of oracles I do not hold praiseworthy, but the following incident does redound to his praise. The men of Phokis were contemplating the cruel course of killing the Delphians of vigorous age, enslaving the women and children, and levelling the city itself to the ground; it was due to the intercession of Arkhidamos that they escaped this fate at the hands of the men of Phokis.
{3.10.5} Arkhidamos afterwards also crossed over into Italy to help the people of Tarentum to wage war against their foreign neighbors. Here he was killed by the foreigners, and his corpse missed burial owing to the anger of Apollo. Agis, the elder son of this Arkhidamos, met his death fighting against Antipatros and the Macedonians, but while the younger son, Eudamidas, was king, the Lacedaemonians enjoyed peace. The history of Agis, son of Eudamidas, and of Eurydamidas, son of Agis, my account of Sikyon has already set forth.
{3.10.6} On the way from the Hermaithe whole of the region is full of oak trees. The name of the district, Scotitas (Dark), is not due to the unbroken woods but to Zeus surnamed Scotitas, and there is a sanctuary of Zeus Scotitas on the left of the road and about ten stadium-lengths from it. If you go back from the sanctuary to the road, advance a little and then turn again to the left, you come to an image of Hēraklēs and a trophy, which I was told Hēraklēs raised after killing Hippokoön and his sons.
{3.10.7} The third branch from the straight road is on the right, and leads to Caryae (Walnut trees) and to the sanctuary of Artemis. For Caryae is a region sacred to Artemis and the nymphs, and here stands in the open an image of Artemis Caryatis. Here every year the Lacedaemonian girls hold chorus-dances, and they have a traditional native dance. On returning, as you go along the highway, you come to the ruins of Sellasia. The people of this city, as I have stated already, were sold into slavery by the Achaeans after they had conquered in battle the Lacedaemonians under their king Kleomenes, the son of Leonidas. [221]
{3.10.8} In Thornax, which you will reach as you go along, is an image of Apollo Pythaeus, made after the style of the one at Amyklai; the fashion of it I will describe when I come to speak of the latter. For in the eyes of the Lacedaemonians the cult of the Amyklaian is the more distinguished, so that they spent on adorning the image in Amyklai even the gold which Croesus the Lydian sent for Apollo Pythaeus. [222]
{3.11.1} Farther on from Thornax is the city, which was originally named Sparta, but in course of time came to be called Lacedaemon as well, a name which till then belonged to the land. To prevent misconception, I added in my account of Attica that I had not mentioned everything in order, but had made a selection of what was most noteworthy. This I will repeat before beginning my account of Sparta; for from the beginning the plan of my work has been to discard the many trivial stories current among the several communities, and to pick out the things most worthy of mention—an excellent rule which I will never violate.
{3.11.2} The Lacedaemonians who live in Sparta have a marketplace worth seeing; the council-chamber of the senate, and the offices of the ephors, of the guardians of the laws, and of those called the Bidiaeans, are all in the marketplace. The senate is the council which has the supreme control of the Lacedaemonian constitution, the other officials form the executive. Both the ephors and the Bidiaeans are five in number; it is customary for the latter to hold competitions for the boys, particularly the one at the place called Platanistas (Plane tree Grove), while the ephors transact the most serious business, one of them giving his name to the year, just as in Athens this privilege belongs to one of those called the Nine Arkhontes.
{3.11.3} The most striking feature in the marketplace is the portico which they call Persian because it was made from spoils taken in the Persian wars. In course of time they have altered it until it is as large and as splendid as it is now. On the pillars are white-marble figures of Persians, including Mardonios, son of Gobryas. There is also a figure of Artemisia, daughter of Lygdamis and queen of Halicarnassus. It is said that this lady voluntarily joined the expedition of Xerxes against Greece and distinguished herself at the naval engagement off Salamis.
{3.11.4} On the marketplace are temples; there is one of Caesar, the first Roman to covet monarchy and the first emperor under the present constitution, and also one to his son Augustus, who put the empire on a firmer footing, and became a more famous and a more powerful man than his father. His name “Augustus” means in Greek sebastos (reverend).
{3.11.5} At the altar of Augustus they show a bronze statue of Agias. This Agias, they say, by divining for Lysander captured the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi with the exception of ten ships of war. [223] These made their escape to Cyprus; all the rest the Lacedaemonians captured along with their crews. Agias was a son of Agelokhos, a son of Tisamenus.
{3.11.6} Tisamenus belonged to the lineage of the Iamidai at Elis, and an oracle was given to him that he should win five most famous contests. So he trained for the pentathlon at Olympia, but came away defeated. And yet he was first in two events, beating Hieronymos of Andros in running and in jumping. But when he lost the wrestling bout to this competitor, and so missed the prize, he understood what the oracle meant, that the god granted him to win five contests in war by his divinations.
{3.11.7} The Lacedaemonians, hearing of the oracle the Pythian priestess had given to Tisamenus, persuaded him to migrate from Elis and to be state-diviner at Sparta. And Tisamenus won them five contests in war. [224] The first was at Plataea against the Persians; the second was at Tegea, when the Lacedaemonians had engaged the Tegeans and Argives; the third was at Dipaea, an Arcadian town in Maenalia, when all the Arcadians except the Mantineians were arrayed against them.
{3.11.8} His fourth contest was against the Helots who had rebelled and left the Isthmus for Ithome. [225] Not all the Helots revolted, only the Messenian element, which separated itself off from the old Helots. These events I shall relate presently. On the occasion I mention the Lacedaemonians allowed the rebels to depart under a truce, in accordance with the advice of Tisamenus and of the oracle at Delphi. The last time Tisamenus divined for them was at Tanagra, an engagement taking place with the Argives and Athenians. [226]
{3.11.9} Such I learned was the history of Tisamenus. On their marketplace the Spartans have images of Apollo Pythaeus, of Artemis and of Leto. The whole of this region is called Choros (Dancing), because at the Gymnopaediae, a festival which the Lacedaemonians take more seriously than any other, the boys perform dances in honor of Apollo. Not far from them is a sanctuary of Earth and of Zeus of the Marketplace, another of Athena of the Marketplace and of Poseidon surnamed Securer, and likewise one of Apollo and of Hērā.
{3.11.10} There is also dedicated a colossal statue of the Spartan People. The Lacedaemonians have also a sanctuary of the Fates, by which is the tomb of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. For when the bones of Orestes were brought from Tegea in accordance with an oracle they were buried here. Beside the tomb of Orestes is a statue of Polydoros, son of Alkamenes, a king who rose to such honor that the magistrates seal with his likeness everything that requires sealing.
{3.11.11} There is also Hermes of the Marketplace carrying Dionysus as a child, besides the old Courts of the Ephors, as they are called, in which are the tombs of Epimenides the Cretan and of Aphareus the son of Perieres. As to Epimenides, I think the Lacedaemonian story is more probable than the Argive. Here, where the Fates are, the Lacedaemonians also have a sanctuary of Hestia. There is also Zeus Hospitable and Athena Hospitable.
{3.12.1} As you go from the marketplace by the road they name the Aphetaid Road, you come to the so-called Booneta. [227] But my narrative must first explain why the road has this name.
{3.12.2} It is said that Icarius proposed a foot-race for the wooers of Penelope; that Odysseus won is plain, but they say that the competitors were let go (aphethenai) for the race along the Aphetaid Road. In my opinion, Icarius was imitating Danaos when he held the running-race. For Danaos contrived the following plan to solve the difficulty about his daughters. Nobody would take a wife from among them because of their pollution so Danaos sent round a notice that he would give away his daughters without bride-gifts, and that each suitor could choose the one whose beauty pleased him most. A few men came, among whom he held a foot-race the first comer was allowed to choose before all the others, after him the second, and so on to the last. The daughters that were left had to wait until other suitors arrived and competed in another foot-race.
{3.12.3} On this road the Lacedaemonians have, as I have already said, what is called the Booneta, which once was the house of their king Polydoros. When he died, they bought it from his widow, paying the price in oxen. For at that time there was as yet neither silver nor gold coinage, but they still bartered in the old way with oxen, slaves, and uncoined silver and gold.
{3.12.4} Those who sail to India say that the natives give other merchandise in exchange for Greek cargoes, knowing nothing about coinage, even though they have plenty of gold and of bronze.
On the opposite side of the office of the Bidiaeans is a sanctuary of Athena. Odysseus is said to have set up the image and to have named it Keleuthea (Lady of the Road), when he had beaten the suitors of Penelope in the foot-race. Of Keleuthea he set up sanctuaries, three in number, at some distance from each other.
{3.12.5} Farther along the Aphetaid Road are hero-shrines, of Iops, who is supposed to have been born in the time of Lelex or. Myles, and of Amphiaraos the son of Oikles. The last they think was made by the sons of Tyndareus, for that Amphiaraos was their cousin. There is a hero-shrine of Lelex himself. Not far from these is a precinct of Poseidon of Taenarum, which is the surname given him, and near by an image of Athena, which is said to have been dedicated by the colonists
{3.12.6} who left for Tarentum in Italy. As to the place they call the HeIlenium, it has been stated that those of the Greeks who were preparing to repel Xerxes when he was crossing into Europe deliberated at this place how they should resist. The other story is that those who made the expedition against Troy to please Menelaos deliberated here how they could sail out to Troy and exact satisfaction from Alexander for carrying off Helen.
{3.12.7} Near the Hellenium they point out the tomb of Talthybios. The Achaeans of Aigion too say that a tomb which they show on their marketplace belongs to Talthybios. It was this Talthybios whose wrath at the murder of the heralds, who were sent to Greece by king Dareios to demand earth and water, left its mark upon the whole state of the Lacedaemonians, but in Athens fell upon individuals, the members of the house of one man, Miltiades the son of Kimon. Miltiades was responsible for the death at the hands of the Athenians of those of the heralds who came to Attica.
{3.12.8} The Lacedaemonians have an altar of Apollo Acritas, and a sanctuary, surnamed Gasepton, of Earth. Above it is set up Maleatian Apollo. At the end of the Aphetaid Road, quite close to the wall, are a sanctuary of Dictynna and the royal tombs of those called the Eurypontidai. Beside the Hellenium is a sanctuary of Arsinoe, daughter of Leukippos and sister of the wives of Polydeukes and Castor (Kastor). At the place called the Forts is a temple of Artemis, and a little further on has been built a tomb for the diviners from Elis, called the Iamidai.
{3.12.9} There is also a sanctuary of Maron and of Alpheios. Of the Lacedaemonians who served at Thermopylae they consider that these men distinguished themselves in the fighting more than any save Leonidas himself. The sanctuary of Zeus Tropaean (He who turns to flight) was made by the Dorians, when they had conquered in war the Amyklaians, as well as the other Achaeans, who at that time occupied Laconia. The sanctuary of the Great Mother has paid to it the most extraordinary honors. After it come the hero-shrines of Hippolytus, son of Theseus, and of the Arcadian Aulon, son of Tlesimenes. Some say that Tlesimenes was a brother, others a son of Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion.
{3.12.10} Leading from the marketplace is another road, on which they have built what is called Scias (Canopy), where even at the present day they hold their meetings of the Assembly. This Canopy was made, they say, by Theodoros of Samos, who discovered the melting of iron and the moulding of images from it. [228] Here the Lacedaemonians hung the harp of Timotheus of Miletus, to express their disapproval of his innovation in harping, the addition of four strings to the seven old ones.
{3.12.11} By the Canopy is a circular building, and in it images of Zeus and Aphrodite surnamed Olympian. This, they say, was set up by Epimenides, but their account of him does not agree with that of the Argives, for the Lacedaemonians deny that they ever fought with the Cnossians.
{3.13.1} Hard by is the tomb of Cynortas son of Amyclas, together with the tomb of Castor (Kastor), and over the tomb there has also been made a sanctuary, for they say that it was not before the fortieth year after the fight with Idas and Lynkeus that divine honors were paid to the sons of Tyndareus. By the Canopy is also shown the tomb of Idas and Lynkeus. Now it fits in best with their history to hold that they were buried not here but in Messenia.
{3.13.2} But the disasters of the Messenians, and the length of their exile from the Peloponnesus, even after their return wrapped in darkness much of their ancient history, and their. ignorance makes it easy for any who wish to dispute a claim with them.
Opposite the Olympian Aphrodite the Lacedaemonians have a temple of the Savior Maiden. Some say that it was made by Orpheus the Thracian, others by Abairis when he had come from the Hyperboreans.
{3.13.3} Carneus, whom they surname “of the House,” had honors in Sparta even before the return of the Herakleidai, his seat being in the house of a seer, Crius (Ram) the son of Theokles. The daughter of this Crius was met as she was filling her pitcher by spies of the Dorians, who entered into conversation with her, visited Crius and learned from him how to capture Sparta.
{3.13.4} The cult of Apollo Carneus has been established among all the Dorians ever since Carnus, an Acarnanian by birth, who was a seer of Apollo. When he was killed by Hippotes the son of Phylas, the wrath of Apollo fell upon the camp of the Dorians Hippotes went into banishment because of the bloodguilt, and from this time the custom was established among the Dorians of propitiating the Acarnanian seer. But this Carnus is not the Lacedaemonian Carneus of the House, who was worshipped in the house of Crius the seer while the Achaeans were still in possession of Sparta.
{3.13.5} The poetess Praxilla represents Carneus as the son of Europa, Apollo and Leto being his nurses. There is also another account of the name; in Trojan Ida there grew in a grove of Apollo cornel trees, which the Greeks cut down to make the Wooden Horse. Learning that the god was angry with them they propitiated him with sacrifices and named Apollo Carneus from the cornel tree (craneia), a custom prevalent in the olden time making them transpose the r and the a.
{3.13.6} Not far from Carneus is what is called the image of Aphetaeus. Here they say was the starting-place of the race run by the suitors of Penelope. There is a place having its porticoes in the form of a square, where of old stuff used to be sold to the people. By this is an altar of Zeus Counsellor and of Athena Counsellor, also of the Dioskouroi, likewise surnamed Counsellors.
{3.13.7} Opposite is what is called the Knoll, with a temple of Dionysus of the Knoll, by which is a precinct of the hero who they say guided Dionysus on the way to Sparta. To this hero sacrifices are offered before they are offered to the god by the daughters of Dionysus and the daughters of Leukippos. For the other eleven ladies who are named daughters of Dionysus there is held a foot-race; this custom came to Sparta from Delphi.
{3.13.8} Not far from the Dionysus is a sanctuary of Zeus of Fair Wind, on the right of which is a hero-shrine of Pleuron. The sons of Tyndareus were descended on their mother’s side from Pleuron, for Asios in his poem says that Thestios the father of Leda was the son of Agenor the son of Pleuron. Not far from the hero-shrine is a hill, and on the hill a temple of Argive Hērā, set up, they say, by Eurydikē, the daughter of Lacedaemon and the wife of Akrisios the son of Abas. An oracular utterance caused to be built a sanctuary of Hērā Hyperchemia (she whose hand is above) at a time when the Eurotas was flooding a great part of the land.
{3.13.9} An old wooden image they call that of Aphrodite Hērā. A mother is accustomed to sacrifice to the goddess when a daughter is married. On the road to the right of the hill is a statue of Hetoimokles. Both Hetoimokles himself and his father Hipposthenes won Olympic victories for wrestling the two together won eleven, but Hipposthenes succeeded in beating his son by one victory.
{3.14.1} On going westwards from the marketplace is a cenotaph of Brasidas the son of Tellis. [229] Not far from it is the theater, made of white marble and worth seeing. Opposite the theater are two tombs; the first is that of Pausanias, the general at Plataea, the second is that of Leonidas. Every year they deliver speeches over them, and hold a contest in which none may compete except Spartans. The bones of Leonidas were taken by Pausanias from Thermopylae forty years after the battle. There is set up a slab with the names, and their fathers’ names, of those who endured the fight at Thermopylae against the Persians.
{3.14.2} There is a place in Sparta called Theomelida. In this part of the city are the tombs of the Agiad kings, and near is what is called the lounge of the Crotani, who form a part of the Pitanatans. Not far from the lounge is a sanctuary of Asklepios, called “in the place of the Agiadae.” Farther on is the tomb of Taenarus, after whom they say the headland was named that juts out into the sea. Here are sanctuaries of Poseidon Hippocurius (Horse-tending) and of Artemis Aiginaia (Goat-goddess?). On returning to the lounge you see a sanctuary of Artemis Issoria. They surname her also Lady of the Lake, though she is not really Artemis hut Britomartis of Crete. I deal with her in my account of Aegina.
{3.14.3} Very near to the tombs which have been built for the Agiadaiyou will see a slab, on which are written the victories in the foot-race won, at Olympia and elsewhere, by Khionis, a Lacedaemonian. [230] The Olympian victories were seven, four in the single-stadium-length race and three in the double-stadium-length race. [231] The race with the shield, that takes place at the end of the contest, was not at that time one of the events. It is said that Khionis also took part in the expedition of Battos of Thera, helped him to found Cyrene and to reduce the neighboring Libyans.
{3.14.4} The sanctuary of Thetis was set up, they say, for the following reason. The Lacedaemonians were making war against the Messenians, who had revolted, and their king Anaxander, having invaded Messenia, took prisoners certain women, and among them Kleo, priestess of Thetis. This Kleo the wife of Anaxandros asked for from her husband, and discovering that she had the wooden image of Thetis, she set up with her a temple for the goddess. This Leandris did because of a vision in a dream,
{3.14.5} but the wooden image of Thetis is guarded in secret. The cult of Demeter Chthonia (of the Lower World) the Lacedaemonians say was handed on to them by Orpheus, but in my opinion it was because of the sanctuary in Hermione [232] that the Lacedaemonians also began to worship Demeter Chthonia. The Spartans have also a sanctuary of Serapis, the newest sanctuary in the city, and one of Zeus surnamed Olympian.
{3.14.6} The Lacedaemonians give the name Running Course to the place where it is the custom for the young men even down to the present day to practice running. As you go to this Course from the tomb of the Agiadae, you see on the left the tomb of Eumedes—this Eumedes was one of the children of Hippokoön—and also an old image of Hēraklēs, to whom sacrifice is paid by the Sphaereis. These are those who are just passing from youth to manhood. In the Course are two gymnastic schools, one being a votive gift of Eurykles, a Spartan. Outside the Course, over against the image of Hēraklēs, there is a house belonging now to a private individual, but in olden times to Menelaos. Farther away from the Course are sanctuaries of the Dioskouroi, of the Graces, of Eileithuia, of Apollo Carneus, and of Artemis Leader.
{3.14.7} The sanctuary of Agnitas has been made on the right of the Course; Agnitas is a surname of Asklepios, because the god had a wooden image of agnus castus. The agnus is a willow like the thorn. Not far from Asklepios stands a trophy, raised, they say, by Polydeukes to celebrate his victory over Lynkeus. This is one of the pieces of evidence that confirm my statement that the sons of Aphareus were not buried in Sparta. At the beginning of the Course are the Dioskouroi Starters, and a little farther on a hero-shrine of Alcon, who they say was a son of Hippokoön.
Beside the shrine of Alcon is a sanctuary of Poseidon, whom they surname “of the House.”
{3.14.8} And there is a place called Platanistas (Plane tree Grove) from the unbroken ring of tall plane trees growing round it. The place itself, where it is customary for the youths to fight, is surrounded by a moat just like an island in the sea; you enter it by bridges. On each of the two bridges stand images; on one side an image of Hēraklēs, on the other a likeness of Lycurgus (Lykourgos). Among the laws Lycurgus (Lykourgos) laid down for the constitution are those regulating the fighting of the youths.
{3.14.9} There are other acts performed by the youths, which I will now describe. Before the fighting they sacrifice in the Phoebaeum, which is outside the city, not far distant from Therapne. Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalios, holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except the people of Kolophon; these too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch, to the Wayside Goddess. Both the sacrifice of the Kolophonians and that of the youths at Sparta are appointed to take place at night.
{3.14.10} At the sacrifice the youths set trained boars to fight; the company whose boar happens to win generally gains the victory in Plane tree Grove. Such are the performances in the Phoebaeum. A little before the middle of the next day they enter by the bridges into the place I have mentioned. They cast lots during the night to decide by which entrance each band is to go in. In fighting they use their hands, kick with their feet, bite, and gouge out the eyes of their opponents. Man to man they fight in the way I have described, but in the melee they charge violently and push one another into the water.
{3.15.1} At Plane tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of Kyniska, daughter of Arkhidamos king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot-race at Olympia. Behind the portico built by the side of Plane tree Grove are other hero-shrines, of Alcimus, of Enaraephorus, at a little distance away one of Dorceus, and close to it one of Sebrus.
{3.15.2} These are said to be sons of Hippokoön. The fountain near the hero-shrine of Dorceus they call Dorcean after him; the place Sebrium is named after Sebrus. On the right of Sebrium is the tomb of Alcman, the lyric poet, the charm of whose works was not in the least spoilt by the Laconian dialect, which is the least musical of them all.
{3.15.3} There are sanctuaries of Helen and of Hēraklēs; the former is near the tomb of Alcman, the latter is quite close to the wall and contains an armed image of Hēraklēs. The attitude of the image is due, they say, to the fight with Hippokoön and his sons. The enmity of Hēraklēs towards the lineage of Hippokoön is said to have sprung out of their refusing to purify him when he came to Sparta for purifying after the death of Iphitos.
{3.15.4} The following incident, too, helped to begin the feud. Oeonus, a young cousin of Hēraklēs—he was the son of Licymnius the brother of Alcmene—came to Sparta along with Hēraklēs, and went round to view the city. When he came to the house of Hippokoön, a house-dog attacked him. Oeonus happened to throw a stone which knocked over the dog. So the sons of Hippokoön ran out, and dispatched Oeonus with their clubs.
{3.15.5} This made Hēraklēs most bitterly angry with Hippokoön and his sons, and straightway, angry as he was, he set out to give them battle. On this occasion he was wounded, and made good his retreat by stealth but afterwards he made an expedition against Sparta and succeeded in avenging himself on Hippokoön, and also on the sons of Hippokoön for their murder of Oeonus. The tomb of Oeonus is built by the side of the sanctuary of Hēraklēs.
{3.15.6} As you go from the Course towards the east, there is a path on the right, with a sanctuary of Athena called Axiopoinos (Just Requital or Tit for Tat). For when Hēraklēs, in avenging himself on Hippokoön and his sons, had inflicted upon them a just requital for their treatment of his relative, he founded a sanctuary of Athena, and surnamed her Axiopoinos because the ancients used to call vengeance poinai. There is another sanctuary of Athena on another road from the Course. It was dedicated, they say, by Theras son of Autesion son of Tisamenus son of Thersandros, when he was leading a colony to the island now called Thera after him, the name of which in ancient times was Kalliste (Fairest).
{3.15.7} Near is a temple of Hipposthenes, who won so many victories in wrestling. They worship Hipposthenes in accordance with an oracle, paying him honors as to Poseidon. Opposite this temple is an old image of Enyalios in fetters. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Victory; the former think that Enyalios will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, while the Athenians think that Victory, having no wings, will always remain where she is.
{3.15.8} In this fashion, and with such a belief have these cities set up the wooden images. In Sparta is a lounge called Painted, and by it hero-shrines of Kadmos the son of Agenor, and of his descendants Oiolykos, son of Theras, and Aigeus, son of Oiolykos. They are said to have been made by Maesis, Laeas and Europas, sons of Hyraeus, son of Aigeus. They made for Amphilokhos too his hero-shrine, because their ancestor Tisamenus had for his mother Demonassa, the sister of Amphilokhos.
{3.15.9} The Lacedaemonians are the only Greeks who surname Hērā Goat-eater, and sacrifice goats to the goddess. They say that Hēraklēs founded the sanctuary and was the first to sacrifice goats, because in his fight against Hippokoön and his children he met with no hindrance from Hērā, although in his other adventures he thought that the goddess opposed him. He sacrificed goats, they say, because he lacked other kinds of victims.
{3.15.10} Not far from the theater is a sanctuary of Poseidon God of Kin, and there are hero-shrines of Kleodaios, son of Hyllos, and of Oibalos. The most famous of their sanctuaries of Asklepios has been built near Boöneta, and on the left is the hero-shrine of Teleklos. I shall mention him again later in my history of Messenia. [233] A little farther on is a small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of Aphrodite armed. This is the only temple I know that has an upper storey built upon it.
{3.15.11} It is a sanctuary of Morpho, a surname of Aphrodite, who sits wearing a veil and with fetters on her feet. The story is that the fetters were put on her by Tyndareus, who symbolized by the bonds the faithfulness of wives to their husbands. The other account, that Tyndareus punished the goddess with fetters because he thought that from Aphrodite had come the shame of his daughters, I will not admit for a moment. For it were surely altogether silly to expect to punish the goddess by making a cedar figure and naming it Aphrodite.
{3.16.1} Near is a sanctuary of Hilaeira and of Phoebe. The author of the poem Cypria calls them daughters of Apollo. Their priestesses are young maidens, called, as are also the goddesses, Leukippides (Daughter of Leukippos). [234] One of the images was adorned by a Leucippis who had served the goddesses as a priestess. She gave it a face of modern workmanship instead of the old one; she was forbidden by a dream to adorn the other one as well. Here there his been hung from the roof an egg tied to ribands, and they say that it is the famous egg that legend says Leda brought forth.
{3.16.2} Each year the women weave a tunic for the Apollo at Amyklai, and they call Tunic the chamber in which they do their weaving. Near it is built a house, said to have been occupied originally by the sons of Tyndareus, but afterwards it was acquired by Phormion, a Spartan. To him came the Dioskouroi in the likeness of strangers. They said that they had come from Cyrene, and asked to lodge with him, requesting to have the chamber which had pleased them most when they dwelled among men.
{3.16.3} He replied that they might lodge in any other part of the house they wished, but that they could not have the chamber.
For it so happened that his virgin daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioskouroi, a table, and silphium upon it.
{3.16.4} Such is the story. As you go from the Tunic in the direction of the gate there is a hero-shrine of Kheilon, who is considered one of the Seven Sages, and also of Athenodoros, one of those who with Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides set out for Sicily. The reason of their setting out was that they held that the Erycine district belonged to the descendants of Hēraklēs and not to the foreigners who held it. The story is that Hēraklēs wrestled with Eryx on these terms: if Hēraklēs won, the land of Eryx was to belong to him but if he were beaten, Eryx was to depart with the cows of Geryon;
{3.16.5} for Hēraklēs at the time was driving these away, and when they swam across to Sicily he too crossed over in search of them near the bent olive tree. The good will [tò eumenes] emanating from the gods [theoi] was more partial to Hēraklēs than it was afterwards to Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides; Hēraklēs killed Eryx, but Dorieus himself and the greater part of his army were destroyed by the Egestaeans.
{3.16.6} The Lacedaemonians have also made a sanctuary for Lycurgus (Lykourgos), who drew up the laws, looking upon him as a god. Behind the temple is the tomb of Eukosmos, the son of Lycurgus (Lykourgos), and by the altar the tomb of Lathria and Anaxandra. Now these were themselves twins, and therefore the sons of Aristodemos, who also were twins likewise, took them to wife; they were daughters of Thersandros son of Agamedidas, king of the people of Kleonai and great-grandson of Ktesippos, son of Hēraklēs. Opposite the temple is the tomb of Theopompos son of Nikandros, and also that of Eurybiades, who commanded the Lacedaemonian warships that fought the Persians at Artemisium and Salamis. Near is what is called the hero-shrine of Astrabacus.
{3.16.7} The place named Limnaeum (Marshy) is sacred to Artemis Orthia (Upright). The wooden image there they say is that which once Orestes and Iphigenia stole out of the Tauric land, and the Lacedaemonians say that it was brought to their land because there also Orestes was king. I think their story more probable than that of the Athenians. For what could have induced Iphigenia to leave the image behind at Brauron? Or why did the Athenians, when they were preparing to abandon their land, fail to include this image in what they put on board their ships?
{3.16.8} And yet, right down to the present day, the fame of the Tauric goddess has remained so high that the Cappadocians dwelling on the Euxine claim that the image is among them, a like claim being made by those Lydians also who have a sanctuary of Artemis Anaeitis. But the Athenians, we are asked to believe, made light of the fact that it was plundered by the Persians. For the image at Brauron was brought to Susa, and afterwards Seleukos gave it to the Syrians of Laodicea, who still possess it.
{3.16.9} I will give other evidence that the Orthia in Lacedaemon is the wooden image from the foreigners. Firstly, Astrabacus and Alopecus, sons of Irbus, son of Amphisthenes, son of Amphikles, son of Agis, when they found the image straightway became insane. Secondly, the Spartan Limnatians, the Cynosurians, and the people of Mesoa and Pitane, while sacrificing to Artemis, fell to quarreling, which led also to bloodshed; many were killed at the altar and the rest died of disease.
{3.16.10} Whereat an oracle was delivered to them, that they should stain the altar with human blood. He used to be sacrificed upon whomsoever the lot fell, but Lycurgus (Lykourgos) changed the custom to a scourging of the boys, and so in this way the altar is stained with human blood. By them stands the priestess, holding the wooden image. Now it is small and light,
{3.16.11} but if ever the scourgers spare the lash because of a boy’s beauty or high rank, then at once the priestess finds the image grow so heavy that she can hardly carry it. She lays the blame on the scourgers, and says that it is their fault that she is being weighed down. So the image ever since the sacrifices in the Tauric land keeps its fondness for human blood. They call it not only Orthia, but also Lygodesma (Willow-bound), because it was found in a thicket of willows, and the encircling willow made the image stand upright.
{3.17.1} Not far from the Orthia is a sanctuary of Eileithuia. They say that they built it, and came to worship Eileithuia as a goddess, because of an oracle from Delphi.
The Lacedaemonians have no citadel rising to a conspicuous height like the Kadmeia at Thebes and the Larisa at Argos. There are, however, hills in the city, and the highest of them they call the citadel.
{3.17.2} Here is built a sanctuary of Athena, who is called both City-protecting and Lady of the Bronze House. The building of the sanctuary was begun, they say, by Tyndareus. On his death his children were desirous of making a second attempt to complete the building, and the resources they intended to use were the spoils of Aphidna. They too left it unfinished, and it was many years afterwards that the Lacedaemonians made of bronze both the temple and the image of Athena. The builder was Gitiadas, a native of Sparta, who also composed Dorian lyrics, including a hymn to the goddess. [235]
{3.17.3} On the bronze are made-in-relief many of the labors of Hēraklēs and many of the voluntary exploits he successfully carried out, besides the abduction of the daughters of Leukippos and other achievements of the sons of Tyndareus. There is also Hephaistos releasing his mother from the fetters. The legend about this I have already related in my history of Attica. [236] There are also represented nymphs bestowing upon Perseus, who is starting on his enterprise against Medusa in Libya, a cap and the shoes by which he was to be carried through the air. Also crafted are the birth of Athena, Amphitrite, and Poseidon, the largest figures, and those which I thought the best worth seeing.
{3.17.4} There is here another sanctuary of Athena; her surname is the Worker. As you go to the south portico there is a temple of Zeus surnamed Kosmetas (Orderer), and before it is the tomb of Tyndareus. The west portico has two eagles, and upon them are two Victories. Lysander dedicated them to commemorate both his exploits; the one was off Ephesos, when he conquered Antiokhos, the captain of Alcibiades, and the Athenian warships and the second occurred later, when he destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi.
{3.17.5} On the left of the Lady of the Bronze House they have set up a sanctuary of the Muses, because the Lacedaemonians used to go out to fight, not to the sound of the trumpet, but to the music of the flute and the accompaniment of lyre and harp. Behind the Lady of the Bronze House is a temple of Aphrodite Areia (Warlike). The wooden images are as old as any in Greece.
{3.17.6} On the right of the Lady of the Bronze House has been set up an image of Zeus Most High, the oldest image that is made of bronze. It is not created in one piece. Each of the limbs has been hammered separately; these are fitted together, being prevented from coming apart by nails. They say that the artist was Klearkhos of Rhēgion, who is said by some to have been a pupil of Dipoinos [237] and Skyllis, by others of Daidalos himself. By what is called the Scenoma (Tent) there is a statue of a woman, whom the Lacedaemonians say is Euryleonis. She won a victory at Olympia with a two-horse chariot.
{3.17.7} By the side of the altar of the Lady of the Bronze House stand two statues of Pausanias, the general at Plataea. His history, as it is known, I will not relate. The accurate accounts of my predecessors suffice; I shall content myself with adding to them what I heard from a man of Byzantium. Pausanias was detected in his treachery, and was the only suppliant of the Lady of the Bronze House who failed to win security, solely because he had been unable to wipe away a defilement of bloodshed.
{3.17.8} When he was cruising about the Hellespont with the Lacedaemonian and allied fleets, he fell in love with a Byzantine girl. And straightway at the beginning of night Kleonike —that was the girl’s name—was brought by those who had been ordered to do so. But Pausanias was asleep at the time and the noise awoke him. For as she came to him she unintentionally dropped her lighted lamp. And Pausanias, conscious of his treason to Greece, and therefore always nervous and fearful, jumped up then and struck the girl with his sword.
{3.17.9} From this defilement Pausanias could not escape, although he underwent all sorts of purifications and became a suppliant of Zeus Phyxios (God of Flight), and finally went to the wizards at Phigalia in Arcadia but he paid a fitting penalty to Kleonike and to the god. The Lacedaemonians, in fulfillment of a command from Delphi, had the bronze images made and honor the spirit Bountiful, saying that it was this Bountiful that turns aside the wrath that the God of Suppliants shows because of Pausanias.
{3.18.1} Near the statues of Pausanias is an image of Aphrodite Ambologera (Postponer of Old Age), which was set up in accordance with an oracle; there are also images of Sleep and of Death. They think them brothers, in accordance with the verses in the Iliad.
{3.18.2} As you go towards what is called the Alpium is a temple of Athena Ophthalmitis (Goddess of the Eye). They say that Lycurgus (Lykourgos) dedicated it when one of his eyes had been struck out by Alkandros, because the laws he had made happened not to find favor with Alkandros. Having fled to this place he was saved by the Lacedaemonians from losing his remaining eye, and so he made this temple of Athena Ophthalmitis.
{3.18.3} Farther on from here is a sanctuary of Ammon. From the first the Lacedaemonians are known to have used the oracle in Libya more than any other Greeks. It is said also that when Lysander was besieging Aphytis in Pallene Ammon appeared by night and declared that it would be better for him and for Lacedaemon if they ceased from warring against Aphytis. And so Lysander raised the siege, and induced the Lacedaemonians to worship the god still more. The people of Aphytis honor Ammon no less than the Ammonian Libyans.
{3.18.4} The story of Artemis Cnagia is as follows. Cnageus, they say, was a native who joined the Dioskouroi in their expedition against Aphidna. Being taken prisoner in the battle and sold into Crete, he lived as a slave where the Cretans had a sanctuary of Artemis; but in course of time he ran away in the company of the virgin priestess, who took the image with her. It is for this reason that they name Artemis Cnagia.
{3.18.5} But I am of opinion that Cnageus came to Crete in some other way, and not in the manner the Lacedaemonians state; for I do not think there was a battle at Aphidna at all, Theseus being detained among the Thesprotians and the Athenians not being unanimous, their sympathies inclining towards Menestheus. Moreover, even if a fight occurred, nobody would believe that prisoners were taken from the conquerors, especially as the victory was overwhelming, so that Aphidna itself was captured.
{3.18.6} I must now end my criticisms. As you go down to Amyklai from Sparta you come to a river called Tiasa. They hold that Tiasa was a daughter of Eurotas, and by it is a sanctuary of Graces, Phaenna and Cleta, as Alcman calls them in a poem. They believe that Lacedaemon founded the sanctuary for the Graces here, and gave them their names.
{3.18.7} The things worth seeing in Amyklai include a victor in the pentathlon, [238] named Ainetos, on a slab. The story is that he won a victory at Olympia, but died while the garland was being placed on his head. So there is the statue of this man; there are also bronze tripods. The older ones are said to be a tithe of the Messenian war.
{3.18.8} Under the first tripod stood an image of Aphrodite, and under the second an Artemis. The two tripods themselves and the reliefs are the work of Gitiadas. [239] The third was made by Gallon of Aegina, and under it stands an image of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter. Aristandros of Paros and Polycleitus of Argos [240] have statues here; the former a woman with a lyre, supposed to be Sparta, the latter an Aphrodite called “beside the Amyklaian.” These tripods are larger than the others, and were dedicated from the spoils of the victory at Aigospotamoi.
{3.18.9} Bathykles of Magnesia, [241] who made the throne of the Amyklaian, dedicated, on the completion of the throne, Graces and an image of Artemis Leucophryene. Whose pupil this Bathykles was, and who was king of Lacedaemon when he made the throne, I pass over; but I saw the throne and will describe its details.
{3.18.10} It is supported in front, and similarly behind, by two Graces and two Seasons. On the left stand Echidna and Typhos, on the right Tritons. To describe the reliefs one by one in detail would have merely bored my readers; but to be brief and concise (for the greater number of them are not unknown either) Poseidon and Zeus are carrying Taygete, daughter of Atlas, and her sister Alcyone. There are also reliefs of Atlas, the single combat of Hēraklēs and Kyknos, and the battle of the Centaurs at the cave of Pholus.
{3.18.11} I cannot say why Bathykles has represented the so-called Bull of Minos bound, and being led along alive by Theseus. There is also on the throne a band of Phaeacian dancers, and Demodocus singing. Perseus, too, is represented killing Medusa. Passing over the fight of Hēraklēs with the giant Thourios and that of Tyndareus with Eurytos, we have next the abduction of the daughters of Leukippos. Here are Dionysus, too, and Hēraklēs; Hermes is bearing the infant Dionysus to the sky [ouranos], and Athena is taking Hēraklēs to dwell henceforth with the gods.
{3.18.12} There is Peleus handing over Achilles to be reared by Kheiron, who is also said to have been his teacher. There is Cephalus, too, carried off by Day because of his beauty. The gods are bringing gifts to the marriage of Harmonia. There is created also the single combat of Achilles and Memnon, and Hēraklēs avenging himself upon Diomedes the Thracian, and upon Nessus at the river Euenus. Hermes is bringing the goddesses to Alexander to be judged. Adrastos and Tydeus are staying the fight between Amphiaraos and Lycurgus (Lykourgos) the son of Pronax.
{3.18.13} Hērā is gazing at Io, the daughter of Inakhos, who is already a cow, and Athena is running away from Hephaistos, who chases her. Next to these have been created two of the exploits of Hēraklēs—his slaying the hydra, and his bringing up the Hound of Hades. Anaxias and Mnasinous are each seated on horseback, but there is one horse only carrying Megapenthes, the son of Menelaos, and Nikostratos. Bellerophontes is destroying the beast in Lycia, and Hēraklēs is driving off the cows of Geryones.
{3.18.14} At the upper edge of the throne are created, one on each side, the sons of Tyndareus on horses. There are sphinxes under the horses, and beasts running upwards, on the one side a leopard, by Polydeukes a lioness. On the very top of the throne has been created a band of dancers, the Magnesians who helped Bathykles to make the throne.
{3.18.15} Underneath the throne, the inner part away from the Tritons contains the hunting of the Calydonian boar and Hēraklēs killing the children of Aktor. Calais and Zetes are driving the Harpies away from Phineus. Peirithous and Theseus have seized Helen, and Hēraklēs is strangling the lion. Apollo and Artemis are shooting Tityus.
{3.18.16} There is represented the fight between Hēraklēs and Oreios the Centaur, and also that between Theseus and the Bull of Minos. There are also represented the wrestling of Hēraklēs with Akhelōos, the fabled binding of Hērā by Hephaistos, the games Akastos held in honor of his father, and the story of Menelaos and the Egyptian Proteus from the Odyssey. [242] Lastly there is Admetos yoking a boar and a lion to his chariot, and the Trojans are bringing libations to Hector.
{3.19.1} The part of the throne where the god would sit is not continuous; there are several seats, and by the side of each seat is left a wide empty space, the middle, whereon the image stands, being the widest of them.
{3.19.2} I know of nobody who has measured the height of the image, but at a guess one would estimate it to be as much as thirty cubits. It is not the work of Bathykles, being old and uncouth; for though it has face, feet, and hands, the rest resembles a bronze pillar. On its head it has a helmet, in its hands a spear and a bow.
{3.19.3} The pedestal of the statue is fashioned into the shape of an altar and they say that Hyakinthos is buried in it, and at the Hyakinthia, before the sacrifice to Apollo, they devote offerings to Hyakinthos as to a hero into this altar through a bronze door, which is on the left of the altar. On the altar are made-in-relief, here an image of Biris, there Amphitrite and Poseidon. Zeus and Hermes are conversing; near stand Dionysus and Semele, with Ino by her side.
{3.19.4} On the altar are also Demeter, the Maiden, Pluto [Ploutōn], next to them Fates and Seasons, and with them Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis. They are carrying to the sky [ouranos] Hyakinthos and Polyboia, the sister, they say, of Hyakinthos, who died a virgin [parthenos]. Now this statue of Hyakinthos represents him as bearded, but Nikias, [243] son of Nikomedes, has painted him in the very prime of youthful beauty, hinting at the love of Apollo for Hyakinthos of which legend tells.
{3.19.5} Crafted on the altar is also Hēraklēs; he too is being led to the sky [ouranos] by Athena and the other gods. On the altar are also the daughters of Thestios, Muses and Seasons. As for the West Wind, how Apollo unintentionally killed Hyakinthos, and the story of the flower, we must be content with the legends, although perhaps they are not true history.
{3.19.6} Amyklai was laid waste by the Dorians, and since that time has remained a village; I found there a sanctuary and image of Alexandra worth seeing. Alexandra is said by the Amyklaians to be Cassandra, the daughter of Priam. Here is also a statue of Clytaemnestra, together with what is supposed to be the tomb of Agamemnon. The natives worship the Amyklaian god and Dionysus, surnaming the latter, quite correctly I think, Psilax. For psila is Doric for wings, and wine uplifts men and lightens their spirit no less than wings do birds.
Such I found were the things worth mentioning about Amyklai. Another road from the city leads to Therapne,
{3.19.7} and on this road is a wooden image of Athena Alea. Before the Eurotas is crossed, a little above the bank is shown a sanctuary of Zeus Wealthy. Across the river is a temple of Asklepios Cotyleus (of the Hip-joint); it was made by Hēraklēs, who named Asklepios Cotyleus, because he was cured of the wound in the hip-joint that he received in the former fight with Hippokoön and his sons. Of all the objects along this road the oldest is a sanctuary of Ares. This is on the left of the road, and the image is said to have been brought from Kolkhis by the Dioskouroi.
{3.19.8} They surname him Theritas after Thero, who is said to have been the nurse of Ares. Perhaps it was from the people of Kolkhis that they heard the name Theritas, since the Greeks know of no Thero, nurse of Ares. My own belief is that the surname Theritas [244] was not given to Ares because of his nurse, but because when a man meets an enemy in battle he must cast aside all gentleness, as Homer says of Achilles:
“And he is fierce as a lion.”
Iliad 24.41
{3.19.9} The name of Therapne is derived from the daughter of Lelex, and in it is a temple of Menelaos; they say that Menelaos and Helen were buried here. The account of the Rhodians is different. They say that when Menelaos was dead, and Orestes still a wanderer, Helen was driven out by Nikostratos and Megapenthes and came to Rhodes, where she had a friend in Polyxo,
{3.19.10} the wife of Tlepolemos. For Polyxo, they say, was an Argive by descent, and when she was already married to Tlepolemos shared his flight to Rhodes. At the time she was queen of the island, having been left with an orphan boy. They say that this Polyxo desired to avenge the death of Tlepolemos on Helen, now that she had her in her power. So she sent against her when she was bathing handmaidens dressed up as Furies, who seized Helen and hanged her on a tree, and for this reason the Rhodians have a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree.
{3.19.11} A story too I will tell which I know the people of Kroton tell about Helen. The people of Himera too agree with this account. In the Euxine at the mouths of the Ister is an island sacred to Achilles. It is called White Island, and its circumference is twenty stadium-lengths. It is wooded throughout and abounds in animals, wild and tame, while on it is a temple of Achilles with an image of him.
{3.19.12} The first to sail thither legend says was Leonymus of Kroton. For when war had arisen between the people of Kroton and the people of Lokris [= Lokroi] in Italy, the people of Lokris, in virtue of the relationship between them and the Opuntians, called upon Ajax son of Oileus to help them in battle. So Leonymus the general of the people of Kroton attacked his enemy at that point where he heard that Ajax was posted in the front line. Now he was wounded in the breast, and weak with his hurt came to Delphi. When he arrived the Pythian priestess sent Leonynios to White Island, telling him that there Ajax would appear to him and cure his wound.
{3.19.13} In time he was healed and returned from White Island, where, he used to declare, he saw Achilles, as well as Ajax the son of Oileus and Ajax the son of Telamon. With them, he said, were Patroklos and Antilokhos; Helen was wedded to Achilles, and had bidden him sail to Stesichorus at Himera, and announce that the loss of his sight was caused by her wrath.
{3.20.1} Therefore Stesichorus composed his recantation. In Therapne I remember seeing the fountain Messeis. Some of the Lacedaemonians, however, have declared that of old the name Messeis was given, not to the fountain at Therapne, but to the one we call Polydeucea. The fountain Polydeucea and a sanctuary of Polydeukes are on the right of the road to Therapne.
{3.20.2} Not far from Therapne is what is called Phoebaeum, in which is a temple of the Dioskouroi. Here the youths sacrifice to Enyalios. At no great distance from it stands a sanctuary of Poseidon surnamed Earth-embracer. Going on from here in the direction of Taygetos you come to a place called Alesiai(Place of Grinding) they say that Myles (Mill-man) the son of Lelex was the first human being to invent a mill, and that he ground wheat in this Alesiae. Here they have a hero-shrine of Lacedaemon, the son of Taygete.
{3.20.3} Crossing from here a river Phellia, and going past Amyklai along a road leading straight towards the sea, you come to the site of Pharis, which was once a city of Laconia. Turning away from the Phellia to the right is the road that leads to Mount Taygetos. On the plain is a precinct of Zeus Messapeus, who is surnamed, they say, after a man who served the god as his priest. Leaving Taygetos from here you come to the site of the city Bryseae. There still remains here a temple of Dionysus with an image in the open. But the image in the temple women only may see, for women by themselves perform in secret the sacrificial rites.
{3.20.4} Above Bryseairises Taletum, a peak of Taygetos. They call it sacred to Hēlios (the Sun), and among the sacrifices they offer here to Hēlios are horses. I am aware that the Persians also are accustomed to offer the same sacrifice. Not far from Taletum is a place called Euoras, the haunt of wild animals, especially wild goats. In fact all Taygetos is a hunting-ground for these goats and for boars, and it is well stocked with both deer and bears.
{3.20.5} Between Taletum and Euoras is a place they name Therai, where they say Leto from the Peaks of Taygetos … is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Eleusinian. Here according to the Lacedaemonian story Hēraklēs was hidden by Asklepios while he was being healed of a wound. In the sanctuary is a wooden image of Orpheus, a work, they say, of Pelasgians.
{3.20.6} I know also of the following rite which is performed here. By the sea was a city Helos, which Homer too has mentioned in his list of the Lacedaemonians:
“These had their home in Amyklai, and in Helos the town by the seaside.”
Iliad 2.584
It was founded by Helios [Hĕlios not Hēlios], the youngest of the sons of Perseus, and the Dorians afterwards reduced it by siege. Its inhabitants became the first slaves of the Lacedaemonian state, and were the first to be called Helots [heilōtes], as in fact heilōtesthey were. The slaves afterwards acquired, although they were Dorians of Messenia, also came to be called Helots, just as the entire lineage of people who were called Hellenes [‘Greeks’] were named after the region in Thessaly once called Hellas.
{3.20.7} From this Helos, on stated days, they bring up to the sanctuary of the Eleusinian a wooden image of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter. Fifteen stadium-lengths distant from the sanctuary is Lapithaion, named after Lapithos, a native of the district. So this Lapithaion is on Taygetos, and not far off is Dereium, where is in the open an image of Artemis Dereatis, and beside it is a spring which they name Anonus. About twenty stadium-lengths past Dereum is Harpleia, which extends as far as the plain.
{3.20.8} On the road from Sparta to Arcadia there stands in the open an image of Athena surnamed Pareia, and after it is a sanctuary of Achilles. This it is not customary to open, but all the youths who are going to take part in the contest in Plane tree Grove are accustomed to sacrifice to Achilles before the fight. The Spartans say that the sanctuary was made for them by Prax, a grandson of Pergamos the son of Neoptolemos.
{3.20.9} Further on is what is called the Tomb of Horse. For Tyndareus, having sacrificed a horse here, administered an oath to the suitors of Helen, making them stand upon the pieces of the horse. The oath was to defend Helen and him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they should be wronged. When he had sworn the suitors he buried the horse here. Seven pillars, which are not far from this tomb … in the ancient manner, I believe, which they say are images of the planets. On the road is a precinct of Cranius surnamed Stemmatias, and a sanctuary of Mysian Artemis.
{3.20.10} The image of Modesty, some thirty stadium-lengths distant from the city, they say was dedicated by Icarius, the following being the reason for making it. When Icarius gave Penelope in marriage to Odysseus, he tried to make Odysseus himself settle in Lacedaemon, but failing in the attempt, he next besought his daughter to remain behind, and when she was setting forth to Ithaca he followed the chariot, begging her to stay.
{3.20.11} Odysseus endured it for a time, but at last he ordered Penelope either to accompany him willingly, or else, if she preferred her father, to go back to Lacedaemon. They say that she made no reply, but covered her face with a veil in reply to the question, so that Icarios, realizing that she wished to depart with Odysseus, let her go, and dedicated an image of Modesty; for Penelope, they say, had reached this point of the road when she veiled herself.
{3.21.1} Twenty stadium-lengths from here the stream of the Eurotas comes very near to the road, and here is the tomb of Ladas, the fastest runner of his day. He was garlanded at Olympia for a victory in the long race, and falling ill, I take it, immediately after the victory he was on his way home; his death took place here, and his tomb is above the highway. His namesake, who also won at Olympia a victory, not in the long race but in the short race, is stated in the Eleian records of Olympic victors to have been a native of Aigion in Achaea.
{3.21.2} Farther On in the direction of Pellana is what is called Kharkoma (Trench); and after it Pellana, which in the olden time was a city. They say that Tyndareus dwelled here when he fled from Sparta before Hippokoön and his sons. Remarkable sights I remember seeing here were a sanctuary of Asklepios and the spring Pellanis. Into it they say a girl fell when she was drawing water, and when she had disappeared the veil on her head reappeared in another spring, Lancia.
{3.21.3} A hundred stadium-lengths away from Pellana is The place called Belemina. It is naturally The best watered region of Laconia, seeing that The river Eurotas passes through it, while it has abundant springs of its own.
{3.21.4} As you go down to the sea towards Gythium you come to a village called Croceae and a quarry. It is not a continuous stretch of rock, but the stones they dig out are shaped like river pebbles; they are hard to work, but when worked sanctuaries of the gods might be adorned with them, while they are especially adapted for beautifying swimming-baths and fountains. Here before the village stands an image of Zeus of Croceae in marble, and the Dioskouroi in bronze are at the quarry.
{3.21.5} After Croceae, turning away to the right from the straight road to Gythium, you will reach a city Aegiae. They say that this is the city which Homer [245] in his poem calls Augeae. Here is a lake called Poseidon’s, and by the lake is a temple with an image of the god. They are afraid to take out the fish, saying that a fisherman in these waters turns into the fish called the fisher.
{3.21.6} Gythium is thirty stadium-lengths distant from Aigiai, built by the sea in the territory of the Free Laconians, whom the emperor Augustus freed from the bondage in which they had been to the Lacedaemonians in Sparta. All the Peloponnesus, except the Isthmus of Corinth, is surrounded by sea, but the best shell-fish for the manufacture of purple dye after those of the Phoenician sea are to be found on the coast of Laconia.
{3.21.7} The Free Laconians have eighteen cities; the first as you go down from Aigiai to the sea is Gythium; after it come Teuthrone and Las and Pyrrhikos; on Taenarum are Caenepolis, Oetylus, Leuktra and Thalamae, and in addition Alagoma and Gerenia. On the other side of Clythium by the sea are Asopos, Acriae, Boeae, Larax, Epidaurus Limera, Brasiae, Geronthraiand Marius. These are all that are left to the Free Laconians out of twenty-four cities which once were theirs. All the other cities with which my narrative will deal belong, it must be remembered, to Sparta, and are not independent like those I have already mentioned.
{3.21.8} The people of Cythium say that their city had no human founder, but that Hēraklēs and Apollo, when they were reconciled after their strife for the possession of the tripod, united to found the city. In the marketplace they have images of Apollo and of Hēraklēs, and a Dionysus stands near them. In another part of the city are Carnean Apollo, a sanctuary of Ammon and a bronze image of Asklepios, whose temple is roofless, a spring belonging to the god, a holy sanctuary of Demeter and an image of Poseidon Earth-embracer.
{3.21.9} Him whom the people of Cythium name Old Man, saying that he lives in the sea, I found to be Nereus. They got this name originally from Homer, who says in a part of the Iliad, where Thetis is speaking:
Into the broad expanse, and into the bosom of ocean
Plunge, to behold the old man of the sea and the home of your father.
Plunge, to behold the old man of the sea and the home of your father.
Iliad 18.140-141
Here is also a gate called the Gate of Castor (Kastor), and on the citadel have been built a temple and image of Athena.
{3.22.1} Just about three stadium-lengths from Gythium is an unfinished stone. Legend has it that when Orestes sat down upon it his madness left him. For this reason the stone was named in the Dorian tongue Zeus Cappotas. Before Gythium lies the island Cranae, and Homer [246] says that when Alexander had carried off Helen he had intercourse with her there for the first time. On the mainland opposite the island is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Migonitis (Union), and the whole place is called Migonium.
{3.22.2} This sanctuary, they say, was made by Alexander. But when Menelaos had taken Ilion and had returned safe home eight years after the sack of Troy, he set up near the sanctuary of Migonitis an image of Thetis and the goddesses Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice). Above Migonium is a mountain called Larysiumi sacred to Dionysus, and at the beginning of spring they hold a festival in honor of Dionysus, and among the things they say about the ritual is that they find here a ripe bunch of grapes.
{3.22.3} Some thirty stadium-lengths beyond Gythium on the left there are on the mainland walls of a place called Trinasus (Three Islands), which was in my opinion a fort and not a city. Its name I think is derived from the islets which lie off the coast here, three in number. About eighty stadium-lengths beyond Trinasus I came to the ruins o Af Helos,
{3.22.4} and some thirty stadium-lengths farther is Acriae, a city on the coast. Well worth seeing here are a temple and marble image of the Mother of the Gods. The people of Acriae say that this is the oldest sanctuary of this goddess in the Peloponnesus, although the Magnesians, who live to the north of Mount Sipylos, have on the rock Koddinos the most ancient of all the images of the Mother of the gods. The Magnesians say that it was made by Broteas the son of Tantalos.
{3.22.5} The people of Acriae once produced an Olympian victor, Nikokles, who at two Olympian festivals carried off five prizes for running. There has been raised to him a monument between the gymnasium and the wall by the harbor.
{3.22.6} A hundred and twenty stadium-lengths inland from Acriae is Geronthrae. It was inhabited before the Herakleidai came to Peloponnesus, but the Dorians of Lacedaemon expelled the Achaean inhabitants and afterwards sent to it settlers of their own; but in my time it belonged to the Free Laconians. On the road from Acriae to Geronthraiis a village called Palaia (Old), and in Geronthraiitself are a temple and grove of Ares.
{3.22.7} Every year they hold a festival in honor of the God, at which women are forbidden to enter the grove. Around the marketplace are their springs of drinking-water. On the citadel is a temple of Apollo with the head of an ivory image. The rest of the image was destroyed by fire along with the former temple.
{3.22.8} Marius is another town of the Free Laconians, distant from Geronthraione hundred stadium-lengths. Here is an ancient sanctuary common to all the gods, and around it is a grove containing springs. In a sanctuary of Artemis also there are springs. In fact Marius has an unsurpassed supply of water. Above the town, and like it in the interior, is a village, Glyppia. From Geronthraito another village, Selinous, is a journey of twenty stadium-lengths.
{3.22.9} These places are inland from Acriae. By the sea is a city Asopos, sixty stadium-lengths distant from Acriae. In it is a temple of the Roman emperors, and about twelve stadium-lengths inland from the city is a sanctuary of Asklepios. They call the god Philolaos, and the bones in the gymnasium, which they worship, are human, although of superhuman size. On the citadel is also a sanctuary of Athena, surnamed Cyparissia (Cypress Goddess). At the foot of the citadel are the ruins of a city called the City of the Paracyparissian [247] Achaeans.
{3.22.10} There is also in this district a sanctuary of Asklepios, about fifty stadium-lengths from Asopos the place where the sanctuary is they name Hyperteleatum. Two hundred stadium-lengths from Asopos there juts out into the sea a headland, which they call Onugnathus (Jaw of an Ass). Here is a sanctuary of Athena, having neither image nor roof. Agamemnon is said to have made it. There is also the tomb of Cinadus, one of the pilots of the ship of Menelaos.
{3.22.11} After the peak there runs into the land the Gulf of Boeae, and the city of Boeae is at the head of the gulf. This was founded by Boeus, one of the Herakleidai, and he is said to have collected inhabitants for it from three cities, Etis, Aphrodisias and Side. Of the ancient cities two are said to have been founded by Aeneas when he was fleeing to Italy and had been driven into this gulf by storms. Etias, they allege, was a daughter of Aeneas. The third city they say was named after Side, daughter of Danaos.
{3.22.12} When the inhabitants of these cities were expelled, they were anxious to know where they ought to settle, and an oracle was given them that Artemis would show them where they were to dwell. When therefore they had gone on shore, and a hare appeared to them, they looked upon the hare as their guide on the way. When it dived into a myrtle tree, they built a city on the site of the myrtle, and down to this day they worship that myrtle tree, and name Artemis Savior.
{3.22.13} In the marketplace of Boeae is a temple of Apollo, and in another part of the town are temples of Asklepios, of Serapis, and of Isis. The ruins of Etis are not more than seven stadium-lengths distant from Boeae. On the way to them there stands on the left a stone image of Hermes. Among the ruins is a not insignificant sanctuary of Asklepios and Hygieia.
{3.23.1} Cythera lies opposite Boeae; to the promontory of Platanistos, the point where the island lies nearest to the mainland, it is a voyage of forty stadium-lengths from a promontory on the mainland called Onugnathus. In Cythera is a port Scandeia on the coast, but the town Cythera is about ten stadium-lengths inland from Scandeia. The sanctuary of Aphrodite the celestial one [Ourania] is most holy, and it is the most ancient of all the sanctuaries of Aphrodite among the Greeks. The goddess herself is represented by an armed image of wood.
{3.23.2} On the voyage from Boeae towards the point of Malea is a harbor called Nymphaeum, with a statue of Poseidon standing, and a cave close to the sea; in it is a spring of sweet water. There is a large population in the district. After doubling the point of Malea and proceeding a hundred stadium-lengths, you reach a place on the coast within the frontier of the Boeatae, which is sacred to Apollo and called Epidelium.
{3.23.3} For the wooden image which is now here, once stood in Delos. Delos was then a Greek market, and seemed to offer security to traders on account of the god; but as the place was unfortified and the inhabitants unarmed, Menophanes, an officer of Mithridates, attacked it with a fleet, to show his contempt for the god, or acting on the orders of Mithridates; for to a man whose object is gain what is sacred is of less account than what is profitable.
{3.23.4} This Menophanes put to death the foreigners residing there and the Delians themselves, and after plundering much property belonging to the traders and all the offerings, and also carrying women and children away as slaves, he razed Delos itself to the ground. As it was being sacked and pillaged, one of the barbarians wantonly flung this image into the sea; but the wave took it and brought it to land here in the country of the Boeatae. For this reason they call the place Epidelium.
{3.23.5} But neither Menophanes nor Mithridates himself escaped the wrath of the god. Menophanes, as he was putting to sea after the sack of Delos was sunk at once by those of the merchants who had escaped; for they lay in wait for him in ships. The god caused Mithridates at a later date to lay hands upon himself, when his empire had been destroyed and he himself was being hunted on all sides by the Romans. There are some who say that he obtained a violent death as a favor at the hands of one of his mercenaries. This was the reward of their impiety.
{3.23.6} The country of the Boeatae is adjoined by Epidaurus Limera, distant some two hundred stadium-lengths from Epidelium. The people say that they are not descended from the Lacedaemonians but from the Epidaurians of the Argolid, and that they touched at this point in Laconia when sailing on public business to Asklepios in Kos. Warned by dreams that appeared to them, they remained and settled here.
{3.23.7} They also say that a snake, which they were bringing from their home in Epidaurus, escaped from the ship, and disappeared into the ground not far from the sea. As a result of the portent of the snake together with the vision in their dreams they resolved to remain and settle here. There are altars to Asklepios where the snake disappeared, with olive trees growing round them.
{3.23.8} About two stadium-lengths to the right is the water of Ino, as it is called, in extent like a small lake, but going deeper into the earth. Into this water they throw cakes of barley meal at the festival of Ino. If good luck is portended to the thrower, the water keeps them under. But if it brings them to the surface, it is judged a bad sign.
{3.23.9} The craters in Aetna have the same feature; for they lower into them objects of gold and silver and also all kinds of victims. If the fire receives and consumes them, they rejoice at the appearance of a good sign, but if it casts up what has been thrown in, they think misfortune will befall the man to whom this happens.
{3.23.10} By the road leading from Boeae to Epidaurus Limera is a sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis (Of the Lake) in the country of the Epidaurians. The city lies on high ground, not far from the sea. Here the sanctuary of Artemis is worth seeing, also that of Asklepios with a standing statue of stone, a temple of Athena on the acropolis, and of Zeus with the title Savior in front of the harbor.
{3.23.11} A promontory called Minoa projects into the sea near [248] the town. The bay has nothing to distinguish it from all the other inlets of the sea in Laconia, but the beach here contains pebbles of prettier form and of all colors.
{3.24.1} A hundred stadium-lengths from Epidaurus is Zarax; though possessing a good harbor, it is the most ruinous of the towns of the Free Laconians, since it was the only town of theirs to be depopulated by Kleonymos the son of Kleomenes, son of Agesipolis. I have told the story of Kleomenes elsewhere. [249] There is nothing in Zarax except a temple of Apollo, with a statue holding a lyre, at the head of the harbor. [250]
{3.24.2} The road from Zarax follows the coast for about a hundred stadium-lengths, and there strikes inland. After an ascent of ten stadium-lengths inland are the ruins of the so-called Cyphanta, among which is a cave sacred to Asklepios; the image is of stone. There is a fountain of cold water springing from the rock, where they say that Atalanta, distressed by thirst when hunting, struck the rock with her spear, so that the water gushed forth.
{3.24.3} Brasiaiis the last town on the coast belonging to the Free Laconians in this direction. It is distant two hundred stadium-lengths by sea from Cyphanta. The inhabitants have a story, found nowhere else in Greece, that Semele, after giving birth to her son by Zeus, was discovered by Kadmos and put with Dionysus into a chest, which was washed up by the waves in their country. Semele, who was no longer alive when found, received a splendid funeral, but they brought up Dionysus.
{3.24.4} For this reason the name of their city, hitherto called Oreiatae, was changed to Brasiaiafter the washing up of the chest to land; so too in our time the common word used of the waves casting things ashore is ekbrazein. The people of Brasiaiadd that Ino in the course of her wanderings came to the country, and agreed to become the nurse of Dionysus. They show the cave where Ino nursed him, and call the plain the garden of Dionysus.
{3.24.5} The temples here are those of Asklepios and of Achilles, in whose honor they hold an annual festival. There is a small promontory at Brasiae, which projects gently into the sea; on it stand bronze figures, not more than a foot high, with caps on their heads. I am not sure whether they consider them to be Dioskouroi or Corybants. They are three in number; a statue of Athena makes a fourth.
{3.24.6} To the right of Gythium is Las, ten stadium-lengths from the sea and forty from Gythium. The site of the present town extends over the ground between the mountains called Ilios, Asia and Cnacadium; formerly it lay on the summit of Mount Asia. Even now there are ruins of the old town, with a statue of Hēraklēs outside the walls, and a trophy for a victory over the Macedonians. These formed a detachment of Philip’s army, when he invaded Laconia, but were separated from the main body and were plundering the coastal districts.
{3.24.7} Among the ruins is a temple of Athena named Asia, made, it is said, by Polydeukes and Castor (Kastor) on their return home from Kolkhis; for the people of Kolkhis had a shrine of Athena Asia. I know that the sons of Tyndareus took part in Jason’s expedition. As to the people of Kolkhis honoring Athena Asia, I give what I heard from the Lacedaemonians. Near the present town is a spring called Galaco (Milky) from the color of the water, and beside the spring a gymnasium, which contains an ancient statue of Hermes.
{3.24.8} On Mount Ilios is a temple of Dionysus, and of Asklepios at the very summit. On Cnacadium is an Apollo called Karneios.
Some thirty stadium-lengths from the Apollo is a place Hypsoi, within the Spartan frontier. Here is a sanctuary of Asklepios and of Artemis called Daphnaea (of the laurel).
{3.24.9} By the sea is a temple of Artemis Dictynna on a promontory, in whose honor they hold an annual festival. A river Smenus reaches the sea to the left of the promontory; its water is extremely sweet to drink; its sources are in Mount Taygetos, and it passes within five stadium-lengths of the town.
{3.24.10} At a spot called Arainos is the tomb of Las with a statue upon it. The natives say that Las was their founder and was killed by Achilles, and that Achilles put in to their country to ask the hand of Helen of Tyndareus. In point of fact it was Patroklos who killed Las, for it was he who was Helen’s suitor. We need not regard it as a proof that Achilles did not ask for Helen because he is not mentioned in the Catalogue of Women as one of her suitors.
{3.24.11} But at the beginning of his poem Homer says that Achilles came to Troy as a favor to the sons of Atreus, [251] and not because he was bound by the oaths which Tyndareus exacted; and in the Games he makes Antilokhos say that Odysseus was a generation older than he, [252] whereas Odysseus, telling Alkinoos of his descent to Hades and other adventures, said that he wished to see Theseus and Peirithous, men of an earlier age. [253] We know that Theseus carried off Helen, so that it is quite impossible that Achilles could have been her suitor.
{3.25.1} Beyond the tomb a river named Scyras enters the sea. Formerly it was without a name, but was so called, because Pyrrhos the son of Achilles put in here when he sailed from Scyros to wed Hermione. Across the river is an ancient shrine … further from an altar of Zeus. Inland, forty stadium-lengths from the river, lies Pyrrhikos, the name of which is said to be derived from Pyrrhos the son of Achilles;
{3.25.2} but according to another account Pyrrhikos was one of the gods called Kouretes. Others say that Silenus came from Malea and settled here. That Silenus was brought up in Malea is clear from these words in an ode of Pindar:
“The mighty one, the dancer, whom the mount of Malea nurtured, husband of Nais, Silenus.”
Pindar Frag. 156 (Schröder)
Not that Pindar said his name was Pyrrhikos; that is a statement of the men of Malea.
{3.25.3} At Pyrrhikos there is a well in the marketplace, considered to be the gift of Silenus. If this were to fail, they would be short of water. The sanctuaries of the gods, that they have in the country, are of Artemis, called Astrateia, because the Amazons stayed their advance (strateia) here, and an Apollo Amazonios. Both gods are represented by wooden images, said to have been dedicated by the women from Thermodon.
{3.25.4} From Pyrrhikos the road comes down to the sea at Teuthrone. The inhabitants declare that their founder was Teuthras, an Athenian. They honor Artemis Issoria most of the Gods, and have a spring Naia. The promontory of Taenarum projects into the sea 150 stadium-lengths from Teuthrone, with the harbors Achilleios and Psamathus. On the promontory is a temple like a cave, with a statue of Poseidon in front of it.
{3.25.5} Some of the Greek poets state that Hēraklēs brought up the hound of Hades here, though there is no road that leads underground through the cave, and it is not easy to believe that the gods possess any underground dwelling where the souls collect. But Hecataeus of Miletus gave a plausible explanation, stating that a terrible serpent lived on Taenarum, and was called the hound of Hades, because any one bitten was bound to die of the poison at once, and it was this snake, he said, that was brought by Hēraklēs to Eurystheus.
{3.25.6} But Homer, who was the first to call the creature brought by Hēraklēs the hound of Hades, [254] did not give it a name or describe it as of manifold form, as he did in the case of the Chimaera. [255] Later poets gave the name Cerberus, and though in other respects they made him resemble a dog, they say that he had three heads. Homer, however, does not imply that he was a dog, the friend of man, any more than if he had called a real serpent the hound of Hades.
{3.25.7} Among other offerings on Taenarum is a bronze statue of Arion the harper on a dolphin. Herodotus has told the story of Arion and the dolphin, as he heard it, in his history of Lydia. [256] I have seen the dolphin at Poroselene that rewards the boy for saving his life. It had been damaged by fishermen and he cured it.I saw this dolphin obeying his call and carrying him whenever he wanted to ride on it.
{3.25.8} There is a spring also on Taenarum but now it possesses nothing marvelous. Formerly, as they say, it showed harbors and ships to those who looked into the water. These sights in the water were brought to an end for good and all by a woman washing dirty clothes in it.
{3.25.9} From the point of Taenarum Caenepolis is distant forty stadium-lengths by sea. Its name also was formerly Taenarum. In it is a hall of Demeter, and a temple of Aphrodite on the shore, with a standing statue of stone. Thirty stadium-lengths distant is Thyrides, a headland of Taenarum, with the ruins of a city Hippola; among them is a sanctuary of Athena Hippolaitis. A little further are the town and harbor of Messa.
{3.25.10} From this harbor it is 150 stadium-lengths to Oetylus. The hero, from whom the city received its name, was an Argive by descent, son of Amphianax, the son of Antimakhos. In Oetylus the sanctuary of Sarapis, and in the marketplace a wooden image of Apollo Karneios are worth seeing.
{3.26.1} From Oetylus to Thalamaithe road is about eighty stadium-lengths long. On it is a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. They consult the oracle in sleep, and the goddess reveals whatever they wish to learn, in dreams. Bronze statues of Pasiphae and of Hēlios stand in the unroofed part of the sanctuary. It was not possible to see the one within the temple clearly, owing to the garlands, but they say this too is of bronze. Water, sweet to drink, flows from a sacred spring. Pasiphae is a title of the Moon, and is not a local goddess of the people of Thalamae.
{3.26.2} Twenty stadium-lengths from Thalamaiis a place called Pephnus on the coast. In front of it lies a small island no larger than a big rock, also called Pephnus. The people of Thalamaisay that the Dioskouroi were born here. I know that Alcman too says this in a song: but they do not say that they remained to be brought up in Pephnus, but that it was Hermes who took them to Pellana.
{3.26.3} In this little island there are bronze statues of the Dioskouroi, a foot high, in the open air. The sea will not move them, though in winter-time it washes over the rock, which is wonderful. Also the ants here have a whiter color than is usual. The Messenians say that this district was originally theirs, and so they think that the Dioskouroi belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians.
{3.26.4} Twenty stadium-lengths from Pephnus is Leuktra. I do not know why the city has this name. If indeed it is derived from Leukippos the son of Perieres, as the Messenians say, it is for this reason, I think, that the inhabitants honor Asklepios most of the gods, supposing him to be the son of Arsinoe the daughter of Leukippos. There is a stone statue of Asklepios, and of Ino in another place.
{3.26.5} Also a temple and statue have been erected to Cassandra the daughter of Priam, called Alexandra by the natives. There are wooden images of Apollo Karneios according to the same custom that prevails among the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. On the acropolis is a sanctuary and image of Athena, and there is a temple and grove of Eros in Leuktra. Water flows through the grove in winter-time, but the leaves which are shaken from the trees by the wind would not be carried away by the water even in flood.
{3.26.6} I record an event which I know to have taken place in my time on the coast of Leuktra. A fire carried by the wind into a wood destroyed most of the trees, and when the place showed bare, a statue of Zeus of Ithome was found to have been dedicated there. The Messenians say that this is evidence that Leuktra was formerly a part of Messenia. But it is possible, if the Lacedaemonians originally lived in Leuktra, that Zeus of Ithome might be worshipped among them.
{3.26.7} Cardamyle, which is mentioned by Homer in the Gifts promised by Agamemnon, [257] is subject to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, having been separated from Messenia by the emperor Augustus. It is eight stadium-lengths from the sea and sixty from Leuktra. Here not far from the beach is a precinct sacred to the daughters of Nereus. They say that they came up from the sea to this spot to see Pyrrhos the son of Achilles, when he was going to Sparta to wed Hermione. In the town is a sanctuary of Athena, and an Apollo Karneios according to the local Dorian custom.
{3.26.8} A city, called in Homer’s poems Enope, [258] with Messenian inhabitants but belonging to the league of the Free Laconians, is called in our time Gerenia. One account states that Nestor was brought up in this city, another that he took refuge here, when Pylos was captured by Hēraklēs.
{3.26.9} Here in Gerenia is a tomb of Makhaon, son of Asklepios, and a holy sanctuary. In his temple men may find cures for diseases. They call the holy spot Rhodos; there is a standing bronze statue of Makhaon, with a garland on his head which the Messenians in the local speech call kiphos. The author of the epic The Little Iliad says that Machaon was killed by Eurypylus, son of Telephus.
{3.26.10} I myself know that to be the reason of the practice at the temple of Asklepios at Pergamon, where they begin their hymns with Telephus but make no reference to Eurypylus, or care to mention his name in the temple at all, as they know that he was the slayer of Makhaon. It is said that the bones of Makhaon were brought home by Nestor, but that Podaleirios, as they were returning after the sack of Troy, was carried out of his course and reached Syrnus on the Carian mainland in safety and settled there.
{3.26.11} In the territory of Gerenia is a mountain, Calathium; on it is a sanctuary of Claea with a cave close beside it; it has a narrow entrance, but contains objects which are worth seeing. Thirty stadium-lengths inland from Gerenia is Alagonia, a town which I have already mentioned in the list of the Free Laconians. Worth seeing here are temples of Dionysus and of Artemis.
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Scroll IV. Messenia
{4.1.1} The frontier between Messenia and that part of it which was incorporated by the emperor in Laconia towards Gerenia is formed in our time by the valley called Choerius. They say that this country, being unoccupied, received its first inhabitants in the following manner: On the death of Lelex, who ruled in the present Laconia, then called after him Lelegia, Myles, the elder of his sons, received the kingdom. Polycaon was the younger and for this reason a private person, until he took to wife Messene, the daughter of Triopas, son of Phorbas, from Argos.
{4.1.2} Messene, being proud of her origin, for her father was the chief of the Greeks of his day in reputation and power, was not content that her husband should be a private person. They collected a force from Argos and from Lacedaemon and came to this country, the whole land receiving the name Messene from the wife of Polycaon. Together with other cities, they founded Andania, where their palace was built.
{4.1.3} Before the battle which the Thebans fought with the Lacedaemonians at Leuktra, and the foundation of the present city of Messene under Ithome, I think that no city had the name Messene. I base this conclusion principally on Homer’s lines. [259] In the catalogue of those who came to Troy he enumerated Pylos, Arene and other towns, but called no town Messene. In the Odyssey he shows that the Messenians were a tribe and not a city by the following:
“For Messenian men carried away sheep from Ithaca.”
Odyssey xxi 18
{4.1.4} He is still more clear when speaking about the bow of Iphitos:
“They met one another in Messene
in the dwelling of Ortilokhos.”
in the dwelling of Ortilokhos.”
Odyssey xxi 15
By the dwelling of Ortilokhos he meant the city of Pherai in Messene, and explained this himself in the visit of Peisistratos to Menelaos:
“They came to Pherai to the house of Diocleus,
son of Ortilokhos.”
son of Ortilokhos.”
Odyssey 3.488
{4.1.5} The first rulers then in this country were Polycaon, the son of Lelex, and Messene his wife. It was to her that Kaukon, the son of Kelainos, son of Phlyοs, brought the rites of the Great Goddesses from Eleusis. Phlyus himself is said by the Athenians to have been the son of Earth, and the hymn of Musaeus to Demeter made for the Lykomidai agrees.
{4.1.6} But the mysteries of the Great Goddesses were raised to greater honor many years later than Kaukon by Lykos, the son of Pandion, an oak-wood, where he purified the celebrants, being still called the wood of Lykos. That there is a wood in this land so called is stated by Rhianus the Cretan:
“By rugged Elaeum above the wood of Lykos.” [260]
{4.1.7} That this Lykos was the son of Pandion is made clear by the lines on the statue of Methapus, who made certain improvements in the mysteries. Methapus was an Athenian by birth, an expert in the mysteries and founder of all kinds of rites. It was he who established the mysteries of the Cabiri at Thebes, and dedicated in the hut of the Lykomidai a statue with an inscription that amongst other things helps to confirm my account:
{4.1.8} “I sanctified houses of Hermes and paths of holy Demeter and Kore her firstborn, where they say that Messene established the feast of the Great Goddesses, taught by Kaukon, sprung from Phlyus’ noble son. And I wondered that Lykos, son of Pandion, brought all the Attic rite to wise Andania.”
{4.1.9} This inscription shows that Kaukon who came to Messene was a descendant of Phlyus, and proves my other statements with regard to Lykos, and that the mysteries were originally at Andania. And it seems natural to me that Messene should have established the mysteries where she and Polycaon lived, not anywhere else.
{4.2.1} As I was extremely anxious to learn what children were born to Polycaon by Messene, I read the poem called Ehoiai and the epic Naupactia, and in addition to these all the genealogies of Cinaethon and Asios. However, they made no reference to this matter, although I know that the Great Ehoiai says that Polycaon, the son of Butes, married Euaichme, the daughter of Hyllos, son of Hēraklēs, but it omits all reference to the husband of Messene and to Messene herself.
{4.2.2} Some time later, as no descendant of Polycaon survived (in my opinion his house lasted for five generations, but no more), they summoned Perieres, the son of Aeolus, as king. To him, the Messenians say, came Melaneus, a good archer and considered for this reason to be a son of Apollo; Perieres assigned to him as a dwelling a part of the country now called the Carnasium, but which then received the name Oechalia, derived, as they say, from the wife of Melaneus.
{4.2.3} Most matters of Greek history have come to be disputed. The Thessalians say that Eurytium, which today is not inhabited, was formerly a city and was called Oechalia. The account given by the Euboeans agrees with the statements of Kreophylos in his Herakleia; and Hecataeus of Miletus stated that Oechalia is in Scius, a part of the territory of Eretria. Nevertheless, I think that the whole version of the Messenians is more probable than these, particularly on account of the bones of Eurytos, which my story will deal with later. [261]
{4.2.4} Perieres had issue by Gorgophone the daughter of Perseus, Aphareus and Leukippos, and after his death they inherited the Messenian kingdom. But Aphareus had the greater authority. On his accession he founded a city Arene, named after the daughter of Oibalos, who was both his wife and sister by the same mother. For Gorgophone was married to Oibalos. The facts regarding her have already been given twice, in my account of the Argolid and of Laconia. [262]
{4.2.5} Aphareus then founded the city of Arena in Messenia, and received into his house his cousin Neleus the son of Kretheus, son of Aeolus (he was also called a son of Poseidon), when he was driven from Iolcos by Pelias. He gave him the maritime part of the land, where with other towns was Pylos, in which Neleus settled and established his palace.
{4.2.6} Lykos the son of Pandion also came to Arene, when he too was driven from Athens by his brother Aigeus, and revealed the rites of the Great Goddesses to Aphareus and his children and to his wife Arene; but it was to Andania that he brought the rites and revealed them there, as it was there that Kaukon initiated Messene.
{4.2.7} Of the children born to Aphareus Idas was the elder and more brave, Lynkeus the younger; he, if Pindar’s words are credible, [263] possessed eyesight so keen that he saw through the trunk of an oak. We know of no child of Lynkeus, but Idas had by Marpessa a daughter Kleopatra, who married Meleagros. The writer of the epic Cypria says that the wife of Protesilaos, the first who dared to land when the Greeks reached Troy, was named Polydora, whom he calls a daughter of Meleagros the son of Oineus. If this is correct, these three women, the first of whom was Marpessa, all slew themselves on the death of their husbands.
{4.3.1} After the fight about the cattle between the sons of Aphareus and their cousins the Dioskouroi, when Lynkeus was killed by Polydeukes and Idas met his doom from the lightning, the house of Aphareus was bereft of all male descendants, and the kingdom of Messenia passed to Nestor the son of Neleus, including all the part ruled formerly by Idas, but not that subject to the sons of Asklepios.
{4.3.2} For they say that the sons of Asklepios who went to Troy were Messenians, Asklepios being the son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leukippos, not the son of Coronis, and they call a desolate spot in Messenia by the name Tricca and quote the lines of Homer, [264] in which Nestor tends Makhaon kindly, when he has been wounded by the arrow. He would not have shown such readiness except to a neighbor and king of a kindred people. But the surest warrant for their account of the Asclepiadae is that they point to a tomb of Makhaon in Gerenia and to the sanctuary of his sons at Pharae.
{4.3.3} After the conclusion of the Trojan war and the death of Nestor after his return home, the Dorian expedition and return of the Herakleidai, which took place two generations later, drove the descendants of Nestor from Messenia. This has already formed a part of my account of Tisamenus. [265] I will only add the following: When the Dorians assigned Argos to Temenus, Kresphontes asked them for the land of Messenia, in that he was older than Aristodemos.
{4.3.4} Aristodemos was now dead, but Kresphontes was vigorously opposed by Theras the son of Autesion, who was of Theban origin and fourth in descent from Polyneikes the son of Oedipus. He was at that time guardian of the sons of Aristodemos, being their uncle on the mother’s side, Aristodemos having married a daughter of Autesion, called Argeia. Kresphontes, wishing to obtain Messenia as his portion at all costs, approached Temenus, and having suborned him pretended to leave the decision to the lot.
{4.3.5} Temenus put the lots of the children of Aristodemos and of Kresphontes into a jar containing water, the terms being that the party whose lot came up first should be the first to choose a portion of the country. Temenus had caused both lots to be made of clay, but for the sons of Aristodemos sun-dried, for Kresphontes baked with fire. So the lot of the sons of Aristodemos was dissolved, and Kresphontes, winning in this way, chose Messenia.
{4.3.6} The common people of the old Messenians were not dispossessed by the Dorians, but agreed to be ruled by Kresphontes and to divide the land with the Dorians. They were induced to give way to them in this by the suspicion which they felt for their rulers, as the Neleidai were originally of Iolcos. Kresphontes took to wife Merope the daughter of Kypselos, then king of the Arcadians, by whom with other children was born to him Aipytos his youngest.
{4.3.7} He had the palace, which he and his children were to occupy, built in Stenyclerus. Originally Perieres and the other kings dwelled at Andania, but when Aphareus founded Arene, he and his sons settled there. In the time of Nestor and his descendants the palace was at Pylos, but Kresphontes ordained that the king should live in Stenyclerus. As his government for the most part was directed in favor of the people, the rich rebelled and killed Kresphontes and all his sons except Aipytos.
{4.3.8} He was still a boy and being brought up by Kypselos, and was the sole survivor of his house. When he reached manhood, he was brought back by the Arcadians to Messene, the other Dorian kings, the sons of Aristodemos and Isthmios, the son of Temenus, helping to restore him. On becoming king, Aipytos punished his father’s murderers and all who had been accessories to the crime. By winning the Messenian nobles to his side by deference, and all who were of the people by gifts, he attained to such honor that his descendants were given the name of Aipytidai instead of Herakleidai.
{4.3.9} Glaukos, his son and successor, was content to imitate his father in all other matters, both publicly and in his treatment of individuals, but attained to greater piety. For the precinct of Zeus on the summit of Ithome, having been consecrated by Polycaon and Messene, had hitherto received no honor among the Dorians, and it was Glaukos who established this worship among them and he was the first to sacrifice to Makhaon the son of Asklepios in Gerenia, and to assign to Messene, the daughter of Triopas, the honors customarily paid to heroes.
{4.3.10} Isthmios the son of Glaukos built a shrine also to Gorgasus and Nikomakhos which is in Pharae. Isthmios had a son Dotadas, who constructed the harbor at Mothone, though Messenia contained others. Sybotas the son of Dotadas established the annual sacrifice by the king to the river Pamisus and also the offering to the hero Eurytos the son of Melaneus at Oechalia before the mysteries of the great Goddesses, which were still held at Andania.
{4.4.1} In the reign of Phintas the son of Sybotas the Messenians for the first time sent an offering and chorus of men to Apollo at Delos. Their processional hymn to the god was composed by Eumēlos, this poem being the only one of his that is considered genuine. It was in the reign of Phintas that a quarrel first took place with the Lacedaemonians. The very cause is disputed, but is said to have been as follows:
{4.4.2} There is a sanctuary of Artemis called Limnatis (of the Lake) on the frontier of Messenian, in which the Messenians and the Lacedaemonians alone of the Dorians shared. According to the Lacedaemonians their girls coming to the festival were violated by Messenian men and their king was killed in trying to prevent it. He was Teleklos the son of Arkhelaos, son of Agesilaos, son of Doryssus, son of Labotas, son of Ekhestratos, son of Agis. In addition to this they say that the girls who were violated killed themselves for shame.
{4.4.3} The Messenians say that a plot was formed by Teleklos against persons of the highest rank in Messene who had come to the sanctuary, his incentive being the excellence of the Messenian land; in furtherance of his design he selected some Spartan youths, all without beards, dressed them in girls’ clothes and ornaments, and providing them with daggers introduced them among the Messenians when they were resting; the Messenians, in defending themselves, killed the beardless youths and Teleklos himself; but the Lacedaemonians, they say, whose king did not plan this without the general consent, being conscious that they had begun the wrong, did not demand justice for the murder of Teleklos. These are the accounts given by the two sides; one may believe them according to one’s feelings towards either side.
{4.4.4} A generation later in the reign of Alkamenes the son of Teleklos in Lacedaemon—the king of the other house was Theopompos the son of Nikandros, son of Kharillos, son of Polydektes, son of Eunomos, son of Prytanis, son of Eurypon in Messenia Antiokhos and Androkles, the sons of Phintas were reigning—the mutual hatred of the Lacedaemonians and Messenians was aroused, and the Lacedaemonians began war, obtaining a pretext which was not only sufficient for them, eager for a quarrel as they were and resolved on war at all costs, but also plausible in the highest degree, although with a more peaceful disposition it could have been settled by the decision of a court. What happened was as follows.
{4.4.5} There was a Messenian Polykhares, a man of no small distinction in all respects and an Olympic victor. (The Eleians were holding the fourth Olympiad, [266] the only event being the short foot-race, when Polykhares won his victory.) This man, possessing cattle without land of his own to provide them with sufficient grazing, gave them to a Spartan Euaephnus to feed on his own land, Euaephnus to have a share of the produce.
{4.4.6} Now Euaephnus was a man who set unjust gain above loyalty, and a trickster besides. He sold the cattle of Polykhares to some merchants who put in to Laconia, and went himself to inform Polykhares but he said that pirates had landed in the country, had overcome him and carried off the cattle and the herdsmen. While he was trying to deceive him by his lies, one of the herdsmen, escaping in the meantime from the merchants, returned and found Euaephnus there with his master, and convicted him before Polykhares.
{4.4.7} Thus caught and unable to deny it, he made many appeals to Polykhares himself and to his son to grant him pardon; for among the many inducements to be found in human nature which drive us to wrongdoing the love of gain exercises the greatest power. He stated the price which he had received for the cattle and begged that the son of Polykhares should come with him to receive it. When on their way they reached Laconia, Euaephnus dared a deed more impious than the first; he murdered Polykhares’ son.
{4.4.8} Polykhares, when he heard of this new misfortune, went to Lacedaemon and plagued the kings and ephors, loudly lamenting his son and recounting the wrongs that he had suffered from Euaephnus, whom he had made his friend and trusted above all the Lacedaemonians. Obtaining no redress in spite of continual visits to the authorities, Polykhares at last was driven out of his mind, gave way to his rage, and, regardless of himself, dared to murder every Lacedaemonian whom he could capture.
{4.5.1} The Lacedaemonians say that they went to war because Polykhares was not surrendered to them, and on account of the murder of Teleklos; even before this they had been suspicious on account of the wrongdoing of Kresphontes in the matter of the lot. The Messenians make the reply that I have already given with regard to Teleklos, and point to the fact that the sons of Aristodemos helped to restore Aipytos the son of Kresphontes, which they would never have done if they had been at variance with Kresphontes.
{4.5.2} They say that they did not surrender Polykhares to the Lacedaemonians for punishment because they also had not surrendered Euaephnus, but that they offered to stand trial at the meeting of the league before the Argives, kinsmen of both parties, and to submit the matter to the court in Athens called the Areiopagos, as this court was held to exercise an ancient jurisdiction in cases pertaining to murder.
{4.5.3} They say that these were not the reasons of the Lacedaemonians in going to war, but that they had formed designs on their country through covetousness, as in others of their actions, bringing forward against them their treatment of the Arcadians and of the Argives; for in both cases they have never been satisfied with their continual encroachments. When Croesus sent them presents they were the first to become friends with the barbarian, after he had reduced the other Greeks of Asia Minor and all the Dorians who live on the Carian mainland.
{4.5.4} They point out too that when the leaders of Phokis had seized the temple at Delphi, the kings and every Spartan of repute privately, and the board of ephors and senate publicly, had a share of the god’s property. As the most convincing proof that the Lacedaemonians would stick at nothing for the sake of gain, they reproach them with their alliance with Apollodoros, who became tyrant in Cassandreia.
{4.5.5} I could not introduce into the present account the reasons why the Messenians have come to regard this as so bitter a reproach. Although the courage of the Messenians and the length of time for which they fought differ from the facts of the tyranny of Apollodoros, in their disastrous character the sufferings of the people of Cassandreia would not fall far short of the Messenian.
{4.5.6} These then are the reasons for the war which the two sides allege. An embassy then came from the Lacedaemonians to demand the surrender of Polykhares. The Messenian kings replied to the ambassadors that after deliberation with the people they would send the findings to Sparta and after their departure they themselves summoned the citizens to a meeting. The views put forward differed widely, Androkles urging the surrender of Polykhares as guilty of an impious and abominable crime. Antiokhos among other arguments urged against him that it would be the most piteous thing that Polykhares should suffer before the eyes of Euaephnus, and enumerated in detail all that he would have to undergo.
{4.5.7} Finally the supporters of Androkles and of Antiokhos were so carried away that they took up arms. But the battle did not last long, for the party of Antiokhos, far outnumbering the other, killed Androkles and his principal supporters, Antiokhos, now sole king, sent to Sparta that he was ready to submit the matter to the courts which I have already mentioned. But the Lacedaemonians are said to have made no reply to the bearers of the letter.
{4.5.8} Not many months later Antiokhos died and his son Euphaes succeeded to the kingdom. The Lacedaemonians, without sending a herald to declare war on the Messenians or renouncing their friendship beforehand, had made their preparations secretly and with all the concealment possible; they first took an oath that neither the length of the war, should it not be decided soon, nor their disasters, however great they might be, would deter them until they won the land of Messenia by the sword.
{4.5.9} After taking this oath, they attacked Ampheia by night, appointing Alkamenes the son of Teleklos leader of the force. Ampheia is a small town in Messenia near the Laconian border, of no great size, but situated on a high hill and possessing copious springs of water. It seemed generally a suitable base for the whole war. The gates being open and the town not garrisoned, they took it and killed the Messenians captured there, some still in their beds and others who had taken refuge at the sanctuaries and altars of the gods when they realized what had happened. Those who escaped were few.
{4.5.10} This was the first attack which the Lacedaemonians made on the Messenians, in the second year of the ninth Olympiad, [267] when Xenodocus of Messenia won the short foot-race. In Athens the office of an archon [arkhōn] who is annually appointed by lot did not yet exist, At first, the people deprived the descendants of Melanthos, called Medontidai, of most of their power, transforming the kingship into a constitutional office; afterwards they limited their tenure of office to ten years. At the time of the seizure of Ampheia, Aesimides the son of Aeschylus was holding his fifth year office in Athens.
{4.6.1} Before I wrote the history of the war and all the sufferings and actions that the superhuman force [ho daimōn] prepared in it for both sides, I wished to reach a decision regarding the age of a certain Messenian. This war was fought between the Lacedaemonians with their allies and the Messenians with their supporters, but received its name not from the invaders like the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, but was called Messenian from their disasters, just as the name Trojan war, rather than Greek, came to be universally applied to the war at Troy. An account of this war of the Messenians has been given by Rhianus of Bene in his epic, and by Myron of Priene. [268] Myron’s history is in prose.
{4.6.2} Neither writer achieved a complete and continuous account of the whole war from its beginning to the end, but only of the part which each selected: Myron narrated the capture of Ampheia and subsequent events down to the death of Aristodemos; Rhianus did not touch this first war at all. He described the events that in time befell the Messenians after their revolt from the Lacedaemonians, not indeed the whole of them, but those subsequent to the battle which they fought at the Great Trench, as it is called.
{4.6.3} The Messenian, Aristomenes, on whose account I have made my whole mention of Rhianus and Myron, was the man who first and foremost raised the name of Messene to renown. He was introduced by Myron into his history, while to Rhianus in his epic Aristomenes is as great a man as is the Achilles of the Iliad to Homer. As their statements differ so widely, it remained for me to adopt one or other of the accounts, but not both together, and Rhianus appeared to me to have given the more probable account as to the age of Aristomenes.
{4.6.4} One may realize in others of his works that Myron gives no heed to the question of his statements seeming to lack truth and credibility, and particularly in this Messenian history. For he has made Aristomenes kill Theopompos, the king of the Lacedaemonians, shortly before the death of Aristodemos but we know that Theopompos was not killed either in battle or in any other way before the war was concluded.
{4.6.5} It was this Theopompos who put an end to the war, and my evidence is the lines of Tyrtaeus, which say:
“To our king beloved of the gods, Theopompos, through whom we took Messene with wide dancing-grounds.”
Tyrtaeus, unknown location.
Aristomenes then in my view belongs to the time of the second war, and I will relate his history when I come to this.
{4.6.6} The Messenians, when they heard of the events at Ampheia from the actual survivors from the captured town, mustered in Stenyclerus from their cities. When the people had gathered in the assembly, first the leading men and finally the king exhorted them not to be panic-stricken at the sack of Ampheia, or to suppose that the issue of the whole war had already been decided thereby, or to be afraid of the power of the Lacedaemonians as superior to their own. For the Lacedaemonians had longer practice in warfare, but they themselves had a stronger necessity to show themselves brave men, and greater goodwill would be shown by the gods to men defending their country, who were not the authors of injustice.
{4.7.1} With these words Euphaes dismissed the gathering, and henceforward kept all the Messenians under arms, compelling the untrained to learn the art of war and the trained men to undergo a more rigorous discipline than before. The Lacedaemonians carried out raids into Messenia, but did no harm to the country, regarding it as their own, nor did they cut down trees or demolish buildings, but they drove off any cattle that they met with, and carried off the wheat and other produce.
{4.7.2} They made assaults on the towns but captured none, as they were fortified with walls and carefully garrisoned. They withdrew with loss and without effecting anything, and finally gave up attempting the towns. The Messenians also ravaged the Laconian coast and all the cultivated land round Taygetos.
{4.7.3} Three years after the capture of Ampheia, being eager to put to use the spirit of the Messenians, now at the height of their passion against the Lacedaemonians, and considering too that they had undergone sufficient training, Euphaes ordered an advance. He ordered the slaves also to accompany him, bringing wood and all else that was required for the making of an entrenched camp. The Lacedaemonians heard from their garrison at Ampheia that the Messenians were marching out, so they also came out to battle.
{4.7.4} There was a place in Messenia which was in other ways suitable for an engagement, but had a deep ravine in front of it. Here Euphaes drew up the Messenians and appointed Kleonnis general; the cavalry and light-armed, together amounting to less than 500, were commanded by Pytharatos and Antandros.
{4.7.5} As the two forces were about to engage, the ravine which divided them prevented the heavy-armed from coming to close quarters, though they approached one another eagerly and with a recklessness born of hate. The cavalry and light-armed engaged above the ravine, but as they were equally matched in numbers and skill, for this reason the fight was indecisive.
{4.7.6} While they were involved, Euphaes ordered the slaves to fortify with a palisade first the rear of his force and afterwards both flanks, and when the battle had been broken off at nightfall, they fortified his front also on the ravine. So at daybreak the Lacedaemonians realized the forethought of Euphaes. They had no means of fighting the Messenians unless they came out from the stockade, and despaired of forming a siege, for which they were unprepared in all things alike.
{4.7.7} They then returned home; but a year later, when the older men reviled them and taunted them both with cowardice and disregard of their oath, they made a second expedition openly against the Messenians. Both kings were in command, Theopompos the son of Nikandros and Polydoros the son of Alkamenes, Alkamenes being no longer alive. The Messenians encamped opposite them, and when the Spartans endeavored to join battle, went out to meet them.
{4.7.8} The Lacedaemonian commander on the left wing was Polydoros, and Theopompos on the right. The center was held by Euryleon, now a Lacedaemonian, but of Theban origin of the house of Kadmos, fourth in descent from Aigeus the son of Oiolykos, son of Theras, son of Autesion. On the side of the Messenians Antandros and Euphaes were posted opposite the Lacedaemonian right; the other wing, opposite Polydoros, was held by Pytharatos, with Kleonnis in the center.
{4.7.9} As they were about to engage, the kings came forward to encourage their men. The words of encouragement addressed by Theopompos to the Lacedaemonians were few, according to their native custom. He reminded them of their oath against the Messenians, and said how noble was their ambition, to prove themselves to have done a deed more glorious than their fathers, who subdued the neighboring peoples, and to have won a more fortunate land. Euphaes spoke at greater length than the Spartan, but no more than he saw the occasion admitted.
{4.7.10} He declared that the contest would be not only for land and possessions, but he knew well what would overtake them if defeated. Their wives and children would be carried off as slaves, and death unaccompanied by outrage would be the mildest fate for their grown men their sanctuaries would be despoiled and their ancestral homes burned. His words were not supposition, the fate of the men captured at Ampheia was evidence that all could see.
{4.7.11} Better a noble death than such evils; it was far easier for them, while still undefeated and equally matched in courage, to outdo their adversaries in zeal than to repair their losses when once they had lost heart.
{4.8.1} Such were the words of Euphaes. When the leaders on either side gave the signal, the Messenians charged the Lacedaemonians recklessly like men eager for death in their wrath, each one of them eager to be the first to join battle. The Lacedaemonians also advanced to meet them eagerly, but were careful not to break their ranks.
{4.8.2} When they were about to come to close quarters, they threatened one another by brandishing their arms and with fierce looks, and fell to recriminations, these calling the Messenians already their slaves, no freer than the Helots; the others answering that they were impious in their undertaking, who for the sake of gain attacked their kinsmen and outraged all the ancestral gods of the Dorians, and Hēraklēs above all. And now with their taunts they come to deeds, mass thrusting against mass, especially on the Lacedaemonian side, and man attacking man.
{4.8.3} The Lacedaemonians were far superior both in tactics and training, and also in numbers, for they had with them the neighboring peoples already reduced and serving in their ranks, and the Dryopes of Asine, who a generation earlier had been driven out of their own country by the Argives and had come as suppliants to Lacedaemon, were forced to serve in the army. Against the Messenian light-armed they employed Cretan archers as mercenaries.
{4.8.4} The Messenians were inspired alike by desperation and readiness to face death, regarding all their sufferings as necessary rather than terrible to men who honored their country, and exaggerating their achievements and the consequences to the Lacedaemonians. Some of them leapt forth from the ranks, displaying glorious deeds of valor, in others fatally wounded and scarce breathing the frenzy of despair still reigned.
{4.8.5} They encouraged one another, the living and unwounded urging the stricken before their last moment came to sell their lives as dearly as they could and accept their fate with joy. And the wounded, when they felt their strength ebbing and breath failing, urged the unwounded to prove themselves no less valorous than they and not to render their death of no avail to their fatherland.
{4.8.6} The Lacedaemonians refrained from exhorting one another, and were less inclined than the Messenians to engage in striking deeds of valor. As they were versed in warfare from boyhood, they employed a deeper formation and hoped that the Messenians would not endure the contest for so long as they, or sustain the toil of battle or wounds.
{4.8.7} These were the differences in both sets of combatants in action and in feeling; but on both sides alike the conquered made no appeals or promises of ransom, perhaps in their enmity despairing of getting quarter, but mainly because they scorned to disgrace their previous achievements. The victorious refrained alike from boasting and from taunts, neither side having yet sure hopes of victory. The most remarkable was the death of those who tried to strip any of the fallen. For if they exposed any part of their bodies, they were struck with javelins or were struck down while intent on their present occupation, or were killed by those whom they were plundering who still lived.
{4.8.8} The kings fought in a manner that deserves mention. Theopompos rushed wildly forward to slay Euphaes himself. Euphaes, seeing him advancing, said to Antandros that the action of Theopompos was no different from the attempt of his ancestor Polyneikes; for Polyneikes led an army from Argos against his fatherland, and slaying his brother with his own hand was slain by him. Theopompos was ready to involve the lineage of the Herakleidai in pollution as great as that of the house of Laios and Oedipus, but he would not leave the field unscathed. With these words he too advanced.
{4.8.9} Thereupon the battle, though the combatants had wearied, everywhere broke out again in full force. Their strength was renewed and recklessness of death heightened on both sides, so that it might have been thought that they were engaging for the first time. Finally Euphaes and his men in a frenzy of despair that was near to madness (for picked Messenian troops formed the whole of the king’s bodyguard), overpowering the enemy by their valor, drove back Theopompos himself and routed the Lacedaemonian troops opposed to them.
{4.8.10} But the other Messenian wing was in difficulties, for the general Pytharatos had been killed, and the men, without a commander, were fighting in a disorganized and confused manner, though not without heart. Polydoros did not pursue the Messenians when they gave way, nor Euphaes’ men the Lacedaemonians. It seemed better to him and his men to support the defeated wing; they did not, however, engage with Polydoros’ force, for darkness had already descended on the field;
{4.8.11} moreover, the Lacedaemonians were prevented from following the retiring force further not least by their ignorance of the country. Also it was an ancient practice with them not to carry out a pursuit too quickly, as they were more careful about maintaining their formation than about slaying the flying. In the center, where Euryleon was commanding the Lacedaemonians, and Kleonnis on the Messenian side, the contest was undecided; the coming of night separated them here also.
{4.8.12} This battle was fought principally or entirely by the heavy-armed troops on both sides. The mounted men were few and achieved nothing worth mention; for the Peloponnesians were not good horsemen then. The Messenian light-armed and the Cretans on the Lacedaemonian side did not engage at all; for on both sides according to the ancient practice they were posted in reserve to their own infantry.
{4.8.13} The following day neither side was minded to begin battle or to be the first to set up a trophy, but as the day advanced they made proposals for taking up the dead; when this was agreed on both sides, they proceeded to bury them.
{4.9.1} But after the battle the affairs of the Messenians began to get serious. They were exhausted by the expenditure of money devoted to the garrisoning of the towns, and their slaves were deserting to the Lacedaemonians. They were visited also by disease, which caused alarm, as resembling plague, although it did not attack all. In these circumstances they resolved to desert all their numerous towns inland and to settle on Mount Ithome.
{4.9.2} A small town existed here, which they say Homer mentions in the Catalogue:
“Stepped Ithome.”
Iliad 2.729
To this town they withdrew, extending the old circuit to form a sufficient protection for them all. The place was strong in other respects, for Ithome falls short of none of the mountains within the Isthmus in height and at this point was most difficult to climb.
{4.9.3} They also resolved to send an envoy to Delphi, and despatched Tisis the son of Alcis, a man of the highest reputation, considered to be fully versed in divination. While he was returning from Delphi men from the Lacedaemonian garrison at Ampheia laid an ambush for him. Though trapped, he did not submit to be made a prisoner, but stood his ground to resist in spite of the wounds he received, until a voice was heard from an unseen quarter, “Let the bearer of the oracle go free.”
{4.9.4} Tisis, reaching Ithome with all speed, delivered the oracle to the king, and soon afterwards died of his wounds. Euphaes assembled the Messenians and made known the oracle:
“Ye shall sacrifice a pure maiden to the gods below, appointed by lot of the blood of the sons of Aipytos, and slay her by night. But if that ye cannot do, offer a maiden from another house, if the father gives her freely for the slaughter.”
{4.9.5} When the god declared this, all the girls of the house of the Aipytidai forthwith cast lots, and the lot fell on the daughter of Lykiskos. But Epebolus the seer forbade them to offer her, for she was not the daughter of Lykiskos, but the woman who was married to Lykiskos being unable to bear a child had palmed off the girl as hers. While Epebolus was making this declaration, Lykiskos took the girl away and deserted to Sparta.
{4.9.6} The Messenians were in despair when they saw that Lykiskos had fled; thereupon Aristodemos, a son of the house of the Aipytidai, of higher standing than Lykiskos both in reputation and in war, freely offered his daughter for the sacrifice. But human affairs and human purpose above all are obscured by fate, just as the mud of a river hides a pebble; for when Aristodemos was striving his utmost to save Messene, fate set this obstacle in his path.
{4.9.7} A Messenian, whose name is not recorded, was in love with the daughter of’ Aristodemos, and was already about to make her his wife. He at first disputed the rights of Aristodemos over the girl for Aristodemos, since he had betrothed her to himself had no further rights over the girl, but he to whom she was betrothed had greater rights than the father. Next, when he saw that this was of no avail, he had recourse to a shameless plea, that the girl was with child by him.
{4.9.8} At last he drove Aristodemos to such a fury of passion that lie killed his daughter; then cutting her open he showed that she was not pregnant. Epebolus, who was present, ordered another man to come forward and offer his daughter, for the daughter of Aristodemos was of no avail to them dead; for the father had murdered her, not offered her to the gods whom the Pythia ordained.
{4.9.9} When the seer said this, the multitude of the Messenians rushed on the girl’s lover to kill him, since he had fixed the guilt of bloodshed on Aristodemos to no purpose, and had made their hopes of safety doubtful. But as he was a close friend of Euphaes, Euphaes persuaded the Messenians that the oracle was fulfilled by the death of the girl and that the deed done by Aristodemos sufficed for them.
{4.9.10} When he said this, all the members of the house of the Aipytidai said that he spoke truth, for each was eager to be rid of the terror threatening his daughter. The people took the advice of the king and broke up the assembly and thereupon turned to sacrifices to the gods and feasting.
{4.10.1} But the Lacedaemonians, when they heard the oracle given to the Messenians, were in despair, both they and their kings, and for the future shrank from offering battle.
But five years after the escape of Lykiskos from Ithome, the victims being auspicious, the Lacedaemonians marched against Ithome. The Cretans were no longer with them. The allies of the Messenians also were late, for the Spartans had now incurred the suspicion of others of the Peloponnesians, especially of the Arcadians and Argives. The Argives intended to come without the knowledge of the Lacedaemonians, and by private enterprise rather than by public declaration. The expedition was openly proclaimed among the Arcadians, but they did not arrive either. For the Messenians were induced by the credit placed in the oracle to face the risk without allies.
{4.10.2} This engagement did not differ in most points from the first, as on this occasion too daylight failed the combatants, but they record that on neither side was a wing or division broken, as they did not maintain the formation in which they were originally posted, champions on either side meeting in the middle, and there supporting the whole combat.
{4.10.3} Euphaes, who showed more eagerness than a king should and recklessly attacked those guarding Theopompos, received a number of mortal wounds. When he swooned and fell, the Lacedaemonians did their utmost to drag him into their own ranks, as he still breathed. But the Messenians were roused by the affection which they felt for their king and by the reproach which would be theirs. It seemed better to die for their kings and sacrifice their lives than that he should be abandoned while one of them escaped.
{4.10.4} So the fall of Euphaes prolonged the battle and called forth further deeds of daring on both sides. He came to himself later and saw that his men had not had the worst of the fight, but he died in a few days, having reigned thirteen years over the Messenians, and having been at war with the Lacedaemonians for the whole of his reign.
{4.10.5} Euphaes, having no children, left his kingdom to the man chosen by the people. Kleonnis and Damis came forward to dispute it with Aristodemos, as they were considered superior to him in war and all else. Antandros had been killed by the enemy, risking his life for Euphaes in the battle. The views of both the seers, Epebolus and Ophioneus, were identical, that they should not give the honors of Aipytos and his descendants to a man who was accursed and polluted by the murder of his daughter. Nevertheless Aristodemos was chosen and became king.
{4.10.6} This Ophioneus, the Messenian seer, was blind from birth and practiced the following method of divination. By learning the facts relevant to each case, both private and public, he thus foretold the future. This then was the way he practiced his art. Aristodemos, becoming king, constantly was ready to show all reasonable favor to the people, and held all the nobles in honor, especially Kleonnis and Damis. He maintained good relations with the allies, sending gifts to the Arcadian leaders and to Argos and Sikyon.
{4.10.7} They carried on the war during his reign by means of constant forays with small parties, and made incursions into one another’s country at harvest time, the Messenians being supported by the Arcadians in their raids into Laconia. The Argives did not think fit to declare their hatred for the Lacedaemonians beforehand, but prepared to take part in the contest when it came.
{4.11.1} In the fifth year of the reign of Aristodemos, being exhausted by the length of the war and by their expenditure, after due notice that a battle would be fought, both sides were joined by their allies, the Lacedaemonians by the Corinthians alone of the Peloponnesians, the Messenians by the full muster of’ the Arcadians and by picked troops from Argos and Sikyon. The Lacedaemonians entrusted their center to the Corinthians, Helots and all the neighboring peoples who were serving with them; they themselves and the kings were posted on the wings in a deeper and closer formation than ever before.
{4.11.2} The dispositions of Aristodemos and his men were as follows: he selected the most serviceable of the arms for all the Arcadians and Messenians who were physically strong and stout hearted but did not possess powerful weapons, and as the matter was urgent, posted them with the Argives and Sikyonians, extending the line that they might not be surrounded by the enemy. He also took care that they should be drawn up with Mount Ithome in their rear. Placing Kleonnis in command of these troops,
{4.11.3} he himself and Damis remained in reserve with the light troops consisting of a few slingers or archers, the bulk of the force being physically suited to rapid assaults and retirements and lightly armed. Not all of them possessed a breastplate or shield, but those who lacked them were protected with the skins of goats and sheep, some of them, particularly the Arcadian mountaineers, having the hides of wild beasts, wolves and bears.
{4.11.4} Each carried several javelins, and some of them spears. While these were in ambush in a part of Ithome where they were least likely to be visible, the heavy-armed troops of the Messenians and their allies withstood the first assault of the Lacedaemonians, and continued after this to show courage in every way. They were inferior in numbers to the enemy, but were picked men fighting against levies, not selected troops like themselves, and so, by their bravery and training were more able to maintain a lengthy resistance.
{4.11.5} Then the mobile Messenian force, when the signal was given to them, charged the Lacedaemonians and enveloping them threw javelins on their flanks. All who were of higher courage ran in and struck at close quarters. The Lacedaemonians, faced simultaneously with a second and unforeseen danger, were not demoralized, but turning on the light troops, tried to defend themselves. But, as the enemy with their light equipment drew off without difficulty, the Lacedaemonians were filled with perplexity and, as a consequence, with anger.
{4.11.6} Men are apt to be most annoyed by what they regard as beneath them. So then the Spartans who had already been wounded and all who after the fall of their comrades were the first to meet the attack of the light troops, ran out to meet them when they saw the light troops advancing and hotly extended the pursuit as they retired. The Messenian light troops maintained their original tactics, striking and shooting at them when they stood still, and outstripping them in flight when they pursued, attacking again as they tried to retire.
{4.11.7} They did this in separate parties and at different points of the enemy’s line. The Messenian heavy-armed and their allies meantime pressed more boldly on the troops facing them. Finally the Lacedaemonians, worn out by the length of the battle and their wounds, and demoralized contrary to their custom by the light troops, broke their ranks. When they had been routed, the light troops inflicted greater damage on them.
{4.11.8} It was impossible to reckon the Lacedaemonian losses in the battle, but I for my part am convinced that they were heavy. The rest made their retreat homewards without molestation, but for the Corinthians it was likely to be difficult, for whether they tried to retire through the Argolid or by Sikyon, in either case it was through enemy country.
{4.12.1} The Lacedaemonians were distressed by the reverse that had befallen them. Their losses in the battle were great and included important men, and they were inclined to despair of all hope in the war. For this reason they sent envoys to Delphi, who received the following reply from the Pythia:
“Phoebus bids thee pursue not only the task of war with the hand, but by guile a people holds the Messenian land, and by the same arts as they first employed shall the people fall.”
{4.12.2} At this the kings and ephors were eager to invent stratagems, but failed. They imitated that deed of Odysseus at Troy, and sent a hundred men to Ithome to observe what the enemy were planning, but pretending to be deserters. A sentence of banishment had been openly pronounced on them. On their arrival Aristodemos at once sent them away, saying that the crimes of the Lacedaemonians were new, but their tricks old.
{4.12.3} Failing in their attempt, the Lacedaemonians next attempted to break up the Messenian alliance. But when repulsed by the Arcadians, to whom their ambassadors came first, they put off going to Argos. Aristodemos, hearing of the Lacedaemonian intrigues, also sent men to enquire of the god. And the Pythia replied to them:
{4.12.4} “The god gives thee glory in war, but beware lest by guile the hated company of Sparta scale the well-built walls, for mightier is their god of war. And harsh shall be the dwellers in the circle of the dancing ground, when the two have started forth by one chance from the hidden ambush. Yet the holy day shall not behold this ending until their doom o’ertake those which have changed their nature.”
At the time Aristodemos and the seers were at a loss to interpret the saying, but in a few years the god was like to reveal it and bring it to fulfillment.
{4.12.5} Other things befell the Messenians at that time: while Lykiskos was living abroad in Sparta, death overtook the daughter whom he carried with him on his flight from Messene. As he often visited her tomb, Arcadian horsemen lay in wait and captured him. When carried to Ithome and brought into the assembly he urged that he had not departed a traitor to his country, but because he believed the words of the seer that the girl was not his own.
{4.12.6} His defence did not win credence until the woman who was then holding the priesthood of Hērā came into the theater. She confessed that she was the mother of the girl and had given her to Lykiskos’ wife to pass off as her own. “And now,” she said, “revealing the secret, I have come to lay down my office.” She said this because it was an established custom in Messene that, if a child of a man or woman holding a priesthood died before its parent, the office should pass to another. Accepting the truth of her statement, they chose another woman to take her place as priestess of the goddess, and said that Lykiskos’ deed was pardonable.
{4.12.7} After this, as the twentieth year of the war was approaching, they resolved to send again to Delphi to ask concerning victory. The Pythia made answer to their question:
To those who first around the altar set up tripods ten times ten to Zeus of Ithome, the superhuman force [ho daimōn] grants the Messenian land in the glory [kudos] of war. For thus has Zeus ordained with the nod of his head. Veering [atē] had put you in front and punishment [tisis] follows after, nor would you deceive [ap-atân] the god. Act in whatever way you must act. Fate wills. Veering [atē] comes upon some men before others.
{4.12.8} Hearing this they thought that the oracle was in their favor and granted them victory; for as they themselves possessed the sanctuary of Zeus of Ithome within the walls, the Lacedaemonians could not forestall them in making the dedication. They set about making tripods of wood, as they had not money enough to make them of bronze. But one of the Delphians reported the oracle to Sparta. When they heard it, no plan occurred to them in public,
{4.12.9} but Oibalos, a man of no repute in general, but evidently shrewd, made a hundred tripods, as best he might, of clay, and hiding them in a bag, carried nets with them like a hunter. As he was unknown even to most of the Lacedaemonians, he would more easily escape detection by the Messenians. Joining some countrymen, he entered Ithome with them, and as soon as night fell, dedicated these tripods of clay to the god, and returned to Sparta to tell the Lacedaemonians.
{4.12.10} The Messenians, when they saw them, were greatly disturbed, thinking, rightly enough, that they were from the Lacedaemonians. Nevertheless Aristodemos encouraged them, saying what the occasion demanded, and setting up the wooden tripods, which had already been made, round the altar of the god of Ithome. It happened also that Ophioneus, the seer who had been blind from birth, received his sight in the most remarkable way. He was seized with a violent pain in the head, and thereupon received his sight.
{4.13.1} Next, as fate was already inclining towards the conquest of the Messenians, the god revealed to them the future. For the armed statue of Artemis, which was all of bronze, let its shield fall. And as Aristodemos was about to sacrifice the victims to Zeus of Ithome, the rams of their own accord leapt towards the altar, and dashing their horns violently against it were killed by the force of the blow. A third portent befell them. The dogs assembled together and howled every night, and at last fled together to the camp of the Lacedaemonians.
{4.13.2} Aristodemos was alarmed by this and by the following dream which came to him. He thought that he was about to go forth armed to battle and the victims’ entrails were lying before him on a table, when his daughter appeared, wearing a black robe and showing her breast and belly cut open; when she appeared she flung down what was on the table, stripped him of his arms, and instead set a golden garland on his head and put a white robe about him.
{4.13.3} Aristodemos, who was already in despair, thought the dream foretold the end of life for him, because the Messenians used to carry out their chiefs for burial wearing a garland and dressed in white garments. Then he received news that Ophioneus the seer could no longer see but had suddenly become blind, as he was at first. Then they understood the oracle, that by the two starting forth from the ambush and again meeting their doom the Pythia meant the eyes of Ophioneus.
{4.13.4} Then Aristodemos, reckoning up his private sorrows, that to no purpose he had become the slayer of his daughter, and seeing that no hope of safety remained for his country, slew himself upon the tomb of his child. He had done all that human calculation could do to save the Messenians, but fortune brought to naught both his achievements and his plans. He had reigned six years and a few months when he died.
{4.13.5} The Messenians were plunged into despair, and were even ready to send to the Lacedaemonians to ask mercy, so demoralized were they by the death of Aristodemos. Their pride, however, prevented them from doing this. But they met in the assembly and chose not a king, but Damis as general with absolute power. He selected Kleonnis and Phyleus as colleagues, and even with their present resources made ready to join battle. For he was forced to this by the blockade, and above all by famine and by the consequent terror that they would be destroyed by want.
{4.13.6} Even then the Messenians were not inferior in courage and brave deeds, but all their generals were killed and their most notable men. After this they held out for some five months, but as the year was coming to an end deserted Ithome, the war having lasted twenty years in all, as is stated in the poems of Tyrtaeus:
“But in the twentieth year they left their rich tilled lands, and fled from out the lofty mountains of Ithome.”
Tyrtaeus, unknown location.
{4.13.7} This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth Olympiad, [269] when Dasmon of Corinth won the short foot-race. In Athens the Medontidai were still holding the title of archon [arkhōn] as a ten years’ office, Hippomenes having completed his fourth year.
{4.14.1} All the Messenians who had ties with Sikyon and Argos and among any of the Arcadians retired to these states, but those who belonged to the lineage of the Priests and performed the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, to Eleusis. The majority of the common people were scattered in their native towns, as before.
{4.14.2} The Lacedaemonians first razed Ithome to the ground, then attacked and captured the remaining towns. Of the spoils they dedicated bronze tripods to the god of Amyklai. A statue of Aphrodite stands under the first tripod, of Artemis under the second, of Kore or Demeter under the third.
{4.14.3} Dedicating these offerings at Amyklai, they gave to the people of Asine, who had been driven out by the Argives, that part of Messenia on the coast which they still occupy; to the descendants of Androkles (he had a daughter, who with her children had fled at his death and come to Sparta) they assigned the part called Hyamia.
{4.14.4} The Messenians themselves were treated in this way: First they exacted an oath that they would never rebel or attempt any kind of revolution. Secondly, though no fixed tribute was imposed on them, they used to bring the half of all the produce of their fields to Sparta. It was also ordained that for the funerals of the kings and other magistrates men should come from Messene with their wives in black garments, and a penalty was laid on those who disobeyed.
{4.14.5} As to the wanton punishments which they inflicted on the Messenians, this is what is said in Tyrtaeus’ poems:
“Like asses worn by their great burdens, bringing of dire necessity to their masters the half of all the fruits the wheat-land bears.”
Tyrtaeus, unknown location.
That they were compelled to share their mourning, he shows by the following:
“Wailing for their masters, they and their wives alike, whensoever the baneful doom of death came upon any.”
Tyrtaeus, unknown location.
{4.14.6} In these straits the Messenians, foreseeing no kindness from the Lacedaemonians, and thinking death in battle or a complete migration from Peloponnese preferable to their present lot, resolved at all costs to revolt. They were incited to this mainly by the younger men, who were still without experience of war but were of high spirit and preferred death in a free country, even though slavery might bring happiness in all else.
{4.14.7} Of the young men who had grown up in Messenia the best and most numerous were round Andania, and among them was Aristomenes, who to this day is worshipped as a hero among the Messenians. They think that even the circumstances of his birth were notable, for they assert that a spirit or a god united with his mother, Nikoteleia, in the form of a serpent. I know that the Macedonians tell a similar story about Olympias, and the Sikyonians about Aristodama, but there is this difference:
{4.14.8} The Messenians do not make Aristomenes the son of Hēraklēs or of Zeus, as the Macedonians do with Alexander and Ammon, and the Sikyonians with Aratos and Asklepios. Most of the Greeks say that Pyrrhos was the father of Aristomenes, but I myself know that in their libations the Messenians call him Aristomenes son of Nikomedes. He then, being in the full vigor of youth and courage, with others of the nobles incited them to revolt. This was not done openly at first, but they sent secretly to Argos and to the Arcadians, to ask if they were ready to help unhesitatingly and no less energetically than in the former war.
{4.15.1} When all their preparations were made for the war, the readiness of their allies exceeding expectation (for now the hatred which the Argives and Arcadians felt for the Lacedaemonians had blazed up openly), they revolted in the thirty-ninth year after the capture of Ithome, and in the fourth year of the twenty-third Olympiad, [270] when Icarus of Hyreresia won the short foot-race. In Athens the title of archon [arkhōn]was now of annual tenure, and Tlesias held office.
{4.15.2} Tyrtaeus has not recorded the names of the kings then reigning in Lacedaemon, but Rhianos stated in his epic that Leotykhides was king at the time of this war. I cannot agree with him at all on this point. Though Tyrtaeus makes no statement, he may be regarded as having done so by the following; there are lines of his which refer to the first war:
“Around it they fought unceasingly for nineteen years, ever maintaining a stout heart, the warrior fathers of our fathers.”
Tyrtaeus, unknown.
{4.15.3} It is obvious then that the Messenians went to war now in the second generation after the first war, and the sequence of time shows that the kings of Sparta at that time were Anaxandros the son of Eurycrates, son of Polydoros, and of the other house Anaxidamos the son of Zeuxidamos, son of Arkhidamos, son of Theopompos. I go as far as the third in descent from Theopompos, because Arkhidamos the son of Theopompos died before his father, and the kingdom of Theopompos passed to his grandson, Zeuxidamos. But Leotykhides clearly succeeded Demaratos the son of Ariston, Ariston being sixth in descent from Theopompos.
{4.15.4} In the first year after the revolt the Messenians engaged the Lacedaemonians at a place called Derae in Messenia, both sides being without their allies. Neither side won a clear victory, but Aristomenes is said to have achieved more than it seemed that one man could, so that, as he was of the lineage of the Aipytidai, they were for making him king after the battle. As he declined, they appointed him general with absolute power.
{4.15.5} It was the view of Aristomenes that any man would be ready to die in battle if he had first done deeds worthy of record, but that it was his own especial task at the very beginning of the war to prove that he had struck terror into the Lacedaemonians and that he would be more terrible to them for the future. With this purpose he came by night to Lacedaemon and fixed on the temple of Athena of the Brazen House a shield inscribed
“The Gift of Aristomenes to the Goddess, taken from Spartans.”
{4.15.6} The Spartans received an oracle from Delphi that they should procure the Athenian as counsellor. So they sent messengers to Athens to announce the oracle, asking for a man to advise what they must do. The Athenians, who were not anxious either that the Lacedaemonians should add to their possessions the best part of Peloponnese without great dangers, or that they themselves should disobey the god, made their plans accordingly. There was a man Tyrtaeus, a teacher of letters, who was considered of poor intellect and was lame in one foot. Him they sent to Sparta. On his arrival he recited his poems in elegiacs and anapaests to the nobles in private and to all whom he could collect.
{4.15.7} A year after the fight at Derae, both sides being joined by their allies, they prepared to join battle at the Boar’s Tomb, as it is called. The Messenians had the Eleians and Arcadians and also allies from Argos and from Sikyon. They were joined by all the Messenians who had previously been in voluntary exile, together with those from Eleusis, whose hereditary task it was to perform the rites of the Great Goddesses, and the descendants of Androkles. These indeed were their most zealous supporters.
{4.15.8} The Corinthians came to fight on the side of the Lacedaemonians, and some of the Lepreans owing to their hatred of the Eleians. But the people of Asine were bound by oaths to both sides. This spot, the Boar’s Tomb, lies in Stenyclerus of Messenia, and there, as is said, Hēraklēs exchanged oaths with the sons of Neleus over the pieces of a boar.
{4.16.1} Sacrifice was offered by the seers on both sides before the battle; on the Lacedaemonian side by Hekas, descendant and namesake of the Hekas who had come with the sons of Aristodemos to Sparta, on the Messenian side by Theoklos, who was descended from Eumantis, an Eleian of the house of the Iamidai, whom Kresphontes had brought to Messene. Then in the presence of the seers both sides were spurred by greater ardor for the fight.
{4.16.2} All showed the zeal that befitted their age and strength, but Anaxandros, the Lacedaemonian king, and his Spartan guard above all. On the Messenian side the descendants of Androkles, Phintas and Androkles, and their company tried to acquit themselves like brave men. Tyrtaeus and the chief priests of the Great Goddesses took no part in the action, but urged on the hindmost on their own sides.
{4.16.3} As to Aristomenes himself he had with him eighty picked men of the Messenians of the same age as himself, each one of them thinking it the highest honor that he had been thought worthy of a place in the troop with Aristomenes. They were quick to understand each other’s movements, especially those of their leader, when he began or contemplated any manoeuvre. They themselves with Aristomenes were at first hard pressed in face of Anaxandros and the Lacedaemonian champions, but receiving wounds unflinchingly and slowing every form of desperate courage they repulsed Anaxandros and his men by their long endurance and valor.
{4.16.4} As they fled, Aristomenes ordered another Messenian troop to undertake the pursuit. He himself attacked the enemies’ line where it was firmest, and after breaking it at this point sought a new point of assault. Soon successful here, he was the more ready to assail those who stood their ground, until he threw into confusion the whole line of the Lacedaemonians themselves and of their allies. They were now running without shame and without waiting for one another, while he assailed them with a terror that seemed more than one man’s fury could inspire.
{4.16.5} There was a wild pear tree growing in the plain, beyond which Theoklos the seer forbade him to pass, for he said that the Dioskouroi were seated on the tree. Aristomenes, in the heat of passion, did not hear all that the seer said, and when he reached the tree, lost his shield, and his disobedience gave to the Lacedaemonians an opportunity for some to escape from the rout. For he lost time trying to recover his shield.
{4.16.6} The Lacedaemonians were thrown into despair after this blow and purposed to put an end to the war. But Tyrtaeus by reciting his poems contrived to dissuade them, and filled their ranks from the Helots to replace the slain. When Aristomenes returned to Andania, the women threw ribbons and flower blossoms over him, singing also a song which is sung to this day:
“To the middle of Stenyclerus’ plain and to the hilltop Aristomenes followed after the Lacedaemonians.”
Unknown
{4.16.7} He recovered his shield also, going to Delphi and descending into the holy shrine of Trophonios at Lebadeia, as the Pythia ordered . Afterwards he took the shield to Lebadeia and dedicated it, and I myself have seen it there among the offerings. The device on it is an eagle with both wings outspread to the rim. Now on his return from Boeotia having learned of the shield at the shrine of Trophonios and recovered it, he at once engaged in greater deeds.
{4.16.8} Collecting a force of Messenians, together with his own picked troop, he waited for night and went to a city of Laconia whose ancient name in Homer’s Catalogue is Pharis, [271] but is called Pharaiby the Spartans and neighboring people. Arriving here he killed those who offered resistance and surrounding the cattle started to drive them off to Messene. On the way he was attacked by Lacedaemonian troops under king Anaxandros, but put them to flight and began to pursue Anaxandros; but he stopped the pursuit when wounded in the buttocks with a javelin; he did not, however, lose the loot which he was driving away.
{4.16.9} After waiting only for the wound to heal, he was making an attack by night on Sparta itself, but was deterred by the appearance of Helen and of the Dioskouroi. But he lay in wait by day for the girls who were performing the dances in honor of Artemis at Caryae, and capturing those who were wealthiest and of noblest birth, carried them off to a village in Messenia, entrusting them to men of his troop to guard, while he rested for the night.
{4.16.10} There the young men, intoxicated, I suppose, and without any self-control, attempted to violate the girls. When Aristomenes attempted to deter them from an action contrary to Greek usage, they paid no attention, so that he was compelled to kill the most disorderly. He released the captives for a large ransom, still virgins, as when he captured them.
{4.17.1} There is a place Aigila in Laconia, where is a sanctuary sacred to Demeter. Aristomenes and his men knowing that the women were keeping festival there … the women were inspired by the goddess to defend themselves, and most of the Messenians were wounded with the knives with which the women sacrificed the victims and the spits on which they pierced and roasted the meat. Aristomenes was struck with the torches and taken alive. Nevertheless he escaped to Messenia during the same night. Arkhidameia, the priestess of Demeter, was charged with having released him, not for a bribe but because she had been in love with him before; but she maintained that Aristomenes had escaped by burning through his bonds.
{4.17.2} In the third year of the war, when an engagement was about to take place at what is called The Great Trench, and the Messenians had been joined by Arcadians from all the cities, the Lacedaemonians bribed Aristocrates [Aristokrates] the son of Hicetas of Trapezus, who was then king and general of the Arcadians. The Lacedaemonians were the first of whom we know to give bribes to an enemy, and the first to make victory in war a matter of purchase.
{4.17.3} Before the Lacedaemonians committed this crime in the Messenian war in the matter of the treachery of Aristocrates [Aristokrates] the Arcadian, the decision in battle was reached by valor and the fortunes [tukhai] emanating from the god [theos]. Again it is clear that at a later date, when they were lying opposite the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi, the Lacedaemonians bought Adeimantos and other Athenian generals.
{4.17.4} However in course of time the punishment of Neoptolemos, as it is called, came upon the Lacedaemonians themselves in their turn. Now it was the fate of Neoptolemos the son of Achilles, after killing Priam on the altar of Zeus Herkeios (Of the Courtyard), himself to be slain by the altar of Apollo in Delphi. Thenceforward to suffer what a man has himself done to another is called the Punishment of Neoptolemos.
{4.17.5} So in the case of the Lacedaemonians, when they were at the height of their power after the destruction of the Athenian fleet, and Agesilaos had already reduced the greater part of Asia, they were unable to capture the whole empire of the Persians but the barbarian overreached them with their own invention, sending money to Corinth, Argos, Athens and Thebes as the result of this bribery the so-called Corinthian war broke out, compelling Agesilaos to abandon his conquests in Asia.
{4.17.6} Thus the superhuman force [ho daimōn] was about to turn the trick employed by the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians to their own destruction. After receiving the money from Lacedaemon, Aristocrates [Aristokrates] concealed his plot from the Arcadians for the present, but when they were about to come into action, he alarmed them by saying that they were caught in a difficult place and there would be no means of retreat for them, if defeated, also that the offerings had not been satisfactory. He ordered everyone therefore to take to flight when he gave the signal.
{4.17.7} When the Lacedaemonians were about to close and the Messenians were occupied on their own front, then Aristocrates [Aristokrates] withdrew the Arcadians as the battle began, leaving the Messenian left and center without troops. For the Arcadians occupied both positions in the absence of the Eleians from the battle and of the Argives and Sikyonians. To complete his work Aristocrates [Aristokrates] caused his men to fly through the Messenians.
{4.17.8} They were amazed at the unexpected state of affairs, and moreover were thrown into confusion by the passage of the Arcadians through their ranks, so that they almost forgot what lay before them; for instead of the advance of the Lacedaemonians they watched the Arcadian retirement, some begging them to stand by them, others cursing them for traitors and scoundrels.
{4.17.9} It was not difficult for the Lacedaemonians to surround the Messenians thus isolated, and they won without trouble the easiest of victories. Aristomenes and his men held together and tried to check the fiercest of the Lacedaemonian assaults but, being few in number, were unable to render much assistance. So great were the numbers of the people of the Messenians slain that in lieu of their former thoughts of becoming the masters instead of the slaves of the Lacedaemonians they now despaired of safety itself. Among the chieftains killed were Androkles and Phintas, and Phanas after the most glorious resistance. He had previously been victorious in the long foot-race at Olympia.
{4.17.10} Aristomenes collected the Messenian survivors after the battle and persuaded them to desert Andania and most of the other towns that lay in the interior and to settle on Mount Eira. When they had been driven to this spot, the Lacedaemonians sat down to besiege them, thinking that they would soon reduce them. Nevertheless the Messenians maintained their resistance for eleven years after the disaster at the Trench.
{4.17.11} The length of the siege is proved by these lines of the poet Rhianus, regarding the Lacedaemonians:
“In the folds of the white mountain were they encamped, for two and twenty winters and green herbs.
Rhianus, unknown location.
He reckons winters and summers, by “green herbs” meaning the green wheat or the time just before harvest.
{4.18.1} Settling on Eira and cut off from the rest of Messenia, except in so far as the people of Pylos and Mothone maintained the coastal districts for them, the Messenians plundered both Laconia and their own territory, regarding it now as enemy country. The men taking part in the raids were drawn from all sources, and Aristomenes raised the number of his chosen troop to three hundred.
{4.18.2} They harried and plundered whatever Lacedaemonian property they could; when wheat, cattle and wine were captured, they were consumed, but movable property and men were sold. The Lacedaemonians, as their labors were more profitable to the men at Eira than to themselves, accordingly resolved that Messenia and the neighboring part of Laconia should be left uncultivated during the war.
{4.18.3} As a result scarcity arose in Sparta, and with it revolution. For those who had property here could not endure its lying idle. Their differences were being composed by Tyrtaeus, when Aristomenes and his troop, starting in the late evening and by rapid movement reaching Amyklai before sunrise, captured and plundered the town, retiring before a force from Sparta could come to its relief.
{4.18.4} He continued to overrun the country afterwards, until in an engagement with more than half the Lacedaemonian infantry and both the kings he received various wounds while defending himself and was struck on the head by a stone, so that his eyes became dizzy. When he fell a number of the Lacedaemonians closed upon him and took him alive with some fifty of his followers. The Lacedaemonians resolved to fling them all into the Ceadas, into which they throw men punished for the greatest crimes.
{4.18.5} The rest of the Messenians were killed at once as they fell, but Aristomenes now as on other occasions was preserved by one of the gods. His panegyrists say that, when Aristomenes was thrown into the Ceadas, an eagle flew below him and supported him with its wings, bringing him to the bottom without any damage to his body and without wound. Even from here, as it seems, the supernatural force [daimōn] was about to show him a means of escape.
{4.18.6} For when he came to the bottom of the chasm he lay down, and covering himself with his cloak awaited the death that fate had surely decreed. But after two days he heard a noise and uncovered, and being by this time able to see through the gloom, saw a fox devouring the dead bodies. Realizing that the beast must have some entrance, he waited for the fox to come near him, and then seized it. Whenever it turned on him he used one hand to hold out his cloak for it to bite. For the most part he kept pace with it as it ran, but over the more difficult ground he was dragged along by it. At last he saw a hole big enough for a fox to get through and daylight showing through it.
{4.18.7} The fox, when released by Aristomenes, made of presumably, to its earth. But Aristomenes enlarged the hole, which was not large enough to let him through, with his hands and reached his home at Eira in safety, having undergone a remarkable chance in the matter of his capture, for his courage and prowess were so high that no one would have expected Aristomenes to be made a prisoner. Still more remarkable, and a convincing example of divine assistance, was his escape from the Ceadas.
{4.19.1} The Lacedaemonians at once received information from deserters that Aristomenes had returned in safety. Though they thought it as incredible as the news that anyone had risen from the dead, their belief was ensured by the following action on the part of Aristomenes himself. The Corinthians were sending a force to assist the Lacedaemonians in the reduction of Eira.
{4.19.2} Learning from his scouts that their march discipline was lax and that their encampments were made without precaution, Aristomenes attacked them by night. He slew most of them while the rest were still sleeping, and killed the leaders Hypermenides, Achladaeus, Lysistratos and Sidektos. And having plundered the generals’ tent, he made it clear to the Spartans that it was Aristomenes and no other Messenian who had done this.
{4.19.3} He also made the sacrifice called the Offering for the hundred slain to Zeus of Ithome. This was an old-established custom, all Messenians making it who had slain their hundred enemies. Aristomenes first offered it after the battle at the Boar’s Tomb, his second offering was occasioned by the slaughter of the Corinthians in the night. It is said that he made a third offering as the result of his later raids.
{4.19.4} Now the Lacedaemonians, as the festival of Hyakinthos was approaching, made a truce of forty days with the men of Eira. They themselves returned home to keep the feast, but some Cretan archers, whom they had summoned as mercenaries from Lyktos and other cities, were patrolling Messenia for them. Aristomenes then, in view of the truce, was at a distance from Eira and was advancing somewhat carelessly, when seven of these archers laid an ambush for him. They captured him and bound him with the thongs which they had on their quivers, as evening was coming on.
{4.19.5} So two of them went to Sparta, bringing the glad news that Aristomenes had been captured. The rest went to one of the farms in Messenia, where there dwelled a fatherless girl with her mother. On the previous night the girl had seen a dream. Wolves brought a lion to their farm bound and without talons; but she herself loosed the lion from his bonds and found and gave to him his talons, and thus it seemed that the wolves were torn in pieces by the lion.
{4.19.6} And now when the Cretans brought in Aristomenes, the girl realized that the dream of the night had come true, and asked her mother who he was. On learning she was encouraged, and looking intently at him understood what she had been bidden to do. Accordingly she plied the Cretans with wine, and when they were overcome with drunkenness she stole away the dagger of the man who was sleeping most heavily. Then the girl cut the bonds of Aristomenes, and he took the sword and despatched the men. This girl was taken to wife by Gorgos the son of Aristomenes. Aristomenes gave him to the girl as a recompense for saving his life, for Gorgos had not yet completed his eighteenth year when he wedded her.
{4.20.1} But in the eleventh year of the siege it was fated that Eira should be taken and the Messenians dispersed, and the god fulfilled for them an oracle given to Aristomenes and Theoklos. They had come to Delphi after the disaster at the Trench and asked concerning safety, receiving this reply from the Pythia:
“Whensoever a he-goat drinks of Neda’s winding stream, no more do I protect Messene, for destruction is at hand.”
{4.20.2} The springs of the Neda are in Mount Lykaios. The river flows through the land of the Arcadians and turning again towards Messenia forms the boundary on the coast between Messenia and Elis. Then they were afraid of the he-goats drinking from the Neda, but it appeared that what the god foretold to them was this. Some of the Greeks call the wild fig tree olynthe, but the Messenians themselves tragos (he-goat). Now at that time a wild fig tree growing on the bank of the Neda had not grown straight up, but was bending towards the stream and touching the water with the tips of its leaves.
{4.20.3} When the seer Theoklos saw it, he guessed that the goat who drinks of the Neda foretold by the Pythia was this wild fig tree, and that their fate had already come upon the Messenians. He kept it secret from the rest, but led Aristomenes to the fig tree and showed him that their time of safety had gone by. Aristomenes believed that it was so and that there was no delaying their fate, and made provision such as circumstances demanded.
{4.20.4} For the Messenians possessed a secret thing. If it were destroyed, Messene would be overwhelmed and lost forever, but if it were kept, the oracles of Lykos the son of Pandion said that after lapse of time the Messenians would recover their country. Aristomenes, knowing the oracles, took it towards nightfall, and coming to the most deserted part of Ithome, buried it on the mountain, calling on Zeus who keeps Ithome and the gods who had hitherto protected the Messenians to remain guardians of the pledge, and not to put their only hope of return into the power of the Lacedaemonians.
{4.20.5} After this, as formerly for the Trojans, the beginning of the Messenian misfortunes was in adultery. The Messenians commanded the mountain of Eira and its slopes as far as the Neda, some of them having their dwellings outside the gates. The only deserter that came to them from Laconia was a herdsman, slave of Emperamus, bringing his master’s cattle. Emperamus was a man of repute in Sparta.
{4.20.6} This herdsman, who kept his cattle not far from the Neda, saw the wife of one of the Messenians, who had their dwellings outside the wall, as she came to draw water. Falling in love with her, he dared to speak with her and seduced her with gifts. Thenceforward he marked the time when her husband went away to mount guard, garrison duty on the acropolis being undertaken by the Messenians in turn. For it was at this point that they were most afraid of the enemy making their way into the town. Whenever he went away, then the herdsman used to visit the lady.
{4.20.7} Now once when it happened that the turn for duty fell to him and others in the night, it chanced that there was heavy rain, and the Messenians deserted their post. For they were overcome by the density of the rain that streamed from the sky [ouranos], as there were no battlements or towers erected on the wall owing to the hurried nature of its building; moreover they did not expect the Lacedaemonians even to stir on a moonless night that was so stormy.
{4.20.8} A few days earlier a merchant from Cephallenia, who was a friend of Aristomenes and was bringing to Eira all that they needed, had been captured by the Lacedaemonians and archers from Aptera, commanded by Euryalus the Spartan; Aristomenes rescued him and recovered all the goods that he was bringing, but had himself been wounded and was unable to visit rounds, as was his custom. This was the main reason that the acropolis was deserted.
{4.20.9} All of them left their posts and with them the husband of the woman seduced by the herdsman. She was entertaining the herdsman at the time but heard her husband coming and at once hid the man away as quickly as possible. When the husband entered, she treated him with greater affection than ever before and asked him what was the reason of his return. But knowing that she was unfaithful or that the herdsman was in the house, he told her the truth, that owing to the violence of the rain he and all the rest had deserted their post.
{4.20.10} The herdsman listened to him speaking, and learning the exact position, again deserted from the Messenians to the Lacedaemonians. The Kings were absent at the time from the Lacedaemonian camp, but Emperamus, his master, who was commandant, was conducting the siege of Eira. Coming to him he first begged forgiveness for his crime of deserting and then showed him that now was the time for them to take Eira, recounting everything that he had learned from the Messenian.
{4.21.1} His story seemed to be reliable, and he led the way for Emperamus and the Spartans. Their march was difficult, as it was dark and the rain never ceased. Nevertheless they accomplished it in their eagerness, and arriving before the acropolis of Eira, mounted by raising ladders and in any other way that was possible. Various indications of the trouble that was upon them were given to the Messenians, especially by the dogs barking, not in their usual fashion, but uttering more loud and continuous howls. realizing that the supreme and most desperate crisis had come upon them, they did not wait to collect all their arms but snatched whatever lay ready to the hand of each, to defend the fatherland that alone was left to them of all Messenia.
{4.21.2} The first to realize that the enemy were within and to go against them were Gorgos the son of Aristomenes, Aristomenes himself, Theoklos the seer and Mantiklos his son, and with them Euergetidas a man of high repute in Messenia who had attained to greater honor through his wife for he was wedded to Hagnagora, the sister of Aristomenes. Then the rest, though understanding that they were caught as in a net, nevertheless derived some hope even from their present plight.
{4.21.3} But Aristomenes and the seer knew that there was no putting off destruction for the Messenians, for they knew the riddle of the oracle which the Pythia had uttered concerning the goat. Nevertheless they would not declare it, and kept it secret from the rest. As they hastened through the city, visiting all, they exhorted those whom they encountered, when they saw that they were Messenians, to be brave men, and summoned from the houses those who still remained.
{4.21.4} During the night nothing worthy of mention was done on either side; for their ignorance of the ground and the daring of Aristomenes gave pause to the Lacedaemonians, while the Messenians had not previously received a watchword from their generals, and the rain would put out torches or any other light that they kindled.
{4.21.5} When it was day and they could see one another Aristomenes and Theoklos tried to rouse the fury of despair in the Messenians, setting forth all that suited the occasion and reminding them of the valor of the men of Smyrna, how, though an Ionian people, by their valor and courage they had driven out Cyges the son of Dascylus and the Lydians, when they were in occupation of their town.
{4.21.6} The Messenians, when they heard, were filled with desperate courage, and mustering as they happened to be gathered rushed on the Lacedaemonians. Women too were eager to fling tiles and what they could upon the enemy, yet the violence of the rain prevented them from doing this and from mounting to the house-tops. But they dared to take arms, and they too further inflamed the ardor of the men, when they saw their women preferring to perish with their fatherland rather than be taken as slaves to Lacedaemon, so that they might yet have been able to escape their fate.
{4.21.7} But the god caused the rain to descend more densely, with loud claps of thunder, and dazzled their eyes with lightning flashing in their faces. All this put courage in the Lacedaemonians, who said that the god [theos] himself was helping them. And, as the lightning was on their right, Hekas the seer declared the sign [sēmeion] to be of good omen.
{4.21.8} It was he who devised the following plan. The Lacedaemonians far outnumbered the Messenians, but as the battle was not being fought on open ground with troops in line, but they were fighting over different quarters of the town, the rearmost of each detachment were rendered useless. Hekas ordered these to retire to the camp, take food and sleep, and return before evening to relieve their own men who were to remain on duty.
{4.21.9} The Lacedaemonians, by resting and fighting by turns, held out the longer, but the Messenians were faced with difficulties on all sides. They fought continuously day and night until the third day with none to relieve them. When the next day dawned, worn out by lack of sleep and by the rain and cold from the sky [ouranos], they were assailed by hunger and thirst. The women especially, unaccustomed to war, were exhausted by the continuous suffering.
{4.21.10} So the seer Theoklos came to Aristomenes’ side and said: “Why vainly maintain this toil? The decree of fate stands fast that Messene should fall; long since the Pythia declared to us the disaster now before our eyes, and lately the fig tree revealed it. On me the gods have laid one doom with my country, but do thou save the Messenians with what power thou hast and save thyself.” When he had spoken to Aristomenes he rushed upon the enemy, and these were the words that he was constrained to fling at the Lacedaemonians. “Yet not for all time shall you enjoy the fruits of Messenia with impunity.”
{4.21.11} Then falling upon the men who faced him he killed them and himself was wounded, and having sated his passion with the slaughter of his foes, he breathed his last. But Aristomenes called the Messenians back from the fight, except those who by virtue of their courage were fighting to cover them. These he allowed to remain at their post. The rest he ordered to receive the women and children within their ranks and follow him wherever he should show a passage.
{4.21.12} He appointed Gorgos and Mantiklos to command the rear, he himself ran to the head of the company and by the gestures of his head and movement of his spear signified that he asked a passage and had resolved to depart. Emperamus and the Spartans present were pleased to let the Messenians pass, without further inflaming men who had reached the bounds of frenzy and despair. Moreover Hekas the seer ordered them to act thus.
{4.22.1} As soon as the Arcadians heard of the Capture of Eira, they at once ordered Aristocrates [Aristokrates] to lead them to the rescue of the Messenians or to death with them. But he, being in receipt of bribes from Lacedaemon, refused to lead them, and said that he knew that no Messenian survived for them to help.
{4.22.2} When they obtained more certain news, that they survived and had been forced to desert Eira, they themselves proposed to receive them at Mount Lykaios after preparing clothing and food, and sent some of their leading men to comfort the Messenians and also to be their guides on the way. After their safe arrival at Mount Lykaios, the Arcadians entertained them and treated them kindly in every way, offering to distribute them among their towns and to make a new distribution of their land on their account.
{4.22.3} But Aristomenes’ grief for the sack of Eira and his hatred of the Lacedaemonians suggested to him the following plan. He chose from the body of the Messenians five hundred men whom he knew to be the most unsparing of themselves, and asked them in the hearing of Aristocrates [Aristokrates] and the rest of the Arcadians if they were ready to die with him, avenging their country He did not know that Aristocrates [Aristokrates] was a traitor, for he thought that he had fled from the battle formerly from lack of courage and through cowardice, not for any knavery; so he asked the five hundred in his presence.
{4.22.4} When they said that they were ready, he revealed the whole plan, that he proposed at all costs to lead them against Sparta during the following evening. For now was the time when the majority of the Lacedaemonians was away at Eira, and others were scouring Messenia for loot and plunder. “If we can capture and occupy Sparta,” said Aristomenes, “we can give back to the Lacedaemonians what is theirs and receive our own. If we fail, we shall die together, having done a deed for posterity to remember.”
{4.22.5} When he said this, as many as three hundred of the Arcadians were ready to share his enterprise. For the time they delayed their departure, as the victims were unfavorable, but on the following day they learned that the Lacedaemonians had been forewarned of their secret, and that they themselves had been a second time betrayed by Aristocrates [Aristokrates]. For Aristocrates [Aristokrates] had at once written the designs of Aristomenes in a letter, and having entrusted it to the slave whom he knew to be most loyal, sent him to Anaxandros in Sparta.
{4.22.6} As the slave was returning, he was intercepted by some of the Arcadians, who had formerly been at variance with Aristocrates [Aristokrates] and regarded him then with some suspicion. Having intercepted the slave they brought him before the Arcadians and made known to the people the answer from Lacedaemon. Anaxandros was writing that his retreat from the Great Trench formerly had not gone unrewarded on the part of the Lacedaemonians and that he would receive an additional recompense for his information on the present occasion.
{4.22.7} When this was declared to all, the Arcadians themselves stoned Aristocrates [Aristokrates] and urged the Messenians to join them. They looked to Aristomenes. But he was weeping, with his eyes fixed on the ground. So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates [Aristokrates] to death and flung him beyond their borders without burial, and set up a tablet in the precinct of Zeus Lykaios with the words:
“Truly time hath declared justice upon an unjust king and with the help of Zeus hath easily declared the betrayer of Messene.
Hard it is for a man forsworn to hide from God.
Hail, king Zeus, and keep Arcadia safe.”
Hard it is for a man forsworn to hide from God.
Hail, king Zeus, and keep Arcadia safe.”
{4.23.1} All the Messenians, who were captured about Eira or anywhere else in Messenia, were reduced by the Lacedaemonians to serfdom. The people of Pylos and Mothone and all who occupied the maritime district retired in ships on the capture of Eira to Cyllene, the port of the Eleians. Thence they sent to the Messenians in Arcadia, proposing to unite their forces and seek a new country to dwell in, enjoining Aristomenes to lead them to a colony.
{4.23.2} But he said that while he lived, he would make war on the Lacedaemonians, as he knew well that trouble would always be brewing for Sparta through him, but he gave them Gorgos and Mantiklos as leaders. Euergetidas too had retired to Mount Lykaios with the rest of the Messenians. From there, when he saw that Aristomenes’ plan to seize Sparta had failed, he persuaded some fifty of the Messenians to go back with him to Eira and attack the Lacedaemonians,
{4.23.3} and coming upon them while they were still plundering, he turned their celebrations of victory to grief. He then met his doom there, but Aristomenes ordered all the Messenians who wished to take part in the colony to join the leaders at Cyllene. And all took part except those debarred by age or lack of funds for journeying abroad. These remained here with the Arcadians.
{4.23.4} Eira was taken, and the second war between the Lacedaemonians and Messenians completed in the year when Autosthenes was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, and in the first year of the twenty-eighth Olympiad, [272] when Khionis the Laconian was victorious.
{4.23.5} When the Messenians assembled at Cyllene, they resolved to winter there for that season, the Eleians providing a market and funds. With the spring they began to debate where they should go. It was the view of Gorgos that they should occupy Zacynthos off Cephallenia, becoming islanders instead of mainlanders, and raid the coasts of Laconia with their ships and ravage the land. But Mantiklos ordered them to forget Messene and their hatred of the Lacedaemonians, and sail to Sardinia and win an island which was of the largest extent and greatest fertility.
{4.23.6} Meantime Anaxilas sent to the Messenians and summoned them to Italy. He was tyrant of Rhēgion, third in descent from Alcidamidas, who had left Messene for Rhēgion after the death of king Aristodemos and the capture of Ithome. So now this Anaxilas summoned the Messenians. When they came, he said that the people of Zancle were at war with him, and that they possessed a prosperous land and city well placed in Sicily; and these he said he was ready to give them and help them to conquer. When they accepted the proposal, Anaxilas then transported them to Sicily.
{4.23.7} Zancle was originally occupied by pirates, who, as the land was uninhabited, walled off the harbor and used it as a base for their raids and cruises. Their leaders were Crataemenes a Samian and Perieres of Khalkis. Later Perieres and Krataimenes resolved to introduce other Greek settlers.
{4.23.8} Anaxilas defeated the Zanclaeans, when they put to sea to oppose him, and the Messenians did the like by land, and the Zanclaeans, blockaded on land by the Messenians and from the sea by the fleet of the Rhegines, when their wall was carried, fled for refuge to the altars of the gods and to the temples. Anaxilas, however, advised the Messenians to put to death the suppliant Zanclaeans and to enslave the rest together with the women and children.
{4.23.9} But Gorgos and Mantiklos besought Anaxilas not to compel them, the victims of unholy treatment at the hands of kinsmen, to behave as men who belong to Greek [Hellenic] lineage. After this they made the Zanclaeans rise from the altars, and exchanging pledges with them, dwelled together in common. They changed the name of the city from Zancle to Messene.
{4.23.10} This event took place in the twenty-ninth Olympiad, [273] when Khionis the Laconian was victorious for the second time. Miltiades was archon [arkhōn] in Athens. Mantiklos founded the temple of Hēraklēs for the Messenians; the temple of the god is outside the walls and he is called Hēraklēs Mantiklos, just as Ammon in Libya and Belus in Babylon are named, the latter from an Egyptian, Belus the son of Libya, Ammon from the shepherd-founder. Thus the exiled Messenians reached the end of their wanderings.
{4.24.1} After declining the leadership of the men setting forth to found a colony, Aristomenes gave his sister Hagnagora in marriage to Tharyx at Phigalia, and his daughters, both the eldest and the next in age, to Damothoidas of Lepreum and Theopompos of Heraia. He himself went to Delphi to enquire of the god. The reply that was given to Aristomenes is not recorded,
{4.24.2} but when Damagetos the Rhodian, who reigned at Ialysos, came to Apollo and asked whence he should take a wife, the Pythia ordered him to take a daughter of the bravest of the Greeks. As Aristomenes had a third daughter, he married her, considering that Aristomenes was by far the bravest of the Greeks of that age. Aristomenes, coming to Rhodes with his daughter, purposed to go up from there to Sardis to Ardys the son of Gyges, and to Ecbatana of the Medes to king Phraortes.
{4.24.3} But ere that he was overtaken by illness and death, for no further misfortune was to befall the Lacedaemonians at the hands of Aristomenes. On his death Damagetos and the Rhodians built him a splendid tomb and paid honor to him thenceforward. I omit what is recorded of the Diagoridai in Rhodes, as they are called, a line sprung from Diagoras the son of Damagetos, son of Dorieus, who was the son of Damagetos and of the daughter of Aristomenes, lest it should seem to be irrelevant.
{4.24.4} Now the Lacedaemonians, gaining possession of Messenia, divided it all among themselves, except the land belonging to the people of Asine; but they gave Mothone to the men of Nauplia, who had recently been driven from their town by the Argives.
{4.24.5} The Messenians who were captured in the country, reduced by force to the position of serfs, were later moved to revolt from the Lacedaemonians in the seventy-ninth Olympiad, [274] when Xenophon the Corinthian was victorious. Arkhimedes was archon [arkhōn] in Athens. The occasion which they found for the revolt was this. Certain Lacedaemonians who had been condemned to death on some charge fled as suppliants to Taenarum but the board of ephors dragged them from the altar there and put them to death.
{4.24.6} As the Spartans paid no heed to their being suppliants, the wrath of Poseidon came upon them, and the god razed all their city to the ground. At this disaster all the serfs who were of Messenian origin seceded to Mount Ithome. Against them the Lacedaemonians, amongst other allies, called to their assistance Kimon the son of Miltiades, their patron in Athens, and an Athenian force. But when the Athenians arrived, they seem to have regarded them with suspicion that they were likely to promote revolution, and as a result of this suspicion to have soon dismissed them from Ithome.
{4.24.7} The Athenians, realizing the feelings of the Lacedaemonians towards them, made friends therefore with the Argives, and gave Naupaktos to the Messenians besieged in Ithome, when they were allowed to depart under a truce. They had taken Naupaktos from the people of the land of Lokris called the Ozolian, adjoining Aetolia. The retirement of the Messenians from Ithome was secured by the strength of the place; also the Pythia announced to the Lacedaemonians that assuredly they would be punished if they committed a crime against the suppliant of Zeus of Ithome. For this reason then they were allowed to go from Peloponnese under a truce.
{4.25.1} When they occupied Naupaktos it was not enough for them to have received a city and country at the hands of the Athenians, but they were filled with a strong desire to show they had won something notable with their own hands. Knowing that the Acarnanians of Oiniadai possessed a good land and were continually at war with the Athenians, they marched against them. They had no numerical advantage, but defeating them by their superior courage, they shut them up in the fortress and besieged them.
{4.25.2} They neglected no human invention in the matter of siege-craft, tried to carry the town by raising scaling-ladders, mined the walls, and by bringing up such engines as could be made ready at short notice proceeded with the destruction of the fortifications. The inhabitants, fearing that if the city were taken they would be put to death and their wives and children enslaved, elected to withdraw on terms.
{4.25.3} The Messenians held the town and occupied the country for about a year. In the following year the Acarnanians collected a force from all their towns and discussed an attack on Naupaktos. They rejected this, as they saw that their line of march would be through the Aetolians, who were always their enemies; moreover they suspected that the men of Naupaktos possessed a fleet, which was the fact; and while they commanded the sea, it was impossible to achieve anything of importance with a land force.
{4.25.4} So they changed their plans and at once turned on the Messenians in Oiniadai and prepared to besiege them, for they never supposed that men so few in number would show such desperate courage as to fight against the full levy of the Acarnanians. The Messenians had previously prepared food and all else that was requisite, expecting to stand a long siege.
{4.25.5} But they were determined before the siege was formed to fight a battle in the open, and being Messenians, who had not been surpassed in valor even by Lacedaemonians, but in fortune only, were determined not to be dismayed at the horde which had come from Acarnania. They recalled the achievement of the Athenians at Marathon, how thirty myriad Persians had been destroyed by men not numbering ten thousand.
{4.25.6} So they joined battle with the Acarnanians, and the course of the battle is said to have been thus. The enemy, being far superior in numbers, had no difficulty in surrounding the Messenians, except where prevented by the gates in the Messenian rear and by the zealous help of their men posted on the wall. Here they could not be surrounded, hut the Acarnanians enveloped both their flanks and shot volleys at them from all sides.
{4.25.7} The Messenians, in close formation, whenever they charged the Acarnanians in a body, threw the enemy at that point into confusion, killing and wounding many of them, but they could not effect a complete rout. For wherever the Acarnanians saw a part of their own line being broken by the Messenians they went to the support of their harassed troops at this point and checked the Messenians, overwhelming them by numbers.
{4.25.8} The Messenians, beaten back and again attempting to pierce the massed troops of the Acarnanians at another point, would meet with the same result. Wherever they attacked, they threw the enemy into confusion and drove them a short distance, but as the Acarnanians again streamed eagerly to this point, they were driven back against their will. The battle was evenly contested until evening, but when at nightfall the Acarnanians received reinforcements from their cities, the blockade of the Messenians was formed.
{4.25.9} They had no fear of the wall being taken by assault, either by the Acarnanians scaling it or by themselves being forced to abandon their posts. But in the eighth month all their provisions alike had been consumed.
{4.25.10} They shouted to the Acarnanians from the wall in mockery that their supplies would not fail them until the tenth year of the siege, but they themselves sallied out of Oiniadai at the time of the first sleep. Their escape became known to the Acarnanians and they were compelled to fight, losing some three hundred and killing still more of the enemy. But the greater part of them got through the Acarnanians, and reaching the territory of the Aetollans, who were their friends, arrived safely at Naupaktos.
{4.26.1} Afterwards, as at all times, they were stirred by their hatred against the Lacedaemonians, and provided the most striking example of their hostility towards them in the war which took place between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. For they offered Naupaktos as a base against Peloponnese, and Messenian slingers from Naupaktos helped to capture the Spartans cut off in Sphakteria.
{4.26.2} When the Athenian reverse at Aigospotamoi took place, the Lacedaemonians, having command of the sea, then drove the Messenians from Naupaktos; they went to their kinsmen in Sicily and to Rhēgion, but the majority came to Libya and to the Euesperitaithere, who had suffered severely in war with barbarian neighbors and were inviting any Greek to join them. So the majority of the Messenians went to them, their leader being Comon, who had commanded them in Sphakteria.
{4.26.3} A year before the victory of the Thebans at Leuktra, the superhuman force [daimōn] foretold [pro-sēmainein] their return to Peloponnese to the Messenians. It is said that in Messene on the Straits the priest of Hēraklēs saw a vision in a dream: it seemed that Hēraklēs Mantiklos was bidden by Zeus as a guest to Ithome. Also among the EuesperitaiComon dreamt that he lay with his dead mother, but that afterwards she came to life again. He hoped that as the Athenians had recovered their seapower, they would be restored to Naupaktos. But the dream really indicated the recovery of Messene.
{4.26.4} Not long afterwards the Lacedaemonians suffered at Leuktra the disaster that had long been due. For at the end of the oracle given to Aristodemos, who reigned over the Messenians, are the words:“Act as fate wills, destruction comes on this man before that,” signifying that he and the Messenians must suffer evil at the present, but that hereafter destruction would overtake Lacedaemon.
{4.26.5} Then after their victory at Leuktra the Thebans sent messengers to Italy, Sicily and to the Euesperitae, and summoned the Messenians to Peloponnese from every other quarter where they might be, and they, with longing for their country and through the hatred which had ever remained with them for the Lacedaemonians, assembled quicker than could have been expected.
{4.26.6} To Epameinondas it seemed in no way easy to found a city that could resist the Lacedaemonians, nor could he discover where in the land to build it. For the Messenians refused to settle again in Andania and Oechalia, because their disasters had befallen them when they dwelled there. To Epameinondas in his difficulty it is said that an ancient man, closely resembling a priest of Demeter, appeared in the night and said: “My gift to thee is that thou shalt conquer whomsoever thou dost assail; and when thou dost pass from men, Theban, I will cause thy name to be unforgotten and give thee glory. But do thou restore to the Messenians their fatherland and cities, for now the wrath of the Dioskouroi against them hath ceased.”
{4.26.7} This he said to Epameinondas, and revealed this to Epiteles the son of Aeschines, who had been chosen by the Argives to be their general and to refound Messene. He was bidden by the dream, wherever he found yew and myrtle growing on Ithome, to dig between them and recover the old woman, for, shut in her bronze chamber, she was overcome and well-nigh fainting. When day dawned, Epiteles went to the appointed place, and as he dug, came upon a bronze urn.
{4.26.8} He took it at once to Epameinondas, told him the dream and ordered him to remove the lid and see what was within. Epameinondas, after sacrifice and prayer to the vision that had appeared, opened the urn and having opened it found some tin foil, very thin, rolled like a book. On it were inscribed the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and this was the pledge deposited by Aristomenes. They say that the man who appeared to Epiteles and Epameinondas in their sleep was Kaukon, who came from Athens to Messene the daughter of Triopas at Andania.
{4.27.1} The wrath of the sons of Tyndareus against the Messenians began before the battle in Stenyclerus, and arose, I think, for the following reason. Panormos and Gonippos of Andania, young men in the bloom of youth, were close friends in all things, and marched together into battle and on raids into Laconia.
{4.27.2} The Lacedaemonians were keeping a feast of the Dioskouroi in camp and had turned to drinking and sports after the midday meal, when Gonippos and Panormos appeared to them, riding on the finest horses and dressed in white tunics and scarlet cloaks, with caps on their heads and spears in their hands. When the Lacedaemonians saw them they bowed down and prayed, thinking that the Dioskouroi themselves had come to their sacrifice.
{4.27.3} When once they had come among them, the youths rode right through them, striking with their spears, and when many had been killed, returned to Andania, having outraged the sacrifice to the Dioskouroi. It was this, in my view, that roused the Dioskouroi to their hatred of the Messenians. But now, as the dream declared to Epameinondas, the Dioskouroi no longer opposed the return of the Messenians.
{4.27.4} Epameinondas was most strongly drawn to the foundation by the oracles of Bacis, who was inspired by the Nymphs and left prophecies regarding others of the Greeks as well as the return of the Messenians:
“Then indeed shall the bright bloom of Sparta perish and Messene again shall be inhabited for all time.”
I have discovered that Bacis also told in what manner Eira would be captured, and this too is one of his oracles:
“The men of Messene o’ercome by the thunder’s roll and spouting rain.”
{4.27.5} When the mysteries were recovered, all who were of the priestly family set them down in books. As Epameinondas considered the spot where the city of the Messenians now stands most convenient for the foundation, he ordered enquiry to be made by the seers if the favor of the gods would follow him here. When they announced that the offerings were auspicious, he began preparations for the foundation, ordering stone to be brought, and summoning men skilled in laying out streets and in building houses, temples, and ring-walls.
{4.27.6} When all was in readiness, victims being provided by the Arcadians, Epameinondas himself and the Thebans then sacrificed to Dionysus and Apollo IsMenios in the accustomed manner, the Argives to Argive Hērā and Nemean Zeus, the Messenians to Zeus of Ithome and the Dioskouroi, and their priests to the Great Goddesses and Kaukon. And together they summoned heroes to return and dwell with them, first Messene the daughter of Triopas, after her Eurytos, Aphareus and his children, and of the sons of Hēraklēs Kresphontes and Aipytos. But the loudest summons from all alike was to Aristomenes.
{4.27.7} For that day they were engaged in sacrifice and prayer, but on the following days they raised the circuit of the walls, and within built houses and the temples. They worked to the sound of music, but only from Boeotian and Argive auloi [‘double-reeds’], and the tunes of Sacadas and Pronomos were brought into keen competition. The city itself was given the name Messene, but they founded other towns. The men of Nauplia were not disturbed at Mothone,
{4.27.8} and they allowed the people of Asine to remain in their home, remembering their kindness when they refused to join the Lacedaemonians in the war against them. The men of Nauplia on the return of the Messenians to Peloponnese brought them such gifts as they had, and while praying continually to the gods for their return begged the Messenians to grant protection to themselves.
{4.27.9} The Messenians returned to Peloponnese and recovered their own land two hundred and eighty-seven years after the capture of Eira, in the year when Dyskinetos was archon [arkhōn] in Athens and in the third year of the hundred and second Olympiad, [275] when Damon of Thourioi was victorious for the second time. It was no short time for the Plataeans that they were in exile from their country, and for the Delians when they settled in Adramyttion after being expelled from their island by the Athenians.
{4.27.10} The Minyae, driven by the Thebans from Orkhomenos after the battle of Leuktra, were restored to Boeotia by Philip the son of Amyntas, as were also the Plataeans. When Alexander had destroyed the city of the Thebans themselves, Kassandros the son of Antipatros rebuilt it after a few years. The exile of the Plataeans seems to have lasted the longest of those mentioned, but even this was not for more than two generations.
{4.27.11} But the wanderings of the Messenians outside the Peloponnese lasted almost three hundred years, during which it is clear that they did not depart in any way from their local customs, and did not lose their Doric dialect, but even to our day they have retained the purest Doric in Peloponnese.
{4.28.1} After their return they had nothing to fear at first from the Lacedaemonians. For the Lacedaemonians, restrained by fear of the Thebans, submitted to the foundation of Messene and to the gathering of the Arcadians into one city. But when the war of the people of Phokis, or, as it is called, the Sacred War caused the Thebans to withdraw from Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians regained courage and could no longer refrain from attacking the Messenians.
{4.28.2} The Messenians maintained the war with the help of the Argives and Arcadians, and asked the Athenians for help. They refused to join in an attack on Laconia, but promised to render assistance in person if the Lacedaemonians began war and invaded Messenia. Finally the Messenians formed an alliance with Philip the son of Amyntas and the Macedonians; it was this, they say, that prevented them from taking part in the battle which the Greeks fought at Khaironeia. They refused, however, to bear arms against the Greeks.
{4.28.3} After the death of Alexander, when the Greeks had raised a second war against the Macedonians, the Messenians took part, as I have shown earlier in my account of Attica. [276] They did not join the Greeks against the Gauls, as Kleonymos and the Lacedaemonians refused to grant them a truce.
{4.28.4} Not long afterwards the Messenians occupied Elis, employing strategy and daring alike. The Eleians in the earliest times were the most law-abiding of the Peloponnesians, but when Philip the son of Amyntas did all the harm to Greece that has been related, he also bribed the leading men in Elis; the Eleians were divided by factions for the first time and came to blows, it is said.
{4.28.5} Henceforward it was likely to be more easy for quarrels to arise among men whose counsels were divided on account of the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived at civil war. Learning this, the Lacedaemonians were preparing to assist their partisans in Elis. While they were being organized in squadrons and distributed in companies, a thousand picked Messenian troops arrived hurriedly at Elis with Laconian blazons on their shields.
{4.28.6} Seeing their shields, all the Laconising party in Elis thought their supporters had arrived and received them into the fortress. But having obtained admission in this way, the Messenians drove out the supporters of the Lacedaemonians and made over the city to their own partisans.
{4.28.7} The trick is Homer’s, but the Messenians plainly imitated it opportunely, for Homer represents Patroklos in the Iliad [277] clad in the arms of Achilles, and says that the barbarians were filled with the belief that it was Achilles attacking them, and that their front ranks were thrown into confusion. Other stratagems are the invention of Homer, the coming of the two Greek spies by night among the Trojans, instead of one [278] and later a man coming to Troy, who pretends to be a deserter but actually is to find out their secrets.
{4.28.8} Again, the Trojans who, through youth or years were not of fighting age, he posted as garrison of the walls, [279] while the men of military age were encamped against the Greeks. The wounded Greeks in Homer arm the fighting men, so that even they may not be altogether idle. Indeed Homer’s ideas have proved useful to men in every matter.
{4.29.1} Not long after the affair at Elis, the Macedonians and Demetrios the son of Philip, son of Demetrios, [280] captured Messene. I have already, in my account of Sikyon, [281] narrated most of the crimes of Perseus against Philip himself and against Demetrios the son of Philip. These are the facts relating to the capture of Messene.
{4.29.2} Philip was in need of money, and as it was necessary to raise it at all costs, he sent Demetrios with a fleet to Peloponnese. He put in to one of the less frequented harbors of the Argolid, and at once marched his army by the shortest route to Messene. With an advance guard consisting of all the light-armed troops who knew the road to Ithome, he succeeded just before dawn in scaling the wall unnoticed at a point where it lay between the city and the peak of Ithome.
{4.29.3} When day dawned and the inhabitants had realized the danger that beset them, they were at first under the impression that the Lacedaemonians had forced an entry into the town, and attacked them more recklessly owing to their ancient hatred. But when they discovered from their equipment and speech that it was the Macedonians and Demetrios the son of Philip, they were filled with great fear, when they considered the Macedonian training in warfare and the good fortune which they saw that they enjoyed in all their ventures.
{4.29.4} Nevertheless the magnitude of the present evil caused them to display a courage beyond their strength, also they were inspired with hope for the best, since it seemed not without divine help that they had accomplished their return to Peloponnese after so long an absence. So the Messenians in the town went against the Macedonians full of courage, and the garrison on the acropolis attacked from the high ground above.
{4.29.5} In like manner the Macedonians, brave and experienced troops, at first offered a firm resistance. But worn out by their march, attacked by the men and bombarded with tiles and stones by the women, they took to flight in disorder. The majority were pushed over the precipices and killed, for Ithome is very steep at this point. A few escaped by throwing away their arms.
{4.29.6} The Messenians refrained at first from joining the Achaean league for the following reason, I think. When Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs made war on the Lacedaemonians, they came unasked to their assistance, and as a result of this service a more peaceful disposition towards them came to be established at Sparta. Therefore they were unwilling to revive the feud by joining the league, which was openly declared the bitterest enemy of the Lacedaemonians.
{4.29.7} I realize, as of course did the Messenians, that even without their joining the league the policy of the Achaeans was hostile to the Lacedaemonians. For the Argives and the Arcadian group formed not the smallest element in the league. However, in the course of time they joined the league. And not long afterwards Kleomenes the son of Leonidas, son of Kleonymos, captured the Arcadian Megalopolis in peace-time. [282]
{4.29.8} Of the people of Megalopolis who were caught in the city, some were killed at the time of its capture, but Philopoimen the son of Kraugis and all who withdrew with him (the number of the citizens who escaped is said to have been more than two-thirds) were received by the Messenians, who for the sake of the former services rendered by the Arcadians in the time of Aristomenes and again at the founding of Messene now repaid the like.
{4.29.9} Such, it would seem, are the vicissitudes of human affairs, if in fact the superhuman force [daimōn] granted that the Messenians should in their turn preserve the Arcadians, and what is still more surprising, that they should capture Sparta. For they fought against Kleomenes at Sellasia and joined with Aratos and the Achaeans to capture Sparta.
{4.29.10} When the Lacedaemonians were rid of Kleomenes there rose to power a tyrant Makhanidas, and after his death a second tyrant arose in Nabis. As he plundered human property and robbed temples alike, he amassed vast wealth in a short time and with it raised an army. This Nabis seized Messene, but when Philopoimen and the people of Megalopolis arrived during the same night,
{4.29.11} the Spartan tyrant retired on terms. But the Achaeans after this, having some quarrel with the Messenians, invaded them with all their forces and ravaged most of the country. On a second occasion they mustered when the wheat was ripe to invade Messenia. But Deinocrates, the head of the government, who had been chosen to command the Messenians on that occasion, compelled Lykortas and his force to retire without effecting anything, by occupying beforehand the passes from Arcadia into Messenia with the Messenians from the city and troops from the surrounding districts that came to their assistance.
{4.29.12} Philopoimen arrived with a few cavalry some time later than the force with Lykortas and had been unable to obtain any news of it; the Messenians, having the advantage of the high ground, defeated him and took him alive. I will narrate the manner of Philopoimen’s capture and death in my account of Arcadia later. [283] The Messenians, who were responsible for his death, were punished and Messene was again brought into the Achaean league.
{4.29.13} Hitherto my account has dealt with the many sufferings of the Messenians, how fate scattered them to the ends of the earth, far from Peloponnese, and afterwards brought them safely home to their own country. Let us now turn to a description of the country and cities.
{4.30.1} There is in our time a city Abia in Messenia on the coast, some twenty stadium-lengths distant from the Choerius valley. They say that this was formerly called Ire and was one of the seven cities which Homer says that Agamemnon promised to Achilles. [284] When Hyllos and the Dorians were defeated by the Achaeans, it is said that Abia, nurse of Glenus the son of Hēraklēs, withdrew to Ire, and settling there built a temple to Hēraklēs, and that afterwards for this reason Kresphontes, amongst other honors assigned to her, renamed the city after Abia. There was a notable temple of Hēraklēs here, and also of Asklepios.
{4.30.2} Pharaiis seventy stadium-lengths distant from Abia. On the road is a salt spring. The Emperor Augustus caused the Messenians of Pharaito be incorporated in Laconia. The founder Pharis is said to have been the son of Hermes and Phylodameia the daughter of Danaos. He had no male children, but a daughter Telegone. Homer, tracing her descendants in the Iliad, [285] says that twins, Crethon and Ortilokhos, were born to Diokles, Diokles himself being the son of Ortilokhos son of Alpheios. He makes no reference to Telegone, who in the Messenian account bore Ortilokhos to Alpheios.
{4.30.3} I heard also at Pharaithat besides the twins a daughter Anticleia was born to Diokles, and that her children were Nikomakhos and Gorgasus, by Makhaon the son of Asklepios. They remained at Pharaiand succeeded to the kingdom on the death of Diokles. The power of healing diseases and curing the maimed has remained with them to this day, and in return for this, sacrifices and votive offerings are brought to their sanctuary. The people of Pharaipossess also a temple of Fortune (Tyche) and an ancient image.
{4.30.4} Homer is the first whom I know to have mentioned Fortune in his poems. He did so in the Hymn to Demeter, where he enumerates the daughters of Okeanos, telling how they played with Kore the daughter of Demeter, and making Fortune one of them. The lines are:
“We all in a lovely meadow, Leucippe, Phaeno, Electre and Ianthe, Melobosis and Tyche and Ocyrhoe with face like a flower.”
Homeric Hymn to Demeter [5]420
{4.30.5} He said nothing further about this goddess being the mightiest of gods in human affairs and displaying greatest strength, as in the Iliad he represented Athena and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis feared in childbirth, and Aphrodite heeding the affairs of marriage. [286] But he makes no other mention of Fortune.
{4.30.6} Boupalos [287] a skillful temple-architect and carver of images, who made the statue of Fortune at Smyrna, was the first whom we know to have represented her with the celestial sphere [polos] upon her head and carrying in one hand the horn of Amaltheia, as the Greeks call it, representing her functions to this extent. The poems of Pindar later contained references to Fortune, and it is he who called her Supporter of the City.
{4.31.1} Not far from Pharaiis a grove of Apollo Karneios and a spring of water in it. Pharaiis about six stadium-lengths from the sea. Eighty stadium-lengths on the road which leads thence into the interior of Messenia is the city of the Thuriatae, which they say had the name Antheia in Homer’s poems. [288] Augustus gave Thuria into the possession of the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. For when Augustus was emperor of the Romans, Antony, himself a Roman, made war upon him and was joined by the Messenians and the rest of the Greeks, because the Lacedaemonians were on the side of Augustus.
{4.31.2} For this reason Augustus punished the Messenians and the rest of his adversaries, some more, some less. The people of Thuria left their town, which lay originally on high ground, and came down to live in the plain. Nevertheless the upper town is not entirely deserted, but there are remains of the wall and a temple there, called the temple of the Syrian Goddess. A river called Aris flows past the town in the plain.
{4.31.3} In the interior is a village Calamae and a place Limnae, where is a sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis (Of the lake). They say that Teleklos king of Sparta met his end here.
{4.31.4} On the road from Thuria towards Arcadia are the springs of the Pamisus, at which little children find cures.
A road turns to the left from the springs, and after some forty stadium-lengths is the city of the Messenians under Ithome. It is enclosed not only by Mount Ithome, but on the side towards the Pamisos by Mount Eva. The mountain is said to have obtained its name from the fact that the Bacchic cry of “Evoe” was first uttered here by Dionysus and his attendant women.
{4.31.5} Round Messene is a wall, the whole circuit of which is built of stone, with towers and battlements upon it. I have not seen the walls at Babylon or the walls of Memnon at Susa in Persia, nor have I heard the account of any eyewitness; but the walls at Ambrossos in Phokis, at Byzantium and at Rhodes, all of them the most strongly fortified places, are not so strong as the Messenian wall.
{4.31.6} The Messenians possess a statue of Zeus the Savior in the marketplace and a fountain Arsinoe. It received its name from the daughter of Leukippos and is fed from a source called Clepsydra. There are sanctuaries of the gods Poseidon and Aphrodite, and, what is most deserving of mention, a statue of the Mother of the Gods, of Parian marble, the work of Damophon, [289] the artist who repaired the Zeus at Olympia with extreme accuracy when the ivory parted. Honors have been granted to him by the people of Elis.
{4.31.7} By Damophon too is the so-called Laphria at Messene. The cult came to be established among them in the following way: Among the people of Calydon, Artemis, who was worshipped by them above all the gods, had the title Laphria, and the Messenians who received Naupaktos from the Athenians, being at that time close neighbors of the Aetolians, adopted her from the people of Calydon. I will describe her appearance in another place. [290] The name Laphria spread only to the Messenians and to the Achaeans of Patrae.
{4.31.8} But all cities worship Artemis of Ephesos, and individuals hold her in honor above all the gods. The reason, in my view, is the renown of the Amazons, who traditionally dedicated the image, also the extreme antiquity of this sanctuary. Three other points as well have contributed to her renown, the size of the temple, surpassing all buildings among men, the eminence of the city of the Ephesians and the renown of the goddess who dwells there.
{4.31.9} The Messenians have a temple erected to Eileithuia with a stone statue, and near by a hall of the Kouretes, where they make burned offerings of every kind of living creature, thrusting into the flames not only cattle and goats, but finally birds as well. There is a holy shrine of Demeter at Messene and statues of the Dioskouroi, carrying the daughters of Leukippos. I have already explained in an earlier passage [291] that the Messenians argue that the sons of Tyndareus belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians.
{4.31.10} The most numerous statues and the most worth seeing are to be found in the sanctuary of Asklepios. For besides statues of the god and his sons, and besides statues of Apollo, the Muses and Hēraklēs, the city of Thebes is represented and Epameinondas the son of Kleommis, Fortune, and Artemis Bringer of Light. The stone statues are the work of Damophon (I know of no other Messenian sculptor of merit apart from him); the statue of Epameinondas is of iron and the work of some other artist.
{4.31.11} There is also a temple of Messene the daughter of Triopas with a statue of gold and Parian marble. At the back of the temple are paintings of the kings of Messene: before the coming of the Dorian host to Peloponnese, Aphareus and his sons, after the return of the Herakleidai, Kresphontes the Dorian leader, of the inhabitants of Pylos, Nestor, Thrasymedes and Antilokhos, singled out from among the sons of Nestor on the score of age and because they took part in the expedition to Troy.
{4.31.12} There is Leukippos brother of Aphareus, Hilaeira and Phoebe, and with them Arsinoe. Asklepios too is represented, being according to the Messenian account a son of Arsinoe, also Makhaon and Podaleirios, as they also took part in the affair at Troy. These pictures were painted by Omphalion, pupil of Nikias [292] the son of Nikomedes. Some say that he was also a slave in the house of Nikias and his favorite.
{4.32.1} The place called Hierothesion by the Messenians contains statues of all the gods whom the Greeks worship, and also a bronze image of Epameinondas. Ancient tripods are dedicated there, which “have felt not the fire,” as Homer says. [293] The statues in the gymnasium are the work of Egyptian artists. They represent Hermes, Hēraklēs and Theseus, who are honored in the gymnasium and wrestling-ground according to a practice universal among Greeks, and now common among barbarians …
{4.32.2} I learned by enquiry that Aethidas was a man older than myself, who gained influence through his wealth and is honored by the Messenians as a hero. There are certain Messenians, who, while admitting that Aethidas was a man of great wealth, maintain that it is not he who is represented on the relief but an ancestor and namesake. The elder Aethidas was their leader, when Demetrios the son of Philip and his force surprised them in the night and succeeded in penetrating into the town unnoticed.
{4.32.3} There is also the tomb of Aristomenes here. They say that it is not a cenotaph, but when I asked whence and in what manner they recovered the bones of Aristomenes, they said that they sent to Rhodes for them, and that it was the god of Delphi who ordered it. They also instructed me in the nature of the rites carried out at the tomb. The bull which is to be offered to the dead man is brought to the tomb and bound to the pillar which stands upon the tomb. Being fierce and unused to bonds he will not stand; and if the pillar is moved by his struggles and bounds, it is a good omen to the Messenians, but if the pillar is not moved the sign portends misfortune.
{4.32.4} They have it that Aristomenes was present at the battle of Leuktra, though no longer among men, and say that he helped the Thebans and was the chief cause of the Lacedaemonian disaster. I know that the Chaldaeans and Indian sages were the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and have been followed by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato the son of Ariston. If all are willing to accept this, this too cannot be denied, that his hatred for the Lacedaemonians was imparted to Aristomenes for all time.
{4.32.5} What I myself heard in Thebes gives probability to the Messenian account, although it does not coincide in all respects. The Thebans say that when the battle of Leuktra was imminent, they sent to other oracles and to enquire of the god of Lebadeia. The replies of the Ismenian and Ptoan Apollo are recorded, also the responses given at Abaiand at Delphi. Trophonios, they say, answered in hexameters:
“Or ever ye join battle with the foe, set up a trophy and deck it with my shield, which impetuous Aristomenes the Messenian placed in my temple. And I will destroy the host of foemen bearing shield.”
{4.32.6} When the oracle was brought, they say that Epameinondas urged Xenocrates, who sent for the shield of Aristomenes and used it to adorn a trophy in a spot where it could be seen by the Lacedaemonians. Those of them who had seen the shield at Lebadeia in peace-time knew it, and all knew it by repute. After their victory the Thebans restored the offering to Trophonios. There is also a bronze statue of Aristomenes in the Messenian running-ground. Not far from the theater is a sanctuary of Sarapis and Isis.
{4.33.1} On the ascent to the summit of Ithome, which is the Messenian acropolis, is a spring Clepsydra. It is a hopeless task, however zealously undertaken, to enumerate all the peoples who claim that Zeus was born and brought up among them. The Messenians have their share in the story for they too say that the god was brought up among them and that his nurses were Ithome and Neda, the river having received its name from the latter, while the former, Ithome, gave her name to the mountain. These nymphs are said to have bathed Zeus here, after he was stolen by the Kouretes owing to the danger that threatened from his father, and it is said that it has its name from the Kouretes’ theft. Water is carried every day from the spring to the sanctuary of Zeus of Ithome.
{4.33.2} The statue of Zeus is the work of Ageladas [294] and was made originally for the Messenian settlers in Naupaktos. The priest is chosen annually and keeps the image in his house. [295] They keep an annual festival, the Ithomaia, and originally a musical contest was held. This can be gathered from the epic lines of Eumēlos and other sources. Eumēlos, in his processional hymn to Delos, says:
“For dear to the God of Ithome was the Muse, whose <lute> is pure and free her sandals.
Eumēlos, unknown location
I think that he wrote the lines because he knew that they held a musical contest.
{4.33.3} At the Arcadian gate leading to Megalopolis is a Herm of Attic style; for the square form of Herm is Athenian, and the rest adopted it thence. After a descent of thirty stadium-lengths from the gate is the watercourse of Balyra. The river is said to have got its name from Thamyris throwing (ballein) his lyre away here after his blinding. He was the son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope, who once dwelled on Parnassus, but settled among the Odrysaiwhen pregnant, for Philammon refused to take her into his house. Thamyris is called an Odrysian and Thracian on these grounds. The watercourses Leucasia and Amphitos unite to form one stream.
{4.33.4} When these are crossed, there is a plain called the plain of Stenyclerus. Stenyclerus was a hero, it is said. Facing the plain is a site anciently called Oechalia, in our time the Carnasian grove, thickly grown with cypresses. There are statues of the gods Apollo Karneios <and Hagne>, also Hermes carrying a ram. Hagne (the holy one) is a title of Kore the daughter of Demeter. Water rises from a spring close to the statue.
{4.33.5} I may not reveal the rites of the Great Goddesses, for it is their mysteries which they celebrate in the Carnasian grove, and I regard them as second only to the Eleusinian in sanctity. But my dream did not prevent me from making known to all that the bronze urn, discovered by the Argive general, and the bones of Eurytos the son of Melaneus were kept here. A river Kharadros flows past the grove;
{4.33.6} about eight stadium-lengths along the road to the left are the ruins of Andania. The guides agree that the city got its name from a woman Andania, but I can say nothing as to her parents or her husband. On the road from Andania towards Cyparissiae is Polichne, as it is called, and the streams of Electra and Coeus. The names perhaps are to be connected with Electra the daughter of Atlas and Coeus the father of Leto, or Electra and Coeus may be two local heroes.
{4.33.7} When the Electra is crossed, there is a spring called Achaea, and the ruins of a city Dorion. Homer states [296] that the misfortune of Thamyris took place here in Dorion, because he said that he would overcome the Muses themselves in song. But Prodicus of Phokaia, if the epic called the Minyad [297] is indeed his, says that Thamyris paid the penalty in Hades for his boast against the Muses. My view is that Thamyris lost his eyesight through disease, as happened later to Homer. Homer, however, continued making poetry all his life without giving way to his misfortune, while Thamyris forsook his art through stress of the trouble that afflicted him.
{4.34.1} From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus is a journey of eighty stadium-lengths. The Pamisus is a pure stream flowing through cultivated lands, and is navigable some ten stadium-lengths from the sea. Sea-fish run up it, especially in spring, as they do up the Rhine and Maeander. The chief run of fish is up the stream of the Akhelōos, which discharges opposite the Echinades islands.
{4.34.2} But the fish that enter the Pamisus are of quite a different kind, as the water is pure and not muddy like the rivers which I have mentioned. The grey mullet, a fish that loves mud, frequents the more turbid streams. The rivers of Greece contain no creatures dangerous to men as do the Indus and the Egyptian Nile, or again the Rhine and Danube, the Euphrates and Phasis. These indeed produce man-eating creatures of the worst, in shape resembling the catfish of the Hermos and Maeander, but of darker color and stronger. In these respects the catfish is inferior.
{4.34.3} The Indus and Nile both contain crocodiles, and the Nile river-horses as well, as dangerous to man as the crocodile. But the rivers of Greece contain no terrors from wild beasts, for the sharks of the Aous, which flows through Thesprotia, are not river beasts but migrants from the sea.
{4.34.4} Corone is a city to the right of the Pamisus, on the sea-coast under Mount Mathia. On this road is a place on the coast regarded as sacred to Ino. For they say that she came up from the sea at this point, after her divinity had been accepted and her name changed from Ino to Leucothea. A short distance further the river Bias reaches the sea. The name is said to be derived from Bias the son of Amythaon. Twenty stadium-lengths off the road is the fountain of Plataniston, the water of which flows out of a broad plane tree, which is hollow inside. The breadth of the tree gives the impression of a small cave; from it the drinking water flows to Corone.
{4.34.5} The old name of Corone was Aepeia, but when the Messenians were restored to Peloponnese by the Thebans, it is said that Epimelides, who was sent as founder, named it Coroneia after his native town in Boeotia. The Messenians got the name wrong from the start, and the mistake which they made gradually prevailed in course of time. Another story is told to the effect that, when digging the foundations of the city wall, they came upon a bronze crow, in Greek corone.
{4.34.6} The gods who have temples here are Artemis, called the “Nurse of Children,” Dionysus and Asklepios. The statues of Asklepios and Dionysus are of stone, but there is a statue of Zeus the Savior in the marketplace made of bronze. The statue of Athena also on the acropolis is of bronze, and stands in the open air, holding a crow in her hand. I also saw the tomb of Epimelides. I do not know why they call the harbor “the harbor of the Achaeans.”
{4.34.7} Some eighty stadium-lengths beyond Corone is a sanctuary of Apollo on the coast, venerated because it is very ancient according to Messenian tradition, and the god cures illnesses. They call him Apollo Corynthus. His image is of wood, but the statue of Apollo Argeotas, said to have been dedicated by the Argonauts, is of bronze.
{4.34.8} The city of Corone is adjoined by Colonides. The inhabitants say that they are not Messenians but settlers from Attica brought by Kolainos, who followed a bird known as the crested lark to found the settlement in accordance with an oracle. They were, however, in the course of time to adopt the dialect and customs of the Dorians. The town of Colonides lies on high ground, a short distance from the sea.
{4.34.9} The people of Asine originally adjoined the Lycoritaion Parnassus. Their name, which they maintained after their arrival in Peloponnese, was Dryopes, from their founder. Two generations after Dryops, in the reign of Phylas, the Dryopes were conquered in battle by Hēraklēs and brought as an offering to Apollo at Delphi. When brought to Peloponnese according to the god’s instructions to Hēraklēs, they first occupied Asine by Hermion. They were driven thence by the Argives and lived in Messenia. This was the gift of the Lacedaemonians, and when in the course of time the Messenians were restored, they were not driven from their city by the Messenians.
{4.34.10} But the people of Asine give this account of themselves. They admit that they were conquered by Hēraklēs and their city in Parnassus captured, but they deny that they were made prisoners and brought to Apollo. But when the walls were carried by Hēraklēs, they deserted the town and fled to the heights of Parnassus, and afterwards crossed the sea to Peloponnese and appealed to Eurystheus. Being at feud with Hēraklēs, he gave them Asine in the Argolid.
{4.34.11} The men of Asine are the only members of the people known as the Dryopes to pride themselves on the name to this day. The case is very different with the Euboeans of Styra. They too are Dryopes in origin, who took no part in the battle with Hēraklēs, as they dwelled at some distance from the city. Yet the people of Styra disdain the name of Dryopes, just as the Delphians have refused to be called people of Phokis. But the men of Asine take the greatest pleasure in being called Dryopes, and clearly have made the most holy of their sanctuaries in memory of those which they once had, established on Parnassus. For they have both a temple of Apollo and again a temple and ancient statue of Dryops, whose mysteries they celebrate every year, saying that he is the son of Apollo.
{4.34.12} The town itself lies on the coast just as the old Asine in Argive territory. It is a journey of forty stadium-lengths from Colonides to Asine, and of an equal number from Asine to the promontory called Acritas. Acritas projects into the sea and has a deserted island, Theganussa, lying off it. After Acritas is the harbor Phoinikos and the Oenussae islands lying opposite.
{4.35.1} Before the mustering of the army for the Trojan war, and during the war, Mothone was called Pedasus. Later, as the people themselves say, it received a new name from the daughter of Oineus. They say that Mothone was born of a concubine to Oineus the son of Porthaon, when he had taken refuge with Diomede in Peloponnese after the fall of Troy. But in my view it was the rock Mothon that gave the place its name. It is this which forms their harbor. For projecting under water, it makes the entrance for ships more narrow and also serves as a breakwater against a heavy swell.
{4.35.2} I have shown in earlier passages [298] that, when the Nauplians in the reign of Damocratidas in Argos were expelled for their Laconian sympathies, the Lacedaemonians gave them Mothone, and that no change was made regarding them on the part of the Messenians when they returned. The Nauplians in my view were Egyptians originally, who came by sea with Danaos to the Argolid, and two generations later were settled in Nauplia by Nauplios the son of Amymone.
{4.35.3} The Emperor Trajan granted civic freedom and autonomy to the people of Mothone. In earlier days they were the only people of Messenia on the coast to suffer a disaster like the following: Thesprotian Epeiros was ruined by anarchy. For Deidameia the daughter of Pyrrhos, being without children, handed over the government to the people when she was on the point of death. She was the daughter of Pyrrhos, son of Ptolemy, son of Alexander, son of Pyrrhos.
{4.35.4} I have told the facts relating to Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs in my account of the Athenians. [299] Prokles the Carthaginian [300] indeed rated Alexander the son of Philip higher on account of his good fortune and for the brilliance of his achievements, but said that Pyrrhos was the better man in infantry and cavalry tactics and in the invention of stratagems of war.
{4.35.5} When the people of Epeiros were rid of their kings, the people threw off all control and disdained to listen to their magistrates, and the Illyrians who live on the Ionian sea above Epeiros reduced them by a raid. We have yet to hear of a democracy bringing prosperity to a nation other than the Athenians; the Athenians attained to greatness by its means, for they surpassed the Greek world in native wit, and least disregarded the established laws.
{4.35.6} Now the Illyrians, having tasted empire and being always desirous of more, built ships, and plundering others whom they fell in with, put in to the coast of Mothone and anchored as in a friendly port. Sending a messenger to the city they asked for wine to be brought to their ships. A few men came with it and they bought the wine at the price which the inhabitants asked, and themselves sold a part of their cargo.
{4.35.7} When on the following day a larger number arrived from the town, they allowed them also to make their profit. Finally women and men came down to the ships to sell wine and trade with the barbarians. Thereupon by a bold stroke the Illyrians carried off a number of men and still more of the women. Carrying them on board ship, they set sail for the Ionian sea, having desolated the city of the Mothonaeans.
{4.35.8} In Mothone is a temple of Athena Of the Winds, with a statue dedicated, it is said, by Diomede, who gave the goddess her name. The country being damaged by violent and unseasonable blasts, Diomede prayed to the goddess, and henceforward no disaster caused by the winds has visited their country. There is also a shrine of Artemis here and water in a well mixed with pitch, in appearance very like the iris-oil of Cyzicos. Water can assume every color and scent.
{4.35.9} The bluest that I know from personal experience is that at Thermopylae, not all of it, but that which flows into the swimming-baths, called locally the Women’s Pots. Red water, in color like blood, is found in the land of the Hebrews near the city of Joppa. The water is close to the sea, and the account which the natives give of the spring is that Perseus, after destroying the sea monster, to which the daughter of Cepheus was exposed, washed off the blood in the spring.
{4.35.10} I have myself seen water coming up black from springs at Astyra. Astyra opposite Lesbos is the name of the hot baths in the district called Atarneus. It was this Atarneus, which the Chians received as a reward from the Persians as a reward for surrendering the suppliant, Pactyas the Lydian. [301] This water then has a black color; but the Romans have a white water, above the city across the river called Anio. When a man enters it, he is at first attacked with cold and shivering, but after a little time it warms him like the hottest drug.
{4.35.11} All these springs that had something wonderful to show I have seen myself. For I pass over the less wonderful that I know, and it is no great marvel to find water that is salt and harsh. But there are two other kinds. The water in the White Plain, as it is called, in Caria, by the village with the name Dascylou Come, is warm and sweeter than milk to drink. I know that Herodotus says that a spring of bitter water flows into the river Hypanis. We can assuredly admit the truth of his statement, when in our days at Dicaearchia (Puteoli), in the land of the Tyrrhenians, a hot spring has been found, so acid that in a few years it dissolved the lead through which its water passed.
{4.36.1} It is a journey of about a hundred stadium-lengths from Mothone to the promontory of Coryphasium, on which Pylos lies. This was founded by Pylos the son of Kleson, bringing from the Megarid the Leleges who then occupied the country. But he did not enjoy it, as he was driven out by Neleus and the Pelasgians of Iolcos, on which he departed to the adjoining country and there occupied the Pylos in Elis. When Neleus became king, he raised Pylos to such renown that Homer in his epics calls it the city of Neleus. [302]
{4.36.2} It contains a sanctuary of Athena with the title Coryphasia, and a house called the house of Nestor, in which there is a painting of him. His tomb is inside the city; the tomb at a little distance from Pylos is said to be the tomb of Thrasymedes. There is a cave inside the town, in which it is said that the cattle belonging to Nestor and to Neleus before him were kept.
{4.36.3} These cattle must have been of Thessalian stock, having once belonged to Iphiklos the father of Protesilaos. Neleus demanded these cattle as bride gifts for his daughter from her suitors, and it was on their account that Melampos went to Thessaly to gratify his brother Bias. He was put in bonds by the herdsmen of Iphiklos, but received them as his reward for the prophecies which he gave to Iphiklos at his request. So it seems the men of those days made it their business to amass wealth of this kind, herds of horses and cattle, if it is the case that Nestor desired to get possession of the cattle of Iphiklos and that Eurystheus, in view of the reputation of the Iberian cattle, ordered Hēraklēs to drive off the herd of Geryones.
{4.36.4} Eryx too, who was reigning then in Sicily, plainly had so violent a desire for the cattle from Erytheia that he wrestled with Hēraklēs, staking his kingdom on the match against these cattle. As Homer says in the Iliad, [303] a hundred kine were the first of the bride gifts paid by Iphidamas the son of Antenor to his bride’s father. This confirms my argument that the men of those days took the greatest pleasure in cattle.
{4.36.5} But the cattle of Neleus were pastured for the most part across the border, I think. For the country of the Pylians in general is sandy and unable to provide so much grazing. Homer testifies to this, when he mentions Nestor, always adding that he was king of sandy Pylos.
{4.36.6} The island of Sphakteria lies in front of the harbor just as Rheneia off the anchorage at Delos. It seems that places hitherto unknown have been raised to fame by the fortunes of men. For Caphereus in Euboea is famous since the storm that here befell the Greeks with Agamemnon on their voyage from Troy. Psyttaleia by Salamis we know from the destruction of the Persians there. In like manner the Lacedaemonian reverse made Sphakteria known to all mankind. The Athenians dedicated a bronze statue of Victory also on the acropolis as a memorial of the events at Sphakteria.
{4.36.7} When Cyparissiae is reached from Pylos, there is a spring below the city near the sea, the water of which they say gushed forth for Dionysus when he struck he ground with a thyrsus. For this reason they call the spring Dionysias. There is a shrine of Apollo in Cyparissiae and of Athena with the title Cyparissia. In the depression called Aulon there is a temple and statue of Asklepios Aulonios. Here flows the river Neda, forming the boundary between Messenia and Elis.
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Scroll V. Elis, Part 1
{5.1.1} The Greeks who say that the Peloponnesus has five, and only five, divisions must agree that Arcadia contains both Arcadians and Eleians, that the second division belongs to the Achaeans, and the remaining three to the Dorians. Of the people dwelling in Peloponnesus the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. When the Achaeans were driven from their land by the Dorians, they did not retire from Peloponnesus, but they cast out the Ionians and occupied the land called of old Aigialos, but now called Achaea from these Achaeans. The Arcadians, on the other hand, have from the beginning to the present time continued in possession of their own country.
{5.1.2} The rest of Peloponnesus belongs to immigrants. The modern Corinthians are the latest inhabitants of Peloponnesus, and in the era from my time to the time when they received their land from the Roman Emperor is two hundred and seventeen years. The Dryopians reached the Peloponnesus from Parnassus, the Dorians from Oitē.
{5.1.3} The Eleians we know crossed over from Calydon and Aetolia generally. Their earlier history I found to be as follows. The first to rule in this land, they say, was Aethlios, who was the son of Zeus and of Protogeneia, the daughter of Deukalion, and the father of Endymion.
{5.1.4} The Moon, they say, fell in love with this Endymion and bore him fifty daughters. Others with greater probability say that Endymion took a wife Asterodia—others say she was Kromia, the daughter of Itonos, the son of Amphiktyon; others again, Hyperippe, the daughter of Arkas—but all agree that Endymion begot Paion, Epeios, Aitolos, and also a daughter Eurukuda. Endymion set his sons to run a race at Olympia for the throne; Epeios won, and obtained the kingdom, and his subjects were then named Epeians for the first time.
{5.1.5} Of his brothers they say that Aitolos remained at home, while Paion, vexed at his defeat, went into the farthest exile possible and that the region beyond the river Axios was named after him Paionia. As to the death of Endymion, the people of Herakleia near Miletus do not agree with the Eleians for while the Eleians show a tomb of Endymion, the folk of Herakleia say that he retired to Mount Latmos and give him honor, there being a shrine of Endymion on Latmos.
{5.1.6} Epeios married Anaxirhoe, the daughter of Koronos, and begot a daughter Hyrmina, but no male issue. In the reign of Epeios the following events also occurred. Oinomaos was the son of Alxion (though poets proclaimed his father to be Ares, and the common report agrees with them), but while lord of the land of Pisa, he was put down by Pelops the Lydian, who crossed over from Asia.
{5.1.7} On the death of Oinomaos, Pelops took possession of the land of Pisa and its bordering country Olympia, separating it from the land of Epeios. The Eleians said that Pelops was the first to found a temple of Hermes in Peloponnesus and to sacrifice to the god, his purpose being to avert the wrath of the god for the death of Myrtilos.
{5.1.8} Aitolos, who came to the throne after Epeios, was made to flee from Peloponnesus, because the children of Apis tried and convicted him of unintentional homicide. For Apis, the son of Jason, from Pallantion in Arcadia, was run over and killed by the chariot of Aitolos at the Games held in honor of Azan. Aitolos, son of Endymion, gave to the dwellers around the Akhelōos their name, when he fled to this part of the mainland. But the kingdom of the Epeians fell to Eleios, the son of Eurukuda, daughter of Endymion and, believe the tale who will, of Poseidon. It was Eleios who gave the inhabitants their present name of Eleians in place of Epeians.
{5.1.9} Eleios had a son Augeias. Those who exaggerate his glory give a turn to the name Eleios and make Hēlios to be the father of Augeias. This Augeias had so many cattle and flocks of goats that actually most of his land remained uncultivated because of the manure produced by the animals. Now he persuaded Hēraklēs to purify for him the land from dung, either in return for a part of Elis or possibly for some other reward.
{5.1.10} Hēraklēs accomplished this feat too, turning aside the stream of the Menios into the manure. But because Hēraklēs had accomplished his task by cunning, without toil, Augeias refused to give him his reward and banished Phyleus, the elder of his two sons, for objecting that he was wronging a man who had been his benefactor. He made preparations himself to resist Hēraklēs, should he attack Elis; more particularly, he made friends with the sons of Aktor and with Amarynkeus. Amarynkeus, besides being a good soldier,
{5.1.11} had a father, Pyttios, of Thessalian descent, who came from Thessaly to Elis. To Amarynkeus, therefore, Augeias also gave a share in the government of Elis; Aktor and his sons had a share in the kingdom and were natives of the country. For the father of Aktor was Phorbas, son of Lapithos, and his mother was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeios. Aktor named after her the city of Hyrmina, which he founded in Elis.
{5.2.1} 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.
{5.2.2} 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.
{5.2.3} 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?
{5.2.4} 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 Games [304] 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.
{5.2.5} 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:
But from going to the land of Sisyphus, he was hindered by a quarrel
About the baleful death of the Molionidai.
About the baleful death of the Molionidai.
{5.3.1} Enough of my discussion of this question. Hēraklēs afterwards took Elis and sacked it, with an army he had raised of Argives, Thebans and Arcadians. The Eleians were aided by the men of Pisa and of Pylos in Elis. The men of Pylos were punished by Hēraklēs, but his expedition against Pisa was stopped by an oracle from Delphi that goes like this:
My father cares for Pisa, but to me in the hollows of Pythō. [305]
This oracle proved the salvation of Pisa. To Phyleus Hēraklēs gave up the land of Elis and all the rest, more out of respect for Phyleus than because he wanted to do so: he allowed him to keep the prisoners, and Augeias to escape punishment.
{5.3.2} The women of Elis, it is said, seeing that their land had been deprived of its vigorous manhood, prayed to Athena that they might conceive at their first union with their husbands. Their prayer was answered, and they set up a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Mother. Both wives and husbands were so delighted at their union that they named the place itself where they first met, Badu [sweet], and the river that runs thereby Badu Water, this being a word of their native dialect.
{5.3.3} When Phyleus had returned to Doulikhion after organizing the affairs of Elis, Augeias died at an advanced age, and the kingdom of Elis devolved on Agasthenes, the son of Augeias, and on Amphimakhos and Thalpios. For the sons of Aktor married twin sisters, the daughters of Dexamenos who was king at Olenos; Amphimakhos was born to one son and Theronikē, Thalpios to her sister TheraiTheraiphone and Eurytos.
{5.3.4} However, neither Amarynkeus himself nor his son Diores remained common people. Incidentally this is shown by Homer [306] in his list of the Eleians; he makes their whole fleet to consist of forty ships, half of them under the command of Amphimakhos and Thalpios, and of the remaining twenty he puts ten under Diores, the son of Amarynkeus, and ten under Polyxenos, the son of Agasthenes. Polyxenos came back safe from Troy and begot a son, Amphimakhos. This name I think Polyxenos gave his son because of his friendship with Amphimakhos, the son of Kteatos, who died at Troy.
{5.3.5} Amphimakhos begot Eleios, and it was while Eleios was king in Elis that the assembly of the Dorian army under the sons of Aristomakhos took place, with a view to returning to the Peloponnesus. To their kings was delivered this oracle, that they were to choose the “one with three eyes” to lead them on their return. When they were at a loss as to the meaning of the oracle, they were met by a man driving a mule, which was blind of one eye.
{5.3.6} Kresphontes inferred that this was the man indicated by the oracle, and so the Dorians made him one of themselves. He urged them to descend upon the Peloponnesus in ships, and not to attempt to go across the Isthmus with a land army. Such was his advice, and at the same time, he led them on the voyage from Naupaktos to Molykrion. In return, they agreed to give him at his request the land of Elis. The man was Oxylos, son of Haimon, the son of Thoas. This was the Thoas who helped the sons of Atreus to destroy the empire of Priam, and from Thoas to Aitolos the son of Endymion are six generations.
{5.3.7} There were ties of kindred between the Herakleidai and the kings of Aetolia; in particular the mothers of Thoas, the son of Andraemon, and of Hyllos, the son of Hēraklēs, were sisters. It fell to the lot of Oxylos to be an outlaw from Aetolia. The story goes that as he was throwing the discus, he missed the mark and committed unintentional homicide. The man killed by the discus, according to one account, was Thermios, the brother of Oxylos; according to another, it was Alkidokos, the son of Skopios.
{5.4.1} The following story is also told of Oxylos. He suspected that, when the sons of Aristomakhos saw that the land of Elis was good and cultivated throughout, they would be no longer willing to give it to him. He accordingly led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. Oxylos was anxious to get the kingdom of Elis without a battle, but Dios would not give way; he proposed that, instead of their fighting a pitched battle with all their forces, a single soldier should be chosen from each army to fight as its champion.
{5.4.2} This proposal chanced to find favor with both sides, and the champions chosen were the Eleian Degmenos, an archer, and Pyraikhmes, a slinger, to represent the Aetolians. Pyraikhmes won, and Oxylos got the kingdom. He allowed the old inhabitants, the Epeians, to keep their possessions, except that he introduced among them Aetolian colonists, giving them a share in the land. He assigned privileges to Dios and kept up after the ancient manner the honors paid to heroes, especially the worship of Augeias, to whom even at the present day hero-sacrifice is offered.
{5.4.3} He is also said to have induced to come into the city the dwellers in the villages near the wall, and by increasing the number of the inhabitants to have made Elis larger and generally more prosperous. There also came to him an oracle from Delphi that he should bring in as cofounder “the descendant of Pelops.” Oxylos made diligent search, and in his search, he discovered Agorios, son of Damasios, son of Penthilos, son of Orestes. He brought Agorios himself from Helike in Achaea and with him a small body of Achaeans.
{5.4.4} The wife of Oxylos, they say, was called Pieria, but beyond this nothing more about her is recorded. Oxylos is said to have had two sons, Aitolos and Laias. Aitolos died before his parents, who buried him in a tomb which they caused to be made right in the gate leading to Olympia and the sanctuary of Zeus. That they buried him thus was due to an oracle forbidding the corpse to be laid either without the city or within it. Right down to our own day, the gymnasiarch sacrifices to Aitolos as to a hero every year.
{5.4.5} After Oxylos, the kingdom devolved on Laias, son of Oxylos. His descendants, however, I find did not reign, and so I pass them by, though I know who they were; my narrative must not descend to men of common rank. Later on Iphitos, of the line of Oxylos and contemporary with Lycurgus [Lykourgos], who drew up the code of laws for the Lacedaemonians, arranged the Games at Olympia and reestablished afresh the Olympic festival and truce after an interruption of uncertain length. The reason for this interruption I will set forth when my narrative deals with Olympia.
{5.4.6} At this time, Greece was grievously worn by internal strife and plague, and it occurred to Iphitos to ask the god at Delphi for deliverance from these evils. The story goes that the Pythian priestess ordained that Iphitos himself and that the Eleians must renew the Olympic Games. Iphitos also induced the Eleians to sacrifice to Hēraklēs as to a god, whom hitherto they had looked upon as their enemy. The inscription at Olympia calls Iphitos the son of Haimon, but most of the Greeks say that his father was Praxonides and not Haimon, while the ancient records of Elis traced him to a father of the same name.
{5.4.7} The Eleians played their part in the Trojan War and also in the battles of the Persian invasion of Greece. I pass over their struggles with the Pisans and Arcadians for the management of the Olympian Games. Against their will, they joined the Lacedaemonians in their invasion of Athenian territory, and shortly afterwards, they rose up with the Mantineians and Argives against the Lacedaemonians, inducing Athens too to join the alliance. [307]
{5.4.8} When Agis invaded the land and Xenias turned traitor, the Eleians won a battle near Olympia, routed the Lacedaemonians, and drove them out of the sacred enclosure; but shortly afterwards, the war was concluded by the treaty I have already spoken of in my account of the Lacedaemonians.
{5.4.9} When Philip the son of Amyntas would not let Greece alone, the Eleians, weakened by civil strife, joined the Macedonian alliance, but they could not bring themselves to fight against the Greeks at Khaironeia. They joined Philip’s attack on the Lacedaemonians [308] because of their old hatred of that people, but on the death of Alexander, they fought on the side of the Greeks against Antipatros and the Macedonians.
{5.5.1} Later on, Aristotīmos, the son of Damaretos, the son of Etymon, became despot of Elis, being aided in his attempt by Antigonos, the son of Demetrios, who was king in Macedonia. After a despotism of six months Aristotīmos was deposed, a rising against him having been organized by Khilon, Hellanikos, Lampis and Kylon; Kylon it was who with his own hand killed the despot when he had sought sanctuary at the altar of Zeus the Savior. Such were the wars of the Eleians, of which my present enumeration must serve as a summary.
{5.5.2} The land of Elis contains two marvels. Here, and here only in Greece, does fine flax grow; and secondly, only over the border, and not within it, can the mares be impregnated by asses. The cause of this is said to have been a curse. The fine flax of Elis is as fine as that of the Hebrews, but it is not so yellow.
{5.5.3} As you go from Elis, there is a district stretching down to the sea. It is called Samikon, and above it on the right is what is called Triphylia, in which is the city Lepreus. The citizens of this city wish to belong to the Arcadians, but it is plain that from the beginning, they have been subject to the Eleians. Those that have won Olympic victories have been announced by the herald as Eleians from Lepreus, and Aristophanes in a comedy calls Lepreus a town of the Eleians. Leaving the river Anigros, on the left there is a road leading to Lepreus; from Samikon, another leads to it from Olympia and a third from Elis. The longest of them is a day’s journey.
{5.5.4} The city got its name, they say, from its founder Lepreus, the son of Pyrgeus. There was also a story that Lepreus contended with Hēraklēs: that he was as good a trencherman. Each killed an ox at the same time and prepared it for the table. It turned out, even as Lepreus maintained, that he was as powerful a trencherman as Hēraklēs. Afterwards, he made bold to challenge him to a duel. Lepreus, they say, lost, was killed and was buried in the land of Phigaleia. The Phigalians, however, could not show a tomb of Lepreus.
{5.5.5} I have heard some who maintained that Lepreus was founded by Leprea, the daughter of Pyrgeus. Others say that the first dwellers in the land were afflicted with the disease leprosy and that the city received its name from the misfortune of the inhabitants. The Lepreans told me that in their city once was a temple of Zeus Leukaios (of the White Poplar), the tomb of Lycurgus [Lykourgos], son of Aleus, and the tomb of Kaukon, over which was the figure of a man holding a lyre.
{5.5.6} But as far as I could see they had no tomb of distinction and no sanctuary of any deity, save one of Demeter. Even this was built of unburned brick and contained no image. Not far from the city of the Lepreans is a spring called Arene, and they say that it derives its name from the wife of Aphareus.
{5.5.7} Returning again to Samikon, and passing through the district, we reach the mouth of the Anigros. The current of this river is often held back by violent gales, which carry the sand from the open sea against it and stop the onward flow of the water. So whenever the sand has become soaked on both sides, by the sea without and by the river within, beasts and still more travelers on foot are in danger of sinking into it.
{5.5.8} The Anigros descends from the mountain Lapithos in Arcadia, and right from its source, its water does not smell sweet but actually stinks horribly. Before it receives the tributary Akidas, it plainly cannot support fish life at all. After the rivers unite, the fish that come down into the Anigros with the water are uneatable, though before, if they are caught in the Akidas, they are eatable.
{5.5.9} I heard from an Ephesian that the Akidas was called Iardanos in ancient times. I repeat his statement, though I have nowhere found evidence in support of it. I am convinced that the peculiar odor of the Anigros is due to the earth through which the water springs up, just as those rivers beyond Ionia, the exhalation from which is deadly to man, owe their peculiarity to the same cause. Some Greeks say that Kheiron,
{5.5.10} others that Pylenor, another Centaur, when shot by Hēraklēs fled wounded to this river and washed his injury in it and that it was the hydra’s poison which gave the Anigros its nasty smell. Others again attribute the quality of the river to Melampos, the son of Amythaon, who threw into it the means he used to purify the daughters of Proitos.
{5.5.11} There is in Samikon a cave not far from the river and called the Cave of the Nymphs of Anigros. Whoever enters it suffering from alphos or leuke first has to pray to the nymphs and to promise some sacrifice or other, after which he wipes the unhealthy parts of his body. Then, swimming through the river, he leaves his old uncleanness in its water, coming up sound and of one color.
{5.6.1} Crossing the Anigros and going to Olympia by the straight road, not far away on the right of the road, you reach a high district with a city called Samia on it. This they say Polysperkhon the Aetolian used as a fortified post against the Arcadians.
{5.6.2} As to the ruins of Arene, no Messenian and no Eleian could point them out to me with certainty. Those who care to do so may make all sorts of different guesses about it, but the most plausible account seemed to me that of those who held that in the heroic age and even earlier, Samikon was called Arene. These quoted too the words of the Iliad:
There is a river Minyeios flowing into the sea near Arene.
{5.6.3} These ruins are very near to the Anigros; and although it might be questioned whether Samikon was called Arene, yet the Arcadians are agreed that of old the Anigros was called the Minyeios. One might well hold that the Neda near the sea was made the boundary between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Herakleidai to the Peloponnesus.
{5.6.4} After the Anigros, if you travel for a considerable distance through a district that is generally sandy and grows wild pines, you will see behind you on the left the ruins of Skillos. It was one of the cities of Triphylia, but in the war between Pisa and Elis, the citizens of Skillos openly helped Pisa against her enemy, and for this reason, the Eleians utterly destroyed it.
{5.6.5} The Lacedaemonians afterwards separated Skillos from Elis and gave it to Xenophon, the son of Grylos, when he had been exiled from Athens. The reason for his banishment was that he had taken part in an expedition which Cyrus, the greatest enemy of the Athenian people, had organized against their friend, the Persian king. [309] Cyrus, in fact, with his seat at Sardis, had been providing Lysander, the son of Aristokritos, and the Lacedaemonians with money for their fleet. Xenophon, accordingly, was banished, and having made Skillos his home, he built in honor of Ephesian Artemis a temple with a sanctuary and a sacred enclosure.
{5.6.6} Skillos is also a hunting-ground for wild boars and deer, and the land is crossed by a river called the Selinous. The guides of Elis said that the Eleians recovered Skillos again, and that Xenophon was tried by the Olympic Council for accepting the land from the Lacedaemonians and, obtaining pardon from the Eleians, dwelled securely in Skillos. Moreover, at a little distance from the sanctuary was shown a tomb, and upon the tomb is a statue of marble from the Pentelic quarry. The neighbors say that it is the tomb of Xenophon.
{5.6.7} As you go from Skillos along the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheios, there is a mountain with high, precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaion. It is a law of Elis to cast down it any women who are caught present at the Olympic Games or even on the other side of the Alpheios on the days prohibited to women. However, they say that no woman has been caught, except Kallipateira only; some, however, give the lady the name of Pherenikē and not Kallipateira.
{5.6.8} She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer, and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodos, so her son was called, was victorious, and Kallipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up, bared her person. So her sex was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers, and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that in the future, trainers should strip before entering the arena.
{5.7.1} By the time you reach Olympia, the Alpheios is a large and very pleasant river to see, being fed by several tributaries, including seven very important ones. The Helisson joins the Alpheios passing through Megalopolis; the Brentheates comes out of the territory of that city; past Gortyna, where is a sanctuary of Asklepios, flows the Gortynios; from Melainai, between the territories of Megalopolis and Heraia, comes the Bouphagos; from the land of the Clitorians [people of Kleitor], the Ladon; from Mount Erymanthos, a stream with the same name as the mountain. These come down into the Alpheios from Arcadia; the Kladeos comes from Elis to join it. The source of the Alpheios itself is in Arcadia, and not in Elis.
{5.7.2} There is another thing told about the Alpheios. They say that there was a hunter called Alpheios, who fell in love with Arethousa, who was herself a huntress. Arethousa, unwilling to marry, crossed, they say, to the island opposite Syracuse called Ortygia,and there turned from a woman to a spring. Alpheios too was changed by his love into the river.
{5.7.3} This account of Alpheios to Ortygia. But that the Alpheios passes through the sea and mingles his waters with the spring at this place, I cannot disbelieve as I know that the god at Delphi confirms the story. For when he dispatched Arkhias the Corinthian to found Syracuse, he uttered this oracle:
An island, Ortygia, lies on the misty sea [pontos]
Over against Trinakria, where the mouth of Alpheios bubbles
Mingling with the springs of broad Arethousa.
Over against Trinakria, where the mouth of Alpheios bubbles
Mingling with the springs of broad Arethousa.
For this reason, therefore, because the water of the Alpheios mingles with the Arethousa, I am convinced that the story arose of the river’s love-affair.
{5.7.4} Those Greeks or Egyptians who have gone up into Ethiopia beyond Syene as far as the Ethiopian city of Meroe all say that the Nile enters a lake, and passes through it as though it were dry land, and that after this, it flows through lower Ethiopia into Egypt before coming down into the sea at Pharos. And in the land of the Hebrews, as I can myself bear witness, the river Jordan passes through a lake called Tiberias, and then, entering another lake called the Dead Sea, it disappears in it.
{5.7.5} The Dead Sea has the opposite qualities to those of any other water. Living creatures float in it naturally without swimming; dying creatures sink to the bottom. Hence, the lake is barren of fish; their danger stares them in the face, and they flee back to the water which is their native element. The peculiarity of the Alpheios is shared by a river of Ionia. The source of it is on Mount Mykale, and having gone through the intervening sea, the river rises again opposite Brankhidai at the harbor called Panormos.
{5.7.6} These things then are as I have described them. As for the Olympic Games, the most learned antiquaries of Elis say that Kronos was the first king in the sky [ouranos] and that in his honor, a temple was built in Olympia by the men of that age, who were named the Golden Generation. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Dactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Kouretes. They came from Cretan Ida—Hēraklēs, Paionaios, Epimedes, Iasios and Idas.
{5.7.7} Hēraklēs, being the eldest, matched his brothers, as a game, in a running race, and garlanded the winner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Hēraklēs from the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of the North Wind.
{5.7.8} Olen the Lycian, in his hymn to Akhaïia, was the first to say that from these Hyperboreans, Akhaïia came to Delos. When Melanopos of Cyme composed an ode to Opis and Hekaerge declaring that these, even before Akhaïia, came to Delos from the Hyperboreans.
{5.7.9} And Aristeas of Prokonnesos—for he too made mention of the Hyperboreans—may perhaps have learned even more about them from the Issedones, to whom he says in his poem that he came. Hēraklēs of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned, the Games, and to have called them Olympic. So he established the custom of holding them every fifth [310] year, because he and his brothers were five in number.
{5.7.10} Now, some say that Zeus wrestled here with Kronos himself for the throne while others say that he held the Games in honor of his victory over Kronos. The record of victors includes Apollo, who outran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing. It is for this reason, they say, that the Pythian aulos song is played while the competitors in the pentathlon are jumping; for the aulos song is sacred to Apollo, and Apollo won Olympic victories.
{5.8.1} Later on there came (they say) from Crete Klymenos, the son of Kardys, about fifty years after the flood came upon the Greeks in the time of Deukalion. He was descended from Hēraklēs of Ida; he held the Games at Olympia and set up an altar in honor of Hēraklēs, his ancestor, and the other Kouretes, giving to Hēraklēs the surname of Parastates [‘the one who stands by’]. And Endymion, the son of Aethlios, deposed Klymenos and set his sons a race in Olympia with the kingdom as the prize.
{5.8.2} And about a generation later than Endymion, Pelops held the Games in honor of Olympian Zeus in a more splendid manner than any of his predecessors. When the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis over all the rest of Peloponnesus, Amythaon, the son of Kretheus and cousin of Endymion on his father’s side (for they say that Aethlios too was the son of Aeolus, though he was supposed to be a son of Zeus), held the Olympian Games, and after him, Pelias and Neleus in common.
{5.8.3} Augeias too held them, and likewise Hēraklēs, the son of Amphitryon, after the conquest of Elis. The victors garlanded by Hēraklēs include Iolaos, who won with the mares of Hēraklēs. So of old a competitor was permitted to compete with mares which were not his own. Homer, [311] at any rate, in the Games held in honor of Patroklos, has told how Menelaos drove a pair, of which one was Aithra, a mare of Agamemnon, while the other was his own horse.
{5.8.4} Moreover, Iolaos used to be charioteer to Hēraklēs. So Iolaos won the chariot-race, and Iasios, an Arcadian, the horse race; while one of the sons of Tyndareus won the foot race and Polydeukes the boxing match. Of Hēraklēs himself, it is said that he won victories at wrestling and the pankration.
{5.8.5} After the reign of Oxylos, who also celebrated the Games, the Olympic festival was discontinued until the reign of Iphitos. When Iphitos, as I have already related, renewed the Games, men had by this time forgotten the ancient tradition, the memory of which revived bit by bit, and as it revived, they made additions to the Games.
{5.8.6} This I can prove; for when the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began there was first the foot-race, and Koroibos, an Eleian, was victor. There is no statue of Koroibos at Olympia, but his tomb is on the borders of Elis. Afterwards, at the fourteenth Festival, [312] the double foot-race was added: Hypenus of Pisa won the prize of wild olive in the double race, and at the next Festival, Acanthus of Lacedaemon won in the long course.
{5.8.7} At the eighteenth Festival, they remembered the pentathlon and wrestling. Lampis won the first and Eurybatos the second, these also being Lacedaemonians. At the twenty-third Festival, they restored the prizes for boxing, and the victor was Onomastos of Smyrna, which already was a part of Ionia. At the twenty-fifth, they recognized the race of full grown horses, and Pagondas of Thebes was proclaimed “victor in the chariot race.”
{5.8.8} At the eighth Festival after this, they admitted the pankration for men and the horse race. The horse race was won by Krauxidas of Crannon, and Lygdamis of Syracuse overcame all who entered for the pankration. Lygdamis has his tomb near the quarries at Syracuse, and according to the Syracusans, he was as big as Hēraklēs of Thebes, though I cannot vouch for the statement.
{5.8.9} The contests for boys have no authority in old tradition but were established by the Eleians themselves because they approved of them. The prizes for running and wrestling open to boys were instituted at the thirty-seventh Festival; Hipposthenes of Lacedaemon won the prize for wrestling, and that for running was won by Polyneikes of Elis. At the forty-first Festival they introduced boxing for boys, and the winner out of those who entered was Philytas of Sybaris.
{5.8.10} The race for men in armor was approved at the sixty-fifth Festival, to provide, I suppose, military training; the first winner of the race with shields was Damaretos of Heraia. The race for two full grown horses, called synoris (chariot and pair), was instituted at the ninety-third Festival, and the winner was Euagoras of Elis. At the ninety-ninth Festival, they resolved to hold contests for chariots drawn by foals, and Sybariades of Lacedaemon won the garland with his chariot and foals.
{5.8.11} Afterwards, they added races for chariots and pairs of foals and for single foals with rider. It is said that the victors proclaimed were: for the chariot and pair, Belistikhe, a woman from the seaboard of Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemos of Lycia. Tlepolemos, they say, won at the hundred and thirty-first Festival, and Belistiche at the third before this. At the hundred and forty-fifth Festival, prizes were offered for boys in the pankration, the victory falling to Phaedimus, an Aeolian from the city Troas.
{5.9.1} Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, the Eleians resolving to discontinue them. The pentathlon for boys was instituted at the thirty-eighth Festival; but after Eutelidas of Lacedaemon had received the wild olive for it, the Eleians disapproved of boys entering for this competition. The races for mule carts and the trotting race, were instituted respectively at the seventieth Festival and the seventy-first but were both abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersios of Thessaly won the race for mule carts, while Pataikos, an Achaean from Dyme, won the trotting race.
{5.9.2} The trotting race was for mares, and in the last part of the course, the riders jumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to the bridle, just as at the present day, those do who are called “mounters.” The mounters, however, differ from the riders in the trotting race by having different badges and by riding horses instead of mares. The cart race was neither of venerable antiquity nor yet a graceful performance. Moreover, each cart was drawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is an ancient curse on the Eleians if this animal is even born in Elis.
{5.9.3} The order of the Games in our own day, which places the sacrifices to the god for the pentathlon and chariot races second and those for the other competitions first, was fixed at the seventy-seventh Festival. Previously, the contests for men and for horses were held on the same day. But at the Festival, I mentioned the contestants in the pankration prolonged their contests till nightfall, because they were not summoned to the arena soon enough. The cause of the delay was partly the chariot race but still more the pentathlon. Kallias of Athens was champion of the pankration on this occasion, but never afterwards was the pankration to be interfered with by the pentathlon or the chariots.
{5.9.4} The rules for the presidents of the Games are not the same now as they were at the first institution of the festival. Iphitos acted as sole president, as likewise did the descendants of Oxylos after Iphitos. But at the fiftieth Festival, two men, appointed by lot from all the Eleians, were entrusted with the management of the Olympic Games, and for a long time after this, the number of the presidents continued to be two.
{5.9.5} But at the ninety-fifth Festival, nine umpires were appointed. To three of them were entrusted the chariot races; another three were to supervise the pentathlon; the rest superintended the remaining contests. At the second Festival after this, the tenth umpire was added. At the hundred and third Festival, the Eleians having twelve tribes [phulai], one umpire was chosen from each.
{5.9.6} But they were hard pressed in a war with the Arcadians and lost a portion of their territory, along with all the demes [dēmoi] included in the surrendered district, and so the number of tribes [phulai] was reduced to eight in the hundred and fourth Olympiad. Thereupon were chosen umpires equal in number to the tribes [phulai]. At the hundred and eighth Festival, they returned again to the number of ten umpires, which has continued unchanged down to the present day.
{5.10.1}There are many things to be seen and to be heard in the Greek-world [Hellas] that are worthy of wonder [thauma]; but there is nothing in the thinking of the god [theos] that matters more than the rituals [drōmena] at Eleusis and the competition [agōn] at Olympia. The sacred grove of Zeus has been called from of old Altis, a corruption of the word “alsos,” which means a grove. Pindar too calls the place Altis in an ode composed for an Olympic victor.
{5.10.2} The temple and the statue [agalma] were made for Zeus from spoils, when Pisa was crushed in war by the Eleians, [313] and along with Pisa, those of the subject population who were fellow conspirators. The statue [agalma] itself was made by Pheidias, as is testified by an inscription written under the feet of Zeus: Pheidias, son of Kharmides, an Athenian, made me. The temple is in the Doric style, and the outside has columns all around it. It is built of native stone.
{5.10.3} Its height up to the pediment is sixty-eight feet, its width is ninety-five, its length two hundred and thirty. The architect was Libon, a native. The tiles are not of baked earth, but of Pentelic marble cut into the shape of tiles. The invention is said to be that of Byzes of Naxos, who they say made the images in Naxos, on which is the inscription: To the offspring of Leto was I dedicated by Euergos, a Naxian, son of Byzes, who first made tiles of stone. This Byzes lived about the time of Alyattes the Lydian, [314] when Astyages, the son of Kyaxares, reigned over the Medes.
{5.10.4} At Olympia, a gilded caldron stands on each end of the roof, and a Nike, also gilded, is set in about the middle of the pediment. Under the image of Nike has been dedicated a golden shield with Medusa the Gorgon in relief. The inscription on the shield declares who dedicated it and the reason why they did so. It runs thus:
The temple has a golden shield; from Tanagra
The Lacedaemonians and their allies dedicated it,
A gift taken from the Argives, Athenians, and Ionians,
The tithe offered for victory in war.
The Lacedaemonians and their allies dedicated it,
A gift taken from the Argives, Athenians, and Ionians,
The tithe offered for victory in war.
This battle I also mentioned in my write-up [sun-graphē] of Attica. Then I described the tombs that are in Athens.
{5.10.5} On the outside of the frieze that runs round the temple at Olympia, above the columns, are gilded shields twenty-one in number, an offering made by the Roman general Mummius when he had conquered the Achaeans in war, captured Corinth, and driven out its Dorian inhabitants.
{5.10.6} To come to the pediments: in the front pediment there is, not yet begun, the chariot race between Pelops and Oinomaos, and preparation for the actual race is being made by both. A sculpture [agalma] of Zeus has been carved in about the middle of the pediment; on the right of Zeus is Oinomaos with a helmet on his head, and by him, Sterope his wife, who was one of the daughters of Atlas. Myrtilos too, the charioteer of Oinomaos, sits in front of the horses, which are four in number. After him are two men. They have no names, but they too must be under orders from Oinomaos to attend to the horses.
{5.10.7} At the very edge lies Kladeos, the river which, in other ways also, the Eleians honor most after the Alpheios. On the left from Zeus are Pelops, Hippodameia, the charioteer of Pelops, horses, and two men, who are apparently grooms of Pelops. Then the pediment narrows again, and in this part of it is represented the Alpheios. The name of the charioteer of Pelops is, according to the account of the Troizenians, Sphairos, but the guide [ex-hēgētēs] at Olympia called him Killas.
{5.10.8} The sculptures in the front pediment are by Paionios, who came from Mende in Thrace; those in the back pediment are by Alkamenes, a contemporary of Pheidias, ranking next after him for skill as a sculptor. What he carved on the pediment is the fight between the Lapithai and the centaurs at the marriage of Peirithoos. In the center of the pediment is Peirithoos. On one side of him is Eurytion, who has seized the wife of Peirithoos, with Kaineus bringing help to Peirithoos, and on the other side is Theseus defending himself against the centaurs with an axe. One centaur has seized a girl, another a boy in the prime of youth. Alkamenes, I think, carved this scene, because he had learned from Homer’s [315] poem that Peirithoos was a son of Zeus, and because he knew that Theseus was a great grandson of Pelops.
{5.10.9} Most of the labors [erga] of Hēraklēs are represented at Olympia. Above the doors of the temple is carved the hunting of the Arcadian boar, his exploit against Diomedes the Thracian and that against Geryones at Erytheia; he is also about to receive the burden of Atlas, and he cleanses the land from dung for the Eleians. Above the doors of the rear chamber, he is taking the waistband from the Amazon; and there are the stories of the deer, of the bull at Knossos, of the Stymphalian birds, of the hydra, and of the Argive lion.
{5.10.10} As you enter the bronze doors you see on the right, before the pillar, Iphitos being garlanded by a woman, Ekhekheiria (Truce), as the elegiac couplet on the statue says. Within the temple stand pillars, and inside also are porticoes above, with an approach through them to the statue [agalma]. There has also been constructed a winding ascent to the roof.
{5.11.1} The god sits on a throne, and he is made of gold and ivory. On his head lies a garland which is an imitation of olive shoots. In his right hand, he holds a Nike, which, like the statue, is of ivory and gold; she wears a ribbon and—on her head—a garland. In the left hand of the god is a scepter, ornamented with every kind of metal, and the bird sitting on the scepter is the eagle. The sandals also of the god are of gold, as is likewise his robe. Worked into the robe [himation] are figures of animals and the flowers of the lily.
{5.11.2} The throne is adorned with gold and with jewels, to say nothing of ebony and ivory. Upon it are painted figures and worked images. There are four Victories, represented as dancing women, one at each foot of the throne, and two others at the base of each foot. On each of the two front feet are set Theban children ravished by sphinxes, while under the sphinxes Apollo and Artemis are shooting down the children of Niobe.
{5.11.3} Between the feet of the throne are four rods, each one stretching from foot to foot. The rod straight opposite the entrance has on it seven images; how the eighth of them disappeared nobody knows. These must be intended to be representations [mīmēmata] of ancient contests [agōnismata], since in the time of Pheidias, contests for boys had not yet been introduced. The figure of one binding his own head with a ribbon is said to resemble in appearance Pantarkes, a boy of Elis said to have been the love of Pheidias. Pantarkes too won the wrestling bout for boys at the eighty-sixth Festival.
{5.11.4} On the other rods is the band that with Hēraklēs fights against the Amazons. The number of figures in the two parties is twenty-nine, and Theseus too is ranged among the allies of Hēraklēs. The throne is supported not only by the feet, but also by an equal number of pillars standing between the feet. It is impossible to go under the throne, in the way we enter the inner part of the throne at Amyklai. At Olympia, there are screens constructed like walls which keep people out.
{5.11.5} Of these screens the part opposite the doors is only covered with dark blue paint; the other parts show pictures by Panainos. Among them is Atlas, supporting sky [ouranos] and earth, by whose side stands Hēraklēs ready to receive the load of Atlas, along with Theseus; Peirithoos, Hellas, and Salamis carrying in her hand the ornament made for the top of a ship’s bows; then Hēraklēs’ exploit against the Nemean lion, the outrage committed by Ajax on Cassandra,
{5.11.6} Hippodameia, the daughter of Oinomaos with her mother, and Prometheus still held by his chains, though Hēraklēs has been raised up to him. For among the stories told about Hēraklēs is one that he killed the eagle which tormented Prometheus in the Caucasus, and set free Prometheus himself from his chains. Last in the picture come Penthesileia giving up her breath-of-life [psūkhē] and Achilles supporting her; two Hesperides are carrying the apples, the keeping of which, it is said, had been entrusted to them. This Panainos was a brother of Pheidias; he also painted the picture of the battle of Marathon in the painted portico in Athens.
{5.11.7} On the uppermost parts of the throne Pheidias has made, above the head of the statue [agalma], three Graces on one side and three Seasons on the other. These in epic poetry are included among the daughters of Zeus. Homer too in the Iliad [316] says that the Seasons have been entrusted with the sky, just like guards of a king’s court. The footstool of Zeus, called by the Athenians thranion, has golden lions and, in relief, the fight of Theseus against the Amazons, the first brave deed of the Athenians against foreigners.
{5.11.8} On the pedestal supporting the throne and Zeus with all his adornments are works in gold: the Sun mounted on a chariot, Zeus and Hērā, Hephaistos, and by his side Grace. Close to her comes Hermes, and close to Hermes, Hestia. After Hestia is Eros receiving Aphrodite as she rises from the sea, and Aphrodite is being garlanded by Persuasion. There are also reliefs of Apollo with Artemis, of Athena and of Hēraklēs; and near the end of the pedestal, Amphitrite and Poseidon, while the Moon is driving what I think is a horse. Some have said that the steed of the goddess is a mule, not a horse, and they tell a naïve [eu-ēthēs] story about the mule.
{5.11.9} I know that the height and width of the Olympic Zeus have been measured and recorded; but I shall not make a citation [ep-ainos] of those who made the measurements, for even their records fall far short of the impression made by a sight of the statue [agalma] . No, the god himself according to what is said bore witness to the artistic skill of Pheidias. For when the statue [agalma] was quite finished Pheidias prayed the god to show by a sign whether the work was to his liking. Immediately, according to what is said, a thunderbolt fell on that part of the floor where down to the present day the bronze jar stood to cover the place.
{5.11.10} All the floor in front of the statue [agalma] is paved, not with white, but with black tiles. In a circle around the black stone runs a raised rim of Parian marble, to keep in the olive oil that is poured out. For olive oil is beneficial to the statue [agalma] at Olympia, and it is olive oil that keeps the ivory from being harmed by the marshiness of the Altis. On the Athenian Acropolis, the ivory of the statue [agalma] they call the Maiden [Parthénos] is benefited, not by olive oil, but by water. For the Acropolis, owing to its great height, is over-dry, so that the statue [agalma], being made of ivory, needs water or dampness.
{5.11.11} When I asked at Epidaurus why they pour neither water nor olive oil on [the statue [agalma] of] Asklepios, the attendants at the sanctuary informed me that both the statue [agalma] of the god and the throne were built over a cistern.
{5.12.1} Those who think that the projections from the mouth of an elephant are not horns but teeth of the animal should consider both the elk, a beast of the Celtic land, and also the Ethiopian bull. Male elks have horns on their brows, but the female does not grow them at all. Ethiopian bulls grow their horns on their noses. Who therefore would be greatly surprised at horns growing out of an animal’s mouth?
{5.12.2} They may also correct their error from the following considerations. Horns drop off animals each year and grow again; the deer and the antelope undergo this experience, and so likewise does the elephant. But a tooth will never be found to grow again, at least after the animal is full-grown. So if the projections through the mouth were teeth and not horns, how could they grow up again? Again, a tooth refuses to yield to fire; but fire turns the horns of oxen and elephants from round to flat and also into other shapes. However, the hippopotamus and the boar have tusks growing out of the lower jaw, but we do not see horns growing out of jaws.
{5.12.3} So, be assured that an elephant’s horns descend through the temples from above, and so bend outwards. My statement is not hearsay; I once saw an elephant’s skull in the sanctuary of Artemis in Campania. The sanctuary is about thirty stadium-lengths from Capua, which is the capital of Campania. So the elephant differs from all other animals in the way its horns grow, just as its size and shape are peculiar to itself. And the Greeks in my opinion showed an unsurpassed zeal and generosity in honoring the gods, in that they imported ivory from India and Ethiopia to make images.
{5.12.4} In Olympia, there is a woolen curtain, adorned with Assyrian weaving and Phoenician purple, which was dedicated by Antiokhos, who also gave as offerings the golden aegis with the Gorgon on it above the theater in Athens. This curtain is not drawn upwards to the roof as is that in the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, but it is let down to the ground by cords.
{5.12.5} The offerings inside, or in the front part of the temple include: a throne of Arimnestos, king of Etruria, who was the first foreigner to present an offering to the Olympic Zeus, and bronze horses of Kyniska, tokens of an Olympic victory. These are not as large as real horses and stand in the front part of the temple on the right as you enter. There is also a tripod, plated with bronze, upon which, before the table was made, were displayed the garlands for the victors.
{5.12.6} There are statues of emperors: Hadrian, of Parian marble dedicated by the cities of the Achaean confederacy, and Trajan, dedicated by all the Greeks. This emperor subdued the Getai beyond Thrace, and made war on Osroes, the descendant of Arsaces and on the Parthians. Of his architectural achievements, the most remarkable are baths called after him, a large circular theater, a building for horse races which is actually two stadium-lengths long, and the Forum at Rome, worth seeing not only for its general beauty but especially for its roof made of bronze.
{5.12.7} Of the statues set up in the round buildings, the amber one represents Augustus the Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portrait of Nikomedes, king of Bithynia. After him, the greatest city in Bithynia was renamed Nikomedeia; [317] before him, it was called Astakos, and its first founder was Zypoetes, a Thracian by birth to judge from his name. This amber of which the statue of Augustus is made, when found native in the sand of the Eridanos, is very rare and precious to men for many reasons; the other “amber” is an alloy of gold and silver.
{5.12.8} In the temple at Olympia are four offerings of Nero—three garlands representing wild olive leaves, and one representing oak leaves. Here too are laid twenty-five bronze shields, which are for the armed men to carry in the race. Tablets too are set up, including one on which is written the oath sworn by the Eleians to the Athenians, the Argives, and the Mantineians that they would be their allies for a hundred years. [318]
{5.13.1} Within the Altis, there is also a sacred enclosure consecrated to Pelops, whom the Eleians as much prefer in honor above the heroes of Olympia as they prefer Zeus over the other gods. To the right of the entrance of the temple of Zeus, on the north side, lies the Pelopion. It is far enough removed from the temple for statues and other offerings to stand in the intervening space, and beginning at about the middle of the temple, it extends as far as the rear chamber. It is surrounded by a stone fence, within which trees grow and statues have been dedicated.
{5.13.2} The entrance is on the west. The sanctuary is said to have been set apart to Pelops by Hēraklēs the son of Amphitryon. Hēraklēs too was a great-grandson of Pelops, and he is also said to have sacrificed to him into the pit [bothros]. Right down to the present day, the magistrates of the year sacrifice to him, and the victim is a black ram. No portion of this sacrifice goes to the soothsayer, only the neck of the ram it is usual to give to the ‘woodman’ [xuleús], as he is called.
{5.13.3} The woodman [xuleús] is one of the servants [oikétai] of Zeus, and the task assigned to him is to supply cities and private individuals with wood for sacrifices at a fixed rate, wood of the white poplar, but of no other tree, being allowed. If anybody, whether Eleian or stranger, eats of the meat of the victim sacrificed to Pelops, he may not enter the temple of Zeus. The same rule applies to those who sacrifice to Telephos at Pergamon on the river Kaïkos; these too may not go up to the temple of Asklepios before they have bathed.
{5.13.4} The following tale too is told. When the war of the Greeks against Troy was prolonged, the soothsayers prophesied to them that they would not take the city until they had fetched the bow and arrows of Hēraklēs and a bone of Pelops. So it is said that they sent for Philoctetes to the camp, and from Pisa was brought to them a bone of Pelops—a shoulder blade. As they were returning home, the ship carrying the bone of Pelops was wrecked off Euboea in the storm.
{5.13.5} Many years later than the capture of Troy, Damarmenos, a fisherman from Eretria, cast a net into the sea and drew up the bone. Marveling at its size, he kept it hidden in the sand. At last, he went to Delphi to inquire whose the bone was and what he ought to do with it.
{5.13.6} It happened that by the providence of the god [theos] there was then at Delphi an Eleian embassy praying for deliverance from a pestilence. So the Pythian priestess ordered the Eleians to recover the bones of Pelops, and Damarmenos to give back to the Eleians what he had found. He did so, and the Eleians repaid him by appointing him and his descendants to be guardians of the bone. The shoulder blade of Pelops had disappeared by my time because, I suppose, it had been hidden in the depths so long, and besides its age, it was greatly decayed through the salt water.
{5.13.7} There are signs, surviving right down to the present day, that Pelops and Tantalos once dwelled in my own native land. There is a lake called after Tantalos and a famous tomb, and on a peak of Mount Sipylos, there is a throne of Pelops beyond the sanctuary of Plastene the Mother. If you cross the river Hermos, you see a statue [agalma] of Aphrodite in Temnus made of a living myrtle tree. It is a tradition among us that it was dedicated by Pelops when he was propitiating the goddess and asking for Hippodameia to be his bride.
{5.13.8} The altar of Olympic Zeus is about equally distant from the Pelopion and the sanctuary of Hērā, but it is in front of both. Some say that it was built by Idaean Hēraklēs, others by the local heroes two generations later than Hēraklēs. It has been made from the ash of the thighs of the victims sacrificed to Zeus, as is also the altar at Pergamon. There is an ashen altar of Samian Hērā not a bit grander than what in Attica the Athenians call ‘improvised hearths’ [eskharai].
{5.13.9} The first stage of the altar at Olympia called prothysis has a circumference of one hundred and twenty-five feet; the circumference of the stage on the prothysis is thirty-two feet; the total height of the altar reaches to twenty-two feet. The victims themselves it is the custom to sacrifice on the lower stage, the prothysis. But the thighs they carry up to the highest part of the altar and burn them there.
{5.13.10} The steps that lead up to the prothysis from either side are made of stone, but those leading from the prothysis to the upper part of the altar are, like the altar itself, composed of ashes. The ascent to the prothysis may be made by girls, and likewise by women, when they are not shut out from Olympia, but men only can ascend from the prothysis to the highest part of the altar. Even when the festival is not being held, sacrifice is offered to Zeus by private individuals and daily by the Eleians.
{5.13.11} Every year, the soothsayers, keeping carefully to the nineteenth day of the month Elaphios, bring the ash from the town hall, and making it into a paste with the water of the Alpheios, they daub the altar with it. But never may the ash be made into paste with other water, and for this reason, the Alpheios is thought to be of all rivers the dearest to Olympic Zeus. There is also an altar at Didyma of the Milesians, which Hēraklēs the Theban is said by the Milesians to have made from the blood of the victims. But in later times, the blood of the sacrifices has not made the altar excessively large.
{5.14.1} The altar at Olympia shows another strange peculiarity, which is this. The kite, the bird of prey with the most rapacious nature, never harms those who are sacrificing at Olympia. Should ever a kite seize the entrails or some of the flesh, it is regarded as an unfavorable sign for the sacrificer. There is a story that when Hēraklēs, the son of Alkmene, was sacrificing at Olympia, he was much worried by the flies. So either on his own initiative or at somebody’s suggestion, he sacrificed to Zeus Averter of Flies, and thus, the flies were diverted to the other side of the Alpheios. It is said that in the same way, the Eleians too sacrifice to Zeus, Averter of Flies, to drive the flies out of Olympia.
{5.14.2} The Eleians are accustomed to use for the sacrifices to Zeus the wood of the white poplar and of no other tree, preferring the white poplar, I think, simply and solely because Hēraklēs brought it into Greece from Thesprotia. And it is my opinion that when Hēraklēs sacrificed to Zeus at Olympia, he himself burned the thigh bones of the victims upon wood of the white poplar. Hēraklēs found the white poplar growing on the banks of the Acheron, the river in Thesprotia, and for this reason, Homer [319] calls it ‘Acherōïs’.
{5.14.3} So, from the first down to the present, all rivers have not been equally suited for the growth of plants and trees. Tamarisks grow best and in the greatest numbers by the Maeander; the Boeotian Asopos can produce the tallest reeds; the persea tree flourishes only in the water of the Nile. So it is no wonder that the white poplar grew first by the Acheron and the wild olive by the Alpheios and that the dark poplar is a nursling of the Celtic land of the Celtic Eridanos.
{5.14.4} Now that I have finished my account of the greatest altar, let me proceed to describe all the altars in Olympia. My narrative will follow in dealing with them the order in which the Eleians are accustomed to sacrifice on the altars. They sacrifice to Hestia first, secondly to Olympic Zeus, going to the altar within the temple, thirdly to Zeus Laoitas and to Poseidon Laoitas. This sacrifice too it is usual to offer on one altar. Fourthly and fifthly, they sacrifice to Artemis and to Athena, Goddess of Plunder,
{5.14.5} sixthly to the Worker Goddess. The descendants of Pheidias, called Cleansers, have received from the Eleians the privilege of cleaning the statue [agalma] of Zeus from the dirt that settles on it, and they sacrifice to the Worker Goddess before they begin to polish the. There is another altar of Athena near the temple, and by it, a square altar of Artemis rising gently to a height.
{5.14.6} After the altars I have enumerated, there is one on which they sacrifice to Alpheios and Artemis together. The cause of this Pindar, I think, intimates in an ode, and I give it in my account of Letrini. Not far from it stands another altar of Alpheios, and by it, one of Hephaistos. This altar of Hephaistos some Eleians call the altar of Warlike Zeus. These same Eleians also say that Oinomaos used to sacrifice to Warlike Zeus on this altar whenever he was about to begin a chariot race with one of the suitors of Hippodameia.
{5.14.7} After this stands an altar of Hēraklēs surnamed Parastates (Assistant); there are also altars of the brothers of Hēraklēs—Epimedes, Idas, Paionaios, and Iasos; I am aware, however, that the altar of Idas is called by others the altar of Acesidas. At the place where are the foundations of the house of Oinomaos stand two altars: one is of Zeus of the Courtyard, which Oinomaos appears to have had built himself, and the other of Zeus of the Thunderbolt, which I believe they built later, when the thunderbolt had struck the house of Oinomaos.
{5.14.8} An account of the great altar I gave a little way back; it is called the altar of Olympian Zeus. By it is an altar of Unknown Gods, and after this, an altar of Zeus Purifier, one of Nike, and another of Zeus—this time surnamed Underground. There are also altars of all gods, and of Hērā surnamed Olympian, this too being made of ashes. They say that it was dedicated by Klymenos. After this comes an altar of Apollo and Hermes in common, because the Greeks have a story about them that Hermes invented the lyre and Apollo the lute.
{5.14.9} Next come an altar of Concord, another of Athena, and the altar of the Mother of the gods. Quite close to the entrance to the stadium are two altars; one they call the altar of Hermes of the Games, the other the altar of Opportunity. I know that a hymn to Opportunity is one of the poems of Ion of Chios; in the hymn, Opportunity is made out to be the youngest child of Zeus. Near the treasury of the Sikyonians is an altar of Hēraklēs, either one of the Kouretes or the son of Alkmene, for both accounts are given.
{5.14.10} On what is called the Gaion (sanctuary of Earth) is an altar of Earth; it too is of ashes. In more ancient days, they say that there was an oracle also of Earth in this place. On what is called the Stomion (Mouth), the altar to Themis has been built. All around the altar of Zeus, Descender runs a fence; this altar is near the great altar made of the ashes. The reader must remember that the altars have not been enumerated in the order in which they stand, but the order followed by my narrative is that followed by the Eleians in their sacrifices. By the sacred enclosure of Pelops is an altar of Dionysus and the Graces in common; between them is an altar of the Muses, and next to these, an altar of the Nymphs.
{5.15.1} Outside the Altis there is a building called the workshop of Pheidias, where he made the statue [agalma] of Zeus piece by piece. In the building is an altar to all the gods in common. Now return back again to the Altis opposite the Leonidaion.
{5.15.2} The Leonidaion is outside the sacred enclosure but at the processional entrance to the Altis, which is the only way open to those who take part in the processions. It was dedicated by Leonidas, a native, but in my time, the Roman governors of Greece used it as their lodging. Between the processional entrance and the Leonidaion is a street, for the Eleians call streets what the Athenians call lanes.
{5.15.3} Well, there is in the Altis, when you are about to pass to the left of the Leonidaion, an altar of Aphrodite, and after it, one of the Seasons. About opposite the rear chamber, a wild olive is growing on the right. It is called the olive of the Beautiful Crown, and from its leaves are made the garlands which it is customary to give to winners of Olympic contests. Near this wild olive stands an altar of Nymphs; these too are styled Nymphs of the Beautiful Crowns.
{5.15.4} Outside the Altis, but on the right of the Leonidaion, is an altar of Artemis of the Market, and one has also been built for Mistresses, and in my account of Arcadia, I will tell you about the goddess they call Mistress. After this is an altar of Zeus of the Market, and before what is called the Front Seats stands an altar of Apollo surnamed Pythian, and after it, one of Dionysus. The last altar is said to be not old and to have been dedicated by private individuals.
{5.15.5} As you go to the starting point for the chariot race there is an altar with an inscription “to the Bringer of Fate.” This is plainly a surname of Zeus, who knows the affairs of men, all that the Fates give them, and all that is not destined for them. Near there is also an oblong altar of Fates, after it, one of Hermes, and the next two are of Zeus Most High. At the starting point for the chariot race, just about opposite the middle of it, there are in the open altars of Poseidon god of horses and Hērā goddess of horses, and near the pillar, an altar of the Dioskouroi.
{5.15.6} At the entrance to what is called the Wedge, there is on one side an altar of Ares god of horses, on the other one of Athena goddess of horses. On entering the Wedge itself, you see altars of Good Luck, Pan, and Aphrodite; at the innermost part of the Wedge, an altar of the Nymphs called Blooming. An altar of Artemis stands on the right as you return from the Portico that the Eleians call the Portico of Agnaptos, giving to the building the name of its architect.
{5.15.7} After re-entering the Altis by the processional gate, there are behind the Hēraion altars of the river Kladeos and of Artemis; the one after them is Apollo’s, the fourth is of Artemis surnamed Coccoca, and the fifth is of Apollo Thermios. As to the Eleian surname Thermios, the conjecture occurred to me that in the Attic dialect it would be thesmios (god of laws), but why Artemis is surnamed Coccoca, I could not discover.
{5.15.8} Before what is called Theakleon is a building, in a corner of which has been set up an altar of Pan. The Town Hall of the Eleians is within the Altis, and it has been built beside the exit beyond the gymnasium. In this gymnasium are the running tracks and the wrestling grounds for the athletes. In front of the door of the Town Hall is an altar of Artemis the Hunter.
{5.15.9} In the Town Hall itself, on the right as you enter the room where they have the hearth, is an altar of Pan. This hearth too is made of ashes, and on it, fire burns every day and likewise every night. The ashes from this hearth, according to the account I have already given, they bring to the altar of Olympian Zeus, and what is brought from the hearth contributes a great deal to the size of the altar.
{5.15.10} Each month the Eleians sacrifice once on all the altars I have enumerated. They sacrifice in an ancient manner; for they burn on the altars incense with wheat which has been kneaded with honey, placing also on the altars twigs of olive, and using wine for a libation. Only to the Nymphs and the Mistresses are they not accustomed to pour wine in libation, nor do they pour it on the altar common to all the gods. The care of the sacrifices is given to a priest, holding office for one month, to soothsayers and libation bearers, and also to a guide, an aulos player, and the woodman.
{5.15.11} The traditional words spoken by them in the Town Hall at the libations, and the hymns which they sing, it was not right for me to introduce into my narrative. They pour libations, not only to the Greek gods, but also to the god in Libya, to Hērā Ammonia and to Parammon, which is a surname of Hermes. From very early times, it is plain that they used the oracle in Libya, and in the temple of Ammon are altars which the Eleians dedicated. On them are engraved the questions of the Eleians, the replies of the god, and the names of the men who came to Ammon from Elis. These are in the temple of Ammon.
{5.15.12} The Eleians also pour libations to all heroes and wives of heroes who are honored either in Elis or among the Aetolians. The songs sung in the Town Hall are in the Doric dialect, but they do not say who it was that composed them. The Eleians also have a banqueting room. This too is in the Town Hall, opposite the chamber where stands the hearth. In this room, they entertain the winners in the Olympic Games.
{5.16.1} It remains after this for me to describe the temple of Hērā and the noteworthy objects contained in it. The Eleian account says that it was the people of Skillos, one of the cities in Triphylia, who built the temple about eight years after Oxylos came to the throne of Elis. The style of the temple is Doric, and pillars stand all round it. In the rear chamber, one of the two pillars is of oak. The length of the temple is one hundred and sixty-nine feet, the width sixty-three feet, the height not short of fifty feet. Who the architect was they do not relate.
{5.16.2} Every fourth year there is woven for Hērā a robe by the Sixteen women, and the same also hold Games called Heraia. The Games consist of foot races for girls. These are not all of the same age. The first to run are the youngest; after them come the next in age, and the last to run are the oldest of the girls. They run in the following way:
{5.16.3} Their hair hangs down, a tunic reaches to a little above the knee, and they bare the right shoulder as far as the breast. These too have the Olympic stadium reserved for their Games, but the course of the stadium is shortened for them by about one-sixth of its length. To the winning girls they give garlands of olive and a portion of the cow sacrificed to Hērā. They may also dedicate statues with their names inscribed upon them. Those who administer to the Sixteen are, like the presidents of the Games, married women.
{5.16.4} The Games of the girls too are traced back to ancient times; they say that, out of gratitude to Hērā for her marriage with Pelops, Hippodameia assembled the Sixteen Women, and with them, inaugurated the Heraia. They relate too that a victory was won by Chloris, the only surviving daughter of the house of Amphion, though with her, they say, survived one of her brothers. As to the children of Niobe, what I myself chanced to learn about them, I have set forth in my account of Argos.
{5.16.5} Besides the account already given, they tell another story about the Sixteen Women as follows. Damophon, it is said, when tyrant of Pisa did much grievous harm to the Eleians. But when he died, since the people of Pisa refused to participate as a people in their tyrant’s sins, and the Eleians too became quite ready to lay aside their grievances, they chose a woman from each of the sixteen cities of Elis still inhabited at that time to settle their differences; this woman to be the oldest, the most noble, and the most esteemed of all the women.
{5.16.6} The cities from which they chose the women were Elis.The women from these cities made peace between Pisa and Elis. Later on, they were entrusted with the management of the Games called Heraia, and with the weaving of the robe for Hērā. The Sixteen Women also arrange two choral dances, one called that of Physkoa and the other that of Hippodameia. This Physkoa they say came from Elis in the Hollow, and the name of the deme [dēmos] where she lived was Orthia.
{5.16.7} She mated, they say, with Dionysus and bore him a son called Narkaios. When he grew up, he made war against the neighboring folk and rose to great power, setting up moreover a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Narkaia. They say too that Narkaios and Physkoa were the first to pay worship to Dionysus. So various honors are paid to Physkoa, especially that of the choral dance, named after her and managed by the Sixteen Women. The Eleians still adhere to the other ancient customs, even though some of the cities have been destroyed. For they are now divided into eight tribes [phulai], and they choose two women from each.
{5.16.8} Whatever ritual it is the duty of either the Sixteen Women or the Eleian umpires to perform, they do not perform before they have purified themselves by sacrificing a pig that is ritually appropriate for purification and with water. Their purification takes place at the spring Piera. You reach this spring as you go along the flat road from Olympia to Elis.
{5.17.1} These things, then, are as I have already described. In the temple of Hērā is a statue [agalma] of Zeus, and the statue [agalma] of Hērā is sitting on a throne with Zeus standing by her, bearded and with a helmet on his head. They are crude works of art. The figures of Seasons next to them, seated upon thrones, were made by the Aeginetan Smilis. [320] Beside them stands a statue [agalma] of Themis, as being mother of the Seasons. It is the work of Dorykleidas, a Lacedaemonian by birth and a disciple of Dipoinos and Skyllis.
{5.17.2} The Hesperides, five in number, were made by Theokles, who like Dorykleidas was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Hegylus; he too, they say, was a student under Skyllis and Dipoinos. The Athena wearing a helmet and carrying a spear and shield is, it is said, a work of Medon, a Lacedaemonian, brother of Dorykleidas, and a pupil of the same masters.
{5.17.3} Then the Maiden and Demeter sit opposite each other, while Apollo and Artemis stand opposite each other. Here too have been dedicated Leto, Fortune, Dionysus and a winged Nike. I cannot say who the artists were, but these figures too are in my opinion very ancient. The figures I have enumerated are of ivory and gold, but at a later date other statues [agalmata] were dedicated in the Hēraion, including a marble Hermes carrying the baby Dionysus, a work of Praxiteles, and a bronze Aphrodite made by Kleon of Sikyon. [321]
{5.17.4} The master of this Kleon, called Antiphanes, was a pupil of Periklytos, who himself was a pupil of Polycleitus of Argos. A nude gilded child is seated before Aphrodite, a work fashioned by Boethus of Calchedon. There were also brought here from what is called the Philippeion other statues [agalmata] of gold and ivory, Eurydikē, the wife of Aridaios, and Olympias, the wife of Philip.
{5.17.5} There is also a chest made of cedar with figures on it, some of ivory, some of gold, others carved out of the cedar-wood itself. It was in this chest that Kypselos, the tyrant of Corinth, was hidden by his mother when the Bakkhidai were anxious to discover him after his birth. In gratitude for the saving of Kypselos, his descendants, the Kypselidai as they are called, dedicated the chest at Olympia. The Corinthians of that age called chests kypselai, and from this word, they say, the child received his name of Kypselos.
{5.17.6} On most of the figures on the chest, there are inscriptions, written in the ancient characters. In some cases the letters read straight on, but in others, the form of the writing is what the Greeks call. [322] It is like this: at the end of the line the second line turns back, as runners do when running the double race. Moreover, the inscriptions on the chest are written in winding characters difficult to decipher. Beginning our survey at the bottom, we see in the first space of the chest the following scenes.
{5.17.7} Oinomaos is chasing Pelops, who is holding Hippodameia. Each of them has two horses, but those of Pelops have wings. The next thing that is worked in is the house of Amphiaraos, and baby Amphilokhos is being carried by some old woman or other. In front of the house stands Eriphyle with the necklace, and by her are her daughters, Eurydikē and Demonassa, and the boy, Alkmaion, naked.
{5.17.8} Asios in his poem makes out Alkmene also to be a daughter of Amphiaraos and Eriphyle. Baton is driving the chariot of Amphiaraos, holding the reins in one hand and a spear in the other. Amphiaraos already has one foot on the chariot and his sword drawn; he is turned towards Eriphyle in such a transport of anger that he can scarcely refrain from striking her.
{5.17.9} After the house of Amphiaraos come the Games at the funeral of Pelias, with the spectators looking at the competitors. Hēraklēs is seated on a throne, and behind him is a woman. There is no inscription saying who the woman is, but she is playing on a Phrygian, not a Greek, aulos [‘double-reed’]. Driving chariots drawn by pairs of horses are Pisos, son of Perieres, and Asterion, son of Cometas (Asterion is said to have been one of the Argonauts), Polydeukes, Admetos, and Euphemos. The poets declare that the last was a son of Poseidon and a companion of Jason on his voyage to Kolkhis. He it is who is winning the chariot race.
{5.17.10} Those who have boldly ventured to box are Admetos and Mopsos, the son of Ampyx. Between them stands a man playing the aulos [‘double-reed’], as in our day they are accustomed to play the aulos [‘double-reed’] when the competitors in the pentathlon are jumping. The wrestling bout between Jason and Peleus is an even one. Eurybotas is shown throwing the discus; he must be some famous discus thrower. Those engaged in a running race are Melanion, Neotheus, and Phalareus; the fourth runner is Argeios, and the fifth is Iphiklos. Iphiklos is the winner, and Akastos is holding out the garland to him. He is probably the father of the Protesilaos, who joined in the war against Troy.
{5.17.11} Tripods too are set here, prizes, of course, for the winners; and there are the daughters of Pelias, though the only one with her name inscribed is Alcestis. Iolaos, who voluntarily helped Hēraklēs in his labors, is shown as a victor in the chariot race. At this point, the funeral Games of Pelias come to an end, and Hēraklēs, with Athena standing beside him, is shooting at the hydra, the beast in the river Amymone. Hēraklēs can be easily recognized by his exploit and his attitude, so his name is not inscribed by him. There is also Phineus, the Thracian, and the sons of Boreas are chasing the harpies away from him.
{5.18.1} Now I come to the second space on the chest, and in going round it, I had better begin from the left. There is a figure of a woman holding on her right arm a white child asleep, and on her left she has a black child like one who is asleep. Each has his feet turned different ways. The inscriptions declare, as one could infer without inscriptions, that the figures are Death and Sleep, with Night the nurse of both.
{5.18.2} A beautiful woman is punishing an ugly one, choking her with one hand and with the other striking her with a staff. It is Justice who thus treats Injustice. Two other women are pounding in mortars with pestles; they are supposed to be wise in the lore of medicine, though there is no inscription to them. Who the man is who is followed by a woman is made plain by the hexameter verses, which run thus:
Idas brings back, not against her will, Fair-ankled Marpessa, daughter of Euenos, whom Apollo carried off.
{5.18.3} A man wearing a tunic is holding in his right hand a cup, and in his left, a necklace; Alkmene is taking hold of them. This scene represents the Greek story how Zeus in the likeness of Amphitryon had intercourse with Alkmene. Menelaos, wearing a breastplate and carrying a sword, is advancing to kill Helen, so it is plain that Troy has been captured. Medea is seated upon a throne, while Jason stands on her right and Aphrodite on her left. On them is an inscription: Jason weds Medea, as Aphrodite bids.
{5.18.4} There are also figures of Muses singing, with Apollo leading the song; these too have an inscription: This is Leto’s son, Prince Apollo, far-shooting; Around him are the Muses, a graceful choir, whom he is leading. Atlas too is supporting, just as the story has it, sky [ouranos] and earth upon his shoulders; he is also carrying the apples of the Hesperides. A man holding a sword is coming towards Atlas. This everybody can see is Hēraklēs, though he is not mentioned specially in the inscription, which reads:
Here is Atlas holding the sky [ouranos], but he will let go the apples.
{5.18.5} There is also Ares clad in armor and leading Aphrodite. The inscription by him is “Enyalios.” There is also a figure of Thetis as a maid; Peleus is taking hold of her, and from the hand of Thetis, a snake is darting at Peleus. The sisters of Medusa, with wings, are chasing Perseus, who is flying. Only Perseus has his name inscribed on him.
{5.18.6} On the third space of the chest are military scenes. The greater number of the figures is on foot, though there are some knights in two-horse chariots. About the soldiers one may infer that they are advancing to battle, but that they will recognize and greet each other. Two different accounts of them are given by the guides. Some have said that they are the Aetolians with Oxylos and the ancient Eleians and that they are meeting in remembrance of their original descent and as a sign of their mutual good will. Others declare that the soldiers are meeting in battle, and that they are Pylians and Arcadians about to fight by the city Pheia and the river Iardanos.
{5.18.7} But it cannot for a moment be admitted that the ancestor of Kypselos, a Corinthian, having the chest made as a possession for himself, of his own accord passed over all Corinthian story, and had carved on the chest foreign events which were not famous. The following interpretation suggested itself to me. Kypselos and his ancestors came originally from Gonoussa above Sikyon, and one of their ancestors was Melas, the son of Antasus.
{5.18.8} But, as I have already related in my account of Corinth, Aletes refused to admit as settlers Melas and the host with him, being nervous about an oracle which had been given him from Delphi; but at last Melas, using every art of winning favors, and returning with entreaties every time he was driven away, persuaded Aletes however reluctantly to receive them. One might infer that this army is represented by the figures that are worked in upon the chest.
{5.19.1} In the fourth space on the chest as you go round from the left is Boreas, who has carried off Oreithyia; instead of feet, he has serpents’ tails. Then comes the combat between Hēraklēs and Geryones, who is represented as three men joined to one another. There is Theseus holding a lyre, and by his side is Ariadne gripping a garland. Achilles and Memnon are fighting; their mothers stand by their side.
{5.19.2} There is also Melanion by whom is Atalanta holding a young deer. Ajax is fighting a duel with Hector, according to the challenge, [323] and between the pair stands Strife in the form of a most repulsive woman. Another figure of Strife is in the sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis; Kalliphon of Samos included it in his picture of the battle at the ships of the Greeks. On the chest are also the Dioskouroi, one of them a beardless youth, and between them is Helen.
{5.19.3} Aithra, the daughter of Pittheus, lies thrown to the ground under the feet at Helen. She is clothed in black, and the inscription upon the group is an hexameter line with the addition of a single word:
The sons of Tyndareus are carrying of Helen, and are dragging Aithra
From Athens.
From Athens.
{5.19.4} Such is the way this line is constructed. Iphidamas, the son of Antenor, is lying, and Koön is fighting for him against Agamemnon. On the shield of Agamemnon is Fear, whose head is a lion’s. The inscription above the corpse of Iphidamas runs: Iphidamas, and this is Koön fighting for him. The inscription on the shield of Agamemnon runs:
{5.19.5} This is the Fear of mortals: he who holds him is Agamemnon.
There is also Hermes bringing to Alexander the son of Priam the goddesses of whose beauty he is to judge, the inscription on them being:
Here is Hermes, who is showing to Alexander, that he may arbitrate
Concerning their beauty, Hērā, Athena and Aphrodite.
Concerning their beauty, Hērā, Athena and Aphrodite.
On what account Artemis has wings on her shoulders I do not know; in her right hand she grips a leopard, in her left a lion. Ajax too is represented dragging Cassandra from the statue [agalma] of Athena, and by him is also an inscription: Ajax of Lokris is dragging Cassandra from Athena.
{5.19.6} Polyneikes, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteokles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneikes stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and her fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom, implying that Polyneikes has been carried off by fate, and that Eteokles fully deserved his end. Dionysus is lying down in a cave, a bearded figure holding a golden cup, and clad in a tunic reaching to the feet. Around him are vines, apple trees and pomegranate trees.
{5.19.7} The highest space—the spaces are five in number—shows no inscription, so that we can only conjecture what the reliefs mean. Well, there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which Homer mentions in his poetry. [324] There is a Centaur with only two of his legs those of a horse; his forelegs are human.
{5.19.8} Next come two-horse chariots with women standing in them. The horses have golden wings, and a man is giving armor to one of the women. I conjecture that this scene refers to the death of Patroklos; the women in the chariots, I take it, are Nereids, and Thetis is receiving the armor from Hephaistos. And moreover, he who is giving the armor is not strong upon his feet, and a slave follows him behind, holding a pair of fire-tongs.
{5.19.9} An account also is given of the centaur, that he is Kheiron, freed by this time from human affairs and held worthy to share the home of the gods, who has come to assuage the grief of Achilles. Two maidens in a mule-cart, one holding the reins and the other wearing a veil upon her head, are thought to be Nausikaa, the daughter of Alkinoos, and her handmaiden, driving to the washing-pits. The man shooting at centaurs, some of which he has killed, is plainly Hēraklēs, and the exploit is one of his.
{5.19.10} As to the maker of the chest, I found it impossible to form any conjecture. But the inscriptions upon it, though possibly composed by some other poet, are, as I was on the whole inclined to hold, the work of Eumēlos of Corinth. My main reason for this view is the processional hymn he wrote for Delos.
{5.20.1} There are here other offerings also: a couch of no great size and for the most part adorned with ivory; the discus of Iphitos; a table on which are set out the garlands for the victors. The couch is said to have been a toy of Hippodameia. The discus of Iphitos has inscribed upon it the truce which the Eleians proclaim at the Olympic festivals; the inscription is not written in a straight line, but the letters run in a circle round the discus.
{5.20.2} The table is made of ivory and gold, and is the work of Kolotes. Kolotes is said to have been a native of Herakleia, but specialists in the history of sculpture maintain that he was a Parian, a pupil of Pasiteles, who himself was a pupil of There are figures of Hērā, Zeus, the Mother of the gods, Hermes, and Apollo with Artemis. Behind is the disposition of the Games.
{5.20.3} On one side are Asklepios and Hygieia, one of his daughters; Ares too and Contest by his side; on the other are Pluto [Ploutōn], Dionysus, Persephone and nymphs, one of them carrying a ball. As to the key (Pluto [Ploutōn] holds a key) they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto [Ploutōn], and that nobody will return back again therefrom.
{5.20.4} I must not omit the story told by Aristarkhos, the guide to the sights at Olympia. He said that in his day the roof of the Hēraion had fallen into decay. When the Eleians were repairing it, the corpse of a foot soldier with wounds was discovered between the roof supporting the tiles and the ornamented ceiling. This soldier took part in the battle in the Altis between the Eleians and the Lacedaemonians. [325]
{5.20.5} The Eleians in fact climbed to defend themselves on to all high places alike, including the sanctuaries of the gods. At any rate, this soldier seemed to us to have crept under here after growing faint with his wounds, and so died. Lying in a completely sheltered spot, the corpse would suffer harm neither from the heat of summer nor from the frost of winter. Aristarkhos said further that they carried the corpse outside the Altis and buried him in the earth along with his armor.
{5.20.6} What the Eleians call the pillar of Oinomaos is in the direction of the sanctuary of Zeus as you go from the great altar. On the left are four pillars with a roof on them, the whole constructed to protect a wooden pillar which has decayed through age, being for the most part held together by bands. This pillar, so runs the tale, stood in the house of Oinomaos. Struck by lightning the rest of the house was destroyed by the fire; of all the building only this pillar was left.
{5.20.7} A bronze tablet in front of it has the following elegiac inscription:
Stranger, I am a remnant of a famous house,
I, who once was a pillar in the house of Oinomaos;
Now by Kronos’ son I lie with these bands upon me,
A precious thing, and the baleful flame of fire consumed me not.
In my time another incident took place, which I will relate.
I, who once was a pillar in the house of Oinomaos;
Now by Kronos’ son I lie with these bands upon me,
A precious thing, and the baleful flame of fire consumed me not.
In my time another incident took place, which I will relate.
{5.20.8} A Roman senator won an Olympic victory. Wishing to leave behind, as a memorial of his victory, a bronze statue with an inscription, he proceeded to dig, so as to make a foundation. When his excavation came very close to the pillar of Oinomaos, the diggers found there fragments of armor, bridles and curbs.
{5.20.9} These I saw myself as they were being dug out. A temple of no great size in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Mētrōon, [326] keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Mother of the gods, but there stand in it statues of Roman emperors. The Mētrōon is within the Altis, and so is a round building called the Philippeion. On the roof of the Philippeion is a bronze poppy which binds the beams together.
{5.20.10} This building is on the left of the exit over against the Town Hall. It is made of burned brick and is surrounded by columns. It was built by Philip after the fall of Greece at Khairōneia. Here are set statues of Philip and Alexander, and with them is Amyntas, Philip’s father. These works too are by Leokhares and are of ivory and gold, as are the statues of Olympias and Eurydikē.
{5.21.1} From this point my account will proceed to a description of the statues and votive offerings; but I think that it would be wrong to mix up the accounts of them. For whereas on the Athenian Acropolis statues are votive offerings like everything else, in the Altis some things only are dedicated in honor of the gods, and statues are merely part of the prizes awarded to the victors. The statues I will mention later; I will turn first to the votive offerings, and go over the most noteworthy of them.
{5.21.2} As you go to the stadium along the road from the Mētrōon, there is on the left at the base of the mountain [oros] named Kronion a platform of stone, right by the very mountain [oros], with steps through it. By the platform have been set up bronze statues [agalmata] of Zeus. These have been made from the fines inflicted on athletes who have wantonly broken the rules of the contests, and they are called Zanes [figures of Zeus] by the natives.
{5.21.3} The first, six in number, were set up in the ninety-eighth Olympiad. For Eupolos of Thessaly bribed the boxers who entered the competition, Agenor the Arcadian and Prytanis of Kyzikos, and with them also Phormion of Halicarnassus, who had won at the preceding Festival. This is said to have been the first time that an athlete violated the rules of the Games, and the first to be fined by the Eleians were Eupolos and those who accepted bribes from Eupolos. Two of these images are the work of Kleon of Sikyon; who made the next four, I do not know.
{5.21.4} Except for the third and the fourth, these images have elegiac inscriptions on them. The first of the inscriptions is intended to make plain that an Olympic victory is to be won, not by money, but by swiftness of foot and strength of body. The inscription on the second image declares that the image stands to the glory of the deity, through the piety of the Eleians, and to be a terror to law-breaking athletes. The purport of the inscription on the fifth image is praise of the Eleians, especially for their fining the boxers; that of the sixth and last is that the images are a warning to all the Greeks not to give bribes to obtain an Olympic victory.
{5.21.5} Next after Eupolos they say that Kallippos of Athens, who had entered for the pentathlon, bought off his fellow-competitors by bribes, and that this offence occurred at tie hundred and twelfth Festival. When the fine had been imposed by the Eleians on Kallippos and his antagonists, the Athenians commissioned Hypereides to persuade the Eleians to remit them the fine. The Eleians refused this favor, and the Athenians were disdainful enough not to pay the money and to boycott the Olympic Games, until finally the god at Delphi declared that he would deliver no oracle on any matter to the Athenians before they had paid the Eleians the fine.
{5.21.6} So when it was paid, images, also six in number, were made in honor of Zeus; on them are inscribed elegiac verses not a bit more elegant than those relating the fine of Eupolos. The gist of the first inscription is that the images were dedicated because the god by an oracle expressed his approval of the Eleian decision against the pentathletes; on the second image and likewise on the third are praises of the Eleians for their fining the competitors in the pentathlon.
{5.21.7} The fourth purports to say that the contest at Olympia is one of merit and not of wealth; the inscription on the fifth declares the reason for dedicating the images, while that on the sixth commemorates the oracle given to the Athenians by Delphi.
{5.21.8} The images next to those I have enumerated are two in number, and they were dedicated from a fine imposed on wrestlers. As to their names, neither I nor the guides of the Eleians knew them. On these images too are inscriptions; one says that the Rhodians paid money to Olympian Zeus for the wrongdoing of a wrestler; the other that certain men wrestled for bribes and that the image was made from the fines imposed upon them.
{5.21.9} The rest of the information about these athletes comes from the guides of the Eleians, who say that it was at the hundred and seventy-eighth Festival that Eudelos accepted a bribe from Philostratus, and that this Philostratus was a Rhodian. This account I found was at variance with the Eleian record of Olympic victories. In this record, it is stated that Straton of Alexandria at the hundred and seventy-eighth Festival won on the same day the victory in the pankration and the victory at wrestling. Alexandria on the Canopic mouth of the Nile was founded by Alexander the son of Philip, but it is said that previously there was on the site a small Egyptian town called Rakotis.
{5.21.10} Three competitors before the time of this Straton, and three others after him, are known to have received the wild-olive for winning the pankration and the wrestling: Kapros from Elis itself, and of the Greeks on the other side of the Aegean, Aristomenes of Rhodes and Protophanes of Magnesia on the Lethaios, were earlier than Straton; after him came Marion his compatriot, Aristeas of Stratonikia (anciently both land and city were called Khrysaoris), and the seventh was Nikostratos, from Cilicia on the coast, though he was in no way a Cilician except in name.
{5.21.11} This Nikostratos while still a baby was stolen from Prymnessus in Phrygia by robbers, being a child of a noble family. Conveyed to Aigeai, he was bought by somebody or other, who some time afterwards dreamed a dream. He thought that a lion’s whelp lay beneath the pallet-bed on which Nikostratos was sleeping. Now Nikostratos, when he grew up, won other victories elsewhere, besides in the pankration and wrestling at Olympia.
{5.21.12} Afterwards, others were fined by the Eleians, among whom was an Alexandrian boxer at the two hundred and eighteenth Festival. The name of the man fined was Apollonios, with the surname of Rhantes—it is a sort of national characteristic for Alexandrians to have a surname. This man was the first Egyptian to be convicted by the Eleians of a misdemeanor.
{5.21.13} It was not for giving or taking a bribe that he was condemned, but for the following outrageous conduct in connection with the Games. He did not arrive by the prescribed time, and the Eleians, if they followed their rule, had no option but to exclude him from the Games. For his excuse, that he had been kept back among the Cyclades islands by contrary winds, was proved to be an untruth by Hērakleidēs, himself an Alexandrian by birth. He showed that Apollonios was late because he had been picking up some money at the Ionian Games.
{5.21.14} In these circumstances, the Eleians shut out from the Games Apollonios with any other boxer who came after the prescribed time, and let the garland go to Hērakleidēs without a contest. Whereupon Apollonios put on his gloves for a fight, rushed at Hērakleidēs, and began to pummel him, though he had already put the wild-olive on his head and had taken refuge with the umpires. For this light-headed folly he was to pay dearly.
{5.21.15} There are also two other images of modern workmanship. For at the two hundred and twenty-sixth Festival, they detected that two boxing men, in a fight for victory only, had agreed about the issue for a sum of money. For this misconduct a fine was inflicted, and of the images of Zeus that were made, one stands on the left of the entrance to the stadium and the other on the right. Of the boxers, the one bribed was called Didas, and the briber was Sarapammon. They were from the same district, the newest in Egypt, called Arsinoites.
{5.21.16} It is a wonder in any case if a man has so little respect for the god of Olympia as to take or give a bribe in the contests; it is an even greater wonder that one of the Eleians themselves has fallen so low. But it is said that the Eleian Damonikos did so fall at the hundred and ninety second Festival. They say that collusion occurred between Polyktor the son of Damonikos and Sosandros of Smyrna, of the same name as his father; these were competitors for the wrestling prize of wild-olive. Damonikos, it is alleged, being exceedingly ambitious that his son should win, bribed the father of Sosandros.
{5.21.17} When the transaction became known, the umpires imposed a fine, but instead of imposing it on the sons, they directed their anger against the fathers, for that they were the real sinners. From this fine, images were made. One is set up in the Eleian gymnasium; the other is in the Altis in front of what is called the Painted Portico, because anciently there were pictures on the walls. Some call this Portico “the Echo Portico,” because when a man has shouted, his voice is repeated by the echo seven or even more times.
{5.21.18} They say that a competitor in the pankration, a man from Alexandria by the name of Sarapion, at the two hundred and first Festival, was so afraid of his antagonists that on the day before the pankration was to be called on he ran away. This is the only occasion on record when any man, not to say a man of Egypt, was fined for cowardice.
{5.22.1} These were the causes for which I found that these images were made. There are also images of Zeus dedicated by States and by individuals. There is in the Altis an altar near the entrance leading to the stadium. On it the Eleians do not sacrifice to any of the gods, but it is customary for the trumpeters and heralds to stand upon it when they compete. By the side of this altar has been built a pedestal of bronze, and on it is an image of Zeus, about six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt in either hand. It was dedicated by the people of Kynaitha. The figure of Zeus as a boy wearing the necklace is the votive offering of Kleolas, a Phliasian.
{5.22.2} By the side of what is called the Hippodamion is a semicircular stone pedestal, and on it are Zeus, Thetis, and Day entreating Zeus on behalf of her children. These are on the middle of the pedestal. There are Achilles and Memnon, one at either edge of the pedestal, representing a pair of combatants in position. There are other pairs similarly opposed, foreigner against Greek: Odysseus opposed to Helenos, reputed to be the cleverest men in the respective armies; Alexander and Menelaos, in virtue of their ancient feud; Aeneas and Diomedes, and Deiphobos and Ajax son of Telamon.
{5.22.3} These are the work of Lykios, the son of Myron, and were dedicated by the people of Apollonia on the Ionian sea. There are also elegiac verses written in ancient characters under the feet of Zeus:
As memorials of Apollonia have we been dedicated—the place on the Ionian sea that Phoebus founded, he of the uncut locks. The Apollonians, after taking the land of Abantis, set up here
Those who took the territory of the Abantes established these memorials here with the help of the gods [theoi], tithe from Thronion.
Those who took the territory of the Abantes established these memorials here with the help of the gods [theoi], tithe from Thronion.
The land called Abantis and the town of Thronion in it were a part of the Thesprotian mainland over against the Ceraunian mountains.
{5.22.4} When the Greek fleet was scattered on the voyage home from Troy, men of Lokris who originated from Thronion, a city on the river Boagrios, and Abantes from Euboea, with eight ships altogether, were driven on the Ceraunian mountains. Settling here and founding the city of Thronion by common agreement, they gave the name of Abantis to the land as far as they occupied it. Afterwards, however, they were conquered in war and expelled by the people of Apollonia, their neighbors. Apollonia was a colony of Corcyra, they say, and Corcyra of Corinth, and the Corinthians had their share of the spoils.
{5.22.5} A little farther on is a Zeus turned towards the rising sun; he holds an eagle in one hand and in the other a thunderbolt. On him are set spring flowers, with a garland of them on his head. It is an offering of the people of Metaponton. The artist was Aristonous of Aegina, but we do not know when he lived nor who his teacher was.
{5.22.6} The Phliasians also dedicated a Zeus, the daughters of Asopos, and Asopos himself. Their images have been ordered thus: Nemeā is the first of the sisters, and after her comes Zeus seizing Aegina; by Aegina stands Harpina, who, according to the tradition of the Eleians and Phliasians, mated with Ares and was the mother of Oinomaos, king around Pisa; after her is Corcyra, with Thebe next; last of all comes Aesopus. It is said about Corcyra that she mated with Poseidon, and the same thing is said by Pindar of Thebe and Zeus.
{5.22.7} Men of Leontinoi have set up a Zeus, not at public expense but out of their private purse. The height of the image is seven cubits, and in its hands are an eagle and the bolt of Zeus, in accordance with the poets’ tales. It was dedicated by Hippagoras, Phrynon, and Ainesidemos, who in my opinion was some other Ainesidemos and not the tyrant of Leontinoi.
{5.23.1} As you pass by the entrance to the Council Chamber, you see an image of Zeus standing with no inscription on it, and then on turning to the north, another image of Zeus. This is turned towards the rising sun, and was dedicated by those Greeks who at Plataea fought against the Persians under Mardonios. [327] On the right of the pedestal are inscribed the cities which took part in the engagement: first the Lacedaemonians, after them the Athenians, third the Corinthians, fourth the Sikyonians,
{5.23.2} fifth the Aeginetans; after the Aeginetans, the Megarians and Epidaurians, of the Arcadians the people of Tegea and Orkhomenos, after them the dwellers in Phleious, Troizen and Hermion, the Tirynthians from the Argolid, the Plataeans alone of the Boeotians, the Argives of Mycenae, the islanders of Ceos and Mēlos, Ambraciots of the Thesprotian mainland, the Tenians and the Lepreans, who were the only people from Triphylia, but from the Aegean and the Cyclades there came not only the Tenians but also the Naxians and Cythnians, Styrians too from Euboea, after them Eleians, Potidaeans, Anaktorioi, and lastly the people of Khalkis-on-the-Euripos.
{5.23.3} Of these cities the following are at the present day uninhabited: Mycenae and Tiryns were destroyed by the Argives after the Persian wars. The Ambraciots and Anaktorioi, colonists of Corinth, were taken away by the Roman emperor [328] to help to found Nikopolis near Actium. The Potidaeans twice suffered removal from their city, once at the hands of Philip, the son of Amyntas [329] , and once before this at the hands of the Athenians. [330] Afterwards, however, Kassandros restored the Potidaeans to their homes, but the name of the city was changed from Potidaea to Kassandreia after the name of its founder. [331] The image at Olympia dedicated by the Greeks was made by Anaxagoras of Aegina. The name of this artist is omitted by the historians of Plataea.
{5.23.4} In front of this Zeus, there is a bronze slab, on which are the terms of the Thirty-years Peace between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. The Athenians made this peace after they had reduced Euboea for the second time, in the third year of the eighty-third Olympiad, when Crison of Himera won the foot-race [332] . One of the articles of the treaty is to the effect that although Argos has no part in the treaty between Athens and Sparta, yet the Athenians and the Argives may privately, if they wish, be at peace with each other. Such are the terms of this treaty.
{5.23.5} There is yet another image of Zeus dedicated beside the chariot of Kleosthenes. This chariot I will describe later; the image of Zeus was dedicated by the Megarians, and made by the brothers Psylakos and Onaithos with the help of their sons. About their date, their nation and their master, I can tell you nothing.
{5.23.6} By the chariot of Gelon stands an ancient Zeus holding a scepter which is said to be an offering of the Hyblaeans. There were two cities in Sicily called Hybla, one surnamed Gereatis and the other Greater, it being in fact the greater of the two. They still retain their old names, and are in the district of Catana. Greater Hybla is entirely uninhabited, but Gereatis is a village of Catana, with a sanctuary of the goddess Hyblaea which is held in honor by the Sicilians. The people of Gereatis, I think, brought the image to Olympia. For Philistos, the son of Arkhomenides, says that they were interpreters of portents and dreams, and more given to devotions than any other foreigners in Sicily.
{5.23.7} Near the offering of the Hyblaeans has been made a pedestal of bronze with a Zeus upon it, which I conjecture to be about eighteen feet high. The donors and sculptors are set forth in elegiac verse: The Clitorians [people of Kleitor] dedicated this image to the god, a tithe From many cities that they had reduced by force. The sculptors were Ariston and Telestas, Own brothers and Laconians. I do not think that these Laconians were famous all over Greece, for had they been so the Eleians would have had something to say about them, and the Lacedaemonians more still, seeing that they were their fellow citizens.
{5.24.1} By the side of the altar of Zeus Laoitas and Poseidon Laoitas is a Zeus on a bronze pedestal. The people of Corinth gave it and Musus made it, whoever this Musus may have been. As you go from the Council Chamber to the great temple, there stands on the left an image of Zeus, garlanded as it were with flowers, and with a thunderbolt set in his right hand. It is the work of Ascarus of Thebes, a pupil of Kanakhos of Sikyon. The inscription on it says that it is a tithe from the war between Phokis and Thessaly.
{5.24.2} If the Thessalians went to war with Phokis and dedicated the offering from plunder taken from Phokis, this could not have been the so-called “Sacred War,” [333] but must have been a war between the two States previous to the invasion of Greece by the Persians under their king. Not far from this is a Zeus, which, as is declared by the verse inscribed on it, was dedicated by the Psophidians for a success in war.
{5.24.3} On the right of the great temple is a Zeus facing the rising of the sun, twelve feet high and dedicated, they say, by the Lacedaemonians, when they entered on a war with the Messenians after their second revolt. On it is an elegiac couplet: Accept, king, son of Kronos, Olympian Zeus, a lovely image, And have a heart propitious to the Lacedaemonians.
{5.24.4} We know of no Roman, either commoner or senator, who gave a votive offering to a Greek sanctuary before Mummius, and he dedicated at Olympia a bronze Zeus from the spoils of Achaea [334] . It stands on the left of the offering of the Lacedaemonians by the side of the first pillar on this side of the temple. The largest of the bronze images of Zeus in the Altis is twenty-seven feet high, and was dedicated by the Eleians themselves from the plunder of the war with the Arcadians.
{5.24.5} Beside the Pelopion is a pillar of no great height with a small image of Zeus on it; one hand is outstretched. Opposite this are other offerings in a row, and likewise images of Zeus and Ganymedes. Homer’s poem [335] tells how Ganymedes was carried off by the gods to be wine-bearer to Zeus, and how horses were given to Tros in exchange for him. This offering was dedicated by the Thessalian Gnathis and made by Aristokles, pupil and son of Kleoitas.
{5.24.6} There is also another Zeus represented as a beardless youth, which is among offerings of Mikythos. The history of Mikythos, his family, and why he dedicated so many offerings at Olympia, my narrative will presently set forth. A little farther on in a straight line from the image I have mentioned is another beardless image of Zeus. It was dedicated by the people of Elaea, who live in the first city of Aeolis you reach on descending from the plain of the Kaïkos to the sea.
{5.24.7} Yet another image of Zeus comes next, and the inscription on it says that it was dedicated by the Chersonesians of Knidos from enemy spoils. On either side of the image of Zeus, they have dedicated images of Pelops and of the river Alpheios respectively. The greater part of the city of Knidos is built on the Carian mainland, where are their most noteworthy possessions, but what is called Chersonnesus is an island lying near the mainland, to which it is joined by a bridge.
{5.24.8} It is the inhabitants of this quarter who dedicated to Zeus the offerings at Olympia, just as if Ephesians living in what is called Koresos were to say that they had dedicated an offering independently of the Ephesians as a body. There is also by the wall of the Altis a Zeus turned towards the setting of the sun; it bears no inscription, but is said to be another offering of Mummius made from the plunder of the Achaean war.
{5.24.9} But the Zeus in the Council Chamber is of all the images of Zeus the one most likely to strike terror into the hearts of sinners. He is surnamed Oath-god, and in each hand, he holds a thunderbolt. Beside this image it is the custom for athletes, their fathers and their brothers, as well as their trainers, to swear an oath upon slices of boar’s flesh that in nothing will they sin against the Olympic Games. The athletes take this further oath also, that for ten successive months they have strictly followed the regulations for training.
{5.24.10} An oath is also taken by those who examine the boys, or the foals entering for races, that they will decide fairly and without taking bribes, and that they will keep secret what they learn about a candidate, whether accepted or not. I forgot to inquire what it is customary to do with the boar after the oath of the athletes, though the ancient custom about victims was that no human being might eat of that on which an oath had been sworn.
{5.24.11} Homer proves this point clearly. For the boar, on the slices of which Agamemnon swore that Briseis had not lain with him, Homer says was thrown by the herald into the sea:
He spoke, and cut the boar’s throat with ruthless bronze;
And the boar Talthybios swung and cast into the great depth
Of the grey sea, to feed the fishes.
And the boar Talthybios swung and cast into the great depth
Of the grey sea, to feed the fishes.
Iliad 19.266–268
Such was the ancient custom. Before the feet of the Oath-god is a bronze plate, with elegiac verses inscribed upon it, the object of which is to strike fear into those who take false oaths.
{5.25.1} I have enumerated the images of Zeus within the Altis with the greatest accuracy. For the offering near the great temple, though supposed to be a likeness of Zeus, is really Alexander, the son of Philip. It was set up by a Corinthian, not one of the old Corinthians, but one of those settlers whom the Emperor planted in the city. I shall also mention those offerings which are of a different kind, and not representations of Zeus. The statues which have been set up, not to honor a deity, but to reward mere men, I shall include in my account of the athletes.
{5.25.2} The Messenians on the Strait in accordance with an old custom used to send to Rhēgion a chorus of thirty-five boys, and with it a trainer and an aulos-player, to a local festival of Rhēgion. On one occasion, a disaster befell them for not one of those sent out returned home alive, but the ship with the boys on board went to the bottom.
{5.25.3} The sea in fact at this strait is the stormiest of seas; it is made rough by winds bringing waves from both sides, from the Adriatic and the other sea, which is called the Tyrrhenian, and even if there be no gale blowing, even then the strait of itself produces a very violent swell and strong currents. So many monsters swarm in the water that even the air over the sea is infected with their stench. Accordingly, a shipwrecked man has not even a hope left of getting out of the strait alive. If it was here that disaster overtook the ship of Odysseus, nobody could believe that he swam out alive to Italy, were it not that the benevolence of the gods makes all things easy.
{5.25.4} On this occasion the Messenians mourned for the loss of the boys, and one of the honors bestowed upon them was the dedication of bronze statues at Olympia, the group including the trainer of the chorus and the aulos-player. The old inscription declared that the offerings were those of the Messenians at the strait; but afterwards Hippias, called “a sage” by the Greeks, [336] composed the elegiac verses on them. The artist of the statues was Kallon of Elis.
{5.25.5} At the headland of Sicily that looks towards Libya and the south, called Pakhynon, there stands the city Motye, inhabited by Libyans and Phoenicians. Against these foreigners of Motye war was waged by the People of Akragaspeople of Akragas, who, having taken from them plunder and spoils, dedicated at Olympia the bronze boys, who are stretching out their right hands in an attitude of prayer to the god. They are placed on the wall of the Altis, and I conjectured that the artist was Kalamis, a conjecture in accordance with the tradition about them. [337] Sicily is inhabited by the following races:
{5.25.6} Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed into it from Italy, while the Phrygians came from the river Skamandros and the land of the Troad. The Phoenicians and Libyans came to the island on a joint expedition, and are settlers from Carthage. Such are the foreign races in Sicily. The Greeks settled there include Dorians and Ionians, with a small proportion of people from Phokis and from Attica.
{5.25.7} On the same wall as the offerings of the People of Akragas are two nude statues of Hēraklēs as a boy. One represents him shooting the lion at Nemeā. This Hēraklēs and the lion with him were dedicated by Hippotion of Tarentum, the artist being Nikodamos of Mainalos. The other image was dedicated by Anaxippos of Mende, and was transferred to this place by the Eleians. Previously it stood at the end of the road that leads from Elis to Olympia, called the Sacred Road.
{5.25.8} There are also offerings dedicated by all the Achaean people in common; they represent those who, when Hector challenged any Greek to meet him in single combat, dared to cast lots to choose the champion. They stand, armed with spears and shields, near the great temple. Right opposite, on a second pedestal, is a figure of Nestor, who has thrown the lot of each into the helmet. The number of those casting lots to meet Hector is now only eight, for the ninth, the statue of Odysseus, they say that Nero carried to Rome,
{5.25.9} but Agamemnon’s statue is the only one of the eight to have his name inscribed upon it; the writing is from right to left. The figure with the rooster emblazoned on the shield is Idomeneus the descendant of Minos. The story goes that Idomeneus was descended from the Sun, the father of Pasiphae, and that the rooster is sacred to the Sun and proclaims when he is about to rise.
{5.25.10} An inscription too is written on the pedestal:
To Zeus these images were dedicated by the Achaeans,
Descendants of Pelops the godlike offspring of Tantalos.
Descendants of Pelops the godlike offspring of Tantalos.
Such is the inscription on the pedestal, but the name of the artist is written on the shield of Idomeneus:
This is one of the many works of clever Onatas, The Aeginetan, whose sire was Mikon.
{5.25.11} Not far from the offering of the Achaeans, there is also a Hēraklēs fighting with the Amazon, a woman on horseback, for her waistband. It was dedicated by Euagoras, a Zanclaean by descent, and made by Aristokles of Kydonia. Aristokles should be included amongst the most ancient sculptors, and though his date is uncertain, he was clearly born before Zancle took its present name of Messene.
{5.25.12} The Thasians, who are Phoenicians by descent and sailed from Tyre, and from Phoenicia generally, together with Thasos, the son of Agenor, in search of Europa, dedicated at Olympia a Hēraklēs, the pedestal as well as the image being of bronze. The height of the image is ten cubits, and he holds a club in his right hand and a bow in his left. They told me in Thasos that they used to worship the same Hēraklēs as the Tyrians, but that afterwards, when they were included among the Greeks, they adopted the worship of Hēraklēs the son of Amphitryon.
{5.25.13} On the offering of the Thasians at Olympia there is an elegiac couplet:
This Onatas, though belonging to the Aeginetan school of sculpture, I shall place after none of the successors of Daidalos or of the Attic school.
{5.26.1} The Dorian Messenian who received Naupaktos from the Athenians dedicated at Olympia the image of Nike upon the pillar. It is the work of Paionios of Mende, and was made from the proceeds of enemy spoils, [339] I think from the war with the Arcarnanians and Oiniadai. The Messenians themselves declare that their offering came from their exploit with the Athenians in the island of Sphakteria, [340] and that the name of their enemy was omitted through dread of the Lacedaemonians; for, they say, they are not in the least afraid of Oiniadai and the Acarnanians.
{5.26.2} The offerings of Mikythos I found were numerous and not together. Next after Iphitos of Elis, and Ekhekheiria garlanding Iphitos, come the following offerings of Mikythos: Amphitrite, Poseidon, and Hestia; the artist was Glaukos the Argive. [341] Along the left side of the great temple Mikythos dedicated other offerings: the Maiden, daughter of Demeter, Aphrodite, Ganymedes, and Artemis, the poets Homer and Hesiod, then again deities, Asklepios and Hygieia.
{5.26.3} Among the offerings of Mikythos is Struggle carrying jumping-weights, the shape of which is as follows. They are half of a circle, not an exact circle but elliptical, and made so that the fingers pass through as they do through the handle of a shield. Such are the fashion of them. By the statue of Struggle are Dionysus, Orpheus the Thracian, and an image of Zeus which I mentioned just now. They are the works of Dionysius of Argos. [342] They say that Mikythos set up other offerings also in addition to these, and that they formed part of the treasures taken away by Nero.
{5.26.4} The artists are said to have been Dionysius and Glaukos, who were Argives by birth, but the name of their teacher is not recorded. Their date is fixed by that of Mikythos, who dedicated the works of art at Olympia. For Herodotus in his Histories says that this Mikythos, when Anaxilas was despot of Rhēgion, became his slave and steward of his property afterwards, on the death of Anaxilas, he went away to Tegea.
{5.26.5} The inscriptions on the offerings give Choerus as the father of Mikythos, and as his fatherland the Greek cities of Rhēgion and Messene on the Strait. The inscriptions say that he lived at Tegea, and he dedicated the offerings at Olympia in fulfillment of a vow made for the recovery of a son, who fell ill of a wasting disease.
{5.26.6} Near to the greater offerings of Mikythos, which were made by the Argive Glaukos, stands an image of Athena with a helmet on her head and clad in an aegis. Nikodamos of Mainalos was the artist, but it was dedicated by the Eleians. Beside the Athena has been set up a Nike. The Mantineians dedicated it, but they do not mention the war in the inscription. Kalamis is said to have made it without wings in imitation of the wooden image in Athens called Wingless Nike.
{5.26.7} By the smaller offerings of Mikythos, that were made by Dionysius, are some of the exploits of Hēraklēs, including what he did to the Nemean lion, the Hydra, the Hound of Hades, and the boar by the river Erymanthos. These were brought to Olympia by the people of Herakleia when they had overrun the land of the Mariandynians, their foreign neighbors. Herakleia is a city built on the Euxine Sea, a colony of Megara, though the people of Tanagra in Boeotia joined in the settlement.
{5.27.1} Opposite the offerings I have enumerated are others in a row; they face towards the south, and are very near to that part of the precinct which is sacred to Pelops. Among them are those dedicated by the Maenalian Phormis. He crossed to Sicily from Mainalos to serve Gelon the son of Deinomenes. Distinguishing himself in the campaigns of Gelon and afterwards of his brother Hieron, he reached such a pitch of prosperity that he dedicated not only these offerings at Olympia, but also others dedicated to Apollo at Delphi.
{5.27.2} The offerings at Olympia are two horses and two charioteers, a charioteer standing by the side of each of the horses. The first horse and man are by Dionysius of Argos, the second are the work of Simon of Aegina. [343] On the side of the first of the horses is an inscription, the first part of which is not metrical. It runs thus:
Phormis dedicated me,
An Arcadian of Mainalos, now of Syracuse.
An Arcadian of Mainalos, now of Syracuse.
{5.27.3} This is the horse in which is, say the Eleians, the hippomanes (what maddens horses). It is plain to all that the quality of the horse is the result of magic skill. It is much inferior in size and beauty to all the horses standing within the Altis. Moreover, its tail has been cut off which makes the figure uglier still. But male horses, not only in spring but on any day, are at heat towards it.
{5.27.4} In fact, they rush into the Altis, breaking their tethers or escaping from their grooms, and they leap upon it much more madly than upon a living brood mare, even the most beautiful of them. Their hoofs slip off, but nevertheless they keep on neighing more and more and leap with a yet more violent passion, until they are driven away by whips and sheer force. In no other way can they be separated from the bronze horse.
{5.27.5} There is another marvel I know of, having seen it in Lydia; it is different from the horse of Phormis, but like it not innocent of the magic art. The Lydians surnamed Persian have sanctuaries in the city named Hierocaesareia and at Hypaepa. In each sanctuary is a chamber, and in the chamber are ashes upon an altar. But the color of these ashes is not the usual color of ashes.
{5.27.6} Entering the chamber, a magician piles dry wood upon the altar; he first places a tiara upon his head and then sings to some god or other an invocation in a foreign tongue unintelligible to Greeks, reciting the invocation from a book. So it is without fire that the wood must catch, and bright flames dart from it.
{5.27.7} So much for this subject. Among these offerings is Phormis himself opposed to an enemy, and next are figures of him fighting a second and again a third. On them it is written that the soldier fighting is Phormis of Mainalos, and that he who dedicated the offerings was Lykortas of Syracuse. Clearly, this Lykortas dedicated them out of friendship for Phormis. These offerings of Lykortas are also called by the Greeks offerings of Phormis.
{5.27.8} The Hermes carrying the ram under his arm, with a helmet on his head, and clad in tunic and cloak, is not one of the offerings of Phormis, but has been given to the god by the Arcadians of Pheneus. The inscription says that the artist was Onatas of Aegina helped by Kalliteles, who I think was a pupil or son of Onatas. Not far from the offering of the Pheneatians is another image, Hermes with a herald’s wand. An inscription on it says that Glaukias, a Rhegian by descent, dedicated it, and Gallon of Elis made it.
{5.27.9} Of the bronze oxen one was dedicated by the Corcyraeans and the other by the Eretrians. Philesios of Eretria was the artist. Why the Corcyraeans dedicated the ox at Olympia and another at Delphi will be explained in my account of Phokis. About the offering at Olympia, I heard the following story.
{5.27.10} Sitting under this ox a little boy was playing with his head bent towards the ground. Suddenly lifting his head, he broke it against the bronze and died a few days later from the wound. So the Eleians were purposing to remove the ox from out the Altis as being guilty of bloodshed. But the god at Delphi gave an oracle that they were to let the offering stay where it was, after performing upon it the purificatory rites that are customary among the Greeks for unintentional shedding of blood.
{5.27.11} Under the plane trees in the Altis, just about in the center of the enclosure, there is a bronze trophy, with an inscription upon the shield of the trophy, to the effect that the Eleians raised it as a sign that they had beaten the Lacedaemonians. It was in this battle that the warrior lost his life who was found lying in his armor when the roof of the Hēraion was being repaired in my time.
{5.27.12} The offering of the Mendeans in Thrace came very near to beguiling me into the belief that it was a representation of a competitor in the pentathlon. It stands by the side of Anauchidas of Elis, and it holds ancient jumping-weights. An elegiac couplet is written on its thigh:
To Zeus, king of the gods, as first fruits was I placed here by the Mendeans, who reduced Sipte by might of hand.
Sipte seems to be a Thracian fortress and city. The Mendeans themselves are of Greek descent, coming from Ionia, and they live inland at some distance from the sea that is by the city of Ainos.
[ back ]
Scroll VI. Elis, Part 2
{6.1.1} After my description of the votive offerings, I must now go on to mention the statues of race-horses and those of men, whether athletes or ordinary folk. Not all the Olympic victors have had their statues erected; some, in fact, who have distinguished themselves, either at the Games or by other exploits, have had no statue.
{6.1.2} These I am forced to omit by the nature of my work, which is not a list of athletes who have won Olympic victories, but an account of statues and of votive offerings generally. I shall not even record all those whose statues have been set up, as I know how many have before now won the garland of wild olive not by strength but by the chance of the lot. [344] Those only will be mentioned who themselves gained some distinction, or whose statues happened to be better made than others.
{6.1.3} On the right of the temple of Hērā is the statue of a wrestler, Symmakhos, the son of Aeschylus. He was an Eleian by birth. Beside him is Neolaidas, son of Proxenos, from Pheneus in Arcadia, who won a victory in the boys’ boxing match. Next comes Arkhedamos, son of Xenios, another Eleian by birth, who like Symmakhos overthrew wrestlers in the contest for boys. The statues of the athletes mentioned above were made by Alypos of Sikyon, a pupil of Naukydes of Argos.
{6.1.4} The inscription on Kleogenes the son of Silenus declares that he was a native and that he won a prize with a ridinghorse from his own private stable. Hard by Kleogenes are set up Deinolokhos, son of Pyrrhos, and Troilos, son of Alkinoos. They also were both Eleians by birth, though their victories were not the same. Troilos, at the time that he was umpire, succeeded in winning victories in the chariot-races, one for a chariot drawn by a full-grown pair and another for a chariot drawn by foals. The date of his victories was the hundred and second Festival. [345]
{6.1.5} After this, the Eleians passed a law that in the future, no umpire was to compete in the chariotraces. The statue of Troilos was made by Lysippos. The mother of Deinolokhos had a dream, in which she thought that the son she clasped in her bosom had a garland on his head. For this reason, Deinolokhos was trained to compete in the Games and outran the boys. The artist was Kleon of Sikyon.
{6.1.6} As for Kyniska, daughter of Arkhidamos, her ancestry and Olympic victories, I have given an account thereof in my history of the Lacedaemonian kings. [346] By the side of the statue of Troilos at Olympia has been made a basement of stone, on which are a chariot and horses, a charioteer, and a statue of Kyniska herself, made by Apelles; there are also inscriptions relating to Kyniska.
{6.1.7} Next to her also have been erected statues of Lacedaemonians. They gained victories in chariot-races. Anaxandros was the first of his family to be proclaimed victor with a chariot, but the inscription on him declares that previously his paternal grandfather received the garland for the pentathlon. Anaxandros is represented in an attitude of prayer to the god, while Polykles, who gained the surname of Polykhalkos, likewise won a victory with a four-horse chariot, and his statue holds a ribbon in the right hand. Beside him are two children; one holds a wheel and the other is asking for the ribbon. Polykles, as the inscription on him says, also won the chariot-race at Pythō, the Isthmus and Nemeā.
{6.2.1} The statue of a competitor in the pankration was made by Lysippos. The athlete was the first to win the pankration not only from Stratos itself but from the whole of Acarnania, and his name was Xenarkes, the son of Philandrides. Now, after the Persian invasion, the Lacedaemonians became keener breeders of horses than any other Greeks. For beside those I have already mentioned, the following horse-breeders from Sparta have their statues set up after that of the Acarnanian athlete Xenarkes, [347] Lykinos, Arkesilaos, and Lichas, his son.
{6.2.2} Xenarkes succeeded in winning other victories, at Delphi, at Argos and at Corinth. Lykinos brought foals to Olympia, and when one of them was disqualified, entered his foals for the race for full-grown horses, winning with them. He also dedicated two statues at Olympia, works of Myron [348] the Athenian. As for Arkesilaos and his son Lichas, the father won two Olympic victories; his son, because in his time the Lacedaemonians were excluded from the Games, entered his chariot in the name of the Theban people, and with his own hands bound the victorious charioteer with a ribbon. For this offense, he was scourged by the umpires,
{6.2.3} and on account of this Lichas, the Lacedaemonians invaded Elis in the reign of King Agis, when a battle took place within the Altis. When the war was over, Lichas set up the statue in this place, but the Eleian records of Olympic victors give as the name of the victor, not Lichas, but the Theban people.
{6.2.4} Near Lichas stands an Eleian diviner, Thrasyboulos, son of Aeneas of the Iamid family, who divined for the Mantineians in their struggle against the Lacedaemonians under Agis, son of Eudamidas, their king. I shall have more to say about this in my account of the Arcadians. [349] On the statue of Thrasyboulos is a spotted lizard crawling towards his right shoulder, and by his side lies a dog, obviously a sacrificial victim, cut open and with his liver exposed.
{6.2.5} Divination by kids, lambs, or calves has, we all know, been established among men from ancient times, and the Cyprians have even discovered how to practice the art by means of pigs; but no peoples are accustomed to make any use of dogs in divining. So Thrasyboulos apparently established a method of divination peculiar to himself, by means of the entrails of dogs. The diviners called Iamidai are descended from Iamos, who, Pindar says in an ode, [350] was a son of Apollo and received the gift of divination from him.
{6.2.6} By the statue of Thrasyboulos stands Tīmosthenes of Elis, winner of the foot-race for boys, and Antipatros of Miletus, son of Kleinopater, conqueror of the boy boxers. Men of Syracuse, who were bringing a sacrifice from Dionysius to Olympia, tried to bribe the father of Antipatros to have his son proclaimed as a Syracusan. But Antipatros, thinking nothing of the tyrant’s gifts, proclaimed himself a Milesian and wrote upon his statue that he was of Milesian descent and the first Ionian to dedicate his statue at Olympia.
{6.2.7} The artist who made this statue was Polycleitus, while that of Tīmosthenes was made by Eutykhides of Sikyon, a pupil of Lysippos. This Eutykhides made for the Syrians on the Orontes an image of Fortune, which is highly valued by the natives.
{6.2.8} In the Altis by the side of Tīmosthenes are statues of Timon and of his son Aesypus, who is represented as a child seated on a horse. In fact, the boy won the horserace, while Timon was proclaimed victor in the chariotrace. The statues of Timon and of his son were made by Daidalos of Sikyon, who also made for the Eleians the trophy in the Altis commemorating the victory over the Spartans.
{6.2.9} The inscription on the Samian boxer says that his trainer Mycon dedicated the statue and that the Samians are best among the Ionians for athletes and at naval warfare; this is what the inscription says, but it tells us nothing at all about the boxer himself.
{6.2.10} Beside this is the Messenian Damiskos, who won an Olympic victory at the age of twelve. I was exceedingly surprised to learn that while the Messenians were in exile from the Peloponnesus, their luck at the Olympic Games failed. For with the exception of Leontiskos and Symmakhos, who came from Messene on the Strait, we know of no Messenian, either from Sicily or from Naupaktos, who won a victory at Olympia. Even these two are said by the Sicilians to have been not Messenians but of old Zanclean blood.
{6.2.11} However, when the Messenians came back to the Peloponnesus, their luck in the Olympic Games came with them. For at the festival celebrated by the Eleians in the year after the settlement of Messene, the foot-race for boys was won by this Damiskos, who afterwards won in the pentathlon both at Nemeā and at the Isthmus.
{6.3.1} Nearest to Damiskos stands a statue of somebody; they do not give his name, but it was Ptolemy, son of Lagos, who set up the offering. In the inscription, Ptolemy calls himself a Macedonian, though he was king of Egypt. On Khaireas of Sikyon, a boy boxer, is an inscription that he won a victory when a young man, and that his father was Khairemon; the name of the artist who made the statue is also written, Asterion, son of Aeschylus.
{6.3.2} After Khaireas are statues of a Messenian boy Sophios and of Stomios, a man of Elis. Sophios outran his boy competitors, and Stomios won a victory in the pentathlon at Olympia and three at the Nemean Games. The inscription on his statue adds that, when commander of the Eleian cavalry, he set up trophies and killed in single combat the general of the enemy, who had challenged him.
{6.3.3} The Eleians say that the dead general was a native of Sikyon in command of Sikyonian troops, and that they themselves with the force from Boeotia attacked Sikyon out of friendship to the Thebans. So the attack of the Eleians and Thebans against Sikyon apparently took place after the Lacedaemonian disaster at Leuktra.
{6.3.4} Next stands the statue of a boxer from Lepreus in Elis, whose name was Labax, son of Euphron, and also that of Aristodemos, son of Thrasis, a boxer from Elis itself, who also won two victories at Pythō. The statue of Aristodemos is the work of Daidalos of Sikyon, the pupil and son of Patrokles.
{6.3.5} The statue of Hippos of Elis, who won the boys’ boxing-match, was made by Damokritos of Sikyon, of the school of Attic Critias, being removed from him by four generations of teachers. For Critias himself taught Ptolikhos of Corcyra, Amphion was the pupil of Ptolikhos, and taught Pison of Kalaureia, who was the teacher of Damokritos.
{6.3.6} Kratinos of Aigeira in Achaea was the most handsome man of his time and the most skillful wrestler, and when he won the wrestling-match for boys, the Eleians allowed him to set up a statue of his trainer as well. The statue was made by Kantharos of Sikyon, whose father was Alexis, while his teacher was Eutykhides.
{6.3.7} The statue of Eupolemos of Elis was made by Daidalos of Sikyon. The inscription on it informs us that Eupolemos won the foot-race for men at Olympia, and that he also received two Pythian garlands for the pentathlon and another at the Nemean Games. It is also said of Eupolemos that three umpires stood on the course, of whom two gave their verdict in favor of Eupolemos and one declared the winner to be Leon the Ambraciot. Leon, they say, got the Olympic Council to fine each of the umpires who had decided in favor of Eupolemos.
{6.3.8} The statue of Oibotas was set up by the Achaeans by the command of the Delphic Apollo in the eightieth Olympiad, [351] but Oibotas won his victory in the foot-race at the sixth Festival. [352] How, therefore, could Oibotas have taken part in the Greek victory at Plataea? For it was in the seventy-fifth Olympiad [353] that the Persians under Mardonios suffered their disaster at Plataea. Now I am obliged to report the statements made by the Greeks, though I am not obliged to believe them all. The other incidents in the life of Oibotas I will add to my history of Achaea. [354]
{6.3.9} The statue of Antiokhos was made by Nikodamos. A native of Lepreus, Antiokhos won once at Olympia the pankration for men, and the pentathlon twice at the Isthmian Games and twice at the Nemean. For the Lepreans are not afraid of the Isthmian Games as the Eleians themselves are. For example, Hysmon of Elis, whose statue stands near that of Antiokhos, competed successfully in the pentathlon both at Olympia and at Nemeā, but clearly kept away, just like other Eleians, from the Isthmian Games.
{6.3.10} It is said that when Hysmon was still a boy, he was attacked by a flux in his muscles, and it was in order that by hard exercise, he might be a healthy man free from disease that he practiced the pentathlon. So his training was also to make him win famous victories in the Games. His statue is the work of Kleon, and he holds jumping-weights of old pattern.
{6.3.11} After Hysmon comes the statue of a boy wrestler from Heraia in Arcadia, Nikostratos, the son of Xenokleides. Pantias was the artist, and if you count the teachers, you will find five between him and Aristokles of Sikyon. Dikon, the son of Kallibrotos, won five foot-races at Pythō, three at the Isthmian Games, four at Nemeā, and one at Olympia in the race for boys besides two in the men’s race. Statues of him have been set up at Olympia equal in number to the races he won. When he was a boy, he was proclaimed a native of Kaulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards, he was bribed to proclaim himself a Syracusan.
{6.3.12} Kaulonia was a colony in Italy founded by Achaeans, and its founder was Typhon of Aigion. When Pyrrhos son of Aiakidēs and the people of Tarentum were at war with the Romans, several cities in Italy were destroyed, either by the Romans or by the people of Epeiros, and these included Kaulonia, whose fate it was to be utterly laid waste, having been taken by the Campanians, who formed the largest contingent of allies on the Roman side.
{6.3.13} Close to Dikon is a statue of a man who won in the pankration: he was Xenophon, the son of Menephylos, from Aigion in Achaea; there was likewise a statue of Pyrilampes of Ephesos after winning the long foot-race. Olympus made the statue of Xenophon; that of Pyrilampes was made by a sculptor of the same name, a native, not of Sikyon, but of Messene beneath Ithome.
{6.3.14} A statue of Lysander, son of Aristokritos, a Spartan, was dedicated in Olympia by the Samians, and the first of their inscriptions runs:
“In the much-seen precinct of Zeus, ruler on high,
I stand, dedicated at public expense by the Samians.”
I stand, dedicated at public expense by the Samians.”
So this inscription informs us who dedicated the statue; the next is in praise of Lysander himself:
“Deathless glory by your achievements, for fatherland and for Aristokritos,
Lysander, have you won, and are famed for valor.”
Lysander, have you won, and are famed for valor.”
{6.3.15} So plainly “the Samians and the rest of the Ionians,” as the Ionians themselves phrase it, painted both the walls. For when Alcibiades had a strong fleet of Athenian triremes along the coast of Ionia, most of the Ionians paid court to him, and there is a bronze statue of Alcibiades dedicated by the Samians in the temple of Hērā. But when the Attic ships were captured at Aigospotamoi, [355] the Samians set up a statue of Lysander at Olympia, and the Ephesians set up in the sanctuary of Artemis not only a statue of Lysander himself but also statues of Eteonikos, Pharax, and other Spartans quite unknown to the Greek world generally.
{6.3.16} But when fortune changed again, and Konon had won the naval action off Knidos and the mountain called Dorion, [356] the Ionians likewise changed their views, and there are to be seen statues in bronze of Konon and of Timotheus both in the sanctuary of Hērā in Samos and also in the sanctuary of the Ephesian goddess at Ephesos. It is always the same; the Ionians merely follow the example of all the world in deferring to power .
{6.4.1} Next to the statue of Lysander is an Ephesian boxer who beat the other boys, his competitors—his name was Athenaios,—and also a man of Sikyon who was a competitor in the pankration, Sostratos, surnamed Akrokhersites. He got that surname because he used to grip his antagonist by the fingers and bend them, and would not let go until he saw that his opponent had given in.
{6.4.2} He won at the Nemean and Isthmian Games combined twelve victories, three victories at Olympia, and two at Pythō. The hundred and fourth Festival, when Sostratos won his first victory, is not reckoned by the Eleians, because the Games were held by the Pisans and Arcadians and not by themselves.
{6.4.3} Beside Sostratos is a statue of Leontiskos, a man wrestler, a native of Sicily from Messene on the Strait. He was garlanded, they say, by the Amphiktyones and twice by the Eleians, and his mode of wrestling was similar to the pankration of Sostratos the Sikyonian. For they say that Leontiskos did not know how to throw his opponents, but won by bending their fingers.
{6.4.4} The statue was made by Pythagoras of Rhēgion, an excellent sculptor if ever there was one. They say that he studied under Klearkhos, who was likewise a native of Rhēgion and a pupil of Eukheiros. Eukheiros, it is said, was a Corinthian, and attended the school of Syadras and Khartas, men of Sparta.
{6.4.5} The boy who is binding his head with a fillet must be mentioned in my account because of Pheidias and his great skill as a sculptor, but we do not know whose portrait the statue is that Pheidias made. Satyros of Elis, son of Lysianax, of the clan of the Iamidai, won five victories at Nemeā for boxing, two at Pythō, and two at Olympia. The artist who made the statue was Silanion, an Athenian. Polykles, another sculptor of the Attic school, a pupil of Stadieus the Athenian, has made the statue of an Ephesian boy who competed in the pankration, Amyntas the son of Hellanikos.
{6.4.6} Khilon, an Achaean of Patrae, won two prizes for men wrestlers at Olympia, one at Delphi, four at the Isthmus, and three at the Nemean Games. He was buried at the public expense by the Achaeans, and his fate it was to lose his life on the field of battle. My statement is borne out by the inscription at Olympia:
“In wrestling only I alone conquered twice the men at Olympia and at Pythō,
Three times at Nemeā, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea;
Khilon of Patrae, son of Khilon, whom the Achaean folk
Buried for my valor when I died in battle.”
Three times at Nemeā, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea;
Khilon of Patrae, son of Khilon, whom the Achaean folk
Buried for my valor when I died in battle.”
{6.4.7} Thus much is plain from the inscription. But the date of Lysippos, who made the statue, leads me to infer about the war in which Khilon fell, that plainly either he marched to Khaironeia with the whole of the Achaeans, [357] or else his personal courage and daring led him alone of the Achaeans to fight against the Macedonians under Antipatros at the battle of Lamia in Thessaly. [358]
{6.4.8} Next to Khilon two statues have been set up. One is that of a man named Molpion, who, says the inscription, was garlanded by the Eleians. The other statue bears no inscription, but tradition says that it represents Aristotle from Stageira in Thrace, and that it was set up either by a pupil or else by some soldier aware of Aristotle’s influence with Antipatros and at an earlier date with Alexander. Sodamas from Assos in the Troad,
{6.4.9} a city at the foot of Ida, was the first of the Aeolians in this district to win at Olympia the foot-race for boys. By the side of Sodamas stands Arkhidamos, son of Agesilaos, king of the Lacedaemonians. Before this Arkhidamos, no king, so far as I could learn, had his statue set up by the Lacedaemonians, at least outside the boundaries of the country. They sent the statue of Arkhidamos to Olympia chiefly, in my opinion, on account of his death, because he met his end in a foreign land, and is the only king in Sparta who is known to have missed burial.
{6.4.10} I have spoken at greater length on this matter in my account of Sparta. [359]
Euanthes of Kyzikos won prizes for boxing, one among the men at Olympia, and also among the boys at the Nemean and at the Isthmian Games. By the side of Euanthes is the statue of a horse-breeder and his chariot; mounted on the chariot is a young maid. The man’s name is Lampos, and his native city was the last to be founded in Macedonia, named after its founder Philip, son of Amyntas.
{6.4.11} The statue of Kyniskos, the boy boxer from Mantineia, was made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles, the son of Philanor, won two victories in the long foot-race at Olympia, and two at Pythō, the Isthmus, and Nemeā. The inscription on the statue states that he came originally from Himera, but it is said that this is incorrect, and that he was a Cretan from Knossos. Expelled from Knossos by a political party, he came to Himera, was given citizenship, and won many honors besides. It was accordingly natural for him to be proclaimed at the Games as a native of Himera.
{6.5.1} The statue on the high pedestal is the work of Lysippos, and it represents the tallest of all men except those called heroes and any other lineage of mortals that may have existed before the heroes. But this man, Poulydamas the son of Nikias, is the tallest of our own era.
{6.5.2} Skotoussa, the native city of Poulydamas, has now no inhabitants, for Alexander the tyrant of Pherai seized it in time of truce. It happened that an assembly of the citizens was being held, and those who were assembled in the theater the tyrant surrounded with targeteers and archers, and shot them all down; all the other grown men he massacred, selling the women and children as slaves in order to pay his mercenaries.
{6.5.3} This disaster befell Skotoussa when Phrasikleides was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, [360] in the hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thourioi was victor for the second time and in the second year of this Olympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while, for later they too were forced by their destitution to leave the city, when the superhuman force [daimōn] brought a second calamity in the war with Macedonia.
{6.5.4} Others have won glorious victories in the pankration, but Poulydamas, besides his prizes for the pankration, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestos, which runs through the land of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes and mauled the camels carrying his supplies.
{6.5.5} These lions often roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneios. Here on Mount Olympus, Poulydamas slew a lion, a huge and powerful beast, without the help of any weapon. To this exploit he was impelled by an ambition to rival the labors of Hēraklēs, because Hēraklēs also, it is said, overthrew the lion at Nemeā.
{6.5.6} In addition to this, Poulydamas is remembered for another wonderful performance. He went among a herd of cattle and seized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hind feet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull’s leaps and struggles, until at last it put forth all its strength and escaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Poulydamas. It is also said of him that he stopped a charioteer who was driving his chariot onwards at a great speed. Seizing with one hand the back of the chariot, he kept a tight hold on both horses and driver.
{6.5.7} Dareios, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian common people put down Sogdios, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Poulydamas, sent messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at Susa. There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals to fight him—one against three— and killed them. Of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription.
{6.5.8} But after all, the prophecy of Homer [361] respecting those who glory in their strength was to be fulfilled also in the case of Poulydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his own might. For Poulydamas entered a cave with the rest of his boon companions. It was summer-time, and as ill-luck would have it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was obvious that it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out much longer.
{6.5.9} Realizing the disaster that was coming, the others turned and ran away; but Poulydamas resolved to remain, holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent the falling in of the cave and would not be crushed by the mountain. Here Poulydamas met his end.
{6.6.1} Beside the statue of Poulydamas at Olympia stand two Arcadians and one Attic athlete. The statue of the Mantineian, Protolaos, the son of Dialkes, who won the boxing match for boys, was made by Pythagoras of Rhēgion; that of Narykidas, son of Damaretos, a wrestler from Phigalia, was made by Daidalos of Sikyon; that of the Athenian Kallias, a competitor in the pankration, is by the Athenian painter Mikon. Nikodamos the Maenalian made the statue of the Maenalian Androsthenes, the son of Lokhaios, a competitor in the pankration, who won two victories among the men.
{6.2.2} Next to them is set up a statue of Eukles, son of Kallianax, a native of Rhodes and of the lineage of the Diagoridai. For he was the son of the daughter of Diagoras, and won an Olympic victory in the boxing match for men. His statue is by Naukydes. Polycleitus of Argos, not the artist who made the image of Hērā, but a pupil of Naukydes, made the statue of a boy wrestler, Agenor of Thebes. The statue was dedicated by the Commonwealth of Phokis, for Theopompos, the father of Agenor, was a state friend [362] of their nation.
{6.6.3} Nikodamos, the sculptor from Mainalos, made the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas of Mainalos. There stands also the statue of the Eleian boy Lastratidas, who won the garland for wrestling. He won a victory at Nemeā also among the boys, and another among the beardless youths. Paraballon, the father of Lastratidas, was first in the double foot-race, and he left to those coming after an object of ambition, by writing up in the gymnasium at Olympia the names of those who won Olympic victories.
{6.6.4} So much for these. But it would not be right for me to pass over the boxer Euthymos, his victories, and his other glories. Euthymos was by birth one of the people of Italian Lokris, who dwell in the region near the headland called the West Point, and he was called son of Astykles. According to what is said by the local people [epikhōrioi], however, he is the son not of this man, but of the river Kaikinos, which divides Lokris from the land of Rhēgion and produces the marvel of the grasshoppers. For the grasshoppers within Lokris as far as the Kaikinos sing just like others, but across the Kaikinos in the territory of Rhēgion, they do not utter a sound.
{6.6.5} This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymos, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival, [363] was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pankration at the same Festival, overcame Euthymos at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pankration, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymos.
{6.6.6} Then, the umpires fined Theagenes a talent, to be sacred to the god, and a talent for the harm done to Euthymos, holding that it was merely to spite him that he entered for the boxing competition. For this reason, they condemned him to pay an extra fine privately to Euthymos. At the seventy-sixth Festival, Theagenes paid in full the money owed to the god, […] and as compensation to Euthymos did not enter for the boxing match. At this Festival, and also at the next following, Euthymos won the garland for boxing. His statue is the handiwork of Pythagoras, and is very well worth seeing.
{6.6.7} On his return to Italy, Euthymos fought against the Hero, the story about whom is as follows. Odysseus, so they say, in his wanderings after the capture of Troy was carried down by gales to various cities of Italy and Sicily, and among them he came with his ships to Temesa. Here one of his sailors got drunk and violated a girl, for which offense he was stoned to death by the natives.
{6.6.8} Now Odysseus, it is said, cared nothing about his loss and sailed away. But the ghost of the stoned man never ceased killing without distinction the people of Temesa, attacking both old and young, until, when the inhabitants had resolved to flee from Italy for good, the Pythian priestess forbade them to leave Temesa, and ordered them to propitiate the Hero, setting him a sanctuary apart and building a temple, and to give him every year as wife the fairest maiden in Temesa.
{6.6.9} So they performed the commands of the god and suffered no more terrors from the ghost. But Euthymos happened to come to Temesa just at the time when the ghost was being propitiated in the usual way; learning what was going on, he had a strong desire to enter the temple, and not only to enter it but also to look at the girl. When he saw her, he first felt pity and afterwards love for her. The girl swore to marry him if he saved her, and so Euthymos with his armor on awaited the onslaught of the ghost.
{6.6.10} He won the fight, and the Hero was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea. Euthymos had a distinguished wedding, and the inhabitants were freed from the ghost forever. I heard another story also about Euthymos, how he reached extreme old age and escaping again from death, departed from among men in another way. Temesa is still inhabited, as I heard from a man who sailed there as a merchant.
{6.6.11} This I heard, and I also saw by chance a picture dealing with the subject. It was a copy of an ancient picture. There were a youth, Sybaris, a river, Kalabros, and a spring, Lyka. Besides, there were a hero-shrine and the city of Temesa, and in the midst was the ghost that Euthymos cast out. Horribly black in color, and exceedingly dreadful in all his appearance, he had a wolf’s skin thrown round him as a garment. The letters on the picture gave his name as Lycas.
{6.7.1} So much for the story of Euthymos. After his statue stands a runner in the foot-race, Pytharkhos of Mantineia, and a boxer, Kharmides of Elis, both of whom won prizes in the contests for boys. When you have looked at these also, you will reach the statues of the Rhodian athletes, Diagoras and his family. These were dedicated one after the other in the following order. Acusilaus [Akousilaos], who received a garland for boxing in the men’s class; Dorieus, the youngest, who won the pankration at Olympia on three successive occasions. Even before Dorieus, Damagetos beat all those who had entered for the pankration.
{6.7.2} These were brothers, being sons of Diagoras, and by them is set up also a statue of Diagoras himself, who won a victory for boxing in the men’s class. The statue of Diagoras was made by the Megarian Kallikles, the son of the Theokosmos who made the image of Zeus at Megara. The sons too of the daughters of Diagoras practiced boxing and won Olympic victories: in the men’s class, Eukles, son of Kallianax and Kallipateira, daughter of Diagoras; in the boys’ class, Peisirodos, whose mother dressed herself as a man and a trainer, and took her son herself to the Olympic Games.
{6.7.3} This Peisirodos is one of the statues in the Altis, and stands by the father of his mother. The story goes that Diagoras came to Olympia in the company of his sons Acusilaus [Akousilaos] and Damagetos. The youths, on defeating their father, proceeded to carry him through the crowd, while the Greeks pelted him with flowers and congratulated him on his sons. The lineage of Diagoras was originally, through the female line, Messenian, as he was descended from the daughter of Aristomenes.
{6.7.4} Dorieus, son of Diagoras, besides his Olympian victories, won eight at the Isthmian and seven at the Nemean Games. He is also said to have won a Pythian victory without a contest. He and Peisirodos were proclaimed by the herald as of Thourioi, for they had been pursued by their political enemies from Rhodes to Thourioi in Italy. Dorieus subsequently returned to Rhodes. Of all men, he most obviously showed his friendship with Sparta, for he actually fought against the Athenians with his own ships, until he was taken prisoner by Attic men-of-war and brought alive to Athens.
{6.7.5} Before he was brought to them, the Athenians were angry with Dorieus and used threats against him; but when they met in the assembly and beheld a man so great and famous in the guise of a prisoner, their feeling towards him changed, and they let him go away without doing him any hurt, even though they might with justice have punished him severely.
{6.7.6} The death of Dorieus is told by Androtion in his Attic history. He says that the great King’s fleet was then at Kaunos, with Konon in command, who persuaded the Rhodian people to leave the Lacedaemonian alliance and to join the great King and the Athenians. Dorieus, he goes on to say, was at the time away from home in the interior of the Peloponnesus, and having been caught by some Lacedaemonians, he was brought to Sparta, convicted of treachery by the Lacedaemonians, and sentenced to death.
{6.7.7} If Androtion tells the truth, he appears to me to wish to put the Lacedaemonians on a level with the Athenians, because they too are open to the charge of precipitous action in their treatment of Thrasyllos and his fellow admirals at the battle of Arginoussai. [364] Such was the fame won by Diagoras and his family.
{6.7.8} Alkainetos too, son of Theantos, a Leprean, himself and his sons won Olympian victories. Alkainetos was successful in the boxing contest for men, as at an earlier date, he had been in the contest for boys. His sons, Helianikos and Theantos, were proclaimed winners of the boys’ boxing match, Hellanikos at the eighty-ninth Festival [365] and Theantos at the next. All have their statues set up at Olympia.
{6.7.9} Next to the sons of Alkainetos stand Gnathon, a Maenalian of Dipaia, and Lukinos of Elis. They too succeeded in beating the boys at boxing at Olympia. The inscription on his statue says that Gnathon was very young indeed when he won his victory. The artist who made the statue was Kallikles of Megara.
{6.7.10} A man from Stymphalos, by name Dromeus [Runner], proved true to it in the long race, for he won two victories at Olympia, two at Pythō, three at the Isthmus, and five at Nemeā. He is said to have also conceived the idea of a flesh diet; up to this time, athletes had fed on cheese from the basket. The statue of this athlete is by Pythagoras; the one next to it, representing Pythokles, a pentathlete of Elis, was made by Polycleitus.
{6.8.1} Socrates of Pellene won the boys’ race, and Amertes of Elis the wrestlers’ match for boys at Olympia, besides beating all competitors in the men’s wrestling match at Pythō. It is not said who made the statue of Socrates, but that of Amertes is from the band of Phradmon of Argos. Euanoridas of Elis won the boys’ wrestling match both at Olympia and at Nemeā. When he was made an umpire, he joined the ranks of those who have recorded at Olympia the names of the victors.
{6.8.2} As to the boxer, by name Damarkhos, an Arcadian of Parrhasia, I cannot believe (except, of course, his Olympic victory) what romancers say about him, how he changed his shape into that of a wolf at the sacrifice of Lycaean [Wolf] Zeus, and how nine years after he became a man again. Nor do I think that the Arcadians either record this of him, otherwise it would have been recorded as well in the inscription at Olympia, which runs:
“This statue was dedicated by Damarkhos, son of Dinytas,
Parrhasian by birth from Arcadia.”
Parrhasian by birth from Arcadia.”
{6.8.3} Here the inscription ends. Eubotas of Cyrene, when the Libyan oracle foretold to him his coming Olympic victory for running, had his portrait statue made beforehand, and so was proclaimed victor and dedicated the statue on the same day. He is also said to have won the chariot-race at that Festival which, according to the account of the Eleians, was not genuine because the Arcadians presided at it.
{6.8.4} The statue of Timanthes of Kleonai, who won the garland in the pankration for men, was made by Myron of Athens, but Naukydes made that of Baukis of Troizen, who overthrew the men wrestlers. Timanthes, they say, met his end through the following cause. On retiring from athletics, he continued to test his strength by drawing a great bow every day. His practice with the bow was interrupted during a period when he was away from home. On his return, finding that he was no longer able to bend the bow, he lit a fire and threw himself alive on to it. In my view all such deeds, whether they have already occurred among men or will take place hereafter, ought to be regarded as acts of madness rather than of courage.
{6.8.5} After Baukis are statues of Arcadian athletes: Euthymenes from Mainalos itself, who won the men’s and previously the boys’ wrestling match; Philip, an Azanian from Pellana, who beat the boys at boxing, and Kritodamos from Kleitor, who like Philip was proclaimed victor in the boys’ boxing match. The statue of Euthymenes for his victory over the boys was made by Alypos; the statue of Damokritos was made by Kleon, and that of Philip the Azanian by Myron. The story of a competitor in the pankration who was named Promakhos, son of Dryon, from Pellene, will be included in my account of the Achaeans. [366]
{6.8.6} Not far from Promakhos is set up the statue of Timasitheos, a Delphian by birth, the work of Ageladas of Argos. This athlete won in the pankration two victories at Olympia and three at Pythō. His achievements in war too are distinguished by their daring and by the good luck which attended all but the last, which caused his death. For when Isagoras the Athenian captured the Acropolis of the Athenians with a view of setting up a tyranny, Timasitheus took part in the affair, and, on being taken prisoner on the Acropolis, was put to death by the Athenians for his sin against them.
{6.9.1} Theognetos of Aegina succeeded in winning the garland for the boys’ wrestling match, and Ptolikhos of Aegina made his statue. Ptolikhos was a pupil of his father Synnoön, and he of Aristokles the Sikyonian, a brother of Kanakhos and almost as famous an artist. Why Theognetos carries a cone of the cultivated pine and a pomegranate I could not conjecture; perhaps some of the Aeginetans may have a local story about it.
{6.9.2} After the statue of the man who the Eleians say had not his name recorded with the others because he was proclaimed winner of the trotting-race, stand Xenokles of Mainalos, who overthrew the boys at wrestling, and Alketos, son of Alkinoos, victor in the boys’ boxing match, who also was an Arcadian from Kleitor. Kleon made the statue of Alketos; that of Xenokles is by Polycleitus.
{6.9.3} Aristeus of Argos himself won a victory in the long-race, while his father Kheimon won the wrestling match. They stand near to each other, the statue of Aristeus being by Pantias of Chios, the pupil of his father, Sostratos. Besides the statue of Kheimon at Olympia, there is another in the temple of Peace at Rome, brought there from Argos. Both are in my opinion among the most glorious works of Naukydes. It is also told how Kheimon overthrew at wrestling Taurosthenes of Aegina, how Taurosthenes at the next Festival overthrew all who entered for the wrestling match, and how an apparition that looked like Taurosthenes appeared on that day in Aegina and announced the victory.
{6.9.4} The statue of Philles of Elis, who won the boys’ wrestling match, was made by the Spartan Kratinos. As regards the chariot of Gelon, I did not come to the same opinion about it as my predecessors, who hold that the chariot is an offering of the Gelon who became tyrant in Sicily. Now there is an inscription on the chariot that it was dedicated by Gelon of Gela, son of Deinomenes, and the date of the victory of this Gelon is the seventy-third Festival. [367]
{6.9.5} But the Gelon who was tyrant of Sicily took possession of Syracuse when Hybrilides was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the second year of the seventy-second Olympiad, [368] when Tisikrates of Croton won the foot-race. Plainly, therefore, he would have announced himself as of Syracuse, not Gela. The fact is that this Gelon must be a private person, of the same name as the tyrant, whose father had the same name as the tyrant’s father. It was Glaukias of Aegina who made both the chariot and the portrait-statue of Gelon.
{6.9.6} At the Festival previous to this, it is said that Kleomedes of Astypalaia killed Ikkos of Epidaurus during a boxing match. On being convicted by the umpires of foul play and being deprived of the prize, he became mad through grief and returned to Astypalaia. Attacking a school there of about sixty children, he pulled down the pillar which held up the roof.
{6.9.7} This fell upon the children, and Kleomedes, pelted with stones by the citizens, took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary and drew down the lid. The Astypalaians toiled in vain in their attempts to open the chest. At last, however, they broke open the boards of the chest, but found no Kleomedes, either alive or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what had happened to Kleomedes.
{6.9.8} The response given by the Pythian priestess was, they say, as follows:
“Last of heroes is Kleomedes of Astypalaia;
Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.”
Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.”
So from this time have the Astypalaians paid honors to Kleomedes as to a hero.
{6.9.9} By the side of the chariot of Gelon is dedicated a statue of Philon, the work of the Aeginetan Glaukias. About this, Philon Simonides, the son of Leoprepes composed a very neat elegiac couplet:
“My fatherland is Corcyra, and my name is Philon; I am
The son of Glaukos, and I won two Olympic victories for boxing.”
There is also a statue of Agametor of Mantineia, who beat the boys at boxing.
The son of Glaukos, and I won two Olympic victories for boxing.”
There is also a statue of Agametor of Mantineia, who beat the boys at boxing.
{6.10.1}Next to those that I have enumerated stands Glaukos of Karystos. It is said that he was by birth from Anthedon in Boeotia, being descended from Glaukos the sea deity. This Carystian was a son of Demylos, and they say that to begin with he worked as a farmer. The ploughshare one day fell out of the plough, and he fitted it into its place, using his hand as a hammer.
{6.10.2} Demylos happened to be a spectator of his son’s performance, and thereupon brought him to Olympia to box. There Glaukos, inexperienced in boxing, was wounded by his antagonists, and when he was boxing with the last of them, he was thought to be fainting from the number of his wounds. Then they say that his father called out to him, “Son, the plough touch.” So he dealt his opponent a more violent blow which right away brought him the victory.
{6.10.3} He is said to have won other garlands besides, two at Pythō, eight at the Nemean and eight at the Isthmian Games. The statue of Glaukos was set up by his son, while Glaukias of Aegina made it. The statue represents a figure sparring, as Glaukos was the best exponent of the art of all his contemporaries. When he died the people of Karystos, they say, buried him in the island still called the island of Glaukos.
{6.10.4} Damaretos of Heraia, his son, and his grandson, each won two victories at Olympia. Those of Damaretos were gained at the sixty-fifth Festival [369] (at which the race in full armor was instituted) and also at the one succeeding. His statue shows him, not only carrying the shield that modern competitors have, but also wearing a helmet on his head and greaves on his legs. In course of time, the helmet and greaves were taken from the armor of competitors by both the Eleians and the Greeks generally. Theopompos, son of Damaretos, won his victories in the pentathlon, and his son Theopompos the second, named after his father, won his in the wrestling match.
{6.10.5} Who made the statue of Theopompos the wrestler we do not know, but those of his father and grandfather are said by the inscription to be by Eutelidas and Khrysothemis, who were Argives. It does not, however, declare the name of their teacher, but runs as follows:
“Eutelidas and Khrysothemis made these works,
Argives, who learned their art from those who lived before.”
Argives, who learned their art from those who lived before.”
Ikkos, the son of Nikolaidas of Tarentum, won the Olympic garland in the pentathlon and afterwards is said to have become the best trainer of his day.
{6.10.6} After Ikkos stands Pantarkes the Eleian, beloved of Pheidias, who beat the boys at wrestling. Next to Pantarkes is the chariot of Kleosthenes, a man of Epidamnus. This is the work of Ageladas, and it stands behind the Zeus dedicated by the Greeks from the spoil of the battle of Plataea. Kleosthenes’ victory occurred at the sixty-sixth Festival, and together with the statues of his horses, he dedicated a statue of himself and one of his charioteer.
{6.10.7} There are inscribed the names of the horses, Phoenix and Korax, and on either side are the horses by the yoke, on the right Knakias, on the left Samos. This inscription in elegiac verse is on the chariot:
“Kleosthenes, son of Pontis, a native of Epidamnus, dedicated me
After winning with his horses a victory in the glorious Games of Zeus.”
After winning with his horses a victory in the glorious Games of Zeus.”
{6.10.8} This Kleosthenes was the first of those who bred horses in Greece to dedicate his statue at Olympia. For the offering of agoras the Laconian consists of the chariot without a figure of agoras himself; the offerings of Miltiades the Athenian, which he dedicated at Olympia, I will describe in another part of my story. [370] The Epidamnians occupy the same territory today as they did at first, but the modern city is not the ancient one, being at a short distance from it. The modern city is called Dyrrhachium from its founder.
{6.10.9} Lykinos of Heraia, Epikradios of Mantineia, Tellon of Oresthas, and Agiadas of Elis won victories in boys’ matches; Lykinos for running, the rest of them for boxing. The artist who made the statue of iosEpikradios was Ptolikhos of Aegina; that of Agiadas was made by Serambos, also a native of Aegina. The statue of Lykinos is the work of Kleon. Who made the statue of Tellon is not related.
{6.11.1} Next to these are offerings of Eleians, representing Philip, the son of Amyntas, Alexander, the son of Philip, Seleukos, and Antigonos. Antigonos is on foot; the rest are on horseback.
{6.11.2} Not far from the kings mentioned stands a Thasian, Theagenes the son of Tīmosthenes. The Thasians say that Tīmosthenes was not the father of Theagenes, but a priest of the Thasian Hēraklēs, a phantom of whom in the likeness of Tīmosthenes had intercourse with the mother of Theagenes. In his ninth year, they say, as he was going home from school, he was attracted by a bronze image of some god or other in the marketplace; so he caught up the image, placed it on one of his shoulders, and carried it home.
{6.11.3} The citizens were enraged at what he had done, but one of them, a respected man of advanced years, ordered them not to kill the boy, and ordered him to carry the image from his home back again to the marketplace. This he did, and at once became famous for his strength, his feat being talked about abroad throughout Greece.
{6.11.4} The achievements of Theagenes at the Olympian Games have already—the most famous of them—been described [371] in my story, how he beat Euthymos the boxer, and how he was fined by the Eleians. On this occasion, the pankration, it is said, was for the first time on record won without a contest, the victor being Dromeus of Mantineia. At the Festival following this, Theagenes was the winner in the pankration.
{6.11.5} He also won three victories at Pythō. These were for boxing, while nine prizes at Nemeā and ten at the Isthmus were won in some cases for the pankration and in others for boxing. At Phthia in Thessaly, he gave up training for boxing and the pankration. He devoted himself to winning fame among the Greeks for his running also, and beat those who entered for the long race. His ambition was, I think, to rival Achilles by winning a prize for running in the fatherland of the swiftest of those who are called heroes. The total number of garlands that he won was one thousand four hundred.
{6.11.6} When he departed this life, one of those who were his enemies while he lived came every night to the statue of Theagenes and flogged the bronze as though he were ill-treating Theagenes himself. The statue put an end to the outrage by falling on him, but the sons of the dead man prosecuted the statue for murder. So the Thasians dropped the statue to the bottom of the sea, adopting the principle of Draco, who, when he framed for the Athenians laws to deal with homicide, inflicted banishment even on lifeless things, should one of them fall and kill a man.
{6.11.7} But in course of time, when the earth yielded no crop to the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to receive back the exiles. At this command, they received them back, but their restoration brought no remedy of the famine. So for the second time, they went to the Pythian priestess, saying that although they had obeyed her instructions, the wrath of the gods still abode with them.
{6.11.8} Whereupon the Pythian priestess replied to them:
“But you have forgotten your great Theagenes.”
And when they could not think of a contrivance to recover the statue of Theagenes, fishermen, they say, after putting out to sea for a catch of fish caught the statue in their net and brought it back to land. The Thasians set it up in its original position, and are accustomed to sacrifice to him as to a god.
{6.11.9} There are many other places that I know of, both among Greeks and among barbarians, where images of Theagenes have been set up, who cures diseases and receives honors from the natives. The statue of Theagenes is in the Altis, being the work of Glaukias of Aegina.
{6.12.1} Hard by is a bronze chariot with a man mounted upon it; race-horses, one on each side, stand beside the chariot, and on the horses are seated boys. They are memorials of Olympic victories won by Hieron, the son of Deinomenes, who was tyrant of Syracuse after his brother Gelo. But the offerings were not sent by Hieron; it was Hieron’s son Deinomenes who gave them to the god, Onatas the Aeginetan who made the chariot, and Kalamis who made the horses on either side and the boys on them.
{6.12.2} By the chariot of Hieron is a man of the same name as the son of Deinomenes. He too was tyrant of Syracuse, and was called Hieron, the son of Hierokles. After the death of Agathokles, a former tyrant, tyranny again sprung up at Syracuse in the person of this Hieron, who came to power in the second year of the hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad, [372] at which Festival Idaios of Cyrene won the foot race.
{6.12.3} This Hieron made an alliance with Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs, sealing it by the marriage of Gelo, his son, and Nereis, the daughter of Pyrrhos. When the Romans went to war with Carthage for the possession of Sicily, the Carthaginians held more than half the island, and Hieron sided with them at the beginning of the war. Shortly after, however, he changed over to the Romans, thinking that they were stronger, and firmer and more reliable friends.
{6.12.4} He met his end at the hands of Deinomenes, a Syracusan by birth and an inveterate enemy of tyranny, who afterwards, when Hippokrates the brother of Epikydes had just come from Erbessus to Syracuse and was beginning to harangue the multitude, rushed at him with intent to kill him. But Hippokrates withstood him, and certain of the bodyguard overpowered and slew Deinomenes. The statues of Hieron at Olympia, one on horseback and the other on foot, were dedicated by the sons of Hieron, the artist being Mikon, a Syracusan, the son of Nikeratos.
{6.12.5} After the likenesses of Hieron stand Areus the Lacedaemonian king, the son of Akrotatos, and Aratos, the son of Kleinias with another statue of Areus on horseback. The statue of Aratos was dedicated by the Corinthians, that of Areus by the people of Elis.
{6.12.6} I have already given some account of both Aratos and Areus, [373] and Aratos was also proclaimed at Olympia as victor in the chariot race. Timon, an Eleian, the son of Aisypos, entered a four-horse chariot for the Olympic races […] this is of bronze, and on it is mounted a maiden, who, in my opinion, is Victory. Kallon, the son of Harmodios, and Hippomakhos, the son of Moschion, Eleian by lineage, were victors in the boys’ boxing match. The statue of Kallon was made by Daippos; who made that of Hippomakhos I do not know, but it is said that he overcame three antagonists without receiving a blow or any physical injury.
{6.12.7} Theokhrestos of Cyrene bred horses after the traditional Libyan manner; he himself and before him his paternal grandfather of the same name won victories at Olympia with the four-horse chariot, while the father of Theokhrestos won a victory at the Isthmus. So declares the inscription on the chariot.
{6.12.8} The elegiac verses bear witness that Agesarkhos of Triteia, the son of Haimostratos, won the boxing match for men at Olympia, Nemeā, Pythō, and the Isthmus; they also declare that the Tritaeans are Arcadians, but I found this statement to be untrue. For the founders of the Arcadian cities that attained to fame have well-known histories; while those that had all along been obscure because of their weakness were surely absorbed for this very reason into Megalopolis, being included in the decree then made by the Arcadian confederacy;
{6.12.9} no other city Triteia, except the one in Achaea, is to be found in Greece. However, one may assume that at the time of the inscription, the Tritaeans were reckoned as Arcadians, just as nowadays too certain of the Arcadians themselves are reckoned as Argives. The statue of Agesarkhos is the work of the sons of Polykles, of whom we shall give some account later on. [374]
{6.13.1} The statue of Astylos of Kroton is the work of Pythagoras; this athlete won three successive victories at Olympia, in the short race and in the double race. But because on the two latter occasions he proclaimed himself a Syracusan, in order to please Hieron, the son of Deinomenes, the people of Kroton for this condemned his house to be a prison, and pulled down his statue set up by the temple of Lacinian Hērā.
{6.13.2} There is also set up in Olympia a slab recording the victories of Khionis the Lacedaemonian. They show simplicity who have supposed that Khionis himself dedicated the slab, and not the Lacedaemonian people. Let us assume that, as the slab says, the race in armor had not yet been introduced; how could Khionis know whether the Eleians would at some future time add it to the list of events? But those are simpler still who say that the statue standing by the slab is a portrait of Khionis, it being the work of the Athenian Myron.
{6.13.3} Similar in renown to Khionis was Hermogenes of Xanthos, a Lydian, who won the wild olive eight times at three Olympic festivals, and was surnamed Horse by the Greeks. Polites also you will consider a great marvel. This Polites was from Keramos in Caria, and showed at Olympia every excellence in running. For from the longest race, demanding the greatest stamina, he changed, after the shortest interval, to the shortest and quickest, and after winning a victory in the long race and immediately afterwards in the short race, he added on the same day a third victory in the double course.
{6.13.4} Polites then in the second […] and four, as they are grouped together by lot, and they do not start them all together for the race. The victors in each heat run again for the prize. So he who is garlanded in the foot race will be victorious twice. However, the most famous runner was Leonidas of Rhodes. He maintained his speed at its prime for four Olympiads, and won twelve victories for running.
{6.13.5} Not far from the slab of Khionis at Olympia stands Scaios, the son of Douris, a Samian, victor in the boys’ boxing match. The statue is the work of Hippias, the son of […] and the inscription on it states that Scaios won his victory at the time when the people of Samos were in exile from the island, but the occasion […] the people to their own.
{6.13.6} By the side of the tyrant is a statue of Diallos, the son of Pollis, a Smyrnean by descent, and this Diallos declares that he was the first Ionian to receive at Olympia a garland for the boys’ pankration. There are statues of Thersilokhos of Corcyra and of Aristion of Epidaurus, the son of Theophiles, made by Polycleitus the Argive; Aristion won a garland for the men’s boxing, Thersilokhos for the boys’.
{6.13.7} Bykelos, the first Sikyonian to win the boys’ boxing match, had his statue made by Kanakhos of Sikyon, a pupil of the Argive Polycleitus. By the side of Bykelos stands the statue of a man-at-arms, Mnaseas of Cyrene, surnamed the Libyan; Pythagoras of Rhēgion made the statue. To Agemakhos of Kyzikos from the mainland of Asia […] the inscription on it shows that he was born at Argos.
{6.13.8} Naxos was founded in Sicily by the people of Khalkis-on-the-Euripos. Of the city not even the ruins are now to be seen, and that the name of Naxos has survived to after ages must be attributed to Tisandros, the son of Kleokritos. He won the men’s boxing match at Olympia four times; he had the same number of victories at Pythō, but at this time, neither the Corinthians nor the Argives kept complete records of the victors at Nemeā and the Isthmus.
{6.13.9} The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called, the Corinthians relate, Aura ‘breeze’, and at the beginning of the race, she chanced to throw her rider. But nevertheless, she went on running properly, turned round the post, and, when she heard the trumpet, quickened her pace, reached the umpires first, realized that she had won, and stopped running. The Eleians proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him to dedicate a statue of this mare.
{6.13.10} The sons also of Pheidolas were winners in the horse race, and the horse is represented on a slab with this inscription:
“The swift Lykos by one victory at the Isthmus and two here
Garlanded the house of the sons of Pheidolas.”
Garlanded the house of the sons of Pheidolas.”
But the inscription is at variance with the Eleian records of Olympic victors. These records give a victory to the sons of Pheidolas at the sixty-eighth Festival but at no other. You may take my statements as accurate.
{6.13.11} There are statues to Agathinos, son of Thrasyboulos, and to Telemakhos, both men of Elis. Telemakhos won the race for four-horse chariots; the statue of Agathinos was dedicated by the Achaeans of Pellene. The Athenian people dedicated a statue of Aristophon, the son of Lysinos, who won the men’s pankration at Olympia.
{6.14.1} Pherias of Aegina, whose statue stands by the side of Aristophon the Athenian, at the seventy-eighth Festival was considered very young, and, being judged to be as yet unfit to wrestle, was debarred from the contest. Out at the next Festival, he was admitted to the boys’ wrestling match and won it. What happened to this Pherias was different, in fact the exact opposite of what happened at Olympia to Nicasylus of Rhodes.
{6.14.2} Being eighteen years of age, he was not allowed by the Eleians to compete in the boys’ wrestling match, but won the men’s match and was proclaimed victor. He was afterwards proclaimed victor at Nemeā also and at the Isthmus. But when he was twenty years old, he met his death before he returned home to Rhodes. The feat of the Rhodian wrestler at Olympia was in my opinion surpassed by Artemidoros of Tralles. He failed in the boys’ pankration at Olympia, the reason of his failure being his extreme youth.
{6.14.3} When, however, the time arrived for the contest held by the Ionians of Smyrna, his strength had so increased that he beat in the pankration on the same day those who had competed with him at Olympia, after the boys the beardless youths as they are called, and thirdly the pick of the men. His match with the beardless youths was the outcome, they say, of a trainer’s encouragement; he fought the men because of the insult of a man who was a competitor at the pankration. Artemidoros won an Olympic victory among the men at the two hundred and twelfth Festival. [375]
{6.14.4} Next to the statue of Nicasylus is a small bronze horse, which Crocon of Eretria dedicated when he won a garland with a race-horse. Near the horse is Telestas of Messene, who won the boys’ boxing match. The artist who represented Telestas was Silanion.
{6.14.5} The statue of Milo, the son of Diotīmos, was made by Dameas, also a native of Kroton. Milo won six victories for wrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at Pythō, he won six among the men and one among the boys. He came to Olympia to wrestle for the seventh time, but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellow citizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover, to come to close quarters with him.
{6.14.6} It is further stated that Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His feats with the pomegranate and the discus are also remembered by tradition. He would grasp a pomegranate so firmly that nobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did not damage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased discus, and make fools of those who charged him and tried to push him from the discus. He used to perform also the following exhibition feats.
{6.14.7} He would tie a cord around his forehead as though it were a ribbon or a garland. Holding his breath and filling with blood the veins on his head, he would break the cord by the strength of these veins. It is said that he would let down by his side his right arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and stretch out straight the arm below the elbow, turning the thumb upwards, while the other fingers lay in a row. In this position, then, the little finger was lowest, but nobody could bend it back by pressure.
{6.14.8} They say that he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that he came across in the land of Kroton a tree-trunk that was drying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk apart. Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, the wedges slipped, and Milo was held fast by the trunk until the wolves—beasts that roves in vast packs in the land of Kroton—made him their prey.
{6.14.9} Such was the fate that overtook Milo. Pyrrhos, the son of Aiakidēs, who was king on the Thesprotian mainland and performed many remarkable deeds, as I have related in my account of the Athenians, [376] had his statue dedicated by Thrasyboulos of Elis. Beside Pyrrhos is a little man holding an aulos [‘double-reed’], carved in relief upon a slab. This man won Pythian victories next after Sacadas of Argos.
{6.13.10} For Sacadas won in the Games introduced by the Amphiktyones before a garland was awarded for success, and after this victory two others for which garlands were given, but at the next six Pythian Festivals Pythokritos of Sikyon was victor, being the only aulos player so to distinguish himself. It is also clear that at the Olympic Festival, he fluted six times for the pentathlon. For these reasons, the slab at Olympia was erected in honor of Pythokritos, with the inscription on it:
“This is the monument of the aulos player Pythokritos, the son of Kallinikos.”
{6.14.11} The Aetolian League dedicated a statue of Kylon, who delivered the Eleians from the tyranny of Aristotīmos. The statue of Gorgos, the son of Eukletos, a Messenian who won a victory in the pentathlon, was made by the Boeotian Theron; that of Damaretos, another Messenian, who won the boys’ boxing match, was made by the Athenian Silanion. Anauchidas, the son of Philys, an Eleian, won a garland in the boys’ wrestling match and afterwards in the match for men. Who made his statue is not known, but Ageladas of Argos made the statue of Anochus of Tarentum, the son of Adamatas, who won victories in the short and double foot race.
{6.14.12} A boy seated on a horse and a man standing by the horse the inscription declares to be Xenombrotos of Meropian Kos, who was proclaimed victor in the horse race, and Xenodikos, who was announced a winner in the boys’ boxing match. The statue of the latter is by Pantias, that of the former is by Philotīmos the Aeginetan. The two statues of Pythes, the son of Andromakhos, a native of Abdera, were made by Lysippos, and were dedicated by his soldiers. Pythes seems to have been a captain of mercenaries or some sort of distinguished soldier.
{6.14.13} There are statues of winners of the boys’ race, namely, Meneptolemos of Apollonia on the Ionian Gulf and Philo of Corcyra; also Hieronymos of Andros, who defeated in the pentathlon at Olympia Tisamenus of Elis, who afterwards served as soothsayer in the Greek army that fought against Mardonios and the Persians at Plataea. By the side of this Hieronymos is a statue of a boy wrestler, also of Andros, Prokles, the son of Lycastidas. The sculptor who made the statue of Lycastidas was named Stomios, while Somis made the statue of Prokles. Aeschines of Elis won two victories in the pentathlon, and his statues are also two in number.
{6.15.1} Arkhippos of Mitylene overcame his competitors in the men’s boxing match, and his fellow-townsmen hold that he added to his fame by winning the garland when he was not more than twenty years old, at Olympia, at Pythō, at Nemeā, and at the Isthmus. The statue of the boy runner Xenon, son of Kalliteles from Lepreus in Triphylia, was made by Pyrilampes the Messenan; who made the statue of Kleinomakhos of Elis, I do not know, but Kleinomakhos was proclaimed victor in the pentathlon.
{6.15.2} The inscription on the statue of Pantarkes of Elis states that it was dedicated by Achaeans, because he made peace between them and the Eleians and procured the release of those who had been made prisoners by both sides during the war. This Pantarkes also won a victory with a race-horse, and there is a memorial of his victory also at Olympia. The statue of Olidas, of Elis, was dedicated by the Aetolian nation, and Kharinos of Elis is represented in a statue dedicated for a victory in the double race and in the race in armor. By his side is Ageles of Chios, victorious in the boys’ boxing match, the artist being Theomnestos of Sardes.
{6.15.3} The statue of Kleitomakhos of Thebes was dedicated by his father Hermokrates, and his famous deeds are these. At the Isthmus, he won the men’s wrestling match, and on the same day, he overcame all competitors in the boxing match and in the pankration. His victories at Pythō were all in the pankration, three in number. At Olympia, this Kleitomakhos was the first after Theagenes of Thasos to be proclaimed victor in both boxing and the pankration.
{6.15.4} He won his victory in the pankration at the hundred and forty-first Olympic Festival. [377] The next Festival saw this Kleitomakhos a competitor in the pankration and in boxing, while Kapros of Elis was minded both to wrestle and to compete in the pankration on the same day.
{6.15.5} After Kapros had won in the wrestling match, Kleitomakhos put it to the umpires that it would be fair if they were to bring in the pankration before he received wounds in the boxing. His request seemed reasonable, and so the pankration was brought in. Although Kleitomakhos was defeated by Kapros, he tackled the boxers with sturdy spirit and unwearied vigor.
{6.15.6} The Ionians of Erythraidedicated a statue of Epitherses, son of Metrodoros, who won two boxing prizes at Olympia, two at Pythō, and also victories at Nemeā and the Isthmus; the Syracusans dedicated two statues of Hieron at the public charge, while a third is the gift of Hieron’s sons. I pointed out in a recent chapter [378] how this Hieron had the same name as the son of Deinomenes, and, like him, was despot of Syracuse.
{6.15.7} The Paleans, who form one of the four divisions of the Cephallenians, dedicated a statue of Timoptolis, an Eleian, the son of Lampis. These Paleans were of old called Dulichians. There is also a statue set up of Arkhidamos, the son of Agesilaos, and of some man or other representing a hunter. There is a statue of Demetrios, who made an expedition against Seleukos and was taken prisoner in the battle, and one of Antigonos, the son of Demetrios; they are offerings, you may be sure, of the Byzantines.
{6.15.8} At the thirty-eighth Festival, [379] Eutelidas the Spartan won two victories among the boys, one for wrestling and one for the pentathlon, this being the first and last occasion when boys were allowed to enter for the pentathlon. The statue of Eutelidas is old, and the letters on the pedestal are worn dim with age.
{6.15.9} After Eutelidas is another statue of Areus the Lacedaemonian king, and beside it is a statue of Gorgos the Eleian. Gorgos is the only man down to my time who has won four victories at Olympia for the pentathlon, beside a victory in the double race and a victory in the race in armor.
{6.15.10} The man with the boys standing beside him they say is Ptolemy, son of Lagos. [380] Beside him are two statues of the Eleian Kapros, the son of Pythagoras, who received on the same day a garland for wrestling and a garland for the pankration. This Kapros was the first man to win the two victories. His victim overcome in the pankration I have already mentioned; [381] in wrestling, the man he overcame was the Eleian Paeanios, who at the previous Festival had won a victory for wrestling, while at the Pythian Games, he won a garland in the boys’ boxing match, and again in the men’s wrestling match and in the men’s boxing match on one and the same day.
{6.16.1} The victories of Kapros were not achieved without great toils and strong effort. There are also at Olympia statues to Anauchidas and Pherenikos, Eleians by lineage who won garlands for wrestling among the boys. Pleistainos, the son of the Eurydamos who commanded the Aetolians against the Gauls, had his statue dedicated by the Thespians.
{6.16.2} The statue of Antigonos the father of Demetrios and the statue of Seleukos were dedicated by Tydeus the Eleian. The fame of Seleukos became great among all men especially because of the capture of Demetrios. Timon won victories for the pentathlon at all the Greek Games except the Isthmian, at which he, like other Eleians, abstained from competing. The inscription on his statue adds that he joined the Aetolians in their expedition against the Thessalians and became leader of the garrison at Naupaktos because of his friendship with the Aetolians.
{6.16.3} Not far from the statue of Timon stands Hellas, and by Hellas stands Elis; Hellas is garlanding with one hand Antigonos, the guardian of Philip, the son of Demetrios, with the other, Philip himself; Elis is garlanding Demetrios, who marched against Seleukos, and Ptolemy, the son of Lagos.
{6.16.4} Aristeides of Elis won at Olympia (so the inscription on his statue declares) a victory in the race run in armor, at Pythō a victory in the double race, and at Nemeā, in the race for boys in the horse course. The length of the horse-course is twice that of the double course; the event had been omitted from the Nemean and Isthmian Games but was restored to the Argives for their winter Nemean Games by the Emperor Hadrian.
{6.16.5} Quite close to the statue of Aristeides stands Menalkes of Elis, proclaimed victor at Olympia in the pentathlon, along with Philonides son of Zotes, who was a native of Chersonesus in Crete, and a courier of Alexander the son of Philip. After him comes Brimias of Elis, victor in the men’s boxing match, Leonidas from Naxos in the Aegean, a statue dedicated by the Arcadians of Psophis, a statue of Asamon, victor in the men’s boxing match, and a statue of Nikandros, who won two victories at Olympia in the double course and six victories in foot-races of various kinds at the Nemean Games. [382] Asamon and Nikandros were Eleians, the statue of the latter was made by Daippos, that of Asamon by the Messenian Pyrilampes.
{6.16.6} Eualkidas of Elis won victories in the boys’ boxing match, Seleadas the Lacedaemonian in the men’s wrestling-match. Here too is dedicated a small chariot of the Laconian Polypeithes, and on the same slab Kalliteles, the father of Polypeithes, a wrestler. Polypeithes was victorious with his four-horse chariot, Kalliteles in wrestling.
{6.16.7} There are private Eleians, Lampos the son of Arniskos and […] of Aristarkhos; these the Psophidians dedicated, either because they were their public friends or because they had shown them some good will. Between them stands Lysippos of Elis, who beat his competitors in the boys’ wrestling match; his statue was made by Andreas of Argos.
{6.16.8} Demosthenes the Lacedaemonian won an Olympic victory in the men’s foot-race, and he dedicated in the Altis a slab by the side of his statue. The inscription declares that the distance from Olympia to another slab at Lacedaemon is six hundred and sixty furlongs. Theodoros gained a victory in the pentathlon; Pyttalos the son of Lampis won the boys’ boxing match, and Neolaidas received a garland for the foot race and the race in armor; all were, I may tell you, Eleians. About Pyttaloss, it is further related that, when a dispute about boundaries occurred between the Arcadians and the Eleians, he delivered judgment on the matter. His statue is the work of Sthennis the Olynthian.
{6.16.9} Next is Ptolemy, mounted on a horse, and by his side is an Eleian athlete, Paeanios, the son of Damatrios, who won at Olympia a victory in wrestling besides two Pythian victories. There is also Klearetos of Elis, who received a garland in the pentathlon, and a chariot of an Athenian, Glaukon, the son of Eteokles. This Glaukon was proclaimed victor in a chariot-race for full-grown horses.
{6.17.1} These are the most remarkable sights that meet a man who goes over the Altis according to the instructions I have given. But if you will go to the right from the Leonidaion to the great altar, you will come across the following notable objects. There is Demokrates of Tenedos, who won the men’s wrestling match, and Kriannios of Elis, who won a victory in the race in armor. The statue of Demokrates was made by Dionysikles of Miletus, that of Kriannios by Lysos of Macedonia.
{6.17.2} The statues of Herodotus of Klazomenai and of Philinos, son of Hegepolis, of Kos, were dedicated by their respective cities. The people of Klazomenai dedicated a statue of Herodotus because he was the first person from Klazomenai to be proclaimed victor at Olympia, his victory being in the boys’ foot race. The people of Kos dedicated a statue of Philinos because of his great renown, for he won at Olympia five victories in running, at Pythō four victories, at Nemeā four, and at the Isthmus eleven.
{6.17.3} The statue of Ptolemy, the son of Ptolemy Lagos, was dedicated by Aristolaos, a Macedonian. There is also dedicated a statue of a victorious boy boxer, Butas of Miletus, son of Polyneikes; a statue too of Kallikrates of Magnesia on the Lethaios, who received two garlands for victories in the race in armor. The statue of Kallikrates is the work of Lysippos.
{6.17.4} Enation won a victory in the boys’ foot race, Alexibios in the pentathlon. The native place of Alexibios was Heraia in Arcadia, and Acestor made his statue. The inscription on the statue of Enation does not state his native place, though it does state that he was of Arcadian descent. Two Kolophonians, Hermesianax, son of Agoneus, and Eikasios, son of Lykinos and the daughter of Hermesianax, both won the boys’ wrestling match. The statue of Hermesianax was dedicated by the commonwealth of Kolophon.
{6.17.5} Near these are Eleians who beat the boys at boxing, Khoirilos, the work of Sthennis of Olynthus, and Theotīmos, the work of Daitondas of Sikyon. Theotīmos was a son of Moschion, who took part in the expedition of Alexander, the son of Philip, against Dareios and the Persians. There are two more from Elis, Arkhidamos, who was victorious with a four horse chariot, and Eperastos, the son of Theogonus, victor in the race in armor.
{6.17.6} That he was the soothsayer of the lineage of the Klutidai, Eperastos declares at the end of the inscription:
“Of the stock of the sacred-tongued Klutidai I boast to be,
Their soothsayer, the scion of the god-like Melampodidai.”
Their soothsayer, the scion of the god-like Melampodidai.”
For Mantios was a son of Melampos, the son of Amythaon, and he had a son, Oikles, while Klytios was a son of Alkmaion, the son of Amphiaraos, the son of Oikles. Klytios was the son of Alkmaion by the daughter of Phegeus, and he migrated to Elis because he shrank from living with his mother’s brothers, knowing that they had compassed the murder of Alkmaion.
{6.17.7} Mingled with the less illustrious offerings we may see the statues of Alexinikos of Elis, the work of Kantharos of Sikyon, who won a victory in the boys’ wrestling match, and of Gorgias of Leontinoi. This statue was dedicated at Olympia by Eumolpos, as he himself says, the grandson of Deikrates who married the sister of Gorgias.
{6.17.8} This Gorgias [383] was a son of Kharmantides and is said to have been the first to revive the study of rhetoric, which had been altogether neglected, in fact almost forgotten by mankind. They say that Gorgias won great renown for his eloquence at the Olympic assembly, and also when he accompanied Tisias on an embassy to Athens. Yet Tisias improved the art of rhetoric; in particular, he wrote the most persuasive speech of his time to support the claim of a Syracusan woman to a property.
{6.17.9} However, Gorgias surpassed his fame in Athens; indeed Jason, the tyrant of Thessaly, placed him before Polykrates, who was a shining light of the Athenian school. Gorgias, they say, lived to be one hundred and five years old. Leontinoi was once laid waste by the Syracusans, but in my time was again inhabited.
{6.18.1} There is also a bronze statue of Cratisthenes of Cyrene, and on the chariot stand Victory and Cratisthenes himself. It is thus plain that his victory was in the chariot race. The story goes that Cratisthenes was the son of Mnaseas the runner, surnamed the Libyan by the Greeks. His offerings at Olympia are the work of Pythagoras of Rhēgion.
{6.18.2} Here too I remember discovering the statue of Anaximenes, who wrote a universal history of ancient Greece, including the exploits of Philip the son of Amyntas and the subsequent deeds of Alexander. His honor at Olympia was due to the people of Lampsacus. Anaximenes bequeathed to posterity the following anecdotes about himself. Alexander, the son of Philip, no meek and mild person but a most passionate monarch, he circumvented by the following artifice.
{6.18.3} The people of Lampsacus favored the cause of the Persian king, or were suspected of doing so, and Alexander, boiling over with rage against them, threatened to treat them with utmost rigor. As their wives, their children, and their country itself were in great danger, they sent Anaximenes to intercede for them, because he was known to Alexander himself and had been known to Philip before him. Anaximenes approached, and when Alexander learned for what cause he had come, they say that he swore by the gods of Greece, whom he named, that he would do the opposite of what Anaximenes asked.
{6.18.4} Then Anaximenes said,
“Grant me, O king, this favor. Enslave the women and children of the people of Lampsacus, raze the whole city even to the ground, and burn the sanctuaries of their gods.”
Such were his words, and Alexander, finding no way to counter the trick, and bound by the compulsion of his oath, unwillingly pardoned the people of Lampsacus.
{6.18.5} Anaximenes is also known to have retaliated on a personal enemy in a very clever but very ill-natured way. He had a natural aptitude for rhetoric and for imitating the style of rhetoricians. Having a quarrel with Theopompos, the son of Damasistratos, he wrote a treatise abusing Athenians, Lacedaemonians and Thebans alike. He imitated the style of Theopompos with perfect accuracy, inscribed his name upon the book and sent it round to the cities. Though Anaximenes was the author of the treatise, hatred of Theopompos grew throughout the length of Greece.
{6.18.6} Moreover, Anaximenes was the first to compose extemporary speeches, though I cannot believe that he was the author of the epic on Alexander. Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival [384] was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival, he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act, he was banished by the Cretans.
{6.18.7} The first athletes to have their statues dedicated at Olympia were Praxidamas of Aegina, victorious at boxing at the fifty-ninth Festival, [385] and Rexibios the Opuntian, a competitor at the pankration of the sixty-first Festival. [386] These statues stand near the pillar of Oinomaos and are made of wood, Rexibios of figwood and the Aeginetan of cypress, and his statue is less decayed than the other.
{6.19.1} There is in the Altis to the north of the Hēraion a terrace of conglomerate, and behind it stretches [Mount] Kronion. On this terrace are the treasuries, just as at Delphi certain of the Greeks have made treasuries for Apollo. There is at Olympia a treasury called the treasury of the Sikyonians, dedicated by Myron, who was tyrant of Sikyon.
{6.19.2} Myron built it to commemorate a victory in the chariot race at the thirty-third Festival. [387] In the treasury he made two chambers, one Dorian and one in the Ionic style. I saw that they were made of bronze; whether the bronze is Tartessian, as the Eleians declare, I do not know.
{6.19.3} They say that Tartessus is a river in the land of the Iberians, running down into the sea by two mouths and that between these two mouths lies a city of the same name. The river, which is the largest in Iberia, and tidal, those of a later day called Baetis, and there are some who think that Tartessus was the ancient name of Carpia, a city of the Iberians.
{6.19.4} On the smaller of the chambers at Olympia are inscriptions, which inform us that the weight of the bronze is five hundred talents and that the dedicators were Myron and the Sikyonian people. In this chamber are kept three discuss, being used for the contest of the pentathlon. There is also a bronze-plated shield, adorned with paintings on the inner side, and along with the shield are a helmet and greaves. An inscription on the armor says that they were dedicated by the Myanians as first-fruits to Zeus. Various conjectures have been made as to who these Myanians were.
{6.19.5} I happened to remember that Thucydides [388] in his history mentions various cities of the people of Lokris who live near Phokis, and among them the Myonians. So the Myanians on the shield are in my opinion the same folk as the Myonians on the mainland of Lokris. The letters on the shield are a little distorted, a fault due to the antiquity of the votive offering.
{6.19.6} There are placed here other offerings worthy to be recorded, the sword of Pelops with its hilt of gold, and the ivory horn of Amaltheia, an offering of Miltiades, the son of Kimon, who was the first of his house to rule in the Thracian Chersonesus. On the horn is an inscription in old Attic characters:
“To Olympian Zeus was I dedicated by the men of Chersonesus
After they had taken the fortress of Aratos.
Their leader was Miltiades.”
After they had taken the fortress of Aratos.
Their leader was Miltiades.”
There stands also a box-wood image of Apollo with its head plated with gold. The inscription says that it was dedicated by the people of Lokris who live near the Western Cape, and that the artist was Patrokles of Kroton, the son of Catillus.
{6.19.7} Next to the treasury of the Sikyonians is the treasury of the Carthaginians, the work of Pothaios, Antiphilus, and Megakles. In it are votive offerings—a huge image of Zeus and three linen breast-plates, dedicated by Gelo and the Syracusans after overcoming the Phoenicians in either a naval or a land battle.
{6.19.8} The third of the treasuries, and the fourth as well, were dedicated by the Epidamnians […]. It shows the sky-vault [polos] upheld by Atlas, and also Hēraklēs and the apple tree of the Hesperides, with the snake coiled round the apple tree. These too are of cedarwood, and are works of Theokles, son of Hegylus. The inscription on the sky-vault [polos] says that his son helped him to make it. The Hesperides (they were removed by the Eleians) were even in my time in the Hēraion; the treasury was made for the Epidamnians by Pyrrhos and his sons, Lakrates and Hermon.
{6.19.9} The Sybarites too built a treasury adjoining that of the Byzantines. Those who have studied the history of Italy and of the Italian cities say that Lupiae, situated between Brundusium and Hydrus, has changed its name, and was Sybaris in ancient times. The harbor is artificial, being a work of the emperor Hadrian.
{6.19.10} Near the treasury of the Sybarites is the treasury of the Libyans of Cyrene. In it stand statues of Roman emperors. Selinous in Sicily was destroyed by the Carthaginians in a war, but before the disaster befell them, the citizens made a treasury dedicated to Zeus of Olympia. There stands in it an image of Dionysus with face, feet, and hands of ivory.
{6.19.11} In the treasury of the Metapontines, which adjoins that of the Selinuntians, stands an Endymion; it too is of ivory except the drapery. How it came about that the Metapontines were destroyed I do not know, but today nothing is left of Metaponton but the theater and the circuit of the walls.
{6.19.12} The Megarians who are neighbors of Attica built a treasury and dedicated in it offerings, small cedarwood figures inlaid with gold, representing the fight of Hēraklēs with Akhelōos. The figures include Zeus, Deianeira, Akhelōos, Hēraklēs, and Ares helping Akhelōos. There once stood here an image of Athena, as being an ally of Hēraklēs, but it now stands by the Hesperides in the Hēraion.
{6.19.13} On the pediment of the treasury is carved the war of the giants and the gods, and above the pediment is dedicated a shield, the inscription declaring that the Megarians dedicated the treasury from spoils taken from the Corinthians. I think that the Megarians won this victory when Phorbas, who held a life office, was archon [arkhōn]in Athens. At this time, Athenian offices were not yet annual, nor had the Eleians begun to record the Olympiads.
{6.19.14} The Argives are said to have helped the Megarians in the engagement with the Corinthians. The treasury at Olympia was made by the Megarians years [389] after the battle, but it is to be supposed that they had the offerings from of old, seeing that they were made by the Lacedaemonian Dontas, a pupil of Dipoinos and Skyllis.
{6.19.15} The last of the treasuries is right by the stadium, the inscription stating that the treasury, and the images in it, were dedicated by the people of Gela. The images, however, are no longer there.
{6.20.1} Mount Kronion, as I have already said, extends parallel to the terrace with the treasuries on it. On the summit of the mountain the Basilai, as they are called, sacrifice to Kronos at the spring equinox, in the month called Elaphios among the Eleians.
{6.20.2} Within the periphery of [Mount] Kronion, on the north, [390] between the treasuries [thēsauroi] and the mountain [oros, = Mount Kronion], is a sanctuary [hieron] of Eileithuia, and in it Sosipolis [‘savior of the polis’], a local [epi-khōrios] superhuman force [daimōn] of Elis, receives honors [tīmai]. Now they give to Eileithuia the surname Olympian [Olumpiā], and choose a priestess for the goddess every year. As for the senior priestess who cares for [therapeuein] Sosipolis, she lives a pure ritual life [hagisteuei], in accordance with the customary laws of Elis, bringing to the god [theos] water for washing, and she deposits for him barley cakes [mazai] kneaded with honey [meli].
{6.20.3} In the front part of the temple [nāos], for it is built in two parts, is an altar [bōmos] of Eileithuia and an entrance for humans [anthrōpoi]; in the inner part, Sosipolis receives honors [tīmai], and no one may enter it except the woman who cares for [therapeuein] the god [theos], and she must wrap her head and face in a white fabric [huphos]. Girls [parthenoi] and women [gunaikes] wait in the sanctuary of Eileithuia, singing a hymn [humnos]; they burn all manner of incense to him [Sosipolis], but it is not the custom to pour libations of wine. An oath is taken in the name of Sosipolis on the most important occasions.
{6.20.4} The story is that when the Arcadians had invaded the land of Elis, and the Eleians were set in array against them, a woman came to the Eleian generals, holding a baby to her breast, who said that she was the mother of the child but that she gave him, because of dreams, to fight for the Eleians. The Eleian officers believed that the woman was to be trusted, and placed the child before the army naked.
{6.20.5} When the Arcadians attacked, the child turned at once into a snake [drakōn]. Thrown into disorder at the sight, the Arcadians turned and fled, and were attacked by the Eleians, who won a very famous victory, and so call the god Sosipolis [‘savior of the polis’]. On the spot where after the battle the snake [drakōn] seemed to them to go into the ground, they made the sanctuary [hieron]. Along with him, the Eleians established the custom [nomizein] of worshipping [sebesthai] Eileithuia also, because this goddess [theos] produced her son for humans [anthrōpoi].
{6.20.6} The tomb of the Arcadians who were killed in the battle is on the hill across the Kladeos to the west. Near to the sanctuary of Eileithuia are the remains of the sanctuary of Aphrodite, the celestial one [Ourania], and there too they sacrifice upon the altars.
{6.20.7} There is within the Altis by the processional entrance the Hippodameion, as it is called, about a quarter of an acre of ground surrounded by a wall. Into it once every year the women may enter, who sacrifice to Hippodameia, and do her honor in other ways. The story is that Hippodameia withdrew to Midea in Argolis, because Pelops was very angry with her over the death of Khrysippos. The Eleians declare that subsequently, because of an oracle, they brought the bones of Hippodameia to Olympia.
{6.20.8} At the end of the statues which they made from the fines levied on athletes, there is the entrance called the Hidden Entrance. Through it, umpires and competitors are accustomed to enter the stadium. Now the stadium is an embankment of earth, and on it is a seat for the presidents of the Games. Opposite the umpires is an altar of white marble;
{6.20.9} seated on this altar, a woman looks on at the Olympic Games, the priestess of Demeter, Khamyne, which office the Eleians bestow from time to time on different women. Girls are not debarred from looking on at the Games. At the end of the stadium, where is the starting-place for the runners, there is, the Eleians say, the tomb of Endymion.
{6.20.10} When you have passed beyond the stadium, at the point where the umpires sit, is a place set apart for the horse races, and also the starting place for the horses. The starting place is in the shape of the prow of a ship, and its prow is turned towards the course. At the point where the prow adjoins the porch of Agnaptos it broadens and a bronze dolphin on a rod has been made at the very point of the ram.
{6.20.11} Each side of the starting-place is more than four hundred feet in length, and in the sides are built stalls. These stalls are assigned by lot to those who enter for the races. Before the chariots or race-horses is stretched a cord as a barrier. An altar of unburned brick, plastered on the outside, is made at every Festival as near as possible to the center of the prow,
{6.20.12} and a bronze eagle stands on the altar with his wings stretched out to the fullest extent. The man appointed to start the racing sets in motion the mechanism in the altar, and then the eagle has been made to jump upwards, so as to become visible to the spectators, while the dolphin falls to the ground.
{6.20.13} First, on either side the barriers are withdrawn by the porch of Agnaptos, and the horses standing thereby run off first. As they run they reach those to whom the second station has been allotted, and then are withdrawn the barriers at the second station. The same thing happens to all the horses in turn, until at the ram of the prow, they are all abreast. After this, it is left to the charioteers to display their skill and the horses, their speed.
{6.20.14} It was Kleoitas who originally devised the method of starting, and he appears to have been proud of the discovery, as on the statue in Athens he wrote the inscription:
“Who first invented the method of starting the horses at Olympia,
He made me, Kleoitas the son of Aristokles.”
He made me, Kleoitas the son of Aristokles.”
It is said that after Kleoitas some further device was added to the mechanism by Aristeides.
{6.20.15} The race course has one side longer than the other, and on the longer side, which is a bank, there stands, at the passage through the bank, Taraxippos, the terror of the horses. It has the shape of a round altar, and as they run along, the horses are seized, as soon as they reach this point, by a great fear without any apparent reason. The fear leads to disorder; the chariots generally crash and the charioteers are injured. Consequently, the charioteers offer sacrifice, and pray that Taraxippos may show himself propitious to them.
{6.20.16} The Greeks differ in their view of Taraxippos. Some hold that it is the tomb of an original inhabitant who was skilled in horsemanship; they call him Olenios, and say that after him was named the Olenian rock in the land of Elis. Others say that Dameon, son of Phleious, who took part in the expedition of Hēraklēs against Augeias and the Eleians, was killed along with his charger by Kteatos, the son of Aktor, and that man and horse were buried in the same tomb.
{6.20.17} There is also a story that Pelops made here an empty mound in honor of Myrtilos and sacrificed to him in an effort to calm the anger of the murdered man, naming the mound [391] Taraxippos (Frightener of horses) because the mares of Oinomaos were frightened by the trick of Myrtilos. Some say that it is Oinomaos himself who harms the racers in the course. I have also heard some attach the blame to Alkathos, the son of Porthaon. Killed by Oinomaos because he wooed Hippodameia, Alkathos, they say, here got his portion of earth; having been unsuccessful on the course, he is a spiteful and hostile deity to chariot drivers.
{6.20.18} A man of Egypt said that Pelops received something from Amphion the Theban and buried it in a place that they call Taraxippos, adding that it was the buried thing which frightened the mares of Oinomaos, as well as those of every charioteer since. This Egyptian thought that Amphion and the Thracian Orpheus were clever magicians, and that it was through their enchantments that the beasts came to Orpheus, and the stones came to Amphion for the building of the wall. The most probable of the stories in my opinion makes Taraxippos a surname of Horse Poseidon.
{6.20.19} There is another Taraxippos at the Isthmus, namely Glaukos, the son of Sisyphus. They say that he was killed by his horses, when Akastos held his contests in honor of his father. At Nemeā of the Argives there was no hero who harmed the horses, but above the turning-point of the chariots rose a rock, red in color, and the flash from it terrified the horses, just as though it had been fire. But the Taraxippos at Olympia is much worse for terrifying the horses. On one turning-post is a bronze statue of Hippodameia carrying a ribbon, and about to garland Pelops with it for his victory.
{6.21.1} The other side of the course is not a bank of earth but a low hill. At the foot of the hill has been built a sanctuary to Demeter surnamed Khamyne. Some are of opinion that the name is old, signifying that here the earth gaped [392] for the chariot of Hades and then closed up [393] once more. Others say that Khamynos was a man of Pisa who opposed Pantaleon, the son of Omphalion and despot at Pisa, when he plotted to revolt from Elis; Pantaleon, they say, put him to death, and from his property was built the sanctuary to Demeter.
{6.21.2} In place of the old images of the Maiden and of Demeter, new ones of Pentelic marble were dedicated by Herodes the Athenian. In the gymnasium at Olympia, it is customary for pentathletes and runners to practice, and in the open has been made a basement of stone. Originally, there stood on the basement a trophy to commemorate a victory over the Arcadians. There is also another enclosure, less than this, to the left of the entrance to the gymnasium, and the athletes have their wrestling schools here. Adjoining the wall of the eastern porch of the gymnasium are the dwellings of the athletes, turned towards the southwest.
{6.21.3} On the other side of the Kladeos is the tomb of Oinomaos, a mound of earth with a stone wall built round it, and above the tomb are ruins of buildings in which Oinomaos is said to have stabled his mares. The boundaries which now separate Arcadia and Elis originally separated Arcadia from Pisa, and are thus situated. On crossing the river Erymanthos at what is called the ridge of Saurus are the tomb of Saurus and a sanctuary of Hēraklēs, now in ruins. The story is that Saurus used to do mischief to travelers and to dwellers in the neighborhood until he received his punishment at the hands of Hēraklēs.
{6.21.4} At this ridge which has the same name as the robber, a river, falling into the Alpheios from the south, just opposite the Erymanthos, is the boundary between the land of Pisa and Arcadia; it is called the Diagon. Forty stadium-lengths beyond the ridge of Saurus is a temple of Asklepios, surnamed Demainetos after the founder. It too is in ruins. It was built on the height beside the Alpheios.
{6.21.5} Not far from it is a sanctuary of Dionysus Leucyanites, whereby flows a river Leucyanias. This river too is a tributary of the Alpheios; it descends from Mount Pholoe. Crossing the Alpheios after it, you will be within the land of Pisa.
{6.21.6} In this district is a hill rising to a sharp peak, on which are the ruins of the city of Phrixa, as well as a temple of Athena surnamed Kydonian. This temple is not entire, but the altar is still there. The sanctuary was founded for the goddess, they say, by Klymenos, a descendant of Idaean Hēraklēs, and he came from Kydonia in Crete and from the river Jardanus. The Eleians say that Pelops too sacrificed to Kydonian Athena before he set about his contest with Oinomaos.
{6.21.7} Going on from this point, you come to the water of Parthenia, and by the river is the tomb of the mares of Marmax. The story has it that this Marmax was the first suitor of Hippodameia to arrive, and that he was killed by Oinomaos before the others; that the names of his mares were Parthenia and Eripha; that Oinomaos slew the mares after Marmax, but granted burial to them also, and that the river received the name Parthenia from the mare of Marmax.
{6.21.8} There is another river called Harpinates, and not far from the river are, among the other ruins of a city Harpina, its altars. The city was founded, they say, by Oinomaos, who named it after his mother Harpina.
{6.21.9} A little farther on is a high mound of earth, the tomb of the suitors of Hippodameia. Now Oinomaos, they say, laid them in the ground near one another with no token of respect. But afterwards, Pelops raised a high monument to them all, to honor them and to please Hippodameia. I think too that Pelops wanted a memorial to tell posterity the number and character of the men vanquished by Oinomaos before Pelops himself conquered him.
{6.21.10} According to the epic poem called the Great Eoeae, the next after Marmax to be killed by Oinomaos was Alkathos, son of Porthaon; after Alkathos came Euryalos, Eurymakhos, and Krotalos. Now the parents and fatherlands of these I was unable to discover, but Akrias, the next after them to be killed, one might guess to have been a Lacedaemonian and the founder of Akriai. After Akrias, they say that Oinomaos slew Kapetos, Lycurgus (Lykourgos), Lasios, Khalkodon, and Trikolonos, who, according to the Arcadians, was the descendant and namesake of Trikolonos, the son of Lykaon.
{6.21.11} After Trikolonos the next to meet their fate in the race were Aristomakhos and Prias, and then Pelagon, Aiolios, and Kronios. Some add to the the previously mentioned names Erythras, the son of Leukon, the son of Athamas, after whom was named Erythrai in Boeotia, and Eioneus, the son of Magnes, the son of Aiolos. These are the men whose monument is here, and Pelops, they say, sacrificed every year to them as heroes, when he had won the sovereignty of Pisa.
{6.22.1} Going forward about a stadium-length from the tomb one sees traces of a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Cordax because the followers of Pelops celebrated their victory by the side of this goddess and danced the cordax, a dance peculiar to the dwellers round Mount Sipylos. Not far from the sanctuary is a small building containing a bronze chest, in which are kept the bones of Pelops. Of the wall and of the rest of the building, there were no remains, but vines were planted over all the district where Pisa stood.
{6.22.2} The founder of the city, they say, was Pisos, the son of Perieres, the son of Aeolus. The people of Pisa brought of themselves disaster on their own heads by their hostility to the Eleians, and by their keenness to preside over the Olympic Games instead of them. At the eighth Festival [394] they brought in Pheidon of Argos, the most overbearing of the Greek tyrants, and held the Games along with him, while at the thirty-fourth Festival [395] the people of Pisa, with their king Pantaleon, the son of Omphalion, collected an army from the neighborhood, and held the Olympic Games instead of the Eleians.
{6.22.3} These Festivals, as well as the hundred and fourth, [396] which was held by the Arcadians, are called “Non-Olympiads” by the Eleians, who do not include them in a list of Olympiads. At the forty-eighth Festival, [397] Damophon, the son of Pantaleon, gave the Eleians reasons for suspecting that he was intriguing against them, but when they invaded the land of Pisa with an army, he persuaded them by prayers and oaths to return quietly home again.
{6.22.4} When Pyrrhos, the son of Pantaleon, succeeded his brother Damophon as king, the people of Pisa of their own accord made war against Elis and were joined in their revolt from the Eleians by the people of Makistos and Skillos, which are in Triphylia, and by the people of Dyspontium, another vassal community. The list were closely related to the people of Pisa, and it was a tradition of theirs that their founder had been Dysponteus, the son of Oinomaos. It was the fate of Pisa, and of all her allies, to be destroyed by the Eleians.
{6.22.5} Of Pylos in the land of Elis the ruins are to be seen on the mountain road from Olympia to Elis, the distance between Elis and Pylos being eighty stadium-lengths. This Pylos was founded, as I have already said, [398] by a Megarian called Pylon, the son of Kleson. Destroyed by Hēraklēs and refounded by the Eleians, the city was doomed in time to be without inhabitants. Beside it, the river Ladon flows into the Peneios.
{6.22.6} The Eleians declare that there is a reference to this Pylos in the passage of Homer:
“And he was descended from the river
Alpheios, that in broad stream flows through the land of the Pylians.”
Alpheios, that in broad stream flows through the land of the Pylians.”
Iliad V 544
The Eleians convinced me that they are right. For the Alpheios does flow through this district, and the passage cannot refer to another Pylos. For the land of the Pylians over against the island Sphakteria simply cannot in the nature of things be crossed by the Alpheios, and, moreover, we know of no city in Arcadia named Pylos.
{6.22.7} Distant from Olympia about fifty stadium-lengths is Herakleia, a village of the Eleians, and beside it is a river Cytherus. A spring flows into the river, and there is a sanctuary of nymphs near the spring. Individually, the names of the nymphs are Kalliphaiïa, Synallasis, Pegaia, and Iasis, but their common surname is the Ionides. Those who bathe in the spring are cured of all sorts of aches and pains. They say that the nymphs are named after Ion, the son of Gargettos, who migrated to this place from Athens.
{6.22.8} If you wish to go to Elis through the plain, you will travel one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths to Letrini, and one hundred and eighty from Letrini to Elis. Originally, Letrini was a town, and Letreus, the son of Pelops, was its founder; but in my time were left a few buildings, with an image of Artemis Alpheiaea in a temple.
{6.22.9} It is said that the goddess received the surname for the following reason. Alpheios fell in love with Artemis, and then, realizing that persuasive entreaties would not win the goddess as his bride, he dared to plot violence against her. Artemis was holding at Letrini an all-night revel with the nymphs who were her playmates, and to it came Alpheios. But Artemis had a suspicion of the plot of Alpheios, and smeared with mud her own face and the faces of the nymphs with her. So Alpheios, when he joined the throng, could not distinguish Artemis from the others, and, not being able to pick her out, went away without bringing off his attempt.
{6.22.10} The people of Letrini called the goddess Alpheian because of the love of Alpheios for her. But the Eleians, who from the first had been friends of Letrini, transferred to that city the worship of Artemis Elaphiaea established amongst themselves, and held that they were worshipping Artemis Alpheiaea, and so in time, the Alpheiaean goddess came to be named Elaphiaea.
{6.22.11} The Eleians, I think, called Artemis Elaphiaea from the hunting of the deer (elaphos). But they themselves say that Elaphios was the name of a native woman by whom Artemis was reared. About six stadium-lengths distant from Letrini is a lake that never dries up, being just about three stadium-lengths across.
{6.23.1} One of the noteworthy things in Elis is an old gymnasium. In this gymnasium, the athletes are accustomed to go through the training through which they must pass before going to Olympia. High plane trees grow between the tracks inside a wall. The whole of this enclosure is called Xystos, because an exercise of Hēraklēs, the son of Amphitryo, was to scrape up [anaxuein] each day all the thistles that grew there.
{6.23.2} The track for the competing runners, called by the natives the Sacred Track, is separate from that on which the runners and pentathletes practice. In the gymnasium is the place called Plethrium. In it, the umpires match the competitors according to age and skill; it is for wrestling that they match them.
{6.23.3} There are also in the gymnasium altars of the gods, of Idaean Hēraklēs, surnamed Comrade, of Love, of the deity called by Eleians and Athenians alike Love Returned, of Demeter and of her daughter. Achilles has no altar, only a cenotaph raised to him because of an oracle. On an appointed day at the beginning of the festival, when the course of the sun is sinking towards the west, the Eleian women do honor to Achilles, especially by bewailing him.
{6.23.4} There is another enclosed gymnasium, but smaller, adjoining the larger one and called Square because of its shape. Here the athletes practice wrestling, and here, when they have no more wrestling to do, they are matched in contests with the softer gloves. There is also dedicated here one of the images made in honor of Zeus out of the fines imposed upon Sosandros of Smyrna and upon Polyktor of Elis.
{6.23.5} There is also a third enclosed gymnasium, called Maltho from the softness of its floor, and reserved for the youths for the whole time of the festival. In a corner of the Maltho is a bust of Hēraklēs as far as the shoulders, and in one of the wrestling-schools is a relief showing Love and Love Returned, as he is called. Love holds a palm-branch, and Love Returned is trying to take the palm from him.
{6.23.6} On each side of the entrance to the Maltho stands an image of a boy boxer. He was by birth, so the Guardian of the Laws at Elis told me, from Alexandria over against the island Pharos, and his name was Sarapion; arriving at Elis when the townsfolk were suffering from famine, he supplied them with food. For this reason, these honors were paid him here. The time of his garland at Olympia and of his benefaction to the Eleians was the two hundred and seventeenth Festival. [399]
{6.23.7} In this gymnasium is also the Eleian Council House, where exhibitions of extempore speeches and recitations of written works of all kinds take place. It is called Lalichmium, after the man who dedicated it. About it are dedicated shields, which are for show and not made to be used in war.
{6.23.8} The way from the gymnasium to the baths passes through the Street of Silence and beside the sanctuary of Artemis Philomeirax. The goddess is so surnamed because she is neighbor to the gymnasium; the street received, they say, the name of Silence for the following reason. Men of the army of Oxylos were sent to spy out what was happening in Elis. On the way, they exhorted each other, when they should be near the wall, themselves to keep a strict silence, but to listen attentively if perchance they might learn something from the people in the town. These men by this street reached the town unobserved, and after hearing all they wished, they went back again to the Aetolians. So the street received its name from the silence of the spies.
{6.24.1} One of the two ways from the gymnasium leads to the marketplace and to what is called the Umpires’ Room; it is above the tomb of Achilles, and by it, the umpires are accustomed to go to the gymnasium. They enter before sunrise to match the runners, and at midday for the pentathlon and for such contests as are called heavy.
{6.24.2} The marketplace of Elis is not after the fashion of the cities of Ionia and of the Greek cities near Ionia; it is built in the older manner, with porticoes separated from each other and with streets through them. The modern name of the marketplace is Hippodromos, and the natives train their horses there. Of the porticoes the southern is in the Doric style, and it is divided by the pillars into three parts. In it, the umpires generally spend the day.
{6.24.3} At the pillars, they also cause altars to be made to Zeus, and in the open marketplace are the altars, in number not many; for, their construction being improvised, they are without difficulty taken to pieces. As you enter the marketplace at this portico, the Umpires’ Room is on your left, parallel to the end of the portico. What separates it from the marketplace is a street. In this Umpires’ Room dwell for ten consecutive months the umpires elect, who are instructed by the Guardians of the Law as to their duties at the festival.
{6.24.4} Near to the portico where the umpires pass the day is another portico, between the two being one street. The Eleians call it the Corcyrean, because, they say, the Corcyreans landed in their country and carried off part of the plunder, but they themselves took many times as much loot from the land of the Corcyreans and built the portico from the tithe of the spoils.
{6.24.5} The portico is in the Doric style and double, having its pillars both on the side towards the marketplace and on the side away from it. Down the center of it the roof is supported, not by pillars, but by a wall, beside which on either side have been dedicated statues. On the side of the portico towards the marketplace stands a statue of Pyrrhon, son of Pistokrates, a sophist who never brought himself to make a definite admission on any matter. The tomb also of Pyrrhon is not far from the town of the Eleians. The name of the place is Petra, and it is said that Petra was a township in ancient times.
{6.24.6} The most notable things that the Eleians have in the open part of the marketplace are a temple and image of Apollo Healer. The meaning of the name would appear to be exactly the same as that of Averter of Evil, the name current among the Athenians. In another part are the stone images of the sun and of the moon; from the head of the moon project horns, from the head of the sun, his rays. There is also a sanctuary to the Graces; the images are of wood, with their clothes gilded, while their faces, hands and feet are of white marble. One of them holds a rose, the middle one a die, and the third a small branch of myrtle.
{6.24.7} The reason for their holding these things may be guessed to be this. The rose and the myrtle are sacred to Aphrodite and connected with the story of Adonis, while the Graces are of all deities the nearest related to Aphrodite. As for the die, it is the plaything of youths and maidens, who have nothing of the ugliness of old age. On the right of the Graces is an image of Love, standing on the same pedestal.
{6.24.8} Here is also a temple of Silenus, which is sacred to Silenus alone, and not to him in common with Dionysus. Drunkenness is offering him wine in a cup. That the Silenuses are humans you may infer especially from their tombs, for there is a tomb of a Silenus in the land of the Hebrews, and of another at Pergamon.
{6.24.9} In the marketplace of Elis, I saw something else, a low structure in the form of a temple. It has no walls, the roof being supported by pillars made of oak. The natives agree that it is a tomb, but they do not remember whose it is. If the old man I asked spoke the truth, it would be the tomb of Oxylos.
{6.24.10} There is also in the marketplace a building for the women called the Sixteen, where they weave the robe for Hērā. Adjoining the marketplace is an old temple surrounded by pillars; the roof has fallen down, and I found no image in the temple. It is dedicated to the Roman emperors.
{6.25.1} Behind the portico built from the spoils of Corcyra is a temple of Aphrodite, the precinct being in the open, not far from the temple. The goddess in the temple they call the celestial one [Ourania]; she is of ivory and gold, the work of Pheidias, and she stands with one foot upon a tortoise. The precinct of the other Aphrodite is surrounded by a wall, and within the precinct has been made a basement, upon which sits a bronze image of Aphrodite upon a bronze he-goat. It is a work of Scopas, and the Aphrodite is named Common. The meaning of the tortoise and of the he-goat I leave to those who care to guess.
{6.25.2} The sacred enclosure of Hades and its temple (for the Eleians have these among their possessions) are opened once every year, but not even on this occasion is anybody permitted to enter except the priest. The following is the reason why the Eleians worship Hades; they are the only men we know of who do so. It is said that, when Hēraklēs was leading an expedition against Pylos in Elis, Athena was one of his allies. Now among those who came to fight on the side of the Pylians was Hades, who was the foe of Hēraklēs but was worshipped at Pylos.
{6.25.3} Homer is quoted in support of the story, who says in the Iliad:
“And among them huge Hades suffered a wound from a swift arrow,
When the same man, the son of aegis-bearing Zeus,
Hit him in Pylus among the dead, and gave him over to pains.”
When the same man, the son of aegis-bearing Zeus,
Hit him in Pylus among the dead, and gave him over to pains.”
Iliad V 395–397
If in the expedition of Agamemnon and Menelaos against Troy, Poseidon was according to Homer an ally of the Greeks, it cannot be unnatural for the same poet to hold that Hades helped the Pylians. At any rate, it was in the belief that the god was their friend but the enemy of Hēraklēs that the Eleians made the sanctuary for him. The reason why they are accustomed to open it only once each year is, I suppose, because men too go down only once to Hades.
{6.25.4} The Eleians have also a sanctuary of Fortune. In a portico of the sanctuary has been dedicated a colossal image, made of gilded wood except the face, hands, and feet, which are of white marble. Here Sosipolis too is worshipped in a small shrine on the left of the sanctuary of Fortune. The god is painted according to his appearance in a dream: in age, a boy, wrapped in a star-spangled robe, and in one hand holding the horn of Amaltheia.
{6.25.5} In the most thickly populated part of Elis is a statue of bronze no taller than a tall man; it represents a beardless youth with his legs crossed, leaning with both hands upon a spear. They cast about it a garment of wool, one of flax and one of fine linen.
{6.25.6} This image was said to be of Poseidon, and to have been worshipped in ancient times at Samikon in Triphylia. Transferred to Elis, it received still greater honor, but the Eleians call it Satrap and not Poseidon, having learned the name Satrap, which is a surname of Corybas, after the enlargement of Patrae.
{6.26.1} Between the marketplace and the Menios is an old theater and a shrine of Dionysus. The image is the work of Praxiteles. Of the gods, the Eleians worship Dionysus with the greatest reverence, and they assert that the god attends their festival, the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival, they name the Thyia is about eight stadium-lengths from the city. Three pots are brought into the building by the priests and set down empty in the presence of the citizens and of any strangers who may chance to be in the country. The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may be so inclined.
{6.26.2} On the morrow they are allowed to examine the seals, and on going into the building, they find the pots filled with wine. I did not myself arrive at the time of the festival, but the most respected Eleian citizens, and with them strangers also, swore that what I have said is the truth. The Andrians too assert that every other year at their feast of Dionysus, wine flows of its own accord from the sanctuary. If the Greeks are to be believed in these matters, one might with equal reason accept what the Ethiopians above Syene say about the table of the sun. [400]
{6.26.3} On the Acropolis of the Eleians is a sanctuary of Athena. The image is of ivory and gold. They say that the goddess is the work of Pheidias. On her helmet is an image of a rooster, this bird being very ready to fight. The bird might also be considered as sacred to Athena the worker.
{6.26.4} Cyllene is one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths distant from Elis; it faces Sicily and affords ships a suitable anchorage. It is the port of Elis, and received its name from a man of Arcadia. Homer does not mention Cyllene in the list of the Eleians, but in a later part of the poem, he has shown that Cyllene was one of the towns he knew.
{6.26.5} “Poulydamas stripped Otos of Cyllene,
Comrade of Phyleides and ruler of the great-souled Epeians.”
Comrade of Phyleides and ruler of the great-souled Epeians.”
Iliad V 518
In Cyllene is a sanctuary of Asklepios, and one of Aphrodite. But the image of Hermes, most devoutly worshipped by the inhabitants, is merely the male member upright on the pedestal.
{6.26.6} The land of Elis is fruitful, being especially suited to the growth of fine flax. Now while hemp and flax, both the ordinary and the fine variety, are sown by those whose soil is suited to grow it, the threads from which the Seres make the dresses are produced from no bark, but in a different way as follows. There is in the land of the Seres an insect which the Greeks call ser, though the Seres themselves give it another name.
{6.26.7} Its size is twice that of the largest beetle, but in other respects, it is like the spiders that spin under trees, and furthermore it has, like the spider, eight feet. These creatures are reared by the Seres, who build them houses adapted for winter and for summer. The product of the creatures, a clue of fine thread, is found rolled round their feet.
{6.26.8} They keep them for four years, feeding them on millet, but in the fifth year, knowing that they have no longer to live, they give them green reed to eat. This of all foods the creature likes best; so it stuffs itself with the reed till it bursts with surfeit, and after it has thus died they find inside it the greater part of the thread. Seria is known to be an island lying in a recess of the Red Sea.
{6.26.9} But I have heard that it is not the Red Sea, but a river called Ser, that makes this island, just as in Egypt, the Delta is surrounded by the Nile and by no sea. Such another island is Seria said to be. These Seres themselves are of Ethiopian lineage, as are the inhabitants of the neighboring islands, Abasa and Sacaea. Some say, however, that they are not Ethiopians but a mixed lineage of Scythians and Indians.
{6.26.10} Such are the accounts that are given. As you go from Elis to Achaea, you come after one hundred and fifty-seven stadium-lengths to the river Larisos, and in modern days, this river forms the boundary between Elis and Achaea, though of old the boundary was Cape Araxos on the coast.
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Scroll VII. Achaea
{7.1.1} The land between Elis and Sikyonia, reaching down to the eastern sea, is now called Achaea after the inhabitants, but of old was called Aigialeus and those who lived in it Aegialians. According to the Sikyonians the name is derived from Aigialeus, who was king in what is now Sikyonia; others say that it is from the land, the greater part of which is coast (aigialos).
{7.1.2} Later on, after the death of Hellen, Xuthus was expelled from Thessaly by the rest of the sons of Hellen, who charged him with having appropriated some of the ancestral property. But he fled to Athens, where he was deemed worthy to wed the daughter of Erekhtheus, by whom he had sons, Achaios and Ion. On the death of Erekhtheus Xuthus was appointed judge to decide which of his sons should succeed him. He decided that Kekrops, the eldest of them, should be king, and was accordingly banished from the land by the rest of the sons of Erekhtheus.
{7.1.3} He reached Aigialos, made his home there, and there died. Of his sons, Achaios with the assistance of allies from Aigialos and Athens returned to Thessaly and recovered the throne of his fathers: Ion, while gathering an army against the people of Aigialos and Selinous their king, received a message from Selinous, who offered to give him in marriage Helike, his only child, as well as to adopt him as his son and successor.
{7.1.4} It so happened that the proposal found favor with Ion, and on the death of Selinous he became king of the people of Aigialos. He called the city he founded in Aigialos Helike after his wife, and called the inhabitants Ionians after himself. This, however, was not a change of name, but an addition to it, for the people were named ‘Ionians of Aigialos’. The original name clung to the land even longer than to the people; for at any rate in the list of the allies of Agamemnon, Homer [401] Is content to mention the ancient name of the land:
“Throughout all Aigialos and about wide Helike.”
Iliad 2.575
{7.1.5} At that time in the reign of Ion the Eleusinians made war on the Athenians, and these having invited Ion to be their leader in the war, he met his death in Attica, his tomb being in the deme of Potamus. The descendants of Ion became rulers of the Ionians, until they themselves as well as the people were expelled by the Achaeans. The Achaeans at that time had themselves been expelled from Lacedaemon and Argos by the Dorians.
{7.1.6} The history of the Ionians in relation to the Achaeans I will give as soon as I have explained the reason why the inhabitants of Lacedaemon and Argos were the only Peloponnesians to be called Achaeans before the return of the Dorians. Arkhandros and Arkhiteles, sons of Achaios, came from Phthiōtis to Argos, and after their arrival became sons-in-law of Danaos, Arkhiteles marrying Automate and Arkhandros Scaea. A very clear proof that they settled in Argos is the fact that Arkhandros named his son Metanastes (Settler).
{7.1.7} When the sons of Achaios came to power in Argos and Lacedaemon, the inhabitants of these towns came to be called Achaeans. The name Achaeans was common to them; the Argives had the special name of Danai. On the occasion referred to, being expelled by the Dorians from Argos and Lacedaemon, the Achaeans themselves and their king Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, sent heralds to the Ionians, offering to settle among them without warfare. But the kings of the Ionians were afraid that, if the Achaeans united with them, Tisamenus would be chosen king of the combined people because of his manliness and noble lineage.
{7.1.8} The Ionians rejected the proposal of the Achaeans and came out to fight them; in the battle Tisamenus was killed, the Ionians were overcome by the Achaeans, fled to Helike, where they were besieged, and afterwards were allowed to depart under a truce. The body of Tisamenus was buried in Helike by the Achaeans, but afterwards at the command of the Delphic oracle the Lacedaemonians carried his bones to Sparta, and in my own day his tomb still existed in the place where the Lacedaemonians take the dinner called Pheiditia.
{7.1.9} The Ionians went to Attica, and they were allowed to settle there by the Athenians and their king Melanthos, the son of Andropompus, I suppose for the sake of Ion and his achievements when he was commander-in-chief of the Athenians. Another account is that the Athenians suspected that the Dorians would not keep their hands off them, and received the Ionians to strengthen themselves rather than for any goodwill they felt towards the Ionians.
{7.2.1} A few years afterwards Medon and Neileus, the oldest of the sons of Kodros, quarrelled about the rule, and Neileus refused to allow Medon to rule over him, because he was lame in one foot. The disputants agreed to refer the matter to the Delphic oracle, and the Pythian priestess gave the kingdom of Athens to Medon. So Neileus and the rest of the sons of Kodros set out to found a colony, taking with them any Athenian who wished to go with them, but the greatest number of their company was composed of Ionians.
{7.2.2} This was the third expedition sent out from Greece under kings of a lineage different from that of the common folk. The earliest was when Iolaos of Thebes, the nephew of Hēraklēs, led the Athenians and Thespians to Sardinia. One generation before the Ionians set sail from Athens, the Lacedaemonians and Minyans who had been expelled from Lemnos by the Pelasgians were led by the Theban Theras, the son of Autesion, to the island now called after him, but formerly named Kalliste.
{7.2.3} The third occasion was the expedition to which I have referred, when the sons of Kodros were appointed leaders of the Ionians, although they were not related to them, but were, through Kodros and Melanthos, Messenians of Pylos, and, on their mother’s side, Athenians. Those who shared in the expedition of the Ionians were the following among the Greeks: some Thebans under Philotas, a descendant of Peneleus; Minyans of Orkhomenos, because they were related to the sons of Kodros.
{7.2.4} There also took part all the people of Phokis except the Delphians, and with them Abantes from Euboea. Ships for the voyage were given to the men of Phokis by Philogenes and Damon, Athenians and sons of Euctemon, who themselves led the colony. When they landed in Asia they divided, the different parties attacking the different cities on the coast, and Neileus with his party made for Miletus.
{7.2.5} The Milesians themselves give the following account of their earliest history. For two generations, they say, their land was called Anaktoria, during the reigns of Anax, an aboriginal, and of Asterios his son; but when Miletus landed with an army of Cretans both the land and the city changed their name to Miletus. Miletus and his men came from Crete, fleeing from Minos, the son of Europa; the Carians, the former inhabitants of the land, united with the Cretans. But to resume.
{7.2.6} When the Ionians had overcome the ancient Milesians they killed every male, except those who escaped at the capture of the city, but the wives of the Milesians and their daughters they married.
The tomb of Neileus is on the left of the road, not far from the gate, as you go to Didymi. The sanctuary of Apollo at Didymi, and his oracle, are earlier than the immigration of the Ionians, while the cult of Ephesian Artemis is far more ancient still than their coming.
{7.2.7} Pindar, however, it seems to me, did not learn everything about the goddess, for he says that this sanctuary was founded by the Amazons during their campaign against Athens and Theseus. [402] It is a fact that the women from the Thermodon, as they knew the sanctuary from of old, sacrificed to the Ephesian goddess both on this occasion and when they had fled from Hēraklēs; some of them earlier still, when they had fled from Dionysus, having come to the sanctuary as suppliants. However, it was not by the Amazons that the sanctuary was founded, but by Koresos, an aboriginal, and Ephesos, who is thought to have been a son of the river Cayster, and from Ephesos the city received its name.
{7.2.8} The inhabitants of the land were partly Leleges, a branch of the Carians, but the greater number were Lydians. In addition there were others who dwelled around the sanctuary for the sake of its protection, and these included some women originating from the lineage of the Amazons. But Androklos the son of Kodros (for he it was who was appointed king of the Ionians who sailed against Ephesos) expelled from the land the Leleges and Lydians who occupied the upper city. Those, however, who dwelled around the sanctuary had nothing to fear; they exchanged oaths of friendship with the Ionians and escaped warfare. Androklos also took Samos from the Samians, and for a time the Ephesians held Samos and the adjacent islands.
{7.2.9} But after that the Samians had returned to their own land, Androklos helped the people of Priene against the Carians. The Greek army was victorious, but Androklos was killed in the battle. The Ephesians carried off his body and buried it in their own land, at the spot where his tomb is pointed out at the present day, on the road leading from the sanctuary past the Olympieum to the Magnesian gate. On the tomb is a statue of an armed man.
{7.2.10} The Ionians who settled at Myus and Priene, they too took the cities from Carians. The founder of Myus was Kyaretos the son of Kodros, but the people of Priene, half Theban and half Ionian, had as their founders Philotas, the descendant of Peneleus, and Aipytos, the son of Neileus. The people of Priene, although they suffered much at the hands of Tabutes the Persian and afterwards at the hands of Hieron, a native, yet down to the present day are accounted Ionians. The people of Myus left their city on account of the following accident.
{7.2.11} A small inlet of the sea used to run into their land. This inlet the river Maeander turned into a lake, by blocking up the entrance with mud. When the water, ceasing to be sea, became fresh, [403] gnats in vast swarms bred in the lake until the inhabitants were forced to leave the city. They departed for Miletus, taking with them the images of the gods and their other movables, and on my visit I found nothing in Myus except a white marble temple of Dionysus. A similar fate to that of Myus happened to the people of Atarneus, under Mount Pergamos.
{7.3.1} The people of Kolophon suppose that the sanctuary at Klaros, and the oracle, were founded in the remotest antiquity. They assert that while the Carians still held the land, the first Greeks to arrive were Cretans under Rhakios, who was followed by a great crowd also; these occupied the shore and were strong in ships, but the greater part of the country continued in the possession of the Carians. When Thebes was taken by Thersandros, the son of Polyneikes, and the Argives, among the prisoners brought to Apollo at Delphi was Manto. Her father Teiresias had died on the way, in Haliartia,
{7.3.2} and when the god had sent them out to found a colony, they crossed in ships to Asia, but as they came to Klaros, the Cretans came against them armed and carried them away to Rhakios. But he, learning from Manto who they were and why they were come, took Manto to wife, and allowed the people with her to inhabit the land. Mopsos, the son of Rhakios and of Manto, drove the Carians from the country altogether.
{7.3.3} The Ionians swore an oath to the Greeks in Kolophon, and lived with them in one city on equal terms, but the kingship was taken by the Ionian leaders, Damasichthon and Promethus, sons of Kodros. Afterwards Promethus killed his brother Damasichthon and fled to Naxos, where he died, but his body was carried home and received by the sons of Damasichthon. The name of the place where Damasichthon is buried is called Polyteichides.
{7.3.4} How it befell that Kolophon was laid waste I have already related in my account of Lysimakhos. [404] Of those who were transported to Ephesos only the people of Kolophon fought against Lysimakhos and the Macedonians. The tomb of those Kolophonians and Smyrnaeans who fell in the battle is on the left of the road as you go to Klaros.
{7.3.5} The city of Lebedos was razed to the ground by Lysimakhos, simply in order that the population of Ephesos might be increased. The land around Lebedos is a happy one; in particular its hot baths are more numerous and more pleasant than any others on the coast. Originally Lebedos also was inhabited by the Carians, until they were driven out by Andraemon the son of Kodros and the Ionians. The tomb of Andraemon is on the left of the road as you go from Kolophon, when you have crossed the river Calaon.
{7.3.6} Teos used to be inhabited by Minyans of Orkhomenos, who came to it with Athamas. This Athamas is said to have been a descendant of Athamas the son of Aeolus. Here too there was a Carian element combined with the Greek, while Ionians were introduced into Teos by Apoecus, a great-grandchild of Melanthos, who showed no hostility either to the Orkhomenians or to the Teians. A few years later there came men from Athens and from Boeotia; the Attic contingent was under Damasus and Naoklos, the sons of Kodros, while the Boeotians were led by Geres, a Boeotian. Both parties were received by Apoecus and the Teians as fellow-settlers.
{7.3.7} The Erythraeans say that they came originally from Crete with Erythrus the son of Rhadamanthus, and that this Erythrus was the founder of their city. Along with the Cretans there dwelled in the city Lycians, Carians and Pamphylians; Lycians because of their kinship with the Cretans, as they came of old from Crete, having fled along with Sarpedon; Carians because of their ancient friendship with Minos; Pamphylians because they too belong to the Greek lineage, being among those who after the taking of Troy wandered with Calchas. The peoples I have enumerated occupied Erythraiwhen Kleopos the son of Kodros gathered men from all the cities of Ionia, so many from each, and introduced them as settlers among the Erythraeans.
{7.3.8} The cities of Klazomenai and Phokaia were not inhabited before the Ionians came to Asia. When the Ionians arrived, a wandering division of them sent for a leader, Parphorus, from the Kolophonians, and founded under Mount Ida a city which shortly afterwards they abandoned, and returning to Ionia they founded Scyppium in the Kolophonian territory.
{7.3.9} They left of their own free-will Kolophonian territory also, and so occupied the land which they still hold, and built on the mainland the city of Klazomenai. Later they crossed over to the island through their fear of the Persians. But in course of time Alexander the son of Philip was destined to make Klazomenai a peninsula by a mole from the mainland to the island. Of these Clazomenians the greater part were not Ionians, but people from Kleonai and Phleious, who abandoned their cities when the Dorians had returned to Peloponnesus.
{7.3.10} The people of Phokaia are by birth from the land under Parnassus still called Phokis, who crossed to Asia with the Athenians Philogenes and Damon. Their land they took from the Cymaeans, not by war but by agreement. When the Ionians would not admit them to the Ionian confederacy until they accepted kings originating from the lineage of the Kodridai, they accepted Deoetes, Periklos and Abartos from Erythraiand from Teos.
{7.4.1} The cities of the Ionians on the islands are Samos over against Mykale and Chios opposite Mimas. Asios, the son of Amphiptolemos, a Samian, says in his epic that there were born to Phoenix Astypalaia and Europa, whose mother was Perimede, the daughter of Oineus; that Astypalaia had by Poseidon a son Ankaios, who reigned over those called Leleges; that Ankaios took to wife Samia, the daughter of the river Maeander, and begat Perilaos, Enudus, Samus, Alitherses and a daughter Parthenope; and that Parthenope had a son Lycomedes by Apollo.
{7.4.2} Thus far Asios in his poem. But on the occasion to which I refer the inhabitants of the island received the Ionians as settlers more of necessity than through good.will. The leader of the Ionians was Prokles, the son of Pityreus, Epidaurian himself like the greater part of his followers, who had been expelled from Epidauria by Deiphontes and the Argives. This Prokles was descended from Ion, son of Xuthus. But the Ephesians under Androklos made war on Leogorus, the son of Prokles, who reigned in Samos after his father, and after conquering them in a battle drove the Samians out of their island, accusing them of conspiring with the Carians against the Ionians.
{7.4.3} The Samians fled and some of them made their home in an island near Thrace, and as a result of their settling there the name of the island was changed from Dardania to Samothrace. Others with Leogorus threw a wall round Anaea on the mainland opposite Samos, and ten years after crossed over, expelled the Ephesians and reoccupied the island.
{7.4.4} Some say that the sanctuary of Hērā in Samos was established by those who sailed in the Argo, and that these brought the image from Argos. But the Samians themselves hold that the goddess was born in the island by the side of the river Imbrasus under the withy that even in my time grew in the Hēraion. That this sanctuary is very old might be inferred especially by considering the image; for it is the work of an Aeginetan, Smilis, the son of Eukleides. This Smilis was a contemporary of Daidalos, though of less repute.
{7.4.5} Daidalos belonged to the royal Athenian clan called the Metionidai, and he was rather famous among all men not only for his art but also for his wandering and his misfortunes. For he killed his sister’s son, and knowing the customs of his city he went into exile of his own accord to Minos in Crete. There he made images for Minos and for the daughters of Minos, as Homer sets forth in the Iliad [405]
{7.4.6} but being condemned by Minos on some charge he was thrown into prison along with his son. He escaped from Crete and came to Cocalus at Inycus, a city of Sicily. Thereby he became the cause of war between Sicilians and Cretans, because when Minos demanded him back, Cocalus refused to give him up. He was so much admired by the daughters of Cocalus for his artistic skill that to please him these women actually plotted against Minos to put him to death.
{7.4.7} It is plain that the renown of Daidalos spread over all Sicily and even over the greater part of Italy. But as for Smilis, it is not clear that he visited any places save Samos and Elis. But to these he did travel, and he it was who made the image of Hērā in Samos.
{7.4.8} … Ion the tragic poet says in his history that Poseidon came to the island when it was uninhabited; that there he had intercourse with a nymph, and that when she was in her pains there was a fall of snow [chion], and that accordingly Poseidon called his son Chios. Ion also says that Poseidon had intercourse with another nymph, by whom he had Agelus and Melas; that in course of time Oinopion too sailed with a fleet from Crete to Chios, accompanied by his sons Talus, Euanthes, Melas, Salagus and Athamas.
{7.4.9} Carians too came to the island, in the reign of Oinopion, and Abantes from Euboea. Oinopion and his sons were succeeded by Amphiklos, who because of an oracle from Delphi came from Histiaea in Euboea. Three generations from Amphiklos, Hector, who also had made himself king, made war on those Abantes and Carians who lived in the island, slew some in battle, and forced others to surrender and depart.
{7.4.10} When the Chians were rid of war, it occurred to Hector that they ought to unite with the Ionians in sacrificing at Panionium. It is said that the Ionian confederacy gave him a tripod as a prize for valor. Such was the account of the Chians that I found given by Ion. However, he gives no reason why the Chians are classed with the Ionians.
{7.5.1} Smyrna, one of the twelve Aeolian cities, built on that site which even now they call the old city, was seized by Ionians who set out from Kolophon and displaced the Aeolians; subsequently, however, the Ionians allowed the Smyrnaeans to take their place in the general assembly at Panionium. The modern city was founded by Alexander, the son of Philip, in accordance with a vision in a dream.
{7.5.2} It is said that Alexander was hunting on Mount Pagus, and that after the hunt was over he came to a sanctuary of the Nemeses, and found there a spring and a plane tree in front of the sanctuary, growing over the water. While he slept under the plane tree it is said that the Nemeses appeared and ordered him to found a city there and to remove into it the Smyrnaeans from the old city.
{7.5.3} So the Smyrnaeans sent ambassadors to Klaros to make inquiries about the circumstance, and the god made answer:
“Thrice, yes, four times blest will those men be
Who shall dwell in Pagus beyond the sacred Meles.”
Who shall dwell in Pagus beyond the sacred Meles.”
So they migrated of their own free will, and believe now in two Nemeses instead of one, saying that their mother is Night, while the Athenians say that the father of the goddess [406] in Rhamnus is Okeanos.
{7.5.4} The land of the Ionians has the finest possible climate, and sanctuaries such as are to be found nowhere else. First because of its size and wealth is that of the Ephesian goddess, and then come two unfinished sanctuaries of Apollo, the one in Brankhidai, in Milesian territory, and the one at Klaros in the land of the Kolophonians. Besides these, two temples in Ionia were burned down by the Persians, the one of Hērā in Samos and that of Athena at Phokaia. Damaged though they are by fire, I found them a wonder.
{7.5.5} You would be delighted too with the sanctuary of Hēraklēs at Erythraiand with the temple of Athena at Priene, the latter because of its image and the former on account of its age. The image is like neither the Aeginetan, as they are called, nor yet the most ancient Attic images; it is absolutely Egyptian, if ever there was such. There was a wooden raft, on which the god set out from Tyre in Phoenicia. The reason for this we are not told even by the Erythraeans themselves.
{7.5.6} They say that when the raft reached the Ionian sea it came to rest at the cape called Mesate (Middle) which is on the mainland, just midway between the harbor of the Erythraeans and the island of Chios. When the raft rested off the cape the Erythraeans made great efforts, and the Chians no less, both being keen to land the image on their own shores.
{7.5.7} At last a man of Erythrai (his name was Phormion) who gained a living by the sea and by catching fish, but had lost his sight through disease, saw a vision in a dream to the effect that the women of Erythraimust cut off their locks, and in this way the men would, with a rope woven from the hair, tow the raft to their shores. The women of the citizens absolutely refused to obey the dream;
{7.5.8} but the Thracian women, both the slaves and the free who lived there, offered themselves to be shorn. And so the men of Erythraitowed the raft ashore. Accordingly no women except Thracian women are allowed within the sanctuary of Hēraklēs, and the hair rope is still kept by the natives. The same people say that the fisherman recovered his sight and retained it for the rest of his life.
{7.5.9} There is also in Erythraia temple of Athena Polias and a huge wooden image of her sitting on a throne; she holds a distaff in either hand and wears a firmament on her head. That this image is the work of Endoeus we inferred, among other signs, from the workmanship, and especially from the white marble images of Graces and Seasons that stand in the open before the entrance. A sanctuary too of Asklepios was made by the Smyrnaeans in my time between Mount Coryphe and a sea into which no other water flows.
{7.5.10} Ionia has other things to record besides its sanctuaries and its climate. There is, for instance, in the land of the Ephesians the river Kenkhrios, the strange mountain of Pion and the spring Halitaea. The land of Miletus has the spring Biblis, of whose love the poets have sung. In the land of Kolophon is the grove of Apollo, of ash trees, and not far from the grove is the river Ales, the coldest river in Ionia.
{7.5.11} In the land of Lebedos are baths, which are both wonderful and useful. Teos, too, has baths at Cape Macria, some in the clefts of the rock, filled by the tide, others made to display wealth. The Clazomenians have baths (incidentally they worship Agamemnon) and a cave called the cave of the mother of Pyrrhos; they tell a legend about Pyrrhos the shepherd.
{7.5.12} The Erythraeans have a district called Calchis, from which their third tribe [phulē] takes its name, and in Calchis is a cape stretching into the sea, and on it are sea baths, the most useful baths in Ionia. The Smyrnaeans have the river Meles, with its lovely water, and at its springs is the grotto, where they say that Homer composed his poems.
{7.5.13} One of the sights of Chios is the tomb of Oinopion, about whose exploits they tell certain legends. The Samians have on the road to the Hēraion the tomb of Rhadine and Leontichus, and those who are crossed in love are accustomed to go to the tomb and pray. Ionia, in fact, is a land of wonders that are but little inferior to those of Greece.
{7.6.1} When the Ionians were gone the Achaeans divided their land among themselves and settled in their cities. These were twelve in number, at least such as were known to all the Greek world; Dyme, the nearest to Elis, after it Olenos, Pharae, Triteia, Rhypes, Aigion, Ceryneia, Bura, Helike also and Aigai, Aigeira and Pellene, the last city on the side of Sikyonia. In them, which had previously been inhabited by Ionians, settled the Achaeans and their princes.
{7.6.2} Those who held the greatest power among the Achaeans were the sons of Tisamenus, Daimenes, Sparton, Tellis and Leontomenes; his eldest son, Cometes, had already crossed with a fleet to Asia. These then at the time held sway among the Achaeans along with Damasias, the son of Penthilos, the son of Orestes, who on his father’s side was cousin to the sons of Tisamenus. Equally powerful with the chiefs already mentioned were two Achaeans from Lacedaemon, Preugenes and his son, whose name was Patreus. The Achaeans allowed them to found a city in their territory, and to it was given the name Patraifrom Patreus.
{7.6.3} The wars of the Achaeans were as follow. In the expedition of Agamemnon to Troy they furnished, while still dwelling in Lacedaemon and Argos, the largest contingent in the Greek army. When the Persians under Xerxes attacked Greece [407] the Achaeans it is clear had no part in the advance of Leonidas to Thermopylae, nor in the naval actions fought by the Athenians with Themistocles off Euboea and at Salamis, and they are not included in the Laconian or in the Attic list of allies.
{7.6.4} They were absent from the action at Plataea, for otherwise the Achaeans would surely have had their name inscribed on the offering of the Greeks at Olympia. My view is that they stayed at home to guard their several fatherlands, while because of the Trojan War they scorned to be led by Dorians of Lacedaemon. This became plain in course of time. For when later on the Lacedaemonians began the war with the Athenians, [408] the Achaeans were eager for the alliance with Patrae, and were no less well disposed towards Athens.
{7.6.5} Of the wars waged afterwards by the confederate Greeks, the Achaeans took part in the battle of Khaironeia against the Macedonians under Philip, [409] but they say that they did not march out into Thessaly to what is called the Lamian war, [410] for they had not yet recovered from the reverse in Boeotia. The local guide at Patraiused to say that the wrestler Khilon was the only Achaean who took part in the action at Lamia.
{7.6.6} I myself know that Adrastos, a Lydian, helped the Greeks as a private individual, although the Lydian commonwealth held aloof. A likeness of this Adrastos in bronze was dedicated in front of the sanctuary of Persian Artemis by the Lydians, who wrote an inscription to the effect that Adrastos died fighting for the Greeks against Leonnatus.
{7.6.7} The march to Thermopylae [411] against the army of the Gauls was left alone by all the Peloponnesians alike; for, as the barbarians had no ships, the Peloponnesians anticipated no danger from the Gauls, if only they walled off the Corinthian Isthmus from the sea at Lechaeum to the other sea at Cenchreae.
{7.6.8} This was the policy of all the Peloponnesians at this time. But when the Gauls had somehow crossed in ships to Asia, [412] the condition of the Greeks was as follows. No Greek state was preeminent in strength. For the Lacedaemonians were still prevented from recovering their former prosperity by the reverse at Leuktra combined with the union of the Arcadians at Megalopolis and the settlement of Messenians on their border.
{7.6.9} Thebes had been brought so low by Alexander [413] that when, a few years later, Kassandros brought back her people, they were too weak even to hold their own. The Athenians had indeed the goodwill of Greece, especially for their later exploits, but they never found it possible to recover from the Macedonian war.
{7.7.1} When the Greeks no longer took concerted action, but each state acted for itself alone, the Achaeans enjoyed their greatest power. For except Pellene no Achaean city had at any time suffered from tyranny, while the disasters of war and of pestilence touched Achaea less than any other part of Greece. So we have what was called the Achaean League, and the Achaeans had a concerted policy and carried out concerted actions.
{7.7.2} As a place of assembly they resolved to have Aigion, for, after Helike had been swallowed up by the sea, Aigion from of old surpassed in reputation the other cities of Achaea, while at the time it enjoyed great power. Of the remaining Greeks the Sikyonians were the first to join the Achaean League, and after the Sikyonians there entered it yet other Peloponnesians, some forthwith and others after an interval. Some too who lived outside the Isthmus were persuaded to join the Achaean League by its unbroken growth in power.
{7.7.3} Alone among the Greeks the Lacedaemonians were the bitter enemies of the Achaeans and openly carried on war against them. Pellene, a city of the Achaeans, was captured by Agis, the son of Eudamidas, who was king at Sparta; but he was immediately driven out by the Sikyonians under Aratos. Kleomenes, the son of Leonidas, the son of Kleonymos, king of the other royal house, won a decisive victory at Dyme over the Sikyonians under Aratos, who attacked him, and afterwards concluded a peace with the Achaeans and Antigonos.
{7.7.4} This Antigonos at the time ruled over the Macedonians, being the guardian of Philip, the son of Demetrios, who was still a boy. He was also a cousin of Philip, whose mother he had taken to wife. With this Antigonos then and the Achaeans Kleomenes made peace, and immediately broke all the oaths he had sworn by reducing to slavery Megalopolis, the city of the Arcadians. Because of Kleomenes and his treachery the Lacedaemonians suffered the reverse at Sellasia, where they [414] were defeated by the Achaeans under Antigonos. In my account of Arcadia [415] I shall again have occasion to mention Kleomenes.
{7.7.5} When Philip, the son of Demetrios, reached man’s estate, and Antigonos without reluctance handed over the sovereignty of the Macedonians, he struck fear into the hearts of all the Greeks. He copied Philip, the son of Amyntas, who was not his ancestor but really his master, especially by flattering those who were willing to betray their country for their private advantage. At banquets he would give the right hand of friendship offering cups filled not with wine but with deadly poison, a thing which I believe never entered the head of Philip the son of Amyntas, but poisoning sat very lightly on the conscience of Philip the son of Demetrios.
{7.7.6} He also occupied with garrisons three towns to be used as bases against Greece, and in his insolent contempt for the Greek people he called these cities the keys of Greece. To watch Peloponnesus Corinth was fortified with its citadel; to watch Euboea, the Boeotians and the men of Phokis, to watch Khalkis-on-the-Euripos; against the Thessalians themselves and the Aetolian people Philip occupied Magnesia at the foot of Mount Pelium. The Athenians especially and the Aetolians he harried with continual attacks and raids of bandits.
{7.7.7} Already, in my account of Attica [416] I have described the alliances of Greeks and barbarians with the Athenians against Philip, and how the weakness of their allies urged the Athenians to seek help from Rome. A short time before, the Romans had sent a force ostensibly to help the Aetolians against Philip, but really more to spy on the condition of Macedonia.
{7.7.8} At the appeal of Athens the Romans despatched an army under Otilius, to give him the name by which he was best known. For the Romans differ from the Greeks in their being called, not by the names of their fathers, but by three names at least, if not more, given to each man. Otilius had received orders from the Romans to protect Athenians and Aetolians from war with Philip.
{7.7.9} Otilius carried out his orders up to a point, but displeased the Romans in certain of his acts. Hestiaea in Euboea and Antikyra in Phokis, which had been compelled to submit to Philip, he utterly destroyed. It was, I think, for this reason that the senate, when they heard the news, sent Flamininus to succeed Otilius in his command.
{7.8.1} On his arrival Flamininus sacked Eretria, defeating the Macedonians who were defending it. He then marched against Corinth, which was held by Philip with a garrison, and sat down to besiege it, while at the same time he sent to the Achaeans and ordered them to come to Corinth with an army, if they desired to be called allies of Rome and at the same time to show their goodwill to Greece.
{7.8.2} But the Achaeans greatly blamed Flamininus himself, and Otilius before him, for their savage treatment of ancient Greek cities which had done the Romans no harm, and were subject to the Macedonians against their will. They foresaw too that the Romans were coming to impose their domination both on Achaeans and on the rest of Greece, merely in fact to take the place of Philip and the Macedonians. At the meeting of the League many opposite views were put forward, but at last the Roman party prevailed, and the Achaeans joined Flamininus in besieging Corinth.
{7.8.3} On being delivered from the Macedonians the Corinthians at once joined the Achaean League; they had joined it on a previous occasion, when the Sikyonians under Aratos drove all the garrison out of Acrocorinth, killing Persaios, who had been placed in command of the garrison by Antigonos. Hereafter the Achaeans were called allies of the Romans, and in all respects right zealous allies they proved themselves to be. They followed the Romans to Macedonia against Philip; they took part in the campaign against the Aetolians; thirdly they fought side by side with the Romans against the Syrians under Antiokhos.
{7.8.4} All that the Achaeans did against the Macedonians or the host of the Syrians they did because of their friendship to the Romans; but against the Aetolians they had a long standing private quarrel to settle. When the tyranny of Nabis in Sparta was put down, a tyranny marked by extreme ferocity, the affairs of Lacedaemon at once caught the attention of the Achaeans.
{7.8.5} At this time the Achaeans brought the Lacedaemonians into the Achaean confederacy, exacted from them the strictest justice, and razed the walls of Sparta to the ground. These had been built at haphazard at the time of the invasion of Demetrios, and afterwards of the people of Epeiros under Pyrrhos, but under the tyranny of Nabis they had been strengthened to the greatest possible degree of safety. So the Achaeans destroyed the walls of Sparta, and also repealed the laws of Lycurgus (Lykourgos) that dealt with the training of the youths, at the same time ordering the youths to be trained after the Achaean method.
{7.8.6} I shall treat of this more fully in my account of Arcadia. [417] The Lacedaemonians, deeply offended by the ordinances of the Achaeans, fled to Metellus and the other commissioners who had come from Rome. They had come, not at all to bring war upon Philip and the Macedonians, as peace had already been made between Philip and the Romans, but to judge the charges brought against Philip by the Thessalians and some men from Epeiros.
{7.8.7} In actual fact Philip himself and the Macedonian ascendancy had been put down by the Romans; Philip fighting against the Romans under Flamininus was worsted at the place called Dog’s Heads, [418] where in spite of his desperate efforts Philip was so severely defeated in the encounter that he lost the greater part of his army and agreed with the Romans to evacuate all the cities in Greece that he had captured and forced to submit.
{7.8.8} By prayers of all sorts, however, and by vast expenditure he secured from the Romans a nominal peace. The history of Macedonia, the power she won under Philip the son of Amyntas, and her fall under the later Philip, were foretold by the inspired Sibyl. This was her oracle:
{7.8.9} “Ye Macedonians, boasting of your Argive kings,
To you the reign of a Philip will be both good and evil.
The first will make you kings over cities and peoples;
The younger will lose all the honor,
Defeated by men from west and east.”
To you the reign of a Philip will be both good and evil.
The first will make you kings over cities and peoples;
The younger will lose all the honor,
Defeated by men from west and east.”
Now those who destroyed the Macedonian empire were the Romans, dwelling in the west of Europe, and among the allies fighting on their side was Attalus … who also commanded the army from Mysia, a land lying under the rising sun.
{7.9.1} On the occasion to which I referred Metellus and the other commissioners resolved not to overlook the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and asked the officers of the League to summon the Achaeans to a meeting, so that they might receive all together instructions to be gentler in their treatment of Lacedaemon. The officers replied that they would call a meeting of the Achaeans neither for them nor for anyone else who had not a decree of the Roman senate approving the proposal for which the assembly was to be held. Metellus and his colleagues, thinking that the conduct of the Achaeans was very insolent, on their arrival at Rome made before the senate many accusations against the Achaeans, not all of which were true.
{7.9.2} More accusations still against the Achaeans were made by Areus and Alcibiadas, Lacedaemonians of great distinction at Sparta but ungrateful to the Achaeans. For the Achaeans gave them a welcome when exiled by Nabis, and on the tyrant’s death restored them to Sparta against the will of the Lacedaemonian people. On this occasion, therefore, they too arose and attacked the Achaeans with great vehemence before the senate; accordingly, the Achaeans, at a meeting of their League, passed sentence of death upon them.
{7.9.3} The Roman senate sent Appius and other commissioners to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. The mere sight of Appius and his colleagues was sure to be displeasing to the Achaeans, for they brought with them Areus and Alcibiadas, detested by the Achaeans at that time beyond all other men. The commissioners vexed the Achaeans yet more when they came to the assembly and delivered speeches more angry than conciliatory.
{7.9.4} But Lykortas of Megalopolis, than whom no man was more highly esteemed among the Arcadians, and whose friendship with Philopoimen had given him something of his spirit, set forth the case for the Achaeans in a speech suggesting that the Romans were somewhat to blame. But Appius and his colleagues greeted the speech of Lykortas with jeers, acquitted Areus and Alcibiadas of any offence against the Achaeans, and permitted the Lacedaemonians to send an embassy to Rome. Such permission was a contravention of the agreement between the Romans and the Achaeans, which allowed the Achaeans as a body to send a deputation to the Roman senate but forbade any city of the Achaean League to send a deputation privately.
{7.9.5} A deputation of the Achaeans was sent to oppose the Lacedaemonians, and after speeches had been delivered by both sides before the senate, the Romans again despatched the same commissioners, Appius and his former colleagues in Greece, to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. This commission restored to Sparta those whom the Achaeans had exiled, and they remitted the penalties inflicted by the Achaeans on those who had fled before their trial and had been condemned in their absence. The Lacedaemonian connection with the Achaean League was not broken, but foreign courts were established to deal with capital charges; all other charges were to be submitted for judgment to the Achaean League. The circuit of the city walls was restored by the Spartans right from the foundations.
{7.9.6} The restored Lacedaemonian exiles carried on various intrigues against the Achaeans, hoping to vex them most by the following plot. They persuaded to go up to Rome the exiles of the Achaeans, along with the Messenians who had been held to be involved in the death of Philopoimen and banished on that account by the Achaeans. Going up with them to Rome they intrigued for the restoration of the exiles. As Appius was a zealous supporter of the Lacedaemonians and opposed the Achaeans in everything, the plans of the Messenian and Achaean exiles were bound to enjoy an easy success. Despatches were at once sent by the senate to Athens and Aetolia, with instructions to bring back the Messenians and Achaeans to their homes.
{7.9.7} This caused the greatest vexation to the Achaeans. They bethought themselves of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and how all their services had proved of no avail; to please the Romans they had made war against Philip, against the Aetolians and afterwards against Antiokhos, and after all there was preferred before them a band of exiles, whose hands were stained with blood. Nevertheless, they decided to give way.
{7.10.1} Such were the events that took place on this occasion. The most impious of all crimes, the betrayal for private gain of fatherland and fellow-citizens, was destined to be the beginning of woes for the Achaeans as for others, for it has never been absent from Greece since the birth of time. In the reign of Dareios, the son of Hystaspes, the king of Persia, [419] the cause of the Ionians was ruined because all the Samian captains except eleven betrayed the Ionian fleet.
{7.10.2} After reducing Ionia the Persians enslaved Eretria also, the most famous citizens turning traitors, Philagrus, the son of Cyneas, and Euphorbos, the son of Alkimakhos. When Xerxes invaded Greece, [420] Thessaly was betrayed by Aleuades, [421] and Thebes by Attaginos and Timegenidas, who were the foremost citizen of Thebes. After the Peloponnesian war, Xenias of Elis attempted to betray Elis to the Lacedaemonians under Agis,
{7.10.3} and the so-called “friends” of Lysander at no time relaxed their efforts to hand over their countries to him. In the reign of Philip, the son of Amyntas, Lacedaemon is the only Greek city to be found that was not betrayed; the other cities in Greece were ruined more by treachery than they had been previously by the plague. Alexander, the son of Philip, was so favored by fortune that he had little need worth mentioning of traitors.
{7.10.4} But when the Greeks suffered defeat at Lamia, [422] Antipatros, in his eagerness to cross over to the war in Asia, wished to patch up a peace quickly, and it mattered nothing to him if he left free Athens and the whole of Greece. But Demades and the other traitors in Athens persuaded Antipatros to have no kindly thoughts towards the Greeks, and by frightening the Athenian people were the cause of Macedonian garrisons being brought into Athens and most other cities.
{7.10.5} My statement is confirmed by the following fact. The Athenians after the disaster in Boeotia did not become subjects of Philip, although they lost two thousand prisoners in the action and one thousand killed. But when about two hundred at most fell at Lamia they were enslaved by the Lacedaemonians. So the plague of treachery never failed to afflict Greece, and it was an Achaean, Kallikrates, who at the time I speak of made the Achaeans completely subject to Rome. But the beginning of their troubles proved to be Perseus and the destruction by the Romans of the Macedonian empire.
{7.10.6} Perseus, the son of Philip, who was at peace with Rome in accordance with a treaty his father Philip had made, resolved to break the oaths, and leading an army against the Sapaeans and their king Abrupolis, allies of the Romans, made their country desolate. These Sapaeans Archilochus [423] mentions in an iambic line.
{7.10.7} The Macedonians and Perseus were conquered because of this wrong done to the Sapaeans, and afterwards ten Roman senators were sent to arrange the affairs of Macedonia in the best interests of the Romans. When they came to Greece, Kallikrates curried favor with them, no form of flattery, whether in word or in deed, being too gross for him to use. One member of the commission, a most dishonorable man, Kallikrates so captivated that he actually persuaded him to attend the meeting of the Achaean League.
{7.10.8} When he entered the assembly he declared that while Perseus was at war with Rome the most influential Achaeans, besides helping him generally, had supplied him with money. So he required the Achaeans to condemn them to death. After their condemnation, he said, he would himself disclose the names of the culprits. His words were regarded as absolutely unfair, and the members present demanded that, if certain Achaeans had sided with Perseus, their individual names should be mentioned, it being unreasonable to condemn them before this was done.
{7.10.9} Thereupon the Roman, as he was getting the worst of the argument, brazenly asserted that every Achaean who had held the office of general was included in his accusation, since one and all had favored the cause of the Macedonians and Perseus. This he said at the bidding of Kallikrates. After him rose Xenon, a man of great repute among the Achaeans, and said “The truth about this accusation is as follows. I myself have served the Achaeans as their general, but I am guilty neither of treachery to Rome nor of friendship to Perseus. I am therefore ready to submit to trial either before the Achaean diet or before the Romans themselves.” This frank speech was prompted by a clear conscience,
{7.10.10} but the Roman at once grasped the pretext, and sent for trial before the Roman court all those whom Kallikrates accused of supporting Perseus. Never before had Greeks been so treated, for not even the most powerful of the Macedonians, Philip, the son of Amyntas, and Alexander, despatched by force to Macedonia the Greeks who were opposed to them, but allowed them to plead their case before the Amphiktyones. [424]
{7.10.11} But on this occasion it was decided to send up to Rome every one of the Achaean people, however innocent, whom Kallikrates chose to accuse. They amounted to over a thousand men. The Romans, holding that all these had already been condemned by the Achaeans, distributed them throughout Etruria and its cities, and though the Achaeans sent embassy after embassy to plead on behalf of the men, no notice was taken of the petitions.
{7.10.12} Sixteen years later, [425] when the number of Achaeans in Italy was reduced to three hundred at most, the Romans set them free, considering that their punishment was sufficient. But those who ran away, either at once when they were being brought up to Rome, or later on from the cities to which the Romans sent them, were saved from punishment by no defence if they were recaptured.
{7.11.1} The Romans again despatched a senator to Greece. His name was Gallus, and his instructions were to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives in the case of a disputed piece of territory. This Gallus on many occasions behaved towards the Greek people with great arrogance, both in word and deed, while he made a complete mock of the Lacedaemonians and Argives.
{7.11.2} These states had reached the highest degree of renown, and in a famous war of old had poured out their blood like water because of a dispute about boundaries, while later Philip, the son of Amyntas, had acted as arbitrator to settle their differences; yet now Gallus disdained to arbitrate in person, and entrusted the decision to Kallikrates, the most abominable wretch in all Greece.
{7.11.3} There also came to Gallus the Aetolians living at Pleuron, who wished to detach themselves from the Achaean confederacy. Gallus allowed them to send on their own an embassy to Rome, and the Romans allowed them to secede from the Achaean League. The senate also commissioned Gallus to separate from the Achaean confederacy as many states as he could.
{7.11.4} While he was carrying out his instructions, the Athenian populace sacked Oropus, a state subject to them. The act was one of necessity rather than of free-will, as the Athenians at the time suffered the direst poverty, because the Macedonian war had crushed them more than any other Greeks. So the Oropians appealed to the Roman senate. It decided that an injustice had been committed, and instructed the Sikyonians to inflict a fine on the Athenians commensurate with the unprovoked harm done by them to Oropus.
{7.11.5} When the Athenians did not appear in time for the trial, the Sikyonians inflicted on them a fine of five hundred talents, which the Roman senate on the appeal of the Athenians remitted with the exception of one hundred talents. Not even this reduced fine did the Athenians pay, but by promises and bribes they beguiled the Oropians into an agreement that an Athenian garrison should enter Oropus, and that the Athenians should take hostages from the Oropians. If in the future the Oropians should have any complaint to make against the Athenians, then the Athenians were to withdraw their garrison from Oropus and give the hostages back again.
{7.11.6} After no long interval the Oropians were wronged by certain of the garrison. They accordingly despatched envoys to Athens to ask for the restoration of their hostages and to request that the garrison be withdrawn according to the agreement. The Athenians refused to do either of these things, saying that the blame lay, not with the Athenian people, but with the men of the garrison. They promised, however, that the culprits should he brought to account.
{7.11.7} The Oropians then appealed to the Achaeans for aid, but these refused to give it out of friendship and respect for the Athenians. Thereupon the Oropians promised Menalkidas, a Lacedaemonian who was then general of the Achaeans, a gift of ten talents if he would induce the Achaeans to help them. Menalkidas promised half of the money to Kallikrates, who on account of his friendship with the Romans had most influence among the Achaeans.
{7.11.8} Kallikrates was persuaded to adopt the plan of Menalkidas, and it was decided to help the Oropians against the Athenians. News of this was brought to the Athenians, who, with all the speed each could, came to Oropus, again dragged away anything they had overlooked in the previous raids, and brought away the garrison. As the Achaeans were too late to render help, Menalkidas and Kallikrates urged them to invade Attica. But they met with opposition, especially from Lacedaemon, and the army withdrew.
{7.12.1} Though the Oropians had received no help from the Achaeans, nevertheless Menalkidas extorted the money from them. But when he had the bribe in his hands, he began to think it hard luck that he had to share his gains with Kallikrates. At first he had recourse to procrastination and deceit about payment, but shortly he plucked up courage and flatly refused to give anything.
{7.12.2} It confirms the truth of the proverb that one fire burns more fiercely than another, one wolf is more savage than other wolves, one hawk swifter than another, that Menalkidas outdid in treachery Kallikrates, the worst rascal of his time, one who could never resist a bribe of any kind. He fell foul of the Athenians without gaining anything, and, when Menalkidas laid down his office, accused him before the Achaeans on a capital charge. He said that Menalkidas, when on an embassy to Rome, had worked against the Achaeans and had done all he could to separate Sparta from the Achaean League.
{7.12.3} Thereupon, as the danger he ran was extreme, Menalkidas gave three of the talents he received from Oropus to Diaios of Megalopolis, who had succeeded him as general of the Achaeans, and on this occasion was so active, because of the bribe, that he succeeded in saving Menalkidas in spite of the opposition of the Achaeans. The Achaeans, individually and as a body, held Diaios responsible for the acquittal of Menalkidas, but he distracted their attention from the charges made against him by directing it towards more ambitious hopes, using to deceive them the following pretext.
{7.12.4} The Lacedaemonians appealed to the Roman senate about a disputed territory, and the senate replied to the appeal by decreeing that all except capital cases should be under the jurisdiction of the Achaean League. Such was the senate’s answer, but Diaios did not tell the Achaeans the truth, but cajoled them by the declaration that the Roman senate had committed to them the right to condemn a Spartan to death.
{7.12.5} So the Achaeans claimed the right to try a Lacedaemonian on a capital charge, but the Lacedaemonians would not admit that Diaios spoke the truth, and wished to refer the point to the Roman senate. But the Achaeans seized another pretext, that no state belonging to the Achaean League had the right to send an embassy on its own to the Roman senate, but only in conjunction with the rest of the League.
{7.12.6} These disputes were the cause of a war between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and the former, realizing that they were not a match for their opponents, sent envoys to their cities and entered into personal negotiations with Diaios. The cities all made the same reply, that it was unlawful to turn a deaf ear to their general when he proclaimed a campaign; for Diaios, who was in command of the Achaeans, declared that he would march to make war, not on Sparta but on those that were troubling her.
{7.12.7} When the Spartan senate inquired how many he considered were guilty, he reported to them the names of twenty-four citizens of the very front rank in Sparta. Thereupon was carried a motion of Agasisthenes, whose advice on this occasion enhanced the already great reputation he enjoyed. He ordered the twenty-four to go into voluntary exile from Lacedaemon, instead of bringing war upon Sparta by remaining where they were; if they exiled themselves to Rome, he declared, they would before long be restored to their country by the Romans.
{7.12.8} So they departed, underwent a nominal trial at Sparta, and were condemned to death. The Achaeans on their side despatched to Rome Kallikrates and Diaios to oppose the exiles from Sparta before the senate. Kallikrates died of disease on the journey, and even if he had reached Rome I do not know that he would have been of any assistance to the Achaeans—perhaps he would have been the cause of greater troubles. The debate between Diaios and Menalkidas before the senate was marked by fluency rather than by decency on either side.
{7.12.9} The answer of the senate to their remarks was that they were sending envoys to settle the disputes between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans. The journey of the envoys from Rome proved rather slow, giving Diaios a fresh opportunity of deceiving the Achaeans and Menalkidas of deceiving the Lacedaemonians. Diaios misled the Achaeans into the belief that the Roman senate had decreed the complete subjection to them of the Lacedaemonians; Menalkidas deceived the Lacedaemonians into thinking that the Romans had entirely freed them from the Achaean League.
{7.13.1} So the result of the debate was that the Achaeans again came near to actual war with the Lacedaemonians, and Damokritos, who had been elected general of the Achaeans at this time, proceeded to mobilize an army against Sparta. But about this time there arrived in Macedonia a Roman force under Metellus, whose object was to put down the rebellion of Andriskos, the son of Perseus, the son of Philip. The war in Macedonia, it turned out, was easily decided in favor of the Romans,
{7.13.2} but Metellus urged the envoys, sent by the Roman senate to settle the affairs of Asia, to parley with the chiefs of the Achaeans before making the crossing. They were to order them not to attack Sparta, but to await the arrival from Rome of the envoys sent for the purpose of arbitrating between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans.
{7.13.3} They delivered their instructions to the Achaeans under Damokritos when these had already begun a campaign against Lacedaemon, and so, realizing that the Achaeans were set against their advice, proceeded on their way to Asia. The Lacedaemonians, with a spirit greater than their strength, took up arms, and sallied forth to defend their country. But they were soon crushed; a thousand of their bravest youths fell in the battle, and the rest of the soldiery fled towards the city with all the haste they could.
{7.13.4} If Damokritos had made a vigorous effort, the Achaeans could have dashed into the walls of Sparta along with the fugitives from the field of battle. As it was, he at once recalled the Achaeans from the pursuit, and confined his future operations to raids and plunder, instead of prosecuting the siege with energy.
{7.13.5} So Damokritos withdrew his army, and the Achaeans sentenced him to pay a fine of fifty talents for his treachery. Being unable to pay, he left the Peloponnesus and went into exile. Diaios, who was elected general after Damokritos, agreed, when Metellus sent another embassy, to involve the Lacedaemonians in no war, but to await the arrival of the arbitrators from Rome.
{7.13.6} But he invented another trick to embarrass the Lacedaemonians. He induced the towns around Sparta to be friendly to the Achaeans, and even introduced garrisons into them, to be Achaean bases against Sparta.
{7.13.7} The Lacedaemonians elected Menalkidas to be their general against Diaios, and although they were utterly unprepared for war, being especially ill-provided with money, while in addition their land had remained unsown, he nevertheless dared to break the truce, and took by assault and sacked Iasos, a town on the borders of Laconia, but at that time subject to the Achaeans.
{7.13.8} Having again stirred up war between Lacedaemonians and Achaeans he incurred blame at the hands of his countrymen, and, failing to find a way of escape for the Lacedaemonians from the peril that threatened them, he took his own life by poison. Such was the end of Menalkidas. At the time he was in command of the Lacedaemonians, and previously he had commanded the Achaeans. In the former office he proved a most stupid general, in the latter an unparalleled villain.
{7.14.1} There also arrived in Greece the envoys despatched from Rome to arbitrate between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, among them being Orestes. He invited to visit him the magistrates in each of the Greek cities, along with Diaios. When they arrived at his lodging, he proceeded to disclose to them the whole story, that the Roman senate decreed that neither the Lacedaemonians nor yet Corinth itself should belong to the Achaean League, and that Argos, Herakleia by Mount Oitē and the Arcadian Orkhomenos should be released from the Achaean confederacy. For they were not, he said, related at all to the Achaeans, and but latecomers to the League.
{7.14.2} The magistrates of the Achaeans did not wait for Orestes to conclude, but while he was yet speaking ran out of the house and summoned the Achaeans to an assembly. When the Achaeans heard the decision of the Romans, they at once turned against the Spartans who happened to be then residing in Corinth, and arrested every one, not only those whom they knew for certain to be Lacedaemonians, but also all those they suspected to be such from the cut of their hair, or because of their shoes, their clothes or even their names. Some of them, who succeeded in taking refuge in the lodging of Orestes, they actually attempted even from there to drag away by force.
{7.14.3} Orestes and his colleagues tried to check their violence, reminding them that they were committing unprovoked acts of criminal insolence against the Romans. A few days afterwards the Achaeans shut up in prison the Lacedaemonians they held under arrest, but separated from them the foreigners and let them go. They also despatched to Rome Thearidas, with certain other members of the Achaean government. These set out, but meeting on the journey the Roman envoys who had been sent after Orestes to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, they too turned back.
{7.14.4} When the time came for Diaios to relinquish his office, Kritolaos was elected general by the Achaeans. This Kritolaos was seized with a keen but utterly unthinking passion to make war against the Romans. The envoys from the Romans had by this time already arrived to adjudicate on the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, and Kritolaoshad a conference with them at Tegea in Arcadia, being most unwilling to summon the Achaeans to meet them in a general assembly. However, in the hearing of the Romans he sent messengers with instructions to summon the deputies to the assembly, but privately he sent orders to the deputies of the various cities to absent themselves from the meeting.
{7.14.5} When the deputies did not attend, Kritolaosshowed very clearly how he was hoodwinking the Romans. He urged them to wait for another meeting of the Achaeans, to take place five months later, declaring that he would not confer with them without the general assembly of the Achaeans. When the envoys realized that they were being deceived, they departed for Rome but Kritolaossummoned a meeting of the Achaeans in Corinth, and persuaded them both to take up arms against Sparta and also to declare war openly on Rome.
{7.14.6} For a king or state to undertake a war and be unlucky is due to the jealousy of some divinity rather than to the fault of the combatants; but audacity combined with weakness should be called madness rather than ill-luck. But it was such a combination that overthrew Kritolaosand the Achaeans. The Achaeans were also encouraged by Pytheas, who at that time was Boeotarch at Thebes, and the Thebans promised to give enthusiastic support in the war.
{7.14.7} The Thebans had been sentenced, at the first ruling given by Metellus, to pay a fine for invading the territory of Phokis with an armed force; at the second to compensate the Euboeans for laying waste Euboea; at the third to compensate the people of Amphissa for ravaging their territory when the wheat was ripe for harvest.
{7.15.1} The Romans, learning the news from the envoys sent to Greece and from the despatches of Metellus, decided that the Achaeans were in the wrong, and they ordered Mummius, the consul elected for that year, to lead a fleet with a land force against them. As soon as Metellus learned that Mummius and his army were coming [426] to fight the Achaeans, he was full of enthusiasm to bring the war to a conclusion without help before Mummius reached Greece.
{7.15.2} So he despatched envoys to the Achaeans, bidding them release from the League the Lacedaemonians and the other states mentioned in the order of the Romans, promising that the Romans would entirely forgive them for their disobedience on the previous occasion. While making these proposals for peace he marched from Macedonia through Thessaly and along the gulf of Lamia. But Kritolaosand the Achaeans would listen to no suggestions for an agreement, and sat down to besiege Herakleia, which refused to join the Achaean League.
{7.15.3} Then, when Kritolaoswas informed by his scouts that the Romans under Metellus had crossed the Spercheios, he fled to Skarpheia in Lokris, without daring even to draw up the Achaeans in the pass between Herakleia and Thermopylae, and to await Metellus there. To such a depth of terror did he sink that brighter hopes were not suggested even by the spot itself, the site of the Lacedaemonian effort to save Greece, [427] and of the no less glorious exploit of the Athenians against the Gauls. [428]
{7.15.4} Kritolaosand the Achaeans took to flight, but at a short distance from Skarpheia they were overtaken by the men of Metellus, who killed many and took about a thousand prisoners. Kritolaoswas neither seen alive after the battle nor found among the dead. If he dared to plunge into the marsh of the sea at the foot of Mount Oitē he must inevitably have sunk into the depths without leaving a trace to tell the tale.
{7.15.5} So the end of Kritolaosoffers a wide field for conjecture. A thousand picked troops of Arcadia, who had joined Kritolaosin his enterprise, took the field and advanced as far as Elateia in Phokis, into which city they were received by the inhabitants on the ground of some supposed ancient connection between them. But when the men of Phokis heard of the disaster to Kritolaos and the Achaeans, they ordered the Arcadians to depart from Elateia.
{7.15.6} As they were retreating to the Peloponnesus the Romans under Metellus fell upon them near Khaironeia. It was then that the vengeance of the Greek gods overtook the Arcadians, who were slain by the Romans on the very spot on which they had deserted from the Greeks who were struggling at Khaironeia against the Macedonians under Philip.
{7.15.7} Diaios once more came forward to command the Achaean army. He proceeded to set free slaves, following the example of Miltiades and the Athenians before the battle of Marathon, and enlisted from the cities of the Achaeans and Arcadians those who were of military age. The muster, including the slaves, amounted roughly to six hundred cavalry and fourteen thousand foot.
{7.15.8} And here Diaios sank into utter folly. Although he knew that Kritolaos and the whole force of Achaea had put up such a poor fight against Metellus, he nevertheless detached about four thousand, put them under the command of Alkamenes, and despatched them to Megara to garrison the city, and to stay the advance of Metellus and the Romans, should they march that way.
{7.15.9} When the picked Arcadian troops had been overthrown near Khaironeia, Metellus moved his army and marched against Thebes, for the Thebans had joined the Achaeans in investing Herakleia, and had taken part in the engagement of Skarpheia. Then the inhabitants, of both sexes and of all ages, abandoned the city and wandered about Boeotia, or took refuge on the tops of the mountains.
{7.15.10} But Metellus would not allow either the burning of sanctuaries of the gods or the destruction of buildings, and he forbade his men to kill any Theban or take prisoner any fugitive. If, however, Pytheas should be caught, he was to be brought before him. Pytheas was discovered immediately, brought before Metellus and punished. When the army approached Megara, Alkamenes and his men did not face it, but straightway fled to the camp of the Achaeans in Corinth.
{7.15.11} The Megarians surrendered their city to the Romans without a blow, and when Metellus came to the Isthmus he again made overtures to the Achaeans for an agreed peace. For he was possessed of a strong desire to settle by himself the affairs of both Macedonia and Achaea. His efforts, however, were thwarted by the senselessness of Diaios.
{7.16.1} Mummius, bringing with him Orestes, the commissioner sent earlier to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, reached the Roman army at early dawn, and sending Metellus and his forces to Macedonia, himself waited at the Isthmus for his whole force to assemble. There came three thousand five hundred cavalry, while the infantry amounted to twenty-three thousand. They were joined by a company of Cretan archers and by Philopoimen, at the head of some troops sent by Attalus from Pergamon on the Kaïkos.
{7.16.2} Certain of the Italian troops along with the auxiliaries were stationed by Mummius twelve stadium-lengths away, to be an outpost for the whole army. The contempt of the Romans made them keep a careless look-out, and the Achaeans, attacking them in the first watch, killed some, drove yet more back to the camp, and took some five hundred shields. Puffed up with this success the Achaeans marched out to battle before the Romans began their attack.
{7.16.3} But when Mummius advanced to meet them, the Achaean horse at once took to flight, without waiting for even the first charge of the Roman cavalry. The infantry were depressed at the rout of their horse, but nevertheless received the onslaught of the Roman men-at-arms; overwhelmed by numbers and faint with their wounds they offered a spirited resistance, until a thousand picked Romans fell upon their flank and utterly routed them.
{7.16.4} If after the battle Diaios had boldly thrown himself into Corinth and received the fugitives within the walls, the Achaeans might have been able to get favorable terms from Mummius, by putting him to the trouble of a protracted siege. As it was, when the Achaeans were but beginning to yield, Diaios fled straight for Megalopolis, his conduct towards the Achaeans showing a marked contrast to that of Kallistratos, the son of Empedus, towards the Athenians.
{7.16.5} This man commanded some cavalry in Sicily, and when the Athenians and their partners in the expedition were being massacred at the river Asinarus, he courageously cut a way through the enemy at the head of his horsemen. He brought most of them safe to Catana, and then returned by the same way back to Syracuse. Finding the enemy still plundering the Athenian camp, he cut down some five of them, and then both he and his horse received mortal wounds and died.
{7.16.6} So he won glory for the Athenians and for himself, by saving the men under his command and seeking his own death. But Diaios having ruined the Achaeans came to tell the tidings of disaster to the people of Megalopolis, killed his wife with his own hand, just to save her from being taken prisoner, and then committed suicide by drinking poison. He may be compared to Menalkidas for his avarice, and proved equally like him in the cowardice of his death.
{7.16.7} As soon as night fell, the Achaeans who had escaped to Corinth after the battle fled from the city, and there fled with them most of the Corinthians themselves. At first Mummius hesitated to enter Corinth, although the gates were open, as he suspected that an ambush had been laid within the walls. But on the third day after the battle he proceeded to storm Corinth and to set it on fire.
{7.16.8} The majority of those found in it were put to the sword by the Romans, but the women and children Mummius sold into slavery. He also sold all the slaves who had been set free, had fought on the side of the Achaeans, and had not fallen at once on the field of battle. The most admired votive offerings and works of art were carried off by Mummius; those of less account he gave to Philopoimen, the general sent by Attalus; even in my day there were Corinthian spoils at Pergamon.
{7.16.9} The walls of all the cities that had made war against Rome Mummius demolished, disarming the inhabitants, even before assistant commissioners were despatched from Rome, and when these did arrive, he proceeded to put down democracies and to establish governments based on a property qualification. Tribute was imposed on Greece, and those with property were forbidden to acquire possessions in a foreign country. Racial confederacies, whether of Achaeans, or of the people of Phokis, or of Boeotians, or of any other Greek people, were one and all put down.
{7.16.10} A few years later the Romans took pity on Greece, restored the various old racial confederacies, with the right to acquire property in a foreign country, and remitted the fines imposed by Mummius. For he had ordered the Boeotians to pay a hundred talents to the people of Herakleia and Euboea, and the Achaeans to pay two hundred to the Lacedaemonians. Although the Romans granted the Greeks remission of these payments, yet down to my day a Roman governor has been sent to the country. The Romans call him the Governor, not of Greece, but of Achaea, because the cause of the subjection of Greece was the Achaeans, at that time at the head of the Greek nation. [429] This war came to an end when Antitheus was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the hundred and sixtieth Olympiad, [430] at which Diodoros of Sikyon was victorious. [431]
{7.17.1} It was at this time that Greece was struck with universal and utter prostration, although parts of it from the beginning had suffered ruin and devastation through the agency of the superhuman power [daimōn]. Argos, a city that reached the zenith of its power in the days of the heroes, as they are called, was deserted by the good will [tò eumenes] of fortune [tukhē] on the occasion of the shift [metabolē] in favor of the Dorians.
{7.17.2} The people of Attica, reviving after the Peloponnesian war and the plague, raised themselves again only to be struck down a few years later by the ascendancy of Macedonia. From Macedonia the wrath of Alexander swooped like a thunderbolt on Thebes of Boeotia. The Lacedaemonians suffered injury through Epameinondas of Thebes and again through the war with the Achaeans. And when painfully, like a shoot from a mutilated and mostly withered trunk, the Achaean power sprang up, it was cut short, while still growing, by the cowardice [432] of its generals.
{7.17.3} At a later time, when the Roman imperial power devolved upon Nero, he gave to the Roman people the very prosperous island of Sardinia in exchange for Greece, and then bestowed upon the latter complete freedom. When I considered this act of Nero it struck me how true is the remark of Plato, the son of Ariston, who says that the greatest and most daring crimes are committed, not by ordinary men, but by a noble soul ruined by a perverted education. [433]
{7.17.4} The Greeks, however, were not to profit by the gift. For in the reign of Vespasian, the next emperor after Nero, they became embroiled in a civil war; Vespasian ordered that they should again pay tribute and be subject to a governor, saying that the Greek people had forgotten how to be free.
{7.17.5} To resume after my researches into Achaean history. The boundary between Achaea and Elis is the river Larisus, and by the river is a temple of Larisaean Athena; about thirty stadium-lengths distant from the Larisus is Dyme, an Achaean city. This was the only Achaean city that in his wars Philip the son of Demetrios made subject to him, and for this reason Sulpicius, another Roman governor, handed over Dyme to be sacked by his soldiery. Afterwards Augustus annexed it to Patrae.
{7.17.6} Its more ancient name was Paleia, but the Ionians changed this to its modern name while they still occupied the city; I am uncertain whether they named it after Dyme, a native woman, or after Dymas, the son of Aigimios. But nobody is likely to be led into a fallacy by the inscription on the statue of Oibotas at Olympia. Oibotas was a man of Dyme, who won the foot-race at the sixth Festival [434] and was honored, because of a Delphic oracle, with a statue erected in the eightieth Olympiad. [435] On it is an inscription which says:
{7.17.7} “This Oibotas, an Achaean, the son of Oinias, by winning the foot-race,
Added to the renown of his fatherland Paleia.”
Added to the renown of his fatherland Paleia.”
This inscription should mislead nobody, although it calls the city Paleia and not Dyme. For it is the custom of Greek poets to use ancient names instead of more modern ones, just as they surname Amphiaraos and Adrastos Phoronids, and Theseus an Erechthid.
{7.17.8} A little before the city of Dyme there is, on the right of the road, the tomb of Sostratos. He was a native youth, loved they say by Hēraklēs, who outliving Sostratos made him his tomb and gave him some hair from his head as a primal offering. Even today there is a slab on the top of the mound, with a figure of Hēraklēs in relief. I was told that the natives also sacrifice to Sostratos as to a hero.
{7.17.9} The people of Dyme have a temple of Athena with an extremely ancient image; they have as well a sanctuary built for the Dindymenian mother and Attis. As to Attis, I could learn no secret about him, [436] but Hermesianax, the elegiac poet, says in a poem that he was the son of Galaos the Phrygian, and that he was a eunuch from birth. The account of Hermesianax goes on to say that, on growing up, Attis migrated to Lydia and celebrated for the Lydians the orgies of the Mother; that he rose to such honor with her that Zeus, being angry at it, [437] sent a boar to destroy the tillage of the Lydians.
{7.17.10} Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar, and it is consistent with this that the Gauls who inhabit Pessinus abstain from pork. But the current view about Attis is different, the local legend about him being this. Zeus, it is said, let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground, which in course of time sent up a superhuman force [daimōn], with two sexual organs, male and female, who was called Agdistis. But the gods, fearing [438] Agdistis, cut off the male organ.
{7.17.11} There grew up from it an almond tree with its fruit ripe, and a daughter of the river Sangarios, they say, took of the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child. A boy was born, and exposed, but was tended by a he-goat. As he grew up his beauty was more than human, and Agdistis fell in love with him. When he had grown up, Attis was sent by his relatives to Pessinus, that he might wed the king’s daughter.
{7.17.12} The marriage-song was being sung, when Agdistis appeared, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals, as also did he who was giving him his daughter in marriage. But Agdistis repented of what he had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.
{7.17.13} These are the most popular forms of the legend of Attis. In the territory of Dyme is also the tomb of Oibotas the runner. Although this Oibotas was the first Achaean to win an Olympic victory, he yet received from them no special prize. Wherefore Oibotas pronounced a curse that no Achaean in future should win an Olympic victory. There must have been some god who was careful that the curse of Oibotas should be fulfilled, but the Achaeans by sending to Delphi at last learned why it was that they had been failing to win the Olympic garland.
{7.17.14} So they dedicated the statue of Oibotas at Olympia and honored him in other ways, and then Sostratos of Pellene won the foot-race for boys. It is still today a custom for the Achaeans who are going to compete at Olympia to sacrifice to Oibotas as to a hero, and, if they are successful, to place a wreath on the statue of Oibotas at Olympia.
{7.18.1} Some forty stadium-lengths from Dyme the river Peirus flows down into the sea; on the Peirus once stood the Achaean city of Olenos. The poets who have sung of Hēraklēs and his labors have found a favorite subject in Dexamenos, king of Olenοs, and the entertainment Hēraklēs received at his court. That Olenοs was from the beginning a small town I find confirmed in an elegiac poem composed by Hermesianax about Eurytion the Centaur. In course of time, it is said, the inhabitants, owing to their weakness, left Olenus and migrated to Peiraiand Euryteiae.
{7.18.2} About eighty stadium-lengths from the river Peirus is the city of Patrae. Not far from Patraithe river Glaukos flows into the sea. The historians of ancient Patraisay that it was an aboriginal, Eumēlos, who first settled in the land, and that he was king over but a few subjects. But when Triptolemos came from Attica, he received from him cultivated wheat, and, learning how to found a city, named it Aroe from the tilling of the soil.
{7.18.3} It is said that Triptolemos once fell asleep, and that then Antheias, the son of Eumēlos, yoked the dragons to the car of Triptolemos and tried to sow the seed himself. But Antheias fell off the car and was killed, and so Triptolemos and Eumēlos together founded a city, and called it Antheia after the son of Eumēlos.
{7.18.4} Between Antheia and Aroe was founded a third city, called Mesatis. The stories told of Dionysus by the people of Patrae, that he was reared in Mesatis and incurred there all sob of perils through the plots of the Titans, I will not contradict, but will leave it to the people of Patraito explain the name Mesatis as they choose.
{7.18.5} When afterwards the Achaeans had driven out the Ionians, Patreus, the son of Preugenes, the son of Agenor, forbade the Achaeans to settle in Antheia and Mesatis, but built at Aroe a wall of greater circumference so as to include Aroe within it, and named the city Patraiafter himself. Agenor, the father of Preugenes, was the son of Areus, the son of Ampyx, and Ampyx was a son of Pelias, the son of Aiginetes, the son of Dereites, the son of Harpalos, the son of Amyclas, the son of Lacedaemon.
{7.18.6} Such was the genealogy of Patreus. In course of time the people of Patraion their own account crossed into Aetolia; they did this out of friendship for the Aetolians, to help them in their war with the Gauls, and no other Achaeans joined them. But suffering unspeakable disasters in the fighting, and most of them being also crushed by poverty, all with the exception of a few left Patrae, and scattered, owing to their love of agriculture, up and down the country, dwelling in, besides Patrae, the following towns: Mesatis, Antheia, Bolina, Argyra and Arba.
{7.18.7} But Augustus, for some reason, perhaps because he thought that Patraiwas a convenient port of call, brought back again to Patraithe men from the other towns, and united with them the Achaeans also from Rhypes, which town he razed to the ground. He granted freedom to the Patraeans, and to no other Achaeans; and he granted also all the other privileges that the Romans are accustomed to bestow on their colonists.
{7.18.8} On the acropolis of Patraiis a sanctuary of Artemis Laphria. The surname of the goddess is a foreign one, and her image too was brought in from elsewhere. For after Calydon with the rest of Aetolia had been laid waste by the Emperor Augustus in order that the Aetolian people might be incorporated into Nikopolis above Actium, the people of Patraithus secured the image of Laphria.
{7.18.9} Most of the images out of Aetolia and from Acarnania were brought by Augustus’ orders to Nikopolis, but to Patraihe gave, with other spoils from Calydon, the image of Laphria, which even in my time was still worshipped on the acropolis of Patrae. It is said that the goddess was surnamed Laphria after a man of Phokis, because the ancient image of Artemis was set up at Calydon by Laphrios, the son of Kastalios, the son of Delphos.
{7.18.10} Others say that the wrath of Artemis against Oineus weighed as time went on more lightly (elaphroteron)on the Calydonians, and they believe that this was why the goddess received her surname. The image represents her in the guise of a huntress; it is made of ivory and gold, and the artists were Menaechmus and Soldas of Naupaktos, who, it is inferred, lived not much later than Kanakhos of Sikyon and Kallon of Aegina.
{7.18.11} Every year too the people of Patraicelebrate the festival Laphria in honor of their Artemis, and at it they employ a method of sacrifice peculiar to the place. Round the altar in a circle they set up logs of wood still green, each of them sixteen cubits long. On the altar within the circle is placed the driest of their wood. Just before the time of the festival they construct a smooth ascent to the altar, piling earth upon the altar steps.
{7.18.12} The festival begins with a most splendid procession in honor of Artemis, and the girl officiating as priestess rides last in the procession upon a car yoked to deer. It is, however, not till the next day that the sacrifice is offered, and the festival is not only a state function but also quite a popular general holiday. For the people throw alive upon the altar edible birds and every kind of victim as well; there are wild boars, deer and gazelles; some bring wolf-cubs or bear-cubs, others the full-grown beasts. They also place upon the altar fruit of cultivated trees.
{7.18.13} Next they set fire to the wood. At this point I have seen some of the beasts, including a bear, forcing their way outside at the first rush of the flames, some of them actually escaping by their strength. But those who threw them in drag them back again to the pyre. It is not remembered that anybody has ever been wounded by the beasts.
{7.19.1} Between the temple of Laphria and the altar stands the tomb of Eurypylus. Who he was and for what reason he came to this land I shall set forth presently; but I must first describe what the condition of affairs was at his arrival. The Ionians who lived in Aroe, Antheia and Mesatis had in common a precinct and a temple of Artemis surnamed Triclaria, and in her honor the Ionians used to celebrate every year a festival and an all-night vigil. The priesthood of the goddess was held by a virgin until the time came for her to be sent to a husband.
{7.19.2} Now the story is that once upon a time it happened that the priestess of the goddess was Comaetho, a most beautiful maiden, who had a lover called Melanippos, who was far better and handsomer than his fellows. When Melanippos had won the love of the maiden, he asked the father for his daughter’s hand. It is somehow a characteristic of old age to oppose the young in most things, and especially is it insensible to the desires of lovers. So Melanippos found it; although both he and Comaetho were eager to wed, he met with nothing but harshness from both his own parents and from those of his lover.
{7.19.3} The history of Melanippos, like that of many others, proved that love is apt both to break the laws of men and to desecrate the worship of the gods, seeing that this pair had their fill of the passion of love in the sanctuary of Artemis. And hereafter also were they to use the sanctuary as a bridal-chamber. Forthwith the wrath of Artemis began to destroy the inhabitants; the earth yielded no harvest, and strange diseases occurred of an unusually fatal character.
{7.19.4} When they appealed to the oracle at Delphi the Pythian priestess accused Melanippos and Comaetho. The oracle ordered that they themselves should be sacrificed to Artemis, and that every year a sacrifice should be made to the goddess of the fairest youth and the fairest maiden. Because of this sacrifice the river flowing by the sanctuary of Triclaria was called Ameilichus (Relentless). Previously the river had no name.
{7.19.5} The innocent youths and maidens who perished because of Melanippos and Comaetho suffered a piteous fate, as did also their relatives; but the pair, I hold, were exempt from suffering, for the one thing [439] that is worth a man’s life is to be successful in love.
{7.19.6} The sacrifice to Artemis of human beings is said to have ceased in this way. An oracle had been given from Delphi to the Patraeans even before this, to the effect that a strange king would come to the land, bringing with him a strange divinity, and this king would put an end to the sacrifice to Triclaria. When Troy was captured, and the Greeks divided the spoils, Eurypylus the son of Euaemon got a chest. In it was an image of Dionysus, the work, so they say, of Hephaistos, and given as a gift by Zeus to Dardanus.
{7.19.7} But there are two other accounts of it. One is that this chest was left by Aeneas when he fled; the other that it was thrown away by Cassandra to be a curse to the Greek who found it. Be this as it may, Eurypylus opened the chest, saw the image, and forthwith on seeing it went mad. He continued to be insane for the greater part of the time, with rare lucid intervals. Being in this condition he did not proceed on his voyage to Thessaly, but made for the town and gulf of Cirrha. Going up to Delphi he inquired of the oracle about his illness.
{7.19.8} They say that the oracle given him was to the effect that where he should come across a people offering a strange sacrifice, there he was to set down the chest and make his home. Now the ships of Eurypylus were carried down by the wind to the sea off Aroe. On landing he came across a youth and a maiden who had been brought to the altar of Triclaria. So Eurypylus found it easy to understand about the sacrifice, while the people of the place remembered their oracle seeing a king whom they had never seen before, they also suspected that the chest had some god inside it.
{7.19.9} And so the malady of Eurypylus and the sacrifice of these people came to an end, and the river was given its present name Meilichus. Certain writers have said that the events I have related happened not to the Thessalian Eurypylus, but to Eurypylus the son of Dexamenos who was king in Olenos, holding that this man joined Hēraklēs in his campaign against Troy and received the chest from Hēraklēs. The rest of their story is the same as mine.
{7.19.10} But I cannot bring myself to believe that Hēraklēs did not know the facts about the chest, if they were as described, nor, if he were aware of them, do I think that he would ever have given it to an ally as a gift. Further, the people of Patraihave no tradition of a Eurypylus save the son of Euaemon, and to him every year they sacrifice as to a hero, when they celebrate the festival in honor of Dionysus.
{7.20.1} The surname of the god inside the chest is Aisymnetes (Dictator), and his chief attendants are nine men, elected by the people from all the citizens for their reputation, and women equal in number to the men. On one night of the festival the priest carries the chest outside. Now this is a privilege that this night has received, and there go down to the river Meilichus a certain number of the native children, wearing on their heads garlands of wheat-ears. It was in this way that they used to array of old those whom they led to be sacrificed to Artemis.
{7.20.2} But at the present day they lay aside the garlands of wheat-ears by the goddess, and after bathing in the river and putting on fresh garlands, this time made of ivy, they go to the sanctuary of the Dictator. This then is their established ritual, and within the precincts of Laphria is a temple of Athena surnamed Panachaean. The image is of ivory and gold.
{7.20.3} On the way to the lower city there is a sanctuary of the Dindymenian Mother, and in it Attis too is worshipped. Of him they have no image to show; that of the Mother is of stone. In the marketplace is a temple of Olympian Zeus; the god himself is on a throne with Athena standing by it. Beyond the Olympian is an image of Hērā and a sanctuary of Apollo. The god is of bronze, and naked. On his feet are sandals, and one foot stands upon the skull of an ox.
{7.20.4} That Apollo takes great pleasure in oxen is shown by Alcaeus [440] in his hymn to Hermes, who writes how Hermes stole cows of Apollo, and even before Alcaeus was born Homer made Apollo tend cows of Laomedon for a wage. In the Iliad he puts these verses in the mouth of Poseidon:
{7.20.5} “Verily I built a wall for the Trojans about their city,
A wide wall and very beautiful, that the city might be impregnable;
And thou, Phoebus, didst tend the shambling cows with crumpled horns.”
A wide wall and very beautiful, that the city might be impregnable;
And thou, Phoebus, didst tend the shambling cows with crumpled horns.”
Iliad 21.446–448
This, it may be conjectured, is the reason for the ox skull. On the marketplace, in the open, is an image of Athena with the tomb of Patreus in front of it.
{7.20.6} Next to the marketplace is the Music Hall, where has been dedicated an Apollo well worth seeing. It was made from the spoils taken when alone of the Achaeans the people of Patraihelped the Aetolians against the army of the Gauls. The Music Hall is in every way the finest in Greece, except, of course, the one in Athens. This is unrivalled in size and magnificence, and was built by Herodes, an Athenian,in memory of his dead wife. The reason why I omitted to mention this Music Hall in my history of Attica is that my account of the Athenians was finished before Herodes began the building.
{7.20.7} As you leave the marketplace of Patrae, where the sanctuary of Apollo is, at this exit is a gate, upon which stand gilded statues, Patreus, Preugenes, and Atherion; the two latter are represented as boys, because Patreus is a boy in age. Opposite the marketplace by this exit is a precinct and temple of Artemis, the Lady of the Lake.
{7.20.8} When the Dorians were now in possession of Lacedaemon and Argos, it is said that Preugenes, in obedience to a dream, stole from Sparta the image of our Lady of the Lake, and that he had as partner in his exploit the most devoted of his slaves. The image from Lacedaemon is usually kept at Mesoa, because it was to this place that it was originally brought by Preugenes. But when the festival of our Lady is being held, one of the slaves of the goddess comes from Mesoa bringing the ancient wooden image to the precinct in the city.
{7.20.9} Near this precinct the people of Patraihave other sanctuaries. These are not in the open, but there is an entrance to them through the porticoes. The image of Asklepios, save for the drapery, is of stone; Athena is made of ivory and gold. Before the sanctuary of Athena is the tomb of Preugenes. Every year they sacrifice to Preugenes as to a hero, and likewise to Patreus also, when the festival of our Lady is being held. Not far from the theater is a temple of Nemesis, and another of Aphrodite. The images are colossal and of white marble.
{7.21.1} In this part of the city is also a sanctuary of Dionysus surnamed Calydonian, for the image of Dionysus too was brought from Calydon. When Calydon was still inhabited, among the Calydonians who became priests of the god was Koresos, who more than any other man suffered cruel wrongs because of love. He was in love with Kallirhoe, a virgin. But the love of Koresos for Kallirhoe was equalled by the maiden’s hatred of him.
{7.21.2} When the maiden refused to change her mind, in spite of the many prayers and promises of Koresos, he then went as a suppliant to the image of Dionysus. The god listened to the prayer of his priest, and the Calydonians at once became raving as though through drink, and they were still out of their minds when death overtook them. So they appealed to the oracle at Dodona. For the inhabitants of this part of the mainland, the Aetolians and their neighbors in Akarnania and Epeiros, considered that the truest oracles were the doves and the responses from the oak.
{7.21.3} On this occasion the oracles from Dodona declared that it was the wrath of Dionysus that caused the plague, which would not cease until Koresos sacrificed to Dionysus either Kallirhoe herself or one who had the courage to die in her stead. When the girl could find no means of escape, she next appealed to her foster parents. These too failing her, there was no other way except for her to be put to the sword.
{7.21.4} When everything had been prepared for the sacrifice according to the oracle from Dodona, the girl was led like a victim to the altar. Koresos stood ready to sacrifice, when, his resentment giving way to love, he slew himself in place of Kallirhoe. He thus proved in deed that his love was more genuine than that of any other man we know.
{7.21.5} When Kallirhoe saw Goresus lying dead, the girl repented. Overcome by pity for Goresus, and by shame at her conduct towards him, she cut her throat at the spring in Galydon not far from the harbor, and later generations call the spring Kallirhoe after her.
{7.21.6} Near to the theater there is a precinct sacred to a native lady. Here are images of Dionysus, equal in number to the ancient cities, and named after them Mesateus, Antheus and Aroeus. These images at the festival of Dionysus they bring into the sanctuary of the Dictator. This sanctuary is on the right of the road from the marketplace to the sea-quarter of the city.
{7.21.7} As you go lower down from the Dictator there is another sanctuary with an image of stone. It is called the sanctuary of Recovery, and the story is that it was originally founded by Eurypylus on being cured of his madness. At the harbor is a temple of Poseidon with a standing image of stone. Besides the names given by poets to Poseidon to adorn their verses, and in addition to his local names, all men give him the following surnames—Marine, Giver of Safety, God of Horses.
{7.21.8} Various reasons could be plausibly assigned for the last of these surnames having been given to the god, but my own conjecture is that he got this name as the inventor of horsemanship. Homer, at any rate, when describing the chariot-race, puts into the mouth of Menelaos a challenge to swear an oath by this god:
“Touch the horses, and swear by the earth-holder, earth-shaker,
That thou didst not intentionally, through guile, obstruct my chariot.”
That thou didst not intentionally, through guile, obstruct my chariot.”
Iliad 23.584–585
{7.21.9} Pamphos also, who composed for the Athenians the most ancient of their hymns, says that Poseidon is
“Giver of horses and of ships with sails set.”
Pamphos, work unknown
So it is from horsemanship that he has acquired his name, and not for any other reason.
{7.21.10} In Patrae, not far from that of Poseidon, are sanctuaries of Aphrodite. One of the two images was drawn up by fishermen in a net a generation before my time. There are also quite near to the harbor two images of bronze, one of Ares and the other of Poseidon. The image of Aphrodite, whose precinct too is by the harbor, has its face, hands and feet of stone, while the rest of the figure is made of wood.
{7.21.11} They have also a grove by the sea, affording in summer weather very agreeable walks and a pleasant means generally of passing the time. In this grove are also two temples of divinities, one of Apollo, the other of Aphrodite. The images of these too are made of stone. Next to the grove is a sanctuary of Demeter; she and her daughter are standing, but the image of Earth is seated.
{7.21.12} Before the sanctuary of Demeter is a spring. On the side of this towards the temple stands a wall of stones, while on the outer side has been made a descent to the spring. Here there is an infallible oracle, not indeed for everything, but only in the case of sick folk. They tie a mirror to a fine cord and let it down, judging the distance so that it does not sink deep into the spring, but just far enough to touch the water with its rim. [441] Then they pray to the goddess and burn incense, after which they look into the mirror, which shows them the patient either alive or dead.
{7.21.13} This water partakes to this extent of truth, but close to Cyaneae by Lycia, where there is an oracle of Apollo Thyrxeus, the water shows to him who looks into the spring all the things that he wants to behold. By the grove in Patraiare also two sanctuaries of Serapis. In one is the tomb of Aigyptos, the son of Belus. He is said by the people of Patraito have fled to Aroe because of the misfortunes of his children and because he shuddered at the mere name of Argos, and even more through dread of Danaos.
{7.21.14} There is also at Patraia sanctuary of Asklepios. This sanctuary is beyond the acropolis near the gate leading to Mesatis.The women of Patraioutnumber the men by two to one. These women are amongst the most charming in the world. Most of them gain a livelihood from the fine flax that grows in Elis, weaving from it nets for the head as well as dresses.
{7.22.1} Pharae, a city of the Achaeans, belongs to Patrae, having been given to it by Augustus. The road from the city of Patraito Pharaiis a hundred and fifty stadium-lengths, while Pharaiis about seventy stadium-lengths inland from the coast. Near to Pharairuns the river Pierus, which in my opinion is the same as the one flowing past the ruins of Olenos, called by the men of the coast the Peirus. Near the river is a grove of plane trees, most of which are hollow through age, and so huge that they actually feast in the holes, and those who have a mind to do so sleep there as well.
{7.22.2} The marketplace of Pharaiis of wide extent after the ancient fashion, and in the middle of it is an image of Hermes, made of stone and bearded. Standing right on the earth, it is of square shape, and of no great size. On it is an inscription, saying that it was dedicated by Simylus the Messenian. It is called Hermes of the Market, and by it is established an oracle. In front of the image is placed a hearth, which also is of stone, and to the hearth bronze lamps are fastened with lead.
{7.22.3} Coming at eventide, the inquirer of the god, having burned incense upon the hearth, filled the lamps with oil and lighted them, puts on the altar on the right of the image a local coin, called a “copper,” and asks in the ear of the god the particular question he wishes to put to him. After that he stops his ears and leaves the marketplace. On coming outside he takes his hands from his ears, and whatever utterance he hears he considers oracular.
{7.22.4} There is a similar method of divination practiced at the sanctuary of Apis in Egypt. At Pharaithere is also a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring is Hermes’ stream, and the fish in it are not caught, being considered sacred to the god. Quite close to the image stand square stones, about thirty in number. These the people of Pharaiadore, calling each by the name of some god. At a more remote period all the Greeks alike worshipped uncarved stones instead of images of the gods.
{7.22.5} About fifteen stadium-lengths from Pharaiis a grove of the Dioskouroi. The trees in it are chiefly laurels; I saw in it neither temple nor images, the latter, according to the natives, having been carried away to Rome. In the grove at Pharaiis an altar of unshaped stones. I could not discover whether the founder of Pharaiwas Phares, son of Phylodameia, daughter of Danais, or someone else with the same name.
{7.22.6} Triteia, also a city of Achaea, is situated inland, but like Pharaibelongs to Patrae, having been annexed by the emperor. The distance to Triteia from Pharaiis a hundred and twenty stadium-lengths. Before you enter the city is a tomb of white marble, well worth seeing, especially for the paintings on the tomb, the work of Nikias. There is an ivory chair on which is a young and beautiful woman, by whose side is a handmaid carrying a sunshade. There is also a young man, who is standing.
{7.22.7} He is too young for a beard, and wears a tunic with a purple cloak over it. By his side is a servant carrying javelins and leading hounds. I could not discover their names, but anyone can conjecture that here man and wife share a common grave.
{7.22.8} The founder of Triteia is said by some to have been Celbidas, who came from Cumae in the country of the Opici. Others say that Ares mated with Triteia the daughter of Triton, that this maiden was priestess to Athena, and that Melanippos, the son of Ares and Triteia, founded the city when he grew up, naming it after his mother.
{7.22.9} In Triteia is a sanctuary of the gods called Almighty, and their images are made of clay. In honor of these every year they celebrate a festival, exactly the same sort of festival as the Greeks hold in honor of Dionysus. There is also a temple of Athena, and the modern image is of stone. The ancient image, as the folk of Triteia say, was carried to Rome. The people here are accustomed to sacrifice both to Ares and to Triteia.
{7.22.10} These cities are at some distance from the sea and completely inland. As you sail to Aigion from Patraiyou come first to the cape called Rhium, fifty stadium-lengths from Patrae, the harbor of Panormos being fifteen stadium-lengths farther from the cape. It is another fifteen stadium-lengths from Panormos to what is known as the Fort of Athena. From the Fort of Athena to the harbor of Erineus is a coastal voyage of ninety stadium-lengths, and from Erineus to Aigion is sixty. But the land route is about forty stadium-lengths less than the number here given.
{7.22.11} Not far from the city of Patraiis the river Meilichus, and the sanctuary of Triclaria, which no longer has an image. This is on the right. Advancing from the Meilichus you come to another river, the name of which is the Kharadros. The flocks and herds that drink of this river in spring are bound to have male young ones for the most part, and for this reason the herdsmen remove all except the cows to another part of the country. The cows they leave behind by the river, because for sacrifices and for agriculture bulls are more suitable than cows, but in the case of other cattle the females are preferred.
{7.23.1} After the Kharadros you come to some ruins, not at all remarkable, of the city Argyra, to the spring Argyra, on the right of the high road, and to the river Selemnus going down to the sea. The local legend about Selemnus is that he was a handsome boy who used to feed his flocks here. Argyra, they say, was a sea-nymph, who fell in love with Selemnus and used to come up out of the sea to visit him, sleeping by his side.
{7.23.2} After no long while Selemnus no longer seemed so handsome, and the nymph would not visit him. So Selemnus, deserted by Argyra, died of love, and Aphrodite turned him into a river. This is what the people of Patraisay. As Selemnus continued to love Argyra even when he was turned into water, just as Alpheios in the legend continued to love Arethousa, Aphrodite bestowed on him a further gift, by blotting out the memory of Argyra.
{7.23.3} I heard too another tale about the water, how it is a useful remedy for both men and women when in love; if they wash in the river they forget their passion. If there is any truth in the story the water of the Selemnus is of more value to mankind than great wealth.
{7.23.4} At some distance from Argyra is a river named Bolinaios, and by it once stood a city Bolina. Apollo, says a legend, fell in love with a maiden called Bolina, who fleeing to the sea here threw herself into it, and by the favor of Apollo became an immortal. Next to it a cape juts out into the sea, and of it is told a story how Kronos threw into the sea here the sickle with which he mutilated his father Uranus. For this reason they call the cape Drepanum. [442] Beyond the high road are the ruins of Rhypes. Aigion is about thirty stadium-lengths distant from Rhypes.
{7.23.5} The territory of Aigion is crossed by a river Phoenix, and by another called Meiganitas, both of which flow into the sea. A portico near the city was made for Straton, an athlete who won at Olympia on the same day victories in the pankration and in wrestling. The portico was built that this man might exercise himself in it. At Aigion is an ancient sanctuary of Eileithuia, and her image is covered from head to foot with finely-woven drapery; it is of wood except the face, hands and feet,
{7.23.6} which are made of Pentelic marble. One hand is stretched out straight; the other holds up a torch. One might conjecture that torches are an attribute of Eileithuia because the pangs of women are just like fire. The torches might also be explained by the fact that it is Eileithuia who brings children to the light. The image is a work of Damophon the Messenian.
{7.23.7} Not far from Eileithuia is a precinct of Asklepios, with images of him and of Hygieia. An iambic line on the pedestal says that the artist was Damophon the Messenian. In this sanctuary of Asklepios a man of Sidon entered upon an argument with me. He declared that the Phoenicians had better notions about the gods than the Greeks, giving as an instance that to Asklepios they assign Apollo as father, but no mortal woman as his mother.
{7.23.8} Asklepios, he went on, is air, bringing health to mankind and to all animals likewise; Apollo is the sun, and most rightly is he named the father of Asklepios, because the sun, by adapting his course to the seasons, imparts to the air its healthfulness. I replied that I accepted his statements, but that the argument was as much Greek as Phoenician for at Titane in Sikyonia the same image is called both Hygieia and … [443] thus clearly showing that it is the course of the sun that brings health to mankind.
{7.23.9} At Aigion you find a temple of Athena and a grove of Hērā. Of Athena there are two images of white marble; the image of Hērā may be seen by nobody except the woman who happens to hold the office of priestess to the goddess. Near the theater they have a sanctuary of Dionysus with an image of the god as a beardless youth. There is also in the marketplace a precinct of Zeus surnamed Savior, with two images, both of bronze, on the left as you go in; the one without a beard seemed to me the more ancient.
{7.23.10} In a building right in front of the entrance are images, of bronze like the others, representing Poseidon, Hēraklēs, Zeus and Athena. They are called gods from Argos. The Argives say it is because they were made in Argos; the people of Aigion themselves say that the images were deposited by the Argives with them on trust.
{7.23.11} They say further that they were ordered to sacrifice each day to the images. But bethinking themselves of a trick they sacrificed a vast number of animals, but the victims they ate up at public feasts, so that they were not put to any expense. At last the Argives asked for the images to be returned, whereupon the people of Aigion asked for the cost of the sacrifices. As the Argives had not the means to pay, they left the images at Aigion.
{7.24.1} By the marketplace at Aigion is a temple shared by Apollo and Artemis in common; and in the marketplace there is a sanctuary of Artemis, who is represented in the act of shooting an arrow, and also the tomb of Talthybios the herald. There is also at Sparta a barrow serving as a tomb to Talthybios, and both cities sacrifice to him as to a hero.
{7.24.2} By the sea at Aigion is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and after it one of Poseidon; there is also one of the Maiden, daughter of Demeter, and one to Zeus Homagyrios (Assembler). Here are images of Zeus, of Aphrodite and of Athena. The surname Assembler was given to Zeus because in this place Agamemnon assembled the most eminent men in Greece, in order that they might consult together how to make war on the empire of Priam. Among the claims of Agamemnon to renown is that he destroyed Troy and the cities around her [444] with the forces that followed him originally, without any later reinforcements.
{7.24.3} Adjoining Zeus the Assembler is a sanctuary of Demeter Panachaean. The beach, on which the people of Aigion have the sanctuaries I have mentioned, affords a plentiful supply of water from a spring; it is pleasing both to the eye and to the taste. They have also a sanctuary of Safety. Her image may be seen by none but the priests, and the following ritual is performed. They take cakes of the district from the goddess and throw them into the sea, saying that they send them to Arethousa at Syracuse.
{7.24.4} There are at Aigion other images made of bronze, Zeus as a boy and Hēraklēs as a beardless youth, the work of Ageladas of Argos. Priests are elected for them every year, and each of the two images remains at the house of the priest. In a more remote age there was chosen to be priest for Zeus from the boys he who won the prize for beauty. When his beard began to grow the honor for beauty passed to another boy. Such were the customs. Even in my time the Achaean assembly still meets at Aigion, just as the Amphiktyones do at Thermopylae and at Delphi.
{7.24.5} Going on further you come to the river Selinous, and forty stadium-lengths away from Aigion is a place on the sea called Helike. Here used to be situated a city Helike, where the Ionians had a very holy sanctuary of Heliconian Poseidon. Their worship of Heliconian Poseidon has remained, even after their expulsion by the Achaeans to Athens, and subsequently from Athens to the coasts of Asia. At Miletus too on the way to the spring Biblis there is before the city an altar of Heliconian Poseidon, and in Teos likewise the Heliconian has a precinct and an altar, well worth seeing.
{7.24.6} There are also passages in Homer [445] referring to Helike and the Heliconian Poseidon. But later on the Achaeans of the place removed some suppliants from the sanctuary and killed them. But the wrath of Poseidon visited them without delay; an earthquake promptly struck their land and swallowed up, without leaving a trace for posterity to see, both the buildings and the very site on which the city stood.
{7.24.7} Warnings, usually the same in all cases, are accustomed to be sent by the god before violent and far-reaching earthquakes. Either continuous storms of rain or else continuous droughts occur before earthquakes for an unusual length of time, and the weather is unseasonable. In winter it turns too hot, and in summer along with a tendency to haze the orb of the sun presents an unusual color, slightly inclining to red or else to black.
{7.24.8} Springs of water generally dry up; blasts of wind sometimes swoop upon the land and overturn the trees; occasionally great flames dart across the sky; the shapes of stars too appear such as have never been witnessed before, producing consternation in those that witness them; furthermore there is a violent rumbling of winds beneath the earth—these and many other warnings is the god accustomed to send before violent earthquakes occur.
{7.24.9} The shock itself is not of one fixed type, but the original inquirers into such matters and their pupils have been able to discover the following forms of earthquake. The mildest form—that is, if such a calamity admits of mitigation—is when there coincides with the original shock, which levels the buildings with the ground, a shock in the opposite direction, counteracting the first and raising up the buildings already knocked over.
{7.24.10} In this form of’ earthquake pillars may be seen righting themselves which have been almost entirely uprooted, split walls coming together to their original position; beams, dislocated by the shock, go back to their places, and likewise channels, and such-like means of furthering the flow of water, have their cracks cemented better than they could be by human craftsmen. Now the second form of earthquake brings destruction to anything liable to it, and it throws over at once, as it were by a battering-ram, whatever meets the force of its impact.
{7.24.11} The most destructive kind of earthquake the experts are accustomed to liken to the symptoms of a man suffering from a non-intermittent fever, the breathing of such a patient being rapid and labored. There are symptoms of this to be found in many parts of the body, especially at each wrist. In the same way, they say, the earthquake dives directly under buildings and shakes up their foundations, just as molehills come up from the bowels of the earth. It is this sort of shock alone that leaves no trace on the ground that men ever dwelled there.
{7.24.12} This was the type of earthquake, they say, that on the occasion referred to levelled Helike to the ground, and that it was accompanied by another disaster in the season of winter. The sea flooded a great part of the land, and covered up the whole of Helike all round. Moreover, the tide was so deep in the grove of Poseidon that only the tops of the trees remained visible. What with the sudden earthquake, and the invasion of the sea that accompanied it, the tidal wave swallowed up Helike and every man in it.
{7.24.13} A similar fate, though different in type, [446] came upon a city on Mount Sipylos, so that it vanished into a chasm. The mountain split, water welled up from the fissure, and the chasm became a lake called Saloe. The ruins of the city were to be seen in the lake, until the water of the torrent hid them from view. The ruins of Helike too are visible, but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water.
{7.25.1} The disaster that befell Helike is but one of the many proofs that the wrath of the God of Suppliants is inexorable. The god at Dodona too manifestly advises us to respect suppliants. For about the time of Apheidas the Athenians received from Zeus of Dodona the following verses:
“Consider the Areiopagos, and the smoking altars
Of the Eumenides, where the Lacedaemonians are to be thy suppliants,
When hard-pressed in war. Kill them not with the sword,
And wrong not suppliants. For suppliants are sacred and holy.”
Of the Eumenides, where the Lacedaemonians are to be thy suppliants,
When hard-pressed in war. Kill them not with the sword,
And wrong not suppliants. For suppliants are sacred and holy.”
{7.25.2} The Greeks were reminded of these words when Peloponnesians arrived in Athens at the time when the Athenian king was Kodros, the son of Melanthos. Now the rest of the Peloponnesian army, on learning of the death of Kodros and of the manner of it, departed from Attica, the oracle from Delphi making them despair of success in the future; but certain Lacedaemonians, who got unnoticed within the walls in the night, perceived at daybreak that their friends had gone, and when the Athenians gathered against them, they took refuge in the Areiopagos at the altars of the goddesses called August.
{7.25.3} On this occasion the Athenians allowed the suppliants to go away unharmed, but subsequently the magistrates themselves put to death the suppliants of Athena, when Kylon and his supporters had seized the Acropolis. So the slayers themselves and also their descendants were regarded as accursed to the goddess. The Lacedaemonians too put to death men who had taken refuge in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Taenarum. Presently their city was shaken by an earthquake so continuous and violent that no house in Lacedaemon could resist it.
{7.25.4} The destruction of Helike occurred while Asteios was still archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the fourth year of the hundred and first Olympiad, [447] whereat Damon of Thourioi was victorious for the first time. As none of the people of Helike were left alive, the land is occupied by the people of Aigion.
{7.25.5} After Helike you will turn from the sea to the right and you will come to the town of Ceryneia. It is built on a mountain above the high road, and its name was given to it either by a native potentate or by the river Cerynites, which, flowing from Arcadia and Mount Ceryneia, passes through this part of Achaea. To this part came as settlers Mycenaeans from Argolis because of a catastrophe. Though the Argives could not take the wall of Mycenae by storm,
{7.25.6} built as it was like the wall of Tiryns by the Cyclopes, as they are called, yet the Mycenaeans were forced to leave their city through lack of provisions. Some of them departed for Kleonai, but more than half of the population took refuge with Alexander in Macedonia, to whom Mardonios, the son of Gobryas, entrusted the message to be given to the Athenians. [448] The rest of the population came to Ceryneia, and the addition of the Mycenaeans made Ceryneia more powerful, through the increase of the population, and more renowned for the future.
{7.25.7} In Ceryneia is a sanctuary of the Eumenides, which they say was established by Orestes. Whosoever enters with the desire to see the sights, if he be guilty of bloodshed, defilement or impiety, is said at once to become insane with fright, and for this reason the right to enter is not given to all and sundry. The images made of wood … they are not very large in size, and at the entrance to the sanctuary are statues of women, made of stone and of artistic workmanship. The natives said that the women are portraits of the former priestesses of the Eumenides.
{7.25.8} On returning from Ceryneia to the high road, if you go along it for a short distance you may turn aside again to Bura, which is situated on a mountain to the right of the sea. It is said that the name was given to the city from a woman called Bura, who was the daughter of Ion, son of Xuthus, and of Helike. When the god wiped off Helike from the face of the earth, Bura too suffered a severe earthquake, so that not even the ancient images were left in the sanctuaries.
{7.25.9} The only Burians to survive were those who chanced to be absent at the time, either on active service or for some other reason, and these became the second founders of Bura. There is a temple here of Demeter, one of Aphrodite and Dionysus, and a third of Eileithuia. The images are of Pentelic marble, and were made by Eukleides of Athens. There is drapery for Demeter. [449] Isis too has a sanctuary.
{7.25.10} On descending from Bura towards the sea you come to a river called Buraicus, and to a small Hēraklēs in a cave. He too is surnamed Buraicus, and here one can divine by means of a tablet and dice. He who inquires of the god offers up a prayer in front of the image, and after the prayer he takes four dice, a plentiful supply of which are placed by Hēraklēs, and throws them upon the table. For every figure made by the dice there is an explanation expressly written on the tablet. [450]
{7.25.11} The straight road from Helike to the Hēraklēs is about thirty stadium-lengths. Going on from the Hēraklēs you come to the mouth of a river that descends from a mountain in Arcadia and never dries up. The river itself is called the Crathis, which is also the name of the mountain where the river has its source. From this Crathis the river too by Kroton in Italy has been named.
{7.25.12} By the Achaean Crathis once stood Aigai, a city of the Achaeans. In course of time, it is said, it was abandoned because its people were weak. [451] This Aigai is mentioned by Homer in Hērā’s speech:
“They bring thee gifts up to Helike and to Aigai.”
Iliad 8.203
Hence it is plain that Poseidon was equally honored at Helike and at Aigai.
{7.25.13} At no great distance from the Crathis you will find a tomb on the right of the road, and on the tombstone a man standing by the side of a horse; the colors of the painting have faded. From the tomb it is a journey of about thirty stadium-lengths to what is called the Gaios, a sanctuary of Earth surnamed Broad-bosomed, whose wooden image is one of the very oldest. The woman who from time to time is priestess henceforth remains chaste, and before her election must not have had intercourse with more than one man. The test applied is drinking bull’s blood. Any woman who may chance not to speak the truth is immediately punished as a result of this test. If several women compete for the priesthood, lots are cast for the honor.
{7.26.1} To the port of Aigeira, which has the same name as the city, it is seventy-two stadium-lengths from the Hēraklēs that stands on the road to Bura. The coast town of Aigeira presents nothing worth recording; from the port to the upper city is twelve stadium-lengths.
{7.26.2} Homer in his poem calls the city Hyperesia. [452] Its present name was given it while the Ionians were still dwelling there, and the reason for the name was as follows. A hostile army of Sikyonians was about to invade their territory. As they thought themselves no match for the Sikyonians, they collected all the goats they had in the country, and gathering them together they tied torches to their horns, and when the night was far advanced they set the torches alight.
{7.26.3} The Sikyonians, suspecting that allies were coming to the help of the Hyperesians, and that the flames came from their fires, set off home again. The Hyperesians gave their city its present name of Aigeira from the goats [aiges], and where the most beautiful goat, which led the others, crouched, they built a sanctuary of Artemis the Huntress, believing that the trick against the Sikyonians was an inspiration of Artemis.
{7.26.4} The name Aigeira, however, did not supersede Hyperesia at once, just as even in my time there were still some who called Oreus in Euboea by its ancient name of Hestiaea. The sights of Aigeira worth recording include a sanctuary of Zeus with a sitting image of Pentelic marble, the work of Eukleides the Athenian. In this sanctuary there also stands an image of Athena. The face, hands and feet are of ivory, the rest is of wood, with ornamentation of gilded work and of colors.
{7.26.5} There is also a temple of Artemis, with an image of the modern style of workmanship. The priestess is a virgin, who holds office until she reaches the age to marry. There stands here too an ancient image, which the folk of Aigeira say is Iphigeneia, the daughter of Agamemnon. If they are correct, it is plain that the temple must have been built originally for Iphigeneia.
{7.26.6} There is also a sanctuary of Apollo; the sanctuary itself, with the sculptures on the pediments, are very old; the wooden image of the god also is old, the figure being nude and of colossal size. None of the inhabitants could give the name of the artist, but anyone who has already seen the Hēraklēs at Sikyon would be led to conjecture that the Apollo in Aigeira was also a work of the same artist, Laphaes the Phliasian.
{7.26.7} There are in a temple standing images of Asklepios, and elsewhere images of Serapis and of Isis, these too being of Pentelic marble. They worship most devoutly the goddess they call the celestial one [Ourania], but human beings must not enter her sanctuary. But into the sanctuary of the goddess they call Syrian they enter on stated days, but they must submit beforehand to certain customary purifications, especially in the matter of diet.
{7.26.8} I remember observing at Aigeira a building in which was an image of Fortune carrying the horn of Amaltheia. By her side is a winged Love, the moral of which is that even success in love depends for mankind on fortune rather than on beauty. Now I am in general agreement with Pindar’s ode, and especially with his making Fortune one of the Fates, and more powerful than her sisters. [453]
{7.26.9} In this building at Aigeira is also an old man in the attitude of a mourner, three women taking off their bracelets, and likewise three boys, with a man wearing a breastplate. They say that in a war of the Achaeans this last man fought more bravely than any other soldier of Aigeira, but was killed. His surviving brothers carried home the news of his death, and therefore in mourning for him his sisters are discarding their ornaments, and the natives call the father Sympathes, because even in the statue he is a piteous figure.
{7.26.10} There is a straight road from the sanctuary of Zeus at Aigeira, passing through the mountains and steep. It is forty stadium-lengths long, and leads to Phelloe, an obscure town, which was not always inhabited even when the Ionians still occupied the land. [454] The district round Phelloe is well suited for the growth of the vine; the rocky parts are covered with oaks, the home of deer and wild boars.
{7.26.11} You may reckon Phelloe one of the towns in Greece best supplied with flowing water. There are sanctuaries of Dionysus and of Artemis. The goddess is of bronze, and is taking an arrow from her quiver. The image of Dionysus is painted with vermilion. On going down from Aigeira to the port, and walking on again, we see on the right of the road the sanctuary of the Huntress, where they say the goat crouched.
{7.26.12} The territory of Aigeira is bounded by that of Pellene, which is the last city of Achaea in the direction of Sikyon and the Argolid. The city got its name, according to the account of the Pellenians, from Pallas, who was, they say, one of the Titans, but the Argives think it was from Pellen, an Argive. And they say that he was the son of Phorbas, the son of Triopas.
{7.26.13} Between Aigeira and Pellene once stood a town, subject to the Sikyonians and called Donussa, which was laid waste by the Sikyonians;it is mentioned, they say, in a verse of Homer that occurs in the list of those who accompanied Agamemnon:
“And the men of Hyperesia and those of steep Donoessa.”
Iliad 2.573
They go on to say that when Peisistratos collected the poems of Homer, which were scattered and handed down by tradition, some in one place and some in another, then either he or one of his colleagues perverted the name through ignorance.
{7.26.14} The port of Pellene is Aristonautae. Its distance from Aigeira on the sea is one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths, and to Pellene from this port is half that distance. They say that the name of Aristonautae [455] was given to that port because it was one of the habors into which the Argonauts entered.
{7.27.1} The city of Pellene is on a hill which rises to a sharp peak at its summit. This part then is precipitous, and therefore uninhabited, but on the lower slopes they have built their city, which is not continuous, but divided into two parts by the peak that rises up between. As you go to Pellene there is, by the roadside, an image of Hermes, who, in spite of his surname of Crafty, is ready to fulfill the prayers of men. He is of square shape and bearded, and on his head is carved a cap.
{7.27.2} On the way to the city, close up to it, is a temple of Athena, built of local stone, but the image is of ivory and gold. They say that Pheidias made it before he made the images of Athena on the Athenian acropolis and at Plataea. The people of Pellene also say that a shrine of Athena sinks deep into the ground, that this shrine is under the pedestal of the image, and that the air from the shrine is damp, and consequently good for the ivory.
{7.27.3} Above the temple of Athena is a grove, surrounded by a wall, of Artemis surnamed Savior, by whom they swear their most solemn oaths. No man may enter the grove except the priests. These priests are natives, chosen chiefly because of their high birth. Opposite the grove of the Savior is a sanctuary of Dionysus surnamed Torch. In his honor they celebrate a festival called the Feast of Torches, when they bring by night firebrands into the sanctuary, and set up bowls of wine throughout the whole city.
{7.27.4} There is also at Pellene a sanctuary of Apollo, the Strangers’ God, and the image is made of bronze. They hold in honor of Apollo games that they call Theoxenia, with money as the prizes of victory, the competitors being the natives. Near the sanctuary of Apollo is a temple of Artemis, the goddess being represented in the attitude of shooting. In the marketplace is built a tank, and for bathing they use rain-water, since for drinking there are a few springs beneath the city. The place where the springs are they name Glyceiae (Sweet Springs).
{7.27.5} There is an old gymnasium chiefly given up to the exercises of the youths. No one may be enrolled on the register of citizens before he has been on the register of youths. Here stands a man of Pellene called Promakhos, the son of Dryon, who won prizes in the pankration, one at Olympia, three at the Isthmus and two at Nemeā. The Pellenians made two statues of him, dedicating one at Olympia and one in the gymnasium; the latter is of stone, not bronze.
{7.27.6} It is said too that when a war arose between Corinth and Pellene, Promakhos killed a vast number of the enemy. It is said that he also overcame at Olympia Poulydamas of Skotoussa, this being the occasion when, after his safe return home from the king of Persia, he came for the second time to compete in the Olympic games. The Thessalians, however, refuse to admit that Poulydamas was beaten; one of the pieces of evidence they bring forward is a verse about Poulydamas:
“Scotoessa, nurse of unbeaten Poulydamas.”
Unknown
{7.27.7} Be this as it may, the people of Pellene hold Promakhos in the highest honor. But Chaeron, who carried off two prizes for wrestling at the Isthmian games and four at the Olympian, they will not even mention by name. This I believe is because he overthrew the constitution of Pellene, and received from Alexander, the son of Philip, the most invidious of all gifts, to be set up as tyrant of one’s own fatherland.
{7.27.8} Pellene has also a sanctuary of Eileithuia, which is situated in the lesser portion of the city. What is called the Poseidium in more ancient days was a township, but today it is uninhabited. This Poseidium is below the gymnasium, and down to the present day it has been considered sacred to Poseidon.
{7.27.9} About sixty stadium-lengths distant from Pellene is the Mysaeum, a sanctuary of the Mysian Demeter. It is said that it was founded by Mysios, a man of Argos, who according to Argive tradition gave Demeter a welcome in his home. There is a grove in the Mysaeum, containing trees of every kind, and in it rises a copious supply of water from springs. Here they also celebrate a seven days’ festival in honor of Demeter.
{7.27.10} On the third day of the festival the men withdraw from the sanctuary, and the women are left to perform on that night the ritual that custom demands. Not only men are excluded, but even male dogs. On the following day the men come to the sanctuary, and the men and the women laugh and jeer at one another in turn.
{7.27.11} At no great distance from the Mysacum is a sanctuary of Asklepios, called Cyrus, where cures of patients are effected by the god. Here too there is a copious supply of water, and at the largest of the springs stands the image of Asklepios. Rivers come down from the mountains above Pellene, the one on the side nearest Aigeira being called Krios, after, it is said, a Titan of the same name.
{7.27.12} There is another river called Krios, which rises in Mount Sipylos and is a tributary of the Hermos. Where the territory of Pellene borders on that of Sikyon is a Pellenian river Sythas, the last of the Achaean rivers, which flows into the Sikyonian sea.
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Scroll VIII. Arcadia
{8.1.1} The part of Arcadia that lies next to the Argive land is occupied by Tegeans and Mantineians, who with the rest of the Arcadians inhabit the interior of the Peloponnesus. The first people within the peninsula are the Corinthians, living on the Isthmus, and their neighbors on the side sea-wards are the Epidaurians. Along Epidaurus, Troizen, and Nermion, come the Argolic Gulf and the coast of Argolis; next to Argolis come the vassals of Lacedaemon, and these border on Messenia, which comes down to the sea at Mothone, Pylos and Cyparissiae.
{8.1.2} On the side of Lechaeum the Corinthians are bounded by the Sikyonians, who dwell in the extreme part of Argolis on this side. After Sikyon come the Achaeans who live along the coast at the other end of the Peloponnesus, opposite the Echinadian islands, dwell the Eleians. The land of Elis, on the side of Olympia and the mouth of the Alpheios, borders on Messenia; on the side of Achaea it borders on the land of Dyme.
{8.1.3} These that I have mentioned extend to the sea, but the Arcadians are shut off from the sea on every side and dwell in the interior. Hence, when they went to Troy, so Homer says, they did not sail in their own ships, but in vessels lent by Agamemnon.
{8.1.4} The Arcadians say that Pelasgus was the first inhabitant of this land. It is natural to suppose that others accompanied Pelasgus, and that he was not by himself; for otherwise he would have been a king without any subjects to rule over. However, in stature and in prowess, in beauty and in wisdom, Pelasgus excelled his fellows, and for this reason, I think, he was chosen to be king by them. Asios the poet says of him:
“The godlike Pelasgus on the wooded mountains
Black earth gave up, that the lineage of mortals might exist.”
Black earth gave up, that the lineage of mortals might exist.”
Asios, unknown location
{8.1.5} Pelasgus on becoming king invented huts that humans should not shiver, or be soaked by rain, or oppressed by heat. Moreover; he it was who first thought of coats of sheep-skins, such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phokis. He too it was who checked the habit of eating green leaves, grasses, and roots always inedible and sometimes poisonous.
{8.1.6} But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak. Some people have followed this diet so closely since the time of Pelasgus that even the Pythian priestess, when she forbade the Lacedaemonians to touch the land of the Arcadians, uttered the following verses:
“In Arcadia are many men who eat acorns,
Who will prevent you; though I do not grudge it you.”
Who will prevent you; though I do not grudge it you.”
It is said that it was in the reign of Pelasgus that the land was called Pelasgia.
{8.2.1} Lycaon the son of Pelasgus devised the following plans, which were more clever than those of his father. He founded the city Lycosura on Mount Lykaios, gave to Zeus the surname Lykaios and founded the Lycaean games. I hold that the Panathenian festival was not founded before the Lycaean. The early name for the former festival was the Athenian, which was changed to the Panathenian in the time of Theseus, because it was then established by the whole Athenian people gathered together in a single city.
{8.2.2} The Olympic games I leave out of the present account, because they are traced back to a time earlier than humankind, the story being that Kronos and Zeus wrestled there, and that the Kouretes were the first to race at Olympia. My view is that Lycaon was contemporary with Kekrops, the king of Athens, but that they were not equally wise in matters of religion.
{8.2.3} For Kekrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burned instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (Lycos).
{8.2.4} I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability. For the men of those days, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board; the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them—Aristaios, Britomartis of Crete, Hēraklēs the son of Alkmene, Amphiaraos the son of Oikles, and besides these Polydeukes and Castor (Kastor).
{8.2.5} So one might believe that Lykaon was turned into a beast, and Niobe, the daughter of Tantalos, into a stone. But at the present time, when sin has grown to such a height and has been spreading over every land and every city, no longer do men turn into gods, except in the flattering words addressed to despots, and the wrath of the gods is reserved until the sinners have departed to the next world.
{8.2.6} All through the ages, many events that have occurred in the past, and even some that occur today, have been generally discredited because of the lies built up on a foundation of fact. It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lykaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Zeus Lykaios, but that the change is not for life; if, when he is a wolf, he abstains from human flesh, after nine years he becomes a man again, but if he tastes human flesh he remains a beast for ever.
{8.2.7} Similarly too it is said that Niobe on Mount Sipylos sheds tears in the season of summer. I have also heard that the griffins have spots like the leopard, and that the Tritons speak with human voice, though others say that they blow through a shell that has been bored. Those who like to listen to the miraculous are themselves apt to add to the marvel, and so they ruin truth by mixing it with falsehood.
{8.3.1} In the third generation after Pelasgus the land increased in the number both of its cities and of its population. For Nyktimos, who was the eldest son of Lykaon, possessed all the power, while the other sons founded cities on the sites they considered best. Thus Pallantion was founded by Pallas, Oresthasium by Orestheus and Phigalia by Phigalus.
{8.3.2} Pallantion is mentioned by Stesichorus of Himera in his Geryoneid. Phigalia and Oresthasium in course of time changed their names, Oresthasium to Oresteium after Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, Phigalia to Phialia after Phialus, the son of Bucolion. Cities were founded by Trapezeus also, and by Daseatas, Makareus, Helisson, Acacus and Thocnus. The last founded Thocnia, and Acacus Acacesium. It was after this Acacus, according to the Arcadian account, that Homer [456] made a surname for Hermes.
{8.3.3} Helisson has given a name to both the town and the river so called, and similarly Makaria, Dasea, and Trapezus were named after the sons of Lykaon. Orkhomenos became founder of both the town called Methydrium and of Orkhomenos, styled by Homer [457] “rich in sheep.” Hypsus and … [458] founded Melainai and Hypsus, and also Thyraeum and Haimoniai. The Arcadians are of opinion that both the Thyrea in Argolis and also the Thyrean gulf were named after this Thyraios.
{8.3.4} Mainalos founded Mainalos, which was in ancient times the most famous of the cities of Arcadia, Tegeates founded Tegea and Mantineus Mantineia. Cromi was named after Cromus, Kharisia after Kharisios, its founder, Trikolōnoi after Trokoloōnos, Peraitheis after Peraithos, Asea after Aseatas, Lykoa after […] [459] and Sumatia after Sumateus. Alipheros also and Heraios both gave their names to cities.
{8.3.5} But Oinotros, the youngest of the sons of Lykaon, asked his brother Nyktimos for money and men and crossed by sea to Italy; the land of Oinotria received its name from Oinotros who was its king. This was the first expedition despatched from Greece to found a colony, and if a man makes the most careful calculation possible he will discover that no foreigners either emigrated to another land before Oinotros.
{8.3.6} In addition to all this male issue, Lykaon had a daughter Kallisto. This Kallisto (I repeat the current Greek legend) was loved by Zeus and mated with him. When Hērā detected the intrigue she turned Kallisto into a bear, and Artemis to please Hērā shot the bear. Zeus sent Hermes with orders to save the child that Kallisto bore in her womb,
{8.3.7} and Kallisto herself he turned into the constellation known as the Great Bear, which is mentioned by Homer in the return voyage of Odysseus from Calypso:
“Gazing at the Pleiades and late-setting Bootes,
And the Bear, which they also call the Wain.”
And the Bear, which they also call the Wain.”
Odyssey 5.272
But it may be that the constellation is merely named in honor of Kallisto, since her tomb is pointed out by the Arcadians.
{8.4.1} After the death of Nyktimos, Arkas the son of Kallisto came to the throne. He introduced the cultivation of crops, which he learned from Triptolemos, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other things besides, having learned the art of spinning from Adristas. After this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians.
{8.4.2} His wife, according to the legend, was no mortal woman but a Dryad nymph. For they used to call some nymphs Dryads, others Epimeliads, and others Naiads, and Homer in his poetry talks mostly of Naiad nymphs. This nymph they call Erato, and by her they say that Arkas had Azan, Apheidas and Elatos. Previously he had had Autolaos, an illegitimate son.
{8.4.3} When his sons grew up, Arkas divided the land between them into three parts, and one district was named Azania after Azan; from Azania, it is said, settled the colonists who dwell about the cave in Phrygia called Steunos and the river Pencalas. To Apheidas fell Tegea and the land adjoining, and for this reason poets too call Tegea “the lot of Apheidas.”
{8.4.4} Elatos got Mount Cyllene, which down to that time had received no name. Afterwards Elatos migrated to what is now called Phokis, helped the people of Phokis when hard pressed in war by the Phlegyans, and became the founder of the city Elateia. It is said that Azan had a son Kleitor, Apheidas a son Aleus, and that Elatos had five sons, Aipytos, Pereus, Cyllen, Ischys, and Stymphalos.
{8.4.5} On the death of Axan, the son of Arkas, athletic contests were held for the first time; horse races were certainly held, but I cannot speak positively about other contests. Now Kleitor the son of Azan dwelled in Lykosoura, and was the most powerful of the kings, founding Kleitor, which he named after himself; Aleus held his father’s portion.
{8.4.6} Of the sons of Elatos, Cyllen gave his name to Mount Cyllene, and Stymphalos gave his to the spring and to the city Stymphalos near the spring. The story of the death of Ischys, the son of Elatos, I have already told in my history of Argolis. [460] Pereus, they say, had no male child, but only a daughter, Neaera. She married Autolycus (Autolykos), who lived on Mount Parnassus, and was said to be a son of Hermes, although his real father was Baedalion.
{8.4.7} Kleitor, the son of Azan, had no children, and the sovereignty of the Arcadians devolved upon Aipytos, the son of Elatos. While out hunting, Aipytos was killed, not by any of the more powerful beasts, but by a seps that he failed to notice. This species of snake I have myself seen. It is like the smallest kind of adder, of the color of ash, with spots dotted here and there. It has a broad head and a narrow neck, a large belly and a short tail. This snake, like another called cerastes (“the horned snake”), walks with a sidelong motion, as do crabs.
{8.4.8} After Aipytos Aleus came to the throne. For Agamedes and Gortys, the sons of Stymphalos, were three generations removed from Arkas, and Aleus, the son of Apheidas, two generations. Aleus built the old sanctuary in Tegea of Athena Alea, and made Tegea the capital of his kingdom. Gortys the son of Stymphalos founded the city Gortys on a river which is also called after him. The sons of Aleus were Lycurgus (Lykourgos), Amphidamas and Cepheus; he also had a daughter Auge.
{8.4.9} Hecataeus says that this Auge used to have intercourse with Hēraklēs when he came to Tegea. At last it was discovered that she had borne a child to Hēraklēs, and Aleus, putting her with her infant son in a chest, sent them out to sea. She came to Teuthras, lord of the plain of the Kaïkos, who fell in love with her and married her. The tomb of Auge still exists at Pergamon above the Kaïkos; it is a mound of earth surrounded by a basement of stone and surmounted by a figure of a naked woman in bronze.
{8.4.10} After the death of Aleus Lycurgus (Lykourgos) his son got the kingdom as being the eldest; he is notorious for killing, by treachery and riot in fair fight, a warrior called Areithous. Of his two sons, Ankaios and Epokhos, the latter fell ill and died, while the former joined the expedition of Jason to Kolkhis; afterwards, while hunting down with Meleagros the Calydonian boar, he was killed by the brute.
{8.5.1} So Lycurgus (Lykourgos) outlived both his sons, and reached an extreme old age. On his death, Ekhemos, son of Aeropus, son of Cepheus, son of Aleus, became king of the Arcadians. In his time the Dorians, in their attempt to return to the Peloponnesus under the leadership of Hyllos, the son of Hēraklēs, were defeated by the Achaeans at the Isthmus of Corinth, and Ekhemos killed Hyllos, who had challenged him to single combat. I have come to the conclusion that this is a more probable story than the one I gave before, [461] that on this occasion Orestes was king of the Achaeans, and that it was during his reign that Hyllos attempted to return to the Peloponnesus. If the second account be accepted, it would appear that Timandra, the daughter of Tyndareus, married Ekhemos, who killed Hyllos.
{8.5.2} Agapenor, the son of Ankaios, the son of Lycurgus (Lykourgos), who was king after Ekhemos, led the Arcadians to Troy. After the capture of Troy the storm that overtook the Greeks on their return home carried Agapenor and the Arcadian fleet to Cyprus, and so Agapenor became the founder of Paphos, and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos (Old Paphos). Up to that time the goddess had been worshipped by the Cyprians in the district called Golgi.
{8.5.3} Afterwards Laodice, a descendant of Agapenor, sent to Tegea a robe as a gift for Athena Alea. The inscription on the offering told as well the lineage of Laodice :
“This is the robe of Laodice; she offered it to her Athena,
Sending it to her broad fatherland from divine Cyprus.”
Sending it to her broad fatherland from divine Cyprus.”
{8.5.4} When Agapenor did not return home from Troy, the kingdom devolved upon Hippothous, the son of Cercyon, the son of Agamedes, the son of Stymphalos. No remarkable event is recorded of his life, except that he established as the capital of his kingdom not Tegea but Trapezus. Aipytos, the son of Hippothous, succeeded his father to the throne, and Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, in obedience to an oracle of the Delphic Apollo, moved his home from Mycenae to Arcadia.
{8.5.5} Aipytos, the son of Hippothous, dared to enter the sanctuary of Poseidon at Mantineia, into which no mortal was, just as no mortal today is, allowed to pass; on entering it he was struck blind, and shortly after this calamity he died.
{8.5.6} Aipytos was succeeded as king by his son Kypselos, and in his reign the Dorian expedition returned to the Peloponnesus, not, as three generations before, across the Corinthian Isthmus, but by sea to the place called Rhium. Kypselos, learning about the expedition, married his daughter to the son of Aristomakhos whom he found without a wife, and so winning over Kresphontes he himself and the Arcadians had nothing at all to fear.
{8.5.7} Holaeas was the son of Kypselos, who, aided by the Herakleidai from Lacedaemon and Argos, restored to Messene his sister’s son Aipytos. Holaeas had a son Bucolion, and he a son Phialus, who robbed Phigalus, the son of Lykaon, the founder of Phigalia, of the honor of giving his name to the city; Phialus changed it to Phialia, after his own name, but the change did not win universal acceptance.
{8.5.8} In the reign of Simus, the son of Phialus, the people of Phigalia lost by fire the ancient wooden image of Black Demeter. This loss proved to be a sign that Simus himself also was soon to meet his end. Simus was succeeded as king by Pompus his son, in whose reign the Aeginetans made trading voyages as far as Cyllene, from which place they carried their cargoes up country on pack-animals to the Arcadians. In return for this Pompus honored the Arcadians greatly, and furthermore gave the name Aiginetes to his son out of friendship for the Aeginetans.
{8.5.9} After Aiginetes his son Polymestor became king of the Arcadians, and it was then that Kharillos and the Lacedaemonians for the first time invaded the land of Tegea with an army. They were defeated in battle by the people of Tegea, who, men and women alike, flew to arms; the whole army, including Kharillos himself, were taken prisoners. Kharillos and his army I shall mention at greater length in my account of Tegea. [462]
{8.5.10} Polymestor had no children, and Aechmis succeeded to the throne, who was the son of Briacas, and the nephew of Polymestor. For Briacas too was a son of Aiginetes, but younger than Polymestor. After Aechmis came to the throne occurred the war between the Lacedaemonians and the Messenians. The Arcadians had from the first been friendly to the Messenians, and on this occasion they openly fought against the Lacedaemonians on the side of Aristodemos, the king of Messenia.
{8.5.11} Aristocrates (Aristokrates), the son of Aechmis, may have been guilty of outrages against the Arcadians of his most impious acts, however, against the gods I have sure knowledge, and I will proceed to relate them. There is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Hymnia, standing on the borders of Orkhomenos, near the territory of Mantineia. Artemis Hymnia has been worshipped by all the Arcadians from the most remote period. At that time the office of priestess to the goddess was still always held by a girl who was a virgin.
{8.5.12} The maiden persisted in resisting the advances of Aristocrates (Aristokrates), but at last, when she had taken refuge in the sanctuary, she was outraged by him near the image of Artemis. When the crime came to be generally known, the Arcadians stoned the culprit, and also changed the rule for the future; as priestess of Artemis they now appoint, not a virgin, but a woman who has had enough of intercourse with men.
{8.5.13} This man had a son Hicetas, and Hicetas had a son Aristocrates (Aristokrates) the second, named after his grandfather and also meeting with a death like his. For he too was stoned by the Arcadians, who discovered that he had received bribes from Lacedaemon, and that the Messenian disaster at the Great Ditch was caused by the treachery of Aristocrates (Aristokrates). This sin explains why the kingship was taken from the whole house of Kypselos.
{8.6.1} I spent much care upon the history of the Arcadian kings, and the genealogy as given above was told me by the Arcadians themselves. Of their memorable achievements the oldest is the Trojan war; then comes the help they gave the Messenians in their struggle against Lacedaemon, and they also took part in the action at Plataea against the Persians. [463]
{8.6.2} It was compulsion rather than sympathy that made them join the Lacedaemonians in their war against Athens and in crossing over to Asia with Agesilaos; [464] they also followed the Lacedaemonians to Leuktra in Boeotia. [465] Their distrust of the Lacedaemonians was shown on many occasions; in particular, immediately after the Lacedaemonian reverse at Leuktra they seceded from them and joined the Thebans. Though they did not fight on the Greek side against Philip and the Macedonians at Khaironeia, [466] nor later in Thessaly against Antipatros, yet they did not actually range themselves against the Greeks.
{8.6.3} It was because of the Lacedaemonians, they say, that they took no part in resisting the Gallic threat to Thermopylae; they feared that their land would be laid waste in the absence of their men of military age. As members of the Achaean League the Arcadians were more enthusiastic than any other Greeks. The fortunes of each individual city, as distinct from those of the Arcadian people as a whole, I shall reserve for their proper place in my narrative.
{8.6.4} There is a pass into Arcadia on the Argive side in the direction of Hysiaiand over Mount Parthenios into Tegean territory. There are two others on the side of Mantineia: one through what is called Prinos and one through the Ladder. The latter is the broader, and its descent had steps that were once cut into it. Crossing the Ladder you come to a place called Melangeia, from which the drinking water of the Mantineians flows down to their city.
{8.6.5} Farther off from Melangeia, about seven stadium-lengths distant from Mantineia, there is a well called the Well of the Meliasts. These Meliasts celebrate the orgies of Dionysus. Near the well is a hall of Dionysus and a sanctuary of Black Aphrodite. This surname of the goddess is simply due to the fact that men do not, as the beasts do, have sexual intercourse always by day, but in most cases by night.
{8.6.6} The second road is less broad than the other, and leads over Mount Artemisios. I have already made mention of this mountain, [467] noting that on it are a temple and image of Artemis, and also the springs of the Inakhos. The river Inakhos, so long as it flows by the road across the mountain, is the boundary between the territory of Argos and that of Mantineia. But when it turns away from the road the stream flows through Argolis from this point on, and for this reason Aeschylus among others calls the Inakhos an Argive river.
{8.7.1.} After crossing into Mantineian country over Mount Artemisios you will come to a plain called the Untilled Plain, whose name well describes it, for the rainwater coming down into it from the mountains prevents the plain from being tilled; nothing indeed could prevent it from being a lake, were it not that the water disappears into a chasm in the earth.
{8.7.2} After disappearing here it rises again at Dine (Whirlpool). Dine is a stream of fresh water rising out of the sea by what is called Genethlium in Argolis. In olden times the Argives cast horses adorned with bridles down into Dine as an offering to Poseidon. Not only here in Argolis, but also by Kheimerion in Thesprotis, is there unmistakably fresh water rising up in the sea.
{8.7.3} A greater marvel still is the water that boils in the Maeander, which comes partly from a rock surrounded by the stream, and partly rises from the mud of the river. In front of Dicaearchia also, in the land of the Etruscans, there is water boiling in the sea, and an artificial island has been made through it, so that this water is not “untilled,” [468] but serves for hot baths.
{8.7.4} In the territory of the Mantineians on the left of the plain called Untilled is a mountain, on which are the ruins of a camp of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and of a village called Nestane. For it is said that by this Nestane Philip made an encampment, and the spring here they still call Philippium after the king. Philip came to Arcadia to bring over the Arcadians to his side, and to separate them from the rest of the Greek people.
{8.7.5} Philip may be supposed to have accomplished exploits greater than those of any Macedonian king who reigned either before or after. But nobody of sound mind would call him a good general, for no man has so sinned by continually trampling on oaths made to the gods [theoi], and by breaking treaties and dishonoring his word on every occasion.
{8.7.6} The anger [mēnima] that comes from the god [theos] was not late in visiting him; never in fact have we known it more speedy. When he was but forty-six years old, Philip fulfilled the oracle that it is said was given him when he inquired of Delphi about the Persians:
The bull is garlanded; the consummation is at hand; the sacrificer is ready.
Very soon afterwards events showed that this oracle pointed, not to the Persians, but to Philip himself.
{8.7.7} On the death of Philip, his infant son by Kleopatra, the niece of Attalus, was along with his mother dragged by Olympias on to a bronze vessel and burned to death. Afterwards Olympias killed Aridaios also. It turned out that the god intended to mow down to destruction the lineage of Kassandros as well. Kassandros’s sons were by Thessalonikē, the daughter of Philip, and both Thessalonikē and Aridaios had Thessalian women for their mothers. The fate of Alexander is familiar to everybody alike.
{8.7.8} But if Philip had taken to heart the fate of the Spartan Glaukos, [469] and at each of his acts had bethought himself of the verse: [470] “If a man keeps his oath his family prospers hereafter,” then, I believe, some god would not have extinguished so relentlessly the life of Alexander and, at the same time, the Macedonian supremacy.
{8.8.1} So much by way of a digression. After the ruins of Nestane is a holy sanctuary of Demeter, and every year the Mantineians hold a festival in her honor. By Nestane there lies, on lower ground, about … itself too forming part of the Untilled Plain, and it is called the Dancing Floor of Maera. The road across the Untilled Plain is about ten stadium-lengths. After crossing it you will descend, a little farther on, into another plain. On it, alongside the highway, is a well called Lamb.
{8.8.2} The following story is told by the Arcadians. When Rhea had given birth to Poseidon, she laid him in a flock for him to live there with the lambs, and the spring too received its name just because the lambs pastured around it. Rhea, it is said, declared to Kronos that she had given birth to a horse, and gave him a foal to swallow instead of the child, just as later she gave him in place of Zeus a stone wrapped up in swaddling clothes.
{8.8.3} When I began to write my history I was inclined to count these legends as foolishness, but on getting as far as Arcadia I grew to hold a more thoughtful view of them, which is this. In the days of old those Greeks who were considered wise spoke their sayings not straight out but in riddles, and so the legends about Kronos I conjectured to be one sort of Greek wisdom. In matters of divinity, therefore, I shall adopt the received tradition.
{8.8.4} The city of the Mantineians is about twelve stadium-lengths farther away from this spring. Now there are plain indications that it was in another place that Mantineus the son of Lykaon founded his city, which even today is called Ptolis (City) by the Arcadians. From here, in obedience to an oracle, Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus, the son of Aleus, removed the inhabitants to the modern site, accepting as a guide for the pilgrimage a snake; the breed of snake is not recorded. It is for this reason that the river, which flows by the modern city, has received the name Ophis (Snake).
{8.8.5} If we may base a conjecture on the verses of Homer, we are led to believe that this snake was a dragon. When in the list of ships he tells how the Greeks abandoned Philoctetes in Lemnos suffering from his wound, he does not style the water-serpent a snake. But the dragon that the eagle dropped among the Trojans he does call a snake. So it is likely that Antinoe’s guide also was a dragon. [471]
{8.8.6} The Mantineians did not fight on the side of the other Arcadians against the Lacedaemonians at Dipaea, but in the Peloponnesian war they rose with the Eleians against the Lacedaemonians, [472] and joined in battle with them after the arrival of reinforcements from Athens. Their friendship with the Athenians led them to take part also in the Sicilian expedition. [473]
{8.8.7} Later on a Lacedaemonian army under Agesipolis, the son of Pausanias, invaded their territory. Agesipolis was victorious in the battle and shut up the Mantineians within their walls, capturing the city shortly after. He did not take it by storm, but turned the river Ophis against its fortifications, which were made of unburned brick.
{8.8.8} Now against the blows of engines brick brings greater security than fortifications built of stone. For stones break and are dislodged from their fittings; brick, however, does not suffer so much from engines, but it crumbles under the action of water just as wax is melted by the sun.
{8.8.9} This method of demolishing the fortifications of the Mantineians was not discovered by Agesipolis. It was a stratagem invented at an earlier date by Kimon, the son of Miltiades, when he was besieging Boges and the other Persians who were holding Eion on the Strymon. [474] Agesipolis only copied an established custom, and one celebrated among the Greeks. After taking Mantineia, he left a small part of it inhabited, but by far the greater part he razed to the ground, settling the inhabitants in villages.
{8.8.10} Fate decreed that the Thebans should restore the Mantineians from the villages to their own country after the engagement at Leuktra, [475] but when restored they proved far from grateful. They were caught treating with the Lacedaemonians and intriguing for a peace with them privately without reference to the rest of the Arcadian people. So through their fear of the Thebans they openly changed sides and joined the Lacedaemonian confederacy, and when the battle took place at Mantineia between the Lacedaemonians and the Thebans under Epameinondas, [476] the Mantineians joined the ranks of the Lacedaemonians.
{8.8.11} Subsequently the Mantineians quarrelled with the Lacedaemonians, and seceded from them to the Achaean League. They defeated Agis, the son of Eudamidas, king of Sparta, in defence of their own country, with the help of an Achaean army under the leadership of Aratos. They also joined the Achaeans in their struggle against Kleomenes and helped to destroy the Lacedaemonian power. Antigonos of Macedonia, who was guardian of Philip, the father of Perseus, before he came of age, was an ardent supporter of the Achaeans, and so the Mantineians, among other honors, changed the name of their city to Antigoneia.
{8.8.12} Afterwards, when Augustus was about to fight the naval engagement off the cape of Actian Apollo, the Mantineians fought on the side of the Romans, while the rest of Arcadia joined the ranks of Antonius, for no other reason, so it seems to me, except that the Lacedaemonians favored the cause of Augustus. Ten generations afterwards, when Hadrian became Emperor, he took away from the Mantineians the name imported from Macedonia, and gave back to their city its old name of Mantineia.
{8.9.1} The Mantineians possess a temple composed of two parts, being divided almost exactly at the middle by a wall. In one part of the temple is an image of Asklepios, made by Alkamenes; the other part is a sanctuary of Leto and her children, and their images were made by Praxiteles two generations after Alkamenes. On the pedestal of these are figures of Muses together with Marsyas playing the aulos [‘double-reed’]. Here there is a figure of Polybius, the son of Lykortas, carved in relief upon a slab, of whom I shall make fuller mention later on. [477]
{8.9.2} The Mantineians have other sanctuaries also, one of Zeus Savior, and one of Zeus Giver of Gifts, in that he gives good things to men. There is also a sanctuary of the Dioskouroi, and in another place one of Demeter and the Maiden. Here they keep a fire, taking anxious care not to let it go out. Near the theater I saw a temple of Hērā.
{8.9.3} Praxiteles made the images Hērā is sitting, while Athena and Hērā’s daughter Hebe are standing by her side. Near the altar of Hērā is the tomb of Arkas, the son of Kallisto. The bones of Arkas they brought from Mainalos, in obedience to an oracle delivered to them from Delphi:
{8.9.4} “Maenalia is storm-swept, where lies
Arkas, from whom all Arcadians are named,
In a place where meet three, four, even five roads;
Thither I bid you go, and with kind heart
Take up Arkas and bring him back to your lovely city.
There make Arkas a precinct and sacrifices.”
Arkas, from whom all Arcadians are named,
In a place where meet three, four, even five roads;
Thither I bid you go, and with kind heart
Take up Arkas and bring him back to your lovely city.
There make Arkas a precinct and sacrifices.”
This place, where the tomb of Arkas is, they call Altars of the Sun.
{8.9.5} Not far from the theater are famous tombs, one called Common Hearth, round in shape, where, they told me, lies Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus. On it stands a slab, on which is carved in relief a horseman, Grylos, the son of Xenophon.
{8.9.6} Behind the theater I found the remains, with an image, of a temple of Aphrodite surnamed Ally. The inscription on the pedestal announced that the image was dedicated by Nicippe, the daughter of Paseas. This sanctuary was made by the Mantineians to remind posterity of their fighting on the side of the Romans at the battle of Actium. They also worship Athena Alea, of whom they have a sanctuary and an image.
{8.9.7} Antinous too was deified by them; his temple is the newest in Mantineia. He was a great favorite of the Emperor Hadrian. I never saw him in the flesh, but I have seen images and pictures of him. He has honors in other places also, and on the Nile is an Egyptian city named after Antinous. He has won worship in Mantineia for the following reason. Antinous was by birth from Bithynium beyond the river Sangarios, and the Bithynians are by descent Arcadians of Mantineia.
{8.9.8} For this reason the Emperor established his worship in Mantineia also; mystic rites are celebrated in his honor each year, and games every four years. There is a building in the gymnasium of Mantineia containing statues of Antinous, and remarkable for the stones with which it is adorned, and especially so for its pictures. Most of them are portraits of Antinous, who is made to look just like Dionysus. There is also a copy here of the painting in the Cerameicus which represented the engagement of the Athenians at Mantineia.
{8.9.9} In the marketplace is a bronze portrait-statue of a woman, said by the Mantineians to be Diomeneia, the daughter of Arkas, and a hero-shrine of Podares, who was killed, they say, in the battle with the Thebaus under Epameinondas. Three generations ago they changed the inscription on the tomb and made it apply to a descendant of this Podares with the same name, who was born late enough to have Roman citizenship.
{8.9.10} In my time the elder Podares was honored by the Mantineians, who said that he who proved the bravest in the battle, of themselves and of their allies, was Grylos, the son of Xenophon; next to Grylos was Kephisodoros of Marathon, who at the time commanded the Athenian horse. The third place for valor they give to Podares.
{8.10.1} There are roads leading from Mantineia into the rest of Arcadia, and I will go on to describe the most noteworthy objects on each of them. On the left of the highway leading to Tegea there is, beside the walls of Mantineia, a place where horses race, and not far from it is a race-course, where they celebrate the games in honor of Antinous. Above the race-course is Mount Alesium, so called from the wandering [ale] of Rhea, on which is a grove of Demeter.
{8.10.2} By the foot of the mountain is the sanctuary of Horse Poseidon, not more than six stadium-lengths distant from Mantineia. About this sanctuary I, like everyone else who has mentioned it, can write only what I have heard. The modern sanctuary was built by the Emperor Hadrian, who set overseers over the workmen, so that nobody might look into the old sanctuary, and none of the ruins be removed. He ordered them to build around the new temple. Originally, they say, this sanctuary was built for Poseidon by Agamedes and Trophonios, [478] who worked oak logs and fitted them together.
{8.10.3} They set up no barrier at the entrance to prevent men going inside; but they stretched across it a thread of wool. Perhaps they thought that even this would strike fear into the religious people of that time, and perhaps there was also some power in the thread. It is notorious that even Aipytos, the son of Hippothous, entered the sanctuary neither by jumping over the thread nor by slipping under it, but by cutting it through. For this sin he was blinded by a wave that dashed on to his eyes, and forthwith his life left him.
{8.10.4} There is an old legend that a wave of sea-water rises up in the sanctuary. A like story is told by the Athenians about the wave on the Acropolis, and by the Carians living in Mylasa about the sanctuary of the god called in the native tongue Osogoa. But the sea at Phaleron is about twenty stadium-lengths distant from Athens, and the port of Mylasa is eighty stadium-lengths from the city. But at Mantineia the sea rises after a very long distance, and quite plainly through the divine will.
{8.10.5} Beyond the sanctuary of Poseidon is a trophy made of stone commemorating the victory over the Lacedaemonians under Agis. The course of the battle was, it is said, after this wise. The right wing was held by the Mantineians themselves, who put into the field all of military age under the command of Podares, the grandson of the Podares who fought against the Thebans. They had with them also the Eleian seer Thrasyboulos, the son of Aeneas, one of the Iamids. This man foretold a victory for the Mantineians and took a personal part in the fighting.
{8.10.6} On the left wing was stationed all the rest of the Arcadian army, each city under its own leader, the contingent of Megalopolis being led by Lydiades and Leokydes. The center was entrusted to Aratos, with the Sikyonians and the Achaeans. The Lacedaemonians under Agis, who with the royal staff officers were in the center, extended their line so as to make it equal in length to that of their enemies.
{8.10.7} Aratos, acting on an arrangement with the Arcadians, fell back with his command, as though the pressure of the Lacedaemonians was too severe. As they gave way they gradually [479] made their formation crescent-shaped. The Lacedaemonians under Agis, thinking that victory was theirs, pressed in close order yet harder on Aratos and his men. They were followed by those on the wings, who thought it a great achievement to put to flight Aratos and his host.
{8.10.8} But the Arcadians got in their rear unperceived, and the Lacedaemonians were surrounded, losing the greater part of their army, while King Agis himself fell, the son of Eudamidas. The Mantineians affirmed that Poseidon too manifested himself in their defence, and for this reason they erected a trophy as an offering to Poseidon.
{8.10.9} That gods were present at war and slaughter of men has been told by the poets who have treated of the sufferings of heroes at Troy, and the Athenians relate in song how gods sided with them at Marathon and at the battle of Salamis. Very plainly the host of the Gauls was destroyed at Delphi by the god, and manifestly by demons. So there is precedent for the story of the Mantineians that they won their victory by the aid of Poseidon.
{8.10.10} Arkesilaos, an ancestor, ninth in descent, of Leokydes, who with Lydiades was general of the Megalopolitans, is said by the Arcadians to have seen, when dwelling in Lykosoura, the sacred deer, enfeebled with age, of the goddess called Lady. This deer, they say, had a collar round its neck, with writing on the collar:
“I was a fawn when captured, at the time when Agapenor went to Troy.”
This story proves that the deer is an animal much longer-lived even than the elephant.
{8.11.1} After the sanctuary of Poseidon you will come to a place full of oak trees, called Sea, and the road from Mantineia to Tegea leads through the oaks. The boundary between Mantineia and Tegea is the round altar on the highroad. If you will turn aside to the left from the sanctuary of Poseidon, you will reach, after going just about five stadium-lengths, the tombs of the daughters of Pelias. These, the Mantineians say, came to live with them when they were fleeing from the scandal at their father’s death.
{8.11.2} Now when Medea reached Iolkos, she immediately began to plot against Pelias; she was really conspiring with Jason, while pretending to be at variance with him. She promised the daughters of Pelias that, if they wished, she would restore his youth to their father, now a very old man. Having butchered in some way a ram, she boiled his flesh with drugs in a pot, by the aid of which she took out of the pot a live lamb.
{8.11.3} So she took Pelias and cut him up to boil him, hut what the daughters received was not enough to bury. This result forced the women to change their home to Arcadia, and after their death mounds were made there for their tombs. No poet, so far as I have read, has given them names, but the painter Mikon inscribed on their portraits Asteropeia and Antinoe.
{8.11.4} A Place called Phoezon is about twenty stadium-lengths distant from these tombs. Phoezon is a tomb of stone surrounded with a basement, raised only a little above the ground. At this point the road becomes very narrow, and here, they say, is the tomb of Areithous, surnamed Corynetes (Clubman) because of his weapon.
{8.11.5} As you go along the road leading from Mantineia to Pallantion, at a distance of about thirty stadium-lengths, the highway is skirted by the grove of what is called the Okeanos, and here the cavalry of the Athenians and Mantineians fought against the Boeotian horse. Epameinondas, the Mantineians say, was killed by Makhairion, a man of Mantineia. The Lacedaemonians on their part say that a Spartan killed Epameinondas, but they too give Makhairion as the name of the man.
{8.11.6} The Athenian account, with which the Theban agrees, makes out that Epameinondas was wounded by Grylos. Similar is the story on the picture portraying the battle of Mantineia. All can see that the Mantineians gave Grylos a public funeral and dedicated where he fell his likeness on a slab in honor of the bravest of their allies. The Lacedaemonians also speak of Makhairion as the slayer, but actually at Sparta there is no Makhairion, nor is there at Mantineia, who has received honors for bravery.
{8.11.7} When Epameinondas was wounded, they carried him still living from the ranks. For a while he kept his hand to the wound in agony, with his gaze fixed on the combatants, the place from which he looked at them being called Scope (Look) by posterity. But when the combat came to an indecisive end, he took his hand away from the wound and died, being buried on the spot where the armies met.
{8.11.8} On the tomb stands a pillar, and on it is a shield with a dragon in relief. The dragon means that Epameinondas belonged to the lineage of those called the Spartoi, while there are slabs on the tomb, one old, with a Boeotian inscription, the other dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian, who wrote the inscription on it.
{8.11.9} Everybody must praise Epameinondas for being the most famous Greek general, or at least consider him second to none other. For the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian leaders enjoyed the ancient reputation of their cities, while their soldiers were men of a spirit, but the Thebans, whom Epameinondas raised to the highest position, were a disheartened people, accustomed to obey others.
{8.11.10} Epameinondas had been told before by an oracle from Delphi to beware of “ocean.” So he was afraid to step on board a man-of-war or to sail in a merchant-ship, but by “ocean” the god indicated the grove “Okeanos” and not the sea. Places with the same name misled Hannibal the Carthaginian, and before him the Athenians also.
{8.11.11} Hannibal received an oracle from Ammon that when he died he would be buried in Libyan earth. So he hoped to destroy the Roman empire, to return to his home in Libya, and there to die of old age. But when Flamininus the Roman was anxious to take him alive, Hannibal came to Prusias as a suppliant. Repulsed by Prusias he jumped upon his horse, but was wounded in the finger by his drawn sword. when he had proceeded only a few stadium-lengths his wound caused a fever, and he died on the third day. The place where lie died is called Libyssa by the people of Nikomedeia.
{8.11.12} The Athenians received an oracle from Dodona ordering them to colonize Sicily, and Sicily is a small hill not far from Athens. But they, not understanding the order, were persuaded to undertake expeditions overseas, especially the Syracusan war. More examples could be found similar to those I have given.
{8.12.1} Just about a stadium-length from the tomb of Epameinondas is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Kharmon. The oaks in the groves of the Arcadians are of different sorts; some of them are called “broad-leaved,” others “edible oaks.” A third kind have a porous bark, which is so light that they actually make from it floats for anchors and nets. The bark of this oak is called “cork” by the Ionians, for example by Hermesianax, the elegiac poet.
{8.12.2} From Mantineia there is a road leading to Methydrium, which today is not a city, but only a village belonging to Megalopolis. Thirty stadium-lengths farther is a plain called Alcimedon, and beyond the plain is Mount Ostracina, in which is a cave where dwelled Alcimedon, one of those called heroes.
{8.12.3} This man’s daughter, Phialo, had connection, say the Phigalians, with Hēraklēs. When Alcimedon realized that she had a child, he exposed her to perish on the mountain, and with her the baby boy she had borne, whom the Arcadians call Aechmagoras. On being exposed the babe began to cry, and a jay heard him wailing and began to imitate his cries.
{8.12.4} It happened that Hēraklēs, passing along that road, heard the jay, and, thinking that the crying was that of a baby and not of a bird, turned straight to the voice. Recognizing Phialo he loosed her from her bonds and saved the baby. Wherefore the spring hard by is named Cissa (Jay) after the bird. Forty stadium-lengths distant from the spring is the place called Petrosaca, which is the boundary between Megalopolis and Mantineia.
{8.12.5} In addition to the roads mentioned there are two others, leading to Orkhomenos. On one is what is called the stadium of Ladas, where Ladas practiced his running, and by it a sanctuary of Artemis, and on the right of the road is a high mound of earth. It is said to be the tomb of Penelope, but the account of her in the poem called Thesprotis is not in agreement with this saying.
{8.12.6} For in it the poet says that when Odysseus returned from Troy he had a son Ptoliporthes by Penelope. But the Mantineian story about Penelope says that Odysseus convicted her of bringing paramours to his home, and being cast out by him she went away at first to Lacedaemon, but afterwards she removed from Sparta to Mantineia, where she died.
{8.12.7} Adjoining this tomb is a plain of no great size, and on the plain is a mountain whereon still stand the ruins of old Mantineia. Today the place is called Ptolis. Advancing a little way to the north of it you come to the spring of Alalcomeneia, and thirty stadium-lengths from Ptolis are the ruins of a village called Maera, with the tomb of Maera, if it be really the case that Maera was buried here and not in Tegean land. For probably the Tegeans, and not the Mantineians, are right when they say that Maera, the daughter of Atlas, was buried in their land. Perhaps, however, the Maera who came to the land of Mantineia was another, a descendant of Maera, the daughter of Atlas.
{8.12.8} There still remains the road leading to Orkhomenos, on which are Mount Anchisia and the tomb of Anchises at the foot of the mountain. For when Aeneas was voyaging to Sicily, he put in with his ships to Laconia, becoming the founder of the cities Aphrodisias and Etis; his father Anchises for some reason or other came to this place and died there, where Aeneas buried him. This mountain they call Anchisia after Anchises.
{8.12.9} The probability of this story is strengthened by the fact that the Aeolians who today occupy Troy nowhere point out a tomb of Anchises in their own land. Near the tomb of Anchises are the ruins of a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and at Anchisiaiis the boundary between Mantineia and Orkhomenos.
{8.13.1} In the territory of Orkhomenos, on the left of the road from Anchisiae, there is on the slope of the mountain the sanctuary of Artemis Hymnia. The Mantineians, too, share it … a priestess also and a priest. It is the custom for these to live their whole lives in purity, not only sexual but in all respects, and they neither wash nor spend their lives as do ordinary people, nor do they enter the home of a private man. I know that the “entertainers” of the Ephesian Artemis live in a similar fashion, but for a year only, the Ephesians calling them Essenes. They also hold an annual festival in honor of Artemis Hymnia.
{8.13.2} The former city of Orkhomenos was on the peak of a mountain, and there still remain ruins of a marketplace and of walls. The modern, inhabited city lies under the circuit of the old wall. Worth seeing here is a spring, from which they draw water, and there are sanctuaries of Poseidon and of Aphrodite, the images being of stone. Near the city is a wooden image of Artemis. It is set in a large cedar tree, and after the tree they call the goddess the Lady of the Cedar.
{8.13.3} Beneath the city are heaps of stones at intervals, which were piled over men who fell in war. With what Peloponnesians, whether Arcadians or other, the war was fought, was set forth neither by inscriptions on the tombs nor in Orkhomenian tradition.
{8.13.4} Opposite the city is Mount Trakhu (Rough). The rain-water, flowing through a deep gully between the city and Mount Trakhu, descends to another Orkhomenian plain, which is very considerable in extent, but the greater part of it is a lake. As you go out of Orkhomenos, after about three stadium-lengths, the straight road leads you to the city Caphya, along the side of the gully and afterwards along the water of the lake on the left. The other road, after you have crossed the water flowing through the gully, goes under Mount Trakhu.
{8.13.5} On this road the first thing is the tomb of Aristocrates (Aristokrates), who once outraged the virgin priestess of the goddess Hymnia, and after the tomb of Aristocrates (Aristokrates) are springs called Teneiae, and about seven stadium-lengths distant from the springs is a place Amilus, which once, they say, was a city. Here the road forks again, one way leading to Stymphalos, the other to Pheneus.
{8.13.6} On the road to Pheneus you will come to a mountain. On this mountain meet the boundaries of Orkhomenos, Pheneus and Caphya. Over the boundaries extends a high crag, called the Caphyatic Rock. After the boundaries of the cities I have mentioned lies a ravine, and the road to Pheneus leads through it. Just about the middle of the ravine water rises up from a spring, and at the end of the ravine is a place called Caryae.
{8.14.1} The plain of Pheneus lies below Caryae, and they say that once the water rose on it and flooded the ancient city of Pheneus, so that even today there remain on the mountains marks up to which, it is said, the water rose. Five stadium-lengths distant from Caryae is a mountain called Oryxis, and another, Mount Sciathis. Under each mountain is a chasm that receives the water from the plain.
{8.14.2} These chasms according to the people of Pheneus are artificial, being made by Hēraklēs when he lived in Pheneus with Laonome, the mother of Amphitryo, who was, it is said, the son of Alkaios by Laonome, the daughter of Guneus, a woman of Pheneus, and not by Lysidice, the daughter of Pelops. Now if Hēraklēs really migrated to Pheneus, one might believe that when expelled by Eurystheus from Tiryns he did not go at once to Thebes, but went first to Pheneus.
{8.14.3} Hēraklēs dug a channel through the middle of the plain of Pheneus for the river Olbios, which some Arcadians call, not Olbios but Aroanios. The length of the cutting is fifty stadium-lengths, its depth, where it has not fallen in, is as much as thirty feet. The river, however, no longer flows along it, but it has gone back to its old bed, having left the work of Hēraklēs.
{8.14.4} About fifty stadium-lengths from the chasms made in the mountains I have mentioned is the city, founded, say the Pheneatians, by Pheneus, an aboriginal. Their acropolis is precipitous on all sides, mostly so naturally, but a few parts have been artificially strengthened, to make it more secure. On the acropolis here is a temple of Athena surnamed Tritonia, but of it I found ruins only remaining.
{8.14.5} There stands also a bronze Poseidon, surnamed Horse, whose image, it is said, was dedicated by Odysseus. The legend is that Odysseus lost his mares, traversed Greece in search of them, and on the site in the land of Pheneus where he found his mares founded a sanctuary of Artemis, calling the goddess Horse-finder, and also dedicated the image of Horse Poseidon.
{8.14.6} When Odysseus found his mares he was minded, it is said, to keep horses in the land of Pheneus, just as he reared his cows, they say, on the mainland opposite Ithaca. On the base of the image the people of Pheneus pointed out to me writing, purporting to be instructions of Odysseus to those tending his mares.
{8.14.7} The rest of the account of the people of Pheneus it will be reasonable to accept, but I cannot believe their statement that Odysseus dedicated the bronze image. For men had not yet learned how to make bronze images in one piece, after the manner of those weaving a garment. Their method of working bronze statues I have already described when speaking of the image of Zeus Most High in my history of the Spartans. [480]
{8.14.8} The first men to melt bronze and to cast images were the Samians Rhoecus the son of Philaios and Theodoros the son of Telekles. Theodoros also made the emerald signet, which Polykrates, the tyrant of Samos, constantly wore, being exceedingly proud of it.
{8.14.9} As you go down from the acropolis of Pheneus you come to a stadium, and on a hill stands a tomb of Iphikles, the brother of Hēraklēs and the father of Iolaos. Iolaos, according to the Greek account, shared most of the labors of Hēraklēs, but his father Iphikles, in the first battle fought by Hēraklēs against the Eleians and Augeias, was wounded by the sons of Aktor, who were called after their mother Moline. In a fainting condition he was carried by his relatives to Pheneus, where he was carefully nursed by Bouphagos, a citizen of Pheneus, and by his wife Promne, who also buried him when he died of his wound.
{8.14.10} They still sacrifice to Iphikles as to a hero, and of the gods the people of Pheneus worship most Hermes, in whose honor they celebrate the games called Hermaea; they have also a temple of Hermes, and a stone image, made by an Athenian, Eucheir the son of Eubulides. Behind the temple is the tomb of Myrtilos. The Greeks say that he was the son of Hermes, and that he served as charioteer to Oinomaos. Whenever a man arrived to woo the daughter of Oinomaos, Myrtilos craftily drove on the mares, while Oinomaos on the course shot down the wooer when he came near.
{8.14.11} Myrtilos himself, too, was in love with Hippodameia, but his courage failing him he shrank from the competition and served Oinomaos as his charioteer. At last, it is said, he proved a traitor to Oinomaos, being induced thereto by an oath sworn by Pelops that he would let him be with Hippodameia for one night. So when reminded of his oath Pelops threw him out of the ship. The people of Pheneus say that the body of Myrtilos was cast ashore by the tide, that they took it up and buried it, and that every year they sacrifice to him by night as to a hero.
{8.14.12} It is plain that Pelops did not make a long coasting voyage, but only sailed from the mouth of the Alpheios to the harbor of Elis. So the Sea of Myrto is obviously not named after Myrtilos, the son of Hermes, as it begins at Euboea and reaches the Aegaean by way of the uninhabited island of Helene. I think that a probable account is given by the antiquarians of Euboea, who say that the sea is named after a woman called Myrto.
{8.15.1} The people of Pheneus have also a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Eleusinian, and they perform a ritual to the goddess, saying that the ceremonies at Eleusis are the same as those established among themselves. For Naus, they assert, came to them because of an oracle from Delphi, being a grandson of Eumolpos. Beside the sanctuary of the Eleusinian has been set up Petroma, as it is called, consisting of two large stones fitted one to the other.
{8.15.2} When every other year they celebrate what they call the Greater Rites, they open these stones. They take from out them writings that refer to the rites, read them in the hearing of the initiated, and return them on the same night. Most Pheneatians, too, I know, take an oath by the Petroma in the most important affairs.
{8.15.3} On the top is a sphere, with a mask inside of Demeter Cidaria. This mask is put on by the priest at the Greater Rites, who for some reason or other beats with rods the Folk Underground. The Pheneatians have a story that even before Naus arrived the wanderings of Demeter brought her to their city also. To those Pheneatians who received her with hospitality into their homes the goddess gave all sorts of pulse save the bean only.
{8.15.4} There is a sacred story to explain why the bean in their eyes is an impure kind of pulse. Those who, the Pheneatians say, gave the goddess a welcome, Trisaules and Damithales, had a temple of Demeter Thesmia (Law-goddess) built under Mount Cyllene, and they established for her rites also, which they celebrate even to this day. This temple of the goddess Thesmia is just about fifteen stadium-lengths away from the city.
{8.15.5} As you go from Pheneus to Pellene and Aigeira, an Achaean city, after about fifteen stadium-lengths you come to a temple of Pythian Apollo. I found there only its ruins, which include a large altar of white marble. Here even now the Pheneatians still sacrifice to Apollo and Artemis, and they say that the sanctuary was made by Hēraklēs after capturing Elis. Here also are tombs of heroes, those who joined the campaign of Hēraklēs against Elis and lost their lives in the fighting.
{8.15.6} They are Telamon, buried quite near the river Aroanios, a little farther away than is the sanctuary of Apollo, and Chalcodon, not far from the spring called Oinoe. Nobody could admit that there fell in this battle the Chalcodon who was the father of the Elephenor who led the Euboeans to Troy, and the Telamon who was the father of Ajax and Teukros. For how could Hēraklēs have been helped in his task by a Chalcodon who, according to trustworthy tradition, had before this been killed in Thebes by Amphitryon?
{8.15.7} And how would Teukros have founded the city of Salamis in Cyprus if nobody had expelled him from his native city after his return from Troy? And who else would have driven him out except Telamon? So it is plain that those who helped Hēraklēs in his campaign against Elis were not the Chalcodon of Euboea and the Telamon of Aegina. It is, and always has been, not unknown that undistinguished persons have had the same names as distinguished heroes.
{8.15.8} The borders of Pheneus and Achaea meet in more places than one; for towards Pellene the boundary is the river called Porinas, and towards Aigeira the “road to Artemis.” [481] Within the territory of the Pheneatians themselves, shortly after passing the sanctuary of the Pythian Apollo you will be on the road that leads to Mount Crathis.
{8.15.9} On this mountain is the source of the river Crathis, which flows into the sea by the side of Aigai, now a deserted spot, though in earlier days it was a city of the Achaeans. After this Crathis is named the river in Bruttium in Italy. On Mount Crathis is a sanctuary of Artemis Pyronia (Fire-goddess), and in more ancient days the Argives used to bring from this goddess fire for their Lernaean ceremonies.
{8.16.1} Going east from Pheneus you come to a mountain peak called Geronteium and a road by it. This mountain is the boundary between the territories of Pheneus and Stymphalos. On the left of it, as you travel through the land of Pheneus, are mountains of the Pheneatians called Tricrena (Three Springs), and here are three springs. In them, says the legend, Hermes was washed after birth by the nymphs of the mountain, and for this reason they are considered sacred to Hermes.
{8.16.2} Not far from Tricrena is another mountain called Sepia, where they say that Aipytos, the son of Elatos, was killed by the snake, and they also made his tomb on the spot, for they could not carry the body away. These snakes are still to be found, the Arcadians say, on the mountain, even at the present day; not many, however, for they are very scarce. The reason is that, as for the greater part of the year snow falls on the mountain, the snakes die that are cut off by the snow from their holes, while should any make good their escape to the holes, nevertheless some of them are killed by the snow, as the frost penetrates even into the very holes themselves.
{8.16.3} The tomb of Aipytos I was especially anxious to see, because Homer [482] in his verses about the Arcadians makes mention of the tomb of Aipytos. It is a mound of earth of no great size, surrounded by a circular base of stone. Homer naturally was bound to admire it, as he had never seen a more noteworthy tomb, just as he compares the dance worked by Hephaistos on the shield of Achilles to a dance made by Daidalos, because he had never seen more clever workmanship.
{8.16.4} I know many wonderful tombs, and will mention two of them, the one at Halicarnassus and one in the land of the Hebrews. The one at Halicarnassus was made for Mausolus, king of the city, and it is of such vast size, and so notable for all its ornament, that the Romans in their great admiration of it call remarkable tombs in their country “Mausolea.”
{8.16.5} The Hebrews have a tomb, that of Helen, a native woman, in the city of Jerusalem, which the Roman Emperor razed to the ground. There is a contrivance in the tomb whereby the door, which like all the tomb is of stone, does not open until the year brings back the same day and the same hour. Then the mechanism, unaided, opens the door, which, after a short interval, shuts itself. This happens at that time, but should you at any other try to open the door you cannot do so; force will not open it, but only break it down.
{8.17.1} After the tomb of Aipytos you come to the highest mountain in Arcadia, Cyllene, on the top of which is a dilapidated temple of Cyllenian Hermes. It is clear that Cyllen, the son of Elatos, gave the mountain its name and the god his surname.
{8.17.2} In days of old, men made wooden images, so far as I have been able to discover, from the following trees ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, yew, lotus. But the image of Cyllenian Hermes is made of none of these, but of juniper wood. Its height, I conjecture, is about eight feet.
{8.17.3} Cyllene can show also the following marvel. On it the blackbirds are entirely white. The birds so called by the Boeotians are a somewhat different breed, which does not sing. Eagles called swan-eagles, very like to swans for whiteness, I am acquainted with, as I have seen them on Mount Sipylos round the lake called the Lake of Tantalos. White wild boars and Thracian white bears have been known to be acquired by private individuals.
{8.17.4} White hares are bred in Libya, and white deer I have seen in Rome to my great astonishment, though it never occurred to me to ask from what continent or island they had been brought. I have made these few remarks concerning the blackbirds in Cyllene that nobody may disbelieve what has been said about their color.
{8.17.5} Adjoining Cyllene is another mountain, Khelydorea, [483] where Hermes is said to have found a tortoise, taken the shell from the beast, and to have made therefrom a harp. Here is the boundary between Pheneus and Pellene, and the greater part of Mount Khelydorea is inhabited by the Achaeans.
{8.17.6} As you go from Pheneus to the west, the left road leads to the city Kleitor, while on the right is the road to Nonacris and the water of the Styx. Of old Nonacris was a town of the Arcadians that was named after the wife of Lykaon. When I visited it, it was in ruins, and most of these were hidden. Not far from the ruins is a high cliff; I know of none other that rises to so great a height. A water trickles down the cliff, called by the Greeks the water of the Styx.
{8.18.1} Hesiod in the Theogony [484] —for there are some who assign this hexameter poem to Hesiod—speaks of Styx as the daughter of Okeanos and the wife of Pallas. Men say that Linos too gives a like account in his verses, though when I read these they struck me as altogether spurious.
{8.18.2} Epimenides of Crete, also, represented Styx as the daughter of Okeanos, not, however, as the wife of Pallas, but as bearing Echidna to Peiras, whoever Peiras may be. But it is Homer who introduces most frequently the name of Styx into his poetry. In the oath of Hērā he says :
“Witness now to this be Earth, and broad Sky [ouranos] above,
And the water of Styx down-flowing.”
And the water of Styx down-flowing.”
Iliad 15.36–37
These verses suggest that the poet had seen the water of the Styx trickling down. Again in the list of those who came with Guneus [485] he makes the river Titaresios receive its water from the Styx.
{8.18.3} He also represents the Styx as a river in Hades, and Athena says that Zeus does not remember that because of her he kept Hēraklēs safe throughout the labors imposed by Eurystheus.
“For if I had known this in my shrewd heart
When he sent him to Hades the gate-keeper,
To fetch out of Erebus the hound of hateful Hades,
He would never have escaped the sheer streams of’ the river Styx.”
When he sent him to Hades the gate-keeper,
To fetch out of Erebus the hound of hateful Hades,
He would never have escaped the sheer streams of’ the river Styx.”
Homer, unknown location
{8.18.4} The water trickling down the cliff by the side of Nonacris falls first to a high rock, through which it passes and then descends into the river Crathis. Its water brings death to all, man and beast alike. It is said too that it once brought death even upon goats, which drank of the water first; later on all the wonderful properties of the water were learned.
{8.18.5} For glass, crystal, murrhine vessels, other articles men make of stone, and pottery, are all broken by the water of the Styx, while things of horn or of bone, with iron, bronze, lead, tin, silver and electrum, are all corroded by this water. Gold too suffers just like all the other metals, and yet gold is immune to rust, as the Lesbian poetess bears witness and is shown by the metal itself.
{8.18.6} So the god [theos] has assigned to the most lowly things the mastery over things far more esteemed than they. For pearls are dissolved by vinegar, while diamonds, the hardest of stones, are melted by the blood of the he-goat. The only thing that can resist the water of the Styx is a horse’s hoof. When poured into it the water is retained, and does not break up the hoof. Whether Alexander, the son of Philip, met his end by this poison I do not know for certain, but I do know that there is a story to this effect.
{8.18.7} Above Nonacris are the Aroanian Mountains, in which is a cave. To this cave, legend says, the daughters of Proitos fled when struck with madness; Melampos by secret sacrifices and purifications brought them down to a place called Lusi. Most of the Aroanian mountain belongs to Pheneus, but Lusi is on the borders of Kleitor.
{8.18.8} They say that Lusi was once a city, and Agesilas was proclaimed as a man of Lusi when victor in the horse-race at the eleventh Pythian festival held by the Amphiktyones; [486] but when I was there not even ruins of Lusi remained. Well, the daughters of Proitos were brought down by Melampos to Lusi, and healed of their madness in a sanctuary of Artemis. Wherefore [487] this Artemis is called Hemerasia (She who soothes) by the Clitorians [people of Kleitor].
{8.19.1} There is a clan of the Arcadians, called the Cynaetheans, the same folk who dedicated the image of Zeus at Olympia with a thunderbolt in either hand. These Cynaetheans live more than forty stadium-lengths from … and in their marketplace have been made altars of the gods and a statue of the Emperor Hadrian.
{8.19.2} The most notable things here include a sanctuary of Dionysus, to whom they hold a feast in the winter, at which men smeared with grease take up from a herd of cattle a bull, whichever one the god suggest to them, and carry it to the sanctuary. This is the manner of their sacrifice. Here there is a spring of cold water, about two stadium-lengths away from the city, and above it grows a plane tree.
{8.19.3} If a rabid dog turn a man mad, or wound or otherwise endanger him, to drink this water is a cure. For this reason they call the spring Alyssus (Curer of madness). So it would appear that the Arcadians have in the water near Pheneus, called the Styx, a thing made to be a mischief to man, while the spring among the Cynaetheans is a boon to make up for the bane in the other place.
{8.19.4} One of the roads from Pheneus, which go westward, remains, the one on the left. This road leads to Kleitor, and extends by the side of the work of Hēraklēs, which made a course for the river Aroanios. By it the road goes down to a place called Lykouria, which is the boundary between Pheneus and Kleitor.
{8.20.1} Advancing about fifty stadium-lengths from Lykouria, you will come to the source of the Ladon. I heard that the water making a lake in the territory of Pheneus, descending into the chasms in the mountains, rises here and forms the source of the Ladon, but I cannot say for certain whether this is true or not. The Ladon is the most lovely river in Greece, and is also famous for the legend of Daphne that the poets tell.
{8.20.2} I pass over the story current among the Syrians who live on the river Orontes, and give the account of the Arcadians and Eleians. Oinomaos, prince of Pisa, had a son Leukippos. Leukippos fell in love with Daphne, but despaired of winning her to be his wife by an open courtship, as she avoided all the male sex. The following trick occurred to him by which to get her. Leukippos was growing his hair long for the river Alpheios.
{8.20.3} Braiding his hair as though he were a girl, and putting on woman’s clothes, he came to Daphne and said that he was a daughter of Oinomaos, and would like to share her hunting. As he was thought to be a girl, surpassed the other girls in nobility of birth and skill in hunting, and was besides most assiduous in his attentions, he drew Daphne into a deep friendship.
{8.20.4} The poets who sing of Apollo’s love for Daphne make an addition to the tale; that Apollo became jealous of Leukippos because of his success in his love. Forthwith Daphne and the other girl conceived a longing to swim in the Ladon, and stripped Leukippos in spite of his reluctance. Then, seeing that he was not a girl, they killed him with their javelins and daggers.
{8.21.1} Such is the tale. From the source of the Ladon, Kleitor is sixty stadium-lengths away, and the road from the source of the Ladon is a narrow gorge alongside the river Aroanios. Near the city you will cross the river called the Kleitor. The Kleitor flows into the Aroanios, at a point not more than seven stadium-lengths from the city.
{8.21.2} Among the fish in the Aroanios is one called the dappled fish. These dappled fish, it is said, utter a cry like that of the thrush. I have seen fish that have been caught, but I never heard their cry, though I waited by the river even until sunset, at which time the fish were said to cry most.
{8.21.3} Kleitor got its name from the son of Azan, and is situated on a level spot surrounded by low hills. The most celebrated sanctuaries of the Clitorians [people of Kleitor] are those of Demeter, Asklepios and, thirdly, Eileithuia … to be, and gave no number for them. The Lycian Olen, an earlier poet, who composed for the Delians, among other hymns, one to Eileithuia, styles her “the clever spinner,” clearly identifying her with fate, and makes her older than Kronos.
{8.21.4} Kleitor has also, at a distance of about four stadium-lengths from the city, a sanctuary of the Dioskouroi, under the name of the Great Gods. There are also images of them in bronze. There is also built upon a mountain-top, thirty stadium-lengths away from the city, a temple of Athena Coria will, an image of the goddess.
{8.22.1} My narrative returns to Stymphalos and to Geronteium, as it is called, the boundary between Stymphalos and Pheneus. The Stymphalians are no longer included among the Arcadians, but are numbered with the Argive League, which they joined of their own accord. That they are by lineage Arcadians is testified by the verses of Homer, [488] and Stymphalos their founder was a grandson of Arkas, the son of Kallisto. It is said that it was originally founded on another site, and not on that of the modern city.
{8.22.2} The story has it that in the old Stymphalos dwelled Tēmenos, the son of Pelasgos, and that Hērā was reared by this Tēmenos, who himself established three sanctuaries for the goddess, and gave her three surnames: when she was still a virgin [parthenos], Girl [Pais]; when married to Zeus he called her Adult [Teleia] ; when for some cause or other she quarrelled with Zeus and came back to Stymphalos, Tēmenos named her Widow [Khēra]. This is the account which, to my own knowledge, the Stymphalians give of the goddess.
{8.22.3} The modern city contains none of these sanctuaries, but I found the following notable things. In the Stymphalian territory is a spring, from which the emperor Hadrian brought water to Corinth. In winter the spring makes a small lake in Stymphalos, and the river Stymphalos issues from the lake; in summer there is no lake, but the river comes straight from the spring. This river descends into a chasm in the earth, and reappearing once more in Argolis it changes its name, and is called Erasinos instead of Stymphalos.
{8.22.4} There is a story current about the water of the Stymphalos, that at one time man-eating birds bred on it, which Hēraklēs is said to have shot down. Peisandros of Camira, however, says that Hēraklēs did not kill the birds, but drove them away with the noise of rattles. The Arabian desert breeds among other wild creatures birds called Stymphalian, which are quite as savage against men as lions or leopards.
{8.22.5} These fly against those who come to hunt them, wounding and killing them with their beaks. All armor of bronze or iron that men wear is pierced by the birds; but if they weave a garment of thick cork, the beaks of the Stymphalian birds are caught in the cork garment, just as the wings of small birds stick in bird-lime. These birds are of the size of a crane, and are like the ibis, but their beaks are more powerful, and not crooked like that of the ibis.
{8.22.6} Whether the modern Arabian birds with the same name as the old Arcadian birds are also of the same breed, I do not know. But if there have been from all time Stymphalian birds, just as there have been hawks and eagles, I should call these birds of Arabian origin, and a section of them might have flown on some occasion to Arcadia and reached Stymphalos. Originally they would be called by the Arabians, not Stymphalian, but by another name. But the fame of Hēraklēs, and the superiority of the Greek over the foreigner, has resulted in the birds of the Arabian desert being called Stymphalian even in modern times.
{8.22.7} In Stymphalos there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis, the image being of wood, for the most part gilded. Near the roof of the temple have been carved, among other things, the Stymphalian birds. Now it was difficult to discern clearly whether the carving was in wood or in gypsum, but such evidence as I had led me to conclude that it was not of gypsum but of wood. There are here also maidens of white marble, with the legs of birds, and they stand behind the temple.
{8.22.8} Even in our own day the following miracle is said to have occurred. The festival of Stymphalian Artemis at Stymphalos was carelessly celebrated, and its established ritual in great part transgressed. Now a log fell into the mouth of the chasm into which the river descends, and so prevented the water from draining away, and (so it is said) the plain became a lake for a distance of four hundred stadium-lengths.
{8.22.9} They also say that a hunter chased a deer, which fled and plunged into the marsh, followed by the hunter, who, in the excitement of the hunt, swam after the deer. So the chasm swallowed up both the deer and her pursuer. They are said to have been followed by the water of the river, so that by the next day the whole of the water was dried up that flooded the Stymphalian plain. Hereafter they put greater zeal into the festival in honor of Artemis.
{8.23.1} After Stymphalos comes Alea, which too belongs to the Argive federation, and its citizens point to Aleus, the son of Apheidas, as their founder. The sanctuaries of the gods here are those of Ephesian Artemis and Athena Alea, and there is a temple of Dionysus with an image. In honor of Dionysus they celebrate every other year a festival called Sciereia, and at this festival, in obedience to a response from Delphi, women are flogged, just as the Spartan boys are flogged at the image of the Orthian goddess.
{8.23.2} In my account of Orkhomenos, I explained how the straight road runs at first beside the gully, and afterwards to the left of the flood water. On the plain of Caphyae has been made a dyke of earth, which prevents the water from the Orkhomenian territory from doing harm to the tilled land of Caphyae. Inside the dyke flows along another stream, in size big enough to be called a river, and descending into a chasm of the earth it rises again at Nasi, as it is called. The place where it reappears is called Rheunus; the stream having risen here, hereafter the water forms an ever-flowing river, the Tagus.
{8.23.3} The name of the city is clearly derived from Cepheus, the son of Aleus, but its form in the Arcadian dialect, Caphyae, is the one that has survived. The inhabitants say that originally they were from Attica, but on being expelled from Athens by Aigeus they fled to Arcadia, threw themselves on the mercy of Cepheus, and found a home in the country. The town is on the border of the plain at the foot of some inconsiderable mountains. The Caphyatans have a sanctuary of the god Poseidon, and one of the goddess Artemis, surnamed Cnacalesia.
{8.23.4} They have also a mountain called Cnacalus, where every year they celebrate mysteries in honor of their Artemis. A little beyond the city is a spring, and by the spring grows a large and beautiful plane tree. They call it Menelais, saying that the plane was planted by the spring by Menelaos, who came to the spot when he was collecting his army against Troy. Today they give the name Menelais to the spring as well as to the plane.
{8.23.5} If I am to base my calculations on the accounts of the Greeks in fixing the relative ages of such trees as are still preserved and flourish, the oldest of them is the withy growing in the Samian sanctuary of Hērā, after which come the oak in Dodona, the olive on the Acropolis and the olive in Delos. The third place in respect of age the Syrians would assign to the bay tree they have in their country. Of the others this plane tree is the oldest.
{8.23.6} About a stadium-length distant from Caphyae is a place called Condylea, where there are a grove and a temple of Artemis called of old Condyleatis. They say that the name of the goddess was changed for the following reason. Some children, the number of whom is not recorded, while playing about the sanctuary found a rope, and tying it round the neck of the image said that Artemis was being strangled.
{8.23.7} The Caphyans, detecting what the children had done, stoned them to death. When they had done this, a malady befell their women, whose babies were stillborn, until the Pythian priestess ordered them to bury the children, and sacrifice to them every year as sacrifice is made to heroes, because they had been wrongly put to death. The Caphyans still obey this oracle, and call the goddess at Condyleae, as they say the oracle also ordered them, the Strangled Lady from that day to this.
{8.23.8} Going up about seven stadium-lengths from Caphyae you will go down to what is called Nasi. Fifty stadium-lengths farther on is the Ladon. You will then cross the river and reach a grove called Soron, passing through Argeathae, Lycuntes, as it is called, and Scotane. Now the road to Psophis passes by way of Soron,
{8.23.9} which, like other Arcadian groves, breeds the following beasts wild boars, bears, and tortoises of vast size. One could of the last make harps not inferior to those made from the Indian tortoise. At the end of Soron are the ruins of the village Paus, and a little farther what is called Seirai; this Seiraiforms a boundary between Kleitor and Psophis.
{8.24.1} The founder of Psophis, according to some, was Psophis, the son of Arrhon, the son of Erymanthos, the son of Aristas, the son of Parthaon, the son of Periphetes, the son of Nyktimos. Others say that Psophis was the daughter of Xanthos, the son of Erymanthos, the son of Arkas. Such are the Arcadian traditions concerning their kings,
{8.24.2} but the most accurate version is that Eryx, the despot of Sicania, had a daughter named Psophis, whom Hēraklēs, though he had intercourse with her, refused to take to his home, but left with child in the care of his friend Lykortas, who lived at Phegia, a city called Erymanthos before the reign of Phegeus. Having been brought up here, Ekhephron and Promakhos, the sons of Hēraklēs and the Sicanian woman, changed the name of Phegia to Psophis, the name of their mother.
{8.24.3} Psophis is also the name of the Zacynthian acropolis, because the first man to sail across to the island was Zacynthus, the son of Dardanus, a Psophidian who became its founder. From Seiraiit is thirty stadium-lengths to Psophis, by the side of which runs the river Aroanios, and a little farther away the river Erymanthos.
{8.24.4} The Erymanthos has its source in Mount Lampeia, which is said to be sacred to Pan. One might regard Lampeia as a part of Mount Erymanthos. Homer says [489] that in Taygetos and Erymanthos … hunter … so … of Lampeia, Erymanthos, and passing through Arcadia, with Mount Pholoe on the right and the district of Thelpusa on the left, flows into the Alpheios.
{8.24.5} There is also a legend that Hēraklēs at the command of Eurystheus hunted by the side of the Erymanthos a boar that surpassed all others in size and in strength. The people of Cumae among the Opici say that the boar’s tusks dedicated in their sanctuary of Apollo are those of the Erymanthian boar, but the saying is altogether improbable.
{8.24.6} In Psophis there is a sanctuary of Aphrodite surnamed Erycine; I found only ruins of it remaining, but the people said that it was established by the sons of Psophis. Their account is probable, for in Sicily too, in the territory of Eryx, is a sanctuary of Erycine, which from the remotest times has been very holy, and quite as rich as the sanctuary in Paphos.
{8.24.7} The hero-shrines, however, of Promakhos and Ekhephron, the sons of Psophis, were no longer distinguished when I saw them. In Psophis is buried Alkmaion also, the son of Amphiaraos, and his tomb is a building remarkable for neither its size nor its ornament. About it grow cypresses, reaching to such a height that even the mountain by Psophis was overshadowed by them. These the inhabitants will not cut down, holding them to be sacred to Alkmaion.
{8.24.8} They are called ‘Virgins’ [Parthenoi] by the natives. Alkmaion, after killing his mother, fled from Argos and came to Psophis, which was still called Phegia after Phegeus, and married Alphesiboea, the daughter of Phegeus. Among the presents that he naturally gave her was the necklace. While he lived among the Arcadians his disease did not grow any better, so he had recourse to the oracle at Delphi. The Pythian priestess informed him that the only land into which the avenging spirit of Eriphyle would not follow him was the newest land, one brought up to light by the sea after the pollution of his mother’s death.
{8.24.9} On discovering the alluvial deposit of the Akhelōos he settled there, and took to wife Kallirhoe, said by the Acarnanians to have been the daughter of Akhelōos. He had two sons, Acarnan and Amphoterus; after this Acarnan were called by their present name (so the story runs) the dwellers in this part of the mainland, who previously were called Kouretes. Senseless passions shipwreck many men, and even more women.
{8.24.10} Kallirhoe conceived a passion for the necklace of Eriphyle, and for this reason sent Alkmaion against his will to Phegia. Temenus and Axion, the sons of Phegeus, murdered him by treachery. The sons of Phegeus are said to have dedicated the necklace to the god in Delphi, and it is said that the expedition of the Greeks to Troy took place when they were kings in the city that was still called Phegia. The people of Psophis assert that the reason why they took no part in the expedition was because their princes had incurred the enmity of the leaders of the Argives, who were in most cases related by blood to Alkmaion, and had joined him in his campaign against Thebes.
{8.24.11} That the Echinades islands have not been made mainland as yet by the Akhelōos is due to the Aetolian people, who have been driven from their homes and all their land has been laid waste. Accordingly, as Aetolia remains untilled, the Akhelōos does not bring as much mud upon the Echinades as it otherwise would do. My reasoning is confirmed by the fact that the Maeander, flowing through the land of the Phrygians and Carians, which is ploughed up each year, has turned to mainland in a short time the sea that once was between Priene and Miletus.
{8.24.12} The people of Psophis have also by the side of the Erymanthos a temple and image of Erymanthos. The images of all rivers except the Nile in Egypt are made of white marble; but the images of the Nile, became it descends to the sea through Aethiopia, they are accustomed to make of black stone.
{8.24.13} I heard in Psophis a statement about one Aglaos, a Psophidian contemporary with Croesus the Lydian. The statement was that the whole of his life was happy, but I could not believe it.
{8.24.14} The truth is that one man may receive fewer ills than his contemporaries, just as one ship may be less tossed by storms than another ship. But we shall not be able to find a man never touched by misfortune or a ship never met by an unfavorable breeze. For Homer [490] too says in his poetry that by the side of Zeus is set a jar of good things, and another jar of evil things, taught by the god at Delphi, who once declared that Homer himself was both unhappy and blessed, being destined by birth to both states alike.
(8.25.1} As you go from Psophis to Thelpusa you first reach on the left of the Ladon a place called Tropaea, adjoining which is a grove, Aphrodisium. Thirdly, there is ancient writing on a slab:
“The boundary between Psophis and Thelpusa.”
In the Thelpusian territory is a river called Arsen (Male). Cross this and go on for about twenty-five stadium-lengths, when you will arrive at the ruins of the village Caus, with a sanctuary of Causian Asklepios, built on the road.
{8.25.2} Thelpusa is some forty stadium-lengths distant from this sanctuary. It is said that it was named after Thelpusa, a nymph, and that she was a daughter of Ladon. The Ladon rises in springs within the territory of Kleitor, as my account has already set forth. It flows first beside a place Leucasium and Mesoboa, through Nasi to Oryx, also called Halus, and from Halus it descends to Thaliades and a sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter.
{8.25.3} This sanctuary is on the borders of Thelpusa. In it are images, each no less than seven feet high, of Demeter, her daughter, and Dionysus, all alike of stone. After the sanctuary of the Eleusinian goddess the Ladon flows by the city Thelpusa on the left, situated on a high hill, in modern times so deserted that the marketplace, which is at the extremity of it, was originally, they say, right in the very middle of it. Thelpusa has a temple of Asklepios and a sanctuary of the twelve gods; the greater part of this, I found, lay level with the ground.
{8.25.4} After Thelpusa the Ladon descends to the sanctuary of Demeter in Onceium. The Thelpusians call the goddess Fury, and with them agrees Antimakhos also, who wrote a poem about the expedition of the Argives against Thebes. His verse runs thus:
“There, they say, is the seat of Demeter Fury.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
Now Onkios was, according to tradition, a son of Apollo, and held sway in Thelpusian territory around the place Oncium; the goddess has the surname Fury for the following reason.
{8.25.5} When Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, she was followed, it is said, by Poseidon, who lusted after her. So she turned, the story runs, into a mare, and grazed with the mares of Onkios; realizing that he was outwitted, Poseidon too changed into a stallion and enjoyed Demeter.
{8.25.6} At first, they say, Demeter was angry at what had happened, but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the Ladon. So the goddess has obtained two surnames, Fury because of her avenging anger, because the Arcadians call being wrathful “being furious,” and Bather (Lusia) because she bathed in the Ladon. The images in the temple are of wood, but their faces, hands and feet are of Parian marble.
{8.25.7} The image of Fury holds what is called the chest, and in her right hand a torch; her height I conjecture to be nine feet. Lusia seemed to be six feet high. Those who think the image to be Themis and not Demeter Lusia are, I would have them know, mistaken in their opinion. Demeter, they say, had by Poseidon a daughter, whose name they are not accustomed to divulge to the uninitiated, and a horse called Areion. For this reason they say that they were the first Arcadians to call Poseidon Horse.
{8.25.8} They quote verses from the Iliad and from the Thebaid in confirmation of their story. In the Iliad there are verses about Areion himself:
“Not even if he drive divine Areion behind,
The swift horse of Adrastos, who was of the lineage of the gods.”
The swift horse of Adrastos, who was of the lineage of the gods.”
Iliad 23.346
In the Thebaid it is said that Adrastos fled from Thebes:
“Wearing wretched clothes, and with him dark-maned Areion.”
Thebaid, unknown location
They will have it that the verses obscurely hint that Poseidon was father to Areion, but Antimakhos says that Earth was his mother:
{8.25.9} “Adrastos, son of Talaos, son of Kretheus,
The very first of the Danai to drive his famous horses,
Swift Caerus and Areion of Thelpusa,
Whom near the grove of Oncean Apollo
Earth herself sent up, a marvel for mortals to see.”
The very first of the Danai to drive his famous horses,
Swift Caerus and Areion of Thelpusa,
Whom near the grove of Oncean Apollo
Earth herself sent up, a marvel for mortals to see.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
{8.25.10} But even though sprung from Earth the horse might be of divine lineage and the color of his hair might still be dark. Legend also has it that when Hēraklēs was warring on Elis he asked Oncus for the horse, and was carried to battle on the back of Areion when he took Elis, but afterwards the horse was given to Adrastos by Hēraklēs. Wherefore Antimakhos says about Areion:
“Adrastos was the third lord who tamed him.”
Antimakhos, unknown location
{8.25.11} The Ladon, leaving on the left the sanctuary of the Fury, passes on the left the temple of Oncaeatian Apollo, and on the right a sanctuary of Boy Asklepios, where is the tomb of Trygon, who is said to have been the nurse of Asklepios. For the story is that Asklepios, when little, was exposed in Thelpusa, but was found by Autolaos, the illegitimate son of Arkas, who reared the baby, and for this reason Boy Asklepios … I thought more likely, as also I set forth in my account of Epidaurus. [491]
{8.25.12} There is a river Tuthoa, and it falls into the Ladon at the boundary between Thelpusa and Heraia, called Plain by the Arcadians. Where the Ladon itself falls into the Alpheios is an island called the Island of Crows. Those who have thought that Enispe, Stratia and Rhipe, mentioned by Homer, [492] were once inhabited islands in the Ladon, cherish, I would tell them, a false belief.
{8.25.13} For the Ladon could never show islands even as large as a ferry-boat. As far as beauty is concerned, it is second to no river, either in Greece or in foreign lands, but it is not big enough to carry islands on its waters, as do the Danube and the Eridanus.
{8.26.1} The founder of Heraia was Heraeeus the son of Lykaon, and the city lies on the right of the Alpheios, mostly upon a gentle slope, though a part descends right to the Alpheios. Walks have been made along the river, separated by myrtles and other cultivated trees; the baths are there, as are also two temples to Dionysus. One is to the god named Citizen, the other to the Giver of Increase, and they have a building there where they celebrate their mysteries in honor of Dionysus.
{8.26.2} There is also in Heraia a temple of Pan, as he is native to Arcadia, and of the temple of Hērā I found remaining various ruins, including the pillars. Of Arcadian athletes the most renowned has been Damaretos of Heraia, who was the first to win the race in armor at Olympia.
{8.26.3} As you go down to the land of Elis from Heraia, at a distance of about fifteen stadium-lengths from Heraia you will cross the Ladon, and from it to the Erymanthos is a journey of roughly twenty stadium-lengths. The boundary between Heraia and the land of Elis is according to the Arcadians the Erymanthos, but the people of Elis say that the tomb of Coroebus bounds their territory.
{8.26.4} But when the Olympic games, after not being held for a long period, were revived by Iphitos, and the Olympic festival was again held, the only prizes offered were for running, and Coroebus won. On the tomb is an inscription that Coroebus was the first man to win at Olympia, and that his tomb was made at the end of Eleian territory.
{8.26.5} There is a town, Aliphera, of no great size, for it was abandoned by many of its inhabitants at the union of the Arcadians into Megalopolis. As you go to this town from Heraia you will cross the Alpheios, and after going over a plain of just about ten stadium-lengths you will reach a mountain, and ascending across the mountain for some thirty stadium-lengths more you will come to the town.
{8.26.6} The city of Aliphera has received its name from Alipherus, the son of Lykaon, and there are sanctuaries here of Asklepios and Athena; the latter they worship more than any other god, saying that she was born and bred among them. They also set up an altar of Zeus Lekheates (In child-bed), because here he gave birth to Athena. There is a stream they call Tritonis, adopting the story about the river Triton.
{8.26.7} The image of Athena is made of bronze, the work of Hypatodoros, worth seeing for its size and workmanship. They keep a general festival in honor of some god or other; I think in honor of Athena. At this festival they sacrifice first to Fly-catcher, praying to the hero over the victims and calling upon the Fly-catcher. When they have done this the flies trouble them no longer.
{8.26.8} On the road from Heraia to Megalopolis is Melainai. It was founded by Melaineus, the son of Lykaon; in my time it was uninhabited, but there is plenty of water flowing over it. Forty stadium-lengths above Melainai is Bouphagion,and here is the source of the Bouphagos, which flows down into the Alpheios. Near the source of the Bouphagos is the boundary between Megalopolis and Heraia.
{8.27.1} Megalopolis is the youngest city, not of Arcadia only, but of Greece, with the exception of those whose inhabitants have been removed by the accident of the Roman domination. The Arcadians united into it to gain strength, realizing that the Argives also were in earlier times in almost daily danger of being subjected by war to the Lacedaemonians, but when they had increased the population of Argos by reducing Tiryns, Hysiae, Orneae, Mycenae, Mideia, along with other towns of little importance in Argolis, the Argives had less to fear from the Lacedaemonians, while they were in a stronger position to deal with their vassal neighbors.
{8.27.2} It was with this policy in view that the Arcadians united, and the founder of the city might fairly be considered Epameinondas of Thebes. For lie it was who gathered the Arcadians together for the union and despatched a thousand picked Thebans under Pammenes to defend the Arcadians, if the Lacedaemonians should try to prevent the union. There were chosen as founders by the Arcadians, Lykomedes and Hopoleas of Mantineia, Timon and Proxenos of Tegea, Kleolaos and Akriphios of Kleitor, Eucampidas and Hieronymos of Mainalos, Possikrates and Theoxenos of the Parrhasians.
{8.27.3} The following were the cities which the Arcadians were persuaded to abandon through their zeal and because of their hatred of the Lacedaemonians, in spite of the fact that these cities were their homes: Alea, Pallantion, Eutaea, Sumateium, Asea, Peraethenses, Helisson, Oresthasium, Dipaea, Lykaia; these were cities of Mainalos. Of the Eutresian cities Tricoloni, Zoetium, Kharisia, Ptolederma, Cnausum, Paroreia.
{8.27.4} From the Aigytai: Aigys, Scirtonium, Malea, Cromi, Blenina, Leuctrum. Of the Parrhasians Lykosoura, Thocnia, Trapezus, Prosenses, Acacesium, Acontium, Makaria, Dasea. Of the Cynurians in Arcadia: Gortys, Theisoa by Mount Lykaios, Lykaia, Aliphera. Of those belonging to Orkhomenos: Theisoa, Methydrium, Teuthis. These were joined by Tripolis, as it is called, Kallia, Dipoena, Nonacris.
{8.27.5} The Arcadians for the most part obeyed the general resolution and assembled promptly at Megalopolis. But the people of Lykaia, Tricoloni, Lykosoura and Trapezus, but no other Arcadians, repented and, being no longer ready to abandon their ancient cities, were, with the exception of the last, taken to Megalopolis by force against their will,
{8.27.6} while the inhabitants of Trapezus departed altogether from the Peloponnesus, such of them as were left and were not immediately massacred by the exasperated Arcadians. Those who escaped with their lives sailed away to Pontos and were welcomed by the citizens of Trapezus on the Euxine as their kindred, as they bore their name and came from their mother-city. The people of Lykosoura, although they had disobeyed, were nevertheless spared by the Arcadians because of Demeter and the Mistress, in whose sanctuary they had taken refuge.
{8.27.7} Of the other cities I have mentioned, some are altogether deserted in our time, some are held by the people of Megalopolis as villages, namely Gortys, Dipoenae, Theisoa near Orkhomenos, Methydrium, Teuthis, Kalliai, Helisson. Only one of them, Pallantion, was destined to meet with a kindlier fate even then. Aliphera has continued to be regarded as a city from the beginning to the present day.
{8.27.8} Megalopolis was united into one city in the same year, but a few months later, as occurred the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at Leuktra, when Phrasikleides was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the second year of the hundred and second Olympiad, [493] when Damon of Thourioi was victor in the foot-race.
{8.27.9} When the citizens of Megalopolis had been enrolled in the Theban alliance they had nothing to fear from the Lacedaemonians. But when the Thebans became involved in what was called the Sacred War, and they were hard pressed by the men of Phokis, who were neighbors of the Boeotians, and wealthy because they had seized the sanctuary at Delphi,
{8.27.10} then the Lacedaemonians, if eagerness would have done it, would have removed bodily the Megalopolitans and the other Arcadians besides; but as the Arcadians of the day put up a vigorous defence, while their vassal neighbors gave them wholehearted assistance, no achievement of note was accomplished by either side. But the hatred felt by the Arcadians for the Lacedaemonians was not a little responsible for the rise of Philip, the son of Amyntas, and of the Macedonian empire, and the Arcadians did not help the Greeks at Khaironeia or again in the struggle in Thessaly.
{8.27.11} After a short time a tyrant arose at Megalopolis in the person of Aristodemos, a Phigalian by birth and a son of Artylas, who had been adopted by Tritaios, an influential citizen of Megalopolis. This Aristodemos, in spite of his being a tyrant, nevertheless won the surname of “the Good.” During his tyranny the territory of Megalopolis was invaded by the Lacedaemonians under Akrotatos, the eldest of the sons of King Kleomenes, whose lineage I have already traced with that of all the other Spartan kings. [494] A fierce battle took place, and after many had fallen on both sides the army of Megalopolis had the better of the encounter. Among the Spartan killed was Akrotatos, who never succeeded to the throne of his fathers.
{8.27.12} Some two generations after the death of Aristodemos, Lydiades became tyrant, a man of distinguished family, by nature ambitious and, as he proved later, a devoted patriot. For he came to power while still young, but on reaching years of discretion he was minded to resign voluntarily the tyranny, although by this time his power was securely established. At this time Megalopolis was already a member of the Achaean League, and Lydiades became so famous among not only the people of Megalopolis but also all the Achaeans that he rivalled the fame of Aratos.
{8.27.13} The Lacedaemonians with all their forces under Agis, the son of Eudamidas, the king of the other house, attacked Megalopolis with larger and stronger forces than those collected by Akrotatos. They overcame in battle the men of Megalopolis, who came out against them, and bringing up a powerful engine against the wall they shook by it the tower in this place, and hoped on the morrow to knock it down by the engine.
{8.27.14} But the north wind was not only to prove a help to the whole Greek nation, when it dashed the greater part of the Persian fleet on the Sepiad rocks, but it also saved Megalopolis from being captured. For it blew violently and continuously, and broke up the engine of Agis, scattering it to utter destruction. The Agis whom the north wind prevented from taking Megalopolis is the man from whom was taken Pellene in Achaea by the Sikyonians under Aratos, and later he met his end at Mantineia.
{8.27.15} Shortly afterwards Kleomenes the son of Leonidas seized Megalopolis during a truce. Of the Megalopolitans some fell at once on the night of the capture in the defence of their country, when Lydiades too met his death in he battle, [495] fighting nobly; others, about two-thirds of those of military age along with the women and children, escaped to Messenia with Philopoimen the son of Kraugis.
{8.27.16} But those who were caught in the city were massacred by Kleomenes, who razed it to the ground and burned it. How the Megalopolitans restored their city, and their achievements on their return, will be set forth in my account of Philopoimen. The Lacedaemonian people were in no way responsible for the disaster to Megalopolis, because Kleomenes had changed their constitution from a kingship to a tyranny.
{8.27.17} As I have already related, the boundary between Megalopolis and Heraia is at the source of the river Bouphagos. The river got its name, they say, from a hero called Bouphagos, the son of Iapetos and Thornax. This is what they call her in Laconia also. They also say that Artemis shot Bouphagos on Mount Pholoe because he attempted an unholy sin against her godhead.
{8.28.1} As you go from the source of the river, you will reach first a place called Maratha, and after it Gortys, which today is a village, but of old was a city. Here there is a temple of Asklepios, made of Pentelic marble, with the god, as a beardless youth, and an image of Hygieia. Scopas was the artist. The natives also say that Alexander the son of Philip dedicated to Asklepios his breastplate and spear. The breastplate and the head of the spear are still there today.
{8.28.2} Through Gortys flows a river called by those who live around its source the Lusios (Bathing Riuer), because Zeus after his birth was bathed in it; those farther from the source call it the Gortynios after the village. The water of this Gortynios is colder than that of any other river. The Danube, Rhine, Hypanis, Borysthenes, and all rivers the streams of which freeze in winter, as they flow through land on which there is snow the greater part of the time, while the air about them is full of frost, might in my opinion rightly be called wintry;
{8.28.3} I call the water cold of those which flow through a land with a good climate and in summer have water refreshing to drink and to bathe in, without being painful in winter. Cold in this sense is the water of the Cydnus which passes through Tarsus, and of the Melas which flows past Side in Pamphylia. The coldness of the Ales in Kolophon has even been celebrated in the verse of elegiac poets. But the Gortynios surpasses them all in coldness, especially in the season of summer. It has its source in Theisoa, which borders on Methydrium. The place where its stream joins the Alpheios is called Rhaeteae.
{8.28.4} Adjoining the land of Theisoa is a village called Teuthis, which in old days was a town. In the Trojan war the inhabitants supplied a general of their own. His name according to some was Teuthis, according to others Ornytos. When the Greeks failed to secure favorable winds to take them from Aulis, but were shut in for a long time by a violent gale, Teuthis quarrelled with Agamemnon and was about to lead the Arcadians under his command back home again.
{8.28.5} Whereupon, they say, Athena in the guise of Melas, the son of Ops, tried to turn Teuthis aside from his journey home. But Teuthis, his wrath swelling within him, struck with his spear the thigh of the goddess, and actually did lead his army back from Aulis. On his return to his native land the goddess appeared to him in a vision with a wound in her thigh. After this a wasting disease fell on Teuthis, and its people, alone of the Arcadians, suffered from famine.
{8.28.6} Later, oracles were delivered to them from Dodona, telling them what to do to appease the goddess, and in particular they had an image of Athena made with a wound in the thigh. This image I have myself seen, with its thigh swathed in a purple bandage. There are also at Teuthis sanctuaries of Aphrodite and Artemis.
{8.28.7} These are the notable things at Teuthis. On the road from Gortys to Megalopolis stands the tomb of those who were killed in the fight with Kleomenes. This tomb the Megalopolitans call Paraebasium (Transgression) because Kleomenes broke his truce with them. Adjoining Paraebasium is a plain about sixty stadium-lengths across. On the right of the road are ruins of a city Brenthe, and here rises a river Brentheates, which some five stadium-lengths farther on falls into the Alpheios.
{8.29.1} After crossing the Alpheios you come to what is called Trapezuntian territory and to the ruins of a city Trapezus. On the left, as you go down again from Trapezus to the Alpheios, there is, not far from the river, a place called Bathos (Depth), where they celebrate mysteries every other year to the Great Goddesses. Here there is a spring called Olympias which, during every other year, does not flow, and near the spring rises up fire. The Arcadians say that the fabled battle between giants and gods took place here and not at Pellene in Thrace, and at this spot sacrifices are offered to lightnings, hurricanes and thunders.
{8.29.2} Homer does not mention giants at all in the Iliad, but in the Odyssey he relates how the Laestrygones attacked the ships of Odysseus in the likeness not of men but of giants, [496] and he makes also the king of the Phaeacians say that the Phaeacians are near to the gods like the Cyclopes and the lineage of giants. [497] In these places then he indicates that the giants are mortal, and not of divine lineage, and his words in the following passage are plainer still:
“Who once was king among the haughty giants;
But he destroyed the infatuate folk, and was destroyed himself.”
But he destroyed the infatuate folk, and was destroyed himself.”
Odyssey 7.59–60
“Folk” in the poetry of Homer means the common people.
{8.29.3} That the giants had serpents for feet is an absurd tale, as many pieces of evidence show, especially the following incident. The Syrian river Orontes does not flow its whole course to the sea on a level, but meets a precipitous ridge with a slope away from it. The Roman emperor [498] wished ships to sail up the river from the sea to Antioch. So with much labor and expense he dug a channel suitable for ships to sail up, and turned the course of the river into this.
{8.29.4} But when the old bed had dried up, an earthenware coffin more than eleven cubits long was found in it, and the corpse was proportionately large, and human in all parts of its body. This corpse the god in Klaros, when the Syrians came to his oracle there, declared to be Orontes, and that he was of Indian lineage. If it was by warming the earth of old when it was still wet and saturated with moisture that the sun made the first men, what other land is likely to have raised men either before India or of greater size, seeing that even today it still breeds beasts monstrous in their weird appearance and monstrous in size?
{8.29.5} Some ten stadium-lengths distant from the place named Depth is what is called Basilis. The founder of it was Kypselos, who gave his daughter in marriage to Kresphontes, the son of Aristomakhos. Today Basilis is in ruins, among which remains a sanctuary of Eleusinian Demeter. Going on from here you will cross the Alpheios again and reach Thocnia, which is named after Thocnus, the son of Lykaon, and today is altogether uninhabited. Thocnus was said to have built the city on the hill. The river Aminios, flowing by the hill, falls into the Helisson, and not far away the Helisson falls into the Alpheios.
{8.30.1} This Helisson, beginning at a village of the same name—for the name of the village also is Helisson—passes through the lands of Dipaea and Iycaea, and then through Megalopolis itself, descending into the Alpheios twenty stadium-lengths away from the city of Megalopolis. Near the city is a temple of Poseidon Overseer. I found the head of the image still remaining.
{8.30.2} The river Helisson divides Megalopolis just as Knidos and Mitylene are cut in two by their straits, and in the north section, on the right as one looks down the river, the townsfolk have made their marketplace. In it is an enclosure of stones and a sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios, with no entrance into it. The things inside, however, can be seen —altars of the god, two tables, two eagles, and an image of Pan made of stone.
{8.30.3} His surname is Sinoeis, and they say that Pan was so surnamed after a nymph Sinoe, who with others of the nymphs nursed him on her own account. There is before this enclosure a bronze image of Apollo worth seeing, in height twelve feet, brought from Phigalia as a contribution to the adornment of Megalopolis.
{8.30.4} The place where the image was originally set up by the Phigalians is named Bassae. The surname of the god has followed him from Phigalia, but why he received the name of Helper will be set forth in my account of Phigalia. On the right of the Apollo is a small image of the Mother of the Gods, but of the temple there remains nothing save the pillars.
{8.30.5} Before the temple of the Mother is no statue, but I found still to be seen the pedestals on which statues once stood. An inscription in elegiacs on one of the pedestals says that the statue was that of Diophanes, the son of Diaios, the man who first united the whole Peloponnesus into what was named the Achaean League.
{8.30.6} The portico of the marketplace, called the Philippeium, was not made by Philip, the son of Amyntas, but as a compliment to him the Megalopolitans gave his name to the building. Near it I found a temple of Hermes Akakesios in ruins, with nothing remaining except a tortoise of stone. Adjoining this Philippeium is another portico, smaller in size, where stand the government offices of Megalopolis, six rooms in number. In one of them is an image of Ephesian Artemis, and in another a bronze Pan, surnamed Scoleitas, one cubit high.
{8.30.7} It was brought from the hill Scoleitas, which is within the walls, and from a spring on it a stream descends to the Helisson. Behind the government offices is a temple of Fortune with a stone image not less than five feet high. The portico called Myropolis, situated in the marketplace, was built from the spoils taken when the Lacedaemonians fighting under Akrotatos, the son of Kleomenes, suffered the reverse sustained at the hands of Aristodemos, then tyrant of Megalopolis.
{8.30.8} In the marketplace of that city, behind the enclosure sacred to Zeus Lykaios, is the figure of a man carved in relief on a slab, Polybius, the son of Lykortas. Elegiac verses are inscribed upon it saying that he roamed over every land and every sea, and that he became the ally of the Itomans and stayed their wrath against the Greek nation. This Polybius wrote also a history of the Romans, including how they went to war with Carthage, what the cause of the war was, and how at last, not before great dangers had been run, Scipio … whom they name Carthaginian, because he put an end to the war and razed Carthage to the ground.
{8.30.9} Whenever the Romans obeyed the advice of Polybius, things went well with them, but they say that whenever they would not listen to his instructions they made mistakes. All the Greek cities that were members of the Achaean League got permission from the Itomans that Polybius should draw up constitutions for them and frame laws. On the left of the portrait-statue of Polybius is the Council Chamber.
{8.30.10} Here then is the Chamber, but the portico named after Aristandros in the marketplace was built, they say, by Aristandros, one of their townsfolk. Quite near to this portico, on the east, is a sanctuary of Zeus, surnamed Savior. It is adorned with pillars round it. Zeus is seated on a throne, and by his side stand Megalopolis on the right and an image of Artemis Savior on the left. These are of Pentelic marble and were made by the Athenians Kephisodotos and Xenophon.
{8.31.1} At the other end, the western, of the portico is an enclosure sacred to the Great Goddesses. The Great Goddesses are Demeter and the Maiden, as I have already explained in my account of Messenia, [499] and the Maiden is called Savior by the Arcadians. Carved in relief before the entrance are, on one side Artemis, on the other Asklepios and Hygieia.
{8.31.2} Of the Great Goddesses, Demeter is of stone throughout, but the Savior has drapery of wood. The height of each is about fifteen feet. The images … and before them he made small maids in tunics reaching to the ankles, each of whom carries on her head a basket full of flowers. They are said to be daughters of Damophon, but those inclining to a more religious interpretation hold that they are Athena and Artemis gathering the flowers with Persephone.
{8.31.3} By the side of Demeter there is also a Hēraklēs about a cubit high. This Hēraklēs, says Onomacritus in his poem, is one of those called Idaean Dactyls. Before it stands a table, on which are carved in relief two seasons, Pan with pipes, and Apollo playing the harp. There is also an inscription by them saying that they are among the first gods.
{8.31.4} Nymphs too are carved on the table: Neda carrying an infant Zeus, Anthracia, another Arcadian nymph, holding a torch, and Hagno with a water-pot in one hand and a bowl in the other. Ankhirhoe and Myrtoessa carry water-pots, with what is meant to be water coming down from them. Within the precinct is a temple of Zeus Friendly. Polycleitus of Argos made the image; it is like Dionysus in having buskins as footwear and in holding a beaker in one hand and a thyrsus in the other, but an eagle sitting on the thyrsus does not fit in with the received accounts of Dionysus.
{8.31.5} Behind this temple is a small grove of trees surrounded by a wall; nobody may go inside, and before it are images of Demeter and the Maiden some three feet high. Within the enclosure of the Great Goddesses is also a sanctuary of Aphrodite. Before the entrance are old wooden images of Hērā, Apollo and the Muses, brought, it is said, from Trapezus,
{8.31.6} and in the temple are images made by Damophon, a wooden Hermes and a wooden Aphrodite with hands, face and feet of stone. The surname Deviser given to the goddess is, in my opinion, a most apt one; for very many are the devices, and most varied are the forms of speech invented by men because of Aphrodite and her works.
{8.31.7} In a building stand statues also, those of Kallignotos, Mentas, Sosigenes and Polus. These men are said to have been the first to establish at Megalopolis the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and the ritual acts are a copy of those at Eleusis. Within the enclosure of the goddesses are the following images, which all have a square shape: Hermes, surnamed Agetor, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Sun too, surnamed Savior, and Hēraklēs. There has also been built for them a <sanctuary> of vast size, and here they celebrate the mysteries in honor of the goddesses.
{8.31.8} To the right of the temple of the Great Goddesses there is also a sanctuary of the Maiden. The image is of stone, about eight feet high; ribbons cover the pedestal all over. Women may enter this sanctuary at all times, but men enter it only once every year. Adjoining the marketplace on the west there is built a gymnasium.
{8.31.9} Behind the portico called after Philip of Macedon are two hills, rising to no great height. Ruins of a sanctuary of Athena Polias are on one, while on the other [500] a temple of Hērā Full-grown, this too being in ruins. Under this hill is a spring called Bathyllos, which is one of the tributaries that swell the Helisson.
{8.32.1} Such are the notable things on this site. The southern portion, on the other side of the river, can boast of the largest theater in all Greece, and in it is a spring which never fails. Not far from the theater are left foundations of the council house built for the Ten Thousand Arcadians, and called Thersilium after the man who dedicated it. Hard by is a house, belonging today to a private person, which originally was built for Alexander, the son of Philip. By the house is an image of Ammon, like the square images of Hermes, with a ram’s horns on his head.
{8.32.2} The sanctuary built in common for the Muses, Apollo and Hermes had for me to record only a few foundations, but there was still one of the Muses, with an image of Apollo after the style of the square Hermae. The sanctuary of Aphrodite too was in ruins, save that there were left the fore-temple mid three images, one surnamed the celestial one [Ourania], the second surnamed the one who is common to the whole district [Pan-dēmos], and the third without a surname.
{8.32.3} At no great distance is an altar of Ares, and it was said that originally a sanctuary too was built for the god. Beyond the Aphrodite is built also a race-course, extending on one side to the theater (and here they have a spring, held sacred to Dionysus), while at the other end of the race-course a temple of Dionysus was said to have been struck by lightning two generations before my time, and a few ruins of it were still there when I saw it. The temple near the race-course shared by Hēraklēs and Hermes was no longer there, only their altar was left.
{8.32.4} There is also in this district a hill to the east, and on it a temple of Artemis Huntress this too was dedicated by Aristodemos. To the right of the Huntress is a precinct. Here there is a sanctuary of Asklepios, with images of the god and of Hygieia, and a little lower down there are gods, also of square shape, surnamed Workers, Athena Worker and Apollo, God of Streets. To Hermes, Hēraklēs and Eileithuia are attached traditions from the poems of Homer: that Hermes is the minister of Zeus and leads the souls of the departed down to Hades, [501] and that Hēraklēs accomplished many difficult tasks; [502] Eileithuia, he says in the Iliad, cares for the pangs of women. [503]
{8.32.5} Under this hill there is another sanctuary of Boy Asklepios. His image is upright and about a cubit in height, that of Apollo is seated on a throne and is not less than six feet high. Here are also kept bones, too big for those of a human being, about which the story ran that they were those of one of the giants mustered by Hopladamos to fight for Rhea, as my story will relate hereafter. Near this sanctuary is a spring, the water flowing down from which is received by the Helisson.
{8.33.1} Megalopolis was founded by the Arcadians with the utmost enthusiasm amidst the highest hopes of the Greeks, but it has lost all its beauty and its old prosperity, being today for the most part in ruins. I am not in the least surprised, as I know that the supernatural force [tò daimonion] is always willing something new, and likewise that all things, strong or weak, increasing or decreasing, are being changed by Fortune, who drives them with imperious necessity according to her whim.
{8.33.2} For Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and Nineveh, where was the royal palace of the Assyrians, are utterly ruined and desolate; while Boeotian Thebes, once deemed worthy to be the head of the Greek people, why, its name includes only the acropolis and its few inhabitants. Of the opulent places in the ancient world, Egyptian Thebes and Minyan Orkhomenos are now less prosperous than a private individual of moderate means, while Delos, once the common market of Greece, has no Delian inhabitant, but only the men sent by the Athenians to guard the sanctuary.
{8.33.3} At Babylon the sanctuary of Belus still is left, but of the Babylon that was the greatest city of its time under the sun nothing remains but the wall. The case of Tiryns in the Argolid is the same. These places have been reduced by the superhuman force [daimōn] to nothing. But the city of Alexander in Egypt, and that of Seleukos on the Orontes, that were founded but yesterday, have reached their present size and prosperity because fortune favors them.
{8.33.4} The following incident proves the might of fortune to be greater and more marvelous than is shown by the disasters and prosperity of cities. No long sail from Lemnos was once an island Khryse, where, it is said, Philoctetes met with his accident from the water-snake. But the waves utterly overwhelmed it, and Khryse sank and disappeared in the depths. Another island called Hiera (Sacred) … was not during this time. So temporary and utterly weak are the fortunes of men.
{8.34.1} As you go from Megalopolis to Messene, after advancing about seven stadium-lengths, there stands on the left of the highway a sanctuary of goddesses. They call the goddesses themselves, as well as the district around the sanctuary, Maniai (Madnesses). In my view this is a surname of the Eumenides; in fact they say that it was here that madness overtook Orestes as punishment for shedding his mother’s blood.
{8.34.2} Not far from the sanctuary is a mound of earth, of no great size, surmounted by a finger made of stone; the name, indeed, of the mound is the Tomb of the Finger. Here, it is said, Orestes on losing his wits bit off one finger of one of his hands. Adjoining this place is another, called Ace (Remedies) because in it Orestes was cured of his malady. Here too there is a sanctuary for the Eumenides.
{8.34.3} The story is that, when these goddesses were about to put Orestes out of his mind, they appeared to him black; but when he had bitten off his finger they seemed to him again to be white and he recovered his senses at the sight. So he offered a sin-offering to the black goddesses to avert their wrath, while to the white deities he sacrificed a thank-offering. It is customary to sacrifice to the Graces also along with the Eumenides. Near to the place called Ace is another … a sanctuary called … because here Orestes cut off his hair on coming to his senses.
{8.34.4} Historians of Peloponnesian antiquities say that what Clytaemnestra’s Furies did to Orestes in Arcadia took place before the trial at the Areiopagos; that his accuser was not Tyndareus, who no longer lived, but Perilaos, who asked for vengeance for the mother’s murder in that he was a cousin of Clytaemnestra. For Perilaos, they say, was a son of Ikarios, to whom afterwards daughters also were born.
{8.34.5} The road from Maniaito the Alpheios is roughly fifteen stadium-lengths long. At this point the river Gatheatas falls into the Alpheios, and before this the Carnion flows into the Gatheatas. The source of the Carnion is in the territory of Aigytia beneath the sanctuary of Apollo Cereatas; that of the Gatheatas is at Gatheaiin Cromitian territory.
{8.34.6} The Cromitian territory is about forty stadium-lengths up from the Alpheios, and in it the ruins of the city Cromi have not entirely disappeared. From Cromi it is about twenty stadium-lengths to Nymphas, which is well supplied with water and covered with trees. From Nymphas it is twenty stadium-lengths to the Hermaeum, where is the boundary between Messenia and Megalopolis. Here they have made a Hermes also on a slab.
{8.35.1} This road leads to Messene, and there is another leading from Megalopolis to Carnasium in Messenia. The first thing you come to on the latter road is the Alpheios at the place where it is joined by the Malus and the Scyrus, whose waters have already united. From this point keeping the Malus on the right after about thirty stadium-lengths you will cross it and ascend along a rather steep road to a place called Phaedrias.
{8.35.2} About fifteen stadium-lengths distant from Phaedrias is an Hermaeum called ‘by the Mistress’; it too forms a boundary between Messenia and Megalopolis. There are small images of the Mistress and Demeter; likewise of Hermes and Hēraklēs. I am of opinion that the wooden image also, made for Hēraklēs by Daidalos, stood here on the borders of Messenia and Arcadia.
{8.35.3} The road from Megalopolis to Lacedaemon is thirty stadium-lengths long at the Alpheios. After this you will travel beside a river Theios, which is a tributary of the Alpheios, and some forty stadium-lengths from the Alpheios leaving the Theios on the left you will come to Phalaesiae. This place is twenty stadium-lengths away from the Hermaeum at Belemina.
{8.35.4} The Arcadians say that Belemina belonged of old to Arcadia but was severed from it by the Lacedaemonians. This account struck me as improbable on various grounds, chiefly because the Thebans, I think, would never have allowed the Arcadians to suffer even this loss, if they could have brought about restitution with justice.
{8.35.5} There are also roads from Megalopolis leading to the interior of Arcadia; to Methydrium it is one hundred and seventy stadium-lengths, and thirteen stadium-lengths from Megalopolis is a place called Scias, where are ruins of a sanctuary of Artemis Sciatis, said to have been built by Aristodemos the tyrant. About ten stadium-lengths from here are a few memorials of the city Kharisiai, and the journey from Kharisiai to Trikolōnoi is another ten stadium-lengths.
{8.35.6} Once Trikolōnoi also was a city, and even today there still remains on a hill a sanctuary of Poseidon with a square image, and around the sanctuary stands a grove of trees. These cities had as founders the sons of Lykaon; but Zoetia, some fifteen stadium-lengths from Tricoloni, not lying on the straight road but to the left of Tricoloni, was founded, they say, by Zoeteus, the son of Tricolonus. Paroreus, the younger of the sons of Tricolonus, also founded a city, in this case Paroria, ten stadium-lengths distant from Zoetia.
{8.35.7} Today both towns are without inhabitants. In Zoetia, however, there still remains a temple of Demeter and Artemis. There are also other ruins of cities: of Thyraeum, fifteen stadium-lengths from Paroria, and of Hypsus, lying above the plain on a mountain which is also called Hypsus. The district between Thyraeum and Hypsus is all mountainous and full of wild beasts. My narrative has already pointed out that Thyraios and Hypsus were sons of Lykaon. [504]
{8.35.8} To the right of Tricoloni there is first a steep road ascending to a spring called Cruni. Descending from Cruni for about thirty stadium-lengths you come to the tomb of Kallisto, a high mound of earth, whereon grow many trees, both cultivated and also those that bear no fruit. On the top of the mound is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Kalliste (Most Beautiful). I believe it was because he had learned it from the Arcadians that Pamphos was the first in his poems to call Artemis by the name of Kalliste.
{8.35.9} Twenty-five stadium-lengths from here, a hundred stadium-lengths in all from Tricoloni, there is on the Helisson, on the straight road to Methydrium, the only city left to be described on the road from Tricoloni, a place called Anemosa, and also Mount Phalanthus, on which are the ruins of a city Phalanthus. It is said that Phalanthus was a son of Agelaos, a son of Stymphalos.
{8.35.10} Beyond this is a plain called the Plain of Polus, and after it Schoenus, so named from a Boeotian, Schoeneus. If this Schoeneus emigrated to Arcadia, the race-courses of Atalanta, which are near Schoenus, probably got their name from his daughter. Adjoining is … in my opinion called, and they say that the land here is Arcadia to all.
{8.36.1} From this point nothing remains to be recorded except Methydrium itself, which is distant from Tricoloni one hundred and thirty-seven stadium-lengths. It received the name Methydrium (Between the Waters) because there is a high knoll between the river Maloitas and the Mylaon, and on it Orkhomenos built his city. Methydrium too had citizens victorious at Olympia before it belonged to Megalopolis.
{8.36.2} There is in Methydrium a temple of Horse Poseidon, standing by the Mylaon. But Mount Thaumasios (Wonderful) lies beyond the river Maloitas, and the Methydrians hold that when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, she came to this mountain and enlisted as her allies, in case Kronos should attack her, Hopladamos and his few giants:
{8.36.3} They allow that she gave birth to her son on some part of Mount Lykaios, but they claim that here Kronos was deceived, and here took place the substitution of a stone for the child that is spoken of in the Greek legend. On the summit of the mountain is Rhea’s Cave, into which no human beings may enter save only the women who are sacred to the goddess.
{8.36.4} About thirty stadium-lengths from Methydrium is a spring Nymphasia, and it is also thirty stadium-lengths from Nymphasia to the common boundaries of Megalopolis, Orkhomenos and Caphyae.
{8.36.5} Passing through the gate at Megalopolis named the Gate to the Marsh, and proceeding by the side of the river Helisson towards Mainalos, there stands on the left of the road a temple of the Good God. If the gods are givers of good things to men, and if Zeus is supreme among gods, it would be consistent to infer that this surname is that of Zeus. A short distance farther on is a mound of earth which is the tomb of Aristodemos, whom in spite of his being a tyrant they could not help calling the Good and there is also a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Contriver, because the goddess is the inventor of plans and devices of all sorts.
{8.36.6} On the right of the road there has been made a precinct to the North Wind, and the Megalopolitans offer sacrifices every year, holding none of the gods in greater honor than the North Wind, because he proved their saviour from the Lacedaemonians under Agis. Next is the tomb of Oikles, the father of Amphiaraos, if indeed he met his end in Arcadia, and not after he had joined Hēraklēs in his campaign against Laomedon. After it comes a temple of Demeter styled in the Marsh and her grove, which is five stadium-lengths away from the city, and women only may enter it.
{8.36.7} Thirty stadium-lengths away is a place named Paliskios. Going on from Paliskios and leaving on the left the Elaphus, an intermittent stream, after an advance of some twenty stadium-lengths you reach ruins of Peraethenses, among which is a sanctuary of Pan. If you cross the torrent and go straight on for fifteen stadium-lengths you come to a plain, and after crossing it to the mountain called, like the plain, Maenalian. Under the fringe of the mountain are traces of a city Lykoa, a sanctuary of Artemis Lykoan, and a bronze image of her.
{8.36.8} On the southern slope of the mountain once stood Sumetia. On this mountain is what is called the Meeting of the Three Ways, whence the Mantineians fetched the bones of Arkas, the son of Kallisto, at the bidding of the Delphic oracle. There are still left ruins of Mainalos itself: traces of a temple of Athena, one race-course for athletes and one for horses. Mount Mainalos is held to be especially sacred to Pan, so that those who dwell around it say that they can actually hear him playing on his pipes.
{8.36.9} From the sanctuary of the Mistress to the city of Megalopolis it is forty stadium-lengths. From Megalopolis to the stream of the Alpheios is half this distance. After crossing the river it is two stadium-lengths from the Alpheios to the ruins of Macareae, from these to the ruins of Daseaiseven stadium-lengths, and seven again from Daseaito the hill called Acacesian Hill.
{8.36.10} At the foot of this hill used to be a city Acacesium, and even today there is on the hill a stone image of Acacesian Hermes, the story of the Arcadians about it being that here the child Hermes was reared, and that Acacus the son of Lykaon became his foster-father. The Theban legend is different, and the people of Tanagra, again, have a legend at variance with the Theban.
{8.37.1} From Acacesium it is four stadium-lengths to the sanctuary of the Mistress. First in this place is a temple of Artemis Leader, with a bronze image, holding torches, which I conjecture to be about six feet high. From this place there is an entrance into the sacred enclosure of the Mistress. As you go to the temple there is a portico on the right, with reliefs of white marble on the wall. On the first relief are crafted Fates and Zeus surnamed Guide of Fate, and on the second Hēraklēs wresting a tripod from Apollo. What I learned about the story of the two latter I will tell if I get as far as an account of Delphi in my history of Phokis.
{8.37.2} In the portico by the Mistress there is, between the reliefs I have mentioned, a tablet with descriptions [505] of the mysteries. On the third relief are nymphs and Pans; on the fourth is Polybius, the son of Lykortas. On the latter is also an inscription, declaring that Greece would never have fallen at all, if she had obeyed Polybius in everything, and when she met disaster her only help came from him. In front of the temple is an altar to Demeter and another to the Mistress, after which is one of the Great Mother.
{8.37.3} The actual images of the goddesses, Mistress and Demeter, the throne on which they sit, along with the footstool under their feet, are all made out of one piece of stone. No part of the drapery, and no part of the carvings about the throne, is fastened to another stone by iron or cement, but the whole is from one block. This stone was not brought in by them, but they say that in obedience to a dream they dug up the earth within the enclosure and so found it. The size of both images just about corresponds to the image of the Mother in Athens.
{8.37.4} These too are works of Damophon. Demeter carries a torch in her right hand; her other hand she has laid upon the Mistress. The Mistress has on her knees a staff and what is called the box, which she holds in her right hand. On both sides of the throne are images. By the side of Demeter stands Artemis wrapped in the skin of a deer, and carrying a quiver on her shoulders, while in one hand she holds a torch, in the other two serpents; by her side a bitch, of a breed suitable for hunting, is lying down.
{8.37.5} By the image of the Mistress stands Anytos, represented as a man in armor. Those about the sanctuary say that the Mistress was brought up by Anytos, who was one of the Titans, as they are called. The first to introduce Titans into poetry was Homer, [506] representing them as gods down in what is called Tartarus; the lines are in the passage about Hērā’s oath. From Homer the name of the Titans was taken by Onomacritus, who in the orgies he composed for Dionysus made the Titans the authors of the god’s sufferings.
{8.37.6} This is the story of Anytos told by the Arcadians. That Artemis was the daughter, not of Leto but of Demeter, which is the Egyptian account, the Greeks learned from Aeschylus the son of Euphorion. The story of the Kouretes, who are represented under the images, and that of the Corybantes (a lineage different from that of the Kouretes), carved in relief upon the base, I know, but pass them by.
{8.37.7} The Arcadians bring into the sanctuary the fruit of all cultivated trees except the pomegranate. On the right as you go out of the temple there is a mirror fitted into the wall. If anyone looks into this mirror, he will see himself very dimly indeed or not at all, but the actual images of the gods and the throne can be seen quite clearly.
{8.37.8} When you have gone up a little, beside the temple of the Mistress on the right is what is called the Hall, where the Arcadians celebrate mysteries, and sacrifice to the Mistress many victims in generous fashion. Every man of them sacrifices what he possesses. But he does not cut the throats of the victims, as is done in other sacrifices; each man chops off a limb of the sacrifice, just that which happens to come to hand.
{8.37.9} This Mistress the Arcadians worship more than any other god, declaring that she is a daughter of Poseidon and Demeter. Mistress is her surname among the many, just as they surname Demeter’s daughter by Zeus the Maiden. But whereas the real name of the Maiden is Persephone, as Homer [507] and Pamphos before him say in their poems, the real name of the Mistress I am afraid to write to the uninitiated.
{8.37.10} Beyond what is called the Hall is a grove, sacred to the Mistress and surrounded by a wall of stones, and within it are trees, including an olive and an evergreen oak growing out of one root, and that not the result of a clever piece of gardening. Beyond the grove are altars of Horse Poseidon, as being the father of the Mistress, and of other gods as well. On the last of them is an inscription saying that it is common to all the gods.
{8.37.11} Thence you will ascend by stairs to a sanctuary of Pan. Within the sanctuary has been made a portico, and a small image; and this Pan too, equally with the most powerful gods, can bring men’s prayers to accomplishment and repay the wicked as they deserve. Beside this Pan a fire is kept burning which is never allowed to go out. It is said that in days of old this god also gave oracles, and that the nymph Erato became his prophetess, she who wedded Arkas, the son of Kallisto.
{8.37.12} They also remember verses of Erato, which I too myself have read. Here is an altar of Ares, and there are two images of Aphrodite in a temple, one of white marble, and the other, the older, of wood. There are also wooden images of Apollo and of Athena. Of Athena a sanctuary also has been made.
{8.38.1} A little farther up is the circuit of the wall of Lykosoura, in which there are a few inhabitants. Of all the cities that earth has ever shown, whether on mainland or on islands, Lykosoura is the oldest, and was the first that the sun beheld; from it the rest of mankind have learned how to make them cities.
{8.38.2} On the left of the sanctuary of the Mistress is Mount Lykaios. Some Arcadians call it Olympus, and others Sacred Peak. On it, they say, Zeus was reared. There is a place on Mount Lykaioscalled Cretea, on the left of the grove of Apollo surnamed Parrhasian. The Arcadians claim that the Crete, where the Cretan story has it that Zeus was reared, was this place and not the island.
{8.38.3} The nymphs, by whom they say that Zeus was reared, they call Theisoa, Neda and Hagno. After Theisoa was named a city in Parrhasia; Theisoa today is a village in the district of Megalopolis. From Neda the river Neda takes its name; from Hagno a spring on Mount Lykaios, which like the Danube flows with an equal volume of water in winter just as in the season of summer.
{8.38.4} Should a drought persist for a long time, and the seeds in the earth and the trees wither, then the priest of Zeus Lykaios, after praying towards the water and making the usual sacrifices, lowers an oak branch to the surface of the spring, not letting it sink deep. When the water has been stirred up there rises a vapor, like mist; after a time the mist becomes cloud, gathers to itself other clouds, and makes rain fall on the land of the Arcadians.
{8.38.5} There is on Mount Lykaios a sanctuary of Pan, and a grove of trees around it, with a race-course in front of which is a running-track. Of old they used to hold here the games called Lykaia. Here there are also bases of statues, with now no statues on them. On one of the bases an elegiac inscription declares that the statue was a portrait of Astyanax, and that Astyanax was of the lineage of Arceas.
{8.38.6} Among the marvels of Mount Lykaios the most wondrous is this. On it is a precinct of Zeus Lykaios, into which people are not allowed to enter. If anyone takes no notice of the rule and enters, he must inevitably live no longer than a year. A legend, moreover, was current that everything alike within the precinct, whether beast or man, cast no shadow. For this reason when a beast takes refuge in the precinct, the hunter will not rush in after it, but remains outside, and though he sees the beast can behold no shadow. In Syene also just on this side of Aethiopia neither tree nor creature casts a shadow so long as the sun is in the constellation of the Crab, but the precinct on Mount Lykaios affects shadows in the same way always and at every season.
{8.38.7} On the highest point of the mountain is a mound of earth, forming an altar of Zeus Lykaios, and from it most of the Peloponnesus can be seen. Before the altar on the east stand two pillars, on which there were of old gilded eagles. On this altar they sacrifice in secret to Zeus Lykaios. I was reluctant to pry into the details of the sacrifice; let them be as they are and were from the beginning.
{8.38.8} On the east side of the mountain there is a sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Parrhasian. They also give him the name Pythian. They hold every year a festival in honor of the god and sacrifice in the marketplace a boar to Apollo Helper, and after the sacrifice here they at once carry the victim to the sanctuary of Parrhasian Apollo in procession to the tune of the aulos [‘double-reed’]; cutting out the thigh-bones they burn them, and also consume the meat of the victim on the spot.
{8.38.9} This it is their custom to do. To the north of Mount Lykaiosis the Theisoan territory. The inhabitants of it worship most the nymph Theisoa. There flow through the land of Theisoa the following tributaries of the Alpheios, the Mylaon, Nus, Akhelōos, Celadus, and Naliphus. There are two other rivers of the same name as the Akhelōos in Arcadia, and more famous than it.
{8.38.10} One, falling into the sea by the Echinadian islands, flows through Acarnania and Aetolia, and is said by Homer in the Iliad [508] to be the prince of all rivers. Another Akhelōos, flowing from Mount Sipylos, along with the mountain also, he takes occasion to mention in connection with his account of Niobe. [509] The third river called the Akhelōos is the one by Mount Lykaios.
{8.38.11} On the right of Lykosoura are the mountains called Nomian, and on them is a sanctuary of Nomian Pan; the place they name Melpeia, saying that here Pan discovered the music of the pipes. It is a very obvious conjecture that the name of the Nomian Mountains is derived from the pasturings [nomai] of Pan, but the Arcadians themselves derive the name from a nymph.
{8.39.1} By Lykosoura to the west passes the river Plataniston. No traveller can possibly avoid crossing the Plataniston who is going to Phigalia. Afterwards there is an ascent for some thirty stadium-lengths or so.
{8.39.2} The story of Phigalus, the son of Lykaon, who was the original founder of the city, how in course of time the city made a change and called itself after Phialus, the son of Bucolion, and again restored its old name, I have already set forth. [510] Another account, but not worthy of credit, is current, that Phigalus was not a son of Lykaon but an aboriginal. Others have said that Phigalia was one of the nymphs called Dryads.
{8.39.3} When the Lacedaemonians attacked the Arcadians and invaded Phigalia, they overcame the inhabitants in battle and sat down to besiege the city. When the walls were in danger of capture the Phigalians ran away, or perhaps the Lacedaemonians let them come out under a truce. The taking of Phigalia and the flight of the Phigalians from it took place when Miltiades was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the second year of the thirtieth Olympiad, [511] when Khionis the Laconian was victorious for the third time.
{8.39.4} The Phigalians who escaped resolved to go to Delphi and ask the god about their return. The Pythian priestess said that if they made the attempt by themselves she saw no return for them; but if they took with them one hundred picked men from Oresthasium, these would die in the battle, but through them the Phigalians would be restored to their city. When the Oresthasians heard of the oracle delivered to the Phigalians, all vied with one another in their eagerness to be one of the picked hundred and take part in the expedition to Phigalia.
{8.39.5} They advanced against the Lacedaemonian garrison and fulfilled the oracle in all respects. For they fought and met their end gloriously; expelling the Spartans they enabled the Phigalians to recover their native land.Phigalia lies on high land that is for the most part precipitous, and the walls are built on the cliffs. But on the top the hill is level and flat. Here there is a sanctuary of Artemis Savior with a standing image of stone. From this sanctuary it is their custom to start their processions.
{8.39.6} The image of Hermes in the gymnasium is like to one dressed in a cloak; but the statue does not end in feet, but in the square shape. A temple also of Dionysus is here, who by the inhabitants is surnamed Acratophorus, but the lower part of the image cannot be seen for laurel-leaves and ivy. As much of it as can be seen is painted … with cinnabar to shine. It is said to be found by the Iberians along with the gold.
{8.40.1} The Phigalians have on their marketplace a statue of a competitor at the pankration, Arrhachion; it is archaic, especially in its posture. The feet are close together, and the arms hang down by the side as far as the hips. The statue is made of stone, and it is said that an inscription was written upon it. This has disappeared with time, but Arrhachion won two Olympic victories at Festivals before the fifty-fourth, while at this Festival [512] he won one due partly to the fairness of the Umpires and partly to his own manhood.
{8.40.2} For when he was contending for the wild olive with the last remaining competitor, whoever he was, the latter got a grip first, and held Arrhachion, hugging him with his legs, and at the same time he squeezed his neck with his hands. Arrhachion dislocated his opponent’s toe, but expired owing to suffocation; but he who suffocated Arrhachion was forced to give in at the same time because of the pain in his toe. The Eleians garlanded and proclaimed victor the corpse of Arrhachion.
{8.40.3} I know that the Argives acted similarly in the case of Creugas, a boxer of Epidamnus. For the Argives too gave to Creugas after his death the garland in the Nemean games, because his opponent Damoxenos of Syracuse broke their mutual agreement. For evening drew near as they were boxing, and they agreed within the hearing of witnesses, that each should in turn allow the other to deal him a blow. At that time boxers did not yet wear a sharp thong on the wrist of each hand, but still boxed with the soft gloves, binding them in the hollow of the hand, so that their fingers might be left bare. These soft gloves were thin thongs of raw ox-hide plaited together after an ancient manner.
{8.40.4} On the occasion to which I refer Creugas aimed his blow at the head of Damoxenos, and the latter ordered Creugas to lift up his arm. On his doing so, Damoxenos with straight fingers struck his opponent under the ribs; and what with the sharpness of his nails and the force of the blow he drove his hand into the other’s inside, caught his bowels, and tore them as he pulled them out.
{8.40.5} Creugas expired on the spot, and the Argives expelled Damoxenos for breaking his agreement by dealing his opponent many blows instead of one. They gave the victory to the dead Creugas, and had a statue of him made in Argos. It still stood in my time in the sanctuary of Lycian Apollo.
{8.41.1} In the marketplace of Phigalia there is also a common tomb of the picked men of Oresthasium, and every year they sacrifice to them as to heroes.
{8.41.2} A river called the Lymax flowing just beside Phigalia falls into the Neda, and the river, they say, got its name from the purifying of Rhea. For when she had given birth to Zeus, the nymphs who purified her after her travail threw the refuse into this river. Now the ancients called refuse “lymata.” Homer, [513] for example, says that the Greeks were purified, after the pestilence was stayed, and threw the lymata into the sea.
{8.41.3} The source of the Neda is on Mount Kerausias, which is a part of Mount Lykaios. At the place where the Neda approaches nearest to Phigalia the boys of the Phigalians cut off their hair in honor of the river. Near the sea the Neda is navigable for small ships. Of all known rivers the Maeander descends with the most winding course, which very often turns back and then bends round once more; but the second place for its twistings should be given to the Neda.
{8.41.4} Some twelve stadium-lengths above Phigalia are hot baths, and not far from these the Lymax falls into the Neda. Where the streams meet is the sanctuary of Eurynome, a holy spot from of old and difficult of approach because of the roughness of the ground. Around it are many cypress trees, growing close together.
{8.41.5} Eurynome is believed by the people of Phigalia to be a surname of Artemis. Those of them, however, to whom have descended ancient traditions, declare that Eurynome was a daughter of Okeanos, whom Homer mentions in the Iliad, [514] saying that along with Thetis she received Hephaistos. On the same day in each year they open the sanctuary of Eurynome, but at any other time it is a transgression for them to open it.
{8.41.6} On this occasion sacrifices also are offered by the state and by individuals. I did not arrive at the season of the festival, and I did not see the image of Eurynome; but the Phigalians told me that golden chains bind the wooden image, which represents a woman as far as the hips, but below this a fish. If she is a daughter of Okeanos, and lives with Thetis in the depth of the sea, the fish may be regarded as a kind of emblem of her. But there could be no probable connection between such a shape and Artemis.
{8.41.7} Phigalia is surrounded by mountains, on the left by the mountain called Kotilios, while on the right is another, Mount Elaious, which acts as a shield to the city. The distance from the city to Mount Kotilios is about forty stadium-lengths. On the mountain is a place called Bassae, and the temple of Apollo the Helper, which, including the roof, is of stone.
{8.41.8} Of the temples in the Peloponnesus, this might be placed first after the one at Tegea for the beauty of its stone and for its symmetry. Apollo received his name from the help he gave in time of plague, just as the Athenians gave him the name of Averter of Evil for turning the plague away from them.
{8.41.9} It was at the time of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians that he also saved the Phigalians, and at no other time; the evidence is that of the two surnames of Apollo, which have practically the same meaning, and also the fact that Ictinos, the architect of the temple at Phigalia, was a contemporary of Pericles, and built for the Athenians what is called the Parthenon. My narrative has already said that the tile image of Apollo is in the marketplace of Megalopolis.
{8.41.10} On Mount Kotilios is a spring of water, but the author who related that this spring is the source of the stream of the river Lymax neither saw it himself nor spoke to a man who had done so. But I did both. We saw the river actually flowing, and the water of the spring on Mount Kotilios running no long way, and within a short distance disappearing altogether. It did not, however, occur to me to take pains to discover where in Arcadia the source of the Lymax is. Beyond the sanctuary of Apollo the Helper is a place named Cotilum, and in Cotilum is an Aphrodite. She also has a temple, the roof of which is now gone, and an image of the goddess.
{8.42.1} The second mountain, Mount Elaious, is some thirty stadium-lengths away from Phigalia, and has a cave sacred to Demeter surnamed Black. The Phigalians accept the account of the people of Thelpusa about the mating of Poseidon and Demeter, but they assert that Demeter gave birth, not to a horse, but to the Mistress, as the Arcadians call her.
{8.42.2} Afterwards, they say, angry with Poseidon and grieved at the abduction of Persephone, she put on black apparel and shut herself up in this cavern for a long time. But when all the fruits of the earth were perishing, and humankind was dying yet more through famine, no god, it seemed, knew where Demeter was in hiding,
{8.42.3} until Pan, they say, visited Arcadia. Roaming from mountain to mountain as he hunted, he came at last to Mount Elaious and spied Demeter, the state she was in and the clothes she wore. So Zeus learned this from Pan, and sent the Fates to Demeter, who listened to the Fates and laid aside her wrath, moderating her grief as well. For these reasons, the Phigalians say, they concluded that this cavern was sacred to Demeter and set up in it a wooden image.
{8.42.4} The image, they say, was made after this fashion. It was seated on a rock, like to a woman in all respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and there grew out of her head images of serpents and other beasts. Her tunic reached right to her feet; on one of her hands was a dolphin, on the other a dove. Now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who is learned in traditions.They say that they named her Black because the goddess had black apparel.
{8.42.5} They cannot relate either who made this wooden image or how it caught fire. But the old image was destroyed, and the Phigalians gave the goddess no fresh image, while they neglected for the most part her festivals and sacrifices, until the barrenness fell on the land. Then they went as suppliants to the Pythian priestess and received this response:
{8.42.6} “Azanian Arcadians, acorn-eaters, who dwell
In Phigaleia, the cave that hid Deo, who bare a horse,
You have come to learn a cure for grievous famine,
Who alone have twice been nomads, alone have twice lived on wild fruits.
It was Deo who made you cease from pasturing, Deo who made you pasture again
After being binders of wheat and eaters [515] of cakes,
Because she was deprived of privileges and ancient honors given by men of former times.
And soon will she make you eat each other and feed on your children,
Unless you appease her anger with libations offered by all your people,
And adorn with divine honors the nook of the cave.”
In Phigaleia, the cave that hid Deo, who bare a horse,
You have come to learn a cure for grievous famine,
Who alone have twice been nomads, alone have twice lived on wild fruits.
It was Deo who made you cease from pasturing, Deo who made you pasture again
After being binders of wheat and eaters [515] of cakes,
Because she was deprived of privileges and ancient honors given by men of former times.
And soon will she make you eat each other and feed on your children,
Unless you appease her anger with libations offered by all your people,
And adorn with divine honors the nook of the cave.”
{8.42.7} When the Phigalians heard the oracle that was brought back, they held Demeter in greater honor than before, and particularly they persuaded Onatas of Aegina, son of Mikon, to make them an image of Demeter at a price. The Pergamenes have a bronze Apollo made by this Onatas, a most wonderful marvel both for its size and workmanship. This man then, about two generations after the Persian invasion of Greece, made the Phigalians an image of bronze, guided partly by a picture or copy of the ancient wooden image which he discovered, but mostly (so goes the story) by a vision that he saw in dreams. As to the date, I have the following evidence to produce.
{8.42.8} At the time when Xerxes crossed over into Europe, Gelon the son of Deinomenes was despot of Syracuse and of the rest of Sicily besides. When Gelon died, the kingdom devolved on his brother Hieron. Hieron died before he could dedicate to Olympian Zeus the offerings he had vowed for his victories in the chariot-race, and so Deinomenes his son paid the debt for his father.
{8.42.9} These too are works of Onatas, and there are two inscriptions at Olympia. The one over the offering is this:
“Having won victories in thy grand games, Olympian Zeus,
Once with the four-horse chariot, twice with the race-horse,
Hieron bestowed on thee these gifts: his son dedicated them,
Deinomenes, as a memorial to his Syracusan father.”
Once with the four-horse chariot, twice with the race-horse,
Hieron bestowed on thee these gifts: his son dedicated them,
Deinomenes, as a memorial to his Syracusan father.”
{8.42.10} The other inscription is:
“Onatas, son of Mikon, fashioned me,
Who had his home in the island of Aegina.”
Who had his home in the island of Aegina.”
Onatas was contemporary with Hegias of Athens and Ageladas of Argos.
{8.42.11} It was mainly to see this Demeter that I came to Phigalia. I offered no burned sacrifice to the goddess, that being a custom of the natives. But the rule for sacrifice by private persons, and at the annual sacrifice by the community of Phigalia, is to offer grapes and other cultivated fruits, with honeycombs and raw wool still full of its grease. These they place on the altar built before the cave, afterwards pouring oil over them.
{8.42.12} They have a priestess who performs the rites, and with her is the youngest of their “sacrificers,” as they are called, who are citizens, three in number. There is a grove of oaks around the cave, and a cold spring rises from the earth. The image made by Onatas no longer existed in my time, and most of the Phigalians were ignorant that it had ever existed at all.
{8.42.13} The oldest, however, of the inhabitants I met said that three generations before his time some stones had fallen on the image out of the roof; these crushed the image, destroying it utterly. Indeed, in the roof I could still discern plainly where the stones had broken away.
{8.43.1} My story next requires me to describe whatever is notable at Pallantion, and the reason why the emperor Antoninus the first turned it from a village to a city, giving its inhabitants liberty and freedom from taxation.
{8.43.2} Well, the story is that the wisest man and the best soldier among the Arcadians was one Evander (Euandros), whose mother was a nymph, a daughter of the Ladon, while his father was Hermes. Sent out to establish a colony at the head of a company of Arcadians from Pallantion, he founded a city on the banks of the river Tiber. That part of modern Rome, which once was the home of Evander (Euandros) and the Arcadians who accompanied him, got the name of Pallantion in memory of the city in Arcadia. Afterwards the name was changed by omitting the letters L and N. [516] These are the reasons why the emperor bestowed boons upon Pallantion.
{8.43.3} Antoninus, the benefactor of Pallantion, never willingly involved the Romans in war; but when the Moors (who form the greatest part of the independent Libyans, being nomads, and more formidable enemies than even the Scythians in that they wandered, not on wagons, but on horseback with their womenfolk), when these, I say, began an unprovoked war, he drove them from all their country, forcing them to flee to the extreme parts of Libya, right up to Mount Atlas and to the people living on it.
{8.43.4} He also took away from the Brigantes in Britain the greater part of their territory, because they too had begun an unprovoked war on the province of Genunia, a Roman dependency. The cities of Lycia and of Caria, along with Kos and Rhodes, were overthrown by a violent earthquake that smote them. These cities also were restored by the emperor Antoninus, who was keenly anxious to rebuild them, and devoted vast sums to this task. As to his gifts of money to Greeks, and to such non-Greeks as needed it, and his buildings in Greece, Ionia, Carthage and Syria, others have written of them most exactly.
{8.43.5} But there is also another memorial of himself left by this emperor. There was a certain law whereby provincials who were themselves of Roman citizenship, while their children were considered of Greek nationality, were forced either to leave their property to strangers or let it increase the wealth of the emperor. Antoninus permitted all such to give to the children their heritage, choosing rather to show himself benevolent than to retain a law that swelled his riches. This emperor the Romans called Pius, because he showed himself to be a most religious man.
{8.43.6} In my opinion he might also be justly called by the same title as the elder Cyrus, who was styled Father of Men. He left to succeed him a son of the same name. This Antoninus the second brought retribution both on the Germans, the most numerous and warlike barbarians in Europe, and also on the Sarmatian nation, both of whom had been guilty of beginning a war of aggression.
{8.44.1} To complete my account of Arcadia I have only to describe the road from Megalopolis to Pallantion and Tegea, which also takes us as far as what is called the Dyke. On this road is a suburb named Ladoceia after Ladocus, the son of Ekhemos, and after it is the site of what was in old times the city of Haimoniai. Its founder was Haimon the son of Lykaon, and the name of the place has remained Haimoniai to this day.
{8.44.2} After Haimoniai on the right of the road are some noteworthy remains of the city of Oresthasium, especially the pillars of a sanctuary of Artemis, which still are there. The surname of Artemis is Priestess. On the straight road from Haimoniai is a place called Aphrodisium, and after it another, called Athenaeum. On the left of it is a temple of Athena with a stone image in it.
{8.44.3} About twenty stadium-lengths away from Athenaeum are ruins of Asea, and the hill that once was the citadel has traces of fortifications to this day. Some five stadium-lengths from Asea are the sources of the Alpheios and of the Eurotas, the former a little distance from the road, the latter just by the road itself. Near the source of the Alpheios is a temple of the Mother of the Gods without a roof, and two lions made of stone.
{8.44.4} The waters of the Eurotas mingle with the Alpheios, and the united streams flow on for some twenty stadium-lengths. Then they fall into a chasm, and the Eurotas comes again to the surface in the Lacedaemonian territory, the Alpheios at Pegai (Sources) in the land of Megalopolis. From Asea is an ascent up Mount Boreios, and on the top of the mountain are traces of a sanctuary. It is said that the sanctuary was built in honor of Athena Savior and Poseidon by Odysseus after his return from Troy.
{8.44.5} What is called the Dyke is the boundary between Megalopolis on the one hand and Tegea and Pallantion on the other. The plain of Pallantion you reach by turning aside to the left from the Dyke. In Pallantion is a temple with two stone images, one of Pallas, the other of Evander (Euadros). There is also a sanctuary of the Maiden, the daughter of Demeter, and not far away is a statue of Polybius. The hill above the city was of old used as a citadel. On the crest of the hill there still remains a sanctuary of certain gods.
{8.44.6} Their surname is the Pure, and here it is customary to take the most solemn oaths. The names of the gods either they do not know, or knowing will not divulge; but it might be inferred that they were called Pure because Pallas did not sacrifice to them after the same fashion as his father sacrificed to Zeus Lykaios.
{8.44.7} On the right of the so-called Dyke lies the Manthuric plain. The plain is on the borders of Tegea, stretching just about fifty stadium-lengths to that city. On the right of the road is a small mountain called Mount Kresios, on which stands the sanctuary of Aphneios. For Ares, the Tegeans say, mated with Aerope, daughter of Cepheus, the son of Aleus.
{8.44.8} She died in giving birth to a child, who clung to his mother even when she was dead, and sucked great abundance of milk from her breasts. Now this took place by the will of Ares, and because of it they name the god Aphneios (Abundant); but the name given to the hill was, it is said, Aeropus. There is on the way to Tegea a fountain called Leuconian. They say that Apheidas was the father of Leucone, and not far from Tegea is her tomb.
{8.45.1} The Tegeans say that in the time of Tegeates, son of Lykaon, only the district got its name from him, and that the inhabitants dwelled in parishes, Gareatae, Phylacenses, Caryatae, Corythenses, Potakhidai, Oiatai, Manthyrenses, Ekheuethenses. But in the reign of Apheidas a ninth parish was added to them, namely Apheidantes. Of the modern city Aleus was founder.
{8.45.2} Besides the exploits shared by the Tegeans with the Arcadians, which include the Trojan war, the Persian wars and the battle at Dipaea with the Lacedaemonians, the Tegeans have, besides the deeds already mentioned, the following claims of their own to fame. Ankaios, the son of Lycurgus (Lykourgos), though wounded, stood up to the Calydonian boar, which Atalanta shot at, being the first to hit the beast. For this feat she received, as a prize for valor, the head and hide of the boar.
{8.45.3} When the Herakleidai returned to the Peloponnesus, Ekhemos, son of Aeropus, a Tegean, fought a duel with Hyllos, and overcame him in the fight. The Tegeans again were the first Arcadians to overcome Lacedaemonians; when invaded they defeated their enemies and took most of them prisoners.
{8.45.4} The ancient sanctuary of Athena Alea was made for the Tegeans by Aleus. Later on the Tegeans set up for the goddess a large temple, worth seeing. The sanctuary was utterly destroyed by a fire which suddenly broke out when Diophantos was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the second year of the ninety-sixth Olympiad, at which Eupolemos of Elis won the foot-race.
{8.45.5} The modern temple is far superior to all other temples in the Peloponnesus on many grounds, especially for its size. Its first row of pillars is Doric, and the next to it Corinthian; also, outside the temple, stand pillars of the Ionic order. I discovered that its architect was Scopas the Parian, who made images in many places of ancient Greece, and some besides in Ionia and Caria.
{8.45.6} On the front gable is the hunting of the Calydonian boar. The boar stands right in the center. On one side are Atalanta, Meleagros, Theseus, Telamon, Peleus, Polydeukes, Iolaos, the partner in most of the labors of Hēraklēs, and also the sons of Thestios, the brothers of Althaea, Prothous and Cometes.
{8.45.7} On the other side of the boar is Epochus supporting Ankaios who is now wounded and has dropped his axe; by his side is Castor (Kastor), with Amphiaraos, the son of Oikles, next to whom is Hippothous, the son of Cercyon, son of Agamedes, son of Stymphalos. The last figure is Peirithous. On the gable at the back is a representation of Telephus fighting Achilles on the plain of the Kaïkos.
{8.46.1} The ancient image of Athena Alea, and with it the tusks of the Calydonian boar, were carried away by the Roman emperor Augustus after his defeat of Antonius and his allies, among whom were all the Arcadians except the Mantineians.
{8.46.2} It is clear that Augustus was not the first to carry away from the vanquished votive offerings and images of gods, but was only following an old precedent. For when Troy was taken and the Greeks were dividing up the spoils, Sthenelus the son of Capaneus was given the wooden image of Zeus Herkeios (Of the Courtyard); and many years later, when Dorians were migrating to Sicily, Antiphemus the founder of Gela, after the sack of Omphace, a town of the Sicanians, removed to Gela an image made by Daidalos.
{8.46.3} Xerxes, too, the son of Dareios, the king of Persia, apart from the spoil he carried away from the city of Athens, took besides, as we know, from Brauron the image of Brauronian Artemis, and furthermore, accusing the Milesians of cowardice in a naval engagement against the Athenians in Greek waters, carried away from them the bronze Apollo at Brankhidai. This it was to be the lot of Seleukos afterwards to restore to the Milesians, but the Argives down to the present still retain the images they took from Tiryns; one, a wooden image, is by the Hērā, the other is kept in the sanctuary of Lycian Apollo.
{8.46.4} Again, the people of Kyzikos, compelling the people of Prokonnesos by war to live at Kyzikos, took away from Prokonnesos an image of Mother Dindymene. The image is of gold, and its face is made of hippopotamus teeth instead of ivory. So the emperor Augustus only followed a custom in vogue among the Greeks and barbarians from of old. The image of Athena Alea at Rome is as you enter the Forum made by Augustus.
{8.46.5} Here then it has been set up, made throughout of ivory, the work of Endoeus. Those in charge of the curiosities say that one of the boar’s tusks has broken off; the remaining one is kept in the gardens of the emperor, in a sanctuary of Dionysus, and is about half a fathom long.
{8.47.1} The present image at Tegea was brought from the parish of Manthurenses, and among them it had the surname of Hippia (Horse Goddess). According to their account, when the battle of the gods and giants took place the goddess drove the chariot and horses against Enceladus. Yet this goddess too has come to receive the name of Alea among the Greeks generally and the Peloponnesians themselves. On one side of the image of Athena stands Asklepios, on the other Hygieia, works of Scopas of Paros in Pentelic marble.
{8.47.2} Of the votive offerings in the temple these are the most notable. There is the hide of the Calydonian boar, rotted by age and by now altogether without bristles. Hanging up are the fetters, except such as have been destroyed by rust, worn by the Lacedaemonian prisoners when they dug the plain of Tegea. There have been dedicated a sacred couch of Athena, a portrait painting of Auge, and the shield of Marpessa, surnamed Choera, a woman of Tegea;
{8.47.3} of Marpessa I shall make mention later. [517] The priest of Athena is a boy; I do not know how long his priesthood lasts, but it must be before, and not after, puberty. The altar for the goddess was made, they say, by Melampos, the son of Amythaon. Represented on the altar are Rhea and the nymph Oinoe holding the baby Zeus. On either side are four figures: on one, Glauke, Neda, Theisoa and Anthracia; on the other Ide, Hagno, Alcinoe and Phrixa. There are also images of the Muses and of Memory.
{8.47.4} Not far from the temple is a stadium formed by a mound of earth, where they celebrate games, one festival called Aleaea after Athena, the other Halotia (Capture Festival) because they captured the greater part of the Lacedaemonians alive in the battle. To the north of the temple is a fountain, and at this fountain they say that Auge was outraged by Hēraklēs, therein differing from the account of Auge in Hecataeus. Some three stadium-lengths away from the fountain is a temple of Hermes Aipytos.
{8.47.5} There is at Tegea another sanctuary of Athena, namely of Athena Poliatis (Keeper of the City) into which a priest enters once in each year. This sanctuary they name Eryma (Defence) saying that Cepheus, the son of Aleus, received from Athena a boon, that Tegea should never be captured while time shall endure, adding that the goddess cut off some of the hair of Medusa and gave it to him as a guard to the city.
{8.47.6} Their story about Artemis, the same as is called Leader, is as follows. Aristomelidas, despot of Orkhomenos in Arcadia, fell in love with a Tegean girl, and, getting her somehow or other into his power, entrusted her to the keeping of Khronios. The girl, before she was delivered up to the despot, killed herself for fear and shame, and Artemis in a vision stirred up Khronios against Aristomelidas. He slew the despot, fled to Tegea, and made a sanctuary for Artemis.
{8.48.1} The marketplace is in shape very like a brick, and in it is a temple of Aphrodite called “in brick,” with a stone image. There are two slabs; on one are represented in relief Antiphanes, Crisus, Tyronidas and Pyrrhias, who made laws for the Tegeans, and down to this day receive honors for it from them. On the other slab is represented Iasios, holding a horse, and carrying in his right hand a branch of palm. It is said that Iasios won a horse-race at Olympia, at the time when Hēraklēs the Theban celebrated the Olympian festival.
{8.48.2} The reason why at Olympia the victor receives a garland of wild-olive I have already explained in my account of Elis; [518] why at Delphi the garland is of bay I shall make plain later. [519] At the Isthmus the pine, and at Nemeā celery became the prize to commemorate the sufferings of Palaimon and Arkhemoros. At most games, however, is given a garland of palm, and at all a palm is placed in the right hand of the victor.
{8.48.3} The origin of the custom is said to be that Theseus, on his return from Crete, held games in Delos in honor of Apollo, and garlanded the victors with palm. Such, it is said, was the origin of the custom. The palm in Delos is mentioned by Homer in the passage [520] where Odysseus supplicates the daughter of Alkinoos.
{8.48.4} There is also an image of Ares in the marketplace of Tegea. Carved in relief on a slab it is called Gynaecothoenas (He who entertains women). At the time of the Laconian war, when Kharillos king of Lacedaemon made the first invasion, the women armed themselves and lay in ambush under the hill they call today Phylactris (Sentry Hill). When the armies met and the men on either side were performing many remarkable exploits,
{8.48.5} the women, they say, came on the scene and put the Lacedaemonians to flight. Marpessa, surnamed Choera, surpassed, they say, the other women in daring, while Kharillos himself was one of the Spartan prisoners. The story goes on to say that he was set free without ransom, swore to the Tegeans that the Lacedaemonians would never again attack Tegea, and then broke his oath; that the women offered to Ares a sacrifice of victory on their own account without the men, and gave to the men no share in the meat of the victim. For this reason Ares got his surname.
{8.48.6} There is also an altar of Zeus Teleios (Full-grown), with a square image, a shape of which the Arcadians seem to me to be exceedingly fond. There are also here tombs of Tegeates, the son of Lykaon, and of Maera, the wife of Tegeates. They say that Maera was a daughter of Atlas, and Homer makes mention of her in the passage [521] where Odysseus tells to Alkinoos his journey to Hades, and of those whose ghosts he beheld there.
{8.48.7} The Tegeans surname Eileithuia, a temple of whom, with art image, they have in their marketplace, Auge on her knees, saying that Aleus handed over his daughter to Nauplios with the order to take and drown her in the sea. As she was being carried along, they say, she fell on her knees and so gave birth to her son, at the place where is the sanctuary of Eileithuia. This story is different from another, that Auge was brought to bed without her father’s knowing it, and that Telephus was exposed on Mount Parthenios, the abandoned child being suckled by a deer. This account is equally current among the people of Tegea.
{8.48.8} Close to the sanctuary of Eileithuia is an altar of Earth, next to which is a slab of white marble. On this is carved Polybius, the son of Lykortas, while on another slab is Elatos, one of the sons of Arkas.
{8.49.1} Not far from the marketplace is a theater, and near it are pedestals of bronze statues, but the statues themselves no longer exist. On one pedestal is an elegiac inscription that the statue is that of Philopoimen. The memory of this Philopoimen is most carefully cherished by the Greeks, both for the wisdom he showed and for his many brave achievements.
{8.49.2} His father Kraugis was as nobly born as any Arcadian of Megalopolis, but he died while Philopoimen was still a baby, and Kleandros of Mantineia became his guardian. This man was an exile from Mantineia, resident in Megalopolis because of his misfortunes at home, and his house and that of Kraugis had ties of guest-friendship. Among the teachers of Philopoimen, they say, were Megalophanes and Ecdelus, pupils, it is said, of Arkesilaos of Pitane.
{8.49.3} In size and strength of body no Peloponnesian was his superior, but he was ugly of countenance. He scorned training for the prizes of the games, but he worked the land he owned and did not neglect to clear it of wild beasts. They say that he read books of scholars of repute among the Greeks, stories of wars, and all that taught him anything of strategy. He wished to model his whole life on Epameinondas, his wisdom and his achievements, but could not rise to his height in every respect. For the temper of Epameinondas was calm and, in particular, free from anger, but the Arcadian was somewhat passionate.
{8.49.4} When Megalopolis was captured by Kleomenes, Philopoimen was not dismayed by the unexpected disaster, but led safely to Messene about two-thirds of the men of military age, along with the women and children, the Messenians being at that time friendly allies. To some of those who made good their escape Kleomenes offered terms, saying that he was beginning to repent his crime, and would treat with the Megalopolitans if they returned home; but Philopoimen induced the citizens at a meeting to win a return home by force of arms, and to refuse to negotiate or make a truce.
{8.49.5} When the battle had joined with the Lacedaemonians under Kleomenes at Sellasia, [522] in which Achaeans and Arcadians from all the cities took part, along with Antigonos at the head of a Macedonian army, Philopoimen served with the cavalry. But when he saw that the infantry would be the decisive factor in the engagement, he voluntarily fought on foot, showed conspicuous daring, and was pierced through both thighs by one of the enemy.
{8.49.6} Although so seriously impeded, he bent in his knees and forced himself forward, so that he actually broke the spear by the movement of his legs. After the defeat of the Lacedaemonians under Kleomenes, Philopoimen returned to the camp, where the surgeons pulled out from one thigh the spike, from the other the blade. When Antigonos learned of his valor and saw it, he was anxious to take Philepoimen to Macedonia.
{8.49.7} But Philopoimen was not likely to care much about Antigonos. Sailing across to Crete, where a civil war was raging, he put himself at the head of a band of mercenaries. Going back to Megalopolis, he was at once chosen by the Achaeans to command the cavalry, and he turned them into the finest cavalry in Greece. In the battle at the river Larisus between the Achaeans with their allies and the Eleians with the Aetolians, [523] who were helping the Eleians on grounds of kinship, Philopoimen first killed with his own hand Demophantos, the leader of the opposing cavalry, and then turned to flight all the mounted troops of Aetolia and Elis.
{8.50.1} As the Achaeans now turned their gaze on Philopoimen and placed in him all their hopes, he succeeded in changing the equipment of those serving in their infantry. They had been carrying short javelins and oblong shields after the fashion of the Celtic “door” or the Persian “wicker” [524] Philopoimen, however, persuaded them to put on breast-plates and greaves, and also to use Argolic shields [525] and long spears.
{8.50.2} When Makhanidas the upstart became despot of Lacedaemon, and war began once again between that city under Makhanidas and the Achaeans, Philopoimen commanded the Achaean forces. A battle took place at Mantineia. The light troops of the Lacedaemonians overcame the light-armed of the Achaeans, and Makhanidas pressed hard on the fugitives. Philopoimen, however, with the phalanx of infantry put to flight the Lacedaemonian men-at-arms, met Makhanidas returning from the pursuit and killed him. The Lacedaemonians were unfortunate in the battle, but their good fortune more than compensated for their defeat, for they were delivered from their despot.
{8.50.3} Not long afterwards the Argives celebrated the Nemean games, and Philopoimen chanced to be present at the competition of the harpists. Pylades, a man of Megalopolis, the most famous harpist of his time, who had won a Pythian victory, was then singing the Persians, an ode of Timotheus the Milesian. When he had begun the song:
“Who to Greece gives the great and glorious jewel of freedom,”
Timotheus, unknown location
the audience of Greeks looked at Philopoimen and by their clapping signified that the song applied to him. I am told that a similar thing happened to Themistocles at Olympia, for the audience there rose to do him honor.
{8.50.4} But Philip, the son of Demetrios, king of Macedonia, who poisoned Aratos of Sikyon, sent men to Megalopolis with orders to murder Philopoimen. The attempt failed, and Philip incurred the hatred of all Greece.The Thebans had defeated the Megarians in battle, and were already climbing the wall of Megara, when the Megarians deceived them into thinking that Philopoimen had come to Megara. This made the Thebans so cautious that they went away home, and abandoned their military operation.
{8.50.5} In Lacedaemon another despot arose, Nabis, and the first of the Peloponnesians to be attacked by him were the Messenians. Coming upon them by night, when they by no means were expecting an assault, he took the city except the citadel; but when on the morrow Philopoimen arrived with an army, he evacuated Messene under a truce.
{8.50.6} When Philopoimen’s term of office as general expired, and others were chosen to be generals of the Achaeans, he again crossed to Crete and sided with the Gortynians, who were hard pressed in war. The Arcadians were angry with him for his absence; so he returned from Crete and found that the Romans had begun a war against Nabis.
{8.50.7} The Romans had equipped a fleet against Nabis, and Philopoimen was too enthusiastic to keep out of the quarrel. But being entirely ignorant of nautical affairs he unwittingly embarked on a leaky trireme, so that the Romans and their allies were reminded of the verses of Homer, where in the Catalogue [526] he remarks on the ignorance of the Arcadians of nautical matters.
{8.50.8} A few days after the sea-fight, Philopoimen and his band, waiting for a moonless night, burned down the camp of the Lacedaemonians at Gythium. Thereupon Nabis caught Philopoimen himself and the Arcadians with him in a disadvantageous position. The Arcadians, though few in number, were good soldiers,
{8.50.9} and Philopoimen, by changing the order of his line of retreat, caused the strongest positions to be to his advantage and not to that of his enemy. He overcame Nabis in the battle and massacred during the night many of the Lacedaemonians, so raising yet higher his reputation among the Greeks.
{8.50.10} After this Nabis secured from the Romans a truce for a fixed period, but died before this period came to an end, being assassinated by a man of Calydon, who pretended that he had come about an alliance, [527] but was in reality an enemy who had been sent for this very purpose of assassination by the Aetolians.
{8.51.1} At this time Philopoimen flung himself into Sparta and forced her to join the Achaean League. Shortly afterwards Titus, the Roman commander in Greece, and Diophanes, the son of Diaios, a Megalopolitan who had been elected general of the Achaeans, attacked Lacedaemon, accusing the Lacedaemonians of rebellion against the Romans. But Philopoimen, though at the time holding no office, shut the gates against them.
{8.51.2} For this reason, and because of his courage shown against both the despots, the Lacedaemonians offered him the house [528] of Nabis, worth more than a hundred talents. But he scorned the wealth, and ordered the Lacedaemonians to court with gifts, not himself, but those who could persuade the many in the meeting of the Achaeans—a suggestion, it is said, directed against Timolaos. He was again appointed general of the Achaeans.
{8.51.3} At this time the Lacedaemonians were involved in civil war, and Philopoimen expelled from the Peloponnesus three hundred who were chiefly responsible for the civil war, sold some three thousand Helots, razed the walls of Sparta, and forbade the youths to train in the manner laid down by the laws of Lycurgus (Lykourgos), ordering them to follow the training of the Achaean youths. The Romans, in course of time, [529] were to restore to the Lacedaemonians the discipline of their native land.
{8.51.4} When the Romans under Manius defeated at Thermopylae Antiokhos the descendant of Seleukos, named Nicator, and the Syrian army with him, Aristainos of Megalopolis advised the Achaeans to approve the wishes of the Romans in all respects, and to oppose them in nothing. Philopoimen looked angrily at Aristainos, and said that he was hastening on the doom of Greece. Manius wished the Lacedaemonian exiles to return, but Philopoimen opposed his plan, and only when Manius had gone away did he allow the exiles to be restored.
{8.51.5} But, nevertheless, Philopoimen too was to be punished for his pride. After being appointed commander of the Achaeans for the eighth time, he reproached a man of no little distinction for having been captured alive by the enemy. Now at this time the Achaeans had a grievance against the Messenians, and Philopoimen, despatching Lykortas with the army to lay waste the land of the Messenians, was very anxious two or three days later, in spite of his seventy years and a severe attack of fever, to take his share in the expedition of Lykortas. He led about sixty horsemen and targeteers.
{8.51.6} Lykortas, however, and his army were already on their way back to their country, having neither suffered great harm nor inflicted it on the Messenians. Philopoimen, wounded in the head during the battle, fell from his horse and was taken alive to Messene. A meeting of the assembly was immediately held, at which the most widely divergent opinions were expressed.
{8.51.7} Deinokrates, and all the Messenians whose wealth made them influential, urged that Philopoimen should be put to death; but the popular party were keen on saving his life, calling him Father, and more than Father, [530] of all the Greek people. But Deinokrates, after all, and in spite of Messenian opposition, was to bring about the death of Philopoimen, for he sent poison in to him. [531]
{8.51.8} Shortly afterwards Lykortas gathered a force from Arcadia and Achaea and marched against Messene. The Messenian populace at once went over to the side of the Arcadians, and those responsible for the death of Philopoimen were caught and punished, all except Deinokrates, who perished by his own hand. The Arcadians also brought back to Megalopolis the bones of Philopoimen.
{8.52.1} After this Greece ceased to bear good men. For Miltiades, the son of Kimon, overcame in battle the foreign invaders who had landed at Marathon, stayed the advance of the Persian army, [532] and so became the first benefactor of all Greece, just as Philopoimen, the son of Kraugis, was the last. Those who before Miltiades accomplished brilliant deeds, Kodros, the son of Melanthos, Polydoros the Spartan, Aristomenes the Messenian, and all the rest, will be seen to have helped each his own country and not Greece as a whole.
{8.52.2} Later than Miltiades, Leonidas, the son of Anaxandrides, and Themistocles, the son of Neokles, repulsed Xerxes from Greece, [533] Themistocles by the two sea-fights, Leonidas by the action at Thermopylae. But Aristeides the son of Lysimakhos, and Pausanias, the son of Kleombrotos, [534] commanders at Plataea, were debarred from being called benefactors of Greece, Pausanias by his subsequent sins, Aristeides by his imposition of tribute on the island Greeks; for before Aristeides all the Greeks were immune from tribute.
{8.52.3} Xanthippos, the son of Ariphron, with Leotykhides the king of Sparta destroyed the Persian fleet at Mykale, [535] and with Kimon accomplished many enviable achievements on behalf of the Greeks. But those who took part in the Peloponnesian war against Athens, especially the most distinguished of them, might be said to be murderers, almost wreckers, of Greece.
{8.52.4} When the Greek nation was reduced to a miserable condition, it recovered under the efforts of Konon, [536] the son of Timotheus, and of Epameinondas, the son of Polymnis, who drove out the Lacedaemonian garrisons and governors, and put down the boards of ten, [537] Konon from the islands and coasts, Epameinondas from the cities of the interior. By founding cities too, of no small fame, Messene and Arcadian Megalopolis, Epameinondas made Greece more famous.
{8.52.5} I reckon Leosthenes also and Aratos benefactors of all the Greeks. Leosthenes, in spite of Alexander’s opposition, brought back safe by sea to Greece the force of Greek mercenaries in Persia, about fifty thousand in number, who had descended to the coast. As for Aratos, I have related his exploits in my history of Sikyon. [538]
{8.52.6} The inscription on the statue of Philopoimen at Tegea runs thus:
“The valor and glory of this man are famed throughout Greece, who worked
Many achievements by might and many by his counsels,
Philopoimen, the Arcadian spearman, whom great renown attended,
When he commanded the lances in war.
Witness are two trophies, won from the despots
Of Sparta; the swelling flood of slavery he stayed.
Wherefore did Tegea set up in stone the great-hearted son of Kraugis,
Author of blameless freedom.”
Many achievements by might and many by his counsels,
Philopoimen, the Arcadian spearman, whom great renown attended,
When he commanded the lances in war.
Witness are two trophies, won from the despots
Of Sparta; the swelling flood of slavery he stayed.
Wherefore did Tegea set up in stone the great-hearted son of Kraugis,
Author of blameless freedom.”
{8.53.1} Such is the inscription at Tegea on Philopoimen. The images of Apollo, Lord of Streets, the Tegeans say they set up for the following reason. Apollo and Artemis, they say, throughout every land visited with punishment all the men of that time who, when Leto was with child and in the course of her wanderings, took no heed of her when she came to their land.
{8.53.2} So when the divinities came to the land of Tegea, Scephrus, they say, the son of Tegeates, came to Apollo and had a private conversation with him. And Leimon, who also was a son of Tegeates, suspecting that the conversation of Scephrus contained a charge against him, rushed on his brother and killed him.
{8.53.3} Immediate punishment for the murder overtook Leimon, for he was shot by Artemis. At the time Tegeates and Maera sacrificed to Apollo and Artemis, but afterwards a severe famine fell on the land, and an oracle of Delphi ordered a mourning for Scephrus. At the feast of the Lord of Streets rites are performed in honor of Scephrus, and in particular the priestess of Artemis pursues a man, pretending she is Artemis herself pursuing Leimon.
{8.53.4} It is also said that all the surviving sons of Tegeates, namely, Cydon, Arkhedios and Gortys, migrated of their own free will to Crete, and that after them were named the cities Kydonia, Gortyna and Catreus. The Cretans dissent from the account of the Tegeans, saying that Cydon was a son of Hermes and of Acacallis, daughter of Minos, that Catreus was a son of Minos, and Gortys a son of Rhadamanthys.
{8.53.5} As to Rhadamanthys himself, Homer says, in the talk of Proteus with Menelaos, [539] that Menelaos would go to the Elysian plain, but that Rhadamanthys was already arrived there. Cinaethon too in his poem represents Rhadamanthys as the son of Hephaistos, Hephaistos as a son of Talos, and Talos as a son of Kres. The legends of Greece generally have different forms, and this is particularly true of genealogy.
{8.53.6} At Tegea the images of the Lord of Streets are four in number, one set up by each of the tribes [phulai]. The names given to the tribes [phulai] are Clareotis, Hippothoetis, Apolloniatis, and Athaneatis; they are called after the lots cast by Arkas to divide the land among his sons, and after Hippothous, the son of Cercyon.
{8.53.7} There is also at Tegea a temple of Demeter and the Maiden, whom they surname the Fruit-bringers, and hard by is one of Aphrodite called Paphian. The latter was built by Laodice, who was descended, as I have already said, [540] from Agapenor, who led the Arcadians to Troy, and it was in Paphos that she dwelled. Not far from it are two sanctuaries of Dionysus, an altar of the Maiden, and a temple of Apollo with a gilded image.
{8.53.8} The artist was Kheirisophos; he was a Cretan by lineage, but his date and teacher we do not know. The residence of Daidalos with Minos at Knossos secured for the Cretans a reputation for the making of wooden images also, which lasted for a long period. By the Apollo stands Kheirisophos in stone.
{8.53.9} The Tegeans also have what they call a Common Hearth of the Arcadians. Here there is an image of Hēraklēs, and on his thigh is represented a wound received in the first fight with the sons of Hippocoön. The lofty place, on which are most of the altars of the Tegeans, is called the place of Zeus Klarios (Of Lots), and it is plain that the god got his surname from the lots cast for the sons of Arkas. Here the Tegeans celebrate a feast every year.
{8.53.10} It is said that once at the time of the feast they were invaded by the Lacedaemonians. As it was snowing, these were chilled, and thus distressed by their armor, but the Tegeans, without their enemies knowing it, lighted a fire. So untroubled by the cold they donned, they say, their armor, went out against the Lacedaemonians, and had the better of the engagement. I also saw in Tegea the house of Aleus, the tomb of Ekhemos, and the fight between Ekhemos and Hyllos carved in relief upon a slab.
{8.53.11} On the left of the road as you go from Tegea to Laconia there is an altar of Pan, and likewise one of Zeus Lykaios. The foundations, too, of sanctuaries are still there. These altars are two stadium-lengths from the wall; and about seven stadium-lengths farther on is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Lady of the Lake, with an image of ebony. The fashion of the workmanship is what the Greeks call Aeginetan. Some ten stadium-lengths farther on are the ruins of a temple of Artemis Cnaceatis.
{8.54.1} The boundary between the territories of Lacedaemon and Tegea is the river Alpheios. Its water begins in Phylace, and not far from its source there flows down into it another water from springs that are not large, but many in number, whence the place has received the name Symbola (Meetings).
{8.54.2} It is known that the Alpheios differs from other rivers in exhibiting this natural peculiarity; it often disappears beneath the earth to reappear again. So flowing on from Phylace and the place called Symbola it sinks into the Tegean plain; rising at Asea, and mingling its stream with the Eurotas, it sinks again into the earth.
{8.54.3} Coming up at the place called by the Arcadians Pegai (Springs), and flowing past the land of Pisa and past Olympia, it falls into the sea above Cyllene, the port of Elis. Not even the Adriatic could check its flowing onwards, but passing through it, so large and stormy a sea, it shows in Ortygia, before Syracuse, that it is the Alpheios, and unites its water with Arethousa.
{8.54.4}The straight road from Tegea to Thyrea and to the villages its territory contains can show a notable sight in the tomb of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon; from here, say the Tegeans, a Spartan stole his bones. In our time the tomb is no longer within the gates. By the road flows also the river Garates. Crossing the Garates and advancing ten stadium-lengths you come to a sanctuary of Pan, by which is an oak, like the sanctuary sacred to Pan.
{8.54.5} The road from Tegea to Argos is very well suited for carriages, in fact a first-rate highway. On the road come first a temple and image of Asklepios. Next, turning aside to the left for about a stadium-length, you see a dilapidated sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Pythian which is utterly in ruins. Along the straight road there are many oaks, and in the grove of oaks is a temple of Demeter called “in Corythenses.” Hard by is another sanctuary, that of Mystic Dionysus.
{8.54.6} At this point begins Mount Parthenios. On it is shown a sacred enclosure of Telephus, where it is said that he was exposed when a child and was suckled by a deer. A little farther on is a sanctuary of Pan, where Athenians and Tegeans agree that he appeared to Philippides and conversed with him.
{8.54.7} Mount Parthenios rears also tortoises most suitable for the making of harps; but the men on the mountain are always afraid to capture them, and will not allow strangers to do so either, thinking them to be sacred to Pan. Crossing the peak of the mountain you are within the cultivated area, and reach the boundary between Tegea and Argos; it is near Hysiaiin Argolis.These are the divisions of the Peloponnesus, the cities in the divisions, and the most noteworthy things in each city.
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Scroll IX. Boeotia
{9.1.1} Boeotia borders on Attica at several places, one of which is where Plataea touches Eleutherai. The Boeotians as a lineage got their name from Boiotos, who, legend says, was the son of Itonos and the nymph Melanippe, and Itonos was the son of Amphiktyon. The cities are called in some cases after men, but in most after women. The Plataeans were originally, in my opinion, sprung from the soil; their name comes from Plataea, whom they consider to be a daughter of the river Asopos.
{9.1.2} It is clear that the Plataeans too were of old ruled by kings; for everywhere in Greece in ancient times, kingship and not democracy was the established form of government. But the Plataeans know of no king except Asopos and Cithaeron before him, holding that the latter gave his name to the mountain, the former to the river. I think that Plataea also, after whom the city is named, was a daughter of King Asopos, and not of the river.
{9.1.3} Before the battle that the Athenians fought at Marathon, the Plataeans had no claim to renown. But they were present at the battle of Marathon, and later, when Xerxes came down to the sea, they bravely manned the fleet with the Athenians, and defended themselves in their own country against the general of Xerxes, Mardonios, the son of Gobryas. Twice it was their fate to be driven from their homes and to be taken back to Boeotia.
{9.1.4} For in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athens, the Lacedaemonians reduced Plataea by siege, but it was restored [541] during the peace made by the Spartan Antalkidas between the Persians and the Greeks, and the Plataeans returned from Athens. But a second disaster was destined to befall them. There was no open war between Plataea and Thebes; in fact the Plataeans declared that the peace with them still held, because when the Lacedaemonians seized the Kadmeia they had no part either in the plan or in the performance.
{9.1.5} But the Thebans maintained that as the Lacedaemonians had themselves made the peace and then broken it, all alike, in their view, were freed from its terms. The Plataeans, therefore, looked upon the attitude of the Thebans with suspicion, and maintained strict watch over their city. They did not go either daily to the fields at some distance from the city, but, knowing that the Thebans were accustomed to conduct their assemblies with every voter present, and at the same time to prolong their discussions, they waited for their assemblies to be called, and then, even those whose farms lay farthest away, looked after their lands at their leisure.
{9.1.6} But Neokles, who was at the time Boeotarch at Thebes, not being unaware of the Plataean trick, proclaimed that every Theban should attend the assembly armed, and at once proceeded to lead them, not by the direct way from Thebes across the plain, but along the road to Hysiaiin the direction of Eleutherai and Attica, where not even a scout had been placed by the Plataeans, being due to reach the walls about noon.
{9.1.7} The Plataeans, thinking that the Thebans were holding an assembly, were afield and cut off from their gates. With those caught within the city the Thebans came to terms, allowing them to depart before sundown, the men with one garment each, the women with two. What happened to the Plataeans on this occasion was the reverse of what happened to them formerly when they were taken by the Lacedaemonians under Arkhidamos. For the Lacedaemonians reduced them by preventing them from getting out of the city, building a double line of circumvallation; the Thebans on this occasion by preventing them from getting within their walls.
{9.1.8} The second capture of Plataea occurred two years before the battle of Leuktra, [542] when Asteios was archon [arkhōn] in Athens. The Thebans destroyed all the city except the sanctuaries, but the method of its capture saved the lives of all the Plataeans alike, and on their expulsion they were again received by the Athenians. When Philip after his victory at Khaironeia introduced a garrison into Thebes, one of the means he employed to bring the Thebans low was to restore the Plataeans to their homes.
{9.2.1} On Mount Cithaeron, within the territory of Plataea, if you turn off to the right for a little way from the straight road, you reach the ruins of Hysiaiand Erythrai. Once they were cities of Boeotia, and even at the present day among the ruins of Hysiaiare a half-finished temple of Apollo and a sacred well. According to the Boeotian story oracles were obtained of old from the well by drinking of it.
{9.2.2} Returning to the highway you again see on the right a tomb, said to be that of Mardonios. It is agreed that the body of Mardonios was not seen again after the battle, but there is not a similar agreement as to the person who gave it burial. It is admitted that Artontes, son of Mardonios, gave many gifts to Dionysophanes the Ephesian, but also that he gave them to others of the Ionians, in recognition that they too had spent some pains on the burial of Mardonios.
{9.2.3} This road leads to Plataea from Eleutherai. On the road from Megara there is a spring on the right, and a little farther on a rock. It is called the bed of Actaeon, for it is said that he slept thereon when weary with hunting, and that into this spring he looked while Artemis was bathing in it. Stesichorus of Himera says that the goddess cast a deer-skin round Actaeon to make sure that his hounds would kill him, so as to prevent his taking Semele to wife.
{9.2.4} My own view is that without divine interference the hounds of Actaeon were smitten with madness, and so they were sure to tear to pieces without distinction everybody they chanced to meet. Whereabouts on Cithaeron the disaster befell Pentheus, the son of Echion, or where Oedipus was exposed at birth, nobody knows with the assurance with which we know the Cleft Road to Phokis, where Oedipus killed his father (Mount Cithaeron is sacred to Cithaeronian Zeus), as I shall tell of [543] at greater length when this place in my story has been reached.
{9.2.5} Roughly at the entrance into Plataea are the tombs of those who fought against the Persians. Of the Greeks generally there is a common tomb, but the Lacedaemonians and Athenians who fell have separate tombs, on which are written elegiac verses by Simonides. Not far from the common tomb of the Greeks is an altar of Zeus, God of Freedom.This then is of bronze, but the altar and the image he made of white marble.
{9.2.6} Even at the present day they hold every four years games called Eleutheria (Of Freedom), in which great prizes are offered for running. The competitors run in armor before the altar. The trophy which the Greeks set up for the battle at Plataea stands about fifteen stadium-lengths from the city.
{9.2.7} Advancing in the city itself from the altar and the image which have been made to Zeus of Freedom, you come to a hero-shrine of Plataea. The legends about her, and my own conjectures, I have already [544] stated. There is at Plataea a temple of Hērā, worth seeing for its size and for the beauty of its images. On entering you see Rhea carrying to Kronos the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, as though it were the babe to which she had given birth. The Hērā they call Full-grown; it is an upright image of huge size. Both figures are of Pentelic marble, and the artist was Praxiteles. Here too is another image of Hērā; it is seated, and was made by Kallimakhos. The goddess they call the Bride for the following reason.
{9.3.1} Hērā, they say, was for some reason or other angry with Zeus, and had retreated to Euboea. Zeus, failing to make her change her mind, visited Cithaeron, at that time despot in Plataea, who surpassed all men for his cleverness. So he ordered Zeus to make an image of wood, and to carry it, wrapped up, in a bullock wagon, and to say that he was celebrating his marriage with Plataea, the daughter of Asopos.
{9.3.2} So Zeus followed the advice of Cithaeron. Hērā heard the news at once, and at once appeared on the scene. But when she came near the wagon and tore away the dress from the image, she was pleased at the deceit, on finding it a wooden image and not a bride, and was reconciled to Zeus. To commemorate this reconciliation they celebrate a festival called Daidala, because the men of old time gave the name of daedala to wooden images. My own view is that this name was given to wooden images before Daidalos, the son of Palamaon, was born in Athens, and that he did not receive this name at birth, but that it was a surname afterwards given him from the daedala.
{9.3.3} So the Plataeans hold the festival of the Daidala every six years, according to the local guide, but really at a shorter interval. I wanted very much to calculate exactly the interval between one Daidala and the next, but I was unable to do so. In this way they celebrate the feast.
{9.3.4} Not far from Alalcomenae is a grove of oaks. Here the trunks of the oaks are the largest in Boeotia. To this grove come the Plataeans, and lay out portions of boiled flesh. They keep a strict watch on the crows which flock to them, but they are not troubled at all about the other birds. They mark carefully the tree on which a crow settles with the meat he has seized. They cut down the trunk of the tree on which the crow has settled, and make of it the daedalum; for this is the name that they give to the wooden image also.
{9.3.5} This feast the Plataeans celebrate by themselves, calling it the Little Daidala, but the Great Daidala, which is shared with them by the Boeotians, is a festival held at intervals of fifty-nine years, for that is the period during which, they say, the festival could not be held, as the Plataeans were in exile. There are fourteen wooden images ready, having been provided each year at the Little Daidala.
{9.3.6} Lots are cast for them by the people of Plataea, Korōnē, Thespiai, Tanagra, Khairōneia, Orkhomenos, Lebadeia, and Thebes; for at the time when Kassandros, the son of Antipatros, rebuilt Thebes, the Thebans wished to be reconciled with the people of Plataea, to share in the common assembly, and to send a sacrifice to the Daidala. The towns of less account pool their funds for images.
{9.3.7} Bringing the image to the Asopos, and setting it upon a wagon, they place a bridesmaid also on the wagon. They again cast lots for the position they are to hold in the procession. After this they drive the wagons from the river to the summit of Cithaeron. On the peak of the mountain an altar has been prepared, which they make after the following way. They fit together quadrangular pieces of wood, putting them together just as if they were making a stone building, and having raised it to a height they place brushwood upon the altar.
{9.3.8} The cities with their magistrates sacrifice severally a cow to Hērā and a bull to Zeus, burning on the altar the victims, full of wine and incense, along with the daedala. Rich people, as individuals, sacrifice what they wish; but the less wealthy sacrifice the smaller cattle; all the victims alike are burned. The fire seizes the altar and the victims as well, and consumes them all together. I know of no blaze that is so high, or seen so far as this.
{9.3.9} About fifteen stadium-lengths below the peak, on which they make the altar, is a cave of the Cithaeronian nymphs. It is named Sphragidium, and the story is that of old the nymphs gave oracles in this place.
{9.4.1.} The Plataeans have also a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Warlike; it was built from the spoils given them by the Athenians as their share from the battle of Marathon. It is a wooden image gilded, but the face, hands and feet are of Pentelic marble. In size it is but little smaller than the bronze Athena on the Acropolis, the one which the Athenians also erected as first-fruits of the battle at Marathon; the Plataeans too had Pheidias for the maker of their image of Athena.
{9.4.2} In the temple are paintings: one of them, by Polygnotus, represents Odysseus after he has killed the wooers; the other, painted by Onasias, is the former expedition of the Argives, under Adrastos, against Thebes. These paintings are on the walls of the fore-temple, while at the feet of the image is a portrait of Arimnestos, who commanded the Plataeans at the battle against Mardonios, and yet before that at Marathon.
{9.4.3} There is also at Plataea a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Eleusinian, and a tomb of Leitos, who was the only one to return home of the chiefs who led Boeotians to Troy. The spring Gargaphia was filled in by the Persian cavalry under Mardonios, because the Greek army encamped against them got therefrom their drinking-water. Afterwards, however, the Plataeans recovered the water.
{9.4.4} On the road from Plataea to Thebes is the river Oiroe, said to have been a daughter of the Asopos. Before crossing the Asopos, if you turn aside to lower ground in a direction parallel to the river, after about forty stadium-lengths you come to the ruins of Scolus. The temple of Demeter and the Maiden among the ruins is not finished, and only half-finished are the images of the goddesses. Even today the Asopos is the boundary between Thebes and Plataea.
{9.5.1} The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners.
{9.5.2} When the Phoenician army under Kadmos invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Kadmos to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Kadmos built the city which even at the present day is called Kadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Kadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Kadmos made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.
{9.5.3} In the time of Kadmos, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Spartoi, namely, Khthonios, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Oudaios; but it was Ekhion who, for his great valor, was preferred by Kadmos to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being. When Kadnios migrated to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, Polydoros his son got the kingdom.
{9.5.4} Now Pentheus the son of Echion was also powerful by reason of his noble birth and friendship with the king. Being a man of insolent character who had shown impiety to Dionysus, he was punished by the god. Polydoros had a son, Labdacus. When Polydoros was about to die, Labdacus was still a child, and so he was entrusted, along with the government, to the care of Nycteus.
{9.5.5} The sequel of this story, how Nycteus died, and how the care of the boy with the sovereignty of Thebes devolved on Lykos, the brother of Nycteus, I have already set forth in my account of Sikyon. [545] When Labdacus grew up, Lykos handed over to him the reins of government; but Labdacus too died shortly afterwards, and Lykos again became guardian, this time to Laios, the son of Labdacus.
{9.5.6} While Lykos was regent for the second time, Amphion and Zethus gathered a force and came back to Thebes. Laios was secretly removed by such as were anxious that the lineage of Kadmos should not be forgotten by posterity, and Lykos was overcome in the fighting by the sons of Antiope. When they succeeded to the throne they added the lower city to the Cadmeia, giving it, because of their kinship to Thebe, the name of Thebes.
{9.5.7} What I have said is confirmed by what Homer says in the Odyssey:
“Who first laid the foundation of seven-gated Thebe,
And built towers about it, for without towers they could not
Dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.”
And built towers about it, for without towers they could not
Dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.”
Odyssey 11.263
Homer, however, makes no mention in his poetry of Amphion’s singing, and how he built the wall to the music of his harp. Amphion won fame for his music, learning from the Lydians themselves the Lydian mode, because of his relationship to Tantalos, and adding three strings to the four old ones.
{9.5.8} The writer of the poem on Europa says that Amphion was the first harpist, and that Hermes was his teacher. He also says that Amphion’s songs drew even stones and beasts after him. Myro of Byzantium, a poetess who wrote epic and elegiac poetry, states that Amphion was the first to set up an altar to Hermes, and for this reason was presented by him with a harp. It is also said that Amphion is punished in Hades for being among those who made a mock of Leto and her children.
{9.5.9} The punishment of Amphion is dealt with in the epic poem Minyad, which treats both of Amphion and also of Thamyris of Thrace. The houses of both Amphion and Zethus were visited by bereavement; Amphion’s was left desolate by plague, and the son of Zethus was killed through some mistake or other of his mother. Zethus himself died of a broken heart, and so Laios was restored by the Thebans to the kingdom.
{9.5.10} When Laios was king and married to Iocasta, an oracle came from Delphi that, if Iocasta bore a child, Laios would meet his death at his son’s hands. Whereupon Oedipus was exposed, who was fated when he grew up to kill his father; he also married his mother. But I do not think that he had children by her; my witness is Homer, who says in the Odyssey:
{9.5.11} “And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, fair Epicaste,
Who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
Marrying her son, who slew his father and
Wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.”
Who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
Marrying her son, who slew his father and
Wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.”
Odyssey 11.271
How could they “have made it known forthwith,” if Epicaste had borne four children to Oedipus? But the mother of these children was Euryganeia, daughter of Hyperphas. Among the proofs of this are the words of the author of the poem called the Oedipodia; and moreover, Onasias painted a picture at Plataea of Euryganeia bowed with grief because of the fight between her children.
{9.5.12} Polyneikes retired from Thebes while Oedipus was still alive and reigning, in fear lest the curses of the father should be brought to pass upon the sons. He went to Argos and married a daughter of Adrastos, but returned to Thebes, being fetched by Eteokles after the death of Oedipus. On his return he quarrelled with Eteokles, and so went into exile a second time. He begged Adrastos to give him a force to effect his return, but lost his army and fought a duel with Eteokles as the result of a challenge.
{9.5.13} Both fell in the duel, and the kingdom devolved on Laodamas, son of Eteokles; Creon, the son of Menoeceus, was in power as regent and guardian of Laodamas. When the latter had grown up and held the kingship, the Argives led their army for the second time against Thebes. The Thebans encamped over against them at Glisas. When they joined in battle, Aigialeus, the son of Adrastos, was killed by Laodamas but the Argives were victorious in the fight, and Laodamas, with any Theban willing to accompany him, withdrew when night came to Illyria.
{9.5.14} The Argives captured Thebes and handed it over to Thersandros, son of Polyneikes. When the expedition under Agamemnon against Troy mistook its course and the reverse in Mysia occurred, Thersandros too met his death at the hands of Telephus. He had shown himself the bravest Greek at the battle; his tomb, the stone in the open part of the marketplace, is in the city Elaea on the way to the plain of the Kaïkos, and the natives say that they sacrifice to him as to a hero.
{9.5.15} On the death of Thersandros, when a second expedition was being mustered to fight Alexander at Troy, Peneleos was chosen to command it, because Tisamenus, the son of Thersandros, was not yet old enough. When Peneleos was killed by Eurypylus, the son of Telephus, Tisamenus was chosen king, who was the son of Thersandros and of Demonassa, the daughter of Amphiaraos. The Furies of Laios and Oedipus did not vent their wrath on Tisamenus, but they did on his son Autesion, so that, at the bidding of the oracle, he migrated to the Dorians.
{9.5.16} On the departure of Autesion, Damasichthon was chosen to be king, who was a son of Opheltes, the son of Peneleos. This Damasichthon had a son Ptolemy, who was the father of Xanthos. Xanthos fought a duel with Andropompus, who killed him by craft and not in fair fight. Hereafter the Thebans thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man.
{9.6.1} Of the successes and failures of the Thebans in battle I found the most famous to be the following. They were overcome in battle by the Athenians, who had come to the aid of the Plataeans, when a war had arisen about the boundaries of their territory. They met with a second disaster when arrayed against the Athenians at Plataea, [546] at the time when they are considered to have chosen the cause of King Xerxes rather than that of Greece.
{9.6.2} The Theban people are in no way responsible for this choice, as at that time an oligarchy was in power at Thebes and not their ancestral form of government. In the same way, if it had been while Peisistratos or his sons still held Athens under a despotism that the foreigner had invaded Greece, the Athenians too would certainly have been accused of favoring Persia.
{9.6.3} Afterwards, however, the Thebans won a victory over the Athenians at Delium in the territory of Tanagra, [547] where the Athenian general Hippokrates, son of Ariphron, perished with the greater part of the army. During the period that began with the departure of the Persians and ended with the war between Athens and the Peloponnesus, the relations between Thebes and the Lacedaemonians were friendly. But when the war was fought out and the Athenian navy destroyed, after a brief interval Thebes along with Corinth was involved in the war with Lacedaemon. [548]
{9.6.4} Overcome in battle at Corinth and Coroncia, they won on the other hand at Leuktra the most famous victory we know of gained by Greeks over Greeks. They put down the boards of ten, which the Lacedaemonians had set up in the cities, and drove out the Spartan governors. Afterwards they also waged for ten years consecutively the war at Phokis, called by the Greeks the Sacred War.
{9.6.5} I have already said in my history of Attica [549] that the defeat at Khairōneia was a disaster for all the Greeks; but it was even more so for the Thebans, as a garrison was brought into their city. When Philip died, and the kingship of Macedonia devolved on Alexander, the Thebans succeeded in destroying the garrison. But as soon as they had done so, the god [theos] warned them of the destruction that was coming on them, and the signs that occurred in the sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver were the opposite of those that occurred before the action at Leuktra.
{9.6.6} For then spiders spun a white web over the door of the sanctuary, but on the approach of Alexander with his Macedonians the web was black. It is also said that there was a shower of ashes in Athens the year before the war waged against them by Sulla, which brought on them such great sufferings.
{9.7.1} On this occasion the Thebans were removed from their homes by Alexander, and straggled to Athens; afterwards they were restored by Kassandros, son of Antipatros. Heartiest in their support of the restoration of Thebes were the Athenians, and they were helped by Messenians and the Arcadians of Megalopolis.
{9.7.2} My own view is that in building Thebes Kassandros was mainly influenced by hatred of Alexander. He destroyed the whole house of Alexander to the bitter end. Olympias he threw to the exasperated Macedonians to be stoned to death; and the sons of Alexander, Hēraklēs by Barsina and Alexander by Rōxanē, he killed by poison. But he himself was not to come to a good end. He was filled with dropsy, and from the dropsy came worms while he was yet alive.
{9.7.3} Philip, the eldest of his sons, shortly after coming to the throne was seized by a wasting disease which proved fatal. Antipatros, the next son, murdered his mother Thessalonikē, the daughter of Philip, son of Amyntas, and of Nicasipolis, charging her with being too fond of Alexander, who was the youngest of Kassandros’s sons. Getting the support of Demetrios, the son of Antigonos, he deposed with his help and punished his brother Antipatros. However, it appeared that in Demetrios he found a murderer and not an ally.
{9.7.4} So some god was to exact from Kassandros a just requital. In the time of Kassandros all the ancient circuit of the Theban walls was rebuilt, but fate after all willed that afterwards the Thebans were again to taste the cup of great misfortune. For when Mithridates had begun the war with the Romans, he was joined by the Thebans, for no other reason, in my opinion, except their friendship for the Athenian people. But when Sulla invaded Boeotia, terror seized the Thebans; they at once changed sides, and sought the friendship of the Romans.
{9.7.5} Sulla nevertheless was angry with them, and among his plans to humble them was to cut away one half of their territory. His pretext was as follows. When he began the war against Mithridates, he was short of funds. So he collected offerings from Olympia, those at Epidaurus, and all those at Delphi that had been left by the men of Phokis.
{9.7.6} These he divided among his soldiery, and repaid the gods with half of the Theban territory. Although by favor of the Romans the Thebans afterwards recovered the land of which they had been deprived, yet from this point they sank into the greatest depths of weakness. The lower city of Thebes is all deserted today, except the sanctuaries, and the people live on the citadel, which they call Thebes and not Cadmeia.
{9.8.1} Across the Asopos, about ten stadium-lengths distant from the city, are the ruins of Potniae, in which is a grove of Demeter and the Maiden. The images at the river that flows past Potniae… they name the goddesses. At an appointed time they perform their accustomed ritual, one part of which is to let loose young pigs into what are called “the halls.” At the same time next year these pigs appear, they say, in Dodona. This story others can believe if they wish.
{9.8.2} Here there is also a temple of Dionysus Goat-shooter. For once, when they were sacrificing to the god, they grew so violent with wine that they actually killed the priest of Dionysus. Immediately after the murder they were visited by a pestilence, and the Delphic oracle said that to cure it they must sacrifice a boy in the bloom of youth. A few years afterwards, so they say, the god substituted a goat as a victim in place of their boy. In Potniaiis also shown a well. The mares of the country are said on drinking this water to become mad.
{9.8.3} On the way from Potniaito Thebes there is on the right of the road a small enclosure with pillars in it. Here they think the earth opened to receive Amphiaraos, and they add further that neither do birds sit upon these pillars, nor will a beast, tame or wild, graze on the grass that grows here.
{9.8.4} In the circuit of the ancient wall of Thebes were gates seven in number, and these remain today. One got its name, I learned, from Electra, the sister of Kadmos, and another, the Proetidian, from a native of Thebes. He was Proitos, but I found it difficult to discover his date and lineage. The Neistan gate, they say, got its name for the following reason. The last of the harp’s strings they call nete, and Amphion invented it, they say, at this gate. I have also heard that the son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion, was named Neis, and that after him was this gate called.
{9.8.5} The Crenaean gate and the Hypsistan they so name for the following reason … and by the Hypsistan is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Hypsistos (Most High). Next after these gates is the one called Ogygian, and lastly the Homoloid gate. It appeared to me too that the name of the last was the most recent, and that of the Ogygian the most ancient.
{9.8.6} The name Homoloid is derived, they say, from the following circumstance. When the Thebans were beaten in battle by the Argives near Glisas, most of them withdrew along with Laodamas, the son of Eteokles. A portion of them shrank from the journey to Illyria, and turning aside to Thessaly they seized Homole, the most fertile and best-watered of the Thessalian mountains.
{9.8.7} When they were recalled to their homes by Thersandros, the son of Polyneikes, they called the gate, through which they passed on their return, the Homoloid gate after Homole. The entry into Thebes from Plataea is by the Electran gate. At this, so they say, Capaneus, the son of Hipponous, was struck by lightning as he was making a more furious attack upon the fortifications.
{9.9.1} This war between Argos and Thebes was, in my opinion, the most memorable of all those waged by Greeks against Greeks in what is called the heroic age. In the case of the war between the Eleusinians and the rest of the Athenians, and likewise in that between the Thebans and the Minyans, the attackers had but a short distance through which to pass to the fight, and one battle decided the war, immediately after which hostilities ceased and peace was made.
{9.9.2} But the Argive army marched from mid-Peloponnesus to mid-Boeotia, while Adrastos collected his allied forces out of Arcadia and from the Messenians, and likewise mercenaries came to the help of the Thebans from Phokis, and the Phlegyans from the Minyan country. When the battle took place at the Ismenian sanctuary, the Thebans were worsted in the encounter, and after the rout took refuge within their fortifications.
{9.9.3} As the Peloponnesians did not know how to assail the walls, and attacked with greater spirit than knowledge, many of them were killed by missiles hurled from the walls by the Thebans, who afterwards sallied forth and overcame the rest while they were in disorder, so that the whole army was destroyed with the exception of Adrastos. But the action was attended by severe losses to the Thebans, and from that time they term a Cadmean victory one that brings destruction to the victors.
{9.9.4} A few years afterwards Thebes was attacked by Thersandros and those whom the Greeks call Epigonoi (Born later). It is clear that they too were accompanied not only by the Argives, Messenians and Arcadians, but also by allies from Corinth and Megara invited to help them. Thebes too was defended by their neighbors, and a battle at Glisas was fiercely contested on both sides.
{9.9.5} Some of the Thebans escaped with Laodamas immediately after their defeat; those who remained behind were besieged and taken. About this war an epic poem also was written called the Thebaid. This poem is mentioned by Callinus, who says that the author was Homer, and many good authorities agree with his judgment. With the exception of the Iliad and Odyssey I rate the Thebaid more highly than any other poem. So much for the war waged by the Argives against the Thebans on account of the sons of Oedipus.
{9.10.1} Not far from the gate is a common tomb, where lie all those who met their death when fighting against Alexander and the Macedonians. Hard by they show a place where, it is said, Kadmos (he may believe the story who likes) sowed the teeth of the dragon, which he slew at the fountain, from which teeth men came up out of the earth.
{9.10.2} On the right of the gate is a hill sacred to Apollo. Both the hill and the god are called Ismenian, as the river Ismenus Rows by the place. First at the entrance are Athena and Hermes, stone figures and named Pronai (Of the fore-temple). The Hermes is said to have been made by Pheidias, the Athena by Scopas. The temple is built behind. The image is in size equal to that at Brankhidai; and does not differ from it at all in shape. Whoever has seen one of these two images, and learned who was the artist, does not need much skill to discern, when he looks at the other, that it is a work of Kanakhos. The only difference is that the image at Brankhidai is of bronze, while the Ismenian is of cedar-wood.
{9.10.3} Here there is a stone, on which, they say, used to sit Manto, the daughter of Teiresias. This stone lies before the entrance, and they still call it Manto’s chair. On the right of the temple are statues of women made of stone, said to be portraits of Henioche and Pyrrha, daughters of Creon, who reigned as guardian of Laodamas, the son of Eteokles.
{9.10.4} The following custom is, to my knowledge, still carried out in Thebes. A boy of noble family, who is himself both handsome and strong, is chosen priest of Ismenian Apollo for a year. He is called Laurel-bearer, for the boys wear wreaths of laurel leaves. I cannot say for certain whether all alike who have worn the laurel dedicate by custom a bronze tripod to the god; but I do not think that it is the rule for all, because I did not see many votive tripods there. But the wealthier of the boys do certainly dedicate them. Most remarkable both for its age and for the fame of him who dedicated it is a tripod dedicated by Amphitryon for Hēraklēs after he had worn the laurel.
{9.10.5} Higher up than the Ismenian sanctuary you may see the fountain which they say is sacred to Ares, and they add that a dragon was posted by Ares as a sentry over the spring. By this fountain is the tomb of Caanthus. They say that he was brother to Melia and son to Okeanos, and that he was commissioned by his father to seek his sister, who had been carried away. Finding that Apollo had Melia, and being unable to get her from him, he dared to set fire to the precinct of Apollo that is now called the Ismenian sanctuary. The god, according to the Thebans, shot him.
{9.10.6} Here then is the tomb of Caanthus. They say that Apollo had sons by Melia, to wit, Tenerus and Ismenus. To Tenerus Apollo gave the art of divination, and from Ismenus the river got its name. Not that the river was nameless before, if indeed it was called Ladon before Ismenus was born to Apollo.
{9.11.1} On the left of the gate named Electran are the ruins of a house where they say Amphitryon came to live when exiled from Tiryns because of the death of Electryon; and the chamber of Alkmene is still plainly to be seen among the ruins. They say that it was built for Amphitryon by Trophonios and Agamedes, and that on it was written the following inscription:
“When Amphitryon was about to bring hither his bride
Alkmene, he chose this as a chamber for himself.
Anchasian Trophonios and Agamedes made it.”
Alkmene, he chose this as a chamber for himself.
Anchasian Trophonios and Agamedes made it.”
{9.11.2} Such was the inscription that the Thebans say was written here. They show also the tomb of the children of Hēraklēs by Megara. Their account of the death of these is in no way different from that in the poems of Panyassis and of Stesichorus of Himera. But the Thebans add that Hēraklēs in his madness was about to kill Amphitryon as well, but before he could do so he was rendered unconscious by the blow of the stone. Athena, they say, threw at him this stone, which they name Chastiser.
{9.11.3} Here are portraits of women in relief, but the figures are by this time rather indistinct. The Thebans call them Witches, [550] adding that they were sent by Hērā to hinder the birth-pangs of Alkmene. So these kept Alkmene from bringing forth her child. But Historis, the daughter of Teiresias, thought of a trick to deceive the Witches, and she uttered a loud cry of joy in their hearing, that Alkmene had been delivered. So the story goes that the Witches were deceived and went away, and Alkmene brought forth her child.
{9.11.4} Here is a sanctuary of Hēraklēs. The image, of white marble, is called Champion, and the Thebans Xenokritos and Eubios were the artists. But the ancient wooden image is thought by the Thebans to be by Daidalos, and the same opinion occurred to me. It was dedicated, they say, by Daidalos himself, as a thank-offering for a benefit. For when he was fleeing from Crete in small vessels which he had made for himself and his son Icarus, he devised for the ships sails, an invention as yet unknown to the men of those times, so as to take advantage of a favorable wind and outsail the oared fleet of Minos. Daidalos himself was saved,
{9.11.5} but the ship of Icarus is said to have overturned, as he was a clumsy helmsman. The drowned man was carried ashore by the current to the island, then without a name, that lies off Samos. Hēraklēs came across the body and recognized it, giving it burial where even today a small mound still stands to Icarus on a promontory jutting out into the Aegean. After this Icarus are named both the island and the sea around it.
{9.11.6} The carvings on the gables at Thebes are by Praxiteles, and include most of what are called the twelve labors. The slaughter of the Stymphalian birds and the purifying of the land of Elis by Hēraklēs are omitted; in their place is represented the wrestling with Antaios. Thrasyboulos, son of Lykos, and the Athenians who with him put down the tyranny of the Thirty, [551] set out from Thebes when they returned to Athens, and therefore they dedicated in the sanctuary of Hēraklēs colossal figures of Athena and Hēraklēs, carved by Alkamenes in relief out of Pentelic marble.
{9.11.7} Adjoining the sanctuary of Hēraklēs are a gymnasium and a race-course, both being named after the god. Beyond the Chastiser stone is an altar of Apollo surnamed God of Ashes; it is made out of the ashes of the victims. The customary mode of divination here is from voices, which is used by the Smyrnaeans, to my knowledge, more than by any other Greeks. For at Smyrna also there is a sanctuary of Voices outside the wall and beyond the city.
{9.12.1} The Thebans in ancient days used to sacrifice bulls to Apollo of the Ashes. Once when the festival was being held, the hour of the sacrifice was near but those sent to fetch the bull had not arrived. And so, as a wagon happened to be near by, they sacrificed to the god one of the oxen, and ever since it has been the custom to sacrifice working oxen. The following story also is current among the Thebans. As Kadmos was leaving Delphi by the road to Phokis, a cow, it is said, guided him on his way. This cow was one bought from the herdsmen of Pelagon, and on each of her sides was a white mark like the orb of a full moon.
{9.12.2} Now the oracle of the god had said that Kadmos and the host with him were to make their dwelling where the cow was going to sink down in weariness. So this is one of the places that they point out. Here there is in the open an altar and an image of Athena, said to have been dedicated by Kadmos. Those who think that the Kadmos who came to the Theban land was an Egyptian, and not a Phoenician, have their opinion contradicted by the name of this Athena, because she is called by the Phoenician name of Onga, and not by the Egyptian name of Sais.
{9.12.3} The Thebans assert that on the part of their citadel, where today stands their marketplace, was in ancient times the house of Kadmos. They point out the ruins of the bridal-chamber of Harmonia, and of one which they say was Semele’s into the latter they allow no man to step even now. Those Greeks who allow that the Muses sang at the wedding of Harmonia, can point to the spot in the marketplace where it is said that the goddesses sang.
{9.12.4} There is also a story that along with the thunderbolt hurled at the bridalchamber of Semele there fell a log from the sky [ouranos]. They say that Polydoros adorned this log with bronze and called it Dionysus Kadmos. Near is an image of Dionysus; Onasimedes made it of solid bronze. The altar was built by the sons of Praxiteles.
{9.12.5} There is a statue of Pronomos, a very great favorite with the people for his playing on the aulos [‘double-reed’]. For a time aulos-players had three forms of the aulos. On one they played Dorian music; for Phrygian melodies auloi of a different pattern were made; what is called the Lydian mode was played on auloi of a third kind. It was Pronomos who first devised an aulos [‘double-reed’] equally suited for every kind of melody, and was the first to play on the same instrument music so vastly different in form.
{9.12.6} It is also said that he gave his audience untold delight by the expression of his face and by the movement of his whole body. He also composed for the Chalcidians on the Euripus a processional tune for their use in Delos. So the Thebans set up here a statue of this man, and likewise one of Epameinondas, son of Polymnis.
{9.13.1} Epameinondas had famous ancestors, but his father had less wealth than a Theban of ordinary means. He was most thoroughly taught all the subjects of the national education, and when a young man went to receive instruction from Lysis, whose lineage originated from Tarentum, learned in the philosophy of Pythagoras the Samian. When Lacedaemon was at war with Mantineia, Epameinondas is said to have been sent with certain others from Thebes to help the Lacedaemonians. In the battle Pelopidas received wounds, but his life was saved by Epameinondas at the greatest risk to his own.
{9.13.2} Later on, when Epameinondas had come to Sparta as an envoy, what time the Lacedaemonians said they were concluding with the Greeks the peace called the Peace of Antalkidas, [552] Agesilaos asked him whether they would allow each Boeotian city to swear to the peace separately. He replied: “No, Spartans, not before we see your vassals [553] taking the oath city by city.”
{9.13.3} When the war between Lacedaemon and Thebes had already broken out, and the Lacedaemonians were advancing to attack the Thebans with a force of their own men and of their allies, Epameinondas with a part of the army occupied to meet them a position above the Cephisian lake, under the impression that at this point the Peloponnesians would make their invasion. But Kleombrotos, the king of the Lacedaemonians, turned towards Ambrossos in Phokis. He massacred a Theban force under Khaireas, who was under orders to guard the passes, crossed the high ground and reached Leuktra in Boeotia.
{9.13.4} Here the god [theos] sent signs to the Lacedaemonian people and to Kleombrotos personally. [554] The Lacedaemonian kings were accompanied on their expeditions by sheep, to serve as sacrifices to the gods and to give fair omens before battles. The flocks were led on the march by she-goats, called katoiades by the herdsmen. On this occasion, then, the wolves dashed on the flock, did no harm at all to the sheep, but killed the goats called katoiades.
{9.13.5} It was also said that the wrath of the daughters of Scedasus fell upon the Lacedaemonians. Scedasus, who lived near Leuktra, had two daughters, Molpia and Hippo. These in the bloom of their youth were wickedly outraged by two Lacedaemonians, Phrurarchidas and Parthenios. The girls, unable to bear the shame of their violation, immediately hanged themselves. Scedasus repaired to Lacedaemon, but meeting with no justice returned to Leuktra and committed suicide.
{9.13.6} Well, on this occasion Epameinondas sacrificed with prayers to Scedasus and his girls, implying that the battle would be to avenge them no less than to secure the salvation of Thebes. The Boeotarchs were not agreed, but differed widely in their opinions. For Epameinondas, Malgis and Xenokrates were minded to do battle with the Lacedaemonians at once, but Damokleidas, Damophilus and Simangelus were against joining in battle, and urged that they should put wives and children safely out of the way in Attica, and prepare to undergo a siege themselves.
{9.13.7} So divergent were the views of the six. The seventh Boeotarch, whose name was Brachyllides, was guarding the pass by Cithaeron, and on his return to the army added his vote to the side of Epameinondas, and then there was a unanimous decision to try the ordeal of battle.
{9.13.8} But Epameinondas had his suspicions of some of the Boeotians especially of the Thespians. Fearing, therefore, lest they should desert during the engagement, he permitted all who would to leave the camp and go home. The Thespians left with all their forces, as did any other Boeotians who felt annoyed with the Thebans.
{9.13.9} When the battle joined, the allies of the Lacedaemonians, who had hitherto been not the best of friends, now showed most clearly their hostility, by their reluctance to stand their ground, and by giving way wherever the enemy attacked them. The Lacedaemonians themselves and the Thebans were not badly matched adversaries. The former had their previous experience, and their shame of lessening the reputation of Sparta; the Thebans realized that what was at stake was their country, their wives and their children.
{9.13.10} But when king Kleombrotos with several Lacedaemonian magistrates had fallen, the Spartans were bound by necessity not to give way, in spite of their distress. For among the Lacedaemonians it was considered the greatest disgrace to allow the body of a king to come into the hands of enemies.
{9.13.11} The victory of Thebes was the most famous ever won by Greeks over Greeks. The Lacedaemonians on the following day were minded to bury their dead, and sent a herald to the Thebans. But Epameinondas, knowing that the Lacedaemonians were always inclined to cover up their disasters, said that he permitted their allies first to take up their dead, and only when these had done so did he approve of the Lacedaemonians’ burying their own dead.
{9.13.12} Some of the allies took up no dead at all, as not a man of them had fallen; others had but slight loss to report. So when the Lacedaemonians proceeded to bury their own, it was at once proved that the fallen were Spartans. The loss of the Thebans and of such Boeotians as remained loyal amounted to forty-seven, but of the Lacedaemonians themselves there fell more than a thousand men.
{9.14.1} After the battle Epameinondas for a while, having proclaimed that the other Peloponnesians should depart home, kept the Lacedaemonians cooped up in Leuktra. But when reports came that the Spartans in the city were marching to a man to the help of their countrymen at Leuktra, Epameinondas allowed his enemy to depart under a truce, saying that it would be better for the Boeotians to shift the war from Boeotia to Lacedaemon.
{9.14.2} The Thespians, apprehensive because of the ancient hostility of Thebes and its present good fortune, resolved to abandon their city and to seek a refuge in Ceressus. It is a stronghold in the land of the Thespians, in which once in days of old they had established themselves to meet the invasion of the Thessalians. On that occasion the Thessalians tried to take Ceressus, but success seemed hopeless. So they consulted the god at Delphi,
{9.14.3} and received the following response:
“A care to me is shady Leuktra, and so is the Alesian soil;
A care to me are the two sorrowful girls of Scedasus.
There a tearful battle is nigh, and no one will foretell it,
Until the Dorians have lost their glorious youth,
When the day of fate has come.
Then may Ceressus be captured, but at no other time.”
A care to me are the two sorrowful girls of Scedasus.
There a tearful battle is nigh, and no one will foretell it,
Until the Dorians have lost their glorious youth,
When the day of fate has come.
Then may Ceressus be captured, but at no other time.”
{9.14.4} On the latter occasion Epameinondas captured the Thespians who had taken refuge in Ceressus, and immediately afterwards devoted his attention to the situation in the Peloponnesus, to which also the Arcadians were eagerly inviting him. On his arrival he won the willing support of Argos, while he collected again into their ancient city the Mantineians, who had been scattered into village communities by Agesipolis. He persuaded the Arcadians to destroy all their weak towns, and built them a home where they could live together, which even at the present day is called Megalopolis (Great City).
{9.14.5} The period of his office as Boeotarch had now expired, and death was the penalty fixed if a man exceeded it. So Epameinondas, disregarding the law as out of date, remained in office, marched to Sparta with his army, and when Agesilaos did not come out to meet him, turned to the founding of Messene. Epameinondas, was the founder of the modern Messene, and the history of its foundation I have included in my account of the Messenians themselves.
{9.14.6} Meanwhile the allies of Thebes scattered and overran the Laconian territory, pillaging what it contained. This persuaded Epameinondas to lead the Thebans back to Boeotia. In his advance with the army he came over against Lechaeum, and was about to cross the narrow and difficult parts of the road, when Iphikrates, the son of Timotheus, attacked the Thebans with a force of targeteers and other Athenians.
{9.14.7} Epameinondas put his assailants to flight and came right up to the very city of Athens, but as Iphikrates dissuaded the Athenians from coming out to fight, he proceeded to march back to Thebes. Epameinondas stood his trial on a capital charge for holding the office of Boeotarch when his tenure had already expired. It is said that the jury appointed to try him did not even record their votes on the charge.
{9.15.1} After these things when Alexander held sway in Thessaly, Pelopidas came to him, under the impression that he was well-disposed to him personally as well as a friend to the Theban commonwealth, but on his arrival was treacherously and insolently thrown into prison and kept there by Alexander. The Thebans at once set out to attack Alexander, and made leaders of the expedition Kleomenes and Hypatos, who were Boeotarchs at that time; Epameinondas was serving in the ranks.
{9.15.2} When the force had reached the other side of Thermopylae, Alexander surprised and attacked it on difficult ground. As there appeared to be no means of safety, the rest of the army chose Epameinondas to be leader, and the Boeotarchs of their own accord resigned the command. Alexander lost confidence in winning the war when he saw Epameinondas at the head of his opponents, and of his own accord set free Pelopidas.
{9.15.3} In the absence of Epameinondas the Thebans removed the Orkhomenians from their land. Epameinondas regarded their removal as a disaster, and declared that had he been present never would the Thebans have been guilty of such an outrage.
{9.15.4} Elected again to be Boeotarch, and again invading the Peloponnesus with an army of Boeotians, he overcame the Lacedaemonians in a battle at Lechaeum, and with them Achaeans of Pellene and Athenians led from Athens by Chabrias. The Thebans had a rule that they should set free for a ransom all their prisoners except such as were Boeotian fugitives; these they punished with death. So when he captured the Sikyonian town of Phoebia, in which were gathered most of the Boeotian fugitives, he assigned to each of those whom he captured in it a new nationality, any that occurred to him, and set them free.
{9.15.5} On reaching Mantineia with his army, he was killed in the hour of victory by an Athenian. [555] In the painting in Athens of the battle of the cavalry the man who is killing Epameinondas is Grylos, the son of the Xenophon who took part in the expedition of Cyrus against king Artaxerxes and led the Greeks back to the sea.
{9.15.6} On the statue of Epameinondas is an inscription in elegiac verse relating among other things that he founded Messene, and that through him the Greeks won freedom. The elegiac verses are these:
“By my counsels was Sparta shorn of her glory,
And holy Messene received at last her children.
By the arms of Thebe was Megalopolis encircled with walls,
And all Greece won independence and freedom.”
And holy Messene received at last her children.
By the arms of Thebe was Megalopolis encircled with walls,
And all Greece won independence and freedom.”
{9.16.1} Such were the claims to fame of Epameinondas. Not far away is a temple of Ammon; the image, a work of Kalamis, was dedicated by Pindar, who also sent to the Ammonians of Libya a hymn to Ammon. This hymn I found still carved on a triangular slab by the side of the altar dedicated to Ammon by Ptolemy the son of Lagos. After the sanctuary of Ammon at Thebes comes what is called the bird-observatory of Teiresias, and near it is a sanctuary of Fortune, who carries the child Wealth.
{9.16.2} According to the Thebans, the hands and face of the image were made by Xenophon the Athenian, the rest of it by Kallistonikos, a native. It was a clever idea of these artists to place Wealth in the arms of Fortune, and so to suggest that she is his mother or nurse. Equally clever was the conception of Kephisodotos, who made the image of Peace for the Athenians with Wealth in her arms.
{9.16.3} At Thebes are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figureheads on the ships of Kadmos. They call the first the celestial one [Ourania], the second the one who is common to the district [Pan-dēmos], and the third the Averter [Apo-strophia]. Harmonia gave to Aphrodite the surname of the celestial one [Ourania]
{9.16.4} to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of the one who common to the district [Pan-dēmos], to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Averter [Apo-strophia], who would turn humankind away from unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among foreigners but even by Greeks, similar to those attributed later by legend to the mother of Adonis, to Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, and to the Thracian Tereus.
{9.16.5} The sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver is said to have been at one time the house of Kadmos and his descendants. The image of Demeter is visible down to the chest. Here have been dedicated bronze shields, said to be those of Lacedaemonian officers who fell at Leuktra.
{9.16.6} Near the Proetidian gate is built a theater, and quite close to the theater is a temple of Dionysus surnamed Deliverer. For when some Theban prisoners in the hands of Thracians had reached Haliartia on their march, they were delivered by the god, who gave up the sleeping Thracians to be put to death. One of the two images here the Thebans say is Semele. Once in each year, they say, they open the sanctuary on stated days.
{9.16.7} There are also ruins of the house of Lykos, and the tomb of Semele, but Alkmene has no tomb. It is said that on her death she was turned from human form to a stone, but the Theban account does not agree with the Megarian. The Greek legends generally have for the most part different versions. Here too at Thebes are the tombs of the children of Amphion. The boys lie apart; the girls are buried by themselves.
{9.17.1} Near is the temple of Artemis Eukleia. The image was made by Scopas. They say that within the sanctuary were buried Androkleia and Alkis, daughters of Antipoinos. For when Hēraklēs and the Thebans were about to engage in battle with the men of Orkhomenos, an oracle was delivered to them that success in the war would be theirs if their citizen of the most noble descent would consent to die by his own hand. Now Antipoinos, who had the most famous ancestors, was loath to die for the people, but his daughters were quite ready to do so. So they took their own lives and receive honors [tīmai] for that reason.
{9.17.2} Before the temple of Artemis Eukleia is a lion made of stone, said to have been dedicated by Hēraklēs after he had conquered in the battle the Orkhomenians and their king, Erginos son of Klymenos. Near it is Apollo surnamed Rescuer, and Hermes called of the Marketplace, another of the votive offerings of Pindar. The pyre of the children of Amphion is about half a stadium-length from the tombs. The ashes from the pyre are still there.
{9.17.3} Near this are two stone images of Athena, surnamed Girder, said to have been dedicated by Amphitryon. [556] For here, they say, he put on his armor when he was about to give battle to Chalcodon and the Euboeans. It seems that the ancients used the verb “to gird oneself” in the sense of “to put on one’s armor,” and so they say that when Homer compares Agamemnon to Ares “in respect of his waistband,” he is really saying that they were alike in the fashion of their armor.
{9.17.4} The tomb shared by Zethus and Amphion is a small mound of earth. The inhabitants of Tithorea in Phokis like to steal earth from it when the sun is passing through the constellation Taurus. For if at that time they take earth from the mound and set it on Antiope’s tomb, the land of Tithorea will yield a harvest, but that of Thebes will be less fertile. For this reason the Thebans at that time keep watch over the tomb.
{9.17.5} Both these cities hold this belief, and they do so because of the oracles of Bacis, in which are the lines:
“But when a man of Tithorea to Amphion and to Zethus
Pours on the earth peace-offerings of libation and prayer,
When Taurus is warmed by the might of the glorious sun,
Beware then of no slight disaster threatening the city;
For the harvest wastes away in it,
When they take of the earth, and bring it to the tomb of Phokos.”
Pours on the earth peace-offerings of libation and prayer,
When Taurus is warmed by the might of the glorious sun,
Beware then of no slight disaster threatening the city;
For the harvest wastes away in it,
When they take of the earth, and bring it to the tomb of Phokos.”
{9.17.6} Bacis calls it the tomb of Phokos for the following reason. The wife of Lykos worshipped Dionysus more than any other deity. When she had suffered what the story says she suffered, Dionysus was angry with Antiope. For some reason extravagant punishments always arouse the resentment of the gods. They say that Antiope went mad, and when out of her wits roamed all over Greece; but Phokos, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus, chanced to meet her, cured her madness, and then married her.
{9.17.7} So Antiope and Phokos share the same tomb. The roughly quarried stones, laid along the tomb of Amphion at its base, are said to be the very rocks that followed the singing of Amphion. A similar story is told of Orpheus, how wild creatures followed him as he played the harp.
{9.18.1} The road from Thebes to Chalcis is by this Proetidian gate. On the highway is pointed out the tomb of Melanippos, one of the very best of the soldiers of Thebes. When the Argive invasion occurred this Melanippos killed Tydeus, as well as Mecisteus, one of the brothers of Adrastos, while he himself, they say, met his death at the hands of Amphiaraos.
{9.18.2} Quite close to it are three unfinished stones. The Theban antiquaries assert that the man lying here is Tydeus, and that his burial was carried out by Maeon. As proof of their assertion they quoted a line of the Iliad:
“Of Tydeus, who at Thebes is covered by a heap of earth.”
Iliad 14.114
{9.18.3} Adjoining are the tombs of the children of Oedipus. The ritual observed at them I have never seen, but I regard it as credible. For the Thebans say that among those called heroes to whom they offer sacrifice are the children of Oedipus. As the sacrifice is being offered, the flame, so they say, and the smoke from it divide themselves into two. I was led to believe their story by the fact that I have seen a similar wonder. It was this.
{9.18.4} In Mysia beyond the Kaïkos is a town called Pioniae, the founder of which according to the inhabitants was Pionis, one of the descendants of Hēraklēs. When they are going to sacrifice to him as to a hero, smoke of itself rises up out of the tomb. This occurrence, then, I have seen happening. The Thebans show also the tomb of Teiresias, about fifteen stadium-lengths from the tomb of the children of Oedipus. The Thebans themselves agree that Teiresias met his end in Haliartia, and admit that the monument at Thebes is a cenotaph.
{9.18.5} There is also at Thebes the tomb of Hector, the son of Priam. It is near the spring called the Fountain of Oedipus, and the Thebans say that they brought Hector’s bones from Troy because of the following oracle:
“Ye Thebans who dwell in the city of Kadmos,
If you wish blameless wealth for the country in which you live,
Bring to your homes the bones of Hector, Priam’s son,
From Asia, and reverence him as a hero, according to the bidding of Zeus.”
If you wish blameless wealth for the country in which you live,
Bring to your homes the bones of Hector, Priam’s son,
From Asia, and reverence him as a hero, according to the bidding of Zeus.”
{9.18.6} The Fountain of Oedipus was so named because Oedipus washed off into it the blood of his murdered father. Hard by the spring is the tomb of Asphodikos. He it was who in the fighting with the Argives killed Parthenopaios, the son of Talaos. This is the Theban account, but according to the passage in the Thebaid which tells of the death of Parthenopaios it was Periclymenus who killed him.
{9.19.1} On this highway is a place called Teumessus, where it is said that Europa was hidden by Zeus. There is also another legend, which tells of a fox called the Teumessian fox, how owing to the wrath of Dionysus the beast was reared to destroy the Thebans, and how, when about to be caught by the hound given by Artemis to Procris the daughter of Erekhtheus, the fox was turned into a stone, as was likewise this hound. In Teumessus there is also a sanctuary of Telchinian Athena, which contains no image. As to her surname, we may hazard the conjecture that a division of the Telchinians who once dwelled in Cyprus came to Boeotia and established a sanctuary of Telchinian Athena.
{9.19.2} Seven stadium-lengths from Teumessus on the left are the ruins of Glisas, and before them on the right of the way a small mound shaded by cultivated trees and a wood of wild ones. Here were buried Promakhos, the son of Parthenopaios, and other Argive officers, who joined with Aigialeus, the son of Adrastos, in the expedition against Thebes. That the tomb of Aigialeus is at Pegai I have already stated in an earlier part of my inquiry [historia] [557] that deals with Megara.
{9.19.3} On the straight road from Thebes to Glisas is a place surrounded by unhewn stones, called by the Thebans the Snake’s Head. This snake, whatever it was, popped its head, they say, out of its hole here, and Teiresias, chancing to meet it, cut off the head with his sword. This then is how the place got its name. Above Glisas is a mountain called Supreme, and on it a temple and image of Supreme Zeus. The river, a torrent, they call the Thermodon. Returning to Teumessus and the road to Chalcis, you come to the tomb of Chalcodon, who was killed by Amphitryon in a fight between the Thebans and the Euboeans.
{9.19.4} Adjoining are the ruins of the cities Harma (Chariot) and Mykalessos. The former got its name, according to the people of Tanagra, because the chariot of Amphiaraos disappeared here, and not where the Thebans say it did. Both peoples agree that Mykalessos was so named because the cow lowed (emykesato) here that was guiding Kadmos and his host to Thebes. How Mykalessos was laid waste I have related in that part of my history that deals with the Athenians. [558]
{9.19.5} On the way to the coast of Mykalessos is a sanctuary of Mycalessian Demeter. They say that each night it is shut up and opened again by Hēraklēs, and that Hēraklēs is one of what are called the Idaean Dactyls. Here is shown the following marvel. Before the feet of the image they place all the fruits of autumn, and these remain fresh throughout all the year.
{9.19.6} At this place the Euripus separates Euboea from Boeotia. On the right is the sanctuary of Mycalessian Demeter, and a little farther on is Aulis, said to have been named after the daughter of Ogygus. Here there is a temple of Artemis with two images of white marble; one carries torches, and the other is like to one shooting an arrow. The story is that when, in obedience to the soothsaying of Calchas, the Greeks were about to sacrifice Iphigeneia on the altar, the goddess substituted a deer to be the victim instead of her. They preserve in the temple what still survives of the
{9.19.7} plane tree mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. [559] The story is that the Greeks were kept at Aulis by contrary winds, and when suddenly a favoring breeze sprang up, each sacrificed to Artemis the victim he had to hand, female and male alike. From that time the rule has held good at Aulis that oil victims are permissible. There is also shown the spring, by which the plane tree grew, and on a hill near by the bronze threshold of Agamemnon’s tent.
{9.19.8} In front of the sanctuary grow palm trees, the fruit of which, though not wholly edible like the dates of Palestine, yet are riper than those of Ionia. There are but few inhabitants of Aulis, and these are potters. This land, and that about Mykalessos and Harma, is tilled by the people of Tanagra.
{9.20.1} Within the territory of Tanagra is what is called Delium on Sea. In it are images of Artemis and Leto. The people of Tanagra say that their founder was Poimandros, the son of Khairesilaos, the son of Iasios, the son of Eleuther, who, they say, was the son of Apollo by Aethusa, the daughter of Poseidon. It is said that Poimandros married Tanagra, a daughter of Aeolus. But in a poem of Corinna she is said to be a daughter of Asopos.
{9.20.2} There is a story that, as she reached extreme old age, her neighbors ceased to call her by this name, and gave the name of Graea (old woman), first to the woman herself, and in course of time to the city. The name, they say, persisted so long that even Homer says in the Catalogue:
“Thespeia, Graea, and wide Mykalessos.”
Iliad 2.498
Later, however, it recovered its old name.
{9.20.3} There is in Tanagra the tomb of Orion, and Mount Kerykion, the reputed birthplace of Hermes, and also a place called Polos. Here they say that Atlas sat and meditated deeply upon the things of the underworld and the things of the sky [ourania] , as Homer [560] says of him:
Daughter of baneful Atlas, who knows the depths
Of every sea, while he himself holds up the tall pillars,
Which keep apart earth and the sky [ouranos].
Of every sea, while he himself holds up the tall pillars,
Which keep apart earth and the sky [ouranos].
Odyssey 1.152
{9.20.4} In the temple of Dionysus the image too is worth seeing, being of Parian marble and a work of Kalamis. But a greater marvel still is the Triton. The grander of the two versions of the Triton legend relates that the women of Tanagra before the orgies of Dionysus went down to the sea to be purified, were attacked by the Triton as they were swimming, and prayed that Dionysus would come to their aid. The god, it is said, heard their cry and overcame the Triton in the fight.
{9.20.5} The other version is less grand but more credible. It says that the Triton would waylay and lift all the cattle that were driven to the sea. He used even to attack small vessels, until the people of Tanagra set out for him a bowl of wine. They say that, attracted by the smell, he came at once, drank the wine, flung himself on the shore and slept, and that a man of Tanagra struck him on the neck with an axe and chopped off his head. For this reason the image has no head. And because they caught him drunk, it is supposed that it was Dionysus who killed him.
{9.21.1} I saw another Triton among the curiosities at Rome, less in size than the one at Tanagra. The Tritons have the following appearance. On their heads they grow hair like that of marsh frogs not only in color, but also in the impossibility of separating one hair from another. The rest of their body is rough with fine scales just as is the shark. Under their ears they have gills and a man’s nose; but the mouth is broader and the teeth are those of a beast. Their eyes seem to me blue, and they have hands, fingers, and nails like the shells of the murex. Under the breast and belly is a tail like a dolphin’s instead of feet.
{9.21.2} I saw also the Ethiopian bulls, called rhinoceroses owing to the fact that each has one horn [ceras] at the end of the nose [rhis], over which is another but smaller one, but there is no trace of horns on their heads. I saw too the Paionian bulls, which are shaggy all over, but especially about the chest and lower jaw. I saw also Indian camels with the color of leopards.
{9.21.3} There is also a beast called the elk, in form between a deer and a camel, which breeds in the land of the Celts. Of all the beasts we know it alone cannot be tracked or seen at a distance by man; sometimes, however, when men are out hunting other game they fall in with an elk by luck. Now they say that it smells man even at a great distance, and dashes down into ravines or the deepest caverns. So the hunters surround the plain or mountain in a circuit of at least a thousand stadium-lengths, and, taking care not to break the circle, they keep on narrowing the area enclosed, and so catch all the beasts inside, the elks included. But if there chance to be no lair within, there is no other way of catching the elk.
{9.21.4} The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichoras by the Indians and man-eater by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is the tiger. But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw and spikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at close quarters, while it hurls them like an archer’s arrows at more distant enemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass on from one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast.
{9.21.5} They were also deceived about its color, and whenever the tiger showed itself in the light of the sun it appeared to be a homogeneous red, either because of its speed, or, if it were not running, because of its continual twists and turns, especially when it was not seen at close quarters. And I think that if one were to traverse the most remote parts of Libya, India or Arabia, in search of such beasts as are found in Greece, some he would not discover at all, and others would have a different appearance.
{9.21.6} For man is not the only creature that has a different appearance in different climates and in different countries; the others too obey the same rule. For instance, the Libyan asps have a different colors compared with the Egyptian, while in Ethiopia are bred asps quite as black as the men. So everyone should be neither over-hasty in one’s judgments, nor incredulous when considering rarities. For instance, though I have never seen winged snakes I believe that they exist, as I believe that a Phrygian brought to Ionia a scorpion with wings exactly like those of locusts.
{9.22.1} Beside the sanctuary of Dionysus at Tanagra are three temples, one of Themis, another of Aphrodite, and the third of Apollo; with Apollo are joined Artemis and Leto. There are sanctuaries of Hermes Ram-bearer and of Hermes called Champion. They account for the former surname by a story that Hermes averted a pestilence from the city by carrying a ram round the walls; to commemorate this Kalamis made an image of Hermes carrying a ram upon his shoulders. Whichever of the youths is judged to be the most handsome goes round the walls at the feast of Hermes, carrying a lamb on his shoulders.
{9.22.2} Hermes Champion is said, on the occasion when an Eretrian fleet put into Tanagra from Euboea, to have led out the youths to the battle; he himself, armed with a scraper like a youth, was chiefly responsible for the rout of the Euboeans. In the sanctuary of the Champion is kept all that is left of the wild strawberry tree under which they believe that Hermes was nourished. Near by is a theater and by it a portico. I consider that the people of Tanagra have better arrangements for the worship of the gods than any other Greeks. For their houses are in one place, while the sanctuaries are apart beyond the houses in a clear space where no men live.
{9.22.3} Corinna, the only lyric poetess of Tanagra, has her tomb in a, conspicuous part of the city, and in the gymnasium is a painting of Corinna binding her head with a fillet for the victory she won over Pindar at Thebes with a lyric poem. I believe that her victory was partly due to the dialect she used, for she composed, not in Doric speech like Pindar, but in one Aeolians would understand, and partly to her being, if one may judge from the likeness, the most beautiful woman of her time.
{9.22.4} Here there are two breeds of roosters, the fighters and the blackbirds, as they are called. The size of these blackbirds is the same as that of the Lydian birds, but in color they are like crows, while wattles and comb are very like the anemone. They have small, white markings on the end of the beak and at the end of the tail.
{9.22.5} Such is the appearance of the blackbirds. Within Boeotia to the left of the Euripus is Mount Messapios, at the foot of which on the coast is the Boeotian city of Anthedon. Some say that the city received its name from a nymph called Anthedon, while others say that one Anthas was despot here, a son of Poseidon by Alcyone, the daughter of Atlas. Just about the center of Anthedon is a sanctuary of the Cabeiri, with a grove around it, near which is a temple of Demeter and her daughter, with images of white marble.
{9.22.6} There are a sanctuary and an image of Dionysus in front of the city on the side towards the mainland. Here are the tombs of the children of Iphimedeia and Aloeus. They met their end at the hands of Apollo according to both Homer [561] and Pindar, [562] the latter adding that their doom overtook them in Naxos, which lies off Paros. Their tombs then are in Anthedon, and by the sea is what is called the Leap of Glaukos.
{9.22.7} That Glaukos was a fisherman, who, on eating of the grass, turned into a deity of the sea and ever since has foretold to men the future, is a belief generally accepted; in particular, seafaring men tell every year many a tale about the soothsaying of Glaukos. Pindar and Aeschylus got a story about Glaukos from the people of Anthedon. Pindar has not thought fit to say much about him in his odes, but the story actually supplied Aeschylus with material for a play.
{9.23.1} In front of the Proetidian gate at Thebes is the gymnasium called the Gymnasium of Iolaos and also a race-course, a bank of earth like those at Olympia and Epidaurus. Here there is also shown a hero-shrine of Iolaos. That Iolaos himself died at Sardis along with the Athenians and Thespians who made the crossing with him is admitted even by the Thebans themselves.
{9.23.2} Crossing over the right side of the course you come to a race-course for horses, in which is the tomb of Pindar. When Pindar was a young man he was once on his way to Thespiaiin the hot season. At about noon he was seized with fatigue and the drowsiness that follows it, so just as he was, he lay down a little way above the road. As he slept bees alighted on him and plastered his lips with their wax.
{9.23.3} Such was the beginning of Pindar’s career as a lyric poet. When his reputation had already spread throughout Greece he was raised to a greater height of fame by an order of the Pythian priestess, who ordered the Delphians to give to Pindar one half of all the first-fruits they offered to Apollo. It is also said that on reaching old age a vision came to him in a dream. As he slept Persephone stood by him and declared that she alone of the deities had not been honored by Pindar with a hymn, but that Pindar would compose an ode to her also when he had come to her.
{9.23.4} Pindar died at once, before ten days had passed since the dream. But there was in Thebes an old woman related by birth to Pindar who had practiced singing most of his odes. By her side in a dream stood Pindar, and sang a hymn to Persephone. Immediately on waking out of her sleep she wrote down all she had heard him singing in her dream. In this song, among the epithets he applies to Hades is “golden-reined”—a clear reference to the abduction of Persephone.
{9.23.5} From this point to Acraephnium is mainly flat. They say that originally the city formed part of the territory belonging to Thebes, and I learned that in later times men of Thebes escaped to it, at the time when Alexander destroyed Thebes. Weak and old, they could not even get safely away to Attica, but made their homes here. The town lies on Mount Ptous, and there are here a temple and image of Dionysus that are worth seeing.
{9.23.6} About fifteen stadium-lengths away from the city on the right is the sanctuary of Ptoan Apollo. We are told by Asios in his epic that Ptous, who gave a surname to Apollo and the name to the mountain, was a son of Athamas by Themisto. Before the expedition of the Macedonians under Alexander, in which Thebes was destroyed, there was here an oracle that never lied. Once too a mail of Europus, of the name of Mys, who was sent by Mardonios, inquired of the god in his own language, and the god too gave a response, not in Greek but in the Carian speech.
{9.23.7} On crossing Mount Ptous you come to Larymna, a Boeotian city on the coast, said to have been named after Larymna, the daughter of Cynus. Her earlier ancestors I shall give in my account of Lokris. [563] Of old Larymna belonged to Opus, but when Thebes rose to great power the citizens of their own accord joined the Boeotians. Here there is a temple of Dionysus with a standing image. The town has a harbor with deep water near the shore, and on the mountains commanding the city wild boars can be hunted.
{9.24.1} On the straight road from Acraephnium to the Cephisian, or as it is also called, the Copaic Lake, is what is styled the Athamantian Plain, on which, they say, Athamas made his home. Into the lake flows the river Kephisos, which rises at Lilaea in Phokis, and on sailing across it you come to Copae, a town lying on the shore of the lake. Homer [564] mentions it in the Catalogue. Here is a sanctuary of Demeter, one of Dionysus and a third of Serapis.
{9.24.2} According to the Boeotians there were once other inhabited towns near the lake, Athens and Eleusis, but there occurred a flood one winter which destroyed them. The fish of the Cephisian Lake are in general no different from those of other lakes, but the eels there are of great size and very pleasant to the palate.
{9.24.3} On the left of Copae about twelve stadium-lengths from it is Olmones, and some seven stadium-lengths distant from Olmones is Hyettos both right from their foundation to the present day have been villages. In my view Hyettos, as well as the Athamantian plain, belongs to the district of Orkhomenos. All the stories I heard about Hyettos the Argive and Olmus, the son of Sisyphus, I shall include in my history of Orkhomenos. [565] In Olmones they did not show me anything that was in the least worth seeing, but in Hyettos is a temple of Hēraklēs, from whom the sick may get cures. There is an image not carefully carved, but of unfinished stone after the ancient fashion.
{9.24.4} About twenty stadium-lengths away from Hyettos is Cyrtones. The ancient name of the town was, they say, Cyrtone. It is built on a high mountain, and here are a temple and grove of Apollo. There are also standing images of Apollo and Artemis. There is here too a cool stream of water rising from a rock. By the spring is a sanctuary of the nymphs, and a small grove, in which all the trees alike are cultivated.
{9.24.5} Going out of Cyrtones, as you cross the mountain you come to Corseia, under which is a grove of trees that are not cultivated, being mostly evergreen oaks. A small image of Hermes stands in the open part of the grove. This is distant from Corseia about half a stadium-length. On descending to the level you reach a river called the Platanios, which flows into the sea. On the right of the river the last of the Boeotians in this part dwell in Halae-on-Sea, which separates the mainland of Lokris from Euboea.
{9.25.1} Very near to the Neistan gate at Thebes is the tomb of Menoeceus, the son of Creon. He committed suicide in obedience to the oracle from Delphi, at the time when Polyneikes and the host with him arrived from Argos. On the tomb of Menoeceus grows a pomegranate tree. If you break through the outer part of the ripe fruit, you will then find the inside like blood. This pomegranate tree is still flourishing. The Thebans assert that they were the first men among whom the vine grew, but they have now no memorial of it to show.
{9.25.2} Not far from the tomb of Menoeceus is the place where they say the sons of Oedipus killed each other in a duel. The scene of their fight is marked by a pillar, upon which is a stone shield. There is shown a place where according to the Thebans Hērā was deceived by Zeus into giving the breast to Hēraklēs when he was a baby. The whole of this place is called the Dragging of Antigone. For when she found that she had not the strength to lift the body of Polyneikes, in spite of her eager efforts, a second plan occurred to her, to drag him. So she dragged him right up to the burning pyre of Eteokles and threw him on it.
{9.25.3} There is a river called Dirce after the wife of Lykos. The story goes that Antiope was ill-treated by this Dirce, and therefore the children of Antiope put Dirce to death. Crossing the river you reach the ruins of the house of Pindar, and a sanctuary of the Mother Dindymene. Pindar dedicated the image, and Aristomedes and Sokrates, sculptors of Thebes, made it. Their custom is to open the sanctuary on one day in each year, and no more. It was my fortune to arrive on that day, and I saw the image, which, like the throne, is of Pentelic marble.
{9.25.4} Along the road from the Neistan gate are three sanctuaries. There is a sanctuary of Themis, with an image of white marble; adjoining it is a sanctuary of the Fates, while the third is of Zeus of the Market. Zeus is made of stone; the Fates have no images. A little farther off in the open stands Hēraklēs, surnamed Nose-docker; the reason for the name is, as the Thebans say, that Hēraklēs cut off the noses, as an insult, of the heralds who came from Orkhomenos to demand the tribute.
{9.25.5} Advancing from here twenty-five stadium-lengths you come to a grove of Cabeirean Demeter and the Maiden. The initiated are permitted to enter it. The sanctuary of the Cabeiri is some seven stadium-lengths distant from this grove. I must ask the curious to forgive me if I keep silence as to who the Cabeiri are, and what is the nature of the ritual performed in honor of them and of the Mother.
{9.25.6} But there is nothing to prevent my declaring to all what the Thebans say was the origin of the ritual. They say that once there was in this place a city, with inhabitants called Cabeiri; and that Demeter came to know Prometheus, one of the Cabeiri, and Aetnaelis his son, and entrusted something to their keeping. What was entrusted to them, and what happened to it, seemed to me a sin to put into writing, but at any rate the rites are a gift of Demeter to the Cabeiri.
{9.25.7} At the time of the invasion of the Epigonoi and the taking of Thebes, the Cabeiri were expelled from their homes by the Argives and the rites for a while ceased to be performed. But they go on to say that afterwards Pelarge, the daughter of Potnieus, and Isthmiades her husband established the mysteries here to begin with, but transferred them to the place called Alexiarus.
{9.25.8} But because Pelarge conducted the initiation outside the ancient borders, Telondes and those who were left of the clan of the Cabeiri returned again to Cabeiraea. Various honors were to be established for Pelarge by Telondes in accordance with an oracle from Dodona, one being the sacrifice of a pregnant victim. The wrath of the Cabeiri no man may placate, as has been proved on many occasions.
{9.25.9} For certain private people dared to perform in Naupaktos the ritual just as it was done in Thebes, and soon afterwards justice overtook them. Then, again, certain men of the army of Xerxes left behind with Mardonios in Boeotia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, perhaps in the hope of great wealth, but rather, I suspect, to show their contempt of its gods; all these immediately were struck with madness, and flung themselves to their deaths into the sea or from the tops of precipices.
{9.25.10} Again, when Alexander after his victory wasted with fire all the Thebaid, including Thebes itself, some men from Macedonia entered the sanctuary of the Cabeiri, as it was in enemy territory, and were destroyed by thunder and lightning from the sky [ouranos].
{9.26.1} So sacred this sanctuary has been from the beginning. On the right of the sanctuary is a plain named after Tenerus the seer, whom they hold to be a son of Apollo by Melia; there is also a large sanctuary of Hēraklēs surnamed Hippodetos (Binder of Horses). For they say that the Orkhomenians came to this place with an army, and that Hēraklēs by night took their chariot-horses and bound them tight.
{9.26.2} Farther on we come to the mountain from which they say the Sphinx, chanting a riddle, sallied to bring death upon those she caught. Others say that roving with a force of ships on a piratical expedition she put in at Anthedon, seized the mountain I mentioned, and used it for plundering raids until Oedipus overwhelmed her by the superior numbers of the army he had with him on his arrival from Corinth.
{9.26.3} There is another version of the story which makes her the natural daughter of Laios, who, because he was fond of her, told her the oracle delivered to Kadmos from Delphi. No one, they say, except the kings knew the oracle. Now Laios (the story goes on to say) had sons by concubines, and the oracle delivered from Delphi applied only to Epicaste and her sons. So when any of her brothers came in order to claim the throne from the Sphinx, she resorted to trickery in dealing with them, saying that if they were sons of Laios they should know the oracle that came to Kadmos.
{9.26.4} When they could not answer she would punish them with death, on the ground that they had no valid claim to the kingdom or to relationship. But Oedipus came because it appears he had been told the oracle in a dream.
{9.26.5} Distant from this mountain fifteen stadium-lengths are the ruins of the city Onkhestos. They say that here dwelled Onkhestos, a son of Poseidon. In my day there remained a temple and image of Onchestian Poseidon, and the grove which Homer too praised. [566]
{9.26.6} Taking a turn left from the Cabeirian sanctuary, and advancing about fifty stadium-lengths, you come to Thespiae, built at the foot of Mount Helicon. They say that Thespia was a daughter of Asopos, who gave her name to the city, while others say that Thespios, who was descended from Erekhtheus, came from Athens and was the man after whom the city was called.
{9.26.7} In Thespiaiis a bronze image of Zeus Savior. They say about it that when a dragon once was devastating their city, the god commanded that every year one of their youths, upon whom the lot fell, should be offered to the monster. Now the names of those who perished they say that they do not remember. But when the lot fell on Kleostratos, his lover Menestratos, they say, devised a trick.
{9.26.8} He had made a bronze breastplate, with a fish-hook, the point turned outwards, upon each of its plates. Clad in this breastplate he gave himself up, of his own free will, to the dragon, convinced that having done so he would, though destroyed himself, prove the destroyer of the monster. This is why the Zeus has been surnamed Savior. The image of Dionysus, and also that of Fortune, and in another place that of Hygieia … But the Athena Worker, as well as Wealth, who stands beside her, was made by ….
{9.27.1} Of the gods the Thespians have from the beginning honored Love most, and they have a very ancient image of him, an unfinished stone. Who established among the Thespians the custom of worshipping Love more than any other god I do not know. He is worshipped equally by the people of Parium on the Hellespont, who were originally colonists from Erythraiin Ionia, but today are subject to the Romans.
{9.27.2} Most men consider Love to be the youngest of the gods and the son of Aphrodite. But Olen the Lycian, who composed the oldest Greek hymns, says in a hymn to Eileithuia that she was the mother of Love. Later than Olen, both Pamphos and Orpheus wrote hexameter verse, and composed poems on Love, in order that they might be among those sung by the Lykomidai to accompany the ritual. I read them after conversation with a Torchbearer. Of these things I will make no further mention. Hesiod, [567] or he who wrote the Theogony fathered on Hesiod, writes, I know, that Chaos was born first, and after Chaos, Earth, Tartarus and Love.
{9.27.3} Sappho of Lesbos wrote many poems about Love, but they are not consistent. Later on Lysippos made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The story of Phryne and the trick she played on Praxiteles I have related in another place. [568] The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time.
{9.27.4} At Rome the image perished by fire. Of the pair who sinned against the god, Gaius was killed by a private soldier, just as he was giving the password; he had made the soldier very angry by always giving the same password with a covert sneer. The other, Nero, in addition to his violence to his mother, committed accursed and hateful crimes against his wedded wives. The modern Love at Thespiaiwas made by the Athenian Menodoros, who copied the work of Praxiteles.
{9.27.5} Here too are statues made by Praxiteles himself, one of Aphrodite and one of Phryne, both Phryne and the goddess being of stone. Elsewhere too is a sanctuary of Black Aphrodite, with a theater and a marketplace, well worth seeing. Here is set up Hesiod in bronze. Not far from the marketplace is a Victory of bronze and a small temple of the Muses. In it are small images made of stone.
{9.27.6} At Thespiaiis also a sanctuary of Hēraklēs. The priestess there is a virgin, who acts as such until she dies. The reason of this is said to be as follows. Hēraklēs, they say, had intercourse with the fifty daughters of Thestios, except one, in a single night. She was the only one who refused to have connection with him. Hēraklēs,thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest.
{9.27.7} I have heard another story, how Hēraklēs had connection with all the virgin daughters of Thestios in one and the same night, and how they all bore him sons, the youngest and the eldest bearing twins. But I cannot think it credible that Hēraklēs would rise to such a pitch of wrath against a daughter of a friend. Moreover, while he was still among men, punishing them for insolence, and especially such as were impious towards the gods, he would not himself have set up a temple and appointed a priestess to himself, just as though he were a god.
{9.27.8} As a matter of fact this sanctuary seemed to me too old to be of the time of Hēraklēs the son of Amphitryon, and to belong to Hēraklēs called one of the Idaean Dactyls, to whom I found the people of Erythraiin Ionia and of Tyre possessed sanctuaries. Nevertheless, the Boeotians were not unacquainted with this name of Hēraklēs, seeing that they themselves say that the sanctuary of Demeter of Mykalessos has been entrusted to Idaean Hēraklēs.
{9.28.1} Helicon is one of the mountains of Greece with the most fertile soil and the greatest number of cultivated trees. The wild-strawberry bushes supply to the goats sweeter fruit than that growing anywhere else. The dwellers around Helicon say that all the grasses too and roots growing on the mountain are not at all poisonous to men. Moreover, the food makes the poison of the snakes too less deadly, so that most of those bitten escape with their lives, should they fall in with a Libyan of thelineage of the Psyllians, or with any suitable remedies.
{9.28.2} Now the poison of the most venomous snakes is of itself deadly to men and all animals alike, but what they feed on contributes very much to the strength of their poison; for instance, I learned from a Phoenician that the roots they eat make more venomous the vipers in the highland of Phoenicia. He said that he had himself seen a man trying to escape from the rush of a viper; the man, he said, ran up a tree, but the viper, coming up too late, puffed some of its poison towards the tree, and the man died instantaneously.
{9.28.3} Such was the story I heard from him. Those vipers in Arabia that nest around the balsam trees have, I know, the following peculiarities. The balsams are about as big as a myrtle bush, and their leaves are like those of the herb marjoram. The vipers of Arabia lodge in certain numbers, larger or smaller, under each tree. For the balsam-juice is the food they like most, and moreover they are fond of the shade of the bushes.
{9.28.4} So when the time has come for the Arabians to collect the juice of the balsam, each man takes two sticks to the vipers, and by striking them together they drive the vipers away. Kill them they will not, considering them sacred to the balsam. And even if a man should have the misfortune to be bitten by the vipers, though the wound is like the cut of a knife, nevertheless there is no fear from the poison. For as the vipers feed on the most fragrant of perfumes, their poison is mitigated and less deadly.
{9.29.1} Such is the truth about these things. The first to sacrifice on Helicon to the Muses and to call the mountain sacred to the Muses were, they say, Ephialtes and Otos, who also founded Ascra. To this also Hegesinos alludes in his poem Atthis:
“And again with Ascra lay Poseidon Earth-shaker,
Who when the year revolved bore him a son
Oioklos, who first with the children of Aloeus founded
Ascra, which lies at the foot of Helicon, rich in springs.”
Who when the year revolved bore him a son
Oioklos, who first with the children of Aloeus founded
Ascra, which lies at the foot of Helicon, rich in springs.”
Hegesinos Atthis, unknown location.
{9.29.2} This poem of Hegesinos I have not read, for it was no longer extant when I was born. But Kallippos of Corinth in his history of Orkhomenos uses the verses of Hegesinos as evidence in support of his own views, and I too have done likewise, using the quotation of Kallippos himself. Of Ascra in my day nothing memorable was left except one tower. The sons of Aloeus held that the Muses were three in number, and gave them the names of Melete (Practice), Mneme (Memory) and Aoede (Song).
{9.29.3} But they say that afterwards Pierus, a Macedonian, after whom the mountain in Macedonia was named, came to Thespiaiand established nine Muses, changing their names to the present ones. Pierus was of this opinion either because it seemed to him wiser, or because an oracle so ordered, or having so learned from one of the Thracians. For the Thracians had the reputation of old of being more clever than the Macedonians, and in particular of being not so careless in religious matters.
{9.29.4} There are some who say that Pierus himself had nine daughters, that their names were the same as those of the goddesses, and that those whom the Greeks called the children of the Muses were sons of the daughters of Pierus. Mimnermus, who composed elegiac verses about the battle between the Smyrnaeans and the Lydians under Gyges, says in the preface that the elder Muses are daughters of Uranus, and that there are other and younger Muses, children of Zeus.
{9.29.5} On Helicon, on the left as you go to the grove of the Muses, is the spring Aganippe; they say that Aganippe was a daughter of the Termessus, which flows round Helicon. As you go along the straight road to the grove is a portrait of Eupheme carved in relief on a stone. She was, they say, the nurse of the Muses.
{9.29.6} So her portrait is here, and after it is Linos on a small rock worked into the shape of a cave. To Linos every year they sacrifice as to a hero before they sacrifice to the Muses. It is said that this Linos was a son of Urania and Amphimarus, a son of Poseidon, that he won a reputation for music greater than that of any contemporary or predecessor, and that Apollo killed him for being his rival in singing.
{9.29.7} On the death of Linos, mourning for him spread, it seems, to all the foreign world, so that even among the Egyptians there came to be a Linos song, in the Egyptian language called Maneros. Of the Greek poets, Homer shows that he knew that the sufferings of Linos were the theme of a Greek song when he says that Hephaistos, among the other scenes he worked upon the shield of Achilles, represented a boy harpist singing the Linos song:
“In the midst of them a boy on a clear-toned lyre
Played with great charm, and to his playing sang of beautiful Linos.” [569]
Played with great charm, and to his playing sang of beautiful Linos.” [569]
Iliad 18.569–570
{9.29.8} Pamphos, who composed the oldest Athenian hymns, called him Oitolinos (Linos doomed) at the time when the mourning for Linos was at its height. Sappho of Lesbos, who learned the name of Oitolinos from the epic poetry of Pamphos, sang of both Adonis and Oitolinos together. The Thebans assert that Linos was buried among them, and that after the Greek defeat at Khaironeia, Philip the son of Amyntas, in obedience to a vision in a dream, took up the bones of Linos and conveyed them to Macedonia;
{9.29.9} other visions induced him to send the bones of Linos back to Thebes. But all that was over the tomb, and whatever marks were on it, vanished, they say, with the lapse of time. Other tales are told by the Thebans, how later than this Linos there was born another, called the son of Ismenios, a teacher of music, and how Hēraklēs, while still a child, killed him. But hexameter poetry was written neither by Linos the son of Amphimarus nor by the later Linos; or if it was, it has not survived for posterity.
{9.30.1} The first images of the Muses are of them all, from the hand of Kephisodotos, while a little farther on are three, also from the hand of Kephisodotos, and three more by Strongylion, an excellent artist of oxen and horses. The remaining three were made by Olympiosthenes. There is also on Helicon a bronze Apollo fighting with Hermes for the lyre. There is also a Dionysus by Lysippos; the standing image, however, of Dionysus, that Sulla dedicated, is the most noteworthy of the works of Myron after the Erekhtheus in Athens. What he dedicated was not his own; he took it away from the Minyaiof Orkhomenos. This is an illustration of the Greek proverb, “to worship the gods with other people’s incense.”
{9.30.2} Of poets or famous musicians they have set up likenesses of the following. There is Thamyris himself, when already blind, with a broken lyre in his hand, and Arion of Methymna upon a dolphin. The sculptor who made the statue of Sacadas of Argos, not understanding the prelude of Pindar about him, has made the aulos-player with a body no bigger than his aulos [‘double-reed’].
{9.30.3} Hesiod too sits holding a harp upon his knees, a thing not at all appropriate for Hesiod to carry, for his own verses [570] make it clear that he sang holding a laurel wand. As to the age of Hesiod and Homer, I have conducted very careful researches into this matter, but I do not like to write on the subject, as I know the quarrelsome nature of those especially who constitute the modern school of epic criticism.
{9.30.4} By the side of Orpheus the Thracian stands a statue of Telete, and around him are beasts of stone and bronze listening to his singing. There are many untruths believed by the Greeks, one of which is that Orpheus was a son of the Muse Kalliope, and not of the daughter of Pierus, that the beasts followed him fascinated by his songs, and that he went down alive to Hades to ask for his wife from the gods below. In my opinion Orpheus excelled his predecessors in the beauty of his verse, and reached a high degree of power because he was believed to have discovered mysteries, purification from sins, cures of diseases and means of averting divine wrath.
{9.30.5} But they say that the women of the Thracians plotted his death, because he had persuaded their husbands to accompany him in his wanderings, but dared not carry out their intention through fear of their husbands. Flushed with wine, however, they dared the deed, and hereafter the custom of their men has been to march to battle drunk. Some say that Orpheus came to his end by being struck by a thunderbolt, hurled at him by the god because he revealed sayings in the mysteries to men who had not heard them before.
{9.30.6} Others have said that his wife died before him, and that for her sake he came to Aornum in Thesprotis, where of old was an oracle of the dead. He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydikē followed him, but turning round he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. The Thracians say that such nightingales as nest on the tomb of Orpheus sing more sweetly and louder than others.
{9.30.7} The Macedonians who dwell in the district below Mount Pieria and the city of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his end at the hands of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and advancing twenty stadium-lengths, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus.
{9.30.8} There is also a river called Helicon. After a course of seventy-five stadium-lengths the stream hereupon disappears under the earth. After a gap of about twenty-two stadium-lengths the water rises again, and under the name of Baphyra instead of Helicon flows into the sea as a navigable river. The people of Dium say that at first this river flowed on land throughout its course. But, they go on to say, the women who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in it the blood-stains, and thereat the river sank underground, so as not to lend its waters to purify manslaughter.
{9.30.9} In Larisa I heard another story, how on Olympus is a city Libethra, where the mountain faces, Macedonia, not far from which city is the tomb of Orpheus. The Libethrians, it is said, received out of Thrace an oracle from Dionysus, stating that when the sun should see the bones of Orpheus, then the city of Libethra would be destroyed by a boar. The citizens paid little regard to the oracle, thinking that no other beast was big or mighty enough to take their city, while a boar was bold rather than powerful.
{9.30.10} But when it seemed good to the god the following events befell the citizens. About midday a shepherd was asleep leaning against the tomb of Orpheus, and even as he slept he began to sing poetry of Orpheus in a loud and sweet voice. Those who were pasturing or tilling nearest to him left their several tasks and gathered together to hear the shepherd sing in his sleep. And jostling one another and striving who could get nearest the shepherd they overturned the pillar, the urn fell from it and broke, and the sun saw whatever was left of the bones of Orpheus.
{9.30.11} Immediately when night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of the torrents about Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the city. When Libethra was now a city of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, according to my friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country.
{9.30.12} Whoever has devoted himself to the study of poetry knows that the hymns of Orpheus are all very short, and that the total number of them is not great. The Lykomidai know them and chant them over the ritual of the mysteries. For poetic beauty they may be said to come next to the hymns of Homer, while they have been even more honored by the gods.
{9.31.1} On Helicon there is also a statue of Arsinoe, who married Ptolemy her brother. She is being carried by a bronze ostrich. Ostriches grow wings just like other birds, but their bodies are so heavy and large that the wings cannot lift them into the air.
{9.31.2} Here too is Telephus, the son of Hēraklēs, represented as a baby being suckled by a deer. By his side is an ox, and an image of Priapus worth seeing. This god is worshipped where goats and sheep pasture or there are swarms of bees; but by the people of Lampsacus he is more revered than any other god, being called by them a son of Dionysus and Aphrodite.
{9.31.3} On Helicon tripods have been dedicated, of which the oldest is the one which it is said Hesiod received for winning the prize for song at Chalcis on the Euripus. Men too live round about the grove, and here the Thespians celebrate a festival, and also games called the Museia. They celebrate other games in honor of Love, offering prizes not only for music but also for athletic events. Ascending about twenty stadium-lengths from this grove is what is called the Horse’s Fountain (Hippocrene). It was made, they say, by the horse of Bellerophon striking the ground with his hoof.
{9.31.4} The Boeotians dwelling around Helicon hold the tradition that Hesiod wrote nothing but the Works, and even of this they reject the prelude to the Muses, saying that the poem begins with the account of the Strifes. [571] They showed me also a tablet of lead where the spring is, mostly defaced by time, on which is engraved the Works.
{9.31.5} There is another tradition, very different from the first, that Hesiod wrote a great number of poems; the one on women, the one called the Great Eoeae, the Theogony, the poem on the seer Melampos, the one on the descent to Hades of Theseus and Peirithoos, the Precepts of Kheiron, professing to be for the instruction of Achilles, and other poems besides the Works and Days. These same Boeotians say that Hesiod learned seercraft from the Acarnanians, and there are extant a poem called Mantika (Seercraft), which I myself have read, and interpretations of portents.
{9.31.6} Opposite stories are also told of Hesiod’s death. All agree that Ctimenus and Antiphus, the sons of Ganyctor, fled from Naupaktos to Molycria because of the murder of Hesiod, that here they sinned against Poseidon, and that in Molycria their punishment was inflicted. The sister of the young men had been ravished; some say the deed was Hesiod’s, and others that Hesiod was wrongly thought guilty of another’s crime. So widely different are the traditions of Hesiod himself and his poems.
{9.31.7} On the summit of Helicon is a small river called the Lamus. [572] In the territory of the Thespians is a place called Donacon (Reed-bed). Here is the spring of Narcissus. They say that Narcissus looked into this water, and not understanding that he saw his own reflection, unconsciously fell in love with himself, and died of love at the spring. But it is utter stupidity to imagine that a man old enough to fall in love was incapable of distinguishing a man from a man’s reflection.
{9.31.8} There is another story about Narcissus, less popular indeed than the other, but not without some support. It is said that Narcissus had a twin sister; they were exactly alike in appearance, their hair was the same, they wore similar clothes, and went hunting together. The story goes on that Narcissus fell in love with his sister, and when the girl died, would go to the spring, knowing that it was his reflection that he saw, but in spite of this knowledge finding some relief for his love in imagining that he saw, not his own reflection, but the likeness of his sister.
{9.31.9} The flower narcissus grew, in my opinion, before this, if we are to judge by the verses of Pamphos. This poet was born many years before Narcissus the Thespian, and he says that the Maiden, the daughter of Demeter, was carried off when she was playing and gathering flowers, and that the flowers by which she was deceived into being carried off were not violets, but the narcissus.
{9.32.1} Creusis, the harbor of Thespiae, has nothing to show publicly, but at the home of a private person I found an image of Dionysus made of gypsum and adorned with painting. The voyage from the Peloponnesus to Creusis is winding and, besides, not a calm one. For capes jut out so that a straight sea-crossing is impossible, and at the same time violent gales blow down from the mountains.
{9.32.2} Sailing from Creusis, not out to sea, but along Boeotia, you reach on the right a city called Thisbe. First there is a mountain by the sea; on crossing it you will come to a plain, and after that to another mountain, at the foot of which is the city. Here there is a sanctuary of Hēraklēs with a standing image of stone, and they hold a festival called the Herakleia.
{9.32.3} Nothing would prevent the plain between the mountains becoming a lake owing to the volume of the water, had they not made a strong dyke right through it. So every other year they divert the water to the farther side of the dyke, and farm the other side. Thisbe, they say, was a nymph of the country, from whom the city has received its name.
{9.32.4} Sailing from here you come to Tipha, a small town by the sea. The townsfolk have a sanctuary of Hēraklēs and hold an annual festival. They claim to have been from of old the best sailors in Boeotia, and remind you that Tiphys, who was chosen to steer the Argo, was a fellow-townsman. They point out also the place before the city where they say Argo anchored on her return from Kolkhis.
{9.32.5} As you go inland from Thespiaiyou come to Haliartos. The question who became founder of Haliartos and Coroneia I cannot separate from my account of Orkhomenos. [573] At the Persian invasion the people of Haliartos sided with the Greeks, and so a division of the army of Xerxes overran and burned both their territory and their city. In Haliartos is the tomb of Lysander the Lacedaemonian. For having attacked the walls of Haliartos, in which were troops from Thebes and Athens, he fell in the fighting that followed a sortie of the enemy.
{9.32.6} Lysander in some ways is worthy of the greatest praise, in others of the sharpest blame. He certainly showed cleverness in the following ways. When in command of the Peloponnesian triremes he waited till Alcibiades was away from the fleet, and then led on Antiokhos, the pilot of Alcibiades, to believe that he was a match for the Lacedaemonians at sea, and when in the rashness of vainglory he put out to sea, Lysander overcame him not far from the city of Kolophon.
{9.32.7} And when for the second time he arrived from Sparta to take charge of the triremes, he so tamed Cyrus that, whenever he asked for money to pay the fleet, he received it in good time and without stint. When the Athenian fleet of one hundred ships anchored at Aigospotamoi, waiting until the sailors were scattered to get water and provisions, he thus captured their vessels. He showed the following example of justice.
{9.32.8} A competitor at the pankration, Autolykos, whose statue I saw in the Prytaneion of the Athenians, had a dispute about some piece of property with Eteonikos of Sparta. When Eteonikos was convicted of making unjust statements, as the rule of the Thirty was then supreme in Athens, and Lysander had not yet departed, Eteonikos was encouraged to make an unprovoked assault, and when Autolykos resisted, summoned him before Lysander, confidently expecting that judgment would be given in his favor. But Lysander gave judgment against Eteonikos and dismissed him with a reprimand.
{9.32.9} All this redounds to the credit of Lysander, but the following incidents are a reproach. Philokles, the Athenian commander-in-chief at Aigospotamoi, along with four thousand other Athenian prisoners, were put to death by Lysander, who even refused them burial afterwards, a thing which even the Persians who landed at Marathon received from the Athenians, and the Lacedaemonians themselves who fell at Thermopylae received from King Xerxes. Lysander brought a yet deeper disgrace upon the Lacedaemonians by the Commissions of Ten he set over the cities and by the Laconian governors.
{9.32.10} Again, an oracle had warned the Lacedaemonians that only love of money could destroy Sparta, and so they were not used to acquiring wealth, yet Lysander aroused in the Spartans a strong desire for riches. I for my part follow the Persians, and judge by the Persian law, and decide that Lysander brought on the Lacedaemonians more harm than benefit.
{9.33.1} In Haliartos too there is the tomb of Lysander and a hero-shrine of Kekrops the son of Pandion. Mount Tilphousios and the spring called Tilphusa are about fifty stadium-lengths away from Haliartos. The Greeks declare that the Argives, along with the sons of Polyneikes, after capturing Thebes, were bringing Teiresias and some other of the spoil to the god at Delphi, when Teiresias, being thirsty, drank by the wayside of the Tilphusa, and forthwith gave up the ghost; his tomb is by the spring.
{9.33.2} They say that the daughter of Teiresias was given to Apollo by the Argives, and at the command of the god crossed with ships to the Kolophonian land in what is now called Ionia. Manto there married Rhakios, a Cretan. The rest of the history of Teiresias is known to all as a tradition: the number of years it is recorded that he lived, how he changed from a woman to a man, and that Homer in the Odyssey [574] represents Teiresias as the only one in Hades endowed with intelligence.
{9.33.3} At Haliartos there is in the open a sanctuary of the goddesses they call Praxidikai [those who exact dikē ‘punishment’]. Here they swear, but they do not make the oath rashly. The sanctuary of the goddesses is near Mount Tilphousios. In Haliartos are temples, with no images inside, and without roofs. I could not discover either to whom these temples were built.
{9.33.4} In the land of Haliartos there is a river Lophis. It is said that the land was originally arid and without water, so that one of the rulers came to Delphi and asked in what way they would find water in the land. The Pythian priestess, they say, commanded him to kill the man who should first meet him on his return to Haliartos. On his arrival he was met by his son Lophis, and at once smote the youth with his sword. Still living, the boy ran about, and where the blood ran water rose up from the earth. Wherefore the river is called Lophis.
{9.33.5} Alalkomenai is a small village, and it lies at the very foot of a mountain of no great height. Its name, some say, is derived from Alalcomeneus, an aboriginal, by whom Athena was brought up; others declare that Alalcomenia was one of the daughters of Ogygus. At some distance from the village on the level ground has been made a temple of Athena with an ancient image of ivory.
{9.33.6} Sulla’s treatment of the Athenians was savage and foreign to the Roman character, but quite consistent with his treatment of Thebes and Orkhomenos. But in Alalkomenai he added yet another to his crimes by stealing the image of Athena itself. After these mad outrages against the Greek cities and the gods of the Greeks he was attacked by the most foul of diseases. He broke out into lice, and what was formerly accounted his good fortune came to such an end. The sanctuary at Alalkomenai, deprived of the goddess, was hereafter neglected.
{9.33.7} In my time yet another incident added to the ruin of the temple. A large and strong ivy tree grew over it, loosening the stones from their joints and tearing them apart. Here too there flows a river, a small torrent. They call it Triton, because the story is that beside a river Triton Athena was reared, the implication being that the Triton was this and not the river in Libya, which flows into the Libyan sea out of lake Tritonis.
{9.34.1} Before reaching Koroneia from Alalkomenai we come to the sanctuary of Itonian Athena. It is named after Itonios the son of Amphiktyon, and here the Boeotians gather for their general assembly. In the temple are bronze images of Itonian Athena and Zeus; the artist was Agorakritos, pupil and loved one of Pheidias. In my time they dedicated too images of the Graces.
{9.34.2} The following tale, too, is told. Iodama, who served the goddess as priestess, entered the precinct by night, where there appeared to her Athena, upon whose tunic was worked the head of Medusa the Gorgon. When Iodama saw it, she was turned to stone. For this reason a woman puts fire every day on the altar of Iodama, and as she does this she thrice repeats in the Boeotian dialect that Iodama is living and asking for fire.
{9.34.3} On the marketplace of Coroneia I found two remarkable things, an altar of Hermes Epimelios (Keeper of flocks) and an altar of the winds. A little lower down is a sanctuary of Hērā with an ancient image, the work of Pythodoros of Thebes; in her hand she carries Sirens. For the story goes that the daughters of Akhelōos were persuaded by Hērā to compete with the Muses in singing. The Muses won, plucked out the Sirens’ feathers (so they say) and made garlands for themselves out of them.
{9.34.4} Some forty stadium-lengths from Coroneia is Mount Libethrios, on which are images of the Muses and Nymphs surnamed Libethrian. There are springs too, one named Libethrias and the other Rock (Petra), which are shaped like a woman’s breasts, and from them rises water like milk.
{9.34.5} The distance from Coroneia to Mount Laphystios and the precinct of Laphystian Zeus is about twenty stadium-lengths. The image is of stone. They say that when Athamas was about to sacrifice here Phrixos and Helle, a ram with his fleece of gold was sent by Zeus to the children, and that on the back of this ram they made good their escape. Higher up is a Hēraklēs surnamed Kharops (With bright eyes). Here, say the Boeotians, Hēraklēs ascended with the hound of Hades. On the way down from Mount Laphystios to the sanctuary of Itonian Athena is the river Phalarus, which runs into the Cephisian lake.
{9.34.6} Over against Mount Laphystios is Orkhomenos, as famous a city as any in Greece. Once raised to the greatest heights of prosperity, it too was fated to fall almost as low as Mycenae and Delos. Its ancient history is confined to the following traditions. They say that Andreus, son of the river Peneios, was the first to settle here, and after him the land Andreis was named.
{9.34.7} When Athamas joined him, he assigned to him, of his own land, the territory round Mount Laphystios with what are now the territories of Coroneia and Haliartos. Athamas, thinking that none of his male children were left, adopted Haliartos and Koronos, the sons of Thersandros, the son of Sisyphus, his brother. For he himself had put to death Learkhos and Melikertes; Leucon had fallen sick and died; while as for Phrixos, Athamas did not know if he survived or had descendants surviving.
{9.34.8} When later Phrixos himself, according to some, or Presbon, according to others, returned from Kolkhis—Presbon was a son of Phrixos by the daughter of Aietes—the sons of Thersandros agreed that the house of Athamas belonged to Athamas and his descendants, while they themselves became founders of Haliartos and Coroneia, for Athamas gave them a part of his land.
{9.34.9} Even before this Andreus took to wife from Athamas Euippe, daughter of Leucon, and had a son, Eteokles. According to the report of the citizens, Eteokles was the son of the river Kephisos, wherefore some of the poets in their verses called him Cephisiades.
{9.34.10} When this Eteokles became king, he let the country be still called after Andreus, but he established two tribes, naming one Cephisias, and the other after himself. When Almus, the son of Sisyphus, came to him, he gave him to dwell in a little of the land, and a village was then called Almones after this Almus. Afterwards the name of the village that was generally adopted was Olmones.
{9.35.1} The Boeotians say that Eteokles was the first man to sacrifice to the Graces. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Graces, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them. The Lacedaemonians, however, say that the Graces are two, and that they were instituted by Lacedaemon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names of Cleta and Phaenna.
{9.35.2} These are appropriate names for Graces, as are those given by the Athenians, who from of old have worshipped two Graces, Auxo and Hegemone. Carpo is the name, not of a Grace, but of a Season. The other Season is worshipped together with Pandrosus by the Athenians, who call the goddess Thallo.
{9.35.3} It was from Eteokles of Orkhomenos that we learned the custom of praying to three Graces. And Angelion and Tectaus, sons of Dionysus, [575] who made the image of Apollo for the Delians, set three Graces in his hand. Again, in Athens, before the entrance to the Acropolis, the Graces are three in number; by their side are celebrated mysteries which must not be divulged to the many.
{9.35.4} Pamphos was the first we know of to sing about the Graces, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names. Homer [576] (he too refers to the Graces) makes one the wife of Hephaistos, giving her the name of Grace. He also says that Sleep was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Sleep there is this verse:
“Verily that he would give me one of the younger Graces.”
Iliad 14.270–276
Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Graces as well.
{9.35.5} Hesiod in the Theogony [577] (though the authorship is doubtful, this poem is good evidence) says that the Graces are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia. The poem of Onomacritus agrees with this account. Antimakhos, while giving neither the number of the Graces nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aigle and the Sun. The elegiac poet Hermesianax disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Persuasion also one of the Graces.
{9.35.6} Who it was who first represented the Graces naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped. At Smyrna, for instance, in the sanctuary of the Nemeses, above the images have been dedicated Graces of gold, the work of Bupalus; and in the Music Hall in the same city there is a portrait of a Grace, painted by Apelles. At Pergamon likewise, in the chamber of Attalus, are other images of Graces made by Bupalus;
{9.35.7} and near what is called the Pythium there is a portrait of Graces, painted by Pythagoras the Parian. Socrates too, son of Sophroniskos, made statues [agalmata] of Graces [Kharites] for the Athenians, which are situated in front of the entrance to the Acropolis. All these are alike draped; but later artists, I do not know the reason, have changed the way of portraying them. Certainly today sculptors and painters represent Graces naked.
{9.36.1} When Eteokles died the kingdom devolved on the lineage of Almus. Almus himself had daughters born to him, Khrysogeneia and Khryse. Tradition has it that Khryse, daughter of Almus, had by Ares a son Phlegyas, who, as Eteokles died childless, got the throne. To the whole country they gave the name of Phlegyantis instead of Andreis,
{9.36.2} and besides the originally founded city of Andreis, Phlegyas founded another, which he named after himself, collecting into it the best soldiers in Greece. In course of time the foolhardy and reckless Phlegyans seceded from Orkhomenos and began to ravage their neighbors. At last they even marched against the sanctuary at Delphi to raid it, when Philammon with picked men of Argos went out to meet them, but he and his picked men perished in the engagement.
{9.36.3} That the Phlegyans took more pleasure in war than any other Greeks is also shown by the lines of the Iliad dealing with Ares and his son Panic:
“They twain were arming themselves for war to go to the Ephyrians,
Or to the great-hearted Phlegyans.”
Or to the great-hearted Phlegyans.”
Iliad 13.301–302
By Ephyrians in this passage Homer means, I think, those in Thesprotis. The Phlegyan people were completely overthrown by the god with continual thunderbolts and violent earthquakes. The remnant were wasted by an epidemic of plague, but a few of them escaped to Phokis.
{9.36.4} Phlegyas had no sons, and Khryses succeeded to the throne, a son of Poseidon by Khrysogeneia, daughter of Almus. This Khryses had a son called Minyas, and after him the people over whom he ruled are still called Minyans. The revenues that Minyas received were so great that he surpassed his predecessors in wealth, and he was the first man we know of to build a treasury to receive his riches.
{9.36.5} The Greeks appear apt to regard with greater wonder foreign sights than sights at home. For whereas distinguished historians have described the Egyptian pyramids with the minutest detail, they have not made even the briefest mention of the treasury of Minyas and the walls of Tiryns, though these are no less marvelous.
{9.36.6} Minyas had a son Orkhomenos, in whose reign the city was called Orkhomenos and the men Orkhomenians. Nevertheless, they continued to bear the additional name of Minyans, to distinguish them from the Orkhomenians in Arcadia. To this Orkhomenos during his kingship came Hyettos from Argos, who was an exile because of the slaying of Molurus, son of Arisbas, whom he caught with his wedded wife and killed. Orkhomenos assigned to him such of the land as is now around the village Hyettos, and the land adjacent to this.
{9.36.7} Hyettos is also mentioned by the poet who composed the poem called by the Greeks the Great Ehoiai:
“And Hyettos killed Molurus, the dear son of Arisbas,
In the halls, because of his wife’s bed;
Leaving his home he fled from horse-breeding Argos,
And reached Minyan Orkhomenos, and the hero
Welcomed him, and bestowed on him a portion of his possessions, as was fitting.”
In the halls, because of his wife’s bed;
Leaving his home he fled from horse-breeding Argos,
And reached Minyan Orkhomenos, and the hero
Welcomed him, and bestowed on him a portion of his possessions, as was fitting.”
The Great Ehoiai, unknown location.
{9.36.8} This Hyettos was the first man known to have exacted punishment from an adulterer. Later on, when Dracon was legislator for the Athenians, it was enacted in the laws which he drew up for the Athenians that the punishment of an adulterer should be one of the acts condoned by the State. So high did the reputation of the Minyans stand, that even Neleus, son of Kretheus, who was king of Pylos, took a wife from Orkhomenos, namely Chloris, daughter of Amphion, son of Iasios.
{9.37.1} But it was destined for the lineage of Almus too to come to an end. For Orkhomenos left no child, and so the kingdom devolved on Klymenos, son of Presbon, son of Phrixos. Sons were born to Klymenos; the eldest was Erginos, the next after him were Stratios, Arrhon and Pyleus, while the youngest was Azeus. Klymenos was murdered at the feast of Onchestian Poseidon by men of Thebes, whom a trivial cause had thrown into a violent passion. So Erginos, the eldest of the sons of Glymenus, received the kingdom.
{9.37.2} Immediately he and his brothers gathered a force and attacked Thebes. Victorious in the battle, they then came to an agreement that the Thebans should pay tribute each year for the murder of Klymenos. But when Hēraklēs had grown to manhood in Thebes, the Thebans were thus relieved of the tribute, and the Minyans suffered a grievous defeat in the war.
{9.37.3} Erginos, as his citizens had been utterly crushed, made peace with Hēraklēs, but in his efforts to restore his former wealth and prosperity neglected everything else, so that unconsciously he came to a wifeless and childless old age. But when he had gathered riches, the desire seized him to have children.
{9.37.4} So going to Delphi he inquired of the oracle about children, and the Pythian priestess gave this reply:
“Erginos, son of Klymenos Presboniades,
Late thou camest seeking offspring, but even now
To the old plough tree put a new tip.”
Late thou camest seeking offspring, but even now
To the old plough tree put a new tip.”
Obeying the oracle he took to himself a young wife, and had children, Trophonios and Agamedes.
{9.37.5} Trophonios is said to have been a son of Apollo, not of Erginos. This I am inclined to believe, as does everyone who has gone to Trophonios to inquire of his oracle. They say that these, when they grew up, proved clever at building sanctuaries for the gods and palaces for men. For they built the temple for Apollo at Delphi and the treasury for Hyrieus. One of the stones in it they made so that they could take it away from the outside. So they kept on removing something from the store. Hyrieus was dumbfounded when he saw keys and seals untampered with, while the treasure kept on getting less.
{9.37.6} So he set over the vessels, in which were his silver and gold, snares or other contrivance, to arrest any who should enter and lay hands on the treasure. Agamedes entered and was kept fast in the trap, but Trophonios cut off his head, lest when day came his brother should be tortured, and he himself be informed of as being concerned in the crime.
{9.37.7} The earth opened and swallowed up Trophonios at the point in the grove at Lebadeia where is what is called the pit of Agamedes, with a slab beside it. The kingdom of Orkhomenos was taken by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, said to be sons of Ares, while their mother was Astyoche, daughter of Aktor, son of Azeus, son of Klymenos. Under the leadership of these the Minyans marched against Troy.
{9.37.8} Orkhomenians also joined with the sons of Kodros in the expedition to Ionia. When expelled from their city by the Thebans they were restored again to Orkhomenos by Philip the son of Amyntas. But Providence was to drag them ever lower and lower into decay.
{9.38.1} At Orkhomenos is a sanctuary of Dionysus, but the oldest is one of the Graces. They worship the stones most, and say that they fell for Eteokles out of the sky [ouranos]. The artistic images were dedicated in my time, and they too are of stone.
{9.38.2} They have also a fountain worth seeing, and go down to it to fetch water. The treasury of Minyas, a wonder second to none either in Greece itself or elsewhere, has been built in the following way. It is made of stone; its shape is round, rising to a rather blunt apex; they say that the highest stone is the keystone of the whole building.
{9.38.3} There are tombs of Minyas and Hesiod. They say that they thus recovered the bones of Hesiod. A pestilence fell on men and beasts, so that they sent envoys to the god. To these, it is said, the Pythian priestess made answer that to bring the bones of Hesiod from the land of Naupaktos to the land of Orkhomenos was their one and only remedy. Whereupon the envoys asked a further question, where in the land of Naupaktos they would find the bones; to which the Pythian priestess answered again that a crow would indicate to them the place.
{9.38.4} So when the envoys landed, they saw, it is said, a rock not far from the road, with the bird upon the rock; the bones of Hesiod they found in a cleft of the rock. Elegiac verses are inscribed on the tomb:
“Ascra rich in wheat was his native land, but when Hesiod died,
The land of the horse-striking Minyans holds his bones,
Whose fame will rise very high in Greece
When men are judged by the touchstone of artistry.”
The land of the horse-striking Minyans holds his bones,
Whose fame will rise very high in Greece
When men are judged by the touchstone of artistry.”
{9.38.5} About Aktaion the Orkhomenians had the following story. A ghost, they say, carrying a rock [578] was ravaging the land. When they inquired at Delphi, the god ordered them to discover the remains of Aktaion and bury them in the earth. He also ordered them to make a bronze likeness of the ghost and fasten it to a rock with iron. I have myself seen this image thus fastened. They also sacrifice every year to Aktaion as to a hero.
{9.38.6} Seven stadium-lengths from Orkhomenos is a temple of Hēraklēs with a small image. Here is the source of the river Melas (black), one of the streams running into the Cephisian Lake. The lake at all times covers the greater part of the Orkhomenian territory, but in the winter season, after the south-west wind has generally prevailed, the water spreads over a yet greater extent of the territory.
{9.38.7} The Thebans declare that the river Kephisos was diverted into the Orkhomenian plain by Hēraklēs, and that for a time it passed under the mountain and entered the sea, until Hēraklēs blocked up the chasm through the mountain. Now Homer too knows that the Cephisian Lake was a lake of itself, and not made by Hēraklēs. Wherefore Homer says:
“Sloping towards the Cephisian Lake.”
Iliad 5.709
{9.38.8} It is not likely either that the Orkhomenians would not have discovered the chasm, and, breaking down the work put up by Hēraklēs, have given back to the Gephisus its ancient passage, since right down to the Trojan war they were a wealthy people. There is evidence in my favor in the passage of Homer where Achilles replies to the envoys from Agamemnon:
“Not even the wealth that comes to Orkhomenos,”
Iliad 9.381
a line that clearly shows that even then the revenues coming to Orkhomenos were large.
{9.38.9} They say that Aspledon was left by the inhabitants because of a shortage of water. They say also that the city got its name from Aspledon, who was a son of the nymph Mideia and Poseidon. Their view is confirmed by some verses composed by Chersias, a man of Orkhomenos:
“To Poseidon and glorious Mideia
Was born Aspledon in the spacious city.”
Was born Aspledon in the spacious city.”
Chersias of Orkhomenos, unknown location
{9.38.10} The poem of Chersias was no longer extant in my day, but these verses are quoted by Kallippos in the same history of Orkhomenos. The Orkhomenians have a tradition that this Chersias wrote also the inscription on the tomb of Hesiod.
{9.39.1} On the side towards the mountains the boundary of Orkhomenos is Phokis, but on the plain it is Lebadeia. Originally this city stood on high ground, and was called Mideia after the mother of Aspledon. But when Lebados came to it from Athens, the inhabitants went down to the low ground, and the city was named Lebadeia after him. Who was the father of Lebados, and why he came, they do not know; they know only that the wife of Lebados was Laonikē.
{9.39.2} The city is no less adorned than the most prosperous of the Greek cities, and it is separated from the grove of Trophonios by the river Hercyna. They say that here Hercyna, when playing with the Maiden, the daughter of Demeter, held a goose which against her will she let loose. The bird flew into a hollow cave and hid under a stone; the Maiden entered and took the bird as it lay under the stone. The water flowed, they say, from the place where the Maiden took up the stone, and hence the river received the name of Hercyna.
{9.39.3} On the bank of the river there is a temple of Hercyna, in which is a maiden holding a goose in her arms. In the cave are the sources of the river and images standing, and serpents are coiled around their scepters. One might conjecture the images to be of Asklepios and Hygieia, but they might be Trophonios and Hercyna, because they think that serpents are just as much sacred to Trophonios as to Asklepios. By the side of the river is the tomb of Arkesilaos, whose bones, they say, were carried back from Troy by Leitos.
{9.39.4} The most famous things in the grove are a temple and image of Trophonios; the image, made by Praxiteles, is after the likeness of Asklepios. There is also a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Europa, and a Zeus Rain-god in the open. If you go up to the oracle, and thence onwards up the mountain, you come to what is called the Maiden’s Hunting and a temple of King Zeus. This temple they have left half finished, either because of its size or because of the long succession of the wars. In a second temple are images of Kronos, Hērā and Zeus. There is also a sanctuary of Apollo.
{9.39.5} What happens at the oracle is as follows. When a man has made up his mind to descend to the oracle of Trophonios, he first lodges in a certain building for an appointed number of days, this being sacred to the good Spirit and to good Fortune. While he lodges there, among other regulations for purity he abstains from hot baths, bathing only in the river Hercyna. Meat he has in plenty from the sacrifices, for he who descends sacrifices to Trophonios himself and to the children of Trophonios, to Apollo also and Kronos, to Zeus surnamed King, to Hērā Charioteer, and to Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonios.
{9.39.6} At each sacrifice a diviner is present, who looks into the entrails of the victim, and after an inspection prophesies to the person descending whether Trophonios will give him a kind and gracious reception. The entrails of the other victims do not declare the mind of Trophonios so much as a ram, which each inquirer sacrifices over a pit on the night he descends, calling upon Agamedes. Even though the previous sacrifices have appeared propitious, no account is taken of them unless the entrails of this ram indicate the same; but if they agree, then the inquirer descends in good hope. The procedure of the descent is this.
{9.39.7} First, during the night he is taken to the river Hercyna by two boys of the citizens about thirteen years old, named Hermai, who after taking him there anoint him with oil and wash him. It is these who wash the descender, and do all the other necessary services as his attendant boys. After this he is taken by the priests, not at once to the oracle, but to fountains of water very near to each other.
{9.39.8} Here he must drink water called the water of Forgetfulness, that he may forget all that he has been thinking of hitherto, and afterwards he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, which causes him to remember what he sees after his descent. After looking at the image which they say was made by Daidalos (it is not shown by the priests save to such as are going to visit Trophonios), having seen it, worshipped it and prayed, he proceeds to the oracle, dressed in a linen tunic, with ribbons girding it, and wearing the boots of the country.
{9.39.9} The oracle is on the mountain, beyond the grove. Round it is a circular basement of white marble, the circumference of which is about that of the smallest threshing floor, while its height is just short of two cubits. On the basement stand spikes, which, like the cross-bars holding them together, are of bronze, while through them has been made a double door. Within the enclosure is a chasm in the earth, not natural, but artificially constructed after the most accurate masonry.
{9.39.10} The shape of this structure is like that of a bread-oven. Its breadth across the middle one might conjecture to be about four cubits, and its depth also could not be estimated to extend to more than eight cubits. They have made no way of descent to the bottom, but when a man comes to Trophonios, they bring him a narrow, light ladder. After going down he finds a hole between the floor and the structure. Its breadth appeared to be two spans, and its height one span.
{9.39.11} The descender lies with his back on the ground, holding barley-cakes kneaded with honey, thrusts his feet into the hole and himself follows, trying hard to get his knees into the hole. After his knees the rest of his body is at once swiftly drawn in, just as the largest and most rapid river will catch a man in its eddy and carry him under. After this those who have entered the shrine learn the future, not in one and the same way in all cases, but by sight sometimes and at other times by hearing. The return upwards is by the same mouth, the feet darting out first.
{9.39.12} They say that no one who has made the descent has been killed, save only one of the bodyguard of Demetrios. But they declare that he performed none of the usual rites in the sanctuary, and that he descended, not to consult the god but in the hope of stealing gold and silver from the shrine. It is said that the body of this man appeared in a different place, and was not cast out at the sacred mouth. Other tales are told about the fellow, but I have given the one most worthy of consideration.
{9.39.13} After his ascent from Trophonios the inquirer is again taken in hand by the priests, who set him upon a chair called the chair of Memory, which stands not far from the shrine, and they ask of him, when seated there, all he has seen or learned. After gaining this information they then entrust him to his relatives. These lift him, paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings, and carry him to the building where he lodged before with Good Fortune and the Good Spirit. Afterwards, however, he will recover all his faculties, and the power to laugh will return to him.
{9.39.14} What I write is not hearsay; I have myself inquired of Trophonios and seen other inquirers. Those who have descended into the shrine of Trophonios are obliged to dedicate a tablet on which is written all that each has heard or seen. The shield also of Aristomenes is still preserved here. Its story I have already given in a former part of my work. [579]
{9.40.1} This oracle was once unknown to the Boeotians, but they learned of it in the following way. As there had been no rain for a year and more, they sent to Delphi envoys from each city. These asked for a cure for the drought, and were bidden by the Pythian priestess to go to Trophonios at Lebadeia and to discover the remedy from him.
{9.40.2} Coming to Lebadeia they could not find the oracle. Thereupon Saon, one of the envoys from the city Acraiphnion and the oldest of all the envoys, saw a swarm of bees. It occurred to him to follow himself wheresoever the bees turned. At once he saw the bees flying into the ground here, and he went with them into the oracle. It is said that Trophonios taught this Saon the customary ritual, and all the observances kept at the oracle.
{9.40.3} Of the works of Daidalos there are these two in Boeotia, a Hēraklēs in Thebes and the Trophonios at Lebadeia. There are also two wooden images in Crete, a Britomartis at Olus and an Athena at Knossos, at which latter place is also Ariadne’s Dance, mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, [580] carved in relief on white marble. At Delos, too, there is a small wooden image of Aphrodite, its right hand defaced by time, and with a square base instead of feet.
{9.40.4} I am of opinion that Ariadne got this image from Daidalos, and when she followed Theseus, took it with her from home. Bereft of Ariadne, say the Delians, Theseus dedicated the wooden image of the goddess to the Delian Apollo, lest by taking it home he should be dragged into remembering Ariadne, and so find the grief for his love ever renewed. I know of no other works of Daidalos still in existence. For the images dedicated by the Argives in the Hēraion and those brought from Omphace to Gela in Sicily have disappeared in course of time.
{9.40.5} Next to Lebadeia comes Khaironeia. Its name of old was Arne, said to have been a daughter of Aiolos, who gave her name also to a city in Thessaly. The present name of Khaironeia, they say, is derived from Khairon, reputed to be a son of Apollo by Thero, a daughter of Phylas. This is confirmed also by the writer of the epic poem, the Great Ehoiai:
{9.40.6} “Phylas wedded a daughter of famous Iolais,
Leipephilene, like in form to the Olympian goddesses;
She bore him in the halls a son Hippotes,
And lovely Thero, like to the moonbeams.
Thero, falling into the embrace of Apollo,
Bore mighty Khairon, tamer of horses.”
Leipephilene, like in form to the Olympian goddesses;
She bore him in the halls a son Hippotes,
And lovely Thero, like to the moonbeams.
Thero, falling into the embrace of Apollo,
Bore mighty Khairon, tamer of horses.”
The Great Ehoiai, unknown location.
Homer, I think, though he knew that Khaironeia and Lebadeia were already so called, yet uses their ancient names, just as he speaks of the river Aigyptos, not the Nile. [581]
{9.40.7} In the territory of Khaironeia are two trophies, which the Romans under Sulla set up to commemorate their victory over the army of Mithridates under Taxilos. But Philip, son of Amyntas, set up no trophy, neither here nor for any other success, whether won over Greeks or non-Greeks, as the Macedonians were not accustomed to raise trophies.
{9.40.8} The Macedonians say that Caranus, king of Macedonia, overcame in battle Cisseus, a chieftain in a bordering country. For his victory Caranus set up a trophy after the Argive fashion, but it is said to have been upset by a lion from Olympus, which then vanished.
{9.40.9} Caranus, they assert, realized that it was a mistaken policy to incur the undying hatred of the non-Greeks dwelling around, and so, they say, the rule was adopted that no king of Macedonia, neither Caranus himself nor any of his successors, should set up trophies, if they were ever to gain the goodwill of their neighbors. This story is confirmed by the fact that Alexander set up no trophies, neither for his victory over Dareios nor for those he won in India.
{9.40.10} As you approach the city you see a common grave of the Thebans who were killed in the struggle against Philip. It has no inscription, but is surmounted by a lion, probably a reference to the spirit of the men. That there is no inscription is, in my opinion, because their courage was not favored by appropriate good fortune.
{9.40.11} Of the gods, the people of Khaironeia honor most the scepter which Homer says [582] Hephaistos made for Zeus, Hermes received from Zeus and gave to Pelops, Pelops left to Atreus, Atreus to Thyestes, and Agamemnon had from Thyestes. This scepter, then, they worship, calling it Spear. That there is something peculiarly divine about this scepter is most clearly shown by the fame it brings to the people of Khairōneia.
{9.40.12} They say that it was discovered on the border of their own country and of Panopeus in Phokis, that with it the people of Phokis discovered gold, and that they were glad themselves to get the scepter instead of the gold. I am of opinion that it was brought to Phokis by Agamemnon’s daughter Electra. It has no public temple made for it, but its priest keeps the scepter for one year in a house. Sacrifices are offered to it every day, and by its side stands a table full of meats and cakes of all sorts.
{9.41.1} Poets have sung, and the tradition of men has followed them, that Hephaistos made many works of art, but none is authentic except only the scepter of Agamemnon. However, the Lycians in Patara show a bronze bowl in their temple of Apollo, saying that Telephus dedicated it and Hephaistos made it, apparently in ignorance of the fact that the first to melt bronze were the Samians Theodoros and Rhoecus.
{9.41.2} The Achaeans of Patrai assert indeed that Hephaistos made the chest brought by Eurypylus from Troy, but they do not actually exhibit it to view. In Cyprus is a city Amathus, in which is an old sanctuary of Adonis and Aphrodite. Here they say is dedicated a necklace given originally to Harmonia, but called the necklace of Eriphyle, because it was the bribe she took to betray her husband. It was dedicated at Delphi by the sons of Phegeus (how they got it I have already related in my history of Arcadia), [583] but it was carried off by the tyrants of Phokis.
{9.41.3} However, I do not think that it is in the sanctuary of Adonis at Amathus. For the necklace at Amathus is composed of green stones held together by gold, but the necklace given to Eriphyle was made entirely of gold, according to Homer, who says in the Odyssey:
“Who received precious gold, the price of her own husband.”
Odyssey 11.327
Not that Homer was unaware of necklaces made of various materials.
{9.41.4} For example, in the speech of Eumaios to Odysseus before Telemachus reaches the court from Pylos, he says:
“There came a cunning man to the home of my father,
With a necklace of gold strung with amber in between.”
With a necklace of gold strung with amber in between.”
Odyssey 15.459
{9.41.5} Again, in the passage called the gifts of Penelope, for he represents the wooers, Eurymakhos among them, offering her gifts, he says:
“And Eurymakhos straightway brought a necklace of varied materials,
Of gold strung with pieces of amber, like the sun.”
Of gold strung with pieces of amber, like the sun.”
Odyssey 18.295
But Homer does not say that the necklace given to Eriphyle was of gold varied with stones. So probably the scepter is the only work of Hephaistos.
{9.41.6} There is beyond the city a crag called Petrachus. Here they hold that Kronos was deceived, and received from Rhea a stone instead of Zeus, and there is a small image of Zeus on the summit of the mountain.
{9.41.7} Here in Khaironeia they distill unguents from flowers, namely, the lily, the rose, the narcissus and the iris. These prove to be cures for the pains of men. The unguent from the rose, if it be smeared on wooden images, prevents their decaying. The iris grows in marshes, is in size as large as a lily, but is not white in color, and smells less sweet.
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Scroll X. Phokis, Ozolian Lokris
{10.1.1} Evidently, the part of Phokis that surrounds Tithorea and Delphi was named that way, from the earliest times onweard, after a Corinthian man, Phokos son of Ornytion. Not many years afterwards, the name was given to the entire region of what is today called Phokis. It happened when people from Aegina sailed over to this region in their ships ships, accompanied by Phokos, the son of Aiakos.
{10.1.2} So, the territory facing the Peloponnesus and pointing toward Boeotia is occupied by the Phocians [Phōkeîs], that is, the people of Phokis.This territory stretches to the seaand makes contact with it on one side at Cirrha, the port of Delphi, and on the other side at the city of Antikyra. In the direction of the Lamian Gulf, there is a population that prevents the people of Phokis from being coastal dwellers: this population, situated between Phokis and the sea, are the people who are named Lokroi Hypoknēmidioi [= people of Lokris who dwell in the foothills]. By these people is the boundary of Phokis defined in this direction, by the people of Skarpheia on the other side of Elateia, and by Opous and its port Kūnos beyond Hyampolis and Abai.
{10.1.3} The most renowned deeds of the people of Phokis were achieved by them all in unison [en koinōi]. They took part in the Trojan war, and fought against the Thessalians before the Persian invasion of Greece, when they accomplished [epi-deiknunai] deeds destined for remembrance [mnēmē].
PHOKIS, HISTORY
Expecting that the Thessalians would invade their land at Hyampolis, they buried there earthen water-jars [hudriai], covered these with earth, and so waited for the Thessalian cavalry. Ignorant of the stratagem of the men of Phokis, the Thessalians without knowing it drove their horses on to the water-jars [hudriai], where stumbling into them the horses were lamed and threw or killed their riders.
{10.1.4} The Thessalians, more enraged than ever against the people of Phokis, gathered recruits from all their cities and marched out against them. Whereupon the people of Phokis, rather terrified by the army of the Thessalians, especially by the number of their cavalry and by the disciplined training of both the horses and their riders, dispatched a mission to Delphi, asking the god how they might escape the danger that threatened them. And the oracular utterance [manteuma] that came back to them [from the Oracle] was this:
I will set mortal and immortal against each other in battle,
And to both will I give victory, but more to the mortal.
And to both will I give victory, but more to the mortal.
{10.1.5} On receiving this oracle, the people of Phokis sent three hundred picked men with Gelon in command to make an attack on the enemy. The night was just falling, and the orders given were to reconnoiter without being observed, to return to the main body by the least known route, and to remain strictly on the defensive. These picked men along with their leader, Gelon, were trampled by the horses and butchered by their enemies. So they all perished at the hands of the Thessalians.
{10.1.6} Their disaster created such panic among the people of Phokis in the camp that they actually gathered together in one spot their women, children, movable property, and also their clothes, gold, silver, and images of the gods, and making a vast pyre, they left in charge a force of thirty men.
{10.1.7} They were under orders that, if the men of Phokis should happen to be defeated in the battle, they they would first put to death the women and the children, then to put them on the pyre like animal-victims-of-sacrifice [hiereia] along with the valuables, and finally to set the pyre on fire and perish themselves, either by each other’s hands or by charging the cavalry of the Thessalians. That is why the Greeks refer to any kind of plans [bouleumata] that are unfeeling-of-pain [an-algē-ta] as ‘the despair [apo-noia] of the people of Phokis.’ At this point the men of Phokis set out to attack the Thessalians.
{10.1.8} The commander of their cavalry was Daiphantes of Hyampolis, of their infantry, Rhoios of Ambrossos. But the position of supreme commandwas held by Tellias, a seer [mantis] of Elis, in whom the people of Phokis invested all their hopes [elpides] for salvation [sōtēriā].
{10.1.9} When the opposing forces reached the point of hand-to-hand combat, the men of Phokis had before their eyes what they had resolved to do to their women and children, and seeing that their own salvation [sōtēriā] was tottering in the balance, they dared the most desperate deeds, and, with the good will [tò eu-menes] of the gods [theoi], they achieved the most famous victory of that era.
{10.1.10} Then did all Greece understand the oracular-pronouncement [logion] given to the people of Phokis by Apollo. For the watchword [sun-thēma] given by the Thessalian generals in each situation of the battle was ‘Athena Itōniā’, and by the generals of the people of Phokis, the watchword was ‘Phokos’, after whom the people of Phokis were named. Because of this engagement, the people of Phokis sent as offerings [anathēmata] to Delphi statues of Apollo, of Tellias the seer, and of all their other generals in the battle, together with the heroes [hērōes] of the local population [epikhōrioi]. The images [eikones] were the work of the Argive, Aristomedon.
{10.1.11} After this, the men of Phokis came up with a stratagem quite as clever as their former ones. When the two armies were encamped opposite each other at the pass into Phokis, five hundred picked men of Phokis, waiting until the moon was full, attacked the Thessalians on that night, first smearing themselves with gypsum [gupsos] and, in addition to the gypsum [gupsos], putting on white armor [leuka]. It is said that there then occurred a wholesale slaughter of the Thessalians, who thought this apparition of the night to be too superhuman [theion] to be an attack of their enemies. It was Tellias of Elis who devised this stratagem as well for the men of Phokis to use against the Thessalians.
{10.2.1} When the Persian forces crossed into Europe [Eurōpē], it is said that the men of Phokis were forced to join the Great Kingbut defected from the Persian side and wento over to the Greek side [tò Hellēnikon] on the occasion of the great deed-of-victory [ergon] at [the battle at] Plataea. Subsequently, it happened that a fine was imposed on them by the Amphiktyones. I cannot find out the truth [tò alēthes] of the story [logos], whether the fine was imposed because of some misdeeds [adikēmata] committed the people of Phokis, or whether the Thessalians imposed the fine on the people of Phokis because of their ancient hatred [mīsos].
{10.2.2} Since they were disheartened at the greatness of the fine, Philomēlos, son of Theotīmos, than whom not one of the men of Phokis stood higher in rank, his country being Ledon, a city of Phokis, took charge and tried to persuade them to seize the sanctuary at Delphi, pointing out that the amount of the sum to be paid was beyond their resources. He stated, among other plausible arguments, that Athens and Sparta had always been favorable to them, and that if Thebes or any other state made war against them, they would have the better owing to their courage and resources.
{10.2.3} When Philomēlos put all this before them, the men of Phokis were not unwilling, either because their judgment was blinded by the god [theos], or because their nature was to put gain before reverence-for-what-is-sacred [eu-sebeia]. The seizure of Delphi by the men of Phokis occurred when Hērakleidēs was president [prutanis] at Delphi and Agathokles was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the fourth year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, when Prōros of Cyrene was victorious in the foot-race. [584]
{10.2.4} When they [= the men of Phokis] had seized the sanctuary [hieron], the best mercenaries [xenika] in Greece right away gathered to join them, while the Thebans, who were already feeling hostile, declared open war against them. The war lasted ten successive years, and during this long time, victory [nīkân] often went to the men of Phokis and their mercenaries, but often the Thebans came-out-on-top [krateîn]. But then, in a battle thattook place at the city of Neōn, the men of Phokis were routed, and, as he was fleeing, Philomēlos threw himself down a high precipice, and so lost his life [psūkhē]. This was exactly the form of punishment [dikē] set by the Amphiktyones for those who plundered [the sanctuary of Delphi].
{10.2.5} After the death of Philomēlos, the men of Phokis gave the command to Onomarkhos, while Philip, son of Amyntas, made an alliance with the Thebans. In the battle that took place, Philipcame out on top [krateîn], and, when Onomarkhos fled to the coast, his own men killed him by throwing their javelins at him. They blamed their defeat on his lack of boldness and on his inexperience as a general.
{10.2.6} Such was the outcome [telos] that the superhuman force [daimōn] brought upon Onomarkhos, and his brother Phaülos was chosen as commander-in-chief. It is said that no sooner had this Phaülos attained rulership [arkhē] over the people of Phokis when he saw the following vision in a dream. Among the votive offerings [anathēmata] to Apollo was a representation [mīmēma] in bronze of a man’s body in an advanced stage of decay, with the flesh already fallen off, and nothing left but the bones. The Delphians said that it was an offering [anathēma] of Hippokrates the physician. Now the thought came to Phaülos that he resembled this offering [anathēmata]. Right away he was attacked by a wasting disease, which thus brought to fulfillment [epi-teleîn] the prophecy [manteiā] of the dream.
{10.2.7} On the death of Phaylus, the sovereignty of the people of Phokis devolved on Phalaikos, his son. Phalaikos, accused of appropriating to his own use the sacred treasures, was deposed, and crossing with a fleet to Crete, accompanied by those men from Phokis who sided with him and by a part of his mercenaries, he sat down to besiege Kydonia, which refused to accede to his demand for money, and perished along with the greater part of his army.
{10.3.1} In the tenth year after the seizure of the sanctuary, Philip put an end to the war, which was called both the War of Phokis and the Sacred War, in the year when Theophilus was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, which was the first of the hundred and eighth Olympiad at which Polykles of Cyrene was victorious in the foot-race. [585] The cities of Phokis were captured and razed to the ground. The tale of them was Lilaia, Hyampolis, Antikyra, Parapotamii, Panopeus, and Daulis. These cities were distinguished in days of old, especially because of the poetry of Homer. [586]
{10.3.2} The army of Xerxes, burning down certain of these, made them better known in Greece, namely Erochus, Kharadra, Amphicleia, Neon, Tithronium, and Drymaia. The rest of the cities of Phokis, except Elateia, were not famous in former times, I mean Trakhis-in-Phokis, Medeon-in-Phokis, Ekhedameia, Ambrossos, Ledon, Phlygonion, and Stiris. On the occasion to which I have referred, all the cities enumerated were razed to the ground and their people scattered in villages. The one exception to this treatment was Abai, whose citizens were free from impiety, and had no share in the seizure of the sanctuary or in the war.
{10.3.3} The people of Phokis were deprived of their share in the Delphic sanctuary and in the Greek assembly, and their votes were given by the Amphiktyones to the Macedonians. Subsequently, however, the cities of Phokis were rebuilt, and their inhabitants restored from the villages to their native cities, save such as were prevented from being rebuilt by their original weakness and by their want of funds at the period of restoration. It was the Athenians and Thebans who brought back the inhabitants before the disaster of Khaironeia befell the Greeks.
{10.3.4} The people of Phokis took part in the battle of Khaironeia, and afterwards fought at Lamia and Crannon against the Macedonians under Antipatros. No Greeks were keener defenders against the Gauls and the Celtic invaders than were the men of Phokis, who considered that they were helping the god of Delphi, and at the same time, I take it, that they were making amends for the old crimes they had committed.
PANOPEUS
{10.4.1} Such were the memorable exploits of the men of Phokis. From Khaironeia, it is twenty stadium-lengths to Panopeus, a city of the people of Phokis, if one can give the name of city to those who possess no government offices, no gymnasium, no theater, no marketplace, no water descending to a fountain, but live in bare shelters just like mountain cabins, right on a ravine. Nevertheless, they have boundaries with their neighbors and even send delegates to the assembly of Phokis. The name of the city is derived, they say, from the father of Epeios, and they maintain that they are not people of Phokis but were originally Phlegyans who fled to Phokis from the land of Orkhomenos.
{10.4.2} A survey of the ancient circuit of Panopeus led me to guess it to be about seven stadium-lengths. I was reminded of Homer’s verses about Tityos, [587] where he mentions the city of Panopeus with its beautiful dancing floors, and how in the fight over the body of Patroklos, he says that Schedios, son of Iphitos and king of the people of Phokis, who was killed by Hector, lived in Panopeus. [588] It seemed to me that the reason why the king lived here was fear of the Boeotians; at this point is the easiest pass from Boeotia into Phokis, so the king used Panopeus as a fortified post.
{10.4.3} The former passage, in which Homer speaks of the beautiful dancing floors of Panopeus, I could not understand until I was taught by the women whom the Athenians call Thyiads. The Thyiads are Attic women, who with the Delphian women go to Parnassus every other year and celebrate orgies in honor of Dionysus. It is the custom for these Thyiads to hold dances at places, including Panopeus, along the road from Athens. The epithet Homer applies to Panopeus is thought to refer to the dance of the Thyiads.
{10.4.4} At Panopeus, there is by the roadside a small building of unburned brick, in which is an image of Pentelic marble, said by some to be Asklepios, by others, Prometheus. The latter produce evidence of their contention. At the ravine, there lie two stones, each of which is big enough to fill a cart. They have the color of clay, not earthy clay, but such as would be found in a ravine or sandy torrent, and they smell very like the skin of a man. They say that these are remains of the clay out of which the whole lineage of humankind was fashioned by Prometheus.
{10.4.5} Here at the ravine is the tomb of Tityos. The circumference of the mound is just about one-third of a stadium-length, and they say that the verse in the Odyssey:
Lying on the ground, and he lay over nine roods,
Odyssey 11.577
refers, not to the size of Tityos, but to the place where he lay, the name of which was Nine Roods.
{10.4.6} Kleon of Magnesia-on-the-Hermos used to say that those men were incredulous of wonders who in the course of their own lives had not met yet greater marvels. He declared that Tityos and other monsters had been as tradition says they were. He happened, he said, to be at Cadiz, and he, with the rest of the crowd, sailed forth from the island in accordance with the command of Hēraklēs; [589] on their return to Cadiz, they found cast ashore a man of the sea, who was about five roods in size and burning away, because he was blasted with a thunderbolt sent by the god [theos].
DAULIS
{10.4.7} So said Kleon. About twenty-seven stadium-lengths distant from Panopeus is Daulis. The men there are few in number, but for size and strength, no men of Phokis are more renowned even to this day. They say that the name of the city is derived from Daulis, a nymph, the daughter of the Kephisos. Others say that the place, on which the city was built, was wooded, and that such shaggy places [dasea] were called daula by the ancients. For this reason, they say, Aeschylus called the beard of Glaukos of Anthedon hypene daulos.
{10.4.8} Here in Daulis the women are said to have served up to Tereus his own son, which act was the first pollution of the dining table among men. The hoopoe, into which they say Tereus was changed, is a bird a little larger than the quail, while the feathers on its head rise into the shape of a crest.
{10.4.9} It is noteworthy that in Phokis swallows neither hatch nor lay eggs; in fact, no swallow would even make a nest in the roof of a house. The people of Phokis say that even when Philomela was a bird, she had a terror of Tereus and so kept away from his country. At Daulis is a sanctuary of Athena with an ancient image. The wooden image, of an even earlier date, the Daulians say was brought from Athens by Procne.
NEAR DAULIS
{10.4.10} In the territory of Daulis is a place called Tronis. Here has been built a shrine of the founder hero. This founder is said by some to have been Xanthippos, a distinguished soldier; others say that he was Phokos, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus. At any rate, he is worshipped every day, and the people of Phokis bring victims and pour the blood into the tomb through a hole, but the flesh they are accustomed to consume on the spot.
{10.5.1} There is also an ascent through Daulis to the summit of Parnassus, a longer one than that from Delphi, though not so difficult. Turning back from Daulis to the straight road to Delphi and going forwards, you see on the left of the road a building called the Phocian Building of the People of Phokis, where assemble the delegates from each city of Phokis.
{10.5.2} The building is large, and within are pillars standing throughout its length. From the pillars rise steps to each wall, on which steps the delegates of Phokis take their seats. At the end are neither pillars nor steps, but images of Zeus, Athena, and Hērā. That of Zeus is on a throne; on his right stands Hērā, on his left, Athena.
THE CLEFT ROAD
{10.5.3} Going forward from here, you will come to a road called the Cleft Road, the very road on which Oedipus slew his father. Fate would have it that memorials of the sufferings of Oedipus should be left throughout the length and width of Greece. At his birth, they pieced his ankles with goads and exposed him on Mount Kithairon in Plataean territory. [590] Corinth and the land at the Isthmus were the scenes of his upbringing. Phokis and the Cleft Road received the pollution of his murdered father’s blood. Thebes is even more notorious for the marriage of Oedipus and for the sin of Eteokles.
{10.5.4} The Cleft Road and the rash deed committed on it by Oedipus were the beginning of his troubles, and the tombs of Laios and the servant who followed him are still just as they were in the very middle of the place where the three roads meet, and over them have been piled unhewn stones. According to the story, it was Damasistratos, king of Plataea, who found the bodies lying and buried them.
DELPHI, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.5.5} From here, the high road to Delphi becomes both steeper and more difficult for the walker. Many and different are the stories told about Delphi, and even more so about the oracle of Apollo. For they say that in the earliest times, the oracular seat belonged to Earth, who appointed as prophetess at it Daphnis, one of the nymphs of the mountain.
{10.5.6} There is extant among the Greeks an hexameter poem, the name of which is Eumolpia, and it is assigned to Musaeus, son of Antiophemus. In it, the poet states that the oracle belonged to Poseidon and Earth in common; that Earth gave her oracles herself, but Poseidon used Pyrcon as his mouthpiece in giving responses. The verses are these:
Forthwith the voice of the Earth goddess uttered a wise word,
And with her Pyrcon, servant of the renowned Earth-shaker.
And with her Pyrcon, servant of the renowned Earth-shaker.
[Musaeus,] Eumolpia
They say that afterwards Earth gave her share to Themis, who gave it to Apollo as a gift. It is said that he gave to Poseidon Kalaureia, that lies off Troizen, in exchange for his oracle.
{10.5.7} I have heard too that shepherds feeding their flocks came upon the oracle, were inspired by the vapor, and prophesied as the mouthpiece of Apollo. The most prevalent view, however, is that Phemonoe was the first prophetess of the god, and first sang in hexameter verse. Boeo, a native woman who composed a hymn for the Delphians, said that the oracle was established for the god by comers from the Hyperboreans, Olen, and others and that he was the first to prophesy and the first to chant the hexameter oracles.
{10.5.8} The verses of Boeo are:
Here in truth, a mindful oracle was built
By the sons of the Hyperboreans, Pagasus, and divine Agyieus.
By the sons of the Hyperboreans, Pagasus, and divine Agyieus.
Boeo, work unknown
After enumerating others also of the Hyperboreans, at the end of the hymn she names Olen:
And Olen, who became the first prophet of Phoebus,
And first fashioned a song of ancient verses.
And first fashioned a song of ancient verses.
Boeo, work unknown
Tradition, however, reports no other man as prophet but makes mention of prophetesses only.
{10.5.9} They say that the most ancient temple of Apollo was made of laurel, the branches of which were brought from the laurel in Tempe. This temple must have had the form of a hut. The Delphians say that the second temple was made by bees from bees’ wax and feathers and that it was sent to the Hyperboreans by Apollo.
{10.5.10} Another story is current, that the temple was set up by a Delphian, whose name was Pteras, and so the temple received its name from the builder. After this, Pteras, so they say, the city in Crete was named, with the addition of a letter, Apterei. The story that the temple was built of the fern [pteris] that grows on the mountains, by interweaving fresh stalks of it, I do not accept at all.
{10.5.11} It is no wonder that the third temple was made of bronze, seeing that Akrisios made a bedchamber of bronze for his daughter, the Lacedaemonians still possess a sanctuary of Athena of the Bronze House, and the Roman forum, a marvel for its size and style, possesses a roof of bronze. So it would not be unlikely that a temple of bronze was made for Apollo.
{10.5.12} The rest of the story I cannot believe, either that the temple was the work of Hephaistos, or what they say about the golden singers, referred to by Pindar in his verses about this bronze temple:
Above the pediment sang Golden Charmers.
Pindar, work unknown
These words, it seems to me, are but an imitation of Homer’s [591] account of the Sirens. Neither did I find the accounts agree of the way this temple disappeared. Some say that it fell into a chasm in the earth, others that it was melted by fire.
{10.5.13} The fourth temple was made by Trophonios and Agamedes; the tradition is that it was made of stone. It was burned down in the year when Erxikleides was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the first year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, when Diognetos of Kroton was victorious. [592] The modern temple was built for the god by the Amphiktyones from the sacred treasures, and the architect was one Spintharus of Corinth.
{10.6.1} They say that the oldest city was founded here by Parnassus, a son of Kleodora, a nymph. Like the other heroes, as they are called, he had two fathers; one, they say, was the god Poseidon, the human father being Kleopompos. After this, Parnassus was named, they say, both the mountain and also the Parnassian glen. Augury from flying birds was, it is said, a discovery of Parnassus.
{10.6.2} Now this city, so the story goes on, was flooded by the rains that fell in the time of Deukalion. Such of the inhabitants as were able to escape the storm were led by the howls of wolves to safety on the top of Parnassus, being led on their way by these beasts, and on this account, they called the city that they founded Lykoreia [wolf-mountain].
{10.6.3} Another and different story is current that Apollo had a son Lykoros by a nymph, Corycia, and that after Lykoros was named the city Lykoreia, and after the nymph, the Corycian cave. It is also said that Kelaino was daughter to Hyamos, son of Lykoros, and that Delphos, from whom comes the present name of the city, was a son of Kelaino, daughter of Hyamos, by Apollo.
{10.6.4} Others maintain that Kastalios, an aborigine, had a daughter Thyia, who was the first to be priestess of Dionysus and celebrated orgies in honor of the god. It is said that later on, men called after her Thyiads all women who rave in honor of Dionysus. At any rate, they hold that Delphus was a son of Apollo and Thyia. Others say that his mother was Melaina, daughter of Kephisos.
{10.6.5} Afterwards, the dwellers around called the city Pythō, as well as Delphi, just as Homer [593] so calls it in the list of the men of Phokis. Those who would find pedigrees for everything think that Pythes was a son of Delphus and that because he was king, the city was called Pythō. But the most widespread tradition has it that the victim of Apollo’s arrows rotted here and that this was the reason why the city received the name Pythō. For the men of those days used puthesthai for the verb ‘to rot’, and hence, Homer in his poem says that the island of the Sirens was full of bones, because the men who heard their singing rotted [eputhonto].
{10.6.6} The poets say that the victim of Apollo was a dragon posted by Earth to be a guard for the oracle. It is also said that he was a violent son of Krios, a man with authority around Euboea. He pillaged the sanctuary of the god, and he also pillaged the houses of rich men. But when he was making a second expedition, the Delphians besought Apollo to keep from them the danger that threatened them.
{10.6.7} Phemonoe, the prophetess of that day, gave them an oracle in hexameter verse:
At close quarters, a grievous arrow shall Apollo shoot
At the spoiler of Parnassus; and of his blood guilt
The Cretans shall purify his hands; but the renown shall never die.
At the spoiler of Parnassus; and of his blood guilt
The Cretans shall purify his hands; but the renown shall never die.
{10.7.1} It seems that from the beginning, the sanctuary at Delphi has been plotted against by a vast number of men. Attacks were made against it by this Euboean pirate, and years afterwards by the Phlegyan nation; furthermore, by Pyrrhos, son of Achilles, by a portion of the army of Xerxes, by the chieftains of Phokis, whose attacks on the wealth of the god were the longest and fiercest, and by the Gallic invaders. It was fated too that Delphi was to suffer from the universal irreverence of Nero, who robbed Apollo of five hundred bronze statues, some of gods, some of men.
PYTHIAN GAMES, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.7.2} The oldest contest and the one for which they first offered prizes was, according to traditional memory, the singing of a hymn to the god. The man who sang and won the prize was Khrysothemis of Crete, whose father Carmanor is said to have purified Apollo. After Khrysothemis, according to traditional memory, Philammon won with a song, and after him, his son Thamyris. But they say that Orpheus, a proud man and conceited about his mysteries, and Musaeus, who copied Orpheus in everything, refused to submit to the competition in musical skill.
{10.7.3} They say too that Eleuther won a Pythian victory for his loud and sweet voice, for the song that he sang was not of his own composition. The story is that Hesiod too was debarred from competing because he had not learned to accompany his own singing on the harp. Homer too came to Delphi to inquire about his needs, but even though he had learned to play the harp, he would have found the skill useless, owing to the loss of his eyesight.
PYTHIAN GAMES, HISTORY
{10.7.4} In the third year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, [594] at which Glaukias of Kroton was victorious, the Amphiktyones held contests for harping as from the beginning but added competitions for aulos playing and for singing to the aulos. The conquerors proclaimed were Melampos, a Cephallenian, for harping, and Ekhembrotos, an Arcadian, for singing to the aulos [‘double-reed’], with Sacadas of Argos for aulos playing. This same Sacadas won victories at the next two Pythian festivals.
{10.7.5} On that occasion, they also offered for the first time prizes for athletes, the competitions being the same as those at Olympia, except the four horse chariot, and the Delphians themselves added to the contests running races for boys, the long course, and the double course. At the second Pythian Festival, they no longer offered prizes for events and hereafter gave a garland for victory. On this occasion, they no longer included singing to the aulos [‘double-reed’], thinking that the music was ill-omened to listen to. For the tunes of the aulos [‘double-reed’] were most dismal, and the words sung to the tunes were lamentations.
{10.7.6} What I say is confirmed by the votive offering of Ekhembrotos, a bronze tripod dedicated to the Hēraklēs at Thebes. The tripod has as its inscription:
Ekhembrotos of Arcadia dedicated this pleasant gift to Hēraklēs
When he won a victory at the Games of the Amphiktyones,
Singing for the Greeks tunes and lamentations.
When he won a victory at the Games of the Amphiktyones,
Singing for the Greeks tunes and lamentations.
In this way the competition in singing to the aulos [‘double-reed’] was dropped. But they added a chariot race, and Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sikyon, was proclaimed victor in the chariot race.
{10.7.7} At the eighth Pythian Festival, they added a contest for harpists playing without singing; Agelaos of Tegea was garlanded. At the twenty-third Pythian Festival, they added a race in armor. For this, Timainetos of Phleious won the laurel, five Olympiads after Damaretos of Heraia was victorious. At the forty-eighth Pythian Festival, they established a race for two horse chariots, and the chariot that won belonged to Exekestides of Phokis. At the fifth Festival after this, they yoked foals to a chariot, and the chariot of Orphondas of Thebes came in first.
{10.7.8} The pankration for boys, a race for a chariot drawn by two foals, and a race for ridden foals, were many years afterwards introduced from Elis. The first was brought in at the sixty-first Pythian Festival, and Iolaidas of Thebes was victorious. At the next Festival but one, they held a race for a ridden foal, and at the sixty-ninth Festival, a race for a chariot drawn by two foals; [595] the victor proclaimed for the former was Lykormas of Larisa, for the latter, Ptolemy the Macedonian. For the kings of Egypt liked to be called Macedonians, as in fact they were.
The reason why a garland of laurel is the prize for a Pythian victory is, in my opinion, simply and solely because the prevailing tradition has it that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon.
AMPHITYONIC LEAGUE, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.8.1} Some are of opinion that the assembly of the Greeks that meets at Delphi was established by Amphiktyon, the son of Deukalion, and that the delegates were styled Amphiktyones after him. But Androtion, in his history of Attica, says that originally the councillors came to Delphi from the neighboring states, that the deputies were styled Amphictions (neighbors), but that as time went on, their modern name prevailed.
{10.8.2} They say that Amphiktyon himself summoned to the common assembly the following lineages [gen ē]of the Greek people:
Ionians, Dolopes, Thessalians, Ainianes, Magnesians, Malians, Phthiōtai, Dorians, people of Phokis, people of Lokris who border on Phokis, living at the base of Mount Knemis.
AMPHIKTYONIC LEAGUE, HISTORY
But when the men of Phokis seized the sanctuary and the war came to an end nine years afterwards, there came a change in the Amphiktyonic League. The Macedonians managed to enter it, while the people of Phokis and a section of the Dorians, namely the Lacedaemonians, lost their membership, the people of Phokis because of their rash crime, the Lacedaemonians as a penalty for allying themselves with the men of Phokis.
{10.8.3} When Brennus led the Gallic army against Delphi, no Greeks showed greater zeal for the war than the men of Phokis, and for this conduct of theirs, recovered their membership of the League, as well as their old reputation. The emperor Augustus willed that the people of Nikopolis, whose city is near Actium, should be members of the Amphiktyonic League, that the Magnesians moreover and the Malians, together with the Aenianes and Phthiōtai, should be numbered with the Thessalians, and that all their votes, together with those of the Dolopes, who were no longer a separate people, should be assigned to the people of Nikopolis.
{10.8.4} The Amphiktyones today number thirty. Nikopolis, Macedonia, and Thessaly each send six deputies; the Boeotians, who in more ancient days inhabited Thessaly and were then called Aeolians, the people of Phokis and the Delphians, each send two; ancient Doris sends one.
{10.8.5} The people of Lokris who are called Ozolian and the people of Lokris opposite Euboea send one each; there is also one from Euboea. Of the Peloponnesians, the Argives, Sikyonians, Corinthians, and Megarians send one, as Nikopolis send deputies to every meeting of the Amphiktyonic League; but each city of the nations mentioned has the privilege of sending members in turn after the lapse of periodic intervals.
DELPHI
{10.8.6} When you enter the city, you see temples in a row. The first of them was in ruins, and the one next to it had neither images nor statues. The third had statues of a few Roman emperors; the fourth is called the temple of Athena Forethought. Of its two images, the one in the fore temple is a votive offering of the Massiliots and is larger than the one inside the temple. The Massiliots are a colony of Phokaia in Ionia, and their city was founded by some of those who ran away from Phokaia when attacked by Harpagus the Persian. They proved superior to the Carthaginians in a sea war, acquired the territory they now hold, and reached great prosperity.
{10.8.7} The votive offering of the Massiliots is of bronze. The gold shield given to Athena Forethought by Croesus the Lydian was said by the Delphians to have been stolen by Philomēlos. Near the sanctuary of Forethought is a precinct of the hero Phylacus. This Phylacus is reported by the Delphians to have defended them at the time of the Persian invasion.
{10.8.8} They say that in the open part of the gymnasium, there once grew a wild wood, and that Odysseus, when as the guest of Autolykos he was hunting with the sons of Autolycus, received here from the wild boar the wound above the knee. Turning to the left from the gymnasium and going down not more, I think, than three stadium-lengths, you come to a river named Pleistos. This Pleistos descends to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, and flows into the sea there.
{10.8.9} Going up from the gymnasium along the way to the sacred space [hieron] [of Apollo] you reach, on the right of the way, the water of Castalia [Kastalia], which is sweet to drink and pleasant to bathe in. Some say that the spring [pēgē] was named after a native [epikhōrios] woman, others after a man called Castalius (Kastalios). But Panyassis son of Polyarkhos, who composed epic verses [epē] about Hēraklēs, says that Castalia was a daughter of Akhelōos. So, about Hēraklēs he [= Panyassis] says:
Crossing with swift feet snowy Parnassus | he reached the immortalizing [ambroton] water of Castalia, daughter of Akhelōos.
Panyassis, epic poem unknown
{10.8.10} I have heard another account, that the water was a gift to Castalia from the river Kephisos. That is the way Alcaeus has it in his prelude [prooimion] to Apollo. There is confirmation from the Lilaeans, who, on certain specified days, have the custom [nomizein] of throwing into the spring of the river Kephisos cakes of-the-district [epi-khōria] and other things, and it is said that these reappear in Castalia.
{10.9.1} The city [polis] of Delphi, both the sacred [hieros] enclosure [peribolos] of Apollo and the city generally, is presents a sloping configuration [skhēma] in its entirety. The enclosure is very large and is on the highest part of the city. Passages run through it, contiguous with one another. I will make mention [mnēmē] of those votive offerings [anathēmata] that seemed to me most wort talking-about [logos].
VOTIVE OFFERINGS AT DELPHI
{10.9.2} The athletes and competitors [agōnistai] in the art-of-the-Muses [mousikē], whom the majority of humankind have neglected, are, I think, not worth the serious effort it would take to account for them. As for the athletes who have left some glory [doxa] behind them, I have featured [dēloûn] them in my account [logos] with regard to Elis. [596] As for Phaülos of Kroton,there is a statue of him at Delphi. He won no victory at Olympia, but his victories at Pythō [= Delphi] were two in the pentathlon and one in the foot race. He also fought at sea against the Persian, in a ship of his own, equipped by himself and manned by citizens of Kroton who were residing in Greece.
{10.9.3} Such is the story of the athlete of Kroton. On entering the enclosure, you come to a bronze bull, a votive offering of the Corcyraeans made by proposTheopropos of Aegina. The story is that in Corcyra, a bull, leaving the cows, would go down from the pasture and bellow on the shore. As the same thing happened every day, the herdsman went down to the sea and saw a countless number of tunas.
{10.9.4} He reported the matter to the Corcyraeans, who, finding their labor lost in trying to catch the tunas, sent envoys [theōroi] to Delphi. So they sacrificed [thuein] the bull to Poseidon, and right after the sacrifice [thusiā], they caught the fish and dedicated their offering [anathēma] at Olympia and at Delphi with a tithe of their catch.
{10.9.5} Next-in-sequence [ephexēs] to this are offerings [anathēmata] of the people of Tegean from spoils talen from the Lacedaemonians: an Apollo; a Victory [Nīkē]; the local [epikhōrioi] heroes [hērōes]; Kallistōdaughter of Lykaon; Arkas, who gave Arcadia its name; the sons of Arkas, who areElatos, Apheidas, and Azan;, and also Triphylos. The mother of this Triphylos was not Eratō, but Laodameia, the daughter of Amyklas, king of Lacedaemon. There is also dedicated [ana-keisthai] a statue of Erasos, son of Triphylos.
{10.9.6} They who made the statues [agalmata] are as follows: the Apollo and the Kallisto were made by Pausanias of Apollonia; the Victory [Nīkē] and the likeness [eikōn] of Arkas, by Daidalos of Sikyon; Triphylos and Azan, by Samolas the Arcadian; Elatos, Apheidas, and Erasos, by Antiphanes of Argos. These offerings were sent by the people of Tegea to Delphi after they captured as prisoners the Lacedaemonians that attacked their city. [597]
{10.9.7} Facing these are offerings [anathēmata] of the Lacedaemonians that go back to [their victory over] the Athenians: the Dioskouroi; Zeus; Apollo; Artemis; and beside these, Poseidon; Lysanderson of Aristokritos, represented as being garlanded [stephanoûsthai] by Poseidon; Agias, who acted-as-seer [manteuein] to Lysander on the occasion of his [= Lysander’s] victory, and Hermōn, who steered his flag ship.
{10.9.8} This statue of Hermōn was not unexpectedly made by Theokosmos of Megara, who had been enrolled as a citizen of that city. The Dioskouroi were made by Antiphanes of Argos; the seer [mantis] by Pison, from Kalaureia, in the territory of Troizen; the Artemis, Poseidon, and also Lysander by Dameas; the Apollo and Zeus by Athenodoros. The last two artists were Arcadians from Kleitor.
{10.9.9} Behind the offerings enumerated are statues of those who, whether Spartans or Spartan allies, assisted Lysander at Aigospotamoi. [598] They are these:
Arakos of Lacedaemon; Erianthes a Boeotian … above Mimas, the place of origin for Astykrates; Kephisokles; Hermophantos, and Hikesios of Chios; Timarkhos and Diagoras of Rhodes; Theodamos of Knidos; Kimmerios of Ephesos and Aiantides of Miletus.
{10.9.10} These were made by Tisandros, but the next were made by Alypos of Sikyon, namely:
Theopompos of Myndos; Kleomedes of Samos; the two Euboeans Aristokles of Karystos and Autonomos of Eretria; Aristophantos of Corinth; Apollodoros of Troizen; and Dion from Epidaurus in Argolis. Next to these come the Achaean Axionikos from Pellene, Theares of Hermion, Pyrrhias of Phokis, Komon of Megara, Agasimenes of Sikyon, Telykrates of Leukas, Pythodotos of Corinth, and Euantidas of Ambrakia; last come the Lacedaemonians Epikydidas, and Eteonikos. These, they say, are works of Patroklēs and Kanakhos.
{10.9.11} The Athenians refuse to admit that their defeat at Aigospotamoi was fairly inflicted, maintaining that they were betrayed by Tydeus and Adeimantos, their generals, who had been bribed, they say, with money by Lysander. As a proof of this assertion, they quote the following oracle of the Sibyl [Sibulla]:
And then, upon the Athenians will be imposed grievous troubles that come with deep groaning
by Zeus the high thunderer, whose winning-power [kratos] is the greatest.
He [= Zeus} will imposeon the warships battle and fighting,
as they are destroyed by treacherous tricks, through the baseness of the captains.
by Zeus the high thunderer, whose winning-power [kratos] is the greatest.
He [= Zeus} will imposeon the warships battle and fighting,
as they are destroyed by treacherous tricks, through the baseness of the captains.
The other evidence that they quote is taken from the oracles of Musaeus:
For upon the Athenians comes a wild rain
through the baseness of their leaders, but some consolation will there be
for the defeat; they shall not escape the notice of the city but shall pay the penalty [dikē].
through the baseness of their leaders, but some consolation will there be
for the defeat; they shall not escape the notice of the city but shall pay the penalty [dikē].
{10.9.12} So much for this. The struggle for the district called Thyreā [599] between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives [600] was also foretold by the Sibyl [Sibulla], who said that the battle would be end in a draw. But the Argives claimed that they had the better of the engagement and sent to Delphi a bronze horse, supposed to be the wooden horse of Troy. It is the work of Antiphanes of Argos.
{10.10.1} On the base below the wooden horse is an inscription saying that the images [eikones] were dedicated from a tithe of the spoils takenin the great deed [ergon] [of the battle] at Marathon. They are Athena, Apollo, and Miltiades, one of the generals. Of those called heroes [hērōes] there are Erekhtheus; Kekrops; Pandion; Leōs; Antiokhosson of Hēraklēs by Mēdādaughter of Phylas; also Aigeus; and Akamas, one of the sons of Theseus. These [heroes] gave names, in compliance with an oracular pronouncement [manteuma] from Delphi, to “tribes” [phūlai] in Athens. Kodros, however, the son of Melanthos, also Theseus also Neleus, these are not givers-of-names [ep-ōnumoi] to “tribes” [phūlai].
{10.10.2} The statues enumerated were made by Pheidias, and really are a tithe of the spoils of the battle. But the statues of Antigonos, of his son Demetrios, and of Ptolemy the Egyptian, were sent to Delphi by the Athenians afterwards. The statue of the Egyptian they sent out of good will [eunoiā]; those of the Macedonians were sent out of dread [deos].
{10.10.3} Near the horse are also other votive offerings [anathēmata] from the Argives.There are the leaders of those who with Polyneikes made war on Thebes: Adrastos the son of Talaos; Tydeus son of Oineus; the descendants of Proitos, namely, Kapaneus son of Hipponoos and Eteoklos son of Iphis; Polyneikes; and Hippomedon, son of the sister of Adrastos. Nearby has been made the chariot of Amphiaraos, and in it stands Baton, who was charioteer of Amphiaraos and who had a relationship with Amphiaraos in other ways as well. The last of them is Alitherses.
{10.10.4} These are works of Hypatodoros and Aristogeiton, who made them, as the Argives themselves say, from the spoils of the victory that they and their Athenian allies won over the Lacedaemonians at Oinoe in Argive territory. [601] From spoils of the same deed [ergon] [of victory], it seems to me, the Argives set-up-as-votive-offerings [anatithenai] statues of those whom the Greeks call the Epigonoi. I say this because there are set up [keisthai] images [eikones] of these also: Sthenelos, Alkmaion, who I think was honored before Amphilokhos on account of his age, Promakhos also, Thersandros, Aigialeus, and Diomedes. Between Diomedes and Aigialeus is Euryalos.
{10.10.5} Opposite them are other statues [andriantes], dedicated by the Argives who participated with the Thebans led by Epameinondas to found Messene. The statues are images [eikones] of heroes [hērōes]: Danaos, the most powerful king of Argos, and Hypermnestra, who alone of her sisters kept her hands undefiled. By her side is Lynkeus also, and the whole lineage of them going back to Hēraklēs, and further back still, to Perseus.
{10.10.6} The bronze horses and captive women dedicated by the people of Tarentum were made from spoils taken from the Messapians, a non-Greek population bordering on the territory of Tarentum, and are works of Ageladas the Argive. Tarentum is a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and its founder was Phalanthos, a Spartan. On setting out to found a colony, Phalanthos received an oracular pronouncement [logion] from Delphi, declaring that when he feels rain under a cloudless sky [aithrā], he will then win both a territory [khōrā] and a city [polis].
{10.10.7} At first, he neither questioned the oracular pronouncement [manteuma] himself nor consulted any of his interpreters but came to Italy with his ships. But when, although he won victories over the barbarians, he succeeded neither in taking a city [polis] nor in making himself master of a territory [khōrā], he he arrived at a recall [ana-mnēsis] of the oracular pronouncement [khrēsmos] and thought that the god had foretold an impossibility. For never could rain fall from a clear and cloudless sky. When he was in despair, his wife, who had accompanied him from home, among other endearments placed her husband’s head between her knees and began to pick out the lice. And it chanced that the wife, such was her affection, wept as she saw her husband’s fortunes coming to nothing.
{10.10.8} As her tears fell in showers, and she wetted the head of Phalanthus, he realized the meaning of the oracle, for his wife’s name was Aithra. And so on that night, he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast. They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon by a nymph of the country, and that after this hero were named both the city and the river. For the river, just like the city, is called Taras.
{10.11.1} Near the votive offering of the the people of Tarentum is a treasury of the Sikyonians, but there is no treasure to be seen either here or in any other of the treasuries. The people of Knidos brought the following images to Delphi: Triopas, founder of Knidos, standing by a horse, Leto, and Apollo and Artemis shooting arrows at Tityos, who has already been wounded in the body.
{10.11.2} These stand by the treasury of the Sikyonians. The Siphnians too made a treasury, the reason being as follows. Their island contained gold mines, and the god ordered them to pay a tithe of the revenues to Delphi. So they built the treasury and continued to pay the tithe until greed made them omit the tribute, when the sea flooded their mines and hid them from sight.
{10.11.3} The people of Lipara too dedicated statues to commemorate a naval victory over the Etruscans. These people were colonists from Knidos, and the leader of the colony is said to have been a man from Knidos, whose name was Pentathlus according to a statement made by the Syracusan Antiokhos, son of Xenophanes, in his history of Sicily. He says also that they built a city on Cape Pachynum in Sicily but were hard pressed in a war with the Elymi and Phoenicians and driven out, but occupied the islands, from which they expelled the inhabitants if they were not still uninhabited, still called, as they are called by Homer, [602] the Islands of Aeolus.
{10.11.4} Of these islands, they dwell in Lipara, on which they built a city, but Hiera, Strongyle, and Didymae, they cultivate, crossing to them in ships. On Strongyle fire is to be seen rising out of the ground, while in Hiera, fire of its own accord bursts out on the summit of the island, and by the sea are baths, comfortable enough if the water receive you kindly, [603] but if not, painful to enter because of the heat.
{10.11.5} The Thebans have a treasury built from the spoils of war, and so have the Athenians. Whether the people of Knidos built to commemorate a victory or to display their prosperity, I do not know, but the Theban treasury was made from the spoils taken at the battle of Leuktra, and the Athenian treasury, from those taken from the army that landed with Datis at Marathon. The inhabitants of Kleonai were, like the Athenians, afflicted with the plague, and obeying an oracle from Delphi, sacrificed a he-goat to the sun while it was still rising. This put an end to the trouble, and so they sent a bronze he-goat to Apollo. The Syracusans have a treasury built from the spoils taken in the great Athenian disaster; the Potidaeans in Thrace built one to show their piety to the god.
{10.11.6} The Athenians also built a portico out of the spoils they took in their war against the Peloponnesians and their Greek allies. There are also dedicated the figure heads of ships and bronze shields. The inscription on them enumerates the cities from which the Athenians sent the first fruits: Elis, Lacedaemon, Sikyon, Megara, Pellene in Achaea, Ambracia, Leucas, and Corinth itself. It also says that from the spoils taken in these sea battles, a sacrifice was offered to Theseus and to Poseidon at the cape called Rhium. It seems to me that the inscription refers to Phormion, son of Asopikhos, and to his achievements. [604]
THE SIBYLS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.12.1} There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.
{10.12.2} Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless, she too was clearly born before the Trojan War, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe and that for her sake, the Greeks would capture Troy. The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem, she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister and sometimes that she is his daughter.
{10.12.3} These statements she made in her poetry when in a frenzy and possessed by the god. Elsewhere in her oracles, she states that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs of Ida, while her father was a human. These are the verses:
I am by birth half mortal, half divine;
An immortal nymph was my mother, my father, an eater of wheat;
On my mother’s side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red
Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus.
An immortal nymph was my mother, my father, an eater of wheat;
On my mother’s side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red
Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus.
{10.12.4} Even today, there remain on Trojan Ida the ruins of the city Marpessus, with some sixty inhabitants. All the land around Marpessus is reddish and terribly parched, so that the light and porous nature of Ida in this place is, in my opinion, the reason why the river Aidoneus sinks into the ground, rises to sink once more, finally disappearing altogether beneath the earth. Marpessus is two hundred and forty stadium-lengths distant from Alexandria in the Troad.
{10.12.5} The inhabitants of this Alexandria say that Herophile became the attendant of the temple of Apollo Smintheus, and that on the occasion of Hecuba’s dream, she uttered the prophecy, which we know was actually fulfilled. This Sibyl passed the greater part of her life in Samos, but she also visited Klaros in the territory of Kolophon, Delos, and Delphi. Whenever she visited Delphi, she would stand on this rock and sing her chants.
{10.12.6} However, death came upon her in the Troad, and her tomb is in the grove of the Sminthian with these elegiac verses inscribed upon the tombstone:
Here I am, the plain speaking Sibyl of Phoebus,
Hidden beneath this stone tomb.
A maiden once gifted with voice, but now for ever voiceless,
By hard fate doomed to this fetter.
But I am buried near the nymphs and this Hermes,
Enjoying in the world below a part of the kingdom I had then.
Hidden beneath this stone tomb.
A maiden once gifted with voice, but now for ever voiceless,
By hard fate doomed to this fetter.
But I am buried near the nymphs and this Hermes,
Enjoying in the world below a part of the kingdom I had then.
The Hermes stands by the side of the tomb, a square-shaped figure of stone. On the left is water running down into a well and the images of the nymphs.
{10.12.7} The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it and that she was a daughter of Theodoros, a shepherd of the district and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans.
{10.12.8} The next woman to give oracles in the same way, according to Hyperochus of Cumae, a historian, was called Demo and came from Cumae in the territory of the Opici. The Cumaeans can point to no oracle given by this woman, but they show a small stone urn in a sanctuary of Apollo, in which they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl.
{10.12.9} Later than Demo, there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian.
{10.12.10} Phaennis, daughter of a king of the Chaonians, and the Peleiai (Doves) at Dodona also gave oracles under the inspiration of a god, but they were not called by men Sibyls. To learn the date of Phaennis and to read her oracles […] for Phaennis was born when Antiokhos was establishing his kingship immediately after the capture of Demetrios. [605] The Peleiades are said to have been born still earlier than Phemonoe and to have been the first women to chant these verses:
Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be; O mighty Zeus.
Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of Earth as Mother.
Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of Earth as Mother.
{10.12.11} It is said that the men who uttered oracles were Euklos of Cyprus, the Athenians, Musaeus, son of Antiophemus, and Lykos, son of Pandion, and also Bacis, a Boeotian who was possessed by nymphs. I have read the oracles of all these except those of Lykos.
These are the women and men who, down to the present day, are said to have been the mouthpiece by which a god prophesied. But time is long, and perhaps similar things may occur again.
VOTIVE OFFERINGS AT DELPHI CONTINUED
{10.13.1} A bronze head of the Paionian bull called the bison was sent to Delphi by the Paionian king Dropion, son of Leon. These bisons are the most difficult beasts to capture alive, and no nets could be made strong enough to hold out against their rush. They are hunted in the following manner. When the hunters have found a place sinking to a hollow, they first strengthen it all round with a stout fence, and then, they cover the slope and the level part at the end with fresh skins, or if they should chance to be without skins, they make dry hides slippery with olive oil.
{10.13.2} Next, their best riders drive the bisons together into the place I have described. These at once slip on the first skins and roll down the slope until they reach the level ground, where at the first they are left to lie. On about the fourth or fifth day, when the beasts have lost most of their spirit through hunger and distress,
{10.13.3} those of the hunters who are professional tamers bring to them as they lie fruit of the cultivated pine, first peeling off the inner husk; for the moment the beasts would touch no other food. Finally, they tie ropes around them and lead them off.
{10.13.4} This is the way in which the bisons are caught. Opposite the bronze head of the bison is a statue of a man wearing a breastplate, on which is a cloak. The Delphians say that it is an offering of the Andrians, and a portrait of Andreus, their founder. The images of Apollo, Athena, and Artemis were dedicated by the people of Phokis from the spoils taken from the Thessalians, their enemies always, who are their neighbors except where the people of Lokris who are called Epiknemidioi come between.
{10.13.5} The Thessalians too of Pharsalus dedicated an Achilles on horseback, with Patroklos running beside his horse: the Macedonians living in Dium, a city at the foot of Mount Pieria, the Apollo who has taken hold of the deer; the people of Cyrene, a Greek city in Libya, the chariot with an image of Ammon in it. The Dorians of Corinth too built a treasury, where used to be stored the gold from Lydia. [606]
{10.13.6} The image of Hēraklēs is a votive offering of the Thebans, sent when they had fought what is called the Sacred War against the people of Phokis. There are also bronze statues, which the people of Phokis dedicated when they had put to flight the Thessalian cavalry in the second engagement. [607] The Phliasians brought to Delphi a bronze Zeus, and with the Zeus, an image of Aegina. The Mantineians of Arcadia dedicated a bronze Apollo, which stands near the treasury of the Corinthians.
{10.13.7} Hēraklēs and Apollo are holding onto the tripod and are preparing to fight about it. Leto and Artemis are calming Apollo, and Athena is calming Hēraklēs. This too is an offering of the people of Phokis, dedicated when Tellias of Elis led them against the Thessalians. Athena and Artemis were made by Khionis, the other images are works shared by Diyllus and Amyklaios. They are said to be Corinthians.
{10.13.8} The Delphians say that when Hēraklēs the son of Amphitryon came to the oracle, the prophetess Xenocleia refused to give a response on the ground that he was guilty of the death of Iphitos. Then Hēraklēs took up the tripod and carried it out of the temple. Then the prophetess said:
Then there was another Hēraklēs, of Tiryns, not the Canopian.
For before this, the Egyptian Hēraklēs had visited Delphi. On the occasion to which I refer, the son of Amphitryon restored the tripod to Apollo and was told by Xenocleia all he wished to know. The poets adopted the story and sing about a fight between Hēraklēs and Apollo for a tripod.
{10.13.9} The Greeks in common [en koinōi] dedicated from the spoils resulting from their [victorious] deed [of victory] at Plataea a gold tripod set on top of a bronze serpent. The bronze part of the offering is still preserved, but the leaders of Phokis did not leave the gold as they did the bronze.
{10.13.10} The people of Tarentum sent yet another tithe to Delphi from spoils taken from the Peucetii, a non-Greek people. The offerings are the work of Onatas the Aeginetan, and Ageladas the Argive, and consist of statues of footmen and horsemen—Opis, king of the Iapygians, who had become an ally to the Peucetii. Opis is represented as killed in the fighting, and on his prostrate body, stand the hero Taras and Phalanthus of Lacedaemon, near whom is a dolphin. For they say that before Phalanthus reached Italy, he suffered shipwreck in the Crisaean Sea and was brought ashore by a dolphin.
{10.14.1} The axes were dedicated by Periklytos, son of Euthymakhos, a man of Tenedos, and allude to an old story. Kyknos, they say, was a son of Poseidon and ruled as king in Colonae, a city in the Troad situated opposite the island Leucophrys.
{10.14.2} He had a daughter, by name Hemithea, and a son, called Tennes, by Procleia, who was a daughter of Klytios and a sister of Caletor. Homer in the Iliad [608] says that this Caletor, as he was putting the fire under the ship of Protesilaos, was killed by Ajax. Procleia died before Kyknos, and his second wife, Philonome, daughter of Cragasus, fell in love with Tennes. Rejected by him, she falsely accused him before her husband, saying that he had made love to her, and she had rejected him. Kyknos was deceived by the trick, placed Tennes with his sister in a chest, and launched it out to sea.
{10.14.3} The young people came safely to the island Leucophrys, and the island was given its present name from Tennes. Kyknos, however, was not to remain for ever ignorant of the trick and sailed to his son to confess his ignorance and to ask for pardon for his mistake. He put in at the island and fastened the cables of his ship to something—a rock or a tree—but Tennes in a passion cut them adrift with an axe.
{10.14.4} For this reason a byword has arisen, which is used of those who make a stern refusal: “So and so has cut whatever it may be with an axe of Tenedos.” The Greeks say that while Tennes was defending his country, he was killed by Achilles. In course of time, weakness compelled the people of Tenedos to merge themselves with the Alexandrians on the Troad mainland.
{10.14.5} The Greeks who fought against the king, besides dedicating at Olympia a bronze Zeus, dedicated also an Apollo at Delphi, from spoils taken in the naval actions at Artemisium and Salamis. There is also a story that Themistocles came to Delphi bringing with him for Apollo some of the Persian spoils. He asked whether he should dedicate them within the temple, but the Pythian priestess ordered him to carry them from the sanctuary altogether. The part of the oracle referring to this runs as follows:
The splendid beauty of the Persian’s spoils
Set not within my temple. Dispatch them home speedily.
Set not within my temple. Dispatch them home speedily.
{10.14.6} Now, I greatly marveled that it was from Themistocles alone that the priestess refused to accept Persian spoils. Some thought that the god would have rejected alike all offerings from Persian spoils, if like Themistocles the others had inquired of Apollo before making their dedication. Others said that the god knew that Themistocles would become a suppliant of the Persian king and refused to take the gifts so that Themistocles might not by a dedication render the Persian’s enmity unappeasable. The expedition of the barbarian against Greece we find foretold in the oracles of Bacis, and Euklos wrote his verses about it at an even earlier date.
{10.14.7} Near the great altar is a bronze wolf, an offering of the Delphians themselves. They say that a fellow robbed the god of some treasure and kept himself and the gold hidden at the place on Mount Parnassus where the forest is thickest. As he slept, a wolf attacked and killed him, and every day went to the city and howled. When the people began to realize that the matter was not without the intervention of the god [theos], they followed the beast and found the sacred gold. So to the god, they dedicated a bronze wolf.
{10.15.1} A gilded statue of Phryne was made by Praxiteles, one of her lovers, but it was Phryne herself who dedicated the statue. The offerings next to Phryne include two images of Apollo, one dedicated from Persian spoils by the Epidaurians of Argolis, the other dedicated by the Megarians to commemorate a victory over the Athenians at Nisaia. The Plataeans have dedicated an ox, an offering made at the time when, in their own territory, they took part, along with the other Greeks, in the defense against Mardonios, the son of Gobryas. Then there are another two images of Apollo, one dedicated by the citizens of Herakleia on the Euxine, the other by the Amphiktyones when they fined the people of Phokis for tilling the territory of the god.
{10.15.2} The second Apollo the Delphians call Sitalcas, and he is thirty-five cubits high. The Aetolians have statues of most of their generals, and images of Artemis, Athena, and two of Apollo, dedicated after their conclusion of the war against the Gauls. That the Celtic army would cross from Europe to Asia to destroy the cities there was prophesied by Phaennis in her oracles a generation before the invasion occurred:
{10.15.3} Then truly, having crossed the narrow strait of the Hellespont,
The devastating host of the Gauls shall pipe; and lawlessly
They shall ravage Asia; and much worse shall the god do
To those who dwell by the shores of the sea
For a short while. For right soon the son of Cronos
Shall raise them a helper, the dear son of a bull reared by Zeus,
Who on all the Gauls shall bring a day of destruction.
The devastating host of the Gauls shall pipe; and lawlessly
They shall ravage Asia; and much worse shall the god do
To those who dwell by the shores of the sea
For a short while. For right soon the son of Cronos
Shall raise them a helper, the dear son of a bull reared by Zeus,
Who on all the Gauls shall bring a day of destruction.
By the son of a bull, she meant Attalus, king of Pergamon, who was also styled bull-horned by an oracle.
{10.15.4} Statues of cavalry leaders, mounted on horses, were dedicated in Apollo’s sanctuary by the people of Pherai after routing the Attic cavalry.
The bronze palm tree, as well as a gilded image of Athena on it, was dedicated by the Athenians from the spoils they took in their two successes on the same day at the Eurymedon, one on land, and the other with their fleet on the river. The gold on this image was, I noticed, damaged in parts.
{10.15.5} I myself put the blame on rogues and thieves. But Kleitodemos, the oldest writer to describe the customs of the Athenians, says in his account of Attica that when the Athenians were preparing the Sicilian expedition a vast flock of crows swooped on Delphi, pecked this image all over, and with their beaks, tore away its gold. He says that the crows also broke off the spear, the owls, and the imitation fruit on the palm tree.
{10.15.6} Kleitodemos describes other omens that told the Athenians to beware of sailing against Sicily. The Cyrenaeans have dedicated at Delphi a figure of Battos in a chariot; he it was who brought them in ships from Thera to Libya. The reins are held by Cyrene, and in the chariot is Battos, who is being garlanded by Libya. The artist was a Cnossian, Amphion, the son of Acestor.
{10.15.7} It is said that, after Battos had founded Cyrene, he was cured of his stammering [609] in the following way. As he was passing through the territory of the Cyrenaeans, in the extreme parts of it, as yet desert, he saw a lion, and the terror of the sight compelled him to cry out in a clear and loud voice. Not far from the Battos, the Amphiktyones have set up yet another Apollo from the fine they inflicted on the people of Phokis for their sin against the god.
{10.16.1} Of the offerings sent by the Lydian kings, I found nothing remaining except the iron stand of the bowl of Alyattes. This is the work of Glaukos the Chian, the man who discovered how to weld iron. Each plate of the stand is fastened to another, not by bolts or rivets, but by the welding, which is the only thing that fastens and holds together the iron.
{10.16.2} The shape of the stand is very like that of a tower, wider at the bottom and rising to a narrow top. Each side of the stand is not solid throughout, but the iron cross strips are placed like the rungs of a ladder. The upright iron plates are turned outwards at the top, so forming a seat for the bowl.
{10.16.3} What is called the Omphalos (Navel) by the Delphians is made of white marble, and is said by the Delphians to be the center of all the earth. Pindar [610] in one of his odes supports their view.
{10.16.4} There is here an offering of the Lacedaemonians, made by Kalamis, depicting Hermione, daughter of Menelaos, who married Orestes, son of Agamemnon, having previously been wedded to Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles. The Aetolians have dedicated a statue of Eurydamos, general of the Aetolians, who was their leader in the war against the army of the Gauls.
{10.16.5} On the mountains of Crete, there is still in my time a city called Elyrus. Now the citizens sent to Delphi a bronze goat, which is suckling the babies, Phylacides, and Philandros. The Elyrians say that these were children of Apollo by the nymph Acacallis and that Apollo mated with Acacallis in the house of Carmanor in the city of Tarrha.
{10.16.6} The Euboeans of Karystos too set up in the sanctuary of Apollo a bronze ox, from spoils taken in the Persian War. The people of Karystos and the Plataeans dedicated oxen, I believe, because, having repulsed the barbarian, they had won a secure prosperity, and especially a land free to plough. The Aetolian nation, having subdued their neighbors the Acarnanians, sent statues of generals and images of Apollo and Artemis.
{10.16.7} I learned a very strange thing that happened to the Liparaeans in a war with the Etruscans. For the Liparaeans were bidden by the Pythian priestess to engage the Etruscans with the fewest possible ships. So they put out against the Etruscans with five triremes. Their enemies, refusing to admit that their seamanship was unequal to that of the Liparaeans, went out to meet them with an equal number of ships. These the Liparaeans captured, as they did a second five that came out against them, overcoming too a third squadron of five, and likewise a fourth. So they dedicated at Delphi images of Apollo equal in number to the ships that they had captured.
{10.16.8} Ekhekratides of Larisa dedicated the small Apollo, said by the Delphians to have been the very first offering to be set up.
VOTIVE OFFERINGS AT DELPHI CONTINUED
{10.17.1} Of the non-Greeks in the west, the people of Sardinia have sent a bronze statue of him after whom they are called. In size and prosperity, Sardinia is the equal of the most celebrated islands. What the ancient name was that the natives give it, I do not know, but those of the Greeks who sailed there to trade called it Ichnussa, because the shape of the island is very like a man’s footprint [ichnos]. Its length is one thousand one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths, and its width extends to four hundred and twenty.
SARDINIA, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.17.2} The first sailors to cross to the island are said to have been Libyans. Their leader was Sardus, son of Maceris, the Maceris surnamed Hēraklēs by the Egyptians and Libyans. Maceris himself was celebrated chiefly for his journey to Delphi, but Sardus it was who led the Libyans to Ichnussa, and after him the island was renamed. However, the Libyan army did not expel the aborigines, who received the invaders as settlers through compulsion rather than in goodwill. Neither the Libyans nor the native population knew how to build cities. They dwelled in scattered groups, where chance found them a home in cabins or caves.
{10.17.3} Years after the Libyans, there came to the island from Greece Aristaios and his followers. Aristaios is said to have been a son of Apollo and Cyrene, and they say that, deeply grieved by the fate of Actaeon, and vexed alike with Boeotia and the whole of Greece, he migrated to Sardinia.
{10.17.4} Others think that Daidalos too ran away from Camicus on this occasion, because of the invasion of the Cretans, and took a part in the colony that Aristaios led to Sardinia. But it is nonsense to think that Daidalos, a contemporary of Oedipus, king of Thebes, had a part in a colony or anything else along with Aristaios, who married Autonoe, the daughter of Kadmos. At any rate, these colonists too founded no city, the reason being, I think, that neither in numbers nor in strength were they capable of the task.
{10.17.5} After Aristaios, the Iberians crossed to Sardinia, under Norax as leader of the expedition, and they founded the city of Nora. The tradition is that this was the first city in the island, and they say that Norax was a son of Erytheia, the daughter of Geryones, with Hermes for his father. A fourth component part of the population was the army of Iolaos, consisting of Thespians and men from Attica, which put in at Sardinia and founded Olbia; by themselves the Athenians founded Ogryle, either in commemoration of one of their parishes in the homeland or else because one Ogrylus himself took part in the expedition. Be this as it may, there are still today places in Sardinia called Iolaia, and Iolaos is worshipped by the inhabitants.
{10.17.6} When Troy was taken, among those Trojans who fled were those who escaped with Aeneas. A part of them, carried from their course by winds, reached Sardinia and intermarried with the Greeks already settled there. But the non-Greek element were prevented from coming to blows with the Greeks and Trojans, for the two enemies were evenly matched in all warlike equipment, while the river Thorsus, flowing between their territories, made both equally afraid to cross it.
{10.17.7} However, many years afterwards the Libyans crossed again to the island with a stronger army, and began a war against the Greeks. The Greeks were utterly destroyed or only a few of them survived. The Trojans made their escape to the high parts of the island and occupied mountains difficult to climb, being precipitous and protected by stakes. Even at the present day, they are called Ilians, but in figure, in the fashion of their arms, and in their mode of living generally, they are like the Libyans.
SARDINIA, HISTORY
{10.17.8} Not far distant from Sardinia is an island called Cyrnus by the Greeks, but Corsica by the Libyans who inhabit it. A large part of the population, oppressed by civil strife, left it and came to Sardinia; there they took up their abode, confining themselves to the highlands. The Sardinians, however, call them by the name of Corsicans, which they brought with them from home.
{10.17.9} When the Carthaginians were at the height of their sea power, they overcame all in Sardinia except the Ilians and Corsicans, who were kept from slavery by the strength of the mountains. These Carthaginians, like those who preceded them, founded cities in the island, namely, Caralis and Sulci. Some of the Carthaginian mercenaries, either Libyans or Iberians, quarrelled about the loot, mutinied in a passion, and added to the number of the highland settlers. Their name in the Cyrnian language is Balari, which is the Cyrnian word for fugitives.
SARDINIA, GEOGRAPHY
{10.17.10} These are the people that dwell in Sardinia, and such was the method of their settlement. The northern part of the island and that towards the mainland of Italy consist of an unbroken chain of impassable mountains. And if you sail along the coast, you will find no anchorage on this side of the island, while violent but irregular gusts of wind sweep down to the sea from the tops of the mountains.
{10.17.11} Across the middle of the island runs another chain of mountains, but lower in height. The atmosphere here is on the whole heavy and unwholesome. The reason is partly the salt that crystallizes here, partly the oppressive, violent south wind, and partly the fact that, because of the height of the mountains on the side towards Italy, the north winds are prevented, when they blow in summer, from cooling the atmosphere and the ground here. Others say that the cause is Cyrnus, which is separated from Sardinia by no more than eight stadium-lengths of sea and is hilly and high all over. So they think that Cyrnus prevents the west wind and the north wind from reaching as far as Sardinia.
{10.17.12} Neither poisonous nor harmless snakes can live in Sardinia, nor yet wolves. The he-goats are no bigger than those found elsewhere, but their shape is that of the wild ram which an artist would carve in Aeginetan style, except that their breasts are too shaggy to liken them to Aeginetan art. Their horns do not stand out away from the head but curl straight beside the ears. In speed, they are the swiftest of all beasts.
{10.17.13} Except for one plant, the island is free from poisons. This deadly herb is like celery, and they say that those who eat it die laughing. That is why Homer, [611] and men after him, call unwholesome laughter sardonic. The herb grows mostly around springs, but does not impart any of its poison to the water.
I have introduced into my history of Phokis this account of Sardinia, because it is an island about which the Greeks are very ignorant.
VOTIVE OFFERINGS AT DELPHI CONTINUED
{10.18.1} The horse next to the statue of Sardus was dedicated, says the Athenian Kallias, son of Lysimakhides, in the inscription, by Kallias himself from spoils he had taken in the Persian War. The Achaeans dedicated an image of Athena after reducing by siege one of the cities of Aetolia, the name of which was Phana. They say that the siege was not a short one, and being unable to take the city, they sent envoys to Delphi, to whom was given the following response:
{10.18.2} Dwellers in the land of Pelops and in Achaea, who to Pythō
Have come to inquire how ye shall take a city,
Come, consider what daily ration,
Drunk by the folk, saves the city which has so drunk.
For so ye may take the towered village of Phana.
Have come to inquire how ye shall take a city,
Come, consider what daily ration,
Drunk by the folk, saves the city which has so drunk.
For so ye may take the towered village of Phana.
{10.18.3} So not understanding what was the meaning of the oracle, they were minded to raise the siege and sail away, while the defenders paid no attention to them, one of their women coming from behind the walls to fetch water from the spring just under them. Some of the besiegers ran up and took the woman prisoner, who informed the Achaeans that the scanty water from the spring that was fetched each night was rationed among the besieged, who had nothing else to quench their thirst. So the Achaeans, by filling up the spring, captured the town.
{10.18.4} By the side of this Athena, the Rhodians of Lindus set up their image of Apollo. The Ambraciots dedicated also a bronze ass, having conquered the Molossians in a night battle. The Molossians had prepared an ambush for them by night. It chanced that an ass, being driven back from the fields, was chasing a she-donkey with harsh braying and wanton gait, while the driver of the donkey increased the din by his horrible, inarticulate yells. So the men in the Molossian ambush rushed out, all frightened, and the Ambraciots, detecting the trap prepared for them, attacked in the night and overcame the Molossians in battle.
{10.18.5} The men of Orneaiin Argolis, when hard pressed in war by the Sikyonians, vowed to Apollo that, if they should drive the host of the Sikyonians out of their native land, they would organize a daily procession in his honor at Delphi and sacrifice victims of a certain kind and of a certain number. Well, they conquered the Sikyonians in battle. But finding the daily fulfillment of their vow a great expense and a still greater trouble, they devised the trick of dedicating to the god bronze figures representing a sacrifice and a procession.
{10.18.6} There is here one of the labors of Hēraklēs, namely, his fight with the hydra. Tisagoras not only dedicated the offering, but also made it. Both the hydra and Hēraklēs are of iron. To make images of iron is a very difficult task, involving great labor. So the work of Tisagoras, whoever he was, is marvelous. Very marvelous too are the heads of a lion and wild boar at Pergamon, also of iron, which were made as offerings to Dionysus.
{10.18.7} The people of Phokis who live at Elateia, who held their city, with the help of Olympiodoros from Athens, when besieged by Kassandros, sent to Apollo at Delphi a bronze lion. The Apollo, very near to the lion, was dedicated by the Massiliots as first fruits of their naval victory over the Carthaginians. The Aetolians have made a trophy and the image of an armed woman, supposed to represent Aetolia. These were dedicated by the Aetolians when they had punished the Gauls for their cruelty to the Kallians. A gilded statue, offered by Gorgias of Leontinoi, is a portrait of Gorgias himself.
{10.19.1} Beside the Gorgias is a votive offering of the Amphiktyones, representing Skyllis of Scione, who, the story [phēmē] says, dived into the very deepest parts of every sea. He also taught his daughter Hydna to dive.
{10.19.2} When the fleet of Xerxes was attacked by a violent storm off Mount Pelion, father and daughter completed its destruction by dragging away under the sea the anchors and any other security the triremes had. In return for this deed, the Amphiktyones dedicated statues of Skyllis and his daughter. The statue of Hydna completed the number of the statues that Nero carried off from Delphi. Only those of the female sex who are pure virgins may dive into the sea. [612]
{10.19.3} I am going on to tell a Lesbian story. Certain fishermen of Methymna found that their nets dragged up to the surface of the sea a face made of olive wood. Its appearance suggested a touch of divinity, but it was outlandish, and unlike the normal features of Greek gods. So the people of Methymna asked the Pythian priestess of what god or hero the figure was a likeness, and she ordered them to worship Dionysus Phallen. Then the people of Methymna kept for themselves the wooden image out of the sea, worshipping it with sacrifices and prayers, but sent a bronze copy to Delphi.
TEMPLE OF APOLLON AT DELPHI
{10.19.4} The carvings in the pediments are: Artemis, Leto, Apollo, Muses, a setting Sun, and Dionysus together with the Thyiad women. The first of them are the work of Praxias, an Athenian and a pupil of Kalamis, but the temple took some time to build, during which Praxias died. So the rest of the ornament in the pediments was carved by Androsthenes, like Praxias an Athenian by birth, but a pupil of Eukadmos. There are arms of gold on the architraves; the Athenians dedicated the shields from spoils taken at the battle of Marathon, and the Aetolians the arms, supposed to be Gallic, behind and on the left. Their shape is very like that of Persian wicker shields.
INVASION OF THE GAULS, HISTORY
{10.19.5} I have made some mention of the Gallic invasion of Greece in my description of the Athenian Council Chamber. [613] But I have resolved to give a more detailed account of the Gauls in my description of Delphi, because the greatest of the Greek exploits against the barbarians took place there. The Celts conducted their first foreign expedition under the leadership of Cambaules. Advancing as far as Thrace, they lost heart and broke off their march, realizing that they were too few in number to be a match for the Greeks.
{10.19.6} But when they decided to invade foreign territory a second time, so great was the influence of Cambaules’ veterans, who had tasted the joy of plunder and acquired a passion for robbery and plunder, that a large force of infantry and no small number of mounted men attended the muster. So the army was split up into three divisions by the chieftains, to each of whom was assigned a separate land to invade.
{10.19.7} Kerethrios was to be leader against the Thracians and the nation of the Triballi. The invaders of Paionia were under the command of Brennus and Acichorius. Bolgius attacked the Macedonians and Illyrians and engaged in a struggle with Ptolemy, king of the Macedonians at that time. It was this Ptolemy who, though he had taken refuge as a suppliant with Seleukos, the son of Antiokhos, treacherously murdered him and was surnamed Thunderbolt because of his recklessness. Ptolemy himself perished in the fighting, and the Macedonian losses were heavy. But once more, the Celts lacked courage to advance against Greece, and so the second expedition returned home.
{10.19.8} It was then that Brennus, both in public meetings and also in personal talks with individual Gallic officers, strongly urged a campaign against Greece, enlarging on the weakness of Greece at the time, on the wealth of the Greek states, and on the even greater wealth in sanctuaries, including votive offerings and coined silver and gold. So he induced the Gauls to march against Greece. Among the officers he chose to be his colleagues was Acichorius.
{10.19.9} The muster of foot amounted to one hundred and fifty-two thousand, with twenty thousand four hundred horsemen. This was the number of horsemen in action at any one time, but the real number was sixty-one thousand two hundred. For to each horseman were attached two servants, who were themselves skilled riders and, like their masters, had a horse.
{10.19.10} When the Gallic horsemen were engaged, the servants remained behind the ranks and proved useful in the following way. Should a horseman or his horse fall, the slave brought him a horse to mount; if the rider was killed, the slave mounted the horse in his master’s place; if both rider and horse were killed, there was a mounted man ready. When a rider was wounded, one slave brought back to camp the wounded man, while the other took his vacant place in the ranks.
{10.19.11} I believe that the Gauls in adopting these methods copied the Persian regiment of the Ten Thousand, who were called the Immortals. There was, however, this difference. The Persians used to wait until the battle was over before replacing casualties, while the Gauls kept reinforcing the horsemen to their full number during the height of the action. This organization is called in their native speech trimarcisia, for I would have you know that marca is the Celtic name for a horse.
{10.19.12} This was the size of the army, and such was the intention of Brennus, when he attacked Greece. The spirit of the Greeks was utterly broken, but the extremity of their terror forced them to defend Greece. They realized that the struggle that faced them would not be one for liberty, as it was when they fought the Persian, and that giving water and earth would not bring them safety. They still remembered the fate of Macedonia, Thrace, and Paionia during the former incursion of the Gauls, and reports were coming in of enormities committed at that very time on the Thessalians. So every man, as well as every state, was convinced that they must either conquer or perish.
{10.20.1} Anyone who so wishes can compare the number of those who mustered to meet King Xerxes at Thermopylae with those who now mustered to oppose the Gauls. To meet the Persians, there came Greek contingents of the following strength. Lacedaemonians with Leonidas not more than three hundred; Tegeans five hundred, and five hundred from Mantineia; from Orkhomenos in Arcadia a hundred and twenty; from the other cities in Arcadia one thousand; from Mycenae eighty; from Phleious two hundred, and from Corinth twice this number; of the Boeotians there mustered seven hundred from Thespiae and four hundred from Thebes. A thousand men of Phokis guarded the path on Mount Oitē, and the number of these should be added to the Greek total.
{10.20.2} Herodotus [614] does not give the number of the people of Lokris who live at the base of Mount Knemis, but he does say that each of their cities sent a contingent. It is possible, however, to make an estimate of these also that comes very near to the truth. For not more than nine thousand Athenians marched to Marathon, even if we include those who were too old for active service and slaves; so the number of the fighting men of Lokris who marched to Thermopylae cannot have exceeded six thousand. So the whole army would amount to eleven thousand two hundred. But it is well known that not even these remained all the time guarding the pass; for if we except the Lacedaemonians, Thespians, and Mycenaeans, the rest left the field before the conclusion of the fighting.
{10.20.3} To meet the barbarians who came from the Okeanos, the following Greek forces came to Thermopylae. Of the Boeotians, ten thousand hoplites and five hundred cavalry, the Boeotarchs being Kephisodotos, Thearidas, Diogenes, and Lysander. From Phokis came five hundred cavalry with footmen three thousand in number. The generals of the men of Phokis were Kritoboulos and Antiokhos.
{10.20.4} The men from Lokris stationed over against the island of Atalanta were under the command of Meidias; they numbered seven hundred, and no cavalry was with them. Of the Megarians came four hundred hoplites commanded by Hipponikos of Megara. The Aetolians sent a large contingent, including every class of fighting men; the number of cavalry is not given, but the light-armed were seven hundred and ninety, and their hoplites numbered more than seven thousand. Their leaders were Polyarkhos, Polyphron, and Lakrates.
{10.20.5} The Athenian general was Kallippos, the son of Moirokles, as I have said in an earlier part of my work, [615] and their forces consisted of all their seaworthy triremes, five hundred horse, and one thousand foot. Because of their ancient reputation, the Athenians held the chief command. The king of Macedonia sent five hundred mercenaries, and the king of Asia a like number; the leader of those sent by Antigonos was Aristodemos, a Macedonian, and Telesarkhos, one of the Syrians on the Orontes, commanded the forces that Antiokhos sent from Asia.
{10.20.6} When the Greeks assembled at Thermopylae [616] learned that the army of the Gauls was already in the neighborhood of Magnesia and Phthiōtis, they resolved to detach the cavalry and a thousand light armed troops and to send them to the Spercheios, so that even the crossing of the river could not be achieved by the barbarians without a struggle and risks. On their arrival, these forces broke down the bridges and by themselves encamped along the bank. But Brennus himself was not utterly stupid nor inexperienced for a barbarian in devising tricks of strategy.
{10.20.7} So on that very night, he dispatched some troops to the Spercheios, not to the places where the old bridges had stood, but lower down, where the Greeks would not notice the crossing, and just where the river spread over the plain and made a marsh and lake instead of a narrow, violent stream. Here Brennus sent some ten thousand Gauls, picking out the swimmers and the tallest men; and the Celts as a people are far taller than any other .
{10.20.8} So these crossed in the night, swimming over the river where it expands into a lake; each man used his shield, his national buckler, as a raft, and the tallest of them were able to cross the water by wading. The Greeks on the Spercheios, as soon as they learned that a detachment of the barbarians had crossed by the marsh, forthwith retreated to the main army. Brennus ordered the dwellers around the Malian gulf to build bridges across the Spercheios, and they proceeded to accomplish their task with a will, for they were frightened of Brennus, and anxious for the barbarians to go away out of their country instead of staying to devastate it further.
{10.20.9} Brennus brought his army across over the bridges and proceeded to Herakleia. The Gauls plundered the country and massacred those whom they caught in the fields but did not capture the city. For a year previous to this, the Aetolians had forced Herakleia to join the Aetolian League; so now, they defended a city which they considered to belong to them just as much as to the people of Herakleia.
Brennus did not trouble himself much about Herakleia but directed his efforts to driving away those opposed to him at the pass in order to invade Greece south of Thermopylae.
{10.21.1} Deserters kept Brennus informed about the forces from each city mustered at Thermopylae. So despising the Greek army, he advanced from Herakleia and began the battle at sunrise on the next day. He had no Greek soothsayer and made no use of his own country’s sacrifices, if indeed the Celts have any art of divination. Then the Greeks attacked silently and in good order. When they came to close quarters, the infantry did not rush out of their line far enough to disturb their proper formation, while the light-armed troops remained in position, throwing javelins, shooting arrows, or slinging bullets.
{10.21.2} The cavalry on both sides proved useless, as the ground at the Pass is not only narrow, but also smooth because of the natural rock, while most of it is slippery owing to its being covered with streams. The Gauls were worse armed than the Greeks, having no other defensive armor than their national shields, while they were still more inferior in war experience.
{10.21.3} On they marched against their enemies with the unreasoning fury and passion of brutes. Slashed with axe or sword, they kept their desperation while they still breathed; pierced by arrow or javelin, they did not abate of their passion so long as life remained. Some drew out from their wounds the spears, by which they had been hit, and threw them at the Greeks or used them in close fighting.
{10.21.4} Meanwhile, the Athenians on the triremes, with difficulty and with danger, nevertheless coasted along through the mud that extends far out to sea, brought their ships as close to the barbarians as possible, and raked them with arrows and every other kind of missile. The Celts were in unspeakable distress, and as in the confined space, they inflicted few losses but suffered twice or four times as many, their captains gave the signal to retire to their camp. Retreating in confusion and without any order, many were crushed beneath the feet of their friends, and many others fell into the swamp and disappeared under the mud. Their loss in the retreat was no less than the loss that occurred while the battle raged.
{10.21.5} On this day, the Attic contingent surpassed the other Greeks in courage. Of the Athenians themselves, the bravest was Cydias, a young man who had never before been in battle. He was killed by the Gauls, but his relatives dedicated his shield to Zeus, God of Freedom, and the inscription ran:
Here hang I, yearning for the still youthful bloom of Cydias,
The shield of a glorious man, an offering to Zeus.
I was the very first through which at this battle he thrust his left arm,
When the battle raged furiously against the Gaul.
The shield of a glorious man, an offering to Zeus.
I was the very first through which at this battle he thrust his left arm,
When the battle raged furiously against the Gaul.
{10.21.6} This inscription remained until Sulla and his army took away, among other Athenian treasures, the shields in the porch of Zeus, God of Freedom. After this battle at Thermopylae, the Greeks buried their own dead and spoiled the barbarians, but the Gauls sent no herald to ask leave to take up the bodies and were indifferent whether the earth received them or whether they were devoured by wild beasts or carrion birds.
{10.21.7} There were in my opinion two reasons that made them careless about the burial of their dead: they wished to strike terror into their enemies, and through habit, they have no tender feeling for those who have gone. In the battle there fell forty of the Greeks; the losses of the barbarians it was impossible to discover exactly. For the number of them that disappeared beneath the mud was great.
{10.22.1} On the seventh day after the battle, a regiment of Gauls attempted to go up to Oitē by way of Herakleia. Here too a narrow path rises just past the ruins of Trakhis. There was also at that time a sanctuary of Athena above the Trachinian territory, and in it were votive offerings. So they hoped to ascend Oitē by this path and at the same time to get possession of the offerings in the temple in passing. <This path was defended by the men of Phokis under Telesarkhos.> They overcame the barbarians in the engagement, but Telesarkhos himself fell, a man devoted, if ever a man was, to the Greek cause.
{10.22.2} All the leaders of the barbarians except Brennus were terrified of the Greeks, and at the same time were despondent of the future, seeing that their present condition showed no signs of improvement. But Brennus reasoned that if he could compel the Aetolians to return home to Aetolia, he would find the war against Greece prove easier hereafter. So he detached from his army forty thousand foot and about eight hundred horse. Over these, he set in command Orestorius and Combutis,
{10.22.3} who, making their way back by way of the bridges over the Spercheios and across Thessaly again, invaded Aetolia. The fate of the Kallians at the hands of Combutis and Orestorius is the most wicked ever heard of and is without a parallel in the crimes of men. Every male they put to the sword, and there were butchered old men equally with children at their mothers’ breasts. The more plump of these sucking babies the Gauls killed, drinking their blood and eating their flesh.
{10.22.4} Women and adult virgins, if they had any spirit at all in them, anticipated their end when the city was captured. Those who survived suffered under imperious violence every form of outrage at the hands of men equally void of pity or of love. Every woman who chanced to find a Gallic sword committed suicide. The others were soon to die of hunger and want of sleep, the incontinent barbarians outraging them by turns, and satisfying their lust even on the dying and the dead.
{10.22.5} The Aetolians had been informed by messengers what disasters had befallen them and, at once with all speed, removed their forces from Thermopylae and hastened to Aetolia, being exasperated at the sufferings of the Kallians and still more fired with determination to save the cities not yet captured. From all the cities at home were mobilized the men of military age; and even those too old for service, their fighting spirit roused by the crisis, were in the ranks, and their very women gladly served with them, being even more enraged against the Gauls than were the men.
{10.22.6} When the barbarians, having pillaged houses and sanctuaries, and having fired Kallion, were returning by the same way, they were met by the Patraeans, who alone of the Achaeans were helping the Aetolians. Being trained as hoplites, they made a frontal attack on the barbarians but suffered severely owing to the number and desperation of the Gauls. But the Aetolians, men and women, drawn up all along the road, kept shooting at the barbarians, and few shots failed to find a mark among enemies protected by nothing but their national shields. Pursued by the Gauls, they easily escaped, renewing their attack with vigor when their enemies returned from the pursuit.
{10.22.7} Although the Kallians suffered so terribly that even Homer’s account of the Laestrygones and the Cyclops [617] does not seem outside the truth, yet they were duly and fully avenged. For out of their number of forty thousand eight hundred, there escaped of the barbarians to the camp at Thermopylae less than one half.
{10.22.8} Meanwhile, the Greeks at Thermopylae were faring as follows. There are two paths across Mount Oitē: the one above Trakhis is very steep, and for the most part precipitous; the other, through the territory of the Aenianians, is easier for an army to cross. It was through this that on a former occasion, Hydarnes the Persian passed to attack in the rear the Greeks under Leonidas. [618]
{10.22.9} By this road the Herakleia and of Ainiania promised to lead Brennus, not that they were ill disposed to the Greek cause, but because they were anxious for the Celts to go away from their country and not to establish themselves in it to its ruin. I think that Pindar [619] spoke the truth again when he said that everyone is crushed by his own misfortunes but is untouched by the woes of others.
{10.22.10} Brennus was encouraged by the promise made by the Ainiania and of Herakleia. Leaving Acichorius behind in charge of the main army, with instructions that it was to attack only when the enveloping movement was complete, Brennus himself, with a detachment of forty thousand, began his march along the pass.
{10.22.11} It so happened on that day that the mist rolled thick down the mountain, darkening the sun, so that the men of Phokis who were guarding the path found the barbarians upon them before they were aware of their approach. Then the Gauls attacked. The men of Phokis resisted manfully, but at last were forced to retreat from the path. However, they succeeded in running down to their friends with a report of what was happening before the envelopment of the Greek army was quite complete on all sides.
{10.22.12} Then the Athenians with the fleet succeeded in withdrawing in time the Greek forces from Thermopylae, which disbanded and returned to their several homes. Brennus, without delaying any longer, began his march against Delphi without waiting for the army with Acichorius to join up. In terror, the Delphians took refuge in the oracle. The god ordered them not to be afraid and promised that he would himself defend his own.
{10.22.13} The Greeks who came in defense of the god were as follow: the men of Phokis, who came from all their cities; from Amphissa, four hundred hoplites; from the Aetolians, a few came at once on hearing of the advance of the barbarians, and later on, Philomēlos brought one thousand two hundred. The flower of the Aetolians turned against the army of Acichorius, and without offering battle, attacked continuously the rear of their line of march, plundering the baggage and putting the carriers to the sword. It was chiefly for this reason that their march proved slow. Futhermore, at Herakleia Acichorius had left a part of his army, who were to guard the baggage of the camp.
{10.23.1} Brennus and his army were now faced by the Greeks who had mustered at Delphi, and soon, portents boding no good to the barbarians were sent by the god, the clearest recorded in history. For the whole ground occupied by the Gallic army was shaken violently most of the day, with continuous thunder and lightning.
{10.23.2} The thunder both terrified the Gauls and prevented them hearing their orders, while the bolts from the sky [ouranos] set on fire not only those whom they struck but also their neighbors, themselves, and their armor alike. Then there were seen by them ghosts of the heroes Hyperochus, Laodocus, and Pyrrhos; according to some, a fourth appeared, Phylacus, a local hero of Delphi.
{10.23.3} Among the many men of Phokis who were killed in the action was Aleximakhos, who in this battle excelled all the other Greeks in devoting youth, physical strength, and a stout heart, to slaying the barbarians. The people of Phokis made a statue of Aleximakhos and sent it to Delphi as an offering to Apollo.
{10.23.4} All the day, the barbarians were beset by calamities and terrors of this kind. But the night was to bring upon them experiences far more painful. For there came on a severe frost and snow with it; and great rocks slipping from Parnassus, and crags breaking away, made the barbarians their target, the crash of which brought destruction, not on one or two at a time, but on thirty or even more, as they chanced to be gathered in groups, keeping guard or taking rest.
{10.23.5} At sunrise, the Greeks came on from Delphi, making a frontal attack with the exception of the men of Phokis, who, being more familiar with the district, descended through the snow down the precipitous parts of Parnassus, and surprised the Celts in their rear, shooting them down with arrows and javelins without anything to fear from the barbarians.
{10.23.6} At the beginning of the fight, the Gauls offered a spirited resistance, especially the company attached to Brennus, which was composed of the tallest and bravest of the Gauls, even though they were shot at from all sides, and no less distressed by the frost, especially the wounded men. But when Brennus himself was wounded, he was carried fainting from the battle, and the barbarians, harassed on all sides by the Greeks, fell back reluctantly, putting to the sword those who, disabled by wounds or sickness, could not go with them.
{10.23.7} They encamped where night overtook them in their retreat, and during the night, there fell on them a “panic.” For causeless terrors are said to come from the god Pan. It was when evening was turning to night that the confusion fell on the army, and at first, only a few became mad, and these imagined that they heard the trampling of horses at a gallop, and the attack of advancing enemies; but after a little time, the delusion spread to all.
{10.23.8} So rushing to arms, they divided into two parties, killing and being killed, neither understanding their mother tongue nor recognizing one another’s forms or the shape of their shields. Both parties alike under the present delusion thought that their opponents were Greek, men and armor, and that the language they spoke was Greek, so that a great mutual slaughter took place among the Gauls, caused by the madness sent by the god.
{10.23.9} Those men of Phokis who had been left behind in the fields to guard the flocks were the first to perceive and report to the Greeks the panic that had seized the barbarians in the night. The men of Phokis were thus encouraged to attack the Celts with yet greater spirit, keeping a more careful watch on their encampments, and not letting them take from the country the necessities of life without a struggle, so that the whole Gallic army suffered at once from a pressing shortage of wheat and other food.
{10.23.10} Their losses in Phokis were these: in the battles were killed close on six thousand; those who perished in the wintry storm at night and afterwards in the panic terror amounted to over ten thousand, as likewise did those who were starved to death.
{10.23.11} Athenian scouts arrived at Delphi to gather information, after which they returned and reported what had happened to the barbarians, and all that the god had inflicted upon them. Then the Athenians took the field, and as they marched through Boeotia they were joined by the Boeotians. Thus the combined armies followed the barbarians, lying in wait and killing those who happened to be the last.
{10.23.12} Those who fled with Brennus had been joined by the army under Acichorius only on the previous night. For the Aetolians had delayed their march, hurling at them a merciless shower of javelins and anything else they could lay hands on, so that only a small part of them escaped to the camp at Herakleia. There was still a hope of saving the life of Brennus, so far as his wounds were concerned; but, they say, partly because he feared his fellow countrymen, and still more because he was conscience stricken at the calamities he had brought on Greece, he took his own life by drinking neat wine.
{10.23.13} After this, the barbarians proceeded with difficulty as far as the Spercheios, pressed hotly by the Aetolians. But after their arrival at the Spercheios, during the rest of the retreat, the Thessalians and Malians kept lying in wait for them, and so took their fill of slaughter that not a Gaul returned home in safety.
{10.23.14} The expedition of the Celts against Greece, and their destruction, took place when Anaxikrates was archon [arkhōn] in Athens, in the second year of the hundred and twenty-fifth Olympiad [279 BCE] when Ladas of Aigion was victor in the foot race. In the following year, when Demokles was archon [arkhōn]in Athens, the Celts crossed back again to Asia.
TEMPLE OF APOLLON AT DELPHI CONTINUED
{10.24.1} Such was the course of the war. In the fore temple at Delphi are written maxims useful for the life of men, inscribed by those whom the Greeks say were sages. These were: from Ionia, Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene; of the Aeolians in Lesbos, Pittacus of Mitylene; of the Dorians in Asia, Kleoboulos of Lindus; Solon of Athens and Khilon of Sparta; the seventh sage, according to the list of Plato, [620] the son of Ariston, is not Periandros, the son of Kypselos, but Myson of Chenae, a village on Mount Oitē. These sages, then, came to Delphi and dedicated to Apollo the celebrated maxims, “Know thyself,” and “Nothing in excess.”
{10.24.2} So these men wrote what I have said, and you can see a bronze statue of Homer on a slab, and read the oracle that they say Homer received:
Blessed and unhappy, for to be both were you born.
You seek your fatherland; but no fatherland have you, only a motherland.
The island of Ios is the fatherland of your mother, which will receive you
When you have died; but be on your guard against the riddle of the young children.
You seek your fatherland; but no fatherland have you, only a motherland.
The island of Ios is the fatherland of your mother, which will receive you
When you have died; but be on your guard against the riddle of the young children.
The inhabitants of Ios point to Homer’s tomb in the island, and in another part to that of Clymene, who was, they say, the mother of Homer.
{10.24.3} But the Cyprians, who also claim Homer as their own, say that Themisto, one of their native women, was the mother of Homer, and that Euklos foretold the birth of Homer in the following verses:
And then in sea girt Cyprus there will be a mighty singer,
Whom Themisto, lady fair, shall bear in the fields, A man of renown, far from rich Salamis.
Leaving Cyprus, tossed and wetted by the waves,
The first and only poet to sing of the woes of spacious Greece,
For ever shall he be deathless and ageless.
Whom Themisto, lady fair, shall bear in the fields, A man of renown, far from rich Salamis.
Leaving Cyprus, tossed and wetted by the waves,
The first and only poet to sing of the woes of spacious Greece,
For ever shall he be deathless and ageless.
These things I have heard, and I have read the oracles, but express no private opinion about either the age or date of Homer.
{10.24.4} In the temple has been built an altar of Poseidon, because Poseidon too possessed in part the most ancient oracle. There are also images of two Fates; but in place of the third Fate, there stand by their side Zeus, Guide of Fate, and Apollo, Guide of Fate. Here [inside the temple] you may behold the hearth [hestiā] on which the priest of Apollo killed Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles. The things concerning the end of Neoptolemos I have told elsewhere. [621]
{10.24.5} Not far from the hearth [hestiā] has been dedicated a chair [thronos] of Pindar. The chair is of iron, and on it they say Pindar sat whenever he came to Delphi, and there composed his songs to Apollo. Into the innermost part of the temple [nāos] only a few may pass, and there is dedicated in it another statue [agalma] of Apollo, made of gold.
TOMB OF NEOPTOLEMUS AT DELPHI
{10.24.6} Leaving the temple [nāos] and turning to the left, you will come to an enclosure [peribolos] in which is the tomb [taphos] of Neoptolemos son of Achilles. Every year, the Delphians sacrifice [enagizein] to him as to a hero. Coming further up from the tomb [mnēma], you reach a stone [lithos] of no large size. Over it every day they pour olive oil, and at each festival [heortē] they place on it unworked wool. There is also an opinion about this stone, that it was given to Kronos instead of his child and that Kronos vomited it up again.
SPRING OF KASSOTIS AT DELPHI
{10.24.7} Returning to the temple [nāos] after seeing the stone [lithos], you come to the spring [pēgē] called Kassotis. Next to it is a wall of no great size, and the ascent to the spring [pēgē] is through the wall. It is said that the water of this Kassotis sinks under the ground and, inside the inner sanctum [aduton] of the god, it causes the women there to become inspired [mantikai]. She [= Kassotis] who gave her name to the spring [krēnē] is said to have one of the nymphs [numphai] of Parnassus.
PAINTINGS BY POLYGNOTUS AT DELPHI
{10.25.1} Beyond the Cassotis stands a building with paintings of Polygnotus. It was dedicated by the people of Knidos, and is called by the Delphians Lesche (Place of Talk), because here in days of old they used to meet and talkabout the more serious matters and things that had to do with myth. That there used to be many such places all over Greece is shown by Homer’s words in the passage where Melantho abuses Odysseus:
And you will not go to the smith’s house to sleep,
Nor yet to the place of talk, but you make long speeches here.
Nor yet to the place of talk, but you make long speeches here.
Odyssey 18.328
{10.25.2} Inside this building the whole of the painting on the right depicts Troy taken and the Greeks sailing away. On the ship of Menelaos, they are preparing to put to sea. The ship is painted with children among the grown up sailors; amid ships is Phrontis the steersman holding two boat hooks. Homer [622] represents Nestor as speaking about Phrontis in his conversation with Telemachus, saying that he was the son of Onetor and the steersman of Menelaos, of very high repute in his craft, and how he came to his end when he was already rounding Sunium in Attica. Up to this point, Menelaos had been sailing along with Nestor, but now he was left behind to build Phrontis a tomb and to pay him the due rites of burial.
{10.25.3} Phrontis then is in the painting of Polygnotus, and beneath him is one Ithaemenes carrying clothes, and Echoeax is going down the gangway, carrying a bronze urn. Polites, Strophios, and Alphios are pulling down the hut of Menelaos, which is not far from the ship. Another hut is being pulled down by Amphialus, at whose feet is seated a boy. There is no inscription on the boy, and Phrontis is the only one with a beard. His too is the only name that Polygnotus took from the Odyssey; the names of the others he invented, I think, himself.
{10.25.4} Briseis is standing with Diomeda above her and Iphis in front of both; they appear to be examining the form of Helen. Helen herself is sitting, and so is Eurybates near her. We inferred that he was the herald of Odysseus, although he had yet no beard. One handmaid, Panthalis, is standing beside Helen; another, Electra, is fastening her mistress’ sandals. These names too are different from those given by Homer in the Iliad, [623] where he tells of Helen going to the wall with her slave women.
{10.25.5} Beyond Helen, a man wrapped in a purple cloak is sitting in an attitude of the deepest dejection; one might conjecture that he was Helenos, the son of Priam, even before reading the inscription. Near Helenos is Meges, who is wounded in the arm, as Lescheos of Pyrrha, son of Aiskhylinos, describes in the Sack of Troy. For he says that he was wounded by Admetos, son of Augeias, in the battle that the Trojans fought in the night.
{10.25.6} Beside Meges is also painted Lykomedes the son of Creon, who has a wound in the wrist; Lescheos says he was so wounded by Agenor. So it is plain that Polygnotus would not have represented them so wounded, if he had not read the poem of Lescheos. However, he has painted Lykomedes as wounded also in the ankle and yet again in the head. Euryalus the son of Mecisteus has also received a wound in the head and another in the wrist.
{10.25.7} These are painted higher up than Helen in the picture. Next to Helen comes the mother of Theseus with her head shaved, and Demophon, one of the sons of Theseus, is considering, to judge from his attitude, whether it will be possible for him to rescue Aithra. The Argives say that Theseus had also a son Melanippos by the daughter of Sinis and that Melanippos won a running race when the Epigonoi, as they are called, held the second celebration of the Nemean Games, that of Adrastos being the first.
{10.25.8} Lescheos says of Aithra that, when Troy was taken, she came stealthily to the Greek camp. She was recognized by the sons of Theseus, and Demophon asked for her from Agamemnon. He was ready to grant Demophon the favor, but said that Helen must first give her consent. He sent a herald, and Helen granted him the favor. So in the painting, Eurybates appears to have come to Helen to ask about Aithra, and to be saying what he had been told to say by Agamemnon.
{10.25.9} The Trojan women are represented as already captives and lamenting. Andromache is in the painting, and near stands her boy grasping her breast; this child Lescheos says was put to death by being flung from the tower, not that the Greeks had so decreed, but Neoptolemos, of his own accord, was minded to murder him. In the painting is also Medesicaste, another of Priam’s illegitimate daughters, who according to Homer [624] left her home and went to the city of Pedaeum to be the wife of Imbrios, the son of Mentor.
{10.25.10} Andromache and Medesicaste are wearing hoods, but the hair of Polyxena is braided after the custom of girls. Poets sing of her death at the tomb of Achilles, and both in Athens and in Pergamon-on-the-Kaïkos, I have seen the tragedy of Polyxena depicted in paintings.
{10.25.11} The artist has painted Nestor with a cap on his head and a spear in his hand. There is also a horse, in the attitude of one about to roll in the dust. Right up to the horse, there is a beach with what appear to be pebbles, but beyond the horse, the sea scene breaks off.
{10.26.1} Above the women between Aithra and Nestor are other captive women, Clymene, Kreousa, Aristomache, and Xenodice. Now Stesichorus, in the Sack of Troy, includes Clymene in the number of the captives; and similarly, in the Returns, he speaks of Aristomache as the daughter of Priam and the wife of Kritolaos, son of Hicetaon. But I know of no poet, and of no prose writer, who makes mention of Xenodice. About Kreousa, the story is told that the mother of the gods and Aphrodite rescued her from slavery among the Greeks, as she was, of course, the wife of Aeneas. But Lescheos and the writer of the epic poem Cypria make Eurydikē the wife of Aeneas.
{10.26.2} Beyond these are painted on a couch Deinome, Metioche, Peisis, and Kleodike. Deinome is the only one of these names to occur in what is called the Little Iliad; Polygnotus, I think, invented the names of the others. Epeios is painted naked; he is razing to the ground the Trojan wall. Above the wall rises the head only of the Wooden Horse. There is Polypoetes, the son of Peirithous, his head bound with a fillet; by his side is Akamas, the son of Theseus, wearing on his head a helmet with a crest on it.
{10.26.3} There is also Odysseus […] and Odysseus has put on his corselet. Ajax, the son of Oileus, holding a shield, stands by an altar, taking an oath about the outrage on Cassandra. Cassandra is sitting on the ground, and holds the image of Athena, for she had knocked over the wooden image from its stand when Ajax was dragging her away from sanctuary. In the painting are also the sons of Atreus, wearing helmets like the others; Menelaos carries a shield, on which is figured a serpent as a memorial of the prodigy that appeared on the victims at Aulis.
{10.26.4} Under those who are administering the oath to Ajax, and in a line with the horse by Nestor, is Neoptolemos, who has killed Elasus, whoever Elasus may be. Elasus is represented as a man only just alive. Astynous, who is also mentioned by Lescheos, has fallen to his knees, and Neoptolemos is striking him with a sword. Neoptolemos is the only one of the Greek army represented by Polygnotus as still killing the Trojans, the reason being that he intended the whole painting to be placed over the tomb of Neoptolemos. The son of Achilles is named Neoptolemos by Homer in all his poetry. The epic poem, however, called Cypria says that Lykomedes named him Pyrrhos, but Phoenix gave him the name of Neoptolemos (young warrior) because Achilles was but young when he first went to war.
{10.26.5} In the picture is an altar, to which a small boy clings in terror. On the altar lies a bronze corselet. At the present day, corselets of this form are rare, but they used to be worn in days of old. They were made of two bronze pieces, one fitting the chest and the parts about the belly, the other intended to protect the back. They were called gyala. One was put on in front, and the other behind; then they were fastened together by buckles.
{10.26.6} They were thought to afford sufficient safety even without a shield. That is why Homer [625] speaks of Phorcys the Phrygian as without a shield, because he wore a two piece corselet. Not only have I seen this armor depicted by Polygnotus, but in the temple of Ephesian Artemis, Kalliphon of Samos has painted women fitting on the gyala of the corselet of Patroklos.
{10.26.7} Beyond the altar he has painted Laodice standing, whom I do not find among the Trojan captive women enumerated by any poet, so I think that the only probable conclusion is that she was set free by the Greeks. Homer in the Iliad speaks of the hospitality given to Menelaos and Odysseus by Antenor, and how Laodice was wife to Helicaon, Antenor’s son. [626]
{10.26.8} Lescheos says that Helicaon, wounded in the night battle, was recognized by Odysseus and carried alive out of the fighting. So the tie binding Menelaos and Odysseus to the house of Antenor makes it unlikely that Agamemnon and Menelaos committed any spiteful act against the wife of Helicaon. The account of Laodice given by the Chalcidian poet Euphorion is entirely unlikely.
{10.26.9} Next to Laodice is a stone stand with a bronze washing basin upon it. Medusa is sitting on the ground, holding the stand in both hands. If we are to believe the ode of the poet of Himera, Medusa should be reckoned as one of the daughters of Priam. Beside Medusa is a shaved old woman or eunuch, holding on the knees a naked child. It is represented as holding its hand before its eyes in terror.
{10.27.1} There are also corpses: the naked man, Pelis by name, lies thrown on his back, and under Pelis lie Eioneus and Admetos, still clad in their corselets. Of these Lescheos says that Eioneus was killed by Neoptolemos, and Admetos by Philoctetes. Above these are others: under the washing-basin is Leokritos, the son of Poulydamas, killed by Odysseus; beyond Eioneus and Admetos is Coroebus, the son of Mygdon. Of Mygdon, there is a notable tomb on the borders of the Phrygians of Stectorium, and after him, poets are accustomed to call Phrygians by the name of Mygdones. Coroebus came to marry Cassandra and was killed, according to the more popular account by Neoptolemos, but according to the poet Lescheos, by Diomedes.
{10.27.2} Higher up than Coroebus are Priam, Axion, and Agenor. Lescheos says that Priam was not killed at the hearth of the Courtyard God, but that he was dragged away from the altar and fell an easy prey to Neoptolemos at the gate of his own palace. As to Hecuba, Stesichorus says in the Sack of Troy that she was brought by Apollo to Lycia. Lescheos says that Axion was a son of Priam, killed by Eurypylus, the son of Euaemon. According to the same poet, Agenor was slain by Neoptolemos. So it would appear that Ekheklos the son of Agenor was slaughtered by Achilles, and Agenor himself by Neoptolemos.
{10.27.3} The body of Laomedon is being carried off by Sinon, a comrade of Odysseus, and Anchialus. There is also in the painting another corpse, that of Eresus. The tale of Eresus and Laomedon, so far as we know, no poet has sung. There is the house of Antenor, with a leopard’s skin hanging over the entrance, as a sign to the Greeks to keep their hands off the home of Antenor. There are painted Theano and her sons, Glaukos sitting on a corselet fitted with the two pieces, and Eurymakhos upon a rock.
{10.27.4} By the latter stands Antenor, and next to him Crino, a daughter of Antenor. Crino is carrying a baby. The look upon their faces is that of those on whom a calamity has fallen. Servants are lading an donkey with a chest and other furniture. There is also sitting on the donkey a small child. At this part of the painting, there is also an elegiac couplet of Simonides:
Polygnotus, a Thasian by birth, son of Aglaophon,
Painted a picture of Troy’s citadel being sacked.
Painted a picture of Troy’s citadel being sacked.
Simonides, unknown location.
{10.28.1} The other part of the picture, the one on the left, shows Odysseus, who has descended into what is called Hades to inquire of the soul of Teiresias about his safe return home. The objects depicted are as follow. There is water like a river, clearly intended for Acheron, with reeds growing in it; the forms of the fishes appear so dim that you will take them to be shadows rather than fish. On the river is a boat, with the ferryman at the oars.
{10.28.2} Polygnotus followed, I think, the poem called the Minyad. For in this poem occur lines referring to Theseus and Peirithous:
Then the boat on which embark the dead, that the old ferryman, Kharon, used to steer, they found not within its moorings.
The Minyad, an unknown work.
For this reason then, Polygnotus too painted Kharon as a man well stricken in years.
{10.28.3} Those on board the boat are not altogether distinguished. Tellis appears as a youth in years, and Kleoboia as still a maiden, holding on her knees a chest such as they are accustomed to make for Demeter. All I heard about Tellis was that Archilochus the poet was his grandson, while as for Kleoboia, they say that she was the first to bring the orgies of Demeter to Thasos from Paros.
{10.28.4} On the bank of Acheron, there is a notable group under the boat of Kharon, consisting of a man who had been undutiful to his father and is now being throttled by him. For the men of old held their parents in the greatest respect, as we may infer, among other instances, from those in Catana called the Pious, who, when the fire flowed down on Catana from Aetna, held of no account gold or silver, but when they fled took up, one his mother and another his father. As they struggled on, the fire rushed up and caught them in the flames. Not even so would they put down their parents, and it is said that the stream of lava divided itself in two, and the fire passed on, doing no hurt to either young men or their parents. These Catanians even at the present day receive honors from their fellow countrymen.
{10.28.5} Near to the man in Polygnotus’ picture who maltreated his father and for this drinks his cup of woe in Hades, is a man who paid the penalty for sacrilege. The woman who is punishing him is skilled in poisonous and other drugs.
{10.28.6} So it appears that in those days men laid the greatest stress on piety to the gods, as the Athenians showed when they took the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus at Syracuse; they moved none of the offerings but left the Syracusan priest as their keeper. Datis the Persian too showed his piety in his address to the Delians, and in this act as well, when having found an image of Apollo in a Phoenician ship, he restored it to the Tanagraeans at Delium. So at that time all men held the divine in reverence, and this is why Polygnotus has depicted the punishment of him who committed sacrilege.
{10.28.7} Higher up than the figures I have enumerated comes Eurynomos, said by the Delphian guides to be one of the demons in Hades, who eats off all the flesh of the corpses, leaving only their bones. But Homer’s Odyssey, the poem called the Minyad, and the Returns, although they tell of Hades and its horrors, know of no demon called Eurynomos. However, I will describe what he is like and his attitude in the painting. He is of a color between blue and black, like that of meat flies; he is showing his teeth and is seated, and under him is spread a vulture’s skin.
{10.28.8} Next after Eurynomos are Auge of Arcadia and Iphimedeia. Auge visited the house of Teuthras in Mysia, and of all the women with whom Hēraklēs is said to have mated, none gave birth to a son more like his father than she did. Great honors are paid to Iphimedeia by the Carians in Mylasa.
{10.29.1} Higher up than the figures I have already enumerated are Perimedes and Eurylokhos, the companions of Odysseus, carrying victims for sacrifice; these are black rams. After them is a man seated, said by the inscription to be Ocnus (Sloth). He is depicted as plaiting a cord, and by him stands a she-donkey, eating up the cord as quickly as it is plaited. They say that this Ocnus was a diligent man with an extravagant wife. Everything he earned by working was quickly spent by his wife.
{10.29.2} So they will have it that Polygnotus has painted a parable about the wife of Ocnus. I know also that the Ionians, whenever they see a man laboring at nothing profitable, say that such a figure is plaiting the cord of Ocnus. Ocnus too is the name given to a bird by the seers who observe birds that are ominous. This Ocnus is the largest and most beautiful of the herons, a rare bird if ever there was one.
{10.29.3} Tityos too is in the picture; he is no longer being punished but has been reduced to nothing by continuous torture, an indistinct and mutilated phantom.
Going on to the next part of the picture, you see very near to the man who is twisting the rope a painting of Ariadne. Seated on a rock, she is looking at her sister Phaedra, who is on a swing grasping in either hand the rope on each side. The attitude, though quite gracefully drawn, makes us infer the manner of Phaedra’s death.
{10.29.4} Ariadne was taken away from Theseus by Dionysus, who sailed against him with superior forces, and either fell in with Ariadne by chance or else set an ambush to catch her. This Dionysus was, in my opinion, none other than he who was the first to invade India and the first to bridge the river Euphrates. Zeugma (Bridge) was the name given to that part of the country where the Euphrates was bridged, and at the present day, the cable is still preserved with which he spanned the river; it is plaited with branches of the vine and ivy.
{10.29.5} Both the Greeks and the Egyptians have many legends about Dionysus. Underneath Phaedra is Chloris leaning against the knees of Thyia. He will not be mistaken who says that all during the lives of these women they remained friends. For Chloris came from Orkhomenos in Boeotia, and the other was a daughter of Kastalios from Parnassus. Other authorities have told their history, how Thyia had connection with Poseidon, and how Chloris wedded Neleus, son of Poseidon.
{10.29.6} Beside Thyia stands Procris, the daughter of Erekhtheus, and after her Clymene, who is turning her back to Chloris. The poem the Returns says that Clymene was a daughter of Minyas, that she married Cephalus the son of Deion, and that a son Iphiklos was born to them. The story of Procris is told by all men, how she had married Cephalus before Clymene, and in what way she was put to death by her husband.
{10.29.7} Farther within from Clymene, you will see Megara from Thebes. This Megara married Hēraklēs but was divorced by him in course of time on the ground that he had lost the children he had by her and so thought that his marriage with her was unlucky.
Above the heads of the women I have enumerated is the daughter of Salmoneus sitting on a rock, beside whom is standing Eriphyle, who is holding up the ends of her fingers along her neck through her tunic, and you will conjecture that in the folds of her tunic, she is holding in one of her hands the famous necklace.
{10.29.8} Beyond Eriphyle have been painted Elpenor and Odysseus. The latter is squatting on his feet, and holding his sword over the trench, towards which the seer Teiresias is advancing. After Teiresias is Anticleia, the mother of Odysseus, upon a rock. Elpenor has on instead of clothes a mat, such as is usual for sailors to wear.
{10.29.9} Lower down than Odysseus are Theseus and Peirithous sitting upon chairs. The former is holding in his hands the sword of Peirithous and his own. Peirithous is looking at the swords, and you might conjecture that he is angry with them for having been useless and of no help in their daring adventures. Panyassis the poet says that Theseus and Peirithous did not sit chained to their chairs but that the rock grew to their flesh and so served as chains.
{10.29.10} The proverbial friendship of Theseus and Peirithous has been mentioned by Homer in both his poems. In the Odyssey, Odysseus says to the Phaeacians:
And now I should have seen more men of former days, whom I wished very much to see,
Theseus and Peirithous, renowned children of gods.
Theseus and Peirithous, renowned children of gods.
Odyssey 11.631–632
And in the Iliad, he has made Nestor give advice to Agamemnon and Achilles, and speaking among others the following verses:
I have never yet seen such men, and I am never likely to see
As were Peirithoös, Dryas, shepherd of the folk,
Kaineus, Exadios, god-like Polyphemos,
And Theseus, son of Aigeus, like to the immortals.
As were Peirithoös, Dryas, shepherd of the folk,
Kaineus, Exadios, god-like Polyphemos,
And Theseus, son of Aigeus, like to the immortals.
Iliad 1.262–265
{10.30.1} Next Polygnotus has painted the daughters of Pandareos. Homer makes Penelope say in a speech [627] that the parents of the girls died because of the wrath of the gods, that they were reared as orphans by Aphrodite and received gifts from other goddesses: from Hērā, wisdom and beauty of form; from Artemis, high stature; from Athena, schooling in the works that befit women.
{10.30.2} He goes on to say that Aphrodite ascended into the sky [ouranos], wishing to secure for the girls a happy marriage, and in her absence, they were carried off by the Harpies and given by them to the Furies. This is the story as given by Homer. Polygnotus has painted them as girls garlanded with flowers and playing with dice and gives them the names of Cameiro and Clytie. I must tell you that Pandareos was a Milesian from Miletus in Crete and implicated in the theft of Tantalos and in the trick of the oath.
{10.30.3} After the daughters of Pandareos is Antilokhos, with one foot upon a rock and his face and head resting upon both hands, while after Antilokhos is Agamemnon, leaning on a scepter beneath his left armpit, and holding up a staff in his hands. Protesilaos is seated with his gaze fixed on Achilles. Such is the posture of Protesilaos, and beyond Achilles is Patroklos standing. With the exception of Agamemnon, these figures have no beard.
{10.30.4} Beyond them has been painted Phokos as a youth, and Iaseus, well bearded, is taking off a ring from the left hand of Phokos. The story about this is as follows. When Phokos, the son of Aiakos, had crossed from Aegina into what is now called Phokis and wished to gain the rule over the men living on that part of the mainland and to settle there himself, Iaseus conceived a great friendship for him. Among the gifts that Iaseus gave (as friends will) was a seal ring, a stone set in gold. But when Phokos returned, not long afterwards, to Aegina, Peleus at once plotted to kill him. This is the reason why in the painting, as a reminder of their great friendship, Iaseus is anxious to look at the ring, and Phokos has let him take it.
{10.30.5} Beyond these is Maera sitting on a rock. About her, the poem Returns says that she was still a maid when she departed this life, being the daughter of Proitos, son of Thersandros, who was a son of Sisyphus. Next to Maera is Actaeon, son of Aristaios, together with the mother of Actaeon; they hold in their hands a young deer and are sitting on a deer’s skin. A hunting dog lies stretched out beside them, an allusion to Actaeon’s mode of life, and to the manner of his death.
{10.30.6} Turning our gaze again to the lower part of the picture we see, next after Patroklos, Orpheus sitting on what seems to be a sort of hill; he grasps with his left hand a harp, and with his right, he touches a willow. It is the branches that he touches, and he is leaning against the tree. The grove seems to be that of Persephone, where grow, as Homer thought, [628] black poplars and willows. The appearance of Orpheus is Greek, and neither his garb nor his headgear is Thracian.
{10.30.7} On the other side of the willow tree Promedon is leaning against it. Some there are who think that the name Promedon is as it were a poetic invention of Polygnotus; others have said that Promedon was a Greek who was fond of listening to all kinds of music, especially to the singing of Orpheus.
{10.30.8} In this part of the painting is Schedios, who led the men of Phokis to Troy, and after him is Pelias, sitting on a chair, with grey hair and grey beard, and looking at Orpheus. Schedios holds a dagger and is garlanded with grass. Thamyris is sitting near Pelias. He has lost the sight of his eyes; his attitude is one of utter dejection; his hair and beard are long; at his feet lies thrown a lyre with its horns and strings broken.
{10.30.9} Above him is Marsyas, sitting on a rock, and by his side is Olympus, with the appearance of a boy in the bloom of youth learning to play the aulos [‘double-reed’]. The Phrygians in Kelainai hold that the river passing through the city was once this great aulos player, and they also hold that the Song of the Mother, an air for the aulos [‘double-reed’], was composed by Marsyas. They say too that they repelled the army of the Gauls by the aid of Marsyas, who defended them against the barbarians by the water from the river and by the music of his aulos [‘double-reed’].
{10.31.1} If you turn your gaze again to the upper part of the painting, you see, next to Actaeon, Ajax of Salamis, and also Palamedes and Thersites playing with dice, the invention of Palamedes; the other Ajax is looking at them as they play. The color of the latter Ajax is like that of a shipwrecked sailor with the brine still rough on the surface of his skin.
{10.31.2} Polygnotus has intentionally gathered into one group the enemies of Odysseus. Ajax, son of Oileus, conceived a hatred of Odysseus, because Odysseus urged the Greeks to stone him for the outrage on Cassandra. Palamedes, as I know from reading the epic poem Cypria, was drowned when he put out to catch fish, and his murderers were Diomedes and Odysseus.
{10.31.3} Meleagros, the son of Oineus, is higher up in the picture than Ajax, the son of Oileus, and he seems to be looking at Ajax. Palamedes has no beard, but the others have. As to the death of Meleagros, Homer [629] says that the Fury heard the curses of Althaea and that this was the cause of the death of Meleagros. But the poem Eoeae, as it is called, and the Minyad agree in giving a different account. For these poems say that Apollo helped the Kouretes against the Aetolians and that Meleagros was killed by Apollo.
{10.31.4} The story about the brand, how it was given by the Fates to Althaea, how Meleagros was not to die before the brand was consumed by fire, and how Althaea burned it up in a passion—this story was first made the subject of a drama by Phrynichus, the son of Polyphradmon, in his Pleuronian Women:
For chill doom he escaped not, but a swift flame consumed him, as the brand was destroyed by his terrible mother, contriver of evil.
Phrynichus Pleuronian Women, unknown location.
However, it appears that Phrynichus did not elaborate the story as a man would his own invention but only touched on it as one already in the mouths of everybody in Greece.
{10.31.5} In the lower part of the picture, after the Thracian Thamyris, comes Hector, who is sitting with both hands clasped about his left knee, in an attitude of deep grief. After him is Memnon, sitting on a rock, and Sarpedon next to Memnon. Sarpedon has his face buried in both hands, and one of Memnon’s hands lies on Sarpedon’s shoulder.
{10.31.6} All are bearded; and on the cloak of Memnon are embroidered birds. Their name is Memnonides, and the people of the Hellespont say that on stated days every year they go to the tomb of Memnon and sweep all that part of the tomb that is bare of trees or grass and sprinkle it with the water of the Aisepos from their wet wings.
{10.31.7} Beside Memnon is depicted a naked Ethiopian boy, because Memnon was king of the Ethiopian nation. He came to Troy, however, not from Ethiopia, but from Susa in Persia and from the river Choaspes, having subdued all the peoples that lived between these and Troy. The Phrygians still point out the road through which he led his army, picking out the shortest routes. The road is divided up by halting places. [630]
{10.31.8} Beyond Sarpedon and Memnon is Paris, as yet beardless. He is clapping his hands like a boor, and you will say that it is as though Paris were calling Penthesileia to him by the noise of his hands. Penthesileia too is there, looking at Paris, but by the toss of her head, she seems to show her disdain and contempt. In appearance, Penthesileia is a maiden, carrying a bow like Scythian bows, and wearing a leopard’s skin on her shoulders.
{10.31.9} The women beyond Penthesileia are carrying water in broken pitchers; one is depicted as in the bloom of youth, the other is already advanced in years. There is no separate inscription on either woman, but there is one common to the pair, which states that they are of the number of the uninitiated.
{10.31.10} Higher up than these is Kallisto, daughter of Lykaon, Nomia, and Pero, daughter of Neleus. As her bride price, Neleus asked for the oxen of Iphiklos. Instead of a mattress, Kallisto has a bearskin, and her feet are lying on Nomia’s knees. I have already mentioned that the Arcadians say that Nomia [631] is a nymph native to their country. The poets say that the nymphs live for a great number of years but are not altogether exempt from death.
After Kallisto and the women with her is the form of a cliff, and Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, is trying his hardest to push the rock up it.
{10.31.11} There is also in the painting a jar and an old man with a boy and two women. One of these, who is young, is under the rock; the other is beside the old man and of a like age to his. The others are carrying water, but you will guess that the old woman’s water jar is broken. All that remains of the water in the sherd, she is pouring out again into the jar. We inferred that these people too were of those who had held of no account the rites at Eleusis. For the Greeks of an earlier period looked upon the Eleusinian mysteries as being as much higher than all other religious acts as gods are higher than heroes.
{10.31.12} Under this jar is Tantalos, enduring all the pains that Homer [632] speaks of, and in addition, the terror of the stone that hangs over him. Polygnotus has plainly followed the account of Archilochus, but I do not know whether Archilochus borrowed from others the story of the stone or whether it was an invention of his that he introduced into his poem.
So great is the number of the figures and so many are their beauties in this painting of the Thasian artist.
THEATRE AT DELPHI
{10.32.1} Adjoining the sacred enclosure is a theater worth seeing, and on coming up from the enclosure […] and here is an image of Dionysus, dedicated by the people of Knidos. The Delphian race course is on the highest part of their city. It was made of the stone that is most common about Parnassus until Herodes the Athenian rebuilt it of Pentelic marble. Such in my day the objects remaining in Delphi that are worth recording.
THE CORYCIAN CAVE
{10.32.2} On the way from Delphi to the summit of Parnassus, about sixty stadium-lengths distant from Delphi, there is a bronze image. The ascent to the Corycian cave is easier for an active walker than it is for mules or horses. I mentioned a little earlier in my narrative [633] that this cave was named after a nymph called Corycia, and of all the caves I have ever seen, this seemed to me the best worth seeing.
{10.32.3} It would be impossible to discover even the mere number of caves whose entrances face the beach or the deep sea, but the most famous ones in Greek or in foreign lands are the following. The Phrygians on the river Pencelas, and those who came to this land originally from the Azanians in Arcadia, show visitors a cave called Steunos, which is round and handsome in its loftiness. It is sacred to the Mother, and there is an image of her.
{10.32.4} Themisonium above Laodiceia is also inhabited by Phrygians. When the army of the Gauls was laying waste Ionia and the borders of Ionia, the Themisonians say that they were helped by Hēraklēs, Apollo, and Hermes, who revealed to their magistrates in dreams a cave and commanded that in it should be hidden the Themisonians with their wives and children.
{10.32.5} This is the reason why in front of the cave they have set up small images, called Gods of the Cave, of Hēraklēs, Hermes, and Apollo. The cave is some thirty stadium-lengths distant from the city and in it are springs of water. There is no entrance to it; the sunlight does not reach very far, and the greater part of the roof lies quite close to the floor.
{10.32.6} There is also near Magnesia on the river Lethaios a place called Aulai (Halls), where there is a cave sacred to Apollo, not very remarkable for its size, but the image of Apollo is very old indeed, and bestows strength equal to any task. The men sacred to the god leap down from sheer precipices and high rocks, and uprooting trees of exceeding height walk with their burdens down the narrowest of paths.
{10.32.7} But the Corycian cave exceeds in size those I have mentioned, and it is possible to make one’s way through the greater part of it even without lights. The roof stands at a sufficient height from the floor, and water, rising in part from springs but still more dripping from the roof, has made clearly visible the marks of drops on the floor throughout the cave. The dwellers around Parnassus believe it to be sacred to the Corycian nymphs and especially to Pan. From the Corycian cave, it is difficult even for an active walker to reach the heights of Parnassus. The heights are above the clouds, and the Thyiad women rave there in honor of Dionysus and Apollo.
TITHOREA
{10.32.8} Tithorea is, I should guess, about one hundred and eighty stadium-lengths distant from Delphi on the road across Parnassus. This road is not mountainous throughout, being fit even for vehicles but was said to be several stadium-lengths longer. I am aware that Herodotus [634] in his account of the Persian invasion gives the town a different name from that given to it in the oracles of Bacis.
{10.32.9} For Bacis called the inhabitants Tithoreans, but the account of them in Herodotus states that during the advance of the barbarians, the people dwelling here fled up to the summit and that the city’s name was Neon, Tithorea being the name of the peak of Parnassus. It appears then that at first Tithorea was the name applied to the whole district; but in course of time, when the people migrated from the villages, the city too came to be called Tithorea, and not Neon any longer. The natives say that Tithorea was so called after a nymph of the same name, one of those who in days of old, according to the story of the poets, grew out of trees and especially out of oaks.
{10.32.10} One generation before I was born, the superhuman force [daimōn] made the fortunes of Tithorea decay. There are the buildings of a theater, and the enclosure of a rather ancient marketplace. The most noteworthy objects in the city are the grove, temple, and image of Athena. There is also the tomb of Antiope and Phokos. I have already in my account of Thebes mentioned [635] how Antiope went mad because of the wrath of Dionysus, and the reason why she brought on herself the anger of the god;
{10.32.11} I have also told how Phokos, the son of Ornytion, fell in love with her, how she married him and is buried with him, and what Bacis the soothsayer says about this tomb in common with that of Zethus and Amphion at Thebes. I found nothing else remarkable in the town except what I have already mentioned. Running past the city of Tithorea is a river that gives the inhabitants drinking water. They go down to the bank and draw the water up. The name of the river is Cachales.
NEAR TITHOREA
{10.32.12} Seventy stadium-lengths distant from Tithorea is a temple of Asklepios called Arkhagetas (Founder). He receives divine honors from the Tithoreans and no less from the other people of Phokis. Within the precincts are dwellings for both the suppliants of the god and his servants. In the middle is the temple of the god and an image made of stone, having a beard more than two feet long. A couch is set on the right of the image. It is usual to sacrifice to the god any animal except the goat.
{10.32.13} About forty stadium-lengths distant from Asklepios is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. For the Tithoreans think it wrong to dwell round about it, and no one may enter the shrine except those whom Isis herself has honored by inviting them in dreams. The same rule is observed in the cities above the Maeander by the gods of the lower world; for to all whom they wish to enter their shrines they send visions seen in dreams.
{10.32.14} In the country of the Tithoreans, a festival in honor of Isis is held twice each year, one in spring and the other in autumn. On the third day, before each of the feasts, those who have permission to enter purify the shrine in a certain secret way and also take and bury, always in the same spot, whatever remnants they may find of the victims thrown in at the previous festival. We estimated that the distance from the shrine to this place was two stadium-lengths.
{10.32.15} So on this day, they perform these acts about the sanctuary, and on the next day, the small traders make themselves booths of reeds or other improvised material. On the last of the three days, they hold a fair, selling slaves, cattle of all kinds, clothes, silver, and gold.
{10.32.16} After midday, they turn to sacrificing. The more wealthy sacrifice oxen and deer, the poorer people geese and guinea fowl. But it is not the custom to use for the sacrifice sheep, pigs, or goats. Those whose business it is to burn the victims [636] and send them into the shrine […] having made a beginning must wrap the victims in bandages of coarse or fine linen; the mode of preparing is the Egyptian.
{10.32.17} All that they have devoted to sacrifice are led in procession; some send the victims into the shrine, while others burn the booths before the shrine and themselves go away in haste. They say that once a profane man, who was not one of those descending into the shrine, when the pyre began to burn, entered the shrine to satisfy his rash inquisitiveness. It is said that everywhere he saw ghosts, and on returning to Tithorea and telling what he had seen, he departed this life.
{10.32.18} I have heard a similar story from a man of Phoenicia, that the Egyptians hold the feast for Isis at a time when they say she is mourning for Osiris. At this time the Nile begins to rise, and it is a saying among many of the natives that what makes the river rise and water their fields is the tears of Isis. At that time then, so said my Phoenician, the Roman governor of Egypt bribed a man to go down into the shrine of Isis in Coptus. The man dispatched into the shrine returned indeed out of it, but after relating what he had seen, he too, so I was told, died immediately. So it appears that Homer’s verse [637] speaks the truth when it says that it bodes no good to man to see godhead face to face.
{10.32.19} The olive oil of Tithorea is less abundant than Attic or Sikyonian oil, but in color and pleasantness, it surpasses Iberian oil and that from the island of Istria. They distill all manner of unguents from the oil and also send it to the Emperor.
LEDON
{10.33.1} Another road from Tithorea is the one that leads to Ledon. Once Ledon also was considered a city, but in my day, the Ledontians owing to their weakness, had abandoned the city, and the dwellers on the Kephisos were about seventy people. Still, the name of Ledon is given to their dwellings, and the citizens, like the Panopeans, have the right to be represented at the general assembly of the people of Phokis. The ruins of the ancient Ledon are forty stadium-lengths farther up from these dwellers on the Kephisos. They say that the city took its name from an aborigine.
{10.33.2} Other cities have incurred incurable harm through the sin of their own citizens, but Troy’s ruin was complete when it fell through the outrage that Alexander committed against Menelaos, and Miletus through the lack of control shown by Histiaios, and his passionate desire, now to possess the city in the land of the Edonians, now to be admitted to the councils of Dareios, and now to go back to Ionia. Again, Philomēlos brought on the community of Ledon the punishment to be paid for the crime of his own impiety.
LILAEA
{10.33.3} Lilaea is a winter day’s journey distant from Delphi; we estimated the length of the road, which goes across and down Parnassus, to be one hundred and eighty stadium-lengths. Even after their city had been restored, its inhabitants were fated to suffer a second disaster at the hands of the Macedonians. Besieged by Philip, the son of Demetrios, they made terms and surrendered, and a garrison was brought into the city, until a native of the city, whose name was Patron, united against the garrison those of the citizens who were of military age conquered the Macedonians in battle and forced them to withdraw under a truce. In return for this good deed, the Lilaeans dedicated his statue at Delphi.
{10.33.4} In Lilaea are also a theater, a marketplace, and baths. There is also a sanctuary of Apollo, and one of Artemis. The images are standing, of Attic workmanship, and of marble from the Pentelic quarries. They say that Lilaea was one of the Naids, as they are called, a daughter of the Kephisos, and that after this nymph the city was named. Here the river has its source.
{10.33.5} It is not always quiet when it rises from the ground, but it usually happens that at about midday, it makes a noise as it wells up. You could compare the roar of the water to the bellowing of a bull. Lilaea has a temperate climate in autumn, in summer, and in spring; but Mount Parnassus prevents the winter from being correspondingly mild.
CHARADRA & PARAPOTAMII
{10.33.6} Kharadra is twenty stadium-lengths distant, situated on the top of a lofty crag. The inhabitants are badly off for water; their drinking water is the river Kharadros, and they have to go down about three stadium-lengths to reach it. This river is a tributary of the Kephisos, and it seems to me that the town was named after the Kharadros. In the marketplace at Kharadra are altars of Heroes, as they are called, said by some to be the Dioskouroi, by others to be local heroes.
{10.33.7} The land beside the Kephisos is distinctly the best in Phokis for planting, sowing and pasture. This part of the district, too, is the one most under cultivation, so that there is a saying that the verse,
And they who dwelled beside the divine river Kephisos
Iliad 2.522
alludes, not to a city Parapotamii (Riverside), but to the farmers beside the Kephisos.
{10.33.8} The saying, however, is at variance with the history of Herodotus [638] as well as with the records of victories at the Pythian Games. For the Pythian Games were first held by the Amphiktyones, and at this first meeting a Parapotamian of the name of Aechmeas won the prize in the boxing match for boys. Similarly Herodotus, enumerating the cities that King Xerxes burned in Phokis, includes among them the city of Parapotamii. However, Parapotamii was not restored by the Athenians and Boeotians, but the inhabitants, being poverty stricken and few in number, were distributed among the other cities. I found no ruins of Parapotamii left, nor is the site of the city remembered.
AMPHICLEIA
{10.33.9} The road from Lilaea to Amphicleia is sixty stadium-lengths. The name of this Amphicleia has been corrupted by the native inhabitants. Herodotus, following the most ancient account, called it Amphicaea; but the Amphiktyones, when they published their decree for the destruction of the cities in Phokis, gave it the name of Amphicleia. The natives tell about it the following story. A certain chief, suspecting that enemies were plotting against his baby son, put the child in a vessel, and hid him in that part of the land where he knew there would be most security. Now a wolf attacked the child, but a serpent coiled itself round the vessel, and kept up a strict watch.
{10.33.10} When the child’s father came, supposing that the serpent had purposed to attack the child, he threw his javelin, which killed the serpent and his son as well. But being informed by the shepherds that he had killed the benefactor and protector of his child, he made one common pyre for both the serpent and his son. Now they say that even today the place resembles a burning pyre, maintaining that after this serpent the city was called Ophiteia.
{10.33.11} They celebrate orgies, well worth seeing, in honor of Dionysus, but there is no entrance to the shrine, nor have they any image that can be seen. The people of Amphicleia say that this god is their prophet and their helper in disease. The diseases of the Amphicleans themselves and of their neighbors are cured by means of dreams. The oracles of the god are given by the priest, who utters them when under the divine inspiration.
DRYMAEA
{10.33.12} Fifteen stadium-lengths away from Amphicleia is Tithronium, lying on a plain. It contains nothing remarkable. From Tithronium it is twenty stadium-lengths to Drymaea. At the place where this road joins at the Kephisos the straight road from Amphicleia to Drymaea, [639] the Tithronians have a grove and altars of Apollo. There has also been made a temple, but no image.
Drymaea is eighty stadium-lengths distant from Amphicleia, on the left … according to the account in Herodotus, [640] but in earlier days Naubolenses. The inhabitants say that their founder was Naubolus, son of Phokos, son of Aiakos. At Drymaea is an ancient sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver, with a standing image made of stone. Every year they hold a feast in her honor, the Thesmophoria.
ELATEIA
{10.34.1} Elateia is, with the exception of Delphi, the largest city in Phokis. It lies over against Amphicleia, and the road to it from Amphicleia is one hundred and eighty stadium-lengths long, level for the most part, but with an upward gradient for a short distance quite close to the town of Elateia. In the plain flows the Kephisos, and the most common bird to live along its banks is the bustard.
{10.34.2} The people of Elateia were successful in repelling the Macedonian army under Kassandros, and they managed to escape from the war that Taxilos, general of Mithridates, brought against them. In return for this deed the Romans have given them the privilege of living in the country free and immune from taxation. They claim to be of foreign stock, saying that of old they came from Arcadia. For they say that when the Phlegyans marched against the sanctuary at Delphi, Elatos, the son of Arkas, came to the assistance of the god, and with his army stayed behind in Phokis, becoming the founder of Elateia.
{10.34.3} Elateia must be numbered among the cities of the people of Phokis burned by the Persians. Some disasters were shared by Elateia with the other people of Phokis, but she had peculiar calamities of her own, inflicted by fate at the hands of the Macedonians. In the war waged by Kassandros, it is Olympiodoros who must receive most credit for the Macedonians being forced to abandon a siege. Philip, the son of Demetrios, reduced the people of Elateia to the utmost terror, and at the same time seduced by bribery the more powerful of the citizens.
{10.34.4} Titus, the Roman governor, who had a commission from Rome to give all Greeks their freedom, promised to give back to Elateia its ancient constitution, and by messengers made overtures to its citizens to secede from Macedonia. But either they or their government were stupid enough to be faithful to Philip, and the Romans reduced them by siege. Later on the people of Elateia held out when besieged by the barbarians of Pontos under the command of Taxilos, the general of Mithridates. As a reward for this deed the Romans gave them their freedom.
{10.34.5} An army of bandits, called the Kostoboes, who overran Greece in my day, visited among other cities Elateia. Whereupon a certain Mnesiboulos gathered round him a company of men and put to the sword many of the barbarians, but he himself fell in the fighting. This Mnesiboulos won several prizes for running, among which were prizes for the foot-race, and for the double race with shield, at the two hundred and thirty-fifth Olympic festival. [641] In Runner Street at Elateia there stands a bronze statue of Mnesiboulos.
{10.34.6} The marketplace itself is worth seeing, and so is the figure of Elatos carved in relief upon a slab. I do not know for certain whether they made the slab to honor him as their founder or merely to serve as a tombstone to his tomb. A temple has been built to Asklepios, with a bearded image of the god. The names of the makers of the image are Timokles and Timarchides, artists of Attic birth. At the end of the city on the right is a theater, and an ancient bronze image of Athena. They say that this goddess helped them against the barbarians under Taxilos.
{10.34.7} About twenty stadium-lengths away from Elateia is a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Cranaea. The road to it slopes upwards, but so gentle is the ascent that it causes no fatigue—in fact one scarcely notices it. At the end of the road is a hill which, though for the most part precipitous, is neither very large nor very high. On this hill the sanctuary has been built, with porticoes and dwellings through them, where live those whose duty it is to wait on the god, chief of whom is the priest.
{10.34.8} They choose the priest from boys who have not yet reached the age of puberty, taking care beforehand that his term of office shall run out before puberty arrives. The office lasts for five successive years, during which the priest boards with the goddess, and bathes in tubs after the ancient manner. This image too was made by the sons of Polykles. It is armed as for battle, and on the shield is worked in relief a copy of what in Athens is worked on the shield of her whom the Athenians call the Virgin.
ABAE
{10.35.1} To reach Abaiand Hyampolis from Elateia you may go along a mountain road on the right of the city of Elateia, but the highway from Orkhomenos to Opus also leads to those cities. If then you go along the road from Orkhomenos to Opus, and turn off a little to the left, you reach the road to Abae. The people of Abaisay that they came to Phokis from Argos, and that the city got its name from Abas, the founder, who was a son of Lynkeus and of Hypermnestra, the daughter of Danails. Abaifrom of old has been considered sacred to Apollo, and here too there was an oracle of that god.
{10.35.2} The treatment that the god at Abaireceived at the hands of the Persians was very different from the honor paid him by the Romans. For while the Romans have given freedom of government to Abaibecause of their reverence for Apollo, the army of Xerxes burned down, as it did others, the sanctuary at Abae. The Greeks who opposed the barbarians resolved not to rebuild the sanctuaries burned down by them, but to leave them for all time as memorials of their hatred. This too is the reason why the temples in the territory of Haliartos, as well as the Athenian temples of Hērā on the road to Phaleron and of Demeter at Phaleron, still remain half-burned even at the present day.
{10.35.3} Such, I suppose, was the appearance of the sanctuary at Abaialso, after the Persian invasion, until in the war of the people of Phokis some of their men, overcome in battle, took refuge in Abae. Whereupon the Thebans gave them to the flames, and with the refugees the sanctuary, which was thus burned down a second time. However, it still stood even in my time, the frailest of buildings ever damaged by fire, seeing that the ruin begun by the Persian incendiaries was completed by the incendiaries of Boeotia.
{10.35.4} Beside the large temple there is another, but smaller in size, made for Apollo by the emperor Hadrian. The images are of earlier date, being dedicated by the Abaeans themselves; they are made of bronze, and all alike are standing, Apollo, Leto and Artemis. At Abaithere is a theater, and also a marketplace, both of ancient construction.
HYAMPOLIS
{10.35.5} Returning to the straight road to Opus, you come next to Hyampolis. Its mere name tells you who the inhabitants originally were, and the place from which they were expelled when they came to this land. For it was the Hyantes of Thebes who came here when they fled from Kadmos and his army. In earlier times the city was called by its neighbors the city of the Hyantes, but in course of time the name of Hyampolis prevailed over the other.
{10.35.6} Although Xerxes had burned down the city, and afterwards Philip had razed it to the ground, nevertheless there were left the structure of an old marketplace, a council-chamber (a building of no great size) and a theater not far from the gates. The emperor Hadrian built a portico which bears the name of the emperor who dedicated it. The citizens have one well only. This is their sole supply, both for drinking and for washing; from no other source can they get water, save only from the winter rains.
{10.35.7} Above all other divinities they worship Artemis, of whom they have a temple. The image of her I cannot describe, for their rule is to open the sanctuary twice, and not more often, every year. They say that whatever cattle they consecrate to Artemis grow up immune to disease and fatter than other cattle.
STIRIS
{10.35.8} The straight road to Delphi that leads through Panopeus and past Daulis and the Cleft Way, is not the only pass from Khaironeia to Phokis. There is another road, rough and for the most part mountainous, that leads from Khairōneia to the city of Stiris in Phokis. The length of the road is one hundred and twenty stadium-lengths. The inhabitants assert that by descent they are from Phokis, but from Athens, and that they came from Attica with Peteοs, the son of Orneus, when he was pursued from Athens by Aigeus. They add that, because the greater part of those who accompanied Peteοs came from the district [dēmos] known as Stireis, the city received the name of Stiris.
{10.35.9} The people of Stiris have their dwellings on a high and rocky site. For this reason they suffer from a shortage of water in summer; the wells are few, and the water is bad that they supply. These wells give washing-water to the people and drinking-water to the beasts of burden, but for their own drinking water the people go down about four stadium-lengths and draw it from a spring. The spring is in a hole dug into the rocks, and they go down to it to fetch water.
{10.35.10} In Stiris is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed Stiria. It is of unburned brick; the image is of Pentelic marble, and the goddess is holding torches. Beside her, bound [642] with ribbons, is an image of Demeter, as ancient as any of that goddess that exists.
AMBROSSOS
{10.36.1} From Stiris to Ambrossos is about six stadium-lengths. The road is flat, lying on the level with mountains on both sides of it. The greater part of the plain is covered with vines, and in the territory of Ambrossos grow shrubs, though not close together like the vines. This shrub the Ionians, as well as the rest of the Greeks, call kokkos, and the Gauls above Phrygia call it in their native speech hys. This kokkos grows to the size of what is called the rhamnos; the leaves are darker and softer than those of the mastich tree, though in other respects the two are alike.
{10.36.2} Its fruit is like the fruit of the nightshade, and its size is about that of the bitter vetch. There breeds in the fruit of the kokkos a small creature. If this should reach the air when the fruit has ripened, it becomes in appearance like a gnat, and immediately flies away. But as it is they gather the fruit of the kokkos before the creature begins to move, and the blood of the creature serves as a dye for wool.
{10.36.3} Ambrossos lies at the foot of Mount Parnassus, on the side opposite to Delphi. They say that the city was named after Ambrossos, a hero. On going to war with Philip and his Macedonians the Thebans drew round Ambrossos a double wall. It is made of a local stone, black in color and very hard indeed. Each ring of wall is a little less than a fathom broad, and two and a half fathoms in height except where it has broken down.
{10.36.4} The interval between the first ring and the second is a fathom. The building of towers, of battlements, or of any ornament, has been entirely neglected, as the only object the citizens had in constructing the walls was immediate protection. There is a small marketplace at Ambrossos, and of the stone statues set up in it most are broken.
ANTIKYRA
{10.36.5} The road to Antikyra is at first uphill. About two stadium-lengths up the slope is a level place, and on the right of the road is a sanctuary of Artemis surnamed Dictynnaean, a goddess worshipped with great reverence by citizens. The image is of Aeginetan workmanship, and made of a black stone. From the sanctuary of the Dictynnaean goddess the road is downhill all the way to Antikyra. They say that in days of old the name of the city was Kyparissos, and that Homer in the list of the men of Phokis [643] was determined to call it by this name, although it was called Antikyra in Homer’s day, because Anticyreus was a contemporary of Hēraklēs.
{10.36.6} The city is situated in front of the ruins of Medeon. I have mentioned in the beginning of my account of Phokis that the people of Antikyra were guilty of sacrilege against the sanctuary at Delphi. [644] They were driven from home by Philip, son of Amyntas, and yet once more by the Roman Otilius, because they were subjects of the Macedonian king Philip, son of Demetrios. Otilius had been despatched from Rome to help the Athenians against Philip.
{10.36.7} The mountains beyond Antikyra are very rocky, and on them grows hellebore in great profusion. Black hellebore sends those who take it to stool, and purges the bowels; the nature of the other, the white kind, is to purge by vomiting. It is the root of the hellebore which is used as a purging drug.
{10.36.8} In the marketplace at Antikyra are bronze statues, and at the harbor is a small sanctuary of Poseidon, built of unhewn stones. The inside is covered with stucco. The image, which is made of bronze, is a standing figure, with one foot resting on a dolphin. On this side he has one hand upon his thigh; in his other hand is a trident.
{10.36.9} Opposite the gymnasium, in which the baths have been made, is another gymnasium, an old one, in which stands a bronze statue. The inscription on it says that Xenodamos of Antikyra, a contestant in the pankration, won an Olympic victory in the match for men. If the inscription speaks the truth, it would seem that Xenodamos received the wild olive at the two hundred and eleventh Olympic festival. [645] But this is the only festival omitted in the Eleian records.
{10.36.10} Beyond the marketplace, there is in a well a spring of water. Over the well there is a roof to shelter it from the sun, with columns to support the roof. A little higher up than the well is a tomb built of any stones that were on hand. Here they say are buried the sons of Iphitos; one returned safe from Troy and died in his native land; the other, Schedios, died, they say, in the Troad, but his bones also were brought home.
{10.37.1} About two stadium-lengths off the city there is, on the right, a high rock, which forms part of a mountain, with a sanctuary of Artemis built upon it. The image of Artemis is one of the works of Praxiteles; she carries a torch in her right hand and a quiver over her shoulders, while at her left side there is a dog. The image is taller than the tallest woman.
BULIS
{10.37.2} Bordering on the territory of Phokis is a land named after Boulon, the leader of the colony, which was founded by a union of emigrants from the cities in ancient Doris. The people of Boulis are said of Philomēlos and the men of Phokis … the general assembly. To Boulis from Thisbe in Boeotia is a journey of eighty stadium-lengths; but I do not know if in Phokis there be a road by land at all from Antikyra, so rough and difficult to cross are the mountains between Antikyra and Boulis. To the harbor from Antikyra is a sail of one hundred stadium-lengths, and the road by land from the harbor to Boulis we conjectured to be about seven stadium-lengths long.
{10.37.3} Here a torrent falls into the sea, called by the natives Herakleios. Boulis lies on high ground, and it is passed by travellers crossing by sea from Antikyra to Lekhaion in Corinthian territory. More than half its inhabitants are fishers of the shellfish that produces the purple dye. The buildings in Boulis are not so wondrous; among them is a sanctuary of Artemis and one of Dionysus. The images are made of wood, but we were unable to judge who was the artist. The god worshipped most by the people of Boulis is named by them Megistos ‘the Greatest’, a surname, I should think, of Zeus. At Boulis there is a spring called Saunion.
CIRRHA
{10.37.4} The length of the road from Delphi to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, is sixty stadium-lengths. Descending to the plain you come to a race-course, where at the Pythian Games the horses compete. I have told in my account of Elis [646] the story of the Taraxippos at Olympia, and it is likely that the race-course of Apollo too may possibly harm here and there a driver, for the superhuman force [daimōn] in every activity of man bestows either better fortune or worse. But the race-course itself is not of a nature to startle the horses, either by reason of a hero or on any other account.
{10.37.5} The plain from Cirrha is altogether bare, and the inhabitants will not plant trees, either because the land is under a curse, or because they know that the ground is useless for growing trees. It is said that to Cirrha … and they say that from Cirrha the place received its modern name. Homer, however, in the Iliad, [647] and similarly in the hymn to Apollo, [648] calls the city by its ancient name of Crisa. Afterwards the people of Cirrha behaved wickedly towards Apollo; especially in appropriating some of the god’s land.
{10.37.6} So the Amphiktyones determined to make war on the Cirrhaeans, put Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sikyon, at the head of their army, and brought over Solon from Athens to give them advice. They asked the oracle about victory, and the Pythian priestess replied:—
You will not take and throw down the tower of this city,
Until on my precinct shall dash the wave
Of blue-eyed Amphitrite, roaring over the winedark sea.
Until on my precinct shall dash the wave
Of blue-eyed Amphitrite, roaring over the winedark sea.
So Solon induced them to consecrate to the god the territory of Cirrha, in order that the sea might become neighbor to the precinct of Apollo.
{10.37.7} Solon invented another trick to outwit the Cirrhaeans. The water of the river Pleistos ran along a channel to the city, and Solon diverted it in another direction. When the Cirrhaeans still held out against the besiegers, drinking well-water and rainwater, Solon threw into the Pleistos roots of hellebore, and when he perceived that water held enough of the drug he diverted it back again into its channel. The Cirrhaeans drank without stint of the water, and those on the wall, seized with obstinate diarrhoea, deserted their posts,
{10.37.8} and the Amphiktyones captured the city. They exacted punishment from the Cirrhaeans on behalf of the god, and Cirrha is the port of Delphi. Its notable sights include a temple of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, with very large images of Attic workmanship. Adrasteia has been set up by the Cirrhaeans in the same place, but she is not so large as the other images.
OZOLIAN LOKRIS, MYTHICAL HISTORY
{10.38.1} The territory people of Lokris that is called Ozolian adjoins Phokis opposite Cirrha. I have heard various stories about the surname of these people of Lokris, all of which I will tell my readers. Orestheus, son of Deukalion, king of the land, had a bitch that gave birth to a stick instead of a puppy. Orestheus buried the stick, and in the spring, it is said, a vine grew from it, and from the branches (ozoi) of the stick the people got their name.
{10.38.2} Others believe that Nessus, ferrying on the Evenus, was wounded by Hēraklēs, but not killed on the spot, making his escape to this country; when he died his body rotted unburied, imparting a foul stench to the atmosphere of the place. The third story says that the exhalations from a certain river, and its very water, have a peculiar smell; the fourth, that asphodel grows in great abundance and when in flower […] because of the smell.
{10.38.3} Another story says that the first dwellers here were aboriginals, but as yet not knowing how to weave garments they used to make themselves a protection against the cold out of the untanned skins of beasts, turning outwards the shaggy side of the skins for the sake of a good appearance. So their own skins were sure to smell as badly as did the hides.
AMPHISSA
{10.38.4} One hundred and twenty stadium-lengths away from Delphi is Amphissa, the largest and most renowned city of Lokris. The people hold that they are Aetolians, being ashamed of the name of Ozolians. Support is given to this view by the fact that, when the Roman emperor [649] drove the Aetolians from their homes in order to found the new city of Nikopolis, the greater part of the people went away to Amphissa. The originated, however, from the people of Lokris. It is said that the name of the city is derived from Amphissa, daughter of Makar, son of Aeolus, and that Apollo was her lover.
{10.38.5} The city is beautifully constructed, and its most notable objects are the tomb of Amphissa and the tomb of Andraemon. With him was buried, they say, his wife Gorge, daughter of Oineus. On the citadel of Amphissa is a temple of Athena, with a standing image of bronze, brought, they say, from Troy by Thoas, being part of the spoils of that city. But I cannot accept the story.
{10.38.6} For I have stated in an earlier part of my work [650] that two Samians, Rhoecus, son of Philaios, and Theodoros, son of Telekles, discovered how to found bronze most perfectly, and were the first casters of that metal. I have found extant no work of Theodoros, at least no work of bronze. But in the sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis, as you enter the building containing the pictures, there is a stone wall above the altar of Artemis called Goddess of the First Seat. Among the images that stand upon the wall is a statue of a woman at the end, a work of Rhoecus, called by the Ephesians Night.
{10.38.7} A mere glance shows that this image is older, and of rougher workmanship, than the Athena in Amphissa. The Amphissians also celebrate mysteries in honor of the Boy Kings, as they are called. Their accounts as to who of the gods the Boy Kings are do not agree; some say they are the Dioskouroi, others the Kouretes, and others, who pretend to have fuller knowledge, hold them to be the Cabeiri.
MYONIA
{10.38.8} These people of Lokris also possess the following cities. Farther inland from Amphissa, and above it, is Myonia, thirty stadium-lengths distant from it. Its people are those who dedicated the shield to Zeus at Olympia. The town lies upon a height, and it has a grove and an altar of the Gracious Gods. The sacrifices to the Gracious Gods are offered at night, and their rule is to consume the meat on the spot before sunrise. Beyond the city is a precinct of Poseidon, called Poseidonium, and a temple of Poseidon is in it. But the image had disappeared before my time.
OEANTHEIA
{10.38.9} These, then, live above Amphissa. On the coast is Oiantheia, neighbor to which is Naupaktos. The others, but not Amphissa, are under the government of the Achaeans of Patrae, the emperor Augustus having granted them this privilege. In Oiantheia is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and a little beyond the city there is a grove of cypress trees mixed with pines; in the grove is a temple of Artemis with an image. The paintings on the walls I found had lost their color with time, and nothing of them was still left worth seeing.
NAUPACTUS
{10.38.10} I gather that the city got its name from a woman or a nymph, while as for Naupaktos, I have heard it said that the Dorians under the sons of Aristomakhos built here the vessels in which they crossed to the Peloponnesus, thus, it is said, giving to the place its name. [651] My account of Naupaktos, how the Athenians took it from the people of Lokris and gave it as a home to those who seceded to Ithome at the time of the earthquake at Lacedaemon, and how, after the Athenian disaster at Aigospotamoi, the Lacedaemonians expelled the Messenians from Naupaktos, all this I have fully related in my history of Messenia. [652] When the Messenians were forced to leave, the people of Lokris gathered again at Naupaktos.
{10.38.11} The epic poem called the Naupactia by the Greeks is by most people assigned to a poet of Miletus, while Kharon, the son of Pythes, says that it is a composition of Karkinos of Naupaktos. I am one of those who agree with the Lampsacenian writer. For what reason could there be in giving the name of Naupactia to a poem about women composed by an author of Miletus?
{10.38.12} Here there is on the coast a temple of Poseidon with a standing image made of bronze; there is also a sanctuary of Artemis with an image of white marble. She is in the attitude of one hurling a javelin, and is surnamed Aetolian. In a cave Aphrodite is worshipped, to whom prayers are offered for various reasons, and especially by widows who ask the goddess to grant them marriage.
{10.38.13} The sanctuary of Asklepios I found in ruins, but it was originally built by a private person called Phalysios. For he had a complaint of the eyes, and when he was almost blind the god at Epidaurus sent to him the poetess Anyte, who brought with her a sealed tablet. The woman thought that the god’s appearance was a dream, but it proved at once to be a waking vision. For she found in her own hands a sealed tablet; so sailing to Naupaktos she ordered Phalysios to take away the seal and read what was written. He did not think it possible to read the writing with his eyes in such a condition, but hoping to get some benefit from Asklepios he took away the seal. When he had looked at the wax he recovered his sight, and gave to Anyte what was written on the tablet, two thousand staters of gold.
Inventory of terms and names
Aeolian . As a noun, this word refers to Greek-speaking people who spoke an ancient Greek dialect known as Aeolic. As an adjective, this same word refers to the social and cultural institutions of these Aeolic-speaking people. [[GN 2016.09.07.]]
Aeolic . A major dialectal branch of the ancient Greek language. It is the “recessive” dialect of Pindar’s poetic diction, as opposed to Doric, which is the “dominant” dialect. See also under Ionic. [[GN 2017.09.27.]]
aetiology . A myth that explicitly motivates (1) a ritual or (2) a custom that includes ritualized behavior. It cannot be assumed that such a myth is independent of the ritual that it motivates: rather, the myth can be considered to be a part of the ritual that is ostensibly being motivated by the myth. [[GN 2017.05.25.]]
Aithiopis . See under epic Cycle.
archaic period of Greek history . By archaic I mean a historical period extending roughly from the second half of the eighth century BCE up to the second half of the fifth, which is the beginning of the classical period. See BA vii n1. In the printed version of BA 1999, I wrote “through” where I now say, more correctly, “up to” in the online version. [[GN 2016.12.26.]]
Aristarchus of Samothrace . Director of the Library of Alexandria in the middle of the second century BCE. [[GN 2016.08.18.]]
Aristophanes of Byzantium . Lived in the second century BCE. The immediate predecessor of Aristarchus. [[GN 2016.08.18.]]
Classical period of Greek history . This period follows the archaic period, which ends around the middle of the fifth century BCE. [[GN 2016.12.26.]]
Cypria . See under epic Cycle.
Dorian . As a noun, this word refers to Greek-speaking people who spoke an ancient Greek dialect known as Doric. As an adjective, this same word refers to the social and cultural institutions of these Doric-speaking people. [[GN 2016.09.07.]]
Doric . A major dialectal branch of the ancient Greek language. It is the “dominant” dialect of Pindar’s poetic diction, as opposed to Aeolic, which is the “recessive” dialect. See also under Ionic. [[GN 2016.09.07.]]
epic . In my comments, I use this term in a restricted sense, referring to the form of poetry that is exemplified by the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, also by the poetry of the so-called epic Cycle (see under epic Cycle). [[GN 2016.12.06.]]
epic Cycle . By the time of Aristotle, in the fourth century BCE, the textual traditions of epics (see under epic) that were known as the epic Cycle or kuklos (κύκλος) were considered to be non-Homeric. In earlier times, by contrast, such epics were thought to be composed by Homer himself, and they were thus grouped together with the Iliad and Odyssey. It was as if the epic Cycle represented the sum total of Homeric composition. (See under Homer; see also the comment on I.05.722 on kuklos in the sense of ‘chariot wheel’ as a metaphor for the sum total of Homeric composition.) The epics of the epic Cycle have not survived except for fragments and plot-summaries, the original texts of which are most easily accessible in the old but still useful edition of Allen 1912. The plot-summaries of the epics in the Cycle are attributed to one Proclus, who can most probably be dated to the second century CE (Nagy 2015.12.24 §1n5). These plot-summaries cover the following epics, attributed to otherwise unknown poets as named here: Cypria, by Stasinus of Cyprus; Aithiopis, by Arctinus of Miletus; Little Iliad, by Lesches of Lesbos; Iliou Persis or ‘Destruction of Ilion’, by Arctinus of Miletus; Nostoi or ‘Songs of Homecoming’, by Agias of Troizen; Telegonia, by Eugammon of Cyrene. [[GN 2016.12.06.]]
Homer . In the Classical period and toward the end of the earlier archaic period, he was thought to be the Master Narrator of the Iliad and Odyssey. (See under Classical period, archaic period, and Master Narrator.) During the post-Classical period as represented by the works of figures like Plutarch and Pausanias in the second century CE, Homer was thought to be the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, and his authorship was viewed as a matter of ‘writing’, graphein. (HPC 31.) During the Classical period as represented by the works of figures like Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century BCE, Homer was likewise thought to be the author of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, but his authorship was viewed as a matter of ‘making’, poieîn, analogous to the crafting of an artifact by an artisan or craftsman: Plato and Aristotle avoided any references to the making of Homeric poetry as a matter of ‘writing’, graphein. (HPC 31.) During the earlier Classical period as represented by the work of Thucydides in the fifth century BCE, Homer was thought to be the author of not only the Iliad and Odyssey but also of at least some Homeric Hymns, like the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. (HPC 18.) During this same period, as we see from the reportage of Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, Homer was thought by some to be the author of a wider range of epics, such as the Cypria. (HPC 75–78.) In the archaic era, such epics were thought to be parts of a poetic corpus body of epic poetry known as the epic Cycle. (See under archaic period and epic Cycle.) [[GN 2016.07.21 -> 2016.12.30 via the references to HPC as interspersed above.]]
Iliad and Odyssey . In this commentary, the article “the” will be avoided in wording that refers to the Iliad and Odyssey together, as here. That is because the Iliad and Odyssey are treated as complementary epics in this commentary. In other words, the Iliad and Odyssey are treated together as a structural unity. Such a unity can be traced back to the late eighth and early seventh centuries BCE: see Nagy 2015.12.24 following Frame 2009 ch. 11. [[GN 2016.07.21.]]
Iliou Persis . See under epic Cycle.
Ionian . As a noun, this word refers to Greek-speaking people who speak an ancient Greek dialect known as Ionic. As an adjective, this same word refers to the social and cultural institutions of these Ionic-speaking people. [[GN 2016.09.07.]]
Ionic . A major dialectal branch of the ancient Greek language. It is the “residual” dialect of Pindar’s poetic diction, as opposed to Doric, which is the “dominant” dialect, and Aeolic, which is the “recessive” dialect. [[GN 2017.09.27.]]
ktisis poetry. A form of poetic narrative that presents the mythological foundations of a community. The meaning of ktisis is ‘foundation’. [[GN 2017.05.25.]]
laudandus . Technical term formulated in Latin, meaning ‘he who is to be praised’.
laudator . Technical term formulated in Latin, meaning ‘he who praises’.
lemmatizing . This coined word is based on the ancient Greek noun lēmma (λῆμμα), which is spelled throughout simply as “lemma” (and the plural spelled as “lemmata”). This noun refers to whatever wording is literally ‘taken’ (the corresponding verb is lambanein/labeîn) out of the overall wording of a scriptio continua that is being quoted. (In pre-Byzantine conventions of writing, words were not separated from each other by way of spacing: hence the term scriptio continua ‘continuous lettering’). [[GN 2016.08.04.]]
Little Iliad . See under epic Cycle.
Lord, Albert B . (1912–1991). His most basic work: Lord 1960; 2nd ed. 2000. The 3rd edition is forthcoming in 2018. [[GN 2016.07.21.]]
Master Narrator . In the Classical period, he is the speaking ‘I’ who narrates the Iliad and Odyssey. He was generally thought to be the one person who controls the story of the Iliad and the story of the Odyssey. In that period, he was thought to be Homer. See also under Homer; also Classical period of Greek history. [[GN 2016.07.21.]]
Meillet, Antoine (1866–1936). A pioneer in the scientific methodology of Indo-European linguistics as applied to Greek poetry and songmaking. [[GN 2017.09.27.]]
metaphor . An expression of meaning by substituting something unfamiliar for something familiar. [[GN 2016.07.28 via MoM 0§01, 0§1 Extract 0–A.]]
metonymy or metonym . An expression of meaning by connecting something familiar with something else that is familiar. [[GN 2016.07.28 via MoM 0§01, 0§2 Extract 0–B.]]
multiform . A form that coexists with other forms within a system. [[GN 2016.10.16.]]
Nostoi . See under epic Cycle.
Parry, Milman (1902–1935). A most representative work of his: Parry 1932. A collection of his papers, with his French texts translated into English, was published by his son Adam Parry (1971). [[GN 2016.07.21.]]
scholia . Notes or annotations that accompany texts in manuscripts.
simile . Like a metaphor, a simile makes a comparison. Unlike a metaphor, however, a simile signals explicitly that a comparison is being made, and the signaling is achieved by way of words meaning ‘as’, ‘same as’, ‘looking like’, ‘like’, and so on. [[GN 2017.07.22.]]
Telegonia . See under epic Cycle.
Zenodotus of Ephesus . Lived in the third century BCE. Predecessor of Aristophanes of Byzanium. [[GN 2017.09.27]]
Bibliography
Bibliographical Abbreviations
ABV = Beazley, J. 1956. Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters. Oxford.
BA = Nagy, G. 1999. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Rev. ed. with new intro. Baltimore (available online).
DELG = Chantraine, P. 2009. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots. Ed. J. Taillardat, O. Masson, and J.-L. Perpillou. With a supplement Chroniques d’étymologie grecque 1–10. Ed. A. Blanc, Ch. de Lamberterie, and Jean-Louis Perpillou. Paris.
EH = Nagy, G. 2006. “The Epic Hero.” Expanded version of “The Epic Hero.” A Companion to Ancient Epic (ed. J. M. Foley) 71–89. Oxford, 2005 (available online).
FGH = Jacoby, F. 1923–58. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. 3 vols. Berlin.
GM = Nagy, G. 1990b. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca, NY (available online).
H24H = Nagy, G. 2013. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. Cambridge, MA (available online).
HC = Nagy, G. 2008|2009. Homer the Classic. Hellenic Studies 36. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC (available online).
HPC = Nagy, G. 2010. Homer the Preclassic. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA (available online).
HQ = Nagy, G. 1996b. Homeric Questions. Austin, TX (available online).
HR = Nagy, G. 2003. Homeric Responses. Austin, TX.
HTL = Nagy, G. 2004a. Homer’s Text and Language. Urbana and Chicago.
IG = Deutsche akademie der Wissenschaften. 1873–. Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin.
LSJ = Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, and H. S. Jones. 1940. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford.
MW = Fragmenta Hesiodea. Ed. R. Merkelbach and M. West. 1967. Oxford.
PH = Nagy, G. 1990a. Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore (available online).
PMG = Page, D. L. 1962. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford.
PP = Nagy, G. 1996a. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge (available online).
PR = Nagy, G. 2002. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Cambridge, MA and Athens (available online).
SEG = Gieben, J. C., et al. 1923–. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Amsterdam.
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Nagy, G. 1972. Introduction, Parts I and II, and Conclusions. Greek: A Survey of Recent Work (F. W. Householder and G. Nagy) 15–72. Janua Linguarum Series Practica 211. The Hague.
Nagy, G. 1974. Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 33. Cambridge, MA.
Nagy, G. 1979. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Revised ed. with new introduction 1999. Baltimore. Available online at http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/nagy/BofATL/toc.html.
Nagy, G. 1983a. “Sēma and Noēsis: Some Illustrations.” Arethusa 16:35–55. Recast as ch. 8 of GM = Nagy 1990b.
Nagy, G. 1983b. “On the Death of Sarpedon.” Approaches to Homer (ed. C. A. Rubino and C. W. Shelmerdine) 189–217. Recast as ch. 5 of GM = Nagy 1990b.
Nagy, G. 1985. “Theognis and Megara: A Poet’s Vision of His City.” Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis (ed. T. J. Figueira and G. Nagy) 22–81. Baltimore. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Theognis_and_Megara.1985. Corrigenda: at §77, “Pausanias 1.5.3 should be “Pausanias 1.5.4.”
Nagy, G. 1987. “The Sign of Protesilaos.” ΜΗΤΙΣ . Revue d’anthropologie du monde grec ancien 2:207–213.
Nagy, G. 1990a. Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore. Available online at http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/nagy/PHTL/toc.html.
Nagy, G. 1990b. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca NY. Revised paperback edition 1992. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Greek_Mythology_and_Poetics.1990. Corrigenda. On p. 203 between “same line)” and “specified,” insert “of the marital bed; similarly, she ‘recognizes’ (ἀναγνούσῃ xix 250) as sēmata (same line) the clothes…” (in the present printed version, the reference to the marital bed as sēmata at Odyssey xxiii 206 is distorted by a mistaken omission of the wording that needs to be restored here: by haplography, the mention of the marital bed is omitted, and this omission distorts the point being made about the clothes and brooch of Odysseus as sēmata in their own right at xix 250). On p. 214n42, “Pausanias 9.44.44” should be 8.44.4.
Nagy, G. 1992. Introduction to Homer. The Iliad (trans. R. Fitzgerald) v–xxi. Everyman’s Library no. 60. New York.
Nagy, G. 1993. “Alcaeus in Sacred Space.” Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’ età ellenistica: Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili (ed. R. Pretagostini) 221–225. Rome.
Nagy, G. 1994. “The Name of Apollo: Etymology and Essence.” In Solomon 1994:3–7. Rewritten as ch. 7 in Nagy 2004a.
Nagy, G. 1994/1995 “Transformations of Choral Lyric Traditions in the Context of Athenian State Theater.” Arion 3:41–55. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Transformations_of_Choral_Lyric_Traditions.1995.
Nagy, G. 1996a. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Poetry_as_Performance.1996.
Nagy, G. 1996b. Homeric Questions. Austin. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homeric_Questions.1996.
Nagy, G. 1998. “The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model.” Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods (ed. H. Koester) 185–232. Harvard Theological Studies 46. Philadelphia. 2nd ed. in Nagy 2012a, available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Library_of_Pergamon_as_a_Classical_Model.1998.
Nagy, G. 1999. See Nagy 1979.
Nagy, G. 1999a. “Epic as Genre.” In Beissinger, Tylus, and Wofford 1999:21–32.
Nagy, G. 1999b. “As the World Runs Out of Breath: Metaphorical Perspectives on the Heavens and the Atmosphere in the Ancient World.” In Conway, Keniston, Marx 1999:37–50.
Nagy, G. 1999c. Review of Vielle 1996. Classical Review 49:279–280.
Nagy, G. 1999d. Preface to 2nd ed. of Nagy 1979.
Nagy, G. 2000. “‘Dream of a Shade’: Refractions of Epic Vision in Pindar’s Pythian 8 and Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100:97–118. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Dream_of_a_Shade_Refractions_of_Epic_Vision.2000.
Nagy, G. 2001a. “The Sign of the Hero: A Prologue.” In Berenson Maclean and Aitken 2001:xv–xxxv. The page numbering will be given here in arabic numerals. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Sign_of_the_Hero.2001.
Nagy, G. 2001b. “Reading Bakhtin Reading the Classics: An Epic Fate for Conveyors of the Heroic Past.” Bakhtin and the Classics (ed. R. B. Branham) 71–96. Evanston IL. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Reading_Bakhtin_Reading_the_Classics.2002.
Nagy, G. 2001c. “Homère comme modèle classique pour la bibliothèque antique: les métaphores du corpus et du cosmos.” Des Alexandries I. Du livre au texte (ed. L. Giard and Ch. Jacob) 149–161. Paris.
Nagy, G. 2001d. “Éléments orphiques chez Homère.” Kernos 14:1–9.
Nagy, G. 2002a. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Cambridge MA / Athens. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Platos_Rhapsody_and_Homers_Music.2002.
Nagy, G. 2002b. “Can Myth Be Saved?” Myth: A New Symposium (ed. G. Schrempp and W. Hansen) 240–248. Bloomington.
Nagy, G. 2003. Homeric Responses. Austin. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homeric_Responses.2003.
Nagy, G. 2004a. Homer’s Text and Language. Urbana and Chicago, IL. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homers_Text_and_Language.2004.
Nagy, G. 2004b. “L’aède épique en auteur: la tradition des Vies d’Homère.” Identités d’auteur dans l’Antiquité et la tradition européenne (ed. C. Calame and R. Chartier) 41–67. Grenoble.
Nagy, G. 2005a. “The Epic Hero.” A Companion to Ancient Epic (ed. J. M. Foley) 71–89. Oxford.
Nagy, G. 2005b. “An Apobatic Moment for Achilles as Athlete at the Festival of the Panathenaia.” Imeros 5:311–317.
Nagy, G. 2006. “The Epic Hero.” Expanded version of Nagy 2005a. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Epic_Hero.2005.
Nagy, G. 2007a. “Lyric and Greek Myth” The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (ed. R. D. Woodard) 19–51. Cambridge. Updated version available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Lyric_and_Greek_Myth.2007.
Nagy, G. 2007b. “Homer and Greek Myth.” The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (ed. R. D. Woodard) 52–82. Cambridge. Updated version available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Homer_and_Greek_Myth.2007.
Nagy, G. 2007c. “Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?” Literatur und Religion: Wege zu einer mythisch–rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen I (ed. A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, and K. Wesselmann) 211–269. MythosEikonPoiesis 1.1. Berlin and New York.
Nagy, G. 2008|2009. Homer the Classic. Online | Printed version. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Classic.2008 | Hellenic Studies 36. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC.
Nagy, G. 2008a. Greek: An Updating of a Survey of Recent Work. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC. Updating of Nagy 1972 using original page numbering. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Greek_an_Updating.2008.
Nagy, G. 2008b. “Convergences and Divergences between God and Hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros.” Archilochus and his Age II (ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I. Petropoulos, S. Katsarou) 259–265. Athens.
Nagy, G. 2009. “Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?” 2nd ed. of Nagy 2007c. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Did_Sappho_and_Alcaeus_Ever_Meet.2007.
Nagy, G. 2009|2010. Homer the Preclassic. Online | Printed version. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Preclassic.2009 | Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Nagy, G. 2009a. “Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions.” The Brill Companion to Hesiod (ed. F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and Ch. Tsagalis) 271–311. Leiden. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Hesiod_and_the_Ancient_Biographical_Traditions.2005
Nagy, G. 2009b. “An Apobatic Moment for Achilles as Athlete at the Festival of the Panathenaia.” Expanded version of Nagy 2005b. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.An_Apobatic_Moment_for_Achilles.2005.
Nagy, G. 2009c. “The Fragmentary Muse and the Poetics of Refraction in Sappho, Sophocles, Offenbach.” Theater des Fragments: Performative Strategien im Theater zwischen Antike und Postmoderne (ed. A. Bierl, G. Siegmund, Ch. Meneghetti, C. Schuster) 69–102. Bielefeld. Expanded version available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Fragmentary_Muse_and_the_Poetics_of_Refraction.2009.
Nagy, G. 2010a. “The ‘New Sappho’ Reconsidered in the Light of the Athenian Reception of Sappho.” The New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues (ed. E. Greene and M. Skinner) 176–199. Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_New_Sappho_Reconsidered.2011.
Nagy, G. 2010b. “Ancient Greek Elegy.” The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy (ed. K. Weisman) 13–45. Oxford. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Ancient_Greek_Elegy.2010.
Nagy, G. 2010c. “The Meaning of homoios (ὁμοῖος) in Verse 27 of the Hesiodic Theogony and Elsewhere.”Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis (ed. P. Mitsis and Ch. Tsagalis) 153–167. Trends in Classics vol. 7. Berlin and New York.
Nagy, G. 2010d. Review of West 2007. Classical Review 60:333–338. Expanded version available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Review_of_ML_West_Indo-European_Poetry_and_Myth.2010.
Nagy, G. 2010e. “The Subjectivity of Fear as Reflected in Ancient Greek Wording.” Dialogues 5:29–45. Expanded version in Nagy 2012a. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Subjectivity_of_Fear.2010.
Nagy, G. 2011a. “Asopos and His Multiple Daughters: Traces of Preclassical Epic in the Aeginetan Odes of Pindar.” Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry. Myth, History, and Identity in the Fifth Century BC (ed. D. Fearn) 41–78. Oxford.
Nagy, G. 2011b. “A Second Look at the Poetics of Reenactment in Ode 13 of Bacchylides.” Archaic and Classical Choral Song: Performance, Politics and Dissemination (ed. L. Athanassaki and E. L. Bowie) 173–206. Berlin.
Nagy, G. 2011c. “Diachrony and Case of Aesop.” Classics@. Issue 9: Defense Mechanisms in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Classical Studies and Beyond. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Diachrony_and_the_Case_of_Aesop.2011.
Nagy, G. 2011d. “The Earliest Phases in the Reception of the Homeric Hymns.” The Homeric Hymns: Interpretative Essays (ed. A. Faulkner) 280–333. Oxford. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_Earliest_Phases_in_the_Reception_of_the_Homeric_Hymns.2011.
Nagy, G. 2012a. Short Writings volumes I and II. Available online at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Short_Writings_v1.2012 and http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Short_Writings_v2.2012.
Nagy, G. 2012b. “Signs of Hero Cult in Homeric Poetry.” Homeric Contexts: Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Homeric Poetry (ed. F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and Ch. Tsagalis) 27–71. Trends in Classics Supplementary Volume 12. Berlin and Boston.
Nagy, G. 2013. The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. Cambridge, MA. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_NagyG.The_Ancient_Greek_Hero_in_24_Hours.2013.
Nagy, G. 2015.10.01. “Genre, Occasion, and Choral Mimesis Revisited—with special reference to the ‘newest Sappho’.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/genre-occasion-and-choral-mimesis-revisited-with-special-reference-to-the-newest-sappho/.
Nagy, G. 2015.10.15. “Homo ludens in the world of ancient Greek verbal art.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/homo-ludens-in-the-world-of-ancient-greek-verbal-art/.
Nagy, G. 2015.12.24. “Pindar’s Homer is not ‘our’ Homer.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/pindars-homer-is-not-our-homer/.
Nagy, G. 2016|2015. Masterpieces of Metonymy: From Ancient Greek Times to Now. Hellenic Studies 72. Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Masterpieces_of_Metonymy.2015.
Nagy, G. 2016.05.12. “Variations on a theological view of Zeus as god of the sky.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/variations-on-a-theological-view-of-zeus-as-god-of-the-sky/.
Nagy, G. 2016.05.19. “Cataclysm and Ecpyrosis, two symmetrical actions of Zeus as sky-god.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/cataclysm-and-ecpyrosis-two-symmetrical-actions-of-zeus-as-sky-god/.
Nagy, G. 2016.05.26. “Trying to read the Will of Zeus.” Classical Inquiries. http://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/trying-to-read-the-will-of-zeus/.
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Footnotes
[ back ] * Further edits and revisions by Greta Hawes, indicated via “GH” in the footnotes.
[ back ] 1. This mention of the name Patroklos by Pausanias might have given ancient Greek readers the wrong first impression—that the author is speaking here of the hero Patroklos in the Homeric Iliad. But there seems to be a strategy of defamiliarization here. The remarks of Pausanias that follow make it clear that he has in mind a historical figure from the Hellenistic era. [[GN 2014.04.03.]]
[ back ] 2. circa 267–263 BCE.
[ back ] 3. 493 BCE.
[ back ] 4. 323 BCE.
[ back ] 5. floruit circa 350 BCE.
[ back ] 6. 394 BCE.
[ back ] 7. floruit 440–400 BCE.
[ back ] 8. 404–403 BCE.
[ back ] 9. Antigonus surnamed Gonatas became king of Macedonia in 283 BCE.
[ back ] 10. Euagoras was a king of Salamis in Cyprus, who reigned from about 410 to 374 BCE. He favored the Athenians, and helped Konon to defeat the Spartan fleet off Knidos in 394 BCE.
[ back ] 11. 560–527 BCE.
[ back ] 12. 362 BCE.
[ back ] 13. 430 BCE.
[ back ] 14. A contemporary of Alexander the Great.
[ back ] 15. 279 BCE.
[ back ] 16. Antipatros and Kassandros were successors of Alexander the Great.
[ back ] 17. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 18. This statement is contradicted by the what we read in the poetry of Pindar, fifth century BCE.
[ back ] 19. The reform of Kleisthenes took place in 508 BCE.
[ back ] 20. Now, Pausanias proceeds to consider some latter-day additions to the ancient list of eponymous heroes.
[ back ] 21. This king of Pergamon visited Athens in 200 BCE. in the company of the Roman ambassadors, and was treated with every mark of respect by the Athenians.
[ back ] 22. This king of Pergamon visited Athens in 200 BCE.
[ back ] 23. It is uncertain to which of the many kings of Egypt called by this name Pausanias refers.
[ back ] 24. Here and elsewhere, the ostentatious wording suggests a special relationship with Hadrian.
[ back ] 25. 117–138 CE.
[ back ] 26. 132 CE.
[ back ] 27. The account that follows deals with the troubled period that came after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. The generals Antigonos, Ptolemy, Seleukos, Lysimakhos and Kassandros quarreled over the division of the empire.
[ back ] 28. 323 BCE.
[ back ] 29. Once again, I note what seems to be an intentional defamiliarization of a Homeric hero’s name. See the note on Pausanias 1.1.1. [[GN 2014.04.03.]]
[ back ] 30. So, up to now, the corpse of Alexander had been in Memphis. [Note by GN.]
[ back ] 31. circa 448 BCE.
[ back ] 32. 323 BCE.
[ back ] 33. 514 BCE.
[ back ] 34. 302 BCE.
[ back ] 35. 294 BCE.
[ back ] 36. 288 BCE.
[ back ] 37. 281 BCE.
[ back ] 38. So Pergamos, as the new founder of Pergamon, is the son of Helenos and Andromache.
[ back ] 39. So, since Andromache followed her son Pergamos to Pergamon, she has a hērōion ‘hero-shrine’ there.
[ back ] 40. 313 BCE.
[ back ] 41. 413 BCE.
[ back ] 42. 280 BCE.
[ back ] 43. Iliad 3.3 and following.
[ back ] 44. Odyssey 11.122.
[ back ] 45. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 46. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 47. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 48. 425 BCE.
[ back ] 49. 330 BCE.
[ back ] 50. 295 BCE.
[ back ] 51. 272 BCE.
[ back ] 52. 272 BCE.
[ back ] 53. See 1.32.5.
[ back ] 54. 421 BCE.
[ back ] 55. 425 BCE.
[ back ] 56. 594 BCE.
[ back ] 57. 281 BCE.
[ back ] 58. 280 BCE.
[ back ] 59. The Stoic philosopher, 280–207 BCE.
[ back ] 60. floruit 465 BCE.
[ back ] 61. That the Athenians were to trust their “wooden walls,”that is, their ships.
[ back ] 62. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 63. Pausanias 1.35.6.
[ back ] 64. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 65. 86 BCE.
[ back ] 66. An unknown painter.
[ back ] 67. 413 BCE.
[ back ] 68. The great historian of the Peloponnesian War.
[ back ] 69. A famous Athenian admiral who was active during the first period of the Peloponnesian War.
[ back ] 70. Pausanias 1.1.3.
[ back ] 71. An early Greek traveler and writer.
[ back ] 72. A famous Athenian, floruit 390 BCE.
[ back ] 73. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 74. floruit 400 BCE.
[ back ] 75. Pausanias 1.4.5.
[ back ] 76. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 77. 322 BCE.
[ back ] 78. 288 BCE.
[ back ] 79. floruit 400 BCE?
[ back ] 80. Probably asbestos.
[ back ] 81. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 82. 447 BCE.
[ back ] 83. 632 BCE.
[ back ] 84. floruit 430 BCE.
[ back ] 85. circa 507 BCE.
[ back ] 86. See Herodotus 3.64.
[ back ] 87. 403 BCE.
[ back ] 88. Died 357 BCE.
[ back ] 89. A famous Athenian admiral who fought well in the early part of the Peloponnesian War.
[ back ] 90. circa 465 BCE.
[ back ] 91. A group of five contests: leaping, foot-racing, throwing the quoit, throwing the spear, wrestling.
[ back ] 92. 431 BCE.
[ back ] 93. 508/7 BCE.
[ back ] 94. 457 BCE.
[ back ] 95. 349 BCE.
[ back ] 96. 430 BCE.
[ back ] 97. 461 BCE.
[ back ] 98. 457 BCE.
[ back ] 99. 340 BCE.
[ back ] 100. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
[ back ] 101. 394 BCE.
[ back ] 102. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 103. 445 BCE.
[ back ] 104. 413 BCE.
[ back ] 105. 445 BCE.
[ back ] 106. 420 BCE.
[ back ] 107. 409 BCE.
[ back ] 108. 338 BCE, those who marched with Cleon to Amphipolis, 422 BCE.
[ back ] 109. 424 BCE.
[ back ] 110. 449 BCE.
[ back ] 111. Pausanias 1.26.3.
[ back ] 112. 466 BCE.
[ back ] 113. Stoic philosophers.
[ back ] 114. 463–461 BCE.
[ back ] 115. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
[ back ] 116. Pausanias 1.1.1.
[ back ] 117. A people of S. Russia.
[ back ] 118. 490 BCE.
[ back ] 119. A meadow near the city of the Aethiopians, in which they dined.
[ back ] 120. Pausanias 1.1.1.
[ back ] 121. 318 BCE.
[ back ] 122. Boxing and wrestling combined.
[ back ] 123. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 124. Just before the Peloponnesian War.
[ back ] 125. 350 BCE.
[ back ] 126. Tyrant of Eretria in Euboea.
[ back ] 127. 198 BCE.
[ back ] 128. Nothing more is known of this man.
[ back ] 129. floruit circa 370 BCE.
[ back ] 130. Iliad 23.141f.
[ back ] 131. A pupil of Isocrates.
[ back ] 132. Cyamos means “bean.”
[ back ] 133. A poem describing certain aspects of the Orphic religion.
[ back ] 134. Pausanias 1.28.1.
[ back ] 135. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 136. The great legislator, who flourished early in the sixth century BCE.
[ back ] 137. 640–600 BCE.
[ back ] 138. 720 BCE.
[ back ] 139. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
[ back ] 140. 8th century BCE.
[ back ] 141. A league of states in the northern Peloponnesus. It was most influential in the second half of the third century BCE. Founded 280 BCE.
[ back ] 142. 146 BCE.
[ back ] 143. 44 BCE.
[ back ] 144. Iliad 6.159.
[ back ] 145. 655 BCE.
[ back ] 146. floruit 640–617 BCE.
[ back ] 147. Asius, unknown work.
[ back ] 148. 303 BCE.
[ back ] 149. That it should perish and he left destitute.
[ back ] 150. 222 BCE.
[ back ] 151. To wait for the third fruit, i.e. the third generation. It was interpreted to mean the third year.
[ back ] 152. circa 590 BCE.
[ back ] 153. 271–213 BCE.
[ back ] 154. 251 BCE.
[ back ] 155. The victor of Plataea (479 BCE). Afterwards put to death for treachery.
[ back ] 156. 225 BCE.
[ back ] 157. 222 BCE.
[ back ] 158. circa 590 BCE.
[ back ] 159. A curiously shaped head-gear.
[ back ] 160. Iliad 2.571.
[ back ] 161. Iliad 4.2 and following.
[ back ] 162. Odyssey 11.603.
[ back ] 163. A mythical poet of Greece, associated with Apollo.
[ back ] 164. floruit circa 500 BCE.
[ back ] 165. They are dated to the sixth century BCE.
[ back ] 166. The taking of the hero’s armor is mentioned in Iliad 17.59–60, 84–86.
[ back ] 167. To kill their husbands.
[ back ] 168. circa 480–410 BCE.
[ back ] 169. 418 BCE.
[ back ] 170. 510 BCE.
[ back ] 171. Iliad 24.609.
[ back ] 172. circa 610–550 BCE.
[ back ] 173. 669–668 BCE.
[ back ] 174. Iliad 2.571.
[ back ] 175. Iliad 4.193.
[ back ] 176. 138 or 161 CE.
[ back ] 177. circa 600 BCE.
[ back ] 178. 490 BCE.
[ back ] 179. 431 BCE.
[ back ] 180. 405 BCE.
[ back ] 181. floruit circa 460 BCE.
[ back ] 182. A contemporary of Pheidias.
[ back ] 183. Cerberus, the fabulous watch-dog.
[ back ] 184. early fifth century BCE.
[ back ] 185. The epithet phytalmios means nourishing, but to judge from the story he gives, Pausanias must have connected it with the Greek words for brine and plant.
[ back ] 186. Apparently here derived from the Greek word for deceit.
[ back ] 187. The letters AI, an exclamation of woe supposed to be inscribed on the flower.
[ back ] 188. Iliad 2.562.
[ back ] 189. Peisander composed a poem on the labors of Hēraklēs. His date is uncertain, but perhaps he flourished about 645 BCE.
[ back ] 190. 548 BCE.
[ back ] 191. 431 BCE.
[ back ] 192. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 193. Eurotas = the fair-flowing.
[ back ] 194. That is, “Fairest.”
[ back ] 195. 560–550 BCE.
[ back ] 196. Iliad 23.611 and following, 650.
[ back ] 197. 510 BCE.
[ back ] 198. 508 BCE.
[ back ] 199. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 200. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 201. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 202. 380 BCE.
[ back ] 203. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 204. 424 BCE.
[ back ] 205. circa 262 BCE.
[ back ] 206. 510 BCE.
[ back ] 207. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 208. 476 BCE.
[ back ] 209. 42 BCE.
[ back ] 210. 432 BCE.
[ back ] 211. The cities of the Perioeci (a word which means “neighbors”), who were personally free men but had had no political rights.
[ back ] 212. Proxenos; that is, he represented Spartan interests in Elis.
[ back ] 213. 398 BCE.
[ back ] 214. 413 BCE.
[ back ] 215. 405 BCE.
[ back ] 216. 398 BCE.
[ back ] 217. Pausanias 3.5.3 and following.
[ back ] 218. 394–387 BCE.
[ back ] 219. 390 BCE.
[ back ] 220. 356 BCE.
[ back ] 221. 222 BCE.
[ back ] 222. 560–546 BCE.
[ back ] 223. 405 BCE.
[ back ] 224. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 225. 464 BCE.
[ back ] 226. 457 BCE.
[ back ] 227. That is, Office of the Ox-buyer’s.
[ back ] 228. floruit circa 540 BCE.
[ back ] 229. died 422 BCE.
[ back ] 230. floruit circa 664 BCE.
[ back ] 231. About 200 and 400 yards. The first was the length of the race-course, one stadion the second was the length of the course and back again.
[ back ] 232. Pausanias 2.35.4–8.
[ back ] 233. Pausanias 4.4.2, and 4.31.3.
[ back ] 234. Pausanias 1.18.1, 3.13.7, 3.17.3.
[ back ] 235. circa 500 BCE.
[ back ] 236. Pausanias 1.20.3.
[ back ] 237. Pausanias 2.15.1 and 2.32.5.
[ back ] 238. Pausanias 1.29.5.
[ back ] 239. circa 500 BCE.
[ back ] 240. circa 440 BCE.
[ back ] 241. circa 550 BCE.
[ back ] 242. Odyssey 4.384 and following.
[ back ] 243. floruit circa 320 BCE.
[ back ] 244. Pausanias connects the name with thēr, a wild beast.
[ back ] 245. Iliad 2.583.
[ back ] 246. Iliad 3.445.
[ back ] 247. That is, “who live beside the Cypress Goddess.”
[ back ] 248. Or opposite (with Frazer), if Minoa is to be identified with the modern Monemvasia.
[ back ] 249. In Pausanias 3.6, where he is rightly called the nephew of Agesipolis.
[ back ] 250. Or at the entrance to the harbor.
[ back ] 251. Iliad 1.158.
[ back ] 252. Iliad 23.790.
[ back ] 253. Odyssey 11.630.
[ back ] 254. Iliad 8.368; Odyssey 11.623.
[ back ] 255. Iliad 6.181.
[ back ] 256. Herodotus 1.23.
[ back ] 257. Iliad 9.150, 292.
[ back ] 258. Iliad 9.150, 292.
[ back ] 259. Iliad 2.591.
[ back ] 260. Rhianus of Bene in Crete. See note on Pausanias 4.6.1.
[ back ] 261. Pausanias 4.33.5.
[ back ] 262. Pausanias 2.21.7, 3.1.4.
[ back ] 263. Pindar Nemean 10.61.
[ back ] 264. Iliad 11.596.
[ back ] 265. Pausanias 4.2.18.
[ back ] 266. 764 BCE.
[ back ] 267. 743 BCE.
[ back ] 268. Myron of Priene is of unknown date. Rhianus of Bene in Crete was of the third century BCE, a Homeric scholar and the author of various works of a mythological and quasi-historical character. Besides his Messeniaca, largely used by the author in the present account, we hear of his Heracleia, Achaica, Eliaca, and Thessalica.
[ back ] 269. 724 BCE.
[ back ] 270. 685 BCE.
[ back ] 271. Iliad 2.582.
[ back ] 272. 668 BCE.
[ back ] 273. 664 BCE.
[ back ] 274. 464 BCE.
[ back ] 275. 370 BCE.
[ back ] 276. Pausanias 1.25.4.
[ back ] 277. Iliad 16.281.
[ back ] 278. Iliad 10.220.
[ back ] 279. Iliad 8.517.
[ back ] 280. See, however, Polybius 3.19, where it is stated that it was Demetrios of Pharos who made the raid.
[ back ] 281. Pausanias 2.9.5.
[ back ] 282. Pausanias 2.9.2.
[ back ] 283. Pausanias 8.51.5 ff.
[ back ] 284. Iliad 9.150.
[ back ] 285. Iliad 5.541.
[ back ] 286. Iliad 5.333; 21.483; 5.429.
[ back ] 287. A sixth-century artist of Chios, the son of Arkhermos. With his brother Athenis he is said to have caricatured the poet Hipponax (Pliny NH 36.11). Other works of his at Smyrna and at Ephesos are mentioned in Pausanias 9.35.6.
[ back ] 288. Iliad 9.151, 293.
[ back ] 289. The date of Damophon of Messene has now been fixed in the first half of the second century BCE (see Dickins, Annual of the British School at Athens, xii. pp. 109, seqq.). For his work at Lycosura see Pausanias 7.23.5–7.
[ back ] 290. Pausanias 7.18.8.
[ back ] 291. Pausanias 3.26.3.
[ back ] 292. Pausanias 3.19.4. Nothing further is known of his pupil Omphalion.
[ back ] 293. Iliad 10.122.
[ back ] 294. See also Pausanias 6.8.6; 6.10.6; 6.14.11, where the athletes commemorated were victorious between the years 520 and 508 BCE.
[ back ] 295. Cf. Pausanias 7.24.4.
[ back ] 296. Iliad 2.594.
[ back ] 297. Pausanias 10.28.2.
[ back ] 298. Pausanias 4.24.4; 27.8.
[ back ] 299. Pausanias 1.1.11–13.
[ back ] 300. Pausanias 2.21.6.
[ back ] 301. Herodotus 1.160.
[ back ] 302. Iliad 11.632; Odyssey 3.4.
[ back ] 303. Iliad 11.244.
[ back ] 304. 174 CE.
[ back ] 305. 44 BCE.
[ back ] 306. Iliad 2.622.
[ back ] 307. 420 BCE.
[ back ] 308. 401–399 BCE.
[ back ] 309. 401 BCE.
[ back ] 310. That is, in the Greek way of counting. Between two Olympic festivals there were only four complete intervening years, but the Greeks included both years in which consecutive festivals were held.
[ back ] 311. Iliad 23.295.
[ back ] 312. The Greek word […] can mean either a celebration of the Olympic games or the interval between two consecutive celebrations. I have translated it by “Festival” in the first case and by “Olympiad” in the second.
[ back ] 313. Circa 570 BCE.
[ back ] 314. 609–560 BCE.
[ back ] 315. Iliad 14.318.
[ back ] 316. Iliad 5.470 and following.
[ back ] 317. 264 BCE.
[ back ] 318. 420 BCE.
[ back ] 319. Iliad 13.389, and 16.482.
[ back ] 320. circa 580–540 BCE.
[ back ] 321. circa 388 BCE.
[ back ] 322. That is, “as oxen turn when ploughing.” The writing went from left to right and from right to left alternately.
[ back ] 323. Iliad 7.225 and following.
[ back ] 324. Odyssey 10.348 and following.
[ back ] 325. Circa 400 BCE.
[ back ] 326. “Temple of the Mother.”
[ back ] 327. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 328. Augustus.
[ back ] 329. 356 BCE.
[ back ] 330. 430–429 BCE.
[ back ] 331. 316 BCE.
[ back ] 332. 446–445 BCE.
[ back ] 333. 355–346 BCE.
[ back ] 334. 146 BCE.
[ back ] 335. Iliad 5.265 and following. And Iliad 20.231 and following.
[ back ] 336. floruit 436 BCE.
[ back ] 337. circa 500–460 BCE.
[ back ] 338. circa 470 BCE.
[ back ] 339. circa 430 BCE.
[ back ] 340. 425 BCE.
[ back ] 341. circa 460 BCE.
[ back ] 342. circa 460 BCE.
[ back ] 343. 488–460 BCE.
[ back ] 344. A competitor might be lucky, or unlucky, in the antagonists with whom he was paired for the various heats. He might even draw a bye, and so start fresher than his opponent.
[ back ] 345. 372 BCE.
[ back ] 346. Pausanias 3.8.
[ back ] 347. Xenarces has already appeared in the first sentence of this chapter as the name of the Acarnanian. The repetition of the name within a few lines suggests that in the first sentence the word χενάρκης has displaced some other name, now lost to us.
[ back ] 348. Myron flourished about 460 BCE, and the race for foals was not introduced till 384 BCE. Hence, either the Greek text must be emended, or some other Myron, and not the earlier sculptor of that name, must be referred to here.
[ back ] 349. Pausanias 8.10.5.
[ back ] 350. Pindar O. 6.43 and following.
[ back ] 351. 460 BCE.
[ back ] 352. 756 BCE.
[ back ] 353. 479BCE.
[ back ] 354. Pausanias 7.17.6.
[ back ] 355. 405 BCE.
[ back ] 356. 394 BCE.
[ back ] 357. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 358. 323 BCE.
[ back ] 359. Pausanias 3.10.5.
[ back ] 360. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 361. Iliad 6.407.
[ back ] 362. Proxenos: that is, he was a Theban who had under his care the interests of Phocians in Thebes.
[ back ] 363. 484 BCE.
[ back ] 364. 406 BCE.
[ back ] 365. 424 BCE.
[ back ] 366. Pausanias 7.27.5.
[ back ] 367. 488 BCE.
[ back ] 368. 491 BCE.
[ back ] 369. 520 BCE.
[ back ] 370. Pausanias 6.19.6.
[ back ] 371. Pausanias 6.6.5.
[ back ] 372. 275 BCE.
[ back ] 373. Pausanias 2.8.2 and following, and Pausanias 3.6.2 and following.
[ back ] 374. Pausanias 10.34.8.
[ back ] 375. 68 BCE.
[ back ] 376. Pausanias 1.11.
[ back ] 377. 216 BCE.
[ back ] 378. Pausanias 6.12.2.
[ back ] 379. 628 BCE.
[ back ] 380. reigned 323–285 BCE.
[ back ] 381. Pausanias 6.15.5.
[ back ] 382. With the reading of Schubart, “at the Nemean and Isthmian games.”
[ back ] 383. floruit 427 BCE.
[ back ] 384. 384 BCE.
[ back ] 385. 544 BCE.
[ back ] 386. 536 BCE.
[ back ] 387. 648 BCE.
[ back ] 388. Thucydides 3.101.
[ back ] 389. The Greek scarcely allows of this meaning. Some numeral, or adjective, seems to have fallen out.
[ back ] 390. Jones conjectures here: “Some genitive seems to have fallen out here.”
[ back ] 391. Or, “him.”
[ back ] 392. χανεῖν (khanein).
[ back ] 393. μύσαι (musai).
[ back ] 394. 748 BCE.
[ back ] 395. 644 BCE.
[ back ] 396. 364 BCE.
[ back ] 397. 588 BCE.
[ back ] 398. Pausanias 4.36.1.
[ back ] 399. CE 88.
[ back ] 400. Pausanias 1.33.4.
[ back ] 401. Iliad 2.575.
[ back ] 402. See Pindar fr. 174.
[ back ] 403. This is rather a strange sense to give to ἐνόστησε, and perhaps with Sylburg we should read ἐνόσησε, “became unhealthy,” (owing to its being stagnant).
[ back ] 404. Pausanias 1.9.7.
[ back ] 405. Iliad 18.592 and following.
[ back ] 406. That is, Nemesis.
[ back ] 407. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 408. 432 BCE.
[ back ] 409. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 410. 323 BCE.
[ back ] 411. 279 BCE.
[ back ] 412. 278 BCE.
[ back ] 413. 335 BCE.
[ back ] 414. 222 BCE.
[ back ] 415. Pausanias 8.27.5.
[ back ] 416. Pausanias 1.36.5.
[ back ] 417. Pausanias 8.51.
[ back ] 418. 197 BCE.
[ back ] 419. 494 BCE.
[ back ] 420. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 421. Sylburg would read Ἀλευαδῶν, ‘by the Aleuads’.
[ back ] 422. 322 BCE.
[ back ] 423. Fr. 49 (Bergk).
[ back ] 424. 167 BCE.
[ back ] 425. 151 BCE.
[ back ] 426. The reading of the manuscripts, ἀφίκοιτο, should mean ‘had arrived’, a meaning inconsistent with the end of the sentence. It seems likely, therefore, that Kayser’s emendation, ἀφίξοιτο, is right.
[ back ] 427. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 428. 279 BCE.
[ back ] 429. With Frazer’s reading: ‘when the Romans subdued Greece, Achaea was at the head, etc.’
[ back ] 430. 140 BCE.
[ back ] 431. Pausanias seems to have made a mistake, as Corinth was taken in 146 BCE.
[ back ] 432. κακία means literally “badness,” and includes in this context all the bad qualities a στρατηγός could have—disloyalty and corruptibility as well as cowardice.
[ back ] 433. Plato Republic 491e.
[ back ] 434. 756 BCE.
[ back ] 435. 460–457 BCE.
[ back ] 436. Or, with the proposed addition of ὄν: “Who Attis was I could not discover, as it is a religious secret.”
[ back ] 437. Or, reading αὐτοῖς and Ἄττῃ: “honor with them that Zeus, being wroth with him, sent, etc.”
[ back ] 438. With δήσαντες the meaning is: ‘bound Agdistis and cut off’.
[ back ] 439. With the reading of the manuscripts: ‘for to man only is it worth one’s life to be successful in love’.
[ back ] 440. Alcaeus Fr. 7 (Bergk).
[ back ] 441. Or, possibly ‘disk’. The round mirror might be lowered vertically or horizontally (face upwards).
[ back ] 442. Drepanum means ‘sickle’.
[ back ] 443. The MSS. reading παιδὶ ἦν is meaningless. Scholars for the most part consider that a name has fallen out of the text. Madvig’s emendation would mean ‘Daughter of the Sun’, and Kayser’s would mean ‘Asklepios’.
[ back ] 444. Or “vassal cities,” like the περίοικοι round Sparta. So Frazer.
[ back ] 445. See Iliad 2.575, 8.203, 20.404.
[ back ] 446. Perhaps we should delete the commas at κατέλαβεν and ἰδέαν, take ἕτερον to mean ’a second’, and construe τὴν ἰδέαν with τοιοῦτο; ‘another, similar in type’.
[ back ] 447. 373 BCE.
[ back ] 448. See Herodotus 8.136.
[ back ] 449. This means either that the other images were undraped or that for Demeter raiment was kept in the temple for solemn occasions.
[ back ] 450. Jones: “I am very uncertain about the meaning of this passage.”
[ back ] 451. Probably because the population declined. It is just possible that the site became unhealthy. The word ἀσθένεια admits of either interpretation.
[ back ] 452. Iliad 2.573.
[ back ] 453. Pindar Fr. 41 (Schroeder).
[ back ] 454. This rendering would be much more natural with οὐδὲ instead of καὶ before Ἰώνων. It is therefore likely that Spiro’s suggestion should be adopted. This would give: ‘an obscure town, but one which has always been inhabited, even when the Ionians dwelled in the land’.
[ back ] 455. The Greek word means ’best sailors’.
[ back ] 456. Iliad 16.185.
[ back ] 457. Iliad 2.605.
[ back ] 458. The gap in the manuscripts. has not yet been filled by any satisfactory emendation.
[ back ] 459. There is apparently a gap here in the manuscripts. Musurus wished to fill it by the word ἀπὸ Λυκέως, ‘after Lyceus’.
[ back ] 460. Pausanias 2.26.6.
[ back ] 461. Pausanias 1.41.2.
[ back ] 462. Pausanias 8.48.4.
[ back ] 463. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 464. 396 BCE.
[ back ] 465. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 466. 338 BCE.
[ back ] 467. Pausanias 2.25.3.
[ back ] 468. That is, ‘idle’ or ‘useless’. The allusion, of course, is to the Untilled Plain.
[ back ] 469. Herodotus 6.86.
[ back ] 470. Hesiod Works and Days 285.
[ back ] 471. Iliad 2.723 and Iliad 12.203 and 208.
[ back ] 472. 418 BCE.
[ back ] 473. 385 BCE.
[ back ] 474. 476 or 477 BCE.
[ back ] 475. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 476. 362 BCE.
[ back ] 477. Pausanias 8.30–48.
[ back ] 478. Pausanias 9.11.1 and Pausanias 9.37.4.
[ back ] 479. Or, taking ἠρέμα with μηνοειδές, ‘slightly crescent shaped’.
[ back ] 480. Pausanias 3.17.6.
[ back ] 481. Or, adopting Kasyser’s emendation, “the river Aroanius.”
[ back ] 482. Iliad 2.592.
[ back ] 483. Khelydorea means ‘Mountain of the flayed tortoise’.
[ back ] 484. See Hesiod Theogony 383. Compare also Hesiod Th. Theogony 776, 785 and following, Hesiod Theogony 805, 806.
[ back ] 485. Iliad 2.751.
[ back ] 486. 546 BCE.
[ back ] 487. Or, “Since that time.”
[ back ] 488. Iliad 2.608.
[ back ] 489. Iliad 7.102.
[ back ] 490. Iliad 24.527.
[ back ] 491. Pausanias 2.26.4 and following.
[ back ] 492. Iliad 2.606.
[ back ] 493. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 494. Pausanias 3.6.2.
[ back ] 495. 226 BCE.
[ back ] 496. Odyssey 10.118 and following.
[ back ] 497. Odyssey 7.205 and following.
[ back ] 498. It is not known who the emperor was, but some suppose that it was Tiberius.
[ back ] 499. Pausanias 4.1.5.
[ back ] 500. Jones worries here about the transmission of the text.
[ back ] 501. Odyssey 24.1, Odyssey 24.10, Odyssey 24.100.
[ back ] 502. Iliad 8.362 and following.
[ back ] 503. Iliad 16.187 and Iliad 19.103.
[ back ] 504. Pausanias 8.3.3.
[ back ] 505. Either in writing or in pictures—probably the former. See Frazer’s note.
[ back ] 506. Iliad 14.279.
[ back ] 507. Odyssey 10.491, and Iliad 9.457, Iliad 9.569.
[ back ] 508. Iliad 21.194.
[ back ] 509. Iliad 24.615.
[ back ] 510. Pausanias 8.3.1.
[ back ] 511. 659 BCE.
[ back ] 512. 564 BCE.
[ back ] 513. Iliad 1.314.
[ back ] 514. Iliad 18.398.
[ back ] 515. With the reading ἀναστοφάγους “made you pasture again, and to be non-eaters of cakes, after being binders of corn [wheat].”
[ back ] 516. That is, Pallantion became Palatium.
[ back ] 517. Pausanias 8.48.5.
[ back ] 518. Pausanias 5.7.7.
[ back ] 519. Pausanias 10.7.8.
[ back ] 520. Odyssey 6.163.
[ back ] 521. Odyssey 11.326.
[ back ] 522. 222 BCE.
[ back ] 523. 220–217 BCE.
[ back ] 524. The θυρεός was so named from being shaped like a door, and the γέρρον was an oblong wicker shield covered with hide.
[ back ] 525. The ἀσπίς was round in shape.
[ back ] 526. Iliad 2.614.
[ back ] 527. 192 BCE.
[ back ] 528. The word οἶκος includes more than the buildings—slaves, implements, etc.
[ back ] 529. 188 BCE.
[ back ] 530. With the reading of Madvig, “pitying him, and calling him Father of all the Greek people.”
[ back ] 531. 183 BCE.
[ back ] 532. 490 BCE.
[ back ] 533. 480 BCE.
[ back ] 534. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 535. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 536. 394 BCE.
[ back ] 537. 370–369 BCE.
[ back ] 538. Pausanias 2.8.1.
[ back ] 539. Odyssey 4.564.
[ back ] 540. Pausanias 8.5.3.
[ back ] 541. 387 BCE.
[ back ] 542. 373 BCE.
[ back ] 543. Pausanias 10.5.3.
[ back ] 544. Pausanias 9.1.
[ back ] 545. Pausanias 2.6.1.
[ back ] 546. 479 BCE.
[ back ] 547. 424 BCE.
[ back ] 548. 394 BCE.
[ back ] 549. Pausanias 1.25.3.
[ back ] 550. The Greek word suggests that the Witches’ power lay in their knowledge of drugs.
[ back ] 551. 403 BCE.
[ back ] 552. 378 BCE.
[ back ] 553. “Neighbors,” Perioeci, Sparta’s free neighbors with no political rights.
[ back ] 554. 371 BCE.
[ back ] 555. 362 BCE.
[ back ] 556. The second reading mentioned in the critical note would give the translation: “two images, dedicated by Amphitryon, … said to be of Athena, etc.”
[ back ] 557. Pausanias 1.44.4.
[ back ] 558. Pausanias 1.23.3.
[ back ] 559. Iliad 2.307.
[ back ] 560. Odyssey 1.52.
[ back ] 561. Odyssey 11.305.
[ back ] 562. Pindar Pythian 4.156 (88).
[ back ] 563. Pausanias 10.38.1.
[ back ] 564. Iliad 2.502.
[ back ] 565. Pausanias 9.34.10 and Pausanias 9.36.6.
[ back ] 566. Iliad 2.506; HH 2.186.
[ back ] 567. Hesiod Theogony 116 and following.
[ back ] 568. Pausanias 1.20.1.
[ back ] 569. Jones says here: “Pausanias misquotes.”
[ back ] 570. Hesiod Theogony 30.
[ back ] 571. Hesiod Works and Days 2 and following.
[ back ] 572. According to some interpreters we should read “Olmius.”
[ back ] 573. Pausanias 9.24.6–7.
[ back ] 574. Iliad 10.493 and following.
[ back ] 575. The text here is corrupt. The two emendations mentioned in the critical notes would give either (a) “the pair who made …”or (b) “who made the statue of Dionysodotus for the Delians …”
[ back ] 576. Iliad 18.382 and following.
[ back ] 577. Hesiod Theogony 907.
[ back ] 578. With the proposed emendation “was running about and ravaging.”
[ back ] 579. Pausanias 4.16.7 to Pausanias 4.32.6.
[ back ] 580. Iliad 18.590 and following.
[ back ] 581. Iliad 2.507 and Odyssey 4.477 and Odyssey 4.581, Odyssey 14.258.
[ back ] 582. Iliad 2.101 and following.
[ back ] 583. Pausanias 8.24.10.
[ back ] 584. 357 BCE.
[ back ] 585. 348 BCE.
[ back ] 586. Iliad 2.520.
[ back ] 587. Odyssey 11.581.
[ back ] 588. Iliad 17.307ff.
[ back ] 589. Probably referring to a custom that all foreigners should leave Cadiz at certain times, probably at the festival of Hēraklēs.
[ back ] 590. With the proposed emendation: ’on this road’.
[ back ] 591. Odyssey 12.44.
[ back ] 592. 548 BCE.
[ back ] 593. Iliad 2.519.
[ back ] 594. 586 BCE.
[ back ] 595. 310 BCE.
[ back ] 596. Pausanias 6.1–18.
[ back ] 597. 369 BCE.
[ back ] 598. 405 BCE.
[ back ] 599. Pausanias seems to refer to a battle in 548 BCE.
[ back ] 600. 548 or 411 BCE.
[ back ] 601. 463–158 BCE.
[ back ] 602. Odyssey 10.1.
[ back ] 603. ‘If you let yourself gently into the water’ (Frazer).
[ back ] 604. 429 BCE.
[ back ] 605. 281–280 BCE.
[ back ] 606. Dedicated by Gyges and by Croesus, kings of Lydia.
[ back ] 607. Pausanias 10.1.10.
[ back ] 608. Iliad 15.420.
[ back ] 609. Battos means the Stammerer.
[ back ] 610. Pindar Pythian 4.74.
[ back ] 611. Odyssey 20.300 and following.
[ back ] 612. This sentence is probably a marginal note which has crept into the text.
[ back ] 613. Pausanias 1.3.4.
[ back ] 614. Herodotus 7.203.
[ back ] 615. Pausanias 1.3.9 and 1.4.2.
[ back ] 616. 279 BCE.
[ back ] 617. Odyssey 9.166–542.
[ back ] 618. Herodotus 7.213–218.
[ back ] 619. Pindar Nemean 1.53.
[ back ] 620. Plato Protagoras 343a.
[ back ] 621. Pausanias 4.17.4.
[ back ] 622. Odyssey 3.278 and following.
[ back ] 623. Iliad 3.144.
[ back ] 624. Iliad 13.171.
[ back ] 625. Iliad 17.312.
[ back ] 626. Iliad 3.205 and 123 [respectively].
[ back ] 627. Odyssey 20.66–78.
[ back ] 628. Odyssey 10.510,
[ back ] 629. Iliad 9.571.
[ back ] 630. With the suggested emendations: ‘is cut through the mountains’ or ‘is cut through the territory of the people of Meros’.”
[ back ] 631. Pausanias 8.38.11.
[ back ] 632. Odyssey 11.582.
[ back ] 633. Pausanias 10.6.3.
[ back ] 634. Herodotus 8.32.
[ back ] 635. Pausanias 9.17.6.
[ back ] 636. This scarcely makes sense, and the emendation of Kayser is ingenious: ‘Those whom Isis has invited to send the victims’.
[ back ] 637. Iliad 20.131.
[ back ] 638. Herodotus 8.33.
[ back ] 639. With the reading παρά: “joins the straight road from Amphicleia to Drymaea along the bank of the Kephisos.”
[ back ] 640. Herodotus 8.33.
[ back ] 641. 162 CE.
[ back ] 642. Should we read kateilēmenon? Cf. Lucian Sym. 47: kateilēmenos tainiais tēn kephalēn.
[ back ] 643. Iliad 2.519.
[ back ] 644. Pausanias 10.3.
[ back ] 645. 67 CE.
[ back ] 646. Pausanias 6.20.15
[ back ] 647. Iliad 2.520.
[ back ] 648. Homeric Hymn to Apollo 269, 282, 438.
[ back ] 649. Pausanias 5.23.3 and 7.18.8.
[ back ] 650. Pausanias 8.14.8.
[ back ] 651. Naupaktos means “the city of ship-building.”
[ back ] 652. Pausanias 4.23 and following.