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Full text of "Pausanias's Description of Greece, tr. with a commentary by J.G. Frazer"

PAUSANIAS'S 
DESCRIPTION OF GREECE 



P3f4 






PAUSANIAS'S 



DESCRIPTION OF GREECE 



TRANSLATED WITH A COMMENTARY 

BY 

J. G. FRAZER 

M.A., LL.D. GLASGOW ; FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; 
OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW 



IN SIX VOLUMES 

VOL. I 
TRANSLATION 



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DATE... FEB... 5. 1992 . ^ 



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To. oe enewtoV oi\erai ko.1 iravTO. TpoVov awr^/xus kcu eAceivios 
&iecf>dapTai, kou ovSe eTrivoijcraL Xonrbv &JTI rqv uirepO)(i]V kcu tt)v 
Aa/i7rpoT7/Ta twv iraOuv i's ye tois av8pas opwvra a\\ 01 Xidoi 
paWov i[X(fiacv overt Tnv cre/Avor^Ta koX to jikyedos TtyS KAAuoos 
kou to. epetVta rwi' oiKo8o/x>/p.aTan'. 



DlO CHRYSOSTOM, Or. xxxi. 






V.I 



TO 

GEORGE GILBERT RAMSAY 

PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW 

TO WHOSE 

SYMPATHETIC AND STIRRING TEACHING 

I OUT. 

YEARS OF HAPPY COMMUNE WITH THE GREAT OF OLD 

I DEDICATE THIS WORK 

IN 
GRATITUDE AND ESTEEM 



PREFACE 

In this work my aim has been to give a faithful and idiomatic 
rendering of Pausanias and to illustrate and supplement his 
description of Greece by the remains of antiquity and the aspect of 
the country at the present day. The translation has been made on 
the whole from the last complete recension of the text, that of 
J. H. C. Schubart (Leipsic, 185 3- 1854). All departures from that 
recension are recorded in the Critical Notes, in which I have also 
essayed to put together the more important suggestions that have 
been made for the improvement of the text since Schubart's edition 
was published. The materials for an illustrative commentary have 
been accumulated in great abundance by travellers, scholars, and 
antiquaries, and my task has been chiefly the humble one of 
condensing and digesting these copious but scattered materials into 
a moderate compass and a convenient form. But I have also 
embodied the notes of several journeys which I made in Greece for 
the sake of this work in 1890 and 1895. 

At the outset of a book which deals so largely with archaeo- 
logical matters, it is proper I should confess to being an expert in 
none of the branches of archaeology. If, nevertheless, I have 
presumed to comment on Pausanias, my excuse is that a com- 
mentary was needed and that at the time when, more than thirteen 
years ago, I undertook to write it no one else, so far as I knew, 
had announced an intention of doing so. It was not till I had 
gone too far to recede that I heard of a new critical and explanatory 
edition on which two highly competent scholars, Professors Hitzig 
and Blumner of Zurich, were engaged. Had I learned of their 
enterprise sooner I should probably have abandoned mine or 
contented myself with publishing a translation only. The firs- 
instalment of their edition, comprising the Attica, appeared in 1890, 



viii PREFACE 



too late to allow me to use it in my translation and commentary 
which had been already printed off. But in the Addenda I have 
recorded a few of the judicious changes which Professor Hitzig has 
made in the text. For a similar reason the notes on Attica and 
Argolis which I made on my second visit to Greece had also to be 
relegated to the Addenda. 

The readers for whom this book is especially designed are 
students at the universities, but in order to render it intelligible to 
all who interest themselves in ancient Greece, whether they are 
scholars or not, I have given quotations from foreign languages in 
English and have been at some pains to write as simply and clearly 
as I could. A few technical terms, chiefly architectural, have 
resisted my efforts to resolve them into simpler expressions, but 
they are for the most part, I believe, only such as could not have 
been avoided without the use of intolerable circumlocutions. In- 
scriptions which bear closely on the matter of Pausanias are given in 
the original for the convenience of the classical student, to whom 
the texts of inscriptions are often not easily accessible. But in all 
cases a translation or abstract is added for the benefit of the 
unlearned. 

In bringing to a close a work on which I have spent, well or ill, 
some of the best years of my life, I am bound to think of the friends 
who have aided and encouraged me in its long progress. As I do 
so, the past with its memories comes back on me 

Und manche Hebe Schatten steigen anf. 

Since the book was begun two dear friends who took the warmest 
interest in it have passed before to the world of shadows, leaving in 
my life and in the lives of many an irreparable blank. In addition 
to all their other kindnesses both had expressed a wish to read the 
book in proof, and none who knew their vast and varied learning 
but must be aware how much it would have profited by their revision. 
But dis aliter visum est William Robertson Smith died in 1894, as 
the book was going to press ; John Henry Middleton survived him 
two years and read proofs of the translation, but failing health and 
the pressure of new and onerous duties prevented him from looking 
at any part of the commentary. Thus for the many errors and 
blemishes with which I cannot but fear that this part of my work is 
disfigured and which the criticism of my friends might have removed, 
I alone am responsible. 



PREFACE IX 



Amongst those whom it is my duty and pleasure to thank for help 
cordially given, I will name particularly Professor Ch. Waldstein, 
formerly Director of the American School at Athens, Mr. Th. 
Homolle, Director of the French School at Athens, Mr. Cecil Smith 
of the British Museum, formerly Director of the British School 
at Athens, and Professor Percy Gardner of Oxford. Professor 
Waldstein has on every occasion most courteously and readily 
placed at my disposal all information, whether published or un- 
published, relating to the work of the American School over which 
he long presided, and he has further with great generosity allowed 
me to anticipate him in his own field by now publishing for the 
first time a plan, drawn by his architect Mr. Tilton, of the Argive 
Heraeum, the excavation of which has been the most important 
achievement of the American School in Greece. Mr. Homolle 
I have to thank for the patient courtesy with which he guided me 
over the scene of his labours at Delphi and for his most obliging 
permission to use the new French plan of the Delphic sanctuary 
drawn by Mr. Tournaire. Mr. Cecil Smith paid a visit to Delphi 
last summer for the purpose of furnishing me with the latest details 
as to the French excavations there. His useful notes are embodied 
in my fifth volume. Professor Percy Gardner most kindly exerted 
himself with success to procure from various European museums 
a set of casts and impressions of coins to be used in the illustra- 
tion of this work. Mr. W. Loring politely guided me over the 
field of the excavations at Megalopolis, which were then being 
carried on under his direction, and has since given me information 
on points of Arcadian topography to which he has devoted special 
attention. Mr. W. J. Woodhouse allowed me to consult him in 
matters of Messenian topography in which he is an expert, and 
obligingly furnished me with some advance sheets of his work on 
Aetolia. From Mr. R. W. Schultz I have received notes on the 
neighbourhood of Stiris in Phocis, where he spent some months. 
Mr. R. A. Neil of Pembroke College has always been ready to 
illuminate my darkness in philological matters with the rays of his 
wide knowledge, and Professor Alfred Newton has liberally drawn 
for me on his wealth of beast lore whenever I had occasion to ask 
his help. I have benefited by the fine scholarship and sober 
judgment of my friend Mr. W. Wyse on many a pleasant afternoon 
ramble among Cambridge fields and meadows ; and with my friend 
Professor W. Ridgeway I have talked over not a few of the 



PREFACE 



questions discussed in these volumes, and have never failed to come 
away stimulated by contact with his fresh and vigorous mind. 

To the Messrs. Macmillan my grateful thanks are due, not only 
for the readiness with which they undertook years ago to publish 
the book, but also for the unflinching determination with which they 
have fulfilled their part of the obligation, although in the meantime 
the work has swollen to a bulk which neither side contemplated 
when the engagement was entered into. From beginning to end 
they have left me full scope in the planning and execution of the 
book, and have acceded with great liberality to my requests for 
illustrations, maps, and plans. 

Finally, I thank the members, present and past, of the Council 
of Trinity College who, by thrice prolonging my Fellowship, have 
enabled me, free from sordid care, to pass my days in " the calm 
and still air of delightful studies " amid surroundings of all others 
the most congenial to learning. The windows of my study look on 
the tranquil court of an ancient college, where the sundial marks the 
silent passage of the hours and in the long summer days the fountain 
plashes drowsily amid flowers and grass ; where, as the evening 
shadows deepen, the lights come out in the blazoned windows of the 
Elizabethan hall and from the chapel the sweet voices of the choir, 
blent with the pealing music of the organ, float on the peaceful air, 
telling of man's eternal aspirations after truth and goodness and 
immortality. Here if anywhere, remote from the tumult and bustle 
of the world with its pomps and vanities and ambitions, the student 
may hope to hear the still voice of truth, to penetrate through the 
little transitory questions of the hour to the realities which abide, or 
rather which we fondly think must abide, while the generations 
come and go. I cannot be too thankful that I have been allowed 
to spend so many quiet and happy years in such a scene, and when 
I quit my old college rooms, as I soon shall do, for another home 
in Cambridge, I shall hope to carry forward to new work in a new 
, scene the love of study and labour which has been, not indeed 
implanted, but fostered and cherished in this ancient home of 
learning and peace. 

J. G. FRAZER. 



Trinity College, Cambridge, 
December 1S97. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface . . . . . . . vii 

Introduction ...... xiii 

Translation ...... i 

Critical Notes . . . . . .561 



INTRODUCTION 



It may be reckoned a peculiar piece of good fortune that among Greece in 
the wreckage of classical literature the Description of Greece by the second 
Pausanias should have come down to us entire. In this work we ^d.*" 7 
possess a plain, unvarnished account by an eye-witness of the state 
of Greece in the second century of our era. Of no other part of 
the ancient world has a description at once so minute and so trust- 
worthy survived, and if we had been free to single out one country 
in one age of which we should wish a record to be preserved, our 
choice might well have fallen on Greece in the age of the Antonines. 
No other people has exerted so deep and abiding an influence on 
the course of modern civilisation as the Greeks, and never could all 
the monuments of their chequered but glorious history have been 
studied so fully as in the second century of our era. The great age 
of the nation, indeed, had long been over, but in the sunshine of 
peace and imperial favour Greek art and literature had blossomed 
again. New temples had sprung up ; new images had been carved ; 
new theatres and baths and aqueducts ministered to the amusement 
and luxury of the people. Among the new writers whose works the 
world will not willingly let die it is enough to mention the great 
names of Plutarch and Lucian. 

It was in this mellow autumn perhaps rather the Indian 
summer of the ancient world, when the last gleanings of the Greek 
genius were being gathered in, that Pausanias, a contemporary of 
Hadrian, of the Antonines, and of Lucian, wrote his description of 
Greece. He came in time, but just in time. He was able to 
describe the stately buildings with which in his own lifetime Hadrian 
had embellished Greece, and the hardly less splendid edifices with 
which, even while he wrote, another munificent patron of art, 
Herodes Atticus, was rearing at some of the great centres of Greek 
life and religion. Yet under all this brave show the decline had set 
in. About a century earlier the emperor Nero, in the speech in 
which he announced at Corinth the liberation of Greece, lamented 
that it had not been given him to confer the boon in other and 



XIV INTRODUCTION 



happier days when there would have been more people to profit by 
it. 1 Some years after this imperial utterance Plutarch declared that 
the world in general and Greece especially was depopulated by the 
civil brawls and wars ; the whole country, he said, could now hardly 
put three thousand infantry in the field, the number that formerly 
Megara alone had sent to face the Persians at Plataea; and in the 
daytime a solitary shepherd feeding his flock was the only human 
being to be met with on what had been the site of one of the most 
renowned oracles in Boeotia. 2 Dio Chrysostom tells us that in his 
time the greater part of the city of Thebes lay deserted, and that 
only a single statue stood erect among the ruins of the ancient 
market-place. 3 The same picturesque writer has sketched for us 
a provincial town of Euboea, where most of the space within the 
walls was in pasture or rig and furrow, where the gymnasiunTwas a 
fruitful field in which the images of Hercules and the rest rose here 
and there above the waving corn, and where sheep grazed peace- 
fully about the public offices in the grass-grown market-place. 4 In 
one of his Dialogues of the Dead, Lucian represents the soul of a 
rich man bitterly reproaching himself for his rashness in having 
dared to cross Cithaeron with only a couple of men-servants, for he 
had been set upon and murdered by robbers on the highroad at the 
point where the grey ruins of Eleutherae still look down on the 
pass; 5 in the time of Lucian the district, laid waste, he tells us, by 
the old wars, seems to have been even more lonely and deserted 
than it is now. Of this state of things Pausanias himself is 
our best witness. Again and again he notices shrunken or ruined 
cities, deserted villages, roofless temples, shrines without images and 
pedestals without statues, faint vestiges of places that once had a 
name and played a part in history. 6 To the site of one famous 

1 The official text of the emperor's speech was discovered some years ago at 
Acraephnium in Boeotia. See Bulletin de Correspondance helttnique, 12 (1S88), pp. 
510-528 ; AeXriou apx^oXoyiKov , 1888, pp. 192-194. 

2 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 8. 

3 Or. vii. p. 136 ed. Dindorf. 4 Ibid. vii. p. 117 ed. Dindorf. 

5 Lucian, Dialog, mort. xxvii. 2. 

6 Shrunken cities, iii. 19. 6, iii. 24. 1, vi. 22. 8, viii. 25. 3, viii. 27. 7, viii. 28. 
1, 4, viii. 33. 1, 2, viii. 38. 1, ix. 7. 6; ruined and deserted cities, ii. 16. 5, ii. 25. 

5, 8, 9, ii. 36. 1, ii. 38. 2, iii. 20. 3, iii. 22. 3, 13, iii. 24. 2, 6, iii. 25. 9, iv. 3. 2, 
iv. 33. 6, 7, v. 6. 3, 4, vi. 21. 6, vii. 18. 1, vii. 23. 4, vii. 24. 13, viii. 12. 7, viii. 
13. 2, viii. 15. 9, viii. 18. 8, viii. 26. 8, viii. 27. 7, viii. 28. 7, viii. 29. 1, 5, viii. 
34. 6, viii. 35. 5, 7, 9, viii. 36. 7, 8, 9, 10, viii. 44. 1, 2, 3, ix. 2. 1, ix. 4. 4, ix. 
19. 2, 4, ix. 26. 5, ix. 29. 2, ix. 38. 9, x. 33. 1 ; ruined and deserted villages, viii. 
7. 4, viii. 23. 9, viii. 25. 1 ; roofless and ruined temples, i. 1. 5, i. 40. 6, i. 44. 3, 
ii. 5. 5, ii. 7. 6, ii. 9. 7, ii. 11. 1, ii. 12. 2, ii. 15. 2, ii. 17. 7, ii. 24. 3, ii. 34. 10, 
ii. 36. 2, 8, iii. 21. 8, iii. 22. 10, vi. 20. 6, vi. 21. 3, 4, 6, vi. 25. 1, viii. 9. 6, viii. 
12. 9, viii. 14. 4, viii. 15. 5, viii. 17. 1, viii. 24. 6, viii. 25. 3, viii. 26. 2, viii. 30. 

6, viii. 31. 9, viii. 32. 2, 3, viii. 35. 5, viii. 36. 8, viii. 41. 10, viii. 44. 3, 4, viii. 
53. 11, viii. 54. 5, x. 8. 6, x. 35. 3, x. 38. 13; temples without images, ii. 7. 6, 
ii. 12. 2, ii. 15. 2, ii. 36. 2, iii. 22. 10, vi. 25. 1, vii. 22. 11, x. 8. 6; pedestals 
without statues, ii. 24. 3, viii. 30. 5, viii. 38. 5, viii. 49. 1 ; other ruined buildings, 
i- 35- 3. i'- 36- 8, v. 20. 6, viii. 32. 1, ix. 12. 3, ix. 16. 7, ix. 25. 3. 



INTR OD UC TION xv 



city he came and found it a vineyard. 1 In one neglected fane he 
saw a great ivy-tree clinging to the ruined walls and rending the 
stones asunder. 2 In others nothing but the tall columns standing 
up against the sky marked the site of a temple. 3 Nor were more 
sudden and violent forces of destruction wanting to quicken the 
slow decay wrought by time, by neglect, by political servitude, by 
all the subtle indefinable agencies that sap a nation's strength. In 
Pausanias's lifetime a horde of northern barbarians, the ominous 
precursor of many more, carried fire and sword into the heart of 
Greece, 4 and the Roman world was wasted by that great pestilence 
which thinned its population, enfeebled its energies, and precipitated 
the decline of art. 5 

The little we know of the life of Pausanias is gathered entirely Date of 
from his writings. Antiquity, which barely mentions the writer, 6 is Pau s*nias. 
silent as to the man. 

Fortunately his date is certain. At the beginning of his de- 
scription of Elis he tells us that two hundred and seventeen years 
had elapsed since the restoration of Corinth. 7 As Corinth was 
restored in 44 b.c. we see that Pausanias was writing his fifth book 
in 174 a.d. during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. With this date 
all the other chronological indications in his book harmonise. 
Thus he speaks of images which were set up in 125 a.d. as 

1 vi. 22. 1. 2 ix. 33. 7 . 

3 ii. 11. 2, viii. 30. 4, viii. 44. 2, cp. viii. 26. 2. 

4 Pausanias x. 34. 5. An inscription lately found in the sacred Eleusinian pre- 
cinct makes it probable that these barbarians attacked Eleusis. They may have 
been the people who profaned the mysteries and fired the precinct in the lifetime of 
the rhetorician Aristides, a contemporary of Pausanias (Aristides, Or. xix. vol. 1. p. 
421 sqq., ed. Dindorf). See D. Philios, in Bulletin de Corresp. hellinique, 19 (1895), 
pp. 119-128 ; id., in Mittheilungen des archaologischen Instituts in Athen, 21 (1896), 
pp. 242-245. 

5 See Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, 2. p. 53 sq. (English translation) ; 
Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, 8. pp. 332 sqq., 358 sqq. 

6 Aelian (Far. Hist. xii. 61) refers to a statement of Pausanias which occurs in 
his desciiption of Arcadia (viii. 36. 6). The grammarian Herodian, a contemporary 
of Pausanias, seems to have made use of his work (Aug. Lentz, Herodiani Technici 
Reliquiae, vol. 1. p. clxxix. ), and the same may be said of Philostratus. See Philo- 
stratus, vit. Apollon. i. 20 compared with Pausanias ii. 5. 3 (story that the Euphrates 
flows underground to join the Nile) ; Philostratus, Imagines, ii. 16 compared with 
Pausanias ii. 1. 3, ii. 2. 1 (worship of Palaemon at the Isthmus of Corinth) ; Philo- 
stratus, vit. Sophist, ii. 1. 1 compared with Pausanias i. 29. 15 (Miltiades and 
Cimon) ; Philostratus, Heroica, ii. 3 compared with Pausanias i. 35. 5 (bones of 
Ajax) ; and Philostratus, vit. Apollon. viii. 19 compared with Pausanias ix. 39. 5- 
14 (oracle of Trophonius). These comparisons have been made by Mr. W. Gurlitt 
(Ueber Pausanias, p. 73). Others might be added, as Philostratus, Imagines, i. 12 
(Amphion), ii. 6 (Arrhichion) and ii. 29 (Antigone) with Pausanias, ix. 5. 7 sq. , 
viii. 40. 1 sq. and ix. 18. 3. The geographer Stephanus of Byzantium often cites 
Pausanias by name and recognises the division of his work into ten books, all of 
which he refers to by their numbers. See the Index to Westermann's edition of 
Stephanus of Byzantium. A number of passages of Pausanias are copied more or less 
literally by Suidas, who does not, however, mention his name. See notes on vi. 4. 4, 
vi. 5. 1, vi. 6. 7, vi. 8. 4, vi. 9. 6, vi. 10. 1, vi. 13. 3, vi. 14. 5, vi. 18. 2, x. 37. 6. 

7 v. 1. 2. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 



specimens of the art of his day. 1 Again, he gives us to understand 
that he was a contemporary of Hadrian's, 2 and he tells us that he 
never saw Hadrian's favourite, Antinous, in life. 3 Now Hadrian 
died in 138 a.d., and the mysterious death of Antinous in Egypt 
appears to have fallen in 130 a.d. 4 It is natural to infer from 
Pausanias's words that though he never saw Antinous in life, he 
was old enough to have seen him ; from which we conclude that 
our author was born a good many years before 130 a.d., the date 
of Antinous's death. The latest historical event mentioned by him 
is the incursion of the Costobocs into Greece, which seems to 
have taken place some time between 166 a.d. and 180 a.d., perhaps 
in 176 a.d. 5 
Dates of From these and a few more hints we may draw some conclusions 

the various as t the dates when the various books that make up the Description 
of Greece were written. In the seventh book Pausanias tells us 
that his description of Athens was finished before Herodes Atticus 
built the Music Hall in memory of his wife Regilla. 6 As Regilla 
appears to have died in 160 or 161 a.d. and the Music Hall was 
probably built soon afterwards, we may suppose that Pausanias had 
finished his first book by 160 or 161 a.d. at latest. There is, 
indeed, some ground for holding that both the first and the second 
book were composed much earlier. For in the second book 
Pausanias mentions a number of buildings which had been erected 
in his own lifetime by a Roman senator Antoninus in the sanctuary 
of Aesculapius at Epidaurus. 7 If, as seems not improbable, the 
Roman senator was no other than the Antoninus who afterwards 
reigned as Antoninus Pius, we should naturally infer that the second 
book was published in the reign of Hadrian, that is, not later than 
138 a.d., the year when Hadrian died and Antoninus succeeded 
him on the throne. With this it would agree that no emperor later 
than Hadrian is mentioned in the first or second book, or indeed 
in any book before the eighth. Little weight, however, can be 
attached to this circumstance, for in the fifth book Hadrian is the 
last emperor mentioned 8 although that book was written, as we 
have seen, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, thirty-six years after 
Hadrian's death. A much later date has been assigned to the 
second book by Mr. W. Gurlitt in his valuable monograph on 
Pausanias. 9 He points out that when Pausanias wrote it the 
sanctuary of Aesculapius at Smyrna had already been founded, 10 and 
that if Masson's chronology of the life of the rhetorician Aristides 
is right 11 the sanctuary was still unfinished in 165 a.d. Hence 

1 v. 21. 15. 2 i. 5. 5. 3 via. 9. 7. 

4 J. Durr, Die Reisen des Kaisers Hadrian, p. 64. 

5 See x. 34. 5 note. B vii. 20. 6 note. 7 ii. 27. 6 sq. 

8 v. 12. 6. 9 Ueber Pausanias, pp. 1, 59. 10 Pausanias ii. 26. 9. 

11 Masson, Be Aristidis vita collectanea historica, printed in Dindorf's edition of 
Aristides, vol. 3. p. 91. 



INTRODUCTION xvn 



Mr. Gurlitt concludes that the second book of Pausanias was written 

after 165 a.d. Even the first book, according to him, must be 

dated not earlier than 143 a.d. His reason is that when Pausanias 

wrote this book the stadium at Athens had already been rebuilt of 

white marble by Herodes Atticus, 1 and that the reconstruction 

cannot, if Professor C. Wachsmuth is right, 2 have been begun before 

143 a.d. or a little earlier. With regard to the other books, the 

evidence, scanty as it is, is less conflicting. The fifth book, as we 

have seen, was composed in the year 174 a.d. The eighth book, in 

which mention is made of the victory of Marcus Antoninus over the 

Germans, 3 must have been written after 166 a.d., the year when the 

German war broke out, and may have been written in or after 176 

a.d., the year in which the emperor celebrated a triumph for his 

success. In the tenth book occurs the reference to the inroad of 

the Costobocs; 4 hence the book was written between 166 and 180 

a.d. Further, the references which Pausanias makes both forwards 

and backwards to the several parts of his work show that the books 

were written in the order in which they now stand. 5 Hence books 

six to ten cannot have been composed earlier and may have been 

composed a good deal later than 174 a.d., the year in which our 

author was engaged on his fifth book. Thus the composition of 

the work extended over a period of at least fourteen years and 

probably of many more. That Pausanias spent a long time over it 

might be inferred from a passage in which he explains a change in 

his religious views. When he began his work, so he tells us, he 

looked on some Greek myths as little better than foolishness, but 

when he had got as far as his description of Arcadia he had altered 

his opinion and had come to believe that they contained a kernel 

of deep wisdom under a husk of extravagance. 6 Such a total change 

of attitude towards the religious traditions of his country was more 

probably an affair of years than of weeks and months. 

That the first book was not only written but published before The first 

the others seems clear. Amongst the proofs of this the strongest is ./* . 
. & it 1 i_ written ano - 

the writer's statement in the seventh book,' that when he wrote his published 

description of Athens the Music Hall of Herodes Atticus had not before the 

rest. 
1 Pausanias i. 19. 6. 

- See C. Wachsmuth, in Mittheilungen des archaologischai Instituts in A then, 
9 (1884), p. 95. 

3 viii. 43. 6 note. 4 x. 34. 5. 

5 The First Book was written before the Second (ii. 19. 8, ii. 21. 4, ii. 23. 6, ii. 
32. 3), the Second before the Third (iii. 6. 9, iii. 10. 5), the Third before the Fourth 
(iii. 7. 5, iii. 15. 10, iv. 2. 4), the Fifth before the Sixth (v. 14. 6), the Sixth before 
the Seventh (vi. 3. 8, vi. 8. 5), the Seventh before the Eighth (vii. 7. 4, vii. 8. 6), 
the Eighth before the Ninth (ix. 41. 2), and the Ninth before the Tenth (x. 32. 10). 
For confirmatory references see i. 24. 5, iii. 11. i, iii. 17. 3, iv. 29. 1, 12, v. 15. 4, 
v. 18. 8, v. 27. 9, vi. 2. 4, vii. 20. 6, viii. 5. i, viii. 31, 1, viii. 37. 1, viii. 48. 2, 
viii. 52. 5, ix. 14. 5, ix. 19. 2, x. 9. 2, x. 19. 5, x. 37. 4, x. 38. 10. Compare G. 
Kriiger, Theologumena Pausaniae (Leipsic, i860), p. 10 note 3. 

6 viii. 8. 3. 7 vii. 20. 6. 

VOL. I b 



xvm INTRODUCTION 



yet been built. This implies that when he wrote the seventh book 
the first was already published ; otherwise he could easily have 
incorporated a notice of the Music Hall in its proper place in the 
manuscript. Again, in the eighth book l he expressly corrects a 
view which he had adopted in the first ; 2 this also he might have 
done in the manuscript of the first book if he still had it by him. 
In other places he tacitly adds to statements and descriptions con- 
tained in the first book. 3 Further, the narrative of the Gallic 
invasion in the first book i is superseded by the much fuller narrative 
given in the tenth book, 5 and would hardly have been allowed to 
stand if it had been in the author's power to cut it out. More 
interesting are the passages in which we seem to discover references 
to criticisms which had been passed on his first book. Thus in the 
third book 6 he repeats emphatically the plan of work which he had 
laid down for himself in the first, 7 adding that the plan had been 
adopted after mature deliberation, and that he would not depart from 
it. This sounds like a trumpet-blast of defiance to the critics who 
had picked holes in the scheme of his first book. Elsewhere he 
seems conscious that some of their strictures were not wholly unde- 
served. In speaking of the descendants of Aristomenes he is sorely 
tempted to go into the family history of the Diagorids, but pulls 
himself up sharply with the remark that he passes over this interest- 
ing topic " lest it should appear an impertinent digression." 8 Clearly 
the arrows of the reviewers had gone home. The tedious historical 
dissertations with which he had sought to spice the plain fare of 
Athenian topography were now felt by the poor author himself to 
savour strongly of impertinent digressions. Again, old habit getting 
the better of him, the sight of a ruined camp of King Philip 
in a secluded Arcadian valley sets him off rambling on the divine 
retribution that overtook that wicked monarch and his descendants 
and the murderers of his descendants and their descendants after 
them, till, his conscience smiting him, he suddenly returns to busi- 
ness with the half apology, " But this has been a digression." 9 That 
Pausanias had the fear of the critics before his eyes is stated by 
himself in the plainest language. He had made, he tells us, careful 
researches into the vexed subject of the dates of Homer and Hesiod, 
but refrained from stating the result of his labours, because he knew 
very well the carping disposition of the professors of poetry of his 
own day. 10 Little did he foresee the disposition of certain other pro- 

1 viii. 5. 1. ' 2 i. 41. 2. 

3 Compare v. 11. 6 with i. 15. 3 as to the painting of the battle of Marathon ; v. 
12. 4 with i. 21. 3 as to the gilt head of Medusa on the Acropolis ; ii. 30. 2 and iii. 
15. 7 with i. 22. 4 as to the temple of Wingless Victory ; vi. 20. 14 with i. 24. 3 as 
to the sculptor Cleoetas ; x. 21. 5 sq. with i. 3. 2 sq. as to the colonnade of Zeus of 
Freedom. 

4 i. 3. 5-i. 4. 6. 5 x. 19. 5-x. 23. 14. 6 iii. n. 1. 7 i. 39. 3. 

8 iv. 24. 3. 9 viii. 7. 4-8. 10 ix. 30. 3 ; compare x. 24. 3. 



INTRODUCTION xix 



fessors who were to sit in judgment on him some seventeen hundred 
years later. Had he done so he might well have been tempted to 
suppress the Description of Greece altogether, and we might have 
had to lament the loss of one of the most curious and valuable 
records bequeathed to us by antiquity. 

The birthplace of Pausanias is less certain than his date, but Birth- 
there are good grounds for believing that he was a Lydian. For p^s a [ as 
after saying that in his country traces were still to be seen of the 
abode of Pelops and Tantalus, he mentions some monuments 
and natural features associated with the names of these ancient 
princes on and near Mount Sipylus. 1 This is nearly a direct affirma- 
tion that the region about Mount Sipylus in Lydia was his native 
land. The same thing appears, though less directly, from the minute 
acquaintance he displays with the district and from the evident fond- 
ness with which he recurs again and again to its scenery and legends. 
He had seen the white eagles wheeling above the lonely tarn of 
Tantalus in the heart of the hills; 2 he had beheld the stately tomb 
of the same hero on Mount Sipylus, 3 the ruined city at the bottom 
of the clear lake, 4 the rock-hewn throne of Pelops crowning the 
dizzy peak that overhangs the canon, 5 and the dripping rock which 
popular fancy took for the bereaved Niobe weeping for her children. 6 
He speaks of the clouds of locusts which he had thrice seen vanish 
from Mount Sipylus, 7 of the wild dance of the peasantry, 8 and of the 
shrine of Mother Plastene, 9 whose rude image, carved out of the 
native rock, may still be seen in its niche at the foot of the mountain. 
From all this it is fair to surmise that Pausanias was born and bred 
not far from the mountains which he seems to have known and 
loved so well. Their inmost recesses he may have explored on foot 
in boyhood and have drunk in their old romantic legends from the 
lips of woodmen and hunters. Whether, as some conjecture, he 
was born at Magnesia, the city at the northern foot of Mount 
Sipylus, we cannot say, but the vicinity of the city to the mountain 
speaks in favour of the conjecture. It is less probable, perhaps, 
that his birthplace was the more distant Pergamus, although there is 
no lack of passages to prove that he knew and interested himself in 
that city. 10 As a native of Lydia it was natural that Pausanias should 
be familiar with the western coast of Asia Minor. There is indeed 
no part of the world outside of Greece to which he refers so often. 
He seizes an opportunity to give us the history of the colonisation 
of Ionia, and dwells with patriotic pride on the glorious climate, 
the matchless temples, and the natural wonders of that beautiful 
land. 11 



1 v. 13. 7. 


2 viii. 17. 3. 


3 ii. 22. 3, v. 13. 7 


4 vii. 24. 13. 


5 v. 13. 7. 


6 i. 2i. 3, viii. 2. 7 


7 i. 24. 8. 


8 vi. 22. 1. 


9 v. 13. 7 note. 


10 See Index, s.v. 


" Pergamus." 


11 vii. 2-5. 



XX 



INTRODUCTION 



Other 
writers of 
the same 



Pausanias's 
travels. 



Some scholars have identified our author with a sophist of the 
same name who was born at Caesarea in Cappadocia, studied under 
Herodes Atticus, and died an old man at Rome, leaving behind 
him many declamations composed in a style which displayed a 
certain vigour and some acquaintance with classical models. 1 But, 
quite apart from the evidence that our author was a Lydian, there 
are strong reasons for not identifying him with his Cappadocian 
namesake. Neither Suidas nor Philostratus, who has left us a short 
life of the Cappadocian Pausanias, mentions the Description of 
Greece among his works ; and on the other hand our Pausanias, 
though he often mentions Herodes Atticus, nowhere speaks of him 
as his master or of any personal relations that he had with him. 
Further, the author of the .Descriptio?i of Greece is probably to be 
distinguished from a writer of the same name who composed a work 
on Syria to which Stephanus of Byzantium repeatedly refers. 2 It is 
true that our Pausanias evidently knew and had travelled in Syria, 
but this in itself is no reason for supposing that he was the author 
of a work to which in his extant writings he makes no allusion. The 
name Pausanias was far too common to justify us in identifying all 
the authors who bore it even when we have grounds for believing 
them to have been contemporaries. 3 

That Pausanias had travelled widely beyond the limits of Greece 
and Ionia is clear from the many allusions he lets fall to places and 
objects of interest in foreign lands. Some of them he expressly 
says that he saw ; as to others we may infer that he saw them from 
the particularity of his description. In Syria he had seen the 
Jordan flowing through the Lake of Tiberias and falling into the 
Dead Sea, 4 and had gazed at the red pool near Joppa in which 
Perseus was said to have washed his bloody sword after slaying the 
sea -monster. 5 He describes a tomb at Jerusalem, the door of 
which by an ingenious mechanical contrivance opened of itself once 
a year at a certain hour, 6 and he often alludes to Antioch which 
for its vast size and wealth he ranked with Alexandria. 7 In Egypt 

1 See Philostratus, vit. Sophist, ii. 13 ; Suidas, s.v. Jlavcavias ; Siebelis's preface 
to his edition of Pausanias, vol. 1. pp. iv. -vii. ; Schubart, in Zeitschrift fur die Alter- 
thumswissenschaft, 9 (1851), No. 2>7< pp. 289-291; W. Gurlitt, Ueber Pausanias, p. 64^. 

2 See Stephanus Byzantius, s.vv. B6rpvs, rd/3/3a, Tafa, Awpos, Adaa, ^Iapia/i/xta ; 
Jo. Malala, Chronographia, ed. Dindorf, pp. 38, 203, 204, 248 ; Fragmenta Histori- 
corum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, 4. p. 467 sqq. ; Leake, Topography of Athens? 1. 
p. 475 sq. ; Schubart, in Schubart and Walz's edition of Pausanias, vol. 2. pp. iv.- 
viii. ; id., in Zeitschrift fur die Alterthumswissenschaft, 9 (1851), No. 37, p. 292 sq. ; 
W. Gurlitt, Ueber Pausanias, p. 66. 

3 A namesake of our author composed a dictionary of Attic words which is highly 
praised by Photius (Bibliofheca, p. 99 sq., ed. Bekker). The fragments of this 
work, which is often referred to by Eustathius, have been collected by E. Schwabe 
(Aelii Dionysii et Pausaniae Atticistarum fragmenta, Leipsic, 1890). But nothing 
is known of the date or life of the lexicographer Pausanias. 

4 V. 7. 4. 5 iv. 35. 9, 11. 6 viii. 16. 5. 

7 viii. 33. 3. For other allusions to Antioch see vi. 2. 7, viii. 20. 2, viii. 23. 5, 
viii. 29. 3 sq. For other references to Syria see i. 14. 7 (worship of Astarte at 



INTRODUCTION xxi 



he had seen the pyramids, 1 had beheld with wonder the colossal 
statue of Memnon at Thebes, and had heard the musical note, like 
the breaking of a lute-string, which the statue emitted at sunrise. 2 
The statue still stands, and many inscriptions in Greek and Latin 
carved by ancient visitors on its huge legs and base confirm the 
testimony of Pausanias as to the mysterious sound. From Egypt 
our author seems to have journeyed across the desert to the 
oasis of Amnion, for he tells us that in his time the hymn which 
Pindar sent to Amnion was still to be seen there carved on a 
triangular slab beside the altar. 3 Nearer home he admired the 
splendid fortifications of Rhodes and Byzantium. 4 Though he does 
not describe northern Greece he had visited Thessaly 5 and had 
seen the blue steaming rivulet rushing along at the foot of the 
rugged forest-tufted mountains that hem in like a wall the pass of 
Thermopylae on the south. 6 He appears to have visited Macedonia, 7 
and perhaps, too, Epirus ; at least he speaks repeatedly of Dodona 
and its oracular oak, 8 and he mentions the sluggish melancholy 
rivers that wind through the dreary Thesprotian plain and that 
gave their names to the rivers in hell. 9 He had crossed to Italy 
and seen something of the cities of Campania 10 and the wonders of 
Rome. The great forum of Trajan with its bronze roof, 11 the Circus 
Maximus 12 then probably the most magnificent building in the 
world and the strange beasts gathered from far foreign lands 13 
seem to have been the sights which most impressed him in the 
capital of the world. In the Imperial Gardens he observed with 
curiosity a tusk which the custodian assured him had belonged to 
the Calydonian boar ; u and he noticed, doubtless with less pleasure, 
the great ivory image of Athena Alea which Augustus had carried 
off from the stately temple of the goddess at Tegea. 15 In the 
neighbourhood of Rome the bubbling milk-white water of Albula 
or Solfatara, as it is now called, on the road to Tibur, attracted 
his attention, 16 and beside the sylvan lake of Aricia he appears to 
have seen the grim priest pacing sword in hand, the warder of the 

Ascalon), ii. i. 8 (robe of Eriphyle at Gabala), vi. 24. 8 (tomb of Silenus in land 
of Hebrews), ix. 12. 2 (Phoenician title of Athena), ix. 28. 2 (vipers in Phoenician 
highlands), x. 12. 9 (prophetess Sabbe among the Hebrews), x. 29. 4 (rope of ivy 
and vine-twigs with which Dionysus spanned the Euphrates). 

I ix. 36. 5. 2 i. 42. 3 note. 3 ix. 16. 1. 4 iv. 31. 5. 
5 ix. 30. 9 ; compare i. 13. 2 sq. , vi. 5. 2. 6 iv. 35. 9. 7 ix. 30. 7. 
3 i. 13. 3, i. 17. 5, vii. 21. 2, viii. 23. 5. 9 i. 17. 5. 

10 He saw an elephant's skull in a temple of Artemis or Diana near Capua (v. 
12. 3) ; he mentions a hot spring of acid water which had been discovered in his 
time at Dicaearchia or Puteoli (iv. 35. 12), and he describes an artificial island built 
in the sea off the same place to utilise the water of a spring which rose in the sea (viii. 
7- 3)- 

II v. 12. 6, x. 5. 11. 12 v. 12. 6. 

13 Amongst them he mentions rhinoceroses from Africa, camels from India, and 
elks from the Celtic lands of northern Europe. See viii. 17. 4, ix. 21. 1 sqq. 

14 viii. 46. 5. is viii. 46. 4. 1S iv. 35. 10. 



xxn INTRODUCTION 



Golden Bough. 1 The absurd description he gives of the beautiful 
and much-maligned Strait of Messina 2 would suffice to prove that 
he never sailed through it. Probably like most travellers coming 
from the East he reached Italy by way of Brundisium. Of Sardinia 
he has given a somewhat full description, but without implying that 
he had visited it. 3 Sicily, if we may judge by a grave blunder he 
makes in speaking of it, he never saw. 4 
Aim of The aim that Pausanias had in writing his Description of Greece is 

Pausamas's nowhere very fully or clearly stated by him. His book has neither 
head nor tail, neither preface nor epilogue. At the beginning he 
plunges into the description of Attica without a word of introduction, 
and at the end he breaks off his account of Ozolian Locris with equal 
abruptness. There is reason to believe that the work is unfinished, for 
he seems to have intended to describe Opuntian Locris, 5 but this inten- 
tion was never fulfilled. However, from occasional utterances as well 
as from the general scope and plan of the book we can gather a fairly 
accurate notion of the writer's purpose. Thus in the midst of his 
description of the Acropolis of Athens he suddenly interposes the 
remark, " But I must proceed, for I have to describe the whole of 
Greece," 6 as if the thought of the wide field he had to traverse 
jogged him, as well it might, and bade him hasten. Again, after 
bringing his description of Athens and Attica to an end he adds : 
"Such are, in my opinion, the most famous of the Athenian 
traditions and sights : from the mass of materials I have aimed from 
the outset at selecting the really notable." 7 Later on, before 
addressing himself to the description of Sparta, he explains his 
purpose still more definitely and emphatically : " To prevent mis- 
conceptions, I stated in my Attica that I had not described every- 
thing, but only a selection of the most memorable objects. This 
principle I will now repeat before I proceed to describe Sparta. 
From the outset I aimed at sifting the most valuable traditions from 
out of the mass of insignificant stories which are current among 
every people. My plan was adopted after mature deliberation, and 
I will not depart from it." 8 Again, after briefly narrating the history 
of Phlius, he says : " I shall now add a notice of the most remark- 
able sights," 9 and he concludes his description of Delphi with the 
words : " Such were the notable objects left at Delphi in my time." 10 
In introducing his notice of the honorary statues at Olympia he is 
careful to explain that he does not intend to furnish a complete 
catalogue of them, but only to mention such as were of special 
interest either for their artistic merit or for the fame of the persons 
they represented. 11 



1 ii. 27. 4. Compare Strabo, v. p. 239 ; Servius on Virgil, Aen. vi. 136. 

2 v. 25. 3. 3 x. 17. 4 v. 25. s note. 
5 See ix. 23. 7, and compare ii. 19. 8. 6 i. 26. 4. 7 i. 39. 3. 



111. 11. 1. 9 ii. 13. 3. 10 x. 32. 1. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 



From these and a few more passages of the same sort x it seems Method of 
clear that Pausanias intended to describe all the most notable the work - 
objects and to narrate all the most memorable traditions which he 
found existing or current in the Greece of his own time. It was a 
vast undertaking, and we need not wonder that at the outset he 
should have felt himself oppressed by the magnitude of it, and that 
consequently in the first book, dealing with Attica, his selection 
of notable objects should be scantier and his description of them 
slighter than in the later books. It was not only that he was 
bewildered by the multitude of things he had to say, but that he had 
not quite made up his mind how to say them. He was groping 
and fumbling after a method As the work proceeded, he seems 
to have felt himself more at ease ; the arrangement of the matter 
becomes more systematic, the range of his interests wider, the 
descriptions more detailed, his touch surer. Even the second book 
shows in all these respects a great advance on the first. To 
mention two conspicuous improvements, he has now definitely 
adopted the topographical order of description, and he prefaces his 
account of each considerable city with a sketch of its history. In 
the first book, on the other hand, an historical introduction is 
wholly wanting, and though Athens itself is on the whole described 
in topographical order, the rest of Attica is not. 2 Only with the 
description of the Sacred Way which led from Athens to Eleusis 3 
does Pausanias once for all grasp firmly the topographical thread as 
the best clue to guide him and his readers through the labyrinth. 
Throughout the rest of his work the general principle on which he 
arranges his matter is this. After narrating in outline the history of 
the district he is about to describe he proceeds from the frontier to 
the capital by the nearest road, noting anything of interest that 
strikes him by the way. Arrived at the capital he goes straight to 
the centre of it, generally to the market-place, describes the chief 
buildings and monuments there, and then follows the streets, one 
after the other, that radiate from the centre in all directions, record- 
ing the most remarkable objects in each of them. Having finished 
his account of the capital he describes the surrounding district on 
the same principle. He follows the chief roads that lead from the 
capital to all parts of the territory, noting methodically the chief 
natural features and the most important towns, villages, and monu- 
ments that he meets with on the way. Having followed the road up 

1 i. 23. 4, ii. 14. 4, ii. 29. r, ii. 34. 11, v. 21. i, vi. 17. 1, vi. 23. 1, vi. 24. 6, 
viii. 10. 1, viii. 54. 7, x. 9. 1 sq. 

2 Thus he interrupts his description of the Attic townships to describe the Attic 
mountains (i. 32. 1 sq.) ; and having finished his account of the townships he describes 
all the islands together (i. 35. i-i. 36. 2). In the description of the townships them- 
selves it is difficult to trace any topographical order. Mr. Gurlitt has attempted to 
show that Pausanias takes the townships in the order in which they occur on routes 
diverging from Athens as a centre [Ueber Pausanias, p. 286 sqq.). 

3 3 6 - 3-i- 38. 4- 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 



till it brings him to the frontier, he retraces his steps to the capital, 
and sets off along another which he treats in the same way, until in 
this manner he has exhausted all the principal thoroughfares that 
branch from the city. On reaching the end of the last of them he 
does not return on his footsteps, but crosses the boundary into the 
next district, which he then proceeds to describe after the same 
fashion. This, roughly speaking, is the way in which he describes 
the cities and territories of Corinth, Argos, Sparta, Mantinea, 
Megalopolis, Tegea, and Thebes. 
The work A better and clearer method of arranging matter so complex and 

is a guide- var i e( } jt might be hard to devise. It possesses at least one obvious 
advantage the routes do not cross each other, and thus a fruitful 
source of confusion is avoided. The reader, however, will easily 
perceive that the order of description can hardly have been the one 
in which Pausanias travelled or expected his readers to travel. The 
most patient and systematic of topographers and sightseers would 
hardly submit to the irksome drudgery of pursuing almost every 
road twice over, first in one direction and then in the other. 
Manifestly the order has been adopted only for the sake of lucidity, 
only because in no other way could the writer convey to his reader 
so clear a notion of the relative positions of the places and things 
described. Why was Pausanias at such pains to present everything 
to his readers in its exact position ? The only probable answer is 
that he wished to help them to find their way from one object of 
interest to another ; in other words that he intended his Description 
of Greece to serve as a guide-book to travellers. If his aim had 
been merely to amuse and entertain his readers at home, he could 
hardly have lighted on a worse method of doing so ; for the persons 
who find topographical directions amusing and can extract entertain- 
ment from reading that "This place is so many furlongs from that, 
and this other so many more from that other," must be few in 
number and of an unusually cheerful disposition. The ordinary 
reader is more likely to yawn over such statements and shut 
up the book. We may take it, then, that in Pausanias's work 
we possess the ancient equivalent of our modern Murrays and 
Baedekers. The need for such a guide-book would be felt by 
the many travellers who visited Greece, and for whom the garru- 
lous but ignorant ciceroni did not, as we know, always provide 
the desired information. 1 Yet with the innocent ambition of an 
author Pausanias may very well have hoped that his book might 
prove not wholly uninteresting to others than travellers. The 
digressions on historical subjects, on natural curiosities, on the 
strange creatures of different countries with which he so often breaks 
the thread of his description may be regarded as so many lures held 
out to the reader to beguile him on his weary way. Indeed in one 

1 See below, p. lxxvi. 



INTRODUCTION xxv 



passage he plainly intimates his wish not to be tedious to his 
readers. 1 

When we come to examine the substance of his book we quickly Antiqua- 
perceive that his interests were mainly antiquarian and religious, n: J n and 
and that though he professes to describe the whole of Greece or, ^af 1 ^ 3 
more literally, all things Greek, 2 what he does describe is little Pausanias. 
more than the antiquities of the country and the religious traditions 
and ritual of the people. He interested himself neither in the 
natural beauties of Greece nor in the ordinary life of his con- 
temporaries. For all the notice he takes of the one or the 
other Greece might almost have been a wilderness and its cities 
uninhabited or peopled only at rare intervals by a motley throng 
who suddenly appeared as by magic, moved singing through the 
streets in gay procession with flaring torches and waving censers, 
dyed the marble pavements of the temples with the blood of victims, 
filled the air with the smoke and savour of their burning flesh, and 
then melted away as mysteriously as they had come, leaving the 
deserted streets and temples to echo only to the footstep of some 
solitary traveller who explored with awe and wonder the monuments 
of a vanished race. Yet as his work proceeded Pausanias seems 
to have wakened up now and then to a dim consciousness that 
men and women were still living and toiling around him, that 
fields were still ploughed and harvests reaped, that the vine and 
the olive still yielded their fruit, though Theseus and Agamemnon, 
Cimon and Pericles, Philip and Alexander were no more. To this 
awakening consciousness or, to speak more correctly, to this gradual 
widening of his interests, we owe the few peeps which in his later 
books Pausanias affords us at his contemporaries in their daily 
life. Thus he lets us see the tall and stalwart highlanders of Daulis ; 3 
the handsome and industrious women of Patrae weaving with deft 
fingers the fine flax of their native fields into head-dresses and other 
feminine finery; 4 the fishermen of Bulis putting out to fish the 
purple shell in the Gulf of Corinth ; 5 the potters of Aulis turning 
their wheels in the little seaside town from which Agamemnon 
sailed for Troy; 6 and the apothecaries of Chaeronea distilling a 
fragrant and healing balm from roses and lilies, from irises and 
narcissuses culled in peaceful gardens on the battlefield where 
Athens and Thebes, side by side, had made the last stand for the 
freedom of Greece. 7 

Contrast with these sketches, few and far between, the gallery His 
of pictures he has painted of the religious life of his contemporaries, descriptions 

i ot rclisious 

To mention only a few of them, we see sick people asleep and rites> 
dreaming on the reeking skins of slaughtered rams or dropping gold 



1 iii. 18. 10. 








2 i. 26. 4. 


:! * 4- 7- 


4 vii. 


21. 


14. 


5 x. 37- 3- 


6 ix. 19. 8. 








7 ix. 41. 7 



XXVI 



INTRODUCTION 



and silver coins as a thank-offering for recovered health into a sacred 
spring ; l lepers praying to the nymphs in a cave, then swimming 
the river and leaving, like Naaman, their uncleanness behind them 
in the water ; 2 holy men staggering along narrow paths under the 
burden of uprooted trees ; 3 processions of priests and magistrates, 
of white-robed boys with garlands of hyacinths in their hair, 4 of 
children wreathed with corn and ivy, 5 of men holding aloft blazing 
torches and chanting as they march their native hymns ; G women 
wailing for Achilles while the sun sinks low in the west ; 7 Persians 
in tall caps droning their strange litany in an unknown tongue ; 8 
husbandmen sticking gold leaf on a bronze goat in a market-place 
to protect their vines from blight, 9 or running with the bleeding 
pieces of a white cock round the vineyards while the black squall 
comes crawling up across the bay. 10 We see the priest making rain 
by dipping an oak-branch in a spring on the holy mountain, 11 or 
mumbling his weird spells by night over four pits to soothe the fury 
of the winds that blow from the four quarters of the world. 12 We 
see men slaughtering beasts at a grave and pouring the warm blood 
down a hole into the tomb for the dead man to drink ; 13 others 
casting cakes of meal and honey into the cleft down which the 
water of the Great Flood all ran away ; 14 others trying their fortune 
by throwing dice in a cave, 15 or flinging barley-cakes into a pool 
and watching them sink or swim, 16 or letting down a mirror into a 
spring to know whether a sick friend will recover or die. 17 We see 
the bronze lamps lit at evening in front of the oracular image, the 
smoke of incense curling up from the hearth, the inquirer laying a 
copper coin on the altar, whispering his question into the ear of the 
image, then stealing out with his hands on his ears, ready to take 
as the divine answer the first words he may hear on quitting the 
sanctuary. 18 We see the nightly sky reddened by the fitful glow of 
the great bonfire on the top of Mount Cithaeron where the many 
images of oak-wood, arrayed as brides, are being consumed in the 
flames, after having been dragged in lumbering creaking waggons 
to the top of the mountain, each image with a bridesmaid standing 
by its side. 19 These and many more such scenes rise up before us in 
turning the pages of Pausanias. 
His Akin to his taste for religious ritual is his love of chronicling 

account of quaint customs, observances, and superstitions of all sorts. Thus 
stitious e te ^ s us h w Troezenian maidens used to dedicate locks of their 

customs hair in the temple of the bachelor Hippolytus before marriage ; 20 
and beliefs. now on a iik e occasion Megarian girls laid their shorn tresses on 



1 i- 34- 4 sg. 

5 vii. 20. i sq. 

9 ii. 13. 6. 

13 x. 4. 10. 

17 vii. 21. 12. 



11 

18 



V. 5. II. 

ii. 7. 5. 
ii. 34. 2. 
i. 18. 7. 
vii. 22. 2 sq. 



3 x. 32. 6. 

7 vi. 23. 3. 

11 viii. 38. 4. 

15 vii. 25. 10. 

19 ix. 3. 2-8. 



12 
16 ;; 



35- 5- 
v. 27. s sq. 



iii. 23. 8. 
ii. 32. 1. 



INTRODUCTION xxvil 



the grave of the virgin Iphinoe ; * how lads at Phigalia cropped 
their hair in honour of the river that flows in the deep glen below 
the town ; - how the boy priests of Cranaean Athena bathed in tubs 
after the ancient fashion ; 3 and how the priest and priestess of 
Artemis Hymnia must remain all their lives unmarried, must wash 
and live differently from common folk, and must never enter the 
house of a private person. 4 Amongst the curious observances which 
he notices at the various shrines are the rules that no birth or 
death might take place within the sacred grove of Aesculapius at 
Epidaurus, and that all sacrifices had to be consumed within the 
bounds ; 5 that no broken bough might be removed from the grove 
of Hyrnetho near Epidaurus, 6 and no pomegranate brought into the 
precinct of the Mistress at Lycosura ; 7 that at Pergamus the name 
of Eurypylus might not be pronounced in the sanctuary of Aescula- 
pius, 8 and no one who had sacrificed to Telephus might enter that 
sanctuary till he had bathed ; that at Olympia no man who had 
eaten of the victim offered to Pelops might go into the temple of 
Zeus, 10 that women might not ascend above the first stage of the 
great altar, 11 that the paste of ashes which was smeared on the altar 
must be kneaded with the water of the Alpheus and no other, 12 and 
that the sacrifices offered to Zeus must be burnt with no wood but 
that of the white poplar. 13 Again, he likes to note, though he does 
not always believe, the local superstitions he met with or had read 
of, such as the belief that at the sacrifice to Zeus on Mount Lycaeus 
a man was always turned into a wolf, but could regain his human 
shape if as a wolf he abstained for nine years from preying on 
human flesh ; u that within the precinct of the god on the same 
mountain neither men nor animals cast shadows, and that whoever 
entered it would die within the year ; 15 that the trout in the river 
Aroanius sang like thrushes ; 16 that whoever caught a fish- in a 
certain lake would be turned into a fish himself; 17 that Tegea could 
never be taken because it possessed a lock of Medusa's hair ; 18 that 
Hera recovered her virginity every year by bathing in a spring at 
Nauplia ; 19 that the water of one spring was a cure for hydrophobia, 20 
while the water of another drove mares mad; 21 that no snakes or 
wolves could live in Sardinia ; 22 that when the sun was in a certain 
sign of the zodiac earth taken from the tomb of Amphion and 
Zethus at Thebes and carried to Tithorea in Phocis would draw 
away the fertility from the Theban land and transfer it to the 
Tithorean, whence at that season the Thebans kept watch and ward 

1 i. 43. 4. 2 viii. 41. 3. 3 x. 34. 8. 4 viii. 13. 1. 

5 ii. 27. i, 6. 6 ii. 28. 7. 7 viii. 37. 7. 8 iii. 26. 10. 

9 v. 13. 3. 10 ib. n v. 13. 10. 12 v. 13. 11. 

13 v. 13. 3, v. 14. 2. 14 viii. 2. 6. 15 viii. 38. 6. 10 viii. 21. 2. 

17 iii. 21. 5. 18 viii. 47. 5. 19 ii. 38. 2. M viii. 19. 3. 

21 ix. 8. 2. 22 x. 17. 12. 



xxviii INTR OD UC TION 



over the tomb, lest the Tithoreans should come and filch the 
precious earth; 1 that at Marathon every night the dead warriors 
rose from their graves and fought the great battle over again, while 
belated wayfarers, hurrying by, heard with a shudder the hoarse 
cries of the combatants, the trampling of charging horses, and the 
clash of arms. 2 

His In carrying out his design of recording Greek traditions, Pau- 

narratives. san j as has interwoven many narratives into his description of Greece. 
These are of various sorts, and were doubtless derived from various 
sources. Some are historical, and were taken avowedly or tacitly 
from books. Some are legends with perhaps a foundation in fact ; 
others are myths pure and simple ; others again are popular tales to 
which parallels may be found in the folk-lore of many lands. Narra- 
tives of these sorts Pausanias need not have learned from books. 
Some of them were doubtless commonplaces with which he had 
been familiar from childhood. Others he may have picked up on 
his travels. The spring of mythical fancy has not run dry among 
the mountains and islands of Greece at the present day ; 3 it flowed, 
we may be sure, still more copiously in the days of Pausanias. 

Folk-tales. Amongst the popular tales which he tells or alludes to may be 
mentioned the story of the sleeper in the cave ; 4 of the cunning 
masons who robbed the royal treasury they had built ; 5 of the youth 
who slew the lion and married the princess ; 6 of the kind serpent 
that saved a child from a wolf and was killed by the child's father 
by mistake; 7 of the king whose life was in a purple lock on his 
head ; 8 of the witch who offered to make an old man young again 
by cutting him up and boiling him in a hellbroth, and who did in 
this way change a tough old tup into a tender young lamb. 9 It is 
characteristic of Greek popular tradition that these stories are not 
left floating vaguely in the cloudy region of fairyland ; they are 
brought down to solid earth and given a local habitation and a 
name. The sleeper was Epimenides the Cretan ; the masons were 
Trophonius and Agamedes, and the king for whom they built the 
treasury was Hyrieus of Orchomenus ; the youth who won the hand 
of the princess was Alcathous of Megara ; the king with the purple 
lock was Nisus, also of Megara ; the witch was Medea, and the old 
man whom she mangled was Pelias ; the place where the serpent 
saved the child from the wolf was Amphiclea in Phocis. Amongst 

Myths. the myths which crowd the pages of Pausanias we may note the 

1 ix. 17. ^sq., x. 32. 11. 2 i- 32. 4. 

3 It is enough to refer to works such as C. Wachsmuth's Das alte Gricchenland 
im neuen (Bonn, 1864) ; J. G. v. Hahn, Grieckische und albanesische Marcheti 
(Leipsic, 1864) ; B. Schmidt, Das Volksleben der Nevgricchen (Leipsic, 1871) ; id., 
Grieckische Mdrchen, Sagen mid Volkslieder (Leipsic, 1877) ; E. Legrand, Contes 
Populaires Grccs (Paris, 1881) ; J. T. Bent, The Cyclades (London, 1885). 

4 i. 14- 4- ix - 37- 5 s 1- 6 i. 41. 3. 

7 x. 33. 9 sq. 8 i. 19. 4. 9 viii. 11. 2 sq. 



INTRODUCTION xxix 



strangely savage tale of Attis and Agdistis, 1 the hardly less barbarous 
story of the loves of Poseidon and Demeter as horse and mare, 2 
and the picturesque narratives of the finding of the forsaken babe 
Aesculapius by the goatherd, 3 and the coming of Castor and Pollux 
to Sparta in the guise of strangers from Cyrene. 4 Of the legends Legends. 
which he tells of the heroic age that border-land between fable and 
history some are his own in the sense that we do not find them 
recorded by any other ancient writer. Such are the stories how 
Theseus even as a child evinced undaunted courage by attacking 
the lion's skin of Hercules which he mistook for a living lion ; 5 how 
the same hero in his youth proved his superhuman strength to the 
masons who had jeered at his girlish appearance ; 6 how the crazed 
Orestes, dogged by the Furies of his murdered mother, bit off one 
of his fingers, and how on his doing so the aspect of the Furies at 
once changed from black to white, as if in token that they accepted 
the sacrifice as an atonement. 7 Such, too, is the graceful story of the 
parting of Penelope from her father, 8 and the tragic tale of the death 
of Hyrnetho ; 9 in the latter we seem almost to catch the ring of a 
romantic ballad. Among the traditions told of historical personages 
by Pausanias but not peculiar to him are the legends of Pindar's 
dream, 10 of the escape of Aristomenes from the pit, 11 and of the won- 
drous cure of Leonymus, the Crotonian general, who, attacking the 
Locrian army at the point where the soul of the dead hero Ajax 
hovered in the van, received a hurt from a ghostly spear, but was 
afterwards healed by the same hand in the White Isle, where 
Ajax dwelt with other spirits of the famous dead. 12 To the 
same class belong a couple of anecdotes with which Pausanias 
has sought to enliven the dull catalogue of athletes in the sixth 
book. One tells how the boxer Euthymus thrashed the ghost of 
a tipsy sailor and won the hand of a fair maiden, who was on 
the point of being delivered over to the tender mercies of the 
deceased mariner. 13 The other relates how another noted boxer, 
by name Theagenes, departed this vale of tears after accumu- 
lating a prodigious number of prizes ; how when he was no more a 
spiteful foe came and wreaked his spleen by whipping the bronze 
statue of the illustrious dead, till the statue, losing patience, checked 
his insolence by falling on him and crushing him to death ; how the 
sons of this amiable man prosecuted the statue for murder ; how the 
court, sitting in judgment, found the statue guilty and solemnly 
condemned it to be sunk in the sea ; how, the sentence being rigor- 
ously executed, the land bore no fruit till the statue had been fished 

1 vii. 17. 9-12. - viii. 25. 5-10, viii. 42. 1-3. 3 ii. 26. 4 sq. 

4 iii. 16. 2 sq. 5 i. 27. 7. 6 i. 19. 1. 

7 viii. 34. 2 sq. 8 iii. 20. 10 sq. 9 ii. 28. 3-7. 

10 ix. 23. 3 sq. u iv. 18. 4-7. 12 iii. 19. 12 sq. 

13 vi. 6. 7-1 1. 



xxx 1NTR OD UCTION 



up again and set in its place ; and how the people sacrificed to the 
boxer as to a god ever after. 1 
His The same antiquarian and religious tincture which appears in 

description p ausan i as ' s account of the Greek people colours his description of 
country tne country. The mountains which he climbs, the plains which he 
traverses, the rivers which he fords, the lakes and seas that he 
beholds shining in the distance, the very flowers that spring beside 
his path hardly exist for him but as they are sacred to some god or 
tenanted by some spirit of the elements, or because they call up some 
memory of the past, some old romantic story of unhappy love or 
death. Of one flower, white and tinged with red, he tells us that it 
first grew in Salamis when Ajax died ; 2 of another, that chaplets of 
it are worn in their hair by white-robed boys when they walk in 
procession in honour of Demeter. 3 He notes the mournful letters 
on the hyacinth and tells the tale of the fair youth slain unwittingly 
by Apollo. 4 He points out the old plane-tree which Menelaus 
planted before he went away to the wars ; 5 the great cedar with an 
image of Artemis hanging among its boughs ; 6 the sacred cypresses 
called the Maidens, tall and dark and stately, in the bleak upland 
valley of Psophis ; 7 the myrtle-tree whose pierced leaves still bore 
the print of hapless Phaedra's bodkin on that fair islanded coast of 
Troezen, where now the orange and the lemon bloom in winter ; 8 
the pomegranate with its blood-red fruit growing on the grave of the 
patriot Menoeceus who shed his blood for his country. 9 If he looks 
up at the mountains, it is not to mark the snowy peaks glistering 
in the sunlight against the blue, or the sombre pine- forests that 
fringe their crests and are mirrored in the dark lake below ; it is to 
tell you that Zeus or Apollo or the Sun-god is worshipped on their 
tops, 10 that the Thyiad women rave on them above the clouds, 11 
or that Pan has been heard piping in their lonely coombs. 12 The 
gloomy caverns, where the sunbeams hardly penetrate, with their 
fantastic stalactites and dripping roofs, are to him the haunts of 
Pan and the nymphs. 13 The awful precipices of the Aroanian 
mountains, in the sunless crevices of which the snow-drifts never 
melt, would have been passed by him in silence were it not that the 
water that trickles down their dark glistening face is the water of 
Styx. 14 If he describes the smooth glassy pool which, bordered by 
reeds and tall grasses, still sleeps under the shadow of the shivering 
poplars in the Lernaean swamp, it is because the way to hell goes 

1 vi. ii. 6-8. 2 i. 35. 4. 3 ii. 35. 5. 

4 i- 35- 4. " 35- 5. ' J 9- 5- 5 vii i- 2 3- 4; 6 viii - *3- 2 - 

7 viii. 24. 7. 8 i. 22. 2, ii. 32. 3. 9 ix. 25. 1. 

10 i. 32. 2, iii. 20. 4, viii. 38. 6 sq., ix. 41. 6. 

11 x. 32. 7. 12 viii. 36. 8. 

13 i. 32. 7, v. 5. 11, ix. 3. 9, x. 32. 7. For other deities to whom caves were 
sacred, see Index, s.v. "Cave.'' 

14 viii. 17. 6. 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 



down through its black unfathomed water. 1 If he stops by murmur- 
ing stream or brimming river, it is to relate how from the banks of 
the Ilissus, where she was at play, the North Wind carried off 
Orithyia to be his bride ; 2 how the Selemnus had been of old a 
shepherd who loved a sea -nymph and died forlorn; 3 how the 
amorous Alpheus still flows across the wide and stormy Adriatic to 
join his love at Syracuse. 4 If in summer he crosses a parched river- 
bed, where not a driblet of water is oozing, where the stones burn 
under foot and dazzle the eye by their white glare, he will tell you 
that this is the punishment the river suffers for having offended 
the sea-god. 5 Distant prospects, again, are hardly remarked by him 
except for the sake of some historical or legendary association. The 
high knoll which juts out from the rugged side of Mount Maenalus 
into the dead flat of the Mantinean plain was called the Look, he 
tells us, because here the dying Epaminondas, with his hand pressed 
hard on the wound from which his life was ebbing fast, took his 
long last look at the fight. 6 The view of the sea from the 
Acropolis at Athens is noticed by him, not for its gleam of molten 
sapphire, but because from this height the aged Aegeus scanned the 
blue expanse for the white sails of his returning son, then cast him- 
self headlong from the rock when he descried the bark with sable 
sails steering for the port of Athens. 7 

The disinterested glimpses, as we may call them, of Greek 
scenery which we catch in the pages of Pausanias are brief and 
few. He tells us that there is no fairer river than the Ladon either 
in Greece or in foreign land, 8 and probably no one who has traversed 
the magnificent gorge through which the river bursts its way from the 
highlands of northern Arcadia to the lowlands on the borders of 
Elis will be inclined to dispute his opinion. Widely different scenes 
he puts in for us with a few touches the Boeotian Asopus oozing 
sluggishly through its deep beds of reeds ; 9 the sodden plain of 
Nestane with the rain-water pouring down into it from the misty 
mountains ; 10 the road running through vineyards with mountains 
rising on either hand ; n the spring gushing from the hollow trunk of 
a venerable plane ; 12 the summer lounge in the shady walks of the 
grove beside the sea ; 13 the sand and pine-trees of the low coast of 
Elis ; u the oak-woods of Phelloe with stony soil where the deer 
ranged free and wild boars had their lair ; 15 and the Boeotian forest 
with its giant oaks in whose branches the crows built their nests. 16 

It is one of the marks of a widening intellectual horizon that as His notices 
his work goes on Pausanias takes more and more notice of the of the 
aspect and natural products of the country which he describes, products 

i o . , .. . ... of Greece. 

* 11. 37. 5 sq. - 1. 19. 5. d vii. 23. 1 sq. * v. 7. 2 sq., via. 54. 3. 

5 ii. 15. 5. 6 viii. 11. 7. 7 i. 22. 4 sq. 8 viii. 25. 13. 



v. 14. 3. 10 viii. 7. i. u x. 36. 1. 12 iv. 34. 4. 

11. 14 v. 6. 4. 15 vii. 26. 10. 16 ix. 3. 4. 



xxxn INTRODUCTION 



Such notices are least frequent in the first book and commonest 
in the last three. Thus he remarks the bareness of the Cirrhaean 
plain, 1 the fertility of the valley of the Phocian Cephisus, 2 the vine- 
yards of Ambrosus, 3 the palms and dates of Aulis, 4 the olive oil of 
Tithorea that was sent to the emperor, 5 the dykes that dammed off 
the water from the fields in the marshy flats of Caphyae and Thisbe. 6 
He mentions the various kinds of oaks that grew in the Arcadian 
woods, 7 the wild-strawberry bushes of Mount Helicon on which the 
goats browsed, 8 the hellebore, both black and white, of Anticyra, 9 
and the berry of Ambrosus which yielded the crimson dye. He 
observed the flocks of bustards that haunted the banks of the Phocian 
Cephisus, 10 the huge tortoises that crawled in the forests of Arcadia, 11 
the white blackbirds of Mount Cyllene, 12 the two sorts of poultry 
at Tanagra, 13 the purple shell fished in the sea at Bulis, 14 the trout 
of the Aroanius river, 15 and the eels of the Copaic Lake. 16 All these 
instances are taken from the last three books. In the earlier part 
of his work he condescended to mention the honey of Hymettus, 17 the 
old silver mines of Laurium, 18 the olives of Cynuria, 19 the fine flax 
of Elis, 20 the purple shell of the Laconian coast, 21 the marble ofPen- 
telicus, 22 the mussel-stone of Megara, 23 and the green porphyry of 
Croceae. 21 But of the rich Messenian plain, known in antiquity as 
the Happy Land, where nowadays the traveller passes, almost as in 
a tropical region, between orange-groves and vineyards fenced by 
hedges of huge fantastic cactuses and sword-like aloes, Pausanias 
has nothing more to say than that " the Pamisus flows through tilled 
land." 25 
His On the state of the roads he is still more reticent than on 

account of t h a t of the country. The dreadful Scironian road the Via Mala 
the roads ^ Greece which ran along a perilous ledge of the Megarian 
sea-cliffs at a giddy height above the breakers, had lately been 
widened by Hadrian. 26 An excellent carriage-road, much frequented, 
led from Tegea to Argos. 27 Another road, traversable by vehicles, 
went over the pass of the Tretus, where the railway from Corinth to 
Argos now runs ; 28 and we have the word of Pausanias for it that a 
driving-road crossed Parnassus from Delphi to Tithorea. 29 On the 
other hand the road from Sicyon to Titane was impassable for 
carriages ; 30 a rough hill-track led from Chaeronea to Stiris ; 31 the 
path along the rugged mountainous coast between Lerna and 
Thyrea was then, as it is now, narrow and difficult; 32 and the pass 



1 x- 37- 5- 


2 x. 33. 7. 






3 x. 36. 1. 


4 ix. 19. 8. 


5 x. 32. 19. 


6 viii. 23. 2, 


ix. 32. 


3- 


7 viii. 12. 1. 


8 ix. 28. 1. 


9 x. 36. 7. 


30 x. 34. r. 






u viii. 23. 9. 


1 2 viii. 17. 3 


13 ix. 22. 4. 

1" i. 32. 1. 
2i iii. 21. 6. 


14 x. 37. 3. 

U i. I. I. 

22 i. 32. 1. 






1 5 viii. 21. 2. 
1 9 ii. 38. 4. 
23 i. 44. 6. 


16 ix. 24. 2. 
20 v. 5. 2. 
24 iii. 21. 4. 


; s iv. 34. 1. 

29 x. 32. 8. 


26 i. 44. 6. 
30 ii. 11. 3. 






27 viii. 54. s. 

3i x. 35. 8. 


28 ii. 15. 2. 
32 ii. 38. 4. 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 



of the Ladder over Mount Artemisius from Argos to Mantinea was 
so steep that in some places steps had to be cut in the rock to 
facilitate the descent. 1 Of the path up to the Corycian cave on 
Mount Parnassus our author truly observes that it is easier for a man 
on foot than for mules and horses. 2 Greek mules and horses can, 
indeed, do wonders in the way of scrambling up and down the 
most execrable mountain paths on slopes that resemble the roof 
of a house ; but it would sorely tax even their energies to ascend to 
the Corycian cave. 

The real interest of Pausanias, however, lay neither in the His 
country nor in the people of his own age, but in those monuments descnp- 
of the past, which, though too often injured by time or defaced by the monu . 
violence, he still found scattered in profusion over Greece. It is to ments. 
a description of them that the greater part of his work is devoted. 
He did not profess to catalogue, still less to describe, them all. To 
do so might well have exceeded the powers of any man, however 
great his patience and industry. All that a writer could reasonably 
hope to accomplish was to make a choice of the most interesting 
monuments, to describe them clearly, and to furnish such com- 
ments as were needful to understanding them properly. This is 
what Pausanias attempted to do and what, after every deduction has 
been made for omissions and mistakes, he may fairly be said to 
have done well. The choice of the monuments to be described 
necessarily rested with himself, and if his choice was sometimes 
different from what ours might have been, it would be unreasonable 
to blame him for it. He did not write for us. No man in his 
sober senses ever did write for readers who were to be born some 
seventeen hundred years after he was in his grave. In his wildest 
dreams of fame Pausanias can hardly have hoped, perhaps under all 
the circumstances we ought rather to say feared, that his book would 
be read, long after the Roman empire had passed away, by the 
people whom he calls the most numerous and warlike barbarians 
in Europe, 3 by the Britons in their distant isle, and by the inhabit- 
ants of a new world across the Atlantic. 

When we examine Pausanias's choice of monuments we find that, His prefer, 
like his account of the country and people, it was mainly determined e "!r e for the 
by two leading principles, his antiquarian tastes and his religious t h e later 
curiosity. In the first place, the monuments described are generally art. 
ancient, not modern ; in the second place, they are for the most part 
religious, not profane. His preference for old over modern art, for 
works of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. over those of the later 
period was well founded and has been shared by the best judges 
both in ancient and modern times. Cicero, Dionysius of Hali- 

1 viii. 6. 4. 2 x 32 2i 

3 "Antoninus the. Second," he tells us (viii. 43. 6), "inflicted punishment on the 
Germans, the most numerous and warlike barbarians in Europe." 

VOL. I C 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 



carnassus, Quintilian, and our author's own contemporary, Lucian, 
perhaps the most refined critic of art in antiquity, mention no artist 
of later date than the fourth century B.C. 1 The truth is, the sub- 
jugation of Greece by Macedonia struck a fatal blow at Greek art. 
No sculptor or painter of the first rank was born after the conquest. 
It seemed as if art were a flower that could only bloom in freedom ; 
in the air of slavery it drooped and faded. Thus if Pausanias chose 
to chronicle the masterpieces of the great age of art rather than 
the feeble productions of the decadence, we can only applaud his 
taste. Yet we may surmise that his taste was here reinforced by his 
patriotism. For he was more than a mere antiquary and connois- 
seur. He was a patriot who warmly sympathised with the ancient 
glories of his country and deeply mourned its decline. He recognised 
Athens as the representative of all that was best in Greek life, and 
he can hardly find words strong enough to express his detestation of 
the men who by weakening her in the Peloponnesian war directly 
prepared for the conquest of Greece by Macedonia.' 2 The battle 
of Chaeronea he describes repeatedly as a disaster for the whole 
of Greece, 3 and of the conqueror Philip himself he speaks in 
terms of the strongest reprobation. 4 The men who had repelled 
the Persians, put down the military despotism of Sparta, fought 
against the Macedonians, and delayed, if they could not avert, 
the final subjugation of Greece by Rome were for him the 
benefactors of their country. He gives a list of them, beginning 
with Miltiades and ending with Philopoemen, after whom, he says, 
Greece ceased to be the mother of the brave. 5 And as he mentions 
with pride and gratitude the men who had served the cause of 
freedom, so he expresses himself with disgust and abhorrence of the 
men who had worked for the enslavement of Greece to Persia, to 
Macedonia, and to Rome. 6 His style, generally cold and colourless, 
grows warm and animated when he tells of a struggle for freedom, 
whether waged by the Messenians against the Spartans, or by the 
Greeks against the Gauls, or by the Achaeans against the Romans. 
And when he has recorded the final catastrophe, the conquest of 
Greece by Rome, he remarks as with a sigh that the nation had now 
reached its lowest depth of weakness, and that when Nero afterwards 

1 As to Lucian, see H. Bltimner, Archaeologische Studien su Lucian (Breslau, 
1867), pp. 5-52 ; as to the rest see the passages of their works collected by J. Brzoska 
in his dissertation De canone decern, oratorum Atticontm quaestiones (Breslau, 1883), 
pp. 81-95. Compare H. Brunn, in Fleckeisen's lahrbiicher, 30 (1884), p. 275^. In 
the very valuable tract De dea Syria (ch. 26) which is printed among Lucian's works 
mention is made of a sculptor Hermocles of Rhodes, who must have lived shortly after 
300 B.C. (H. Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen Kunstler, 1. p. 468). But this tract 
is commonly held not to be by Lucian, though the information which it contains is 
probably authentic. 

2 iii. 7. 11, viii. 52. 3. 3 i. 25. 3, ix. 6. 5. 4 viii. 7. 5 sqq. 
5 viii. 52. 1-5. 6 vii. 10. 1-5. 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 



liberated it the boon came too late the Greeks had forgotten what 
it was to be free. 1 

The preference which Pausanias exhibits for the art of the best His prefer- 
period is not more marked than his preference for sacred over ence . for 

religious 

profane or merely decorative art, for buildings consecrated to over pro . 
religion over buildings devoted to the purposes of civic or private fane art. 
life. Rarely does he offer any general remarks on the aspect and 
architectural style of the cities he describes. At Tanagra he praises 
the complete separation of the houses of the people from the 
sanctuaries of the gods. 2 Amphissa, he tells us, was handsomely 
built, 3 and Lebadea could compare with the most flourishing cities 
of Greece in style and splendour. 4 On the other hand he viewed 
with unconcealed disdain the squalor and decay of the Phocian city 
of Panopeus, " if city it can be called that has no government offices, 
no gymnasium, no theatre, no market-place, no water conducted to 
a fountain, and where the people live in hovels, just like highland 
shanties, perched on the edge of a ravine." 5 In the cities he 
visited he does indeed notice market - places, colonnades, courts 
of justice, government offices, fountains, baths, and the houses and 
statues of famous men, but the number of such buildings and monu- 
ments in his pages is small compared to the number of temples 
and precincts, images and votive offerings that he describes, and 
such notice as he takes of them seldom amounts to more than a 
bare mention. The civic buildings that he deigns to describe in 
any detail are very few. Amongst them we may note the Painted 
Colonnade at Athens with its famous pictures, 6 the spacious and 
splendid Persian Colonnade at Sparta with its columns of white 
marble carved in the shape of Persian captives, 7 the market-place 
at Elis, 8 and the Phocian parliament-house with its double row of 
columns running down the whole length of the hall and its seats 
rising in tiers from the columns up to the walls behind. 9 

It is when he comes to religious art and architecture that Pausanias His 
seems to have felt himself most at home. If in his notice of civic descnp- 
buildings and monuments he is chary of details, he is lavish of re ii g i us 
them in describing the temples and sanctuaries with their store of monu- 
images, altars, and offerings. The most elaborate of his descrip- ments - 
tions are those which he has given of the temple of Zeus at Olympia 
with the great image of the god by Phidias, 10 the scenes on the Chest 
of Cypselus in the Heraeum at Olympia, 11 the reliefs on the throne 
of Apollo at Amyclae, 1 ' 2 and the paintings by Polygnotus in the 
Cnidian Lesche at Delphi. 13 But, apart from these conspicuous 
examples, almost every page of his work bears witness to his interest 



1 vii. 17. 1-4. 
5 x. 4. 1. 




2 ix. 22. 2. 

6 i- 15- 




" x. 38. 

7 iii. 11 


5- 
3- 




4 ix. 39. 2. 
8 vi. 24. 2-10. 


9 x. 5. 1 sq. 
12 iii. 18. 9-iii. 


19- 


10 V. IO. 2-V. 

5- 


12. 8. 


11 v. 17. 


s- v - 


19- 


10. 
13 x. 25-31. 



xxxvi INTRODUCTION 



in the monuments of religion, especially when they were more than 
usually old and quaint. Among the queer images he describes are 
the thirty square stones revered as gods at Pharae ; x the rough 
stones worshipped as images of Love and Hercules and the Graces 
at Thespiae, Hyettus, and Orchomenus ; 2 the pyramidal stone 
which represented Apollo at Megara ; 3 the ancient wooden image 
of Zeus with three eyes on the acropolis of Argos ; 4 the old idol of 
Demeter as a woman with a horse's head holding a dove in one 
hand and a dolphin in the other ; 5 the figure of a mermaid bound 
fast with golden chains in a wild wood at the meeting of two glens ; 6 
the image of the War God at Sparta in fetters to hinder him from 
running away ; 7 the bronze likeness of an unquiet ghost clamped 
with iron to a rock to keep him still ; 8 an image of Athena with a 
purple bandage on her wounded thigh ; 9 a pair of wooden idols of 
Dionysus with shining gilt bodies and red faces ; 10 and tiny bronze 
images of Castor and Pollux, a foot high, on a rocky islet over 
which the sea broke foaming in winter, but could not wash them 
away. 11 Some of the images he describes as tricked out with 
offerings of devout worshippers. Such were an image of Pasiphae 
covered with garlands ; 12 a figure of Hermes swathed in myrtle 
boughs ; 13 a crimson-painted idol of Dionysus emerging from a heap 
of laurel leaves and ivy ; u and a statue of Health almost hidden 
under tresses of women's hair and strips of Babylonish raiment in 
the shade of ancient cypresses at Titane. 15 Among the appoint- 
ments of the sanctuaries he mentions, for example, altars made of 
the ashes or blood of the victims, 16 perpetual fires, 17 a golden lamp 
that burned day and night in the Erechtheum, 18 a gilt head of the 
Gorgon on the wall of the Acropolis, 19 a purple curtain in the 
temple of Zeus, 20 a golden and jewelled peacock dedicated by 
Hadrian to Hera, 21 the iron stand of Alyattes's bowl, 22 chains 
of liberated prisoners, hanging from the cypresses in the grove of 
Hebe, 23 and bronze railings round the shaft down which a man, clad 
in a peculiar costume, descended by a ladder to consult the oracle 
of Trophonius. 24 
His Again, Paus?,uas loves to notice the things, whether worshipped 

or not, which were treasured as relics of a mythical or legendary 
past. Such were the remains of the clay out of which Prometheus 
had moulded the first man and woman ; 25 the stone that Cronus had 
swallowed instead of his infant son ; 26 the remains of the wild-straw- 



interest in 
relics, 



1 vii. 22. 4. 






2 ix. 24. 3, ix 


27. i, ix. 38. 1. 


3 i. 44. 2. 


4 ii. 


24. 


3- 


5 viii. 42. 4. 






6 viii. 41. 6. 




7 i". IS- 7- 


8 ix. 


38. 


5- 


9 viii. 28. 6. 






10 ii. 2. 6. 




11 iii. 26. 3. 


12 iii. 


26. 


1. 


13 i. 27. 1. 






14 viii. 39. 6. 




15 ii. 11. 6. 








16 v. 13. 8, ii 


, v. 


14 


. 8, 10, v. 15. 


9, ix. 11. 7. 










17 ii. 19. 5, v. 


iS- 


9. 


viii. 9. 2, viii. 


37- ii- 


18 i. 26. 6 sq. 








19 i. si. 3, v. 


is. 


4- 


20 v. 12. 


4- 


21 ii. 17. 6. 


22 x. 


16. 


1 W 


23 " 13- 3 s 2- 






24 ix. 39- 


8-10. 


25 x. 4. 4. 


26 X. 


24. 


6. 



INTRODUCTION xxxvn 



berry tree under which Hermes had been nourished ; 1 the egg which 
the lovely Leda had laid and out of which Castor and Pollux had been 
hatched ; 2 the ruins of the bridal chamber where Zeus had dallied 
with Semele ; 3 the mouldering hide of the Calydonian boar ; 4 
and the old wooden pillar, held together by bands and protected 
from the weather by a shed, which had stood in the house of 
Oenomaus. 5 In the temple of Artemis at Aulis, now represented 
by a ruined Byzantine chapel in a bare stony field, the traveller was 
shown the remains of the plane-tree under which the Greeks had 
sacrificed before setting sail for Troy, 6 and on a neighbouring hill 
the guides Dinted out the bronze threshold of Agamemnon's hut. 7 
But the m t revered of all the relics described by Pausanias seems 
to have b 1 the sceptre which Hephaestus was said to have made 
and Agan. mnon to have wielded. It was kept and worshipped 
at Chaeronea. A priest who held office for a year guarded the 
precious relic in his house and offered sacrifices to it daily, while a 
table covered with flesh and cakes stood constantly beside it. 8 A 
ruder conception of religion than is revealed by this practice of 
adoring and feeding a staff it might be hard to discover amongst the 
lowest fetish-worshippers of Western Africa. And this practice was 
carried on in the native city and in the lifetime of the enlightened 
Plutarch ! Truly the extremes of human nature sometimes jostle 
each other in the street. 

But his religious bias by no means so warped the mind of His notices 
Pausanias as to render him indifferent to the historic ground which lstonc 

ill mon u- 

he trod and to those monuments of great men and memorable me nts. 
events on which his eye must have fallen at almost every turn. As 
a scholar he was versed in, and as a patriot he was proud of, the 
memories which these monuments were destined to perpetuate 
and which in the genius of the Greek people have found a monu- 
ment more lasting than any of bronze or marble. He visited the 
battlefields of Marathon and Plataea and beheld the trophies of 
victory and the graves of the victors. 9 At Salamis he saw the 
trophy of the great sea-fight, but he mentions no graves. 10 Doubt- 
less the bones of many victors and vanquished lay together fathoms 
deep in the bay. At Chaeronea he saw a sadder monument, the 
colossal stone lion on the grave of the Thebans who had fallen in 
the cause of freedom. 11 On the battlefield of Mantinea he found 
the grave of Epaminondas, 12 at Sparta the grave of Leonidas, 13 and 
among the pinewoods of the sacred isle that looks across the blue 
Saronic gulf to Attica the grave of the banished Demosthenes. 1 * 
At Thebes he saw the ruins of Pindar's house, 15 the shields of the 



1 ix. 22. 2. 


2 iii. 16. 1. 


3 ix. 


12. 3. 


4 viii. 47. 2. 


5 v. 20. 6 sq. 


6 ix. 19. 7. 


' lb. 




8 ix. 40. 11 sq. 


9 i- 3 2 - 3-5. ix - 2- 5 s f- 


10 i. 36. 1. 


11 ix. 


40. 10. 


12 viii. 11. 7 sq. 


13 iii. 14. 1. 


14 ii- 33- 3- 


15 ix. 


25- 3- 





XXXV111 



INTRODUCTION 



Historic 
monu- 
ments at 
Olympia. 



Lacedaemonian officers who fell at Leuctra, 1 and the figures of 
white marble which Thrasybulus and his comrades in exile and in 
arms had dedicated out of gratitude for Theban hospitality. 2 In 
the Grove of the Muses on Helicon he beheld the statues of 
renowned poets and musicians Hesiod with his lute, Arion on his 
dolphin, blind Thamyris, Orpheus holding the beasts spellbound as 
he sang. 3 At Tanagra he observed the portrait and the tomb of 
the poetess Corinna, the rival of Pindar ; 4 and in several cities of 
Arcadia he remarked portraits of the Arcadian historian Polybius. 6 

Nowhere, however, did he find historical monuments crowded 
so closely together as at Athens, Olympia, and Delphi. The 
great sanctuaries of Olympia and Delphi served in a manner 
as the national museums and record -offices of Greece. In 
them the various Greek cities not only of the mother-country but 
of Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and the East set up the trophies of their 
victories and deposited copies of treaties and other important docu- 
ments. They offered a neutral ground where natives of jealous or 
hostile states could meet in peace, and where they could survey, 
with hearts that swelled with various emotions, the records of their 
country's triumphs and defeats. At Olympia our author mentions 
a tablet inscribed with a treaty of alliance for a hundred years 
between Elis, Athens, Argos, and Mantinea; 6 another tablet 
recording a treaty of peace for thirty years between Athens and 
Sparta ; 7 and the quoit of Iphitus inscribed with the terms of the 
truce of God which was proclaimed at the Olympic festival. 8 
Amongst the many trophies of war which he enumerates the most 
memorable was the image of Zeus dedicated in common by the 
Greeks who had fought at Plataea, 9 and the most conspicuous, 
unless we except the figure of Victory on the pillar dedicated by 
the Messenians of Naupactus, 10 must have been the colossal bronze 
statue of Zeus, no less than twenty-seven feet high, which the Eleans 
set up for a victory over the Arcadians. 11 A golden shield, hung 
high on the eastern gable of the temple of Zeus, proclaimed the 
triumph of the Lacedaemonian arms at Tanagra. 12 The sight of 
one-and-twenty gilded shields that glittered on the eastern and 
southern sides of the temple must have cost Pausanias a pang, for 
they had been dedicated by the Roman general Mummius to 
commemorate the conquest of Greece. 13 Another monument that 
doubtless vexed the patriotic heart of Pausanias was an elegant 
rotunda with slim Ionic columns resting on marble steps and sup- 
porting a marble roof ; for the statues which it enclosed, resplendent 



1 ix. 16. 5. 

4 ix. 22. 3. 
6 v. 12. 8. 



2 ix. 11. 6. 

5 viii. 9. 2, viii. 30. 



* ix. 30. 2-4. 
5, viii. 37. 2, viii. 44. 5, viii. 48. 8. 



L2 



v. 23. 1 sq. 
v. 10. 4. 



10 

13 



v. 23. 4. 
v. 26. I. 
v. 10. 5. 



u 



v. 20. I. 

v. 24. 4. 



INTRODUCTION xxxix 



in gold and ivory, were those of Philip and Alexander, and the 
building stood as a memorial of the battle of Chaeronea. 1 

At Delphi the road which wound up the steep slope to the Historic 
temple of Apollo was lined on both sides with an unbroken succes- m nu- , 
sion of monuments which illustrated some of the brightest triumphs Delphi/i 
and darkest tragedies in Greek history. Here the proud trophy of 
the Lacedaemonian victory at Aegospotami, with its rows of statues 
rising in tiers, confronted the more modest trophy erected by the 
Athenians for the victory of Marathon. 2 Here were statues set up 
by the Argives for the share they had taken with the Thebans in 
founding Messene. 3 Here was a treasury dedicated by the Athen- 
ians out of the spoils of Marathon, 4 and another dedicated by the 
Thebans out of the spoils of Leuctra. 5 Here another treasury, built 
by the Syracusans, commemorated the disastrous defeat of the 
Athenians in Sicily. A bronze palm-tree and a gilded image of 
Athena stood here as memorials of Athenian valour by sea and 
land at the Eurymedon. 7 Here, above all, were monuments of the 
victories achieved by the united Greeks over the Persians at Arte- 
misium, Salamis, and Plataea. 8 The golden tripod, indeed, which 
formed the trophy of Plataea, had disappeared long before Pausanias 
passed up the Sacred Way, its empty place testifying silently to the 
rapacity of the Phocian leaders ; but the bronze serpent which had 
supported it still stood erect, with the names of the states that had 
taken part in the battle inscribed on its coils. A prodigious image 
of Apollo, five-and-thirty ells high, towering above the other monu- 
ments, proclaimed at once the enormity of the crime which the 
Phocians had committed and the magnitude of the fine by which 
they had expiated it. 9 High and conspicuous too, on the architrave 
of the temple, hung the shields which told of one of the latest 
triumphs of the Greek arms, the repulse and defeat of the Gauls. 10 
All these and many more historical monuments Pausanias saw and 
described at Delphi. 

At Athens among the portraits of famous men that attracted Historic 
his attention were statues of the statesmen Solon, Pericles, and monu - 
Lycurgus, the generals Conon, Timotheus, and Iphicrates, the Athens, 
orators Demosthenes and Isocrates, the philosopher Chrysippus, 
and the poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander. 11 
In the Prytaneum were preserved copies of the laws of Solon. 12 
The colonnades that flanked the market-place were adorned 
with pictures of the battles of Marathon, Oenoe, and Mantinea, 
and in one of them the celebrated Painted Colonnade our 



1 v. 20. 9 sq. 




2 x. 9. 7-10, X. 


10. 


1 sq. 


3 x. 10. 


5- 


4 x. n. 5. 




8 lb. 




6 lb. 


7 x. 15. 


4- 


8 x. 13. 9, X. 


M- 5- 


9 x. 15. 1 sq. 






10 x. 19. 


4- 



11 i. 3. 2, i. 8. 2, i. 16. 1, i. 17. 2, i. 18. 8, i. ax. 1 sq. , i. 24. 3, 7, i. 25. 1. 

12 i. 18. 3. 



xl INTRODUCTION 



author observed bronze shields, smeared with pitch to preserve 
them from rust, which had been taken from the Spartans at 
Sphacteria. 1 On the Acropolis stood, as a trophy of the Persian 
wars, the immense bronze statue of Athena, of which the blade of 
the spear and the crest of the helmet could be seen far off at sea. 2 
Close at hand in the Erechtheum the traveller was shown the sword 
of Mardonius and the corselet of Masistius, who had fallen while 
leading the Persian cavalry to the charge at Plataea. 3 In Piraeus 
he saw the sanctuary of Aphrodite which Conon had built after 
vanquishing the Lacedaemonian fleet off Cnidus, * and at the entrance 
to the great harbour, in view of the ships sailing out and in, the grave 
of Themistocles who had won for Athens the empire of the sea. 5 
But no place in Greece was richer in monuments of the historic past, 
none seems to have stirred Pausanias more deeply than that memor- 
able spot outside the walls of Athens where, within the narrow com- 
pass of a single graveyard, were gathered the mortal remains of so 
much valour and genius. Here lay not a few of the illustrious men 
who by their counsels, their swords, or their pens had made Athens 
great and famous, and hither the ashes of humbler citizens, who 
had died for their country, were brought from distant battlefields to 
rest in Attic earth. His description of this the national burying- 
ground of Athens 6 has not, indeed, the pensive grace of Addison's 
essay on the tombs in the Abbey. It is little more than a bare list 
of the names he read on the monuments, but there almost every 
name was a history as full of proud or mournful memories as the 
names carved on the tombs in Westminster and St. Paul's or stitched 
on the tattered and blackened banners that droop from the walls of 
our churches. The annals of Athens were written, on these stones 
the story of her restless and aspiring activity, her triumphs in art, 
in eloquence, in arms, her brief noon of glory, and her long twilight 
of decrepitude and decay. No wonder that our traveller paused 
amid monuments which seemed, in the gathering night of barbarism, 
to catch and reflect some beams of the bright day that was over, 
like the purple light that lingers on the slopes of Hymettus when 
the sun has set on Athens. 
His digres- To relieve the tedium of the topographical part of his work 
sions on Pausanias has introduced digressions on the wonders of nature 

nutnril 

curiosities. an d f foreign lands. Thus, for example, having mentioned the 
destruction of Helice by an earthquake, he describes the ominous 
signs which herald the approach of a great earthquake the heavy 
rains or long droughts, in winter the sultry weather, in summer the 
haze through which the sun's disc looms red and lurid, the sudden 
gusts, the springs of water drying up, the rumbling noises under- 

1 i. 3. 4, i. 15. 2 i. 28. 2. 3 i. 27. 1. 



1 



i. 1. 3. 5 i. 1. 2. 6 i. 29. 2-16. 



INTRODUCTION xli 



ground. Further, he analyses the different kinds of shocks, deter- 
mines the nature of the one which destroyed Helice, and describes 
the immense wave which simultaneously advanced on the doomed 
city from the sea. 1 He refers to the ebb and flow of the ocean, 2 to 
the ice-bound sea and frozen deserts of the north, 3 to the southern 
land where the sun casts no shadow at midsummer. 4 He tells how 
the Chinese rear the silkworm, and describes both silk and the silk- 
worm more correctly than any writer who preceded and than some 
who followed him. 5 It has been suggested that he derived his 
information, directly or indirectly, from a member of the Roman 
embassy which appears from the evidence of Chinese historians to 
have been sent by the emperor Marcus Antoninus to the far East 
and to have reached the court of China in October 166 a.d. Again, 
he describes the Sarmatians of northern Europe leading a nomadic 
life in the depths of their virgin forests, subsisting by their mares, 
ignorant of iron, clad in corselets made of horse-hoofs, shooting 
arrows barbed with bone from bows of the cornel-tree, and entangling 
their foes in the coils of their lassoes. 6 

Among the curiosities which seem to have especially interested 
him were the huge bones he met with in various places. 7 Generally 
he took them to be bones of giants, but one of them he described 
more happily as that of a sea-monster. s Probably they were all 
bones of mammoths or other large extinct animals, such as have 
been found plentifully in modern times in various parts of Greece, 
for example near Megalopolis, 9 where he saw some of them. Again, 
he is particularly fond of describing or alluding to strange birds and 
beasts, whether native to Greece or imported from distant countries. 
Thus he mentions a reported variety of white blackbirds on Mount 
Cyllene which had attracted the attention of Aristotle, 10 and he 
describes almost with the exactitude of a naturalist a small venomous 
viper of northern Arcadia which is still dreaded by the inhabitants. 11 
He refers to the parrots and camels and huge serpents of India, 1 ' 2 and 
he describes briefly but correctly the ostrich and the rhinoceros. 13 
He gives a full and sober account of the method of capturing the 
bison, 14 and another of the mode of catching the elk 15 which contrasts 
very favourably with the absurd account of it given by Caesar. 16 At 
Tanagra he saw the stuffed or pickled Triton, 17 or what passed for 
such, of which the Tanagraeans were so proud that they put a figure 
of a Triton on the coins which they minted in the lifetime of Pau- 
sanias. In the island of Poroselene he enjoyed, he assures us, the 

1 vii. 24. 7-13. 2 i. 4. 1. 3 i. 4 . i, ;. 9 . Si ;. 35 . s . 

4 vni. 38. 6. 5 vi. 26. 6-8 note. 

6 i. 21. 5 sq. i i. 35. 5-8, ii. 10. 2, iii. 22. 9, viii. 32. 5. 

8 ii- 10. 2. 9 See vol. 2. p. 483, and vol. 4. pp. 315, 352. 

10 viii. 17. 3 note. viii. 4. 7 note. 12 ii. 28. i, ix. 21. 2. 

13 v. 12. 1, ix. 2i. 2, ix. 31. 1. 14 x. 13. 1-3. 

15 ix. 21. 3. ls Bellunt Gallia/ m, vi. 27. 17 ix. 20. 4 sq. 



xlii INTRODUCTION 



spectacle of a tame dolphin that came at a boy's call and allowed 
him to ride on its back. 1 

His report of this last spectacle, though it is confirmed by 
another witness, 2 may raise a doubt as to his credibility. 3 Professor 
Alfred Newton, whom I have consulted on the subject, kindly 
informs me that he knows of no modern evidence to bear Pausanias 
out, but that considering the widespread belief of the ancients 
in the familiarity of dolphins he does not think it inconceiv- 
able that in those days the creatures lived in little fear of man- 
kind. We cannot judge, he says, by the behaviour of animals at 
the present day of what they might or did do before persecution 
began. " When the Russians," he continues, " discovered Bering's 
Island in 1741, they found its shores thronged by a big sea-beast 
(the Rhytina gigas of naturalists), which, never having seen men 
before, had no fear of them, and the Russians (shipwrecked as they 
were) used to wade in the water and milk the ' cows.' The con- 
fidence was misplaced, and within thirty years or so every one of 
the animals had been destroyed, and the species extirpated." Thus 
it seems not impossible that dolphins may have been tamer in 
antiquity than they are now, and that Pausanias may really have 
seen what he tells us he saw. But perhaps the exhibition at 
Poroselene was a hoax. 4 
Descrip- So much for the contents of Pausanias's book. Before we 

^i on of . enquire into the character of the writer and the sources from which 
thepseudo- he drew his materials it may be instructive to compare his work with 
Dicae- the fragments of another ancient description of Greece which have 
archus. come down to us. The comparison will help us to understand 
better both what we have gained and what we have lost by the 

1 iii. 25. 7. 

2 Leonidas of Byzantium, reported by Aelian {De natura animalium, ii. 6). The 
story is told also by Oppian {Halieutica, v. 458 sqq. ). Compare W. Gurlitt, Ueber 
Pausanias, p. 169 sq. 

3 SeeO. Keller, Thiere des classischen Alterthums (Innsbruck, 1887), p. 212 sqq. 

4 We may suspect that Pausanias was sometimes duped by priestly trickery. See ' 
ix. 18. 3 sq. The mystery of the wood apparently kindling of itself on the altar of 
the Persian fire-worshippers (v. 27. 5 sq. ) is explained simply and doubtless correctly 
by Thomas Hyde, who points out that the perpetual fire, kept smouldering unseen 
among the ashes of the altar, could easily have been made to burst into a bright 
blaze by stirring the embers or fanning them with a blast of air through a hidden 
tube ( Veterum Persarum et Parthortim et Medorum religionis historic Oxford, 1760, 
p. 361). Compare C. de Harlez, Avesta (Paris, 1881), p. xcvi. That Pausanias 
was not above being gulled is shown by the stories he tells at second hand of the 
Isles of the Satyrs (i. 23. 5^.), the deadly vipers of the Phoenician highlands (ix. 
22. 2), and the fierce birds of the Arabian desert (ix. 22. 4 sq.). Whether the story 
of the burning giant which he had from Cleon of Magnesia (x. 4. 6) was a hoax or 
not is much more doubtful. More probably, perhaps, the smouldering giant was a 
huge effigy of Melcart or Hercules such as was periodically burnt at Tarsus in Cilicia 
(Dio Chrysostom, Or. xxxiii. vol. 2. p. 16 ed. Dindorf). I was mistaken in affirming 
(note on iii. 25. 7) that the parents of the boy who rode the dolphin at Poroselene 
made money by the exhibition. What Aelian {De not. anim. ii. 6) says is merely 
that the dolphin was a source of gain to the family by catching fish for them. 



INTRODUCTION xliii 



idiosyncrasies of Pausanias. The fragments commonly pass under 
the name of the eminent Messenian writer Dicaearchus, a pupil of 
Aristotle ; but from internal evidence we may conclude that the 
work of which they formed part was written by a later writer at some 
time between 164 B.C. and 86 b.c. 1 The nature of the work may be 
gathered from the following free translation or paraphrase, which is 
also slightly abridged. -* 

" The road to Athens is a pleasant one, running between culti- 
vated fields the whole way. The city itself is dry and ill supplied 
with water. The streets are nothing but miserable old lanes, the 
houses mean, with a few better ones among them. On his first 
arrival a stranger could hardly believe that this is the Athens of 
which he has heard so much. Yet he will soon come to believe 
that it is Athens indeed. A Music Hall, the most beautiful in the 
world, a large and stately theatre, a costly, remarkable, and far-seen 
temple of Athena called the Parthenon rising above the theatre, 
strike the beholder with admiration. A temple of Olympian Zeus, 
unfinished but planned on an astonishing scale ; three gymnasiums, 
the Academy, Lyceum, and Cynosarges, shaded with trees that 
spring from greensward ; verdant gardens of philosophers ; amuse- 
ments and recreations ; many holidays and a constant succession of 
spectacles ; all these the visitor will find in Athens. 

" The products of the country are priceless in quality but not 
too plentiful. However, the frequency of the spectacles and 
holidays makes up for the scarcity to the poorer sort, who forget 
the pangs of hunger in gazing at the shows and pageants. Every 
artist is sure of being welcomed with applause and of making a 
name ; hence the city is crowded with statues. 

" Of the inhabitants some are Attic and some are Athenian. 
The former are gossiping, slanderous, given to prying into the busi- 
ness of strangers, fair and false. The Athenians are high-minded, 
straightforward, and staunch in friendship. The city is infested 
by a set of scribblers who worry visitors and rich strangers. When 
the people catches the rascals, it makes an example of them. 
The true-born Athenians are keen and critical auditors, constant in 
their attendance at plays and spectacles. In short, Athens as far 

1 The fragments are printed in C. Muller's Geographi Graeci Minores, vol. i. 
p. 97 sqq. , and in his Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, vol. 2. p. 254 sqq. That 
the author wrote after 164 B.C. and before 86 B.C. is proved by his mention of the 
half-finished Olympieum and his description of Thebes. For the Olympieum was 
left half finished by Antiochus Epiphanes (Strabo, ix. p. 396 ; see vol. 2. p. 178 sq. ), 
who died in 164 B.C. ; and the prosperous condition of Thebes which the writer 
depicts came to an end after Sulla's rigorous treatment of the city in 86 B.C. 
(Pausanias ix. 7. 5 sq.). The Music Hall at Athens which the writer admired was 
burnt in 86 B.C., but was afterwards restored (Pausanias i. 20. 4 note). See 
W. Gurlitt, Ueber Pausanias, p. 186 sq. The view which in the commentary (vol. 
5. p. 27) I have adopted as to the date when this description of Greece was com- 
posed should be corrected accordingly. 



xliv INTRODUCTION 



surpasses all other cities in the pleasures and conveniences of life as 
they surpass the country. But. a man must beware of the courtesans, 
lest they lure him to ruin. The verses of Lysippus run thus : 

' If you have not seen Athens, you're a stock ; 
If you have seen it and are not taken with it, you're an ass ; 
If you are glad to leave it, you're a pack-ass.' 

"Thence to Oropus by Psaphides and the sanctuary of Zeus 
Amphiaraus is a day's journey for a good walker. It is all up-hill, 1 
but the abundance and good cheer of the inns prevent the traveller 
from feeling the fatigue. Oropus is a nest of hucksters. The greed 
of the custom-house officers here is unsurpassed, their roguery 
inveterate and bred in the bone. Most of the people are coarse 
and truculent in their manners, for they have knocked the decent 
members of the community on the head. They deny they are 
Boeotians, standing out for it that they are Athenians living in 
Boeotia. To quote the poet Xeno : 

'All are custom-house officers, all are robbers. 
A plague on the Oropians ! ' 

"Thence to Tanagra is a hundred and thirty furlongs. The 
road runs through olive-groves and woodlands : fear of highwaymen 
there is none at all. The city stands on high and rugged ground. 
Its aspect is white and chalky ; but the houses with their porches 
and encaustic paintings give it a very pretty appearance. The corn 
of the district is not very plentiful, but the wine is the best in 
Boeotia. The people are well-to-do, but simple in their way of life. 
All are farmers, not artisans. They practise justice, good faith, 
and hospitality. To needy fellow-townsmen and to vagabonds they 
give freely of their substance, for meanness and covetousness are 
unknown to them. It is the safest city in all Boeotia for strangers 
to stay in ; for the independent and industrious habits of the people 
have bred a sturdy downright hatred of knavery. In this city I 
observed as little as might be of those unbridled impulses which are 
commonly the source of the greatest crimes. For where people have 
enough to live on, they do not hanker after lucre, so roguery can 
hardly show face among them. 

"Thence to Plataea is two hundred furlongs. The road is 
somewhat desolate and stony, and it rises up the slopes of Cithaeron, 
but it is not very unsafe. In the city, to quote the poet Posidippus, 

1 This is an odd mistake. In point of fact half of the way is up hill and the other 
half is down hill. The road rises first gently and then steeply to the summit of the 
pass over Mount Parnes not far from the ancient Decelea ; thence it descends, at first 
rapidly in sharp serpentine curves, then gradually through a rolling woodland country, 
to the sea at Oropus. 



IX TR OD UC TIOX xl v 



Two temples there are, a colonnade and old renown, 
And the baths, and Sarabus's famous inn. 
A desert most of the year, it is peopled at the time of the games.' 

The inhabitants have nothing to say for themselves except that they 
are Athenian colonists, and that the battle between the Greeks and 
the Persians was fought in their country. 

" Thence to Thebes is eighty furlongs. The road is through a 
flat the whole way. The city stands in the middle of Boeotia. Its 
circumference is seventy furlongs, its shape circular. The soil is 
dark. In spite of its antiquity the streets are new, because, as the 
histories tell us, the city has been thrice razed to the ground on 
account of the morose and overbearing character of the inhabitants. 
It is excellent for the breeding of horses ; it is all well-watered and 
green, and has more gardens than any other city in Greece. For 
two rivers flow through it, irrigating the plain below the city ; and 
water is brought from the Cadmea in underground conduits which 
were made of old, they say, by Cadmus. So much for the city. 
The inhabitants are high-spirited and wonderfully sanguine, but 
rash, insolent, and overbearing, ready to come to blows with any 
man, be he citizen or stranger. As for justice they set their face 
against it. Business disputes are settled not by reason but by fisti- 
cuffs, and the methods of the prize-ring are transferred to courts of 
justice. Hence lawsuits here last thirty years at the very least. For 
if a man opens his lips in public on the laws delay and does not 
thereupon take hasty leave of Boeotia, he is waylaid by ni^ht and 
murdered by the persons who have no wish that lawsuits should 
come to an end. Murders are perpetrated on the most trifling 
pretexts. Such are the men as a whole, though some worthy, high- 
minded, respectable persons are also to be found among them. 
The women are the tallest, prettiest, and most graceful in all Greece. 
Their faces are so muffled up that only the eyes are seen. All of 
them dress in white and wear low purple shoes laced so as to show 
the bare feet. Their yellow hair is tied up in a knot on the top of 
the head. In society their manners are Sicyonian rather than 
Boeotian. They have pleasing voices, while the voices of the men 
are harsh and deep. The city is one of the best places to pass the 
summer in, for it has gardens and plenty of cool water. Besides it 
is breezy, its aspect is verdant, and fruit and flowers abound. But 
it lacks timber, and is one of the worst places to winter in by reason 
of the rivers and the winds ; for snow falls and there is much mud. 
The poet Laon writes in praise of the Boeotians, but he does not 
speak the truth, the fact being that he was caught in adulter}- and 
let off lightly by the injured husband. He says : 

' Love the Boeotian, and fly not Boeotia ; 
For the man is a good fellow, and the land is delightful.' 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 



" Thence to Anthedon is one hundred and sixty furlongs. The 
road runs aslant through fields. Carriages can drive on it. The 
city, which is not large, stands on the shore of the Euboean sea. 
The market-place is all planted with trees and flanked by colon- 
nades. Wine and fish abound, but corn is scarce, for the soil is 
poor. The inhabitants are almost all fishermen living by their 
hooks, by the purple shell, and by sponges, growing old on the 
beach among the seaweed and in their huts. They are all of a 
ruddy countenance and a spare form ; the tips of their nails are 
worn away by reason of working constantly in the sea. Most of 
them are ferrymen or boat-builders. Far from tilling the ground 
they do not even own it, alleging that they are descendants of the 
marine Glaucus, who was confessedly a fisherman. 

" So much for Boeotia. As for Thespiae, it contains ambi- 
tion and fine statues, nothing else. The Boeotians have a saying 
about their national faults to the effect that greed lives in Oropus, 
envy in Tanagra, quarrelsomeness in Thespiae, insolence in Thebes, 
covetousness in Anthedon, curiosity in Coronea, braggery in Plataea, 
fever in Onchestus, and stupidity in Haliartus. These are the 
faults that have drained down into Boeotia as into a sink from the 
rest of Greece. To quote the verse of Pherecrates : 

' If you have any sense, shun Boeotia.' 

So much for the land of the Boeotians. 

" From Anthedon to Chalcis is seventy furlongs. As far as 
Salgoneus the road is level and easy, running between the sea on the 
one hand and a wooded and well-watered mountain of no great height 
on the other. The city of Chalcis measures seventy furlongs in cir- 
cumference. It is all hilly and shaded with trees. Most of the springs 
are salt, but there is one called Arethusa of which the water, though 
brackish, is wholesome, cool, and so abundant that it suffices for the 
whole city. With public buildings such as gymnasiums, colonnades, 
sanctuaries, and theatres, besides paintings and statues, the city is 
excellently provided, and the situation of the market-place for purposes 
of commerce is unsurpassed. For the currents that meet in the 
Euripus flow past the very walls of the harbour, and here there is 
a gate which leads straight into the market-place, a spacious area 
enclosed by colonnades. This proximity of the market-place to the 
harbour, and the ease with which cargoes can be unloaded, attract 
many ships to the port. Indeed the Euripus itself, with its double 
entrance, draws merchants to the city. The whole district is 
planted with olives, and the fisheries are productive. The people 
are Greek in speech as well as by birth. Devoted to learning, with 
a taste for travel and books, they bear their country's misfortunes 
with a noble fortitude. A long course of political servitude has not 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 



extinguished that inborn freedom of nature which has taught them 
to submit to the inevitable. To quote a verse of Philiscus : 

' Chalcis is a city of most worthy Greeks.' " 

These passages, which I have perhaps quoted at too great length, 
may suffice. I will spare the reader a long description of Mount 
Pelion, its pinewoods, its wild flowers, and its simples, which seems 
to be a fragment of the same work. Two points only in the 
description of the mountain may be mentioned. The writer tells 
us that the knowledge of certain simples was hereditary in a single 
family, who kept it a profound secret, though they refused to 
accept any money from the sick people whom they tended, deeming 
it would be impious to do so. These herbalists claimed to be 
descended from the centaur Chiron. 1 Again, we learn from the 
writer how in the greatest heat of summer, when the Dog Star rose, 
a procession of men of good birth and in the prime of life, all 
chosen by the priest and all clad in sheepskins, ascended through 
the pinewoods to the cave of Chiron and a sanctuary of Zeus on 
the top of the mountain. He mentions the sheepskins as a proof 
of the great height of Mount Pelion, as if without them the men 
would have shivered on the mountain even while the plains below 
were sweltering and baking in the heat. But it is more probable 
that the sheepskins had some religious significance. 

This account of the procession of skin-clad men to the cave The 
and sanctuary on the top of the high mountain reads not unlike P seud - 
a passage in Pausanias. But how different is almost all the rest of J^^ an d 
this writer's description of Greece from that of Pausanias ! Instead Pausanias 
of a dull patient enumeration of monuments, arranged in topo- compared. 
graphical order and seldom enlivened even by a descriptive epithet, 
we have slight highly-coloured sketches of the general appearance 
of the towns the white city of Tanagra on the hill with the pretty 
painted porches of the houses ; Chalcis with its handsome buildings, 
its shady trees, its flowing springs, its spacious market beside the 
narrows where the tide runs fast and the porters are busy unlading 
the ships in the harbour ; Thebes in summer with its fine new 
streets, its verdure, its fruit and flowers, and the balmy freshness of 
the perfumed air blowing over gardens ; Thebes in winter, swept by 
bitter cutting winds, the streets deep in mud and whitened by the 
falling snow ; Athens with its old narrow lanes and mean houses, 
and now and then a glimpse between them of the resplendent 
Parthenon, like a sun-burst, high up against the sky. Then again 

1 Chiron's skill in simples is alluded to by Homer (//. iv. 218 sq. , xi. 830 sqq. ). 
The herbalists of Magnesia in Thessaly offered to Chiron the first-fruits of the roots 
they dug and the herbs they gathered (Plutarch, Quaes t. Conviv. iii. r. 3). See 
W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 46 sqq. 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 



as to the people, what a contrast between the grave Pausanias, who 
hardly allows us to see them except at their devotions, and the 
sparkling writer who so often lifts the veil of the past and lets us 
catch a glimpse of the bustling motley crowd and hear the hum of 
their voices the crowd that ceased to bustle and the voices that 
fell silent so long ago. We see the hungry populace at Athens 
forgetting their empty stomachs in the joys of the theatre and 
pageant ; the frail beauties ogling ; the literary pests scribbling 
lampoons in their garrets or wriggling in the grasp of the law. On 
the highroads we behold the travellers walking in fear of robbers or 
taking their ease at their inn. At Oropus we watch the custom- 
house officers diving into the baggage of exasperated travellers, who 
mutter curses. At Tanagra we shake hands with the bluff well-to-do 
farmer, comfortable, kindly, and contented, who has a hearty 
welcome for the stranger and a bit and a sup for the beggar who 
knocks at his door. In the streets of Thebes we jostle with your 
ruffling swaggering blades, your bullies and swashbucklers, who will 
knock you down for a word and cut your throat in a dark lane if 
you dare to whisper a word that reflects on the course of justice, or 
rather of injustice, in their native city. And moving amongst these 
ruffians are tall graceful women, muffled up to their eyes, their 
yellow hair gathered in knots on the top of their heads, their purple 
shoes peeping from under their white dresses, their soft voices 
contrasting with the gruff deep bass of the men. Again the scene 
shifts. We are no longer among the streets and gardens of Thebes, 
but on the beach at Anthedon with the salt smell of the sea in our 
nostrils and the cool sea-breeze fanning our brow. We see the 
fisher-folk, with their ruddy weather - beaten faces and their finger- 
nails eaten away by the brine, baiting their hooks among the sea- 
weed on the shore, or hammering away at a new fishing-boat, or 
ferrying travellers across the beautiful strait to Euboea. 

These pictures of a vanished world are worth something. They 
have life, warmth, and colour ; but the colours, we can hardly 
doubt, are heightened unduly. The lights are too high, the 
shadows too deep. We cannot believe that the population ot 
Oropus consisted exclusively of cut -throats and custom-house 
officers ; that the farmers of Tanagra were all bluff and virtuous ; 
that none but good men struggling nobly with adversity resided at 
Chalcis ; that no lawsuit at Thebes ever lasted less than thirty 
years. The writer, it is plain, has exaggerated for the sake of 
literary effect. And he has a strong leaning to gossip and scandal. 
He extenuates the praise of Boeotia in the mouth of a poet on the 
ground of a painful episode in the bard's private history, and he 
retails with evident relish the current tattle as to the characteristic 
vices of the various Boeotian towns. On the whole this lively, 
superficial, gossipy work, with its showy slap-dash sketches of life 



INTRODUCTION xlix 



and scenery, cannot compare in solid worth with the dry and 
colourless, but in general minute and accurate description of 
Greece which Pausanias has given us. In the writings of Pausanias 
we certainly miss the warmth and animation of the other, the 
pictures of contemporary life and character, the little touches that 
bring the past and the distant vividly before us. His book is too 
much a mere catalogue of antiquities, the dry bones of knowledge 
unquickened by the breath of imagination. Yet his very defects 
have their compensating advantages. If he lacked imagination he 
was the less likely to yield to that temptation of distorting and 
discolouring the facts to which men of bright fancy are peculiarly 
exposed, of whom it has been well said that they are like the angels 
who veil their faces with their wings. 

In truth Pausanias was a man made of common stuff and cast Character 
in a common mould. Plis intelligence and abilities seem to have of 
been little above the average, his opinions not very different from 
those of his contemporaries. While he looked back with regret to His 
the great age of Greek freedom, he appears to have acquiesced in P Ht . ical 
the Roman dominion as inevitable, acknowledging the incapacity of P ' r 
the degenerate Greeks to govern themselves, the general clemency 
of the Roman rule, and especially the wisdom and beneficence of the 
good emperors under whom it was his happiness to live. 1 Of demo- 
cracy he had no admiration. He thought the Athenians the only 
people who ever throve under it, 2 and on observing that the slaves 
who fought and died for Athens were buried with their masters, he 
remarks with apparent surprise that even a democracy can occasion- 
ally be just. 3 With his turn for study and for brooding over the 
past, it was natural that he should prefer a life of privacy to the cares 
and turmoils of a public career. Accordingly we find that he admired 
the prudence of Isocrates who lived placidly to old age in the shade 
and tranquillity of retirement, 4 and that he censured implicitly the 
imprudence of Demosthenes, whose fiery genius hurried him through 
the storm and sunshine of public life to exile and a violent death. 5 

Such a preference, implied rather than expressed, says much for 
the decay of public spirit in Greece. Our author himself was con- 
scious that his lot had fallen on evil days. He speaks sorrowfully 
of the olden time when the gods openly visited the good with honour, 
and the bad with their displeasure ; when the benefactors of man- 

1 As to Roman clemency, see i. 20. 7, vii. 16. 10, ix. 33. 6, x. 34. 2, x. 35. 
2 ; as to the incapacity of the Greeks for selt-government, see vii. 17. 4. For the 
praise of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius see i. 3. 2, i. 5. 5, viii. 43. 3-6. The 
passages of Pausanias which illustrate the anthor's personal opinions on life, religion, 
and art are collected and arranged by Dr. O. Pfundtner (Des Reisebeschreibers Pau- 
sanias Lebens- icnd Glaubensanschauungen, Konigsberg, 1868). The tracts ofF. S. C. 
Koenig (De Pausaniae fide et auctoritate, Berlin, 1832) and G. Krueger {Theolo- 
cumena Pausaniae, Leipsic, i860) also deserve to be consulted. 

2 iv - 35- 5- 3 i. 29. 7. 4 i. 18. 8. 5 i. 8. 3, ii. 33. 3. 
VOL. I d 



1 INTRODUCTION 



kind were raised to the rank of divinities, and evil-doers were 
degraded into wild beasts and stones. " But in the present age," he 
adds mournfully, " when wickedness is growing to such a height, and 
spreading over every land and city, men are changed into gods no 
more, save in the hollow rhetoric which flattery addresses to power ; 
and the wrath of the gods at the wicked is reserved for a distant 
future when they shall have gone hence." * We cannot doubt that 
here he glances covertly at the practice of deifying the Roman 
emperors, which seems to have stirred his honest indignation as a 
mark of the supple servility and political degeneracy of the age. 
Nor was he a stranger to those graver thoughts on the vaster issues 
of life and history which the aspect of Greece in its decline was 
fitted to awake. The sight of the great city of Megalopolis lying in 
ruins brings to his mind the high hopes with which it had been 
founded, and that again ushers in a train of melancholy reflexions 
on the instability of human affairs. He thinks how from so many 
golden cities of the ancient world from Nineveh and Babylon, 
from Thebes and Mycenae the glory had passed away ; how nature 
itself, which seems so stable, is subject to great mutations ; how 
transitory, then, is earthly glory, how brief and frail the life of 
man ! 2 
His ethical On the passions which move men and make history he seems to 
views. have thought much like other people. He knew that avarice is the 
cause of many crimes, 3 and that love is the source both of great 
happiness and of great misery. 4 Yet he appears to have held that 
the mischief wrought by the passion of love outweighs the good it 
brings ; for after telling how, by washing in the river Selemnus, men 
and women were supposed to forget their love, he adds that if there 
is any truth in this story great riches are less precious to mankind 
than the water of the Selemnus. 5 Again, he has a sincere admira- 
tion for the heroic virtues, and a genuine detestation of baseness 
and depravity of all sorts. Treason he stigmatises as the foulest of 
crimes. 6 He considers that the bold and disinterested patriot 
Thrasybulus, who freed his country and healed her dissensions, was 
the best of all the famous men of Athens, 7 and that the deed of 
Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae was the most splendid 
feat of arms in Grecian history. 8 He praises his Spartan namesake 
for his courteous treatment of the captive Coan lady and for reject- 
ing the base proposal of the wretch who would have had him muti- 
late the corpse of the gallant Mardonius. 9 He speaks with sym- 
pathy of the brave men worthy of a happier fate who fell on the 
tyrant Lachares, of those who would have wrested Piraeus from the 
Macedonians had they not been done by their confederates to death, 

1 viii. 2. 4 sq. 2 viii. 33. s iii. 23. 4, iv. 4. 7, ix. 32. 10. 

4 i. 10. 3, iv. 20. 5, vii. 19. 5. 5 vii. 23. 3. 6 vii. 10. 1. 

7 i. 29. 3. 8 iii. 4. 7 sq. 9 iii. 4. 9 sq. 



I 



INTRODUCTION li 



and of those others whom on the great day Cimon led to victory by 
sea and land. 1 He tells how in the last fight with the Romans, 
before the day was lost, the Achaean general fled, leaving his men to 
shift for themselves, and he contrasts his selfish cowardice with the 
soldierly devotion of an Athenian cavalry officer who on the disas- 
trous retreat from Syracuse brought off his regiment safe, then 
wheeled about and, riding back alone, found the death he sought in 
the midst of the enemy. 2 

In religion as in morals Pausanias seems to have occupied a His 
position not unlike that of his contemporaries. That it did not reh S! 0US 
occur to him to doubt the existence of the gods and heroes of Greek Belie f m 
mythology is clear from the tenour of his work as well as from many the gods, 
observations which he lets fall. Thus, for example, he tells us that 
to see the gods in bodily shape was perilous ; 3 that Pan possessed, 
equally with the greatest of the gods, the power of answering prayer 
and requiting the wicked ; 4 and that down to his own time there 
was preserved at a city on the Euphrates the very rope, plaited of 
vine and ivy branches, with which Dionysus had spanned the river 
on his march to India. 5 Even the criticisms which he sometimes 
offers on myths and legends prove that in the act of rejecting them 
wholly or in part he does not dream of questioning the reality of the 
divine or heroic personages of whom they were told. Thus, to give 
instances, while he examines and rejects the claims set up on behalf 
of various objects to be works of Hephaestus, he admits the genuine- 
ness of one of the objects, thereby clearly taking for granted the 
existence of the smith-god himself. 6 Again, observing an image of 
Aphrodite with fetters on her feet he tells how, according to one 
tradition, Tyndareus had put this indignity on the goddess to punish 
her for bringing his daughters to shame. " This explanation," de- 
clares Pausanias with decision, " I cannot accept for a moment. It 
would have been too silly to imagine that by making a cedar-wood 
doll and dubbing it Aphrodite he could punish the goddess." 7 
Obviously our author, if he has small reverence for the image and 
none at all for the tradition of its origin, cherishes an unfaltering 
faith in the reality of the goddess. Again, he denies that Semele 
was ever, as Greek tradition would have it, rescued from hell by 
Dionysus, and the reason he gives for his incredulity is that Semele 
was the wife of Zeus and therefore could not die. 8 Yet again, after 
telling the legend of Eurypylus and the wonderful chest in which he 
kept a portable god, he mentions only to reject the tradition that 
Eurypylus received the chest from Hercules. " Sure am I," says he, 
"that Hercules knew all about the chest, if it really was such a 
wonderful chest, and I do not believe that knowing about it he would 



1 i. 29. 10, 14. 2 vii. 16. 4-6. 3 x. 32. 18. 4 viii. 37. 11. 

5 x- 29. 4. G be. 41. 1-5. 7 ii . i$. 11. 8 [[ 21. 2. 



Hi 



INTRODUCTION 



His 



ever have given it away to a comrade in arms." l Once more, Pau- 
sanias cannot bring himself to believe that Hercules ever carried his 
anger at a friend's daughter so far as to condemn her to remain a 
spinster for the rest of her days and to serve him in that capacity as 
his priestess. He opines that while Hercules was still among men, 
" punishing other people for presumption and especially for impiety, 
it is not likely that he would have established a temple with a 
priestess all for himself, just as if he were a god." 2 

There is one side, however, of Greek religion as to which Pau- 



scepticism san j as shows himself consistently sceptical, if not incredulous. He 
had serious doubts as to the existence of a subterranean hell. " It 
is not easy," he says, " to believe that gods have an underground 
abode in which the souls of the dead assemble." 3 He speaks of 
the " supposed subterranean realm " of Pluto, 4 and in the cave at 
Taenarum, which was thought to be one of the mouths of hell, he 
looked in vain for any passage leading down to the nether world. 5 
Cerberus in particular, the hound of hell, is roughly handled by 
Pausanias, who ruthlessly strips him of his superfluous heads, 
reduces him to a commonplace serpent, 6 and seems to take a 
malicious pleasure in enumerating all the places where the animal 
was said to have been haled up by Hercules. 7 But though Pau- 
sanias had his doubts as to hell, he seems to have believed in the 
existence of the soul after death ; for in a passage which has been 
already quoted he speaks of the punishment that awaits the wicked 
in another life. 8 At the same time his belief in the doctrine was 
apparently not very firm ; at least he refers to it somewhat hesitat- 
ingly in mentioning the Messenian tradition that the soul of the dead 
hero Aristomenes had fought against his old foes the Lacedaemonians 
at'Leuctra. "The first people," he there tells us, "who asserted 
that the soul of man is immortal were the Chaldeans and the Indian 
magicians ; and some of the Greeks believed them, especially Plato, 
the son of Aristo. If everybody accepts this tenet, there can be no 
gainsaying the view that hatred of the Lacedaemonians has rankled 
in the heart of Aristomenes through all the ages." 9 

Amongst the gods Pausanias assigns the first place to Zeus. 10 
He alone is superior to Destiny, to which all the other gods must 
submit ; n he is the ruler and guide of the Fates, and knows all that 
they have in store for man. 12 Of the Fates themselves Fortune is, 
in our author's opinion, the most powerful ; 13 she it is whose resist- 
less might sweeps all things along at her will, determining the growth 



His 

attitude to 

various 

deities. 



1 vii. 19. 6-10. 

4 " 3 6 - 7- 

7 ii. 35. 10, iii. 25. 5, 
of hell, see ii. 5. 1, ii. 24. 



3 iii- 25. 5. 

6 iii. 25. 5 sq. 
ix. 34. 5. For other hints of scepticism on the subject 
4, ii. 31. 2, ii. 35. 9, v. 20. 3, viii. 32. 4, viii. 37. 5. 



ix. 27. 7. 
iii. 25. 5. 



11 



vni. 2. 5. 
i. 40. 4. 



9 

12 



iv. 32. 4. 
v- 15- 5- 



10 

13 



viii. 36. 5. 



vii. 



26. 8. 



INTR OD UCTION liii 



and decay of cities, the revolutions of nature, and the destiny of 
man. 1 Yet Pausanias's own devotions seem to have been paid 
rather to Demeter than to Zeus or the Fates. He visited Phigalia 
chiefly for the sake of the Black Demeter to whom he sacrificed at 
the mouth of the cave ; 2 he relates at length the history of her 
image ; 3 and he describes in unusual detail the sanctuary and 
images of Demeter and Proserpine at Lycosura. 4 Again, he had 
been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries ; 5 he loves to trace their 
diffusion from Eleusis over the rest of Greece ; 6 he speaks of the 
Andanian mysteries as second in point of sanctity to the Eleusinian 
alone ; 7 he tells us that the Greeks of an earlier age esteemed the 
latter as far above all other religious exercises as the gods were 
above heroes ; 8 and he expresses his own conviction that there was 
nothing on which the blessing of God rested in so full a measure 
as on the rites of Eleusis and the Olympic games. 9 His religious 
awe of the mysteries, silencing his antiquarian garrulity, forbade him 
to describe not only the rites but the sacred precincts in which they 
were celebrated. 10 Once more, on Mount Panhellenius in Aegina 
he sacrificed to the images of the kindred deities Damia and Auxesia 
according to the ritual observed in sacrificing at Eleusis. 11 Another 
deity in whom Pausanias seems to have been especially interested 
was Aesculapius. He examines the legends of the god's parentage, 12 
discusses his nature, 13 and traces the spread of his worship from 
Epidaurus. 14 Along with his belief in the gods and in the resistless 
power of Fate our author apparently cherished a dim faith in a 
divine providence which w r atches over the affairs of man. In speak- 
ing of the exploits of Theseus in Crete he remarks that " nothing 
less than the hand of Providence could reasonably be supposed to 
have brought him and his comrades safe back, guiding him through 
all the mazy intricacies of the labyrinth, and leading him unseen, 
when his work was done, through the midst of his enemies." 15 

The gods, in the opinion of Pausanias, were neither cold ab- His belief 
stractions nor blessed beings who, lapped in the joys of heaven, in * he . 
took no thought for the affairs of earth. They actively interfered ferenceToT" 
in the course of events, rewarding the virtuous and punishing the the gods in 
wicked. They were the givers of good things to men ; 1(i and if their human 

^""^ o fro i f*C 

rewards had been more open and manifest in days of old, 17 the 
prosperity of the pious Athenians was a standing proof that even 
in later times the gods had not forgotten to recompense their 
worshippers. 13 Yet, like most people who lay themselves out to 
justify the ways of God to man, Pausanias was readier to detect 

1 viii. 33. 1 sqq. 2 viii. 42. 11. 3 viii. 42. 3-13. 4 viii. 37. 1-10. 

5 37- 4. ' 38- 7- 6 ii- 14. iv- 1. 5. v i- *5- r > vii >- 3 r - 7- 7 iv. 33- 5- 

8 x. 31. 11. 9 v. 10. 1. 10 i. 14. 3, i. 38. 7, iv. 33. 5. u ii. 30. 4. 

12 ii. 26. 3-7, iv. 3. 2, iv. 31. 12. 13 vii. 23. 7 sq> 

14 ii. 10. 3, ii. 26. 8^., iii. 23. 6 sq. 15 ii. 31. 1. Compare v. 13. 6. 

16 viii. 36. 5. W v iii p 2 ^ is ; 17 L 



liv INTRODUCTION 



the hand of the deity in the miseries and misfortunes of his fellow- 
creatures than in their joys and blessings. The confidence with 
which he lays his finger on the precise misdeed which drew down 
on a malefactor the wrath of a justly offended god implies an 
astonishing familiarity with the counsels of the Almighty. He 
knew that the Persians were defeated at Marathon because they 
had angered Nemesis by bringing, in the pride of their hearts, a 
block of marble which they proposed to set up as a trophy of their 
expected victory ; x that the destruction of Sparta and Helice by 
earthquakes was due to the wrath of Poseidon at the violation of 
his sanctuaries ; 2 that the ruin and death of Mithridates had been 
brought to pass by Apollo, whose sacred island had been sacked 
by the king's general ; 3 that Sulla's miserable end was a direct 
consequence of his guilt in tearing Aristion from the sanctuary cf 
Athena ; * and that the wrath of the Eleusinian goddesses abode on 
the Megarians for ever because they had encroached on the sacred 
land and murdered a herald who warned them to desist. 5 Again, 
he shrewdly suspects that the long misfortunes of the Messenians 
flowed directly from the anger of the Dioscuri at the impious 
presumption of two Messenian youths ; 6 and he surmises that 
gods and heroes combined to wreak their displeasure on the 
devoted head of Cleomenes, who had tampered with the Delphic 
oracle, ravaged the sacred Eleusinian land, and burned the 
grove of the hero Argus. 7 The Delphic Apollo was quick 
and powerful, according to Pausanias, to defend his honour and 
to visit with vengeance the sacrilegious persons who dared to 
assail his sanctuary or rifle his treasures. King Archidamus, who 
had fingered the sacred moneys, fell in battle in a foreign land and 
his corpse weltered unburied ; 8 the Phlegyans, who made a raid on 
Delphi, perished by thunderbolts and earthquakes ; 9 and it was in 
all the majesty of thunder, lightning, and earthquake that at a later 
time the god stood forth to repel the Gauls. 10 Amongst the punish- 
ments with which the gods were thought to visit unwarranted intru- 
sions into their sanctuaries, blindness and madness had a special 
place. King Aepytus, on forcing his way into the shrine of Poseidon 
at Mantinea, which none might enter, was instantly struck blind and 
died soon afterwards ; n some Persian soldiers who ventured into the 
sanctuary of the Cabiri near Thebes became crazed and in that state 
put an end to themselves ; 12 and it was believed that if any defiled 
or impious person entered the sanctuary of the Eumenides at 
Cerynea he would go mad on the spot. 13 

1 i- 33- 2 - 2 iv - 2 4- 5 W-. vii. 24. 6, vii. 25. 3. 3 iii. 23. 3-5. 

4 i. 20. 7. Or perhaps it was because he carried off an image of Athena (ix. 33. 6). 

6 i. 36. 3, iii. 4. 6. 6 iv. 27. 1-3. 7 iii. 4. 1-6. 

8 iii. 10. 3-5. 9 ix. 36. 2 sq. 10 x. 23. 1 sq. 

11 viii. 5. 5, viii. 10. 3. 12 ix. 25. 9. 13 vii. 25. 7. 



IMTR OD UC TION 1 V 



Believing in the gods, Pausanias naturally believed in their His belief 
official utterances, the oracles. The Delphic oracle, he thinks, in oracles, 
foretold the battle of Leuctra 1 and various episodes in the 
Messenian wars ; 2 and he appeals to one of its answers as con- 
clusive evidence that the mother of Aesculapius was Coronis. 3 
He relates how the accidental exposure of the bones of Orpheus 
was followed by the destruction of the city of Libethra in accordance 
with a prediction of Dionysus in Thrace, 4 and he narrates the fatal 
disasters which Epaminondas, Hannibal, and the Athenians incurred 
by misunderstanding oracular answers sent them from Delphi, 
Amnion, and Dodona. 5 The history of Macedonia, its rise and 
its fall, had been predicted by the Sibyl, if we may believe Pausanias, 
who quotes her prophecy ; 6 and he assures us that the inroad of the 
Gauls into Asia had been foretold by Phaennis a generation before 
the event took place. 7 He had himself consulted the oracle of 
Trophonius, and has left us a curious account of the ceremonies 
observed by enquirers at the shrine. 8 In his day, he informs us, 
the most infallible oracle was that of Amphilochus at Mallus in 
Cilicia. 9 

Yet while Pausanias accepted on the whole the religion of his His 
country, he was by no means blind to the discrepancies and im- cntmsm of 
probabilities of many Greek myths and legends, and he speaks n 
somewhat disdainfully of the unquestioning faith of the multitude 
in the stories they had heard from childhood. " Falsehood in 
general," he says, " passes current among the multitude because 
they are ignorant of history and believe all that they have heard 
from childhood in choirs and tragedies." 10 And again he observes 
that " it is not easy to persuade the vulgar to change their opinions." n 
From the former of these passages it appears that Pausanias was 
little disposed to place implicit faith in the utterances of the poets 
on matters of tradition. Elsewhere he intimates his doubts still 
more plainly. Speaking of the hydra, which he maintains had not 
more than one head, he says that the poet Pisander multiplied the 
creature's heads " to make the monster more terrific, and to add to 
the dignity of his own verses." 12 Again, he mentions that the poets 
have declared certain objects of art to be works of Hephaestus, and 
that obsequious public opinion has chimed in with them, but he for 
his part rejects all such relics as spurious save one. 13 The only poet 
to whose authority he inclined to bow was Homer, whose testimony 
he often appeals to with respect. 14 He held that many old stories 
were true enough in their origin but had fallen into discredit by 

1 iv. 12. 7, iv. 26. 4. 

4 ix. 30. 9-11. 

7 x. 15. 2 sq. 

10 i. 3. 3. u ii. 23. 6. 

14 i. 28. 7, ii. 21. 9, iv. 28. 7 sq. 



2 iv. 12, iv. 13. 3. 








3 ii. 26. 7. 


5 viii. ir. 10-12. 








6 vii. 8. 8 sq. 


8 * 39- 5- J 4' 








3 i- 34- 3- 


12 37- 4- 








13 ix. 41. 1. 


ii. 21. 8, vii. 25. 12, 


ix. 


41. 


3-5 


, x. 25. 1, etc. 



lvi INTRODUCTION 



reason of the distortions and exaggerations to which they had been 
subjected by the narrators. The particular story which suggests this 
remark is the legend that Lycaon had been turned into a wolf on 
sacrificing a babe to Lycaean Zeus. Pausanias believes the legend, 
but he rejects as incredible the assertion that at every subsequent 
sacrifice to Zeus on Mount Lycaeus a man had been turned into a 
wolf, 1 and he does not stick to brand as humbugs the persons who 
gave out that the Arcadian boxer Damarchus had been so trans- 
formed. 2 "Lovers of the marvellous," he observes, "are too prone 
to heighten the marvels they hear tell of by adding touches of their 
own ; and thus they debase truth by alloying it with fiction." 3 
His dis- The attitude of incredulity which Pausanias maintained towards 

belief of many of the current legends is declared by him in the most un- 

certain 

myths equivocal manner. He speaks of "the many falsehoods believed 
by the Greeks," 4 and reminds us that though he is bound to record 
Greek stories he is not bound to believe them, 5 and that as a matter 
of fact he does not believe them all. 6 The myths of the transforma- 
tions of gods and men into animals and plants seem especially to 
have stuck in his throat. He does not believe that Zeus changed 
himself into a cuckoo to win the love of Hera, 7 and as to the story 
of the transformation of Cycnus into a swan, he says roundly : 
" That a man should be turned into a bird is to me incredible." 8 
Nor will he hear of Narcissus's love for his own reflexion in the 
glassy pool and his wondrous change into the flower that bore his 
name. " It is sheer folly," he remarks, " to suppose that a person 
who has reached the age of falling in love should be unable to 
distinguish between a man and his reflexion," and as for the flower 
in question he has chapter and verse for it to prove that it grew 
before Narcissus was born. 9 The companion story of the trans- 
formation of Hyacinth into the flower he does not treat quite so 
cavalierly. " It may not be literally true," he tells us, " but let it 
pass." 10 Further, he cannot believe that the beasts followed Orpheus 
as he sang, and that the minstrel journeyed down to hell to win 
back his lost Eurydice. 11 Again, while he believes in giants, he 
rejects as a silly story the notion that they had serpents instead 
of feet, and he supports his scepticism by referring to the corpse of 
one of these monstrous beings which had been found in the bed of 
the river Orontes enclosed in a coffin eleven ells long. 12 Often, 
without formally refusing his assent to some tale of wonder, he 
quietly hints his incredulity by indicating that he leaves his readers 
to believe it or not as they feel inclined. Thus after telling how 
pigs thrown into the halls of Demeter at Potniae were supposed to 

1 viii. 2. 3 sq. , 6. 2 vi. 8. 2. 3 viii. 2. 7. 4 ix. 30. 4. 

5 vi. 3. 8. There is here a reminiscence of Herodotus (vii. 152). 

6 ii. 17. 4. 7 lb. 8 i. 30. 3. 9 ix. 31. 7-9. 
10 iii. 19. 5. u ix. 30. 4. 12 viii. 29. 3 sq. 



INTRODUCTION lvii 



re-appear next year at Dodona, he adds, almost sarcastically : " The 
tale may possibly find credence with some people." 1 Other marvels 
which he dismisses with a sneer are the sowing of the dragon's 
teeth by Cadmus and the springing up of armed men ; 2 the sprout- 
ing of Hercules's club into a tree when he set it on the ground ; 8 
the wonderful vision of Lynceus who could see through the trunk of 
an oak-tree ; 4 and the story that at a certain rock in Megara the 
sad Demeter stood and called back her daughter from the darkling 
road down which she had vanished. 5 

It is not always, however, that Pausanias meets seemingly miracu- His ration- 
lous stories with a blank negation. He had too much good sense aIlstlcinter - 
to do that. He knew that our experience does not exhaust the pos- J^ some 
sibilities of nature, and he endeavoured accordingly to trim the myths, 
balance of his judgment between hasty credulity on the one side 
and rash disbelief on the other. Thus after pointing out that, if 
the descriptions of the strange creatures of distant lands are false in 
some particulars, they are true or at least not improbable in others, 
he concludes : " So careful should we be to avoid hasty judgments 
on the one hand, and incredulity in matters of rare occurrence on 
the other." 6 In his endeavour to winnow the true from the false, 
to disentangle the ravelled skein of tradition, he has often recourse 
to that convenient and flexible instrument rationalistic or allegorical 
interpretation. We have seen with what ease he thus disencumbered 
himself of Cerberus's superfluous heads and reduced that animal 
from a very extraordinary dog to a very ordinary serpent. The 
miraculous story of the death of Actaeon, rent in pieces by his 
hounds at the instigation of Artemis, gives him no trouble : it 
was a simple case of hydrophobia. 7 Medusa was a beautiful African 
queen who met Perseus at the head of her troops. 8 Titan was an 
early astronomer who resided near Sicyon and passed for a brother 
of the sun for no other reason than that he made observations on 
that luminary. 9 The fable that Procne and Philomela were turned 
into a nightingale and a swallow arose merely from a comparison of 
their mournful cries to the plaintive notes of these birds. 10 In one 
passage, indeed, under the fierce light of criticism the gods them- 
selves seem on the point of melting away like mist before the sun, 
leaving behind them nothing but the clear hard face of nature, over 
which for a while the gorgeous pageantry of their shifting iridescent 
shapes had floated in a golden haze. The passage occurs in the 
description ofAegium, where our author fell in with a Phoenician of 
Sidon with whom he discussed the philosophic basis of the belief in 
Aesculapius, corning to the conclusion that the god was nothing but 
the air and his father Apollo nothing but the sun. 11 Had Pausanias 



1 ix. 8. i. 
ir. s. 



5 i- 43- 2 - 



2 ix. io. i. 


3 ii. 3r. 10. 


4 iv. 2. 7. 


6 ix. 21. 4-6. 


7 ix. 2. 3 sq. 


8 ii. 21. 5 


i. 41. 9. 


11 vii. 23. 7 sq. 





Iviii 



INTRODUCTION 



followed up this line of thought he might, like Schiller, have seen as 
in a vision the bright procession of the gods winding up the long 
slope of Olympus, sometimes pausing to look back sadly at a world 
where they were needed no more. But the whole tenour of his 
work goes to show that, if here he had a glimpse of a higher truth, 
it was only a flash-light that went out leaving him in darkness. 
His change In a later passage he makes a confession of his faith in matters 
of view as f mythology. After telling the barbarous tale how the cannibal 
Cronus, intending to devour his infant son Poseidon, had been 
cozened by Rhea into swallowing a foal, he goes on : " When I 
began this work I used to look on these Greek stories as little 
better than foolishness ; but now that I have got as far as Arcadia 
my opinion about them is this : I believe that the Greeks who 
were accounted wise spoke of old in riddles, and not straight out ; 
and, accordingly, I conjecture that this story about Cronus is a bit 
of Greek philosophy. In matters of religion I will follow tradi- 
tion." l This seems to be practically a recantation of earlier, 
perhaps youthful scepticism. The tales which he had once 
ridiculed as absurd he now finds to be full of deep, if hidden, 
wisdom. Meditation and perhaps still more the creeping paralysis 
of age, which brings so many men to a dull acquiescence in beliefs 
and practices which they had spurned in youth, appear to have 
wrought a mental revolution in Pausanias. The scoffer had become 
devout. 

Yet to a pious believer the discrepancy between Greek tradi- 
tions must have been a sore stumbling-block. Pausanias tripped 
over it again and again. " Greek traditions," says he, " are generally 
discrepant." 2 " The legends of the Greeks differ from each other 
on most points, especially in the genealogies." 3 "The old legends, 
being unencumbered by genealogies, left free scope for fiction, 
especially in the pedigrees of heroes." 4 " Most things in Greece are 
subjects of dispute." 5 In face of such differences Pausanias, when 
he does not content himself with simply enumerating the various 
traditions, chooses to follow either the most generally received 
version 6 or the one which on any ground appears to him the most 
probable. With his sober unimaginative temperament and bias to 
rationalism, it was natural that between conflicting versions of the 
same tradition he should choose the one which clashed least with 
experience. Thus he relates the two stories told of the way in 
which the people of Tanagra acquired the Triton whose stuffed 
carcase was the glory of the town. One story ran that the creature 
had been slain by Dionysus himself in single combat ; according to 
the other, a common mortal had found the Triton lying drunk on 



1 viii. 8. 3. 
4 i- 38- 7- 



2 ; 



ix. 16. 7. 

iv. 2. 3. 



vm. S3- 5- 
ii. 12. 3. 



INTRODUCTION lix 



the beach and had chopped off his head with an axe. The latter 
version of the tale is described by Pausanias as " less dignified but 
more probable." x Tritons, it is true, whether drunk or sober, are 
not common objects of the sea-shore ; but there was no need to 
heighten the marvel by lugging in Dionysus. Again, the death of 
Aristodemus, the ancestor of the two royal houses of Sparta, was 
variously narrated. " Those who wish to invest him with a halo of 
glory," writes Pausanias, " say that he was shot by Apollo " ; but 
the truer story was that he had been knocked on the head by the 
children of Pylades. 2 Again, he regards with suspicion the claims 
of men and women to be the husbands and wives, the sons and 
daughters of gods and goddesses. "The Moon, they say, loved 
Endymion, and he had fifty daughters by the goddess. Others, with 
more probability, say that Endymion married a wife." 3 "Cadmus 
made a distinguished marriage if he really married, as the Greeks say 
he did, a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares." 4 Then as to reputed 
sons of gods. "That Corinthus was a son of Zeus has never yet, 
so far as I know, been seriously asserted by anybody except by 
a majority of the Corinthians themselves." 5 Oenomaus was a son 
of Alexion, " though the poets have given out that he was a son 
of Ares." 6 The father of Augeas was Eleus, "though those who 
magnify his history give the name of Eleus a twist, and affirm that 
Augeas was a son of the sun." 7 The crafty Autolycus " was reputed 
to be a son of Hermes, though in truth his father was Daedalion." 8 
The story that Orpheus had the Muse Calliope for his mother is 
stigmatised by our author as a falsehood. 9 Rivers that appeared 
in the character of fathers were also viewed by Pausanias with dis- 
trust. He held that the father of Eteocles was Andreus, not the 
river Cephisus ; 10 and he believed that the father of Plataea was 
not the river Asopus but a king of the same name. 11 Other in- 
stances of his hesitation to accept legends of divine parentage might 
be cited. 12 

But in his criticism of Greek legends Pausanias did not confine His 
himself to the simple test of experience. He did not merely ask application 
whether a story agreed more or less with the laws of nature, and met h ds to 
accept or reject it accordingly. In historical enquiries the applica- Greek 
tion of such a criterion obviously cannot carry the enquirer beyond traditions. 
the first step. Pausanias went much further. He introduced con- 
siderations drawn from general probability, from chronology, from 
the monuments, from a comparison with other traditions, from 
the relative weight to be attached to the authorities by which 
each version of a legend was supported. In fact, far from being 

1 ix. 20. 4 sq. 2 iii. 1. 6. 3 v. I. 4. 4 ix. 5. 2. 



5 ii. 1. 1. 6 v. 1. 6. 7 v. 1. 9. 8 viii. 4. 6. 

9 ix. 30. 4. 10 ix. 34. 9. u ix. 1. 2. 

12 See ii. 29. 9, ii. 34. 5, iii. 1. 2, iii. 18. 6, iv. 2. 2, v. 1. 8, x. 6. I. 



lx INTRODUCTION 



hide-bound in the trammels of tradition, he moved freely among 
the materials at his disposal, accepting this and rejecting that in 
obedience to the dictates of a reasonable and fairly enlightened 
criticism. Thus, he rejects the Sophoclean version of the death of 
Oedipus because it conflicts with the Homeric. 1 He will not allow 
that a bronze image of Athena at Amphissa can have formed part of 
the Trojan spoils, and that a bronze image of Poseidon at Pheneus 
can have been dedicated by Ulysses, because at the time of the 
Trojan war and in the lifetime of Ulysses the art of casting in bronze 
had not yet been invented. 2 He refuses to believe that the grave 
of Dejanira was at Argos, because she was known to have died at 
Trachis and her grave to be not far from Heraclea. 3 Among the 
several places in Greece that set up claims to be the Oechalia of 
Homer, our author decides in favour of Carnasium in Messenia, 
because the bones of Eurytus were there. 4 The tradition that the 
mysteries at Celeae had been founded by a man of Eleusis named 
Dysaules who had been driven into exile after a battle between the 
Eleusinians and Athenians, is rejected by Pausanias on the grounds 
that no such battle took place and that no such person is mentioned 
by Homer. 5 The legend that Daedalus joined Aristaeus in colon- 
ising Sardinia is set aside by him for the reason that Daedalus lived 
several generations after Aristaeus and therefore could not possibly 
have shared with him in a colony or in anything else. 6 Similarly he 
argues on chronological grounds against the traditions that Achilles 
had been a suitor of Helen ; 7 that Timalcus went to Aphidna with 
the Dioscuri ; 8 and that the Telamon and Chalcodon who marched 
with Hercules against Elis were the well-known Telamon of Aegina 
and Chalcodon of Euboea. 9 The Spartan tradition as to the image 
of Brauronian Artemis is preferred by Pausanias to the Athenian, and 
that for a variety of reasons which he sets forth in detail. 10 

Thus Pausanias criticised Greek myths and legends according 
to his lights, and if his lights did not shine very brilliantly the fault 
was not his. 
His taste Of his taste in painting and sculpture we are scarcely able to 

judge, partly because he is chary of his praise, generally confining 
himself to a simple mention or description of the work before him, 
partly because so few of the works described by him have survived 
His taste in to our time. The paintings are all gone. A little blue pigment on 
painting. a ru i ne( } wa \\ a t Delphi is all that remains of those frescoes of 
Polygnotus which excited the admiration of antiquity. That Pau- 
sanias himself admired them is clear, both from the length of 

1 i. 28. 7. 2 viii. 14. 7, x. 38. 5-7. 3 ii. 23. 5. 

4 iv. 2. 2 sq. , iv. 33. 5. 5 {J I4 2 sq _ 

6 x. 17. 4. The generations between Cadmus and Daedalus are represented by 
Polydorus, Labdacus, and Laius (ix. 5. 3-10). 

7 iii. 24. 10 sq. 8 i. 41. 4 sq. 9 viii. 15. 6 sq. 10 iii. 16. 7-10. 



INTRODUCTION lxi 



his description and from the words with which he brings it to a 
close : " So varied and beautiful is the painting of the Thasian 
artist." x Elsewhere he seems to have lost no opportunity of de- 
scribing extant pictures of Polygnotus, though he does not always 
mention his name. 2 A painting of Drunkenness by Pausias appar- 
ently struck Pausanias especially, for he tells us that " in the picture 
you can see the crystal goblet and the woman's face through it." 3 
But the only pictures, besides those of Polygnotus at Delphi, on 
which he deigns to bestow a dry word of commendation are a couple 
of paintings on tombstones, 4 one of them by Nicias, as to whom 
Pausanias tells us elsewhere that he had been the greatest painter 
of animals of his time. 5 

In sculpture the taste of Pausanias was apparently austere. He His taste in 
decidedly preferred the earlier to the later art. Of the archaic scul P ture - 
works attributed to Daedalus he says that they " are somewhat 
uncouth to the eye, but there is a touch of the divine in them for all 
that." 6 He praises Bupalus, an artist of the sixth century B.C., as 
"a clever architect and sculptor." 7 But on the whole it was for the 
sculptors of the fifth century B.C. that he chiefly reserved his scanty p r e- 
praise, and amongst them he seemingly preferred the masters of decessors 
the older manner who immediately preceded Phidias. Thus, with 
regard to Pythagoras of Rhegium, who flourished about 480 B.C., he 
says that he was "a good sculptor, if ever there was one," s and in 
speaking of the boxer Euthymus he remarks that " his statue is by 
Pythagoras, and most well worth seeing it is." 9 Of Onatas, who 
was at work about 467 B.C., he expresses a high opinion : "I am 
inclined to regard Onatas, though he belongs to the Aeginetan 
school of sculpture, as second to none of the successors of Daedalus 
and the Attic school." 10 This criticism indicates that Pausanias 
preferred in general the Attic school of sculpture to the Aeginetan, 
though he considered one master of the latter school as the peer of 
the greatest Attic sculptors. At Pergamus there was a bronze image 
of Apollo by this same Onatas which Pausanias describes as "one of 
the greatest marvels both for size and workmanship." u It is a proof 
of the independence of Pausanias's judgment in art that this early 
sculptor, whom he ranked with Phidias and Praxiteles, is not even 
mentioned by any other ancient writer except in a single epigram of 
the Anthology. 12 Another old master of the fifth century whose 
statues Pausanias often notices is Calamis ; 13 on one of them he 

1 x. 31. 12. 

2 i. 15, i. 18. 1, i. 22. 6, ix. 4. 2. The paintings in the Theseum at Athens, 
which Pausanias describes (i. 17. 2), were by some attributed to Polygnotus. See 
vol. 2. p. 156. 

3 ii. 27. 3. 4 ii. 7. 3, vii. 22. 6 sq. 5 i. 29. 15. 
6 ii. 4. 5. 7 iv. 30. 6. 8 vi. 4. 4. 9 iv. 6. 6. 

10 v. 25. 13. u viii. 42. 7. 

12 Anthologia Palatina, ix. 238. 13 See Index, s.v. "Calamis." 



lxii 



INTRODUCTION 



bestows a word of commendation. 1 A statue by this artist was 
much admired by Lucian. 2 The great sculptor Myron, a con- 
temporary of Phidias, seems also to have found favour in the eyes 
of Pausanias, for he mentions that the image of Dionysus on Mount 
Helicon was the finest of all the artist's works, next to the statue 
Phidias. of Erechtheus at Athens. 3 That Pausanias appreciated the great- 
ness of Phidias is clear from the way in which he speaks of him 4 
and from the detail in which he describes the sculptor's two most 
famous works, the image of the Virgin Athena at Athens 5 and the 
image of Zeus at Olympia. 6 Of the latter he observes that the mere 
measurements of the image could convey no idea of the impression 
which the image itself made on the beholder. 7 Yet he did not 
consider it the sculptor's masterpiece, for as to the image of the 
Lemnian Athena at Athens he remarks that it is " the best worth 
seeing of all the works of Phidias." 8 The preference thus given to 
this comparatively obscure statue over the image of Zeus which the 
ancient world agreed in extolling as little less than divine is another 
proof of the independence of Pausanias's judgment in artistic 
matters ; and that his taste here was good is attested by the very 
high place which his contemporary Lucian, one of the best critics 
of antiquity, assigns to the same statue. 9 Of Alcamenes our 
author observes that as a sculptor he was second only to his 
contemporary Phidias, 10 and with regard to the statue of Aphrodite 
in the Gardens by this artist he says that " few things at Athens 
are so well worth seeing as this." n Here, again, our author's 
judgment is confirmed by that of Lucian, who describes this 
image as the most beautiful work of Alcamenes, and draws from it 
not a few traits for his imaginary statue of ideal beauty which was 
to combine all the most perfect features of the most celebrated 
statues. 12 Another sculptor whose style seems to have pleased 
Pausanias was Naucydes, a brother of the famous Polyclitus, who 
worked at the end of the fifth or at the beginning of the fourth 
century b.c. 13 A bronze image of Athena by Hypatodorus at 
Aliphera is declared by Pausanias to be worth seeing both for its 
size and its workmanship ; u but the date of this sculptor is some- 
what uncertain. 15 Strongylion, whom Pausanias describes as un- 
rivalled in his representations of oxen and horses, 16 seems to have 
flourished toward the end of the fifth century B.C. Among the 
sculptors of the following century Pausanias praises Cephisodotus 
century b.c. for the conception of his statue representing the infant Wealth in 



1 IX. 20. 4. 

2 Imagines, 6. 

3 ix. 30. 1. 
7 v. 11. 9. 

11 i. 19. 2. 

15 See note on x. 10. 4. 



See H. Bliimner, Archaologische Studien su Lucian, p. 7 sqq. 



4 v. 10. 8, vi. 4. 5. 
8 i. 28. 2. 
12 Imagines, 4 and 6 



24- 5-7- 



9 Imagines, 4 and 6. 



13 

16 



vi. 9. 3. 
ix. 30. 1. 



10 

H 



V. II. 1-9. 
v. 10. 8. 
viii. 26. 7. 



INTRODUCTION lxiii 



the arms of Peace, and the sculptors Xenophon and Callistratus 
for a similar allegorical work representing Wealth in the arms of 
Fortune. 1 Further, he commends some of the sculptures of Damo- 
phon at Messene, 2 and he has a few words of approbation for several 
works of Praxiteles, 3 but not one for any work of the other two 
great masters of the fourth century, Scopas 4 and Lysippus, though 
he mentions many statues by them. A critic of a taste so severe 
that he could pass by the works of Scopas and the Hermes of 
Praxiteles without uttering a syllable of admiration was not likely to 
take much pleasure in the productions of the decadence. Pausanias 
notices few and praises none of the successors of Praxiteles. Of 
the colossal image of Olympian Zeus at Athens, which must have 
been executed in his own lifetime, he says condescendingly that it 
was good for its size. 5 

It may be noted as significant of Pausanias's interest in the older 
sculpture, that the only artists with whose styles he shows himself 
so familiar as to recognise them at sight are Calamis, Canachus, 
Endoeus, and Laphaes, 6 of whom Calamis and Canachus flourished 
in the early part of the fifth century B.C., and Endoeus in the last 
part of the sixth century B.C. The date of Laphaes is unknown, 
but as the two images by this artist were both made of wood and 
are expressly declared by Pausanias to be ancient, 7 we can hardly 
suppose that the sculptor flourished later than the sixth century B.C. 

Of Pausanias's taste in architecture we are much better able to His taste 
judge, for many of the buildings described by him exist, and by m archl - 
a most fortunate coincidence amongst them are some of which he 
expressed his admiration in unusually strong language. To begin Walls of 
with the relics of the prehistoric age, the walls of Tiryns and the ru 7 ns - 
beehive tomb of Orchomenus, which he calls the Treasury of Minyas, 
raised his wonder to such a pitch that he compares them to the 
Egyptian pyramids and animadverts on the perversity of the Greeks, 
who admired and described only the marvels they saw abroad, while 
they entirely neglected the marvels no less great which they had at 
home. 8 The walls of Tiryns he describes with amazement as " made 
of unwrought stones, each stone so large that a pair of mules could 
not even stir the smallest of them." 9 No modern reader who has 

1 ix. 16. 2. Compare i. 8. 2. 

2 iv. 31. 6, 7, 10. The date of Damophon is uncertain, but on the whole the 
evidence seems to point to his having been at work in the first half of the fourth 
century B.C. See vol. 4. p. 378^., vol. 5. p. 625. Pausanias's appreciation of Damo- 
phon is one more proof of the independence of his judgment in matters of art ; for 
Damophon is mentioned by no other writer of antiquity. 

3 i. 20. 1, ix. 2. 7, ix. 39. 4. 

4 However, he admired Scopas as an architect if not as a sculptor (viii. 45. 5). 
The same may be said of Polyclitus (ii. 27. 5), though the building which Pausanias 
admired turns out to be by the younger and less distinguished artist of that name. 

5 i. 18. 6. 6 v. 25. 5, vii. 5. 9, vii. 26. 6, ix. 10. 2. 
7 ii. 10. i, vii. 26. 6. 8 ix. 36. 5. 9 ii. 25. 8. 



lxiv 



INTRODUCTION 



Beehive 
tomb at 
Orcho- 
menus. 



The 
Propylaea. 



Theatre at 
Epidaurus. 



Temples at 
Bassae and 
Tegea. 



seen the walls of Tiryns as they still stand, built of enormous stones 
and resembling a work of giants rather than of men, will be likely 
to regard Pausanias's admiration of them as misplaced, whatever 
may be thought of the comparison of them to the pyramids. 
Amongst the prehistoric remains of Greece they are certainly un- 
matched. The walls of Mycenae and of the great prehistoric fortress 
of Gla or Goulas in Boeotia surpass them, indeed, in extent, but 
fall far short of them in the size of the blocks of which they are 
composed. As to the beehive tomb at Orchomenus, of which 
Pausanias says that there was no greater marvel either in Greece 
or elsewhere, 1 it is now sadly ruinous, but we can judge of its 
original effect by the great beehive tomb at Mycenae known as the 
Treasury of Atreus, which agrees with the tomb at Orchomenus very 
closely in dimensions and exists almost intact. To stand within 
the great circular chamber and look up at the domed roof, with its 
rings of regularly hewn stones diminishing one above the other till 
they are lost in the darkness overhead is an impressive experience. 
Those who have enjoyed it will be disposed to think that Pausanias 
was right in regarding the similar edifice at Orchomenus as a very 
wonderful structure. 

To come down to buildings of the historical age, Pausanias 
admired the Propylaea or grand portal of the Acropolis at Athens, 
which " for the beauty and size of the blocks," he says, " has never 
yet been matched." 2 It is probably not too much to say that even 
in its ruins this magnificent portal is still the highest triumph of the 
mason's craft. The exquisite fitting of the massive cleanly-cut blocks 
of white marble is a pleasure to behold. Again, the sight of the 
theatre in the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Epidaurus moves the sober 
Pausanias to an extraordinary, almost unparalleled burst of admira- 
tion. " In the Epidaurian sanctuary," he says, " there is a theatre 
which in my opinion is most especially worth seeing. It is true 
that in size the theatre at Megalopolis in Arcadia surpasses it, and 
that in splendour the Roman theatres far transcend all the theatres 
in the world ; but for symmetry and beauty what architect could vie 
with Polyclitus ? For it was Polyclitus who made this theatre." 3 
Here again modern taste confirms the judgment of Pausanias. 
Neither the Dionysiac theatre at Athens, nor the great theatre at 
Megalopolis, nor the well-preserved theatre at Delphi, nor any other 
existing Greek theatre, so far at least as my experience goes, can 
vie for a moment in beauty and symmetry with the exquisite theatre 
at Epidaurus. 

Again, in regard to the temple of Apollo at Bassae our author 
says that " of all the temples in Peloponnese, next to the one at 
Tegea, this may be placed first for the beauty of the stone and the 



1 ix. 38. 2. 



1. 22. 4. 



11. 27. 5. 



INTRODUCTION lxv 



symmetry of its proportions," x and as to the temple of Athena 
Alea at Tegea, to which he here refers, he says elsewhere, " The 
present temple far surpasses all other temples in Peloponnese both 
in size and style." 2 So far as the size of the temple at Tegea goes, 
Pausanias is wrong. The temple of Zeus at Olympia was nearly 
twice as large. But in regard to style modern taste merely echoes 
the opinion of Pausanias. The scanty remains of the temple at 
Tegea are now mostly buried underground, but the admirable 
design and workmanship of the architectural fragments, and the 
beauty of the shattered sculptures, justify the praise which Pausanias 
bestows on it as the finest temple in Peloponnese in respect of 
artistic style. No person of taste but will set the pathetic force and 
beauty of the two battered heads from this temple above all the 
coarse vigour of the Phigalian frieze and the ungraceful, almost 
repulsive hardness of the groups from the gables of the Olympian 
temple. And that in architectural style the temple at Bassae came 
next to the one at Tegea is an opinion that will hardly be disputed 
by any one who has seen the beautiful temple at Bassae with its 
long rows of grey columns standing solitary among the barren 
mountains. That Pausanias was right in preferring it to the temple 
of Zeus at Olympia both for the beauty of the stone and the 
symmetry of its proportions is hardly open to question. The temple 
of Zeus must have been imposing from its size, but its proportions, 
so far as we can judge from the ruins, do not strike an observer as 
especially harmonious ; and as to the materials, the rough conglo- 
merate of Olympia cannot be compared for beauty with the fine hard 
limestone of Bassae. 

Further, Pausanias describes the walls of Messene with their Walls of 
towers and battlements, and declares them to be stronger than the Messene - 
finest fortifications he had seen elsewhere. 3 The remains of these 
superb fortifications bear him out. For the scale on which they are 
planned and for the solidity and perfection of the masonry they are 
without a rival in Greece. In other places, as at Asea in Arcadia, 
at Aegosthena in Megaris, and at Lilaea and Drymaea in Phocis, 
circuits of walls with their flanking towers exist in better preserva- 
tion, but none of them can vie in style and splendour with the 
fortifications of Messene. Here again we must pronounce unhesi- 
tatingly that so far as our knowledge goes Pausanias was in the right. 

To come down to buildings of a later age, Pausanias tells us Music Hails 
that the Music Hall at Patrae was the grandest in Greece except at Athens 
the one built by Herodes Atticus at Athens, which excelled it both anc 
in size and style. 4 Here we are in the fortunate position of being 
able to compare for ourselves the two buildings which Pausanias 
ranks together as the finest of their kind in Greece, for both of 

1 viii. 41. S. 2 viii. 45. 5. 3 iv. 31. 5. 4 vii. 20. 6. 

VOL. I e 



\ 



lxvi 



INTRODUCTION 



Stadium 
at Athens. 



them exist in comparatively good preservation to the present day. 
That the Music Hall of Herodes Atticus excels in size the one at 
Patrae, as Pausanias says it did, is obvious at a glance. The former 
is in fact a spacious theatre, the latter is a tiny one. But both, 
as appears from the remains, were originally cased with marble and 
probably presented a splendid appearance. The lions' paws of 
white marble which adorn the seats in the Music Hall at Patrae, 
together with the mosaic pavement of black and white in the adjoin- 
ing chamber, enable us to form some slight idea of the elegance of 
those appointments which excited the admiration of Pausanias. 

Lastly, our author observes that the stadium at Athens, built of 
white marble by Herodes Atticus, was " wonderful to see, though 
not so impressive to hear of," and that the greater part of the 
Pentelic quarries had been exhausted in its construction. 1 The 
latter statement is, of course, an exaggeration. Mount Pentelicus 
is made of white marble, and there is a good deal of it left to this 
day, though the great white blotches on its sides, visible even from 
the coast of Epidaurus, tell plainly where the quarrymen have been 
at work. But we may easily believe Pausanias that the stadium 
was a wonderful sight when tiers of white marble benches, glistening 
in the strong sunshine, rose steeply above each other all along both 
sides of the valley. For a valley it is still, and a valley lined with 
white marble it must have been in the days of Pausanias. Those 
who have seen the stadium since it was partially refitted with 
white marble benches for the games of 1896 can better picture to 
themselves what its aspect must have been when the benches were 
complete. Before the time of Herodes Atticus the spectators may 
have sat either on the earthen slopes, as at Olympia, or on benches 
of common stone, as at Epidaurus and Delphi. 

On the whole, then, so far as we can judge from the existing 
monuments and the testimony of ancient writers, especially of 
Lucian, the artistic taste of Pausanias was sound and good, if some- 
what austere. 

The manner in which he has described the monuments is 

evidence of pj am an( j appropriate, entirely free from those vague rhetorical 

truthful- flourishes, literary graces, and affected prettinesses with which, for 

ness. example, Philostratus tricks out his descriptions of pictures, and 

which have consequently left it a matter of dispute to this day 

whether the pictures he describes existed anywhere but in his own 

imagination. No one is ever likely seriously to enquire whether 

the temples and theatres, the statues and paintings described by 

Pausanias ever existed or not. His descriptions carry the imprint 

of reality on them to every mind that is capable of distinguishing 

between the true and the false ; and even if they did not, their 



Intrinsic 



1 i. 19. 6. 



I 



INTRODUCTION lxvii 



truthfulness would still be vouched for by their conformity with 
the remains of the monuments themselves. Evidence of this 
conformity will be found in abundance in the commentary. Here 
we are concerned with that internal evidence of the author's honesty 
and candour which the writings themselves supply. Evidence of 
this sort can never, indeed, amount to demonstration. Candour and 
honesty are not qualities that can be brought to the test of the 
senses ; they cannot be weighed in a balance or seen under a 
microscope. A man who is neither candid nor honest himself will 
probably never sincerely believe in the existence of these qualities in 
others, and there is no means of convincing him. It is always open 
to him to find a sinister motive for the simplest act, a covert mean- 
ing under the plainest words. In the case of Pausanias the internal 
evidence of good faith seems amply sufficient to convince a fair- 
minded enquirer. It consists in the whole cast and tenour of his 
writings ; in the naturalness and credibility of all that he affirms of 
his own knowledge, with the exception of two or three cases in 
which he seems to have been duped by mercenary or priestly 
trickery ; it consists in the plainness and directness of the descrip- 
tions ; in their freedom from any tinge of rhetoric or sophistry ; in 
the modesty with which the author generally keeps himself in the 
background ; and finally in occasional confessions of ignorance 
which only malignity could interpret as artifices resorted to for the 
purpose of supporting an assumed air of ingenuous simplicity. This 
last feature of the work it is desirable to illustrate by instances. 
The others, pervading as they do the whole book, hardly admit of 
exemplification. 

Repeatedly, then, Pausanias owns that he had not been present His con- 
at certain festivals, and consequently had not seen certain images fessions of 
which were only exhibited on these occasions. Thus with regard 
to the very curious image of Eurynome, which would have especially 
interested him as an antiquary, he tells us that the sanctuary in 
which it stood was opened only on one day in the year, and that 
as he did not happen to arrive on that day he had not seen the 
image, and therefore could only describe it from hearsay. 1 Similarly 
he says that he cannot describe the image of Artemis at Hyampolis 
because it was the custom to open the sanctuary only twice a year. 2 
He tells at second hand of a festival of Dionysus at Elis in which 
empty kettles were said to be found miraculously filled with wine ; 
but he informs us that he was not himself at Elis at the time of the 
festival, and from expressions which he uses in regard to the marvel we 
may infer that he had his doubts about it. 3 No one presumably will 
dispute these statements of Pausanias and maintain that he arrived 
in time for those festivals and saw those images although he assures 

1 viii. 41. S sq. 2 x. 35. 7. 3 vi. 26. 1 sq. 






lxviii INTRODUCTION 



us that he did not. We are bound, therefore, in fairness to believe 
him when he tells us with regard to the sanctuary of Mother 
Dindymene at Thebes that "it is the custom to open the sanctuary 
on a single day each year, not more. I was fortunate enough to 
arrive on that very day, and I saw the image." l As other instances 
of his candour may be cited his acknowledgment that he had not 
witnessed the ceremonies performed at the tombs of Eteocles and 
Polynices at Thebes, 2 nor beheld the secret object revered in the 
worship of Demeter at Hermion ; 3 that he could describe the sanctu- 
ary of Poseidon at Mantinea only from hearsay ; i that he had neither 
seen the walls of Babylon and Susa nor conversed with any one who 
had ; 5 that he never saw Antinous in life, though he had seen statues 
and paintings of him ; 6 and that he had not heard the trout sing like 
thrushes in the river Aroanius, though he tarried by the river until sun- 
set, when they were said to sing loudest. 7 These are the confessions 
of an honest man, inclined perhaps to credulity, but yet who will not 
deceive others by professing to have seen sights, whether marvellous 
or otherwise, which he has not seen. Again, when he quotes a 
book at second hand he is careful to tell us so. Thus, after citing 
some lines from the Atthis of Hegesinus, he goes on : " This poem 
of Hegesinus I have not read : it was lost before my time ; but the 
verses are quoted as evidence by Callippus of Corinth in his history 
of Orchomenus, and I have profited by his information to do the 
same." 8 Again, after quoting a couple of verses of an Orcho- 
menian poet Chersias, he adds : " The poetry of Chersias is now 
lost, but these verses also are quoted by Callippus in the same 
work of his on Orchomenus." 9 These statements, like the fore- 
going, will hardly be disputed even by the most sceptical. No one 
will be likely to insist that Pausanias read books which he tells us 
he did not. Therefore in fairness we are bound to believe him 
when he says that he did read certain other works, such as the 
memoirs of some obscure historians, 10 a treatise on rhetoric purport- 
ing to be by Pittheus, 11 the epics Eoeae and Naupactia, 12 a poem 
attributed to Linus, 13 verses of Erato, 14 a poem on soothsay- 
ing which passed under the name of Hesiod, 15 and the oracles of 
Euclus, Musaeus, and Bacis. 16 If we take the word of Pausanias 
for what he tells us he did not see and did not read, we must 
take it also for what he tells us he did see and did read. At 
least if we are to accept as true all those statements of an 
author which tell against himself and to reject as false all those 
which tell in his favour, there is an end of even the pretence of fair 
and rational criticism. 



1 ix. 25. 3. 


2 ix. 18. 3. 




3 35- 8. 


4 viii. 10. 


5 iv. 31. 5- 
9 ix. 38. 10. 


6 viii. 9. 7. 
10 i. 12. 2. 




7 viii. 21. 2. 
11 ii- 3 1 - 3- 


8 ix. 29. 2 
12 iv. 2. 1. 


13 viii. 18. 1. 


14 viii. 37. 


12. 


15 ix. 31. 5. 


16 x. 12. II 



INTRODUCTION Ixix 



The literary style of Pausanias is no exception to the rule that Literary 
the style of a writer reflects the character of the man. Pausanias st y le of 
was neither a great man nor a great writer. He was an honest, ausamas 
laborious, plodding man of plain good sense, without either genius 
or imagination, and his style is a faithful mirror of his character. It 
is plain and unadorned, yet heavy and laboured, as if the writer had 
had to cast about for the proper words and then fit them painfully 
together like the pieces in a Chinese puzzle. There is a sense of 
strain and effort about it. The sentences are devoid of rhythm and 
harmony. They do not march, but hobble and shamble and shuffle 
along. At the end of one of them the reader is not let down easily 
by a graceful cadence, a dying fall ; he is tripped up suddenly and 
left sprawling, till he can pull himself together, take breath, and 
grapple with the next. It is a loose, clumsy, ill -jointed, ill-com- 
pacted, rickety, ramshackle style, without ease or grace or elegance 
of any sort. Yet Pausanias had studied good models. He knew 
Thucydides and his writings abound with echoes of Herodotus. 
But a style that has less of the unruffled flow, the limpid clearness, 
the exquisite grace, the sweet simplicity of the Herodotean prose it 
might be hard to discover. The sound of the one is like the chiming 
of a silver bell ; that of the other like the creaking of a corn-crake. 
With all its defects, however, the style of Pausanias is not careless 
and slovenly. The author bestrides his high-horse ; he bobs up and 
down and clumps about on it with great solemnity ; it is not his fault 
if his Pegasus is a wooden hobby-horse instead of a winged charger. 

This union of seemingly opposite faults, this plainness without He perhaps 
simplicity, this elaboration without richness, may perhaps be best odelled 
explained by Boeckh's hypothesis, 1 that he modelled his style on that* of 6 
that of his countryman Hegesias of Magnesia, a leader of the Asiatic Hegesias. 
school of rhetoric, who, aping the unadorned simplicity of Lysias's 
manner, fell into an abrupt and jerky, yet affected and mincing 
style, laboriously chopping and dislocating his sentences so that they 
never ran smooth, never by any chance slid into a rounded period 
with an easy cadence. 2 Dionysius of Halicarnassus declares peevishly 
that in all the voluminous works of Hegesias there was not a single 
well-written page, and that the man must have gone wrong not from 
stupidity but of set purpose and malice prepense, otherwise he could 
not have helped writing a good sentence now and then by accident. 3 
Frigid conceits and a puerile play upon words were mistaken by this 
perverse writer for literary beauties, and in the effort to stud his 

1 " De Pausaniae stilo Asiano," Gesammelte kleine Schriften, 4. pp. 208-212. 

2 See Cicero, Orator, lxvii. 226 ; id., Brutus, lxxxiii. 286 sq. ; id.. Ad Atticum, 
xii. 6. 1 ; Strabo, ix. p. 396, xiv. p. 648 ; Dionysius Halicarnassensis, De composi- 
tion verborum, 4 and 18, pp. 27 sq. , 122 sqq. ed. Reiske ; Theo, in Rhetores Graeci, 
ed. Walz, 1. p. 168 sq. 

3 De compositione verborum, 18, vol. 5. p. 122 sq. ed. Reiske. 



lxx INTRODUCTION 



pages with these false jewels he sacrificed both pathos and truth. 1 
In this respect, indeed, Pausanias happily did not follow the bad 
example of his predecessor. His writings are entirely free from 
paltry conceits and verbal quibbles. The thought is always manly 
and direct, however tortuous may be the sentence in which he seeks 
to express it. If he imitated Hegesias, it was apparently in the 
arrangement of the words and sentences alone. 

Whatever may be thought of this theory, the attention which 
Pausanias obviously bestowed on literary style is in itself wholly 
laudable. Such attention is a simple duty which every author owes 
to his readers. Pausanias cannot be blamed for trying to write well ; 
the pity is that with all his pains he did not write better. He was 
anxious not to be needlessly tedious, not to inflict on the reader 
mere bald lists of monuments strung together on a topographical 
thread. He aimed at varying the phraseology, at shunning the eternal 
repetition of the same words in the same order. Yet he steered 
clear of one shoal only to run aground on another. If to some 
extent he avoided monotony and attained variety of expression, it 
was too often at the cost of simplicity and clearness. The natural 
order of the words was sacrificed and a crabbed contorted one 
substituted for it merely in order to vary the run of the sentences. 
For the same reason a direct statement was often discarded in favour 
of an indirect one, with the result that a reader who happens to be 
unfamiliar with the author's manner is sometimes at a loss as to his 
meaning. For example, it has been questioned whether he means 
that there was a statue of Aeschylus in the theatre at Athens 2 and 
one of Oenobius on the Acropolis. 3 Yet any person conversant with 
his style must feel sure that in both these cases Pausanias intends 
to intimate the existence of the statue, and that if he does not affirm 
it in so many words this is due to no other cause than a wish to turn 
the sentence in another way. Similar instances could easily be multi- 
plied. The ambiguity which so often arises from this indirect mode 
of statement is one of the many blots on the style of Pausanias. Such 
as it is, his style is seen at its best in some of the longer historical 
passages, notably in the spirited narratives of the Messenian wars 
and the Gallic invasion. Here he occasionally rises to a fair level 
of literary merit, as for example in describing the evil omens that 
preceded and hastened the death of the patriot king Aristodemus, 4 
and again in relating the impious attack of the Gauls on Delphi 
and their overwhelming repulse. 5 Through the latter narrative 

1 This appears from the criticism of Hegesias in the treatise De sublimitate, 
p. 12 sq. ed. O. Jahn, and still more from the remarks of Agatharchides and the 
samples of Hegesias's works which he has given us (Photius, Bibliotheca, p. 446 sq. 
ed. Bekker). Cicero says that the matter of these works was as bad as the manner, 
and that whoever knew Hegesias knew an ass {Orator, lxvii. 226). 

2 i. 21. 2. 3 i. 23. 9. 4 iv. 13. 1-3. 5 x. 23. 1-13. 



INTRODUCTION lxxi 



there runs, like a strain of solemn music, an undertone of religious 
faith and fervour which greatly heightens the effect. 

In these and similar historical episodes we must allow some- Pausanias's 
thing for the influence on Pausanias's style of the literary authori- use ? f 

o . previous 

ties whom he followed. The warmer tinge of the descriptions, writers, 
the easier flow of the sentences may not be wholly due to the 
ardour of the writer's piety, to the swell of his patriotic feelings. 
Something of the movement, the glow, the solemn strain, the martial 
fire may have been caught by him from better models. This brings 
us to the enquiry, What books did Pausanias use in writing his own ? 
and how did he use them ? Unfortunately we are not and probably 
never shall be in a position to answer these questions fully. Like 
most ancient writers Pausanias is sparing in the citation of his 
authorities, and it is clear that he must have consulted books of 
which he makes no mention. And when to this we add that the 
works of most of the writers whom he does cite have perished or 
survive only in a few disjointed fragments, it becomes clear that any 
hope of acquiring a complete knowledge of his literary sources 
and mode of using them must be abandoned. Many attempts 
have been made of late years to identify the lost books consulted 
by Pausanias ; but from the nature of the case it is plain that such 
attempts must be fruitless. One of them will be noticed presently. 
Meantime all that I propose . to do is to indicate some of the 
chief literary and documentary sources which Pausanias expressly 
cites and to illustrate by examples his method of dealing with 
them. 

Before doing so it is desirable to point out explicitly a distinction Distinction 
which, though obvious in itself, has apparently been overlooked or bet ween 
slurred over by some of Pausanias's critics. The matter of his work cal and 
is of two sorts, historical and descriptive : the one deals with events descriptive 
in the past, the other with things existing in the present. For his P arts of , 
knowledge of past events, except in so far as they fell within his work> 
own lifetime and observation, Pausanias was necessarily dependent 
either on written documents or on oral testimony, in short on the 
evidence of others ; no other source of information was open to 
him. For his knowledge of things existing in the present, on the 
other hand, he need not have been indebted to the evidence of 
others, he may have seen them for himself. It does not, of course, 
follow that what he may have seen he did actually see. His descrip- 
tions of places and things, like his narratives of events that happened 
before his time, may all have been taken from books or from the 
mouths of other people ; only it is not, as in the case of the historical 
narratives, absolutely necessary that they should be so derived. This 
distinction is so elementary and obvious that to call attention to 
it may be deemed superfluous. Yet some of the critics appear to 
labour under an impression that if they can show the historical parts 



lxxii INTRODUCTION 



of Pausanias's work to have been taken from books they have raised 
a presumption that the descriptive or topographical parts were also 
so taken. They do not, indeed, put so crass a misapprehension 
into words, but they seem to be influenced by it. To brush away 
these mental cobwebs it is only needful to realise clearly that, though 
Pausanias certainly could not have witnessed events which happened 
before he was born, he was not therefore necessarily debarred from 
seeing things which existed in his own lifetime. In investigating 
the sources of his information it is desirable to keep the historical 
and the descriptive parts of his work quite distinct from each other 
and to enquire into each of them separately. 
Poets To begin with the historical, in the widest sense of the word, we 

Pausanias. ^ n( ^ ^at Pausanias drew his accounts of the mythical and heroic 
ages in large measure from the poets. Homer is his chief poetical 
authority, but he also makes use of the later epics such as the 
Cypria, 1 the Eoeae? the Little Iliad? the Minyad* the Naupactia? 
the Oedipodiaf the Returns (IVostoi), 7 the Sack of Ilium by Lesches, 8 
the Thebaid? and the T/iesprotis. 10 Of these the Thebaid was 
esteemed by him next to the Iliad and Odyssey. 11 On ques- 
tions of genealogy he often cites the early poets Asius 12 and 
Cinaethon. 13 Among the works attributed to Hesiod he frequently 
refers to the Theogony li and the Catalogue of Women 1 ' and he 
once quotes the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. 16 That he 
knew the Alexandrian poet Euphorion of Chalcis is shown by two 
references to his writings. 17 The most ancient Greek hymns in his 
opinion were those of Olen ; 1S he cites several of them. 19 Again, 
the testimony of Pamphos, author of the oldest Athenian hymns, 
is often appealed to by Pausanias. 20 Among the lyric poets 
whose works he knew, such as Alcaeus, 21 Alcman, 22 Archilochus, 23 
Pindar, 24 Sappho, 25 and Stesichorus, 26 he appears to have ranked 
Pindar first ; at least he refers to his poems far oftener than to those 

1 iii. 16. i, iv. 2. 7, x. 26. 1, 4, x. 31. 2. 

2 ii. 2. 3, ii. 16. 4, iv. 2. i, vi. 21. 10, ix. 36. 7, ix. 40. 5 sq., x. 31. 3. 

3 iii. 26. 9, x. 26. 2. 4 iv. 33. 7, ix. 5. 9, x. 28. 2, 7, x. 31. 3. 
5 ii. 3. 9, iv. 2. 1, x. 38. 11. 6 ix. 5. 11. 

7 x. 28. 7, x. 29. 6, x. 30. 5. 8 x. 25. 5. 
9 viii. 25. 8, ix. 9. 5, ix. 18. 6. 

10 viii. 12. 5. u ix. 9. 5. 

12 ii. 6. 4, 5, ii. 29. 4, iv. 2. 1, v. 17. 8, vii. 4. 1, viii. 1. 4, ix. 23. 6. 

13 ii. 3. 9, ii. 18. 6, iv. 2. 1, viii. 53. 5. 

14 viii. 18. i, ix. 27. 2, ix. 31. 5, ix. 35. 5. 15 i. 3. 1, i. 43. 1, iii. 24. 10. 
16 ii. 12. 6. 17 ii. 22. 7, x. 26. 8. 

18 ix. 27. 2. 19 i. 18. 5, ii. 13. 3, v. 7. 8, viii. 21. 3, ix. 27. 2. 

20 i. 38. 3, i. 39. 1, vii. 21. 9, viii. 35. 8, viii. 37. 9, ix. 27. 2, ix. 29. 8, ix. 31. 9, 
ix. 35. 4. 21 vii. 20. 4, x. 8. 10. 

82 i. 41. 4, iii. 15. 2, iii. 18. 6, iii. 26. 2. 2S vii. 10. 6, x. 31. 12. 

24 See Index, s.v. " Pindar." 

8 i. 25. 1, i. 29. 2, viii. 18. 5, ix. 27. 3, ix. 29. s 



26 



ii. 22. 7, iii. 19. 13, viii. 3. 2, ix. 2. 3, ix. 11. 2, x. 26. 1, x. 27. 2. 



INTRODUCTION lxxiii 



of the others. Among the elegiac poets he quotes Tyrtaeus x and 
Simonides. 2 With the great tragic and comic poets he shows but 
little acquaintance ; Aeschylus is the only one whose authority he 
appeals to repeatedly. 3 He refers once to the testimony of 
Sophocles, 4 but only to reject it ; once to that of Aristophanes ; 5 
never to that of Euripides. On the other hand, he seems to have 
devoted a good deal of attention to the critical study of the older 
poets. He had investigated the dates of Homer and Hesiod and 
the question of Homer's native country. 7 Nor did he neglect to 
enquire into the genuineness of many poems that passed under 
famous names. He tells admiringly how a contemporary of his 
own, Arrhiphon of Triconium, detected the spuriousness of certain 
verses attributed to an old Argive poet Philammon by pointing out 
that the verses were in the Doric dialect which had not yet been intro- 
duced into Argolis in Philammon's time. 8 Among the works ascribed 
to Musaeus he held that nothing was genuine except the hymn to 
Demeter composed for the Lycomids ; some of the verses which 
passed under the name of Musaeus he set down as forgeries of 
Onomacritus. 9 The hymns of Orpheus were ranked by him next to 
those of Homer for poetical beauty, 10 but he saw that some of the 
verses attributed to Orpheus were spurious. 11 He had grave doubts 
as to the Theogony being a genuine work of Hesiod ; 12 and he 
informs us that the reading of a poem fathered on Linus sufficed 
to convince him of its spuriousness. 13 Of the works which circu- 
lated under the name of the early Corinthian poet Eumelus one 
only, he tells us, was held to be genuine. 14 He could not believe 
that Anaximenes had written a certain epic on Alexander the 
Great. 15 As to the epic called the Thebaid, which he admired, he 
reports the view of Callinus that the author was Homer, adding that 
" many respectable persons have shared his opinion." 16 

The historian whom Pausanias seems to have studied most care- Historians 
fully and whom he cites most frequently is Herodotus. 17 Though he used bv . 
only once refers to the history of Thucydides 18 and once to that of 
Xenophon 19 it is probable that he used both authors in several 
passages where he does not mention their names. 20 Other historians 

1 iv. 6. 5, iv. 13. 6, iv. 14. 5, iv. 15. 2. 2 iii. 8. 2, ix. 2. 5, x. 27. 4. 

3 See Index, s.v. "Aeschylus." 4 i. 28. 7 5 v. 5. 3. 

6 | x - 30- 3- 7 x. 24. 3. 8 ii. 37. 3. 

9 i. 22. 7. Compare i. 14. 3. 10 ix. 30. 12. u i. 14. 3. 

12 viii. 18. 1, i.-. 27. 2, ix. 31. 4, ix. 35. 5. 13 viii. 18. 1. 

14 iv. 4. 1. Compare ii. 1. 1. 15 vi. 18. 6. 16 ix. 9. 5. 

17 See Index, s.v. " Herodotus." The use made of Herodotus by Pausanias has 
been examined by J. O. Pfundtner (Pausanias Pcriegeta imitator Herodoti, Konigs- 
berg, 1866) and C. Wernicke (De Pausaniae Periegetae studiis Herodoteis, Berlin, 
1884), the former dealing chiefly with the language, the latter with the substance. 
* 8 vi. 19. 5. 19 i. 3. 4. 

20 See O. Fischbach, ' Die Benutzung des thukydideischen Geschichtswerkes durch 
den Periegeten Pausanias,' Wiener Studien, 15 (1893), pp. 161-191. He compares 



lxxiv INTR OD UCTION 



whom he refers to are Anaximenes, 1 Antiochus of Syracuse, 2 Charon 
of Lampsacus, 3 Ctesias, 4 Hecataeus, 5 Hellanicus, 6 Hieronymus of 
Cardia, 7 Myron of Priene, 8 Philistus, 9 Polybius, 10 and Theo- 
pompus. 11 Besides these he cites several local histories, such as 
the histories of Attica by Androtion 12 and Clitodemus, 13 a history 
of Corinth attributed to Eumelus, 14 a history of Orchomenus by 
Callippus, 15 and what seems to have been a versified history of 
Argos by Lyceas. 16 Further, he had read the memoirs of certain 
obscure historians whose names he does not mention. 17 In his use 
of the historical materials at his disposal Pausanias appears to have 
done his best to follow the same critical principles which he applied 
to the mythical and legendary lore of Greece. When the accounts 
conflicted he weighed them one against the other and accepted that 
which on the whole seemed to him to be the more probable or the 
better authenticated. Thus before proceeding to narrate the history 
of the Messenian wars he mentions his two chief authorities, namely 
a prose history of the first war by Myron of Priene and a versified 
history of the second war by Rhianus of Bene ; then he points out 
a glaring discrepancy between the two in regard to the date of 
Aristomenes the William Tell or Sir William Wallace of Messenia 
and gives his reasons for accepting the testimony of Rhianus and 
rejecting that of Myron, whose writings, according to him, revealed 
an indifference to truth and probability of which he gives a striking 
instance. 18 Again, Pausanias was able to allow for the bias of pre- 
judice in an historian. Thus he points out that the history of 
Hieronymus the Cardian was coloured by a partiality for Antigonus 
and a dislike of Lysimachus, of whom the latter had destroyed the 
historian's native city ; l9 that the historian Philistus concealed the 
worst excesses of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, because he hoped to 
be allowed by the tyrant to return to that city ; 20 and that Androtion, 
the historian of Attica, had apparently introduced a certain narrative 
for the sole purpose of casting reproach on the Lacedaemonians. 21 
The Elean An historical document of which Pausanias made much use was 
register. tfie Elean register of Olympic victors. He often refers to it. 22 We 
need not suppose that he consulted the original documents in the 

Pausanias i. 23. 3 with Thucydides vii. 29 ; Paus. v. 1. 1 with Thuc. i. 10. 1 ; 
Paus. v. 12. 8 with Thuc. v. 46^., etc. Passages in which Pausanias may have 
drawn on the writings of Xenophon are iii. 9. i-iii. 10. 2 and v. 6. 5. 
1 vi. 18. 2. 2 x. 11. 3. 3 x. 38. 11. 

4 ix. 21. 4. 5 iii. 25. 5, iv. 2. 3, viii. 4. 9, viii. 47. 4. 

6 ii. 3. 8, ii. 16. 7. 7 i. 9. 8, i. 13. 9. 8 iv. 6. 1-4. 

9 i. 13. 9, i. 29. 12, v. 23. 6. 10 viii. 30. 8. 

11 iii. 10. 3. Compare vi. 18. 5. 12 vi. 7. 6, 7, x. 8. 1. 

13 x. 15. 5. 14 ii. 1. 1, ii. 2. 2, ii. 3. 10. 15 ix. 29. 2, ix. 38. 10. 

16 i. 13. 8 sq. , ii. 19. 5, ii. 22. 2, ii. 23. 8. 17 i. 12. 2. 

18 iv. 6. 1-5. 19 i. 9. 8, i. 13. 9. 20 i. 13. 9. 

21 vi. 7. 7. 



22 ..; 



iii. 21. i, v. 21. 9, vi. 2. 3, vi. 13. 10, x. 36. 9. Compare vi. 6. 3, vi. 8. 1. 



INTR OD UC TION lxxv 



archives at Elis. The register had been published many centuries 
before by Hippias of Elis, 1 and copies may have been in common 
circulation. Wherever he may have seen it, Pausanias appears to 
have studied it carefully, and sometimes he turns the information 
. thus acquired to good account. Thus he points out that a statement 
of the Elean guides was at variance with an entry in the register, 2 
and that the runner Oebotas could not possibly have fought at the 
battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. since his Olympic victory was won in 
01. 6 (756 b.c.). 3 

Another trustworthy source from which Pausanias derived many Inscrip- 
of his historical facts was inscriptions. What copious use he made tl0ns ' 
of them may be gathered from a glance at the entry " Inscriptions " 
probably far from complete in the Index, and that on the 
whole he read them correctly is proved by inscriptions still extant 
of which he has given us either the text or the general pur- 
port. 4 Yet he did not accept their testimony blindfold. In some 
of his references to them we can perceive the same discrimination, 
the same desire to sift and weigh the evidence which we have found 
to characterise his procedure in other enquiries. Thus in an old 
gymnasium at Anticyra he saw the bronze statue of a native athlete 
Xenodamus with an inscription setting forth that the man had won 
the prize in the pancratium at Olympia. Pausanias accordingly 
consulted the Olympic register and finding no such victor mentioned 
in it came to the conclusion that, if the inscription were not lying, 
the victory of Xenodamus must have fallen in 01. 211 (65 a.d.), 
the only Olympiad which had been struck out of the register. 5 
Again, at Olympia he saw a tablet inscribed with the victories of 
Chionis, a Lacedaemonian runner, who lived in the first half of the 
seventh century B.C. In the inscription it was mentioned that the 
race in armour had not yet been instituted in the time of Chionis ; 
indeed we know from Pausanias 6 that more than a century elapsed 

1 after the time of Chionis before the race in armour was introduced. 

Hence Pausanias concludes very sensibly that the inscription could 
not, as some people supposed, have been set up by the runner himself, 
for how could he have foreseen that the race in armour ever would be 
instituted long after he was dead and buried ? 7 Again, he infers 
that the Gelo who dedicated a chariot at Olympia cannot have been, 
as was commonly assumed, the tyrant Gelo, because in the inscrip- 
tion on the pedestal Gelo described himself as a citizen of Gela, 
whereas, according to Pausanias, at the time when the chariot was 
dedicated Gelo had already made himself master of Syracuse and 
would therefore have described himself as a Syracusan, not as a 

1 Plutarch, Numa, i. See note on v. 4. 6. - v. 21. 9. 3 vi. 3. 8. 

4 See the notes on ii. 27. 3, v. 10. 4, v. 24. 3, v. 26. 1, v. 27. 8, and the notes 
on Book vi. passim. 

5 x. 36. 9. 6 v. 8. to. 7 vi. 13. 2. 



lxxvi 



INTRODUCTION 



Writers 
on art. 



The local 
Eruides. 



native of Gela. 1 The argument falls to the ground because Pau- 
sanias mistook the date of Gelo's subjugation of Syracuse by several 
years ; none the less his criticism of the current view testifies to the 
attention he bestowed on inscriptions. 2 

The image of Zeus which the united Greeks dedicated at 
Olympia as a trophy of the battle of Plataea was made, Pausanias 
tells us, by a sculptor of Aegina named Anaxagoras, as to whom he 
remarks that " the name of this sculptor is omitted by the historians 
of sculpture." 3 This passage proves that Pausanias consulted, as 
might have been anticipated, some of the many ancient works on 
the history of art, but what they were he has not told us and it 
would be vain to guess. He alludes to them elsewhere. 4 

Yet another source which furnished Pausanias with information, 
more or less trustworthy, on matters of history and tradition was the 
discourse of the local guides whom he encountered at many or all 
of the chief places of interest. We know from other ancient writers 
that in antiquity, as at the present day, towns of any note were 
infested by persons of this class who lay in wait for and pounced on 
the stranger as their natural prey, wrangled over his body, and 
having secured their victim led him about from place to place, 
pointing out the chief sights to him and pouring into his ear a 
stream of anecdotes and explanations, indifferent to his anguish and 
deaf to his entreaties to stop, until having exhausted their learning 
and his patience they pocketed their fee and took their leave. 5 An 
educated traveller could often have dispensed with their explanations, 6 
but if he were good-natured he would sometimes let them run on, 
while he listened with seeming deference to the rigmarole by which 
the poor men earned their daily bread. 7 A question interposed in the 
torrent of their glib discourse was too apt to bring them to a dead 
stand. 8 Outside the beaten round of their narrow circle they were 
helpless. That Pausanias should have fallen into their clutches was 
inevitable. He seems to have submitted to his fate with a good 
grace, was led about by them to see the usual sights, 9 heard the 



1 vi. 9. 4 sq. 

2 Another instance of this attention occurs in v. 25. 11. Here Pausanias, ob- 
serving at Olympia a statue made by a Cydonian sculptor Aristocles and dedicated 
by Evagoras of Zancle, infers quite correctly that Aristocles must have flourished 
before Zancle took its later name of Messene, and therefore that he must have been 
one of the oldest of Greek sculptors. Pausanias does not, it is true, mention the in- 
scription, but his inference is clearly based on it. 

3 v. 23. 3. * v. n. 9. 

5 See Cicero, In Verre?n, iv. 58 ; Varro, quoted by Nonius Marcellus, p. 419 
(p. 488 ed. L. Quicherat) ; Ambrose, Hexaemevon, vi. 1 ; Strabo, xvii. p. 806 ; 
Plutarch, De Pythiae oraculis, 2, 5, 7, 8, 14, 16; Lucian, Amoves, 8; id. , 
Philopseudes ; 4. On this subject see also Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 30 sq. ; L. 
Preller, in his edition of Polemo, p. 161 sqq. ; S. Reinach, article 'Exegetae,' in 
Daremberg and Saglio's Diclionnaire des Antiquiiis grecques et romaines, vol. 2. p. 
885 sq. 

6 Lucian, Amoves, 8. 7 Plutarch, De Pythiae ovaculls, 7, 8. 



8 Plutarch, op. cit. 13. 



1. 41. 



INTRODUCTION lxxvii 



usual stories, 1 argued with them about some, 2 and posed them with 
questions which they could not answer about others. 3 Often 
no doubt their services were useful and the information they gave 
both true and interesting. Among the many traditions which 
Pausanias has embodied in his work there may be not a few which 
he picked up from the guides. We may conjecture, too, that the 
measurements of buildings and images which he occasionally records 
were, at least in some cases, derived by him from the same source. 4 

So much for the sources of historical and traditionary lore on 
which Pausanias drew. That he always used them correctly cannot 
be maintained. We can show that he sometimes mistook the 
purport of inscriptions 5 and blundered as to historical events and 
personages, but these mistakes are not more numerous than can be 
reasonably allowed for in a work embracing so great and multifarious 
a collection of facts. 

Coming now to the descriptive or topographical part, which Did 
forms the staple of Pausanias's work, we have to ask, Whence did he 1>ausamas 

describe 

derive his knowledge of the places and monuments he describes ? Greece 
from observation ? or from books ? or from both ? To these from books 
questions Pausanias himself gives no full and direct answer. He or from 
neither professes to have seen everything that he describes nor does observa- 
he acknowledge to have borrowed any of his descriptions from tion? 
previous writers, whom he barely alludes to 7 and never mentions by 
name. On the other hand he sometimes affirms in the most unam- He affirms 
biguous language that he saw the things which he describes, and that he saw 
as there is no reason to doubt his word we may accept these affirma- j? ny 
tions unconditionally, and believe that he describes some things at which he 
least as an eye-witness. But such assertions of personal knowledge describes, 
are only incidental, and the total number of them is exceedingly 
small 8 in comparison with the number of places and things which he 
describes without saying whether he saw them or not. Thus in 
regard to the vast majority of Pausanias's descriptions we have still 
to ask, Are they based on personal observation or taken from books ? 

1 iv. 33. 6, v. 6. 6, v. 10. 7, v. 18. 6, v. 20. 4, v. 21. 9, vii. 6. 5, ix. 3. 3. 

2 i. 35. 8, ii. 23. 6. 

3 ' 3 1 - 5. i- 4 2 - 4. 9- 7. " 3i- 4. v. 21. 8. Compare v. 18. 6 sq., ix. 3. 3. 

4 Measurements of buildings, v. 10. 3, v. 16. 1 ; of images, iii. 19. 2, iii. 26. 3, 
v. 22. 1, v. 22. 7, v. 23. 7, v. 24. 3, 4, viii. 25. 3, viii. 30. 3, 6, viii. 31. 2, 3, 5, 8, viii. 
32. 5, x. 15. 2. Rough measurements Pausanias may have estimated by the eye ; 
see especially iii. 19. 2, v. 23. 7. 

5 See the notes on i. 22. 4, i. 44. 1, vi. 16. 8, x. 9. 5. 

6 For examples see the notes on i. 2. 2 (the Long Walls of Athens), iv. 23. 6 
(the date of Anaxilas), vi. 9. 2 (the date of Gelo's occupation of Syracuse), vi. 12. 4 
(the assassination of Hiero), vi. 19. 6 (Miltiades, tyrant of the Chersonese), ix. 32. 5 
(the sack of Haliartus). 7 v. 11. 9, viii. 41. 10. 

8 After a diligent search Mr. Heberdey has been able to collect no more than fifty- 
five, and even of these some are only indirect, while others refer not to Greece but 
to other parts of the world in which Pausanias had travelled. See R. Heberdey, Die 
Reisen des Pausanias in Griechenland, pp. 11-18. 



Ixxviii INTRODUCTION 



In endeavouring to answer this question we must first of all bear in 
mind that if Pausanias saw all that he professes to have seen it is 
inevitable that he should have seen a great deal more. For 
example, he could not have seen, as he professes to have done, 
certain statues on the Acropolis of Athens J without also seeing the 
Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and the Propylaea, which he does not 
expressly say that he saw. He could not have seen, as he says 
he did, the statue of Anaximenes and the Sicyonian treasury at 
Olympia 2 without also seeing the temples of Zeus and Hera and a 
multitude of buildings and statues besides. In short, in all the 
places which he appears on his own showing to have visited, we may 
and must assume that he saw much more than he claims in so many 
words to have seen. Further, since he was not transported from one 
place to another by magic, he must have travelled over the roads 
which joined the various places that he visited. Thus by plotting 
out on the map the places which he saw and joining them by 
the routes he describes, we can form some general notion of the 
extent of Pausanias's travels in Greece. 3 Yet the notion thus 
formed must necessarily be very rough and imperfect. For, in 
the first place, we cannot always be sure of the route which he 
took from one town or village to another. Thus, for example, he 
describes two roads from Argos over Mount Artemisius to Mantinea; 4 
but there is nothing to show which he took or even that he took 
either. He may, like most travellers, have reached Mantinea from 
Argos by neither of the direct passes over the mountains, but by the 
circuitous route that goes by Lerna and Tegea. In the second 
place, it would be very rash to assume that he visited only those 
places where he is proved by some incidental assertion of personal 
knowledge to have been. Possibly or rather probably he visited 
many more. If he did not think it worth while to assure us that he 
saw the Parthenon and the Erechtheum at Athens, and the temples 
of Zeus and Hera at Olympia, he need not have thought it worth 
while to depose to having seen every insignificant shrine and image 
that he describes in the petty towns and obscure villages through 
which he passed. Thus the indications which he has given us are 
far too meagre to permit us to make out his itinerary in Greece with 
any approach to certainty. 
Descrip- But if we cannot be sure that many of his descriptions are based 

hTmay 1C on P ersona ^ knowledge, have we any grounds for supposing that 
have taken they are borrowed, without acknowledgment, from books ? Such 
from a supposition would be, on the face of it, neither unreasonable nor 

improbable. In the historical parts of his work Pausanias must 

1 i. 23. 7, i. 24. 7. 2 vi. 18. 2, vi. 19. 2. 

3 This has been done by Mr. R. Heberdey in his work, Die Reisen des Pausanias 
m Grieche?iland (Vienna, 1894). * viii. 6. 4-6. 



books. 



INTRODUCTION lxxix 



have used many books which he does not mention, and he may 
have done the same thing in the topographical or descriptive parts. 
The grounds on which it could be proved or made probable that 
he borrowed his descriptions from books are various. The most 
obvious and certain would be the existence in an older writer of a 
description agreeing in form as well as in substance so closely with a 
description in Pausanias that no alternative would be left us but to 
suppose either that Pausanias copied from this older writer or that 
both of them copied from some common original. Or again it 
might be that the descriptions of Pausanias contained information 
which he could hardly have ascertained for himself or mistakes into 
which he could scarcely have fallen if he had seen the things for 
himself. In regard to the first of these grounds it may be said at 
once that in the extant literature of antiquity, so far as the present 
writer is aware, there is no description of any place or monument 
agreeing in form and substance so closely with a description in 
Pausanias as to make it probable that he copied it. The slight and 
superficial resemblances which have been traced between passages 
of Strabo and passages of Pausanias l are no more than such as may 
easily or necessarily arise when two writers are describing independ- 
ently the same places. 

When we ask whether the descriptions of Pausanias contain Measure- 
matter which he could not easily have ascertained for himself, we ments of 
are reminded first of his measurements of temples and images, 2 and nts 
second of his estimates of the exact distances in furlongs between and of 
one place and another. The measurements of temples and images distances, 
were probably derived either from the local guides or from books. 
Some of them he may perhaps have taken for himself; but that he 
should, for example, have measured for himself the height of the 
temple of Zeus at Olympia 3 is highly improbable. The distances by 
land, estimated in furlongs, may have been drawn by Pausanias 
from Roman milestones i or from books or from a map like the 
Tabula Peutingeriana. Distances by sea 5 he can hardly have 
measured for himself; if he did not borrow them from a book or a 
map, he may have had them from the sailors with whom he voyaged. 
In all these cases it is possible, perhaps probable, that Pausanias 
drew his information from literary sources ; but what particular 
books or maps he used, if he used any, we do not know, and it 
would be vain to guess. 

1 See A. Enmann, ' Geographische Homerstudien im Pausanias,' Fleckeisen' s 
Jahrbiicher, 30 (1884), pp. 497-520; L. von Sybel, 'Pausanias und Strabon,' 
Fleckeisen s J ahrbiicher, 31 (1885), pp. 177-185. 

2 See above, p. lxxvii. 3 v. 10. 3. 

4 His estimate of the distance of Olympia from Sparta (vi. 16. 8) was taken 
avowedly from an inscription which is still extant (Dittenberger und Purgold, Die 
Inschriften von Olympia, No. 171). 

5 iii. 23. 1, iii. 24. 3, iii. 25. 9, vii. 22. 10. 



lxxx INTRODUCTION 



Descrip- When we next enquire whether the descriptions of Pausanias 

tion of the con t a in errors into which he could scarcely have fallen if he had 
Hermionis. seen tne pl aces an d things which he describes, a student of Pausanias 
is at once reminded of the author's description of the coast of 
Hermionis, 1 which it is difficult or impossible to reconcile with the 
actual features of the coast. That the description contains grave 
errors is almost certain. How these errors are to be explained is 
much more doubtful. It is easy to suggest, as has been done, that 
Pausanias did not himself sail along the coast, but borrowed his 
description from one of those Periploi or Coasting Voyages, which 
enumerated the places on a coast in topographical order and 
recorded the distances between them. Yet this supposition by 
itself would hardly explain the confusion into which Pausanias has 
fallen. Specimens of these Coasting Voyages have come down 
to us, 2 and they are so exceedingly clear, concise, and business- 
like, that it is difficult to understand how any one who simply 
set himself to copy from them could have blundered so egregiously 
as Pausanias appears to have done. More plausible is the 
suggestion that, while Pausanias was obliged by the plan of his 
itinerary to describe the coast in one direction, the Coasting Voyage 
which lay before him described it in the reverse direction, and that 
in his effort to throw the information supplied by the Voyage into the 
form that suited his itinerary Pausanias made the jumble which 
has caused his critics so much trouble. This may be the true 
explanation. It would have the further advantage of helping us to 
understand how Pausanias obtained his knowledge of the exact 
distances between places on various parts of the coasts of Greece, 
notably on the coast of Achaia and on the wild inhospitable coast of 
Laconia. The Coasting Voyage which he used may, like the extant 
Coasting Voyage of Scylax, have comprised a description of the 
whole coast of Greece, and from it Pausanias may have borrowed 
his estimates of distances and perhaps other features of his descrip- 
tion as well. This is Mr. Heberdey's theory, 3 and it is a perfectly 
tenable one, though in the absence of direct evidence it must 
remain only a more or less probable hypothesis. Yet when we 
remember that Pausanias's topographical indications are nowhere 
more full and exact than in Arcadia, where by the nature of the 
case he cannot have used a Coasting Voyage, the hypothesis that 
he used one in other parts of his work seems superfluous, if not 
improbable. It is quite possible that he described the coast of 

1 ii. 34. 8 sq. See vol. 3. pp. 290-292 ; R. Heberdey, Die Reisen des Pausanias 
in Griechenland, pp. 46-48. 

2 For example the Periplus of Europe, Asia, and Africa, by Scylax, and the 
Periplus of the Euxine by Arrian, printed with similar works in C. Miiller's 
Geographi Graeci Minores. 

3 Die Reisen des Pausanias in Griechenland, pp. 46-48, 51, 59-63, 66 sq., 72- 
74, 76 sq. , 78 sq., 102, 104, 109 sq. 



INTR OD UCTION Ixxxi 



Hermionis from notes he had made for himself in sailing along it, 
and that either he failed at the time to take in the natural features 
correctly or that afterwards in redacting his notes at home he mis- 
understood what he had written on the spot. Perhaps I may be 
allowed to say that having repeatedly sailed along the coast in 
question I can testify from personal experience how difficult it is to 
identify by sight the places from a ship, so bewildering is the 
moving panorama of capes, islands, bays, and mountains. It would 
be no great wonder if Pausanias's head swam a little in this geo- 
graphical maze. 

Another passage where error and confusion of some sort seem Roads from 
to have crept in is the mention of the three roads that led from Le P re us. 
Lepreus to Samicum, Olympia, and Elis. 1 Here, again, Pausanias 
may have used and misunderstood some literary source, or he may 
have blundered on the spot, or his notes may have been lost, or his 
memory may have played him false. Any of these explanations is 
possible. To attempt to decide between them in the absence of any 
positive evidence would be fruitless. 

More famous than either of these difficulties is one which occurs TheEnnea- 
in Pausanias's account of Athens. Here in the middle of describing crur >us 
the market-place, which lay to the north-west of the Acropolis, he epis e ' 
suddenly without a word of warning transports the reader to the 
Enneacrunus fountain, which lay in the bed of the Ilissus at the 
opposite extremity of the city ; then, having despatched the foun- 
tain and some buildings in its neighbourhood, he whirls the reader 
back to the market-place, and proceeds with his description of it as 
if nothing had happened. 2 Of the many attempts to clear up this 
mystery, as by supposing either a dislocation of the text or a 
confusion in the author's notes or the existence of another fountain 
near the market-place which may have been shown to him as 
the Enneacrunus, none is free from serious difficulties. That he 
fell into error through copying blindly and unintelligently from a 
book is possible but very improbable. As it is practically certain 
that he visited Athens and saw both the market-place and the 
Olympieum, the chances that he should not have seen the Ennea- 
crunus and should therefore have been driven to borrow his 
description of it from a book are so small that they may be 
neglected. 

Other passages which Pausanias may perhaps have taken either Law-courts 
wholly or in part from books are his account of the Athenian at Athens 
law-courts 3 and his list of the altars at Olympia. 4 Neither ofj^jjjj^ 
these passages, it is true, is demonstrably infected by error or con- 
fusion, though there is some ground for suspecting the existence of 

1 v. 5. 3. Compare R. Heberdey, op. cit. p. 68. 

2 i. 8. 6, i. 14. 1-6. See vol. 2. p. 112 sq. , vol. 5. p. 483 sqq. 
a i. 28. 8-11. 4 v. 13. 8-v. 15. 12. 

VOL. I / 



lxxxii 



INTRODUCTION 



Prede- 
cessors of 
Pausanias. 



Diodoras. 



confusion in the enumeration of the altars. 1 But in both of them 
the author departs from the topographical order of description, which 
is so characteristic of his method, and arranges the monuments 
together simply on the ground of their belonging to the same class. 
These departures from his usual principle of order suggest that in 
both cases Pausanias may have borrowed from written documents in 
which the monuments were grouped together according to kind 
rather than in topographical order. Another set of monuments 
which Pausanias links together by a chain other than the topo- 
graphical are the buildings erected by Hadrian in Athens. 2 It is 
possible that he may have taken his list of them from the inscription 
in the Athenian Pantheon which recorded them all. 3 

These are perhaps the most notable passages in Pausanias, which 
might be thought to bear traces of having been derived either wholly 
or in part from written documents rather than from personal obser- 
vation. In none of them are the indications so clear as to amount 
to a proof of borrowing. At most they raise a probability of it, 
nothing more. 

It would be neither surprising nor unnatural if in writing his 
Description of Greece Pausanias not only consulted, as we know he 
did, but borrowed from the works of previous writers on the same 
subject. Any one who undertakes to write a guide-book to a 
country may legitimately borrow from his predecessors provided he 
has taken the trouble to ascertain for himself that their descriptions 
are still applicable to the country at the time he is writing. Pau- 
sanias in his character of the Camden of ancient Greece had many 
predecessors whose writings he may and indeed ought to have 
consulted. But of their works only the titles and a few fragments 
have come down to us, and these contain nothing to show that 
Pausanias copied or had even read them. The most considerable 
of the fragments those which pass under the name of Dicaearchus 
the Messenian have been already examined, and we have seen how 
different in scope and style was the work to which they belonged from 
that which Pausanias has left us. No one would dream of maintaining 
that Pausanias copied his description of Greece from the pseudo-Dicae- 
archus. The most famous of the antiquaries who preceded Pausanias 
seem to have been Diodorus, Polemo, and Heliodorus, all of whom 
earned by their writings the title of The Periegete or Cicerone}" Of 
these the earliest was Diodorus, who is not to be confounded with the 
Sicilian historian of that name. He published works on the tombs and 



1 See R. Heberdey, ' Die olympische Altarperiegese des Pausanias,' in Eranos 
Vindobonen 'sis (Vienna, 1893), pp. 34-47 ; and vol. 3. pp. 568, 570-572 of this work. 

2 i. 18. 9. 3 ' 5- S- 

4 On these and other ancient writers of the same class see especially the disserta- 
tion of L. Preller, De historia atque arte Periegetaram appended to his edition of the 
fragments of Polemo (Leipsic, 1838), p. 155 sqq. ; M. Bencker, Der Anteil der 
Periegese an der Kunstschriftstellerei der Alien (Munich, 1890). 



INTRODUCTION lxxxiii 



townships of Attica, of which a few fragments survive. 1 They seem 
to have been composed before 308 B.C. Heliodorus lived in the Heliodorus. 
reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes and wrote a work on the Acropolis of 
Athens in no less than fifteen books, of which only a few brief 
fragments have come down to us. 2 There is some reason to 
think that Pausanias cannot have consulted it. 3 Polemo of Ilium Polemo. 
flourished in the first part of the second century B.C., 4 and was the 
author of many special treatises on the monuments of Greece. 
Amongst them were works on the Acropolis of Athens, on the 
eponymous heroes of the Attic townships and tribes, on the 
Sacred Way, on the Painted Colonnade at Sicyon, on the votive 
offerings at Lacedaemon, on the founding of the cities of Phocis, 
on the treasuries at Delphi, and many more. 5 More than a 
hundred extracts from or references to his works have come down 
to us ; and if we may judge from them, from the number and variety 
of the treatises he published, and from the praise of Plutarch 6 we 
shall be inclined to pronounce Polemo the most learned of all 
Greek antiquaries. His acquaintance both with the monuments 
and with the literature seems to have been extensive and profound. 
The attention which he bestowed on inscriptions earned for him the 
nickname of the 'monument-tapper.' 7 His works were certainly 
extant later than the time of Pausanias, since they are freely quoted 
by Athenaeus. It would, therefore, be strange if Pausanias did 
not study them, dealing as many of them did with the same sub- 
jects on which he touched in his Description of Greece. Yet the 
existing fragments of Polemo hardly justify us in supposing that 
Pausanias was acquainted with the writings of his learned predecessor. 

1 Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, 2. pp. 353-359. 

2 Athenaeus, vi. p. 229 e ; Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, 
4. p. 425 sq. 

3 Pausanias tells the story of the death of Leaena and adds that it had never 
been put on record before (i. 23. 1 sq.). In this he was mistaken. The story had 
already been told by Pliny {Nat. hist, xxxiv. 72) and Plutarch (De garrulitate, 8), 
and Pliny may very well have had it from Heliodorus, since Heliodorus is one of the 
authors from whom Pliny avowedly drew the materials for his thirty-fourth book. 
Compare W. Gurlitt, Ueber Pausanias, p. 96 sq. 

4 According to Suidas (s.v. Ho\4fj.ojv) he was a contemporary of Ptolemy Epiphanes 
(who reigned 204-180 B.C.) and of the grammarian Aristophanes (born about 260 
B.C., died 185 B.C.). See C. Miiller, in Frag. Histor. Graec. 3. p. 108 sq. From a 
Delphic inscription (Wescher et Foucart, Inscriptions recueillies a Delphes, No. 18, 
line 260 ; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, No. 198) we learn that a 
certain Polemo of Ilium, son of Milesius, was made a public friend of Delphi in the 
year 177-6 B.C. This Polemo was probably the antiquary, though the father of the 
antiquary, according to Suidas, was named Euegetes, not Milesius. See W. Gurlitt, 
Ueber Pausanias, p. 154 sq. Polemo may have won the esteem of the Delphians by 
his work on the treasuries at Delphi. 

5 Polemonis per iegetae fragmenta, collegit, digessit, notis auxit L. Preller (Leipsic, 
1838) ; Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, ed. C. Miiller, 3. pp. 108-148. 

6 Quaestiones conviviales, v. 2. 9. 

7 2rijXo/c6iras (Athenaeus, vi. p. 234 d). As to the nickname see L. Preller in 
his edition of Polemo, p. 12 sqq. 



lxxxiv 



INTRODUCTION 



Polemo 
and 

Pausanias 
compared. 



Certainly they lend no countenance to the view that he borrowed 
descriptions of places and monuments from them. This will 
appear from an examination of those fragments of Polemo which 
deal with subjects falling within the scope of Pausanias's work. 
We shall look, first, at the things mentioned by both writers, and, 
second, at the things mentioned by Polemo alone. The fragments 
are numbered as in the editions of L. Preller and Ch. Miiller, to 
which the reader is referred for the Greek text. 1 

First, then, let us take the things mentioned by both Polemo 
and Pausanias. 

Fragment ii. In his description of the Acropolis at Athens, 
Polemo mentioned a sculptor Lycius, son of Myron. So does 
Pausanias in his description of the Acropolis. 2 

Fragment iii. In his description of the Acropolis, Polemo 
mentioned a decree forbidding women of loose character to take the 
names of any of the great quadriennial festivals. Pausanias men- 
tions no such decree, but among the paintings which he describes 
in the Propylaea is one of Alcibiades " containing emblems of the 
victory won by his team at Nemea." 3 Now we know from other 
writers that in this picture Alcibiades was portrayed reclining in the 
lap of Nemea. 4 The model who sat for the personification of 
Nemea was probably a woman of the sort who were forbidden by 
the decree to take the name of a quadriennial festival, and the sight 
of the picture may have led Polemo to mention the decree. If this 
was so and the reasoning though a little circuitous is plausible it 
becomes probable that Polemo saw and described the picture of 
Alcibiades to which Pausanias refers. The probability is strength- 
ened, almost to the point of certainty, by our knowledge that Polemo 
did describe the paintings in the Propylaea, though no details of his 
description have survived. 

Fragment iv. In his description of the Acropolis, Polemo 
mentioned that Thucydides was buried at the Melitian gate. So 
does Pausanias in his description of the Acropolis. 5 

Fragment vi. In his description of the pictures in the Propylaea, 
which probably formed part of his treatise in four books on the 
Acropolis, Polemo mentioned three Athenian festivals at which 
torch-races were held, namely the Panathenian festival, the festival 
of Hephaestus, and the festival of Prometheus. Pausanias in his 
description of the Academy mentions that torch-races were run from 
an altar of Prometheus in the Academy to the city. 6 

Fragment x. Polemo told the story of the capture of Aphidna 

1 A comparison between the fragments of Polemo and the work of Pausanias 
has been instituted by Mr. M. Bencker {Der Anteil der Periegese an der Kmistschrift- 
stellerei der Alien, pp. 61-68). His conclusion is in substantial agreement with mine. 



1. 23. 7. 
i. 23. 9. 



1. 22. 7. 
i. 30. 2. 



4 See vol. 2. p. 266 sq. 



INTR OD UCT10N lxxxv 



in Attica by the Dioscuri, and mentioned that in the affair Castor 
was wounded by king Aphidnus in the right thigh. Pausanias 
repeatedly refers to the capture of Aphidna by the Dioscuri, 1 but he 
expresses a belief that the place was taken without fighting and he 
gives reasons for thinking so. 2 

Fragment xi. In one of his works which is cited as The Greek 
History Polemo mentioned that Poseidon contended with Hera for 
the possession of Argos and was worsted, and that the two deities 
did not exhibit tokens in support of their claims as they did at 
Athens. Pausanias in his description of Argolis twice mentions the 
defeat of Poseidon in his dispute with Hera for the possession of 
the land, 3 but he says nothing about the absence of tokens. 

Fragment xii. According to Polemo, the Argives related how 
the first corn sown in Argolis had been fetched by Argus from 
Libya. According to Pausanias, they asserted that they had received 
the first corn from Demeter. 4 

Fragment xviii. In his work on the votive offerings at Lacedae- 
mon, Polemo mentioned "a chapel of Cottina, close to Colone, 
where is the sanctuary of Dionysus, a splendid edifice known to 
many in the city." Pausanias in his description of Sparta mentions 
" the place named Colona, and a temple of Dionysus Colonatas." 5 

Fragment xxii. Polemo mentioned at Olympia the old temple 
of Hera, the temple of the Metapontines, and the temple of the 
Byzantines. Pausanias described all three buildings, 6 but he desig- 
nates the two latter correctly as treasuries, not temples. 

Fragment xxiii. Polemo related that for a time a race had been 
run at Olympia between carts drawn by mules, but that after 
thirteen victories had been won the race was abolished in 01. 84. 
He further said that the name for a mule-cart (apene) was a Tegean 
word. Pausanias mentions that the race between mule-carts at 
Olympia was instituted in 01. 70 and abolished in 01. 84. 7 He 
says nothing about the name for a mule-cart being Tegean. 

Fragment xxiv. Polemo said that Athena was wounded by 
Ornytus. Pausanias says that she was wounded by Teuthis, but 
that some people called her assailant Ornytus. 8 

Fragment xxvii. In his work on the treasuries at Delphi, 
Polemo mentioned the Sicyonian treasury. So does Pausanias in 
his description of Delphi. 9 

Fragment xxix. Polemo told how the Delphians honoured the 
wolf because a wolf had discovered a sacred jewel of gold that had 

1 i. 17. 5, i. 41. 3, ii. 22. 6, iii. 18. 4, 5. a iii. 18. 5. 

3 ii. 15. 5,'ii. 22. 4. 4 i. 14. 2. 5 iii. 13. 7. 

6 v. 16. i-v. 20. 5, vi. 19. 8, n. The description of the Byzantine treasury 
seems to have dropped out of the text (vi. 19. 8), but the building is mentioned (vi. 
19. 9). 

7 v. 9. 1. 8 viii. 28. 4-6. 9 x. 11. 1. 



lxxxvi INTRODUCTION 



been stolen from Delphi and buried on Mount Parnassus. Pausanias 
says that the Delphians dedicated a bronze figure of a wolf in the 
sanctuary of Apollo, because a man who had stolen some sacred 
treasures and hidden them in the forest on Parnassus was killed by a 
wolf, which then went daily to the city and howled, till people followed 
it and so found the stolen treasure. 1 

Fragment xxxii. Polemo told how Palamedes invented dice 
to amuse the Greek army before Troy when they were distressed 
by famine. Pausanias says simply that dice were an invention of 
Palamedes. 2 

Fragment xli. Polemo said that at Athens there were three 
images of the Furies, two made by Scopas out of the stone called 
luchneus (probably Parian marble), and the middle one made by 
Calamis. Pausanias notices the images of the Furies without 
mentioning their number, their material, or the artists who made 
them. 3 

Fragment xlii. In speaking of wineless libations Polemo re- 
marked on the scrupulousness of the Athenians in matters of ritual. 
Pausanias observed, in different connexions, that the Athenians 
were more pious and more zealous in religious matters than other 
people. 4 

Fragment xliv. Polemo said that Lais was born at Hyccara in 
Sicily and was murdered in Thessaly, whither she had gone for love 
of a Thessalian named Pausanias ; and he described her grave 
beside the Peneus with the epitaph and the urn on the tombstone. 
Pausanias says that Lais was a native of Hycara (sic) in Sicily and 
that her grave was at Corinth, where it was surmounted by the 
figure of a lion holding a ram in its paws. He adds that in Thessaly, 
whither she had gone for the love of a certain Hippostratus, there 
was another tomb which claimed to be hers. 5 

Fragment xlviii. Polemo said that copies of the laws of Solon 
were kept in the Prytaneum engraved on square wooden tablets 
which revolved on pivots in such a way that when the tablets were 
turned at an angle they seemed to be triangular. Pausanias says 
briefly that the laws of Solon were inscribed in the Prytaneum. 6 

Fragment lv. Polemo said that wrestling was invented by 
Phorbas. Pausanias says that it was invented by Theseus. 7 

Fragment lxxviii. Polemo mentioned the sanctuary of Hercules 
at Cynosarges. So does Pausanias. 8 

Fragment lxxxiii. Polemo described two pools in Sicily, beside 
which the Sicilians took their most solemn oaths, perjury being 
followed by death. Pausanias describes how people threw offerings 
into the craters of Etna and watched whether the offerings sank 

1 x. 14. 7. 2 ii. 20. 3, x. 31. 1. 3 i. 28. 6. 

4 i. 17. I, i. 24. 3. 5 ii. 2. 4 sq. 6 i. 18. 3. 

7 i- 39- 3- 8 > 19- 3- 



INTRODUCTION Ixxxvii 



or were ejected by the volcanic fires. 1 Some modern writers 
have supposed that Pausanias meant to describe the place and the 
oath described by Polemo, but that he mistook the water for fire 
and the offering for an oath. The supposition is very unlikely. 

Fragment Ixxxvi. Polemo mentions the Tiasa, a river near 
Sparta. So does Pausanias. 2 

These are, I believe, all the existing fragments of Polemo in No evi- 
which he mentions the same things as Pausanias. Not one of them ^. ence that 
supports the theory that Pausanias copied from Polemo. In some copied 
of them 3 the writer mentions the same places, buildings, and works of Polemo. 
art that are mentioned by Pausanias. But this was almost inevitable. 
When two men describe the same places correctly they can hardly 
help mentioning some of the same things. In no case does the 
coincidence go beyond a bare mention. Again, Polemo sometimes 
referred to the same myth or legend as Pausanias ; 4 but this is no 
proof that Pausanias copied from Polemo. A multitude of myths 
and legends were the commonplaces of every educated Greek, 
whether he had read Polemo or not. The passage of Polemo as to 
the race between mule-carts at Glympia 5 agrees in substance, not 
in language, with the corresponding passage of Pausanias. Both 
writers, it may be assumed, derived their information from the best 
source, the Olympic register, which, as we have seen, was published 
and accessible to all. The Delphian story of the wolf that disclosed 
the stolen treasure 6 may have been narrated by both writers in the 
same way, though from the abridged form in which Polemo's version 
is reported by Aelian we cannot be sure of this. No doubt the 
story was told in much the same way by the Delphian guides to all 
visitors, who may have been surprised to find a statue of a wolf 
dedicated to Apollo, the old mythical relationship of the god with 
wolves having long fallen into the background. Again, Polemo, 
like Pausanias, remarked on the scrupulous piety of the Athenians. 7 
So, too, for that matter did St. Paul, 8 but nobody suspects him of 
having borrowed the remark from Polemo. The mention of the 
sculptor Lycius, of the grave of Thucydides, and of the torch-race 9 
by the two writers proves nothing as to the dependence of the one 
on the other. Some of the fragments of Polemo show that he 
described in minute detail things which Pausanias has merely 
mentioned. 10 Finally, in a number of the fragments n Polemo 
makes statements which are explicitly or implicitly contradicted by 
Pausanias. This proves that if Pausanias was acquainted with the 
works of Polemo, he at least exercised complete freedom of judgment 

1 iii. 23. 9. 2 iii. 18. 6. 

3 Fragments iii. , xviii. , xxii. , xxvii. , xli. , xlviii. , lxxviii. , Ixxxvi. 

4 Fragments xi. , xxxii. 5 Fragment xxiii. 6 Fragment xxix. 

7 Fragment xlii. 8 Acts xvii. 22. 9 Fragments ii. , iv. , vi. 

10 Fragments xli., xlviii. u Fragments x. , xii. , xxiv., xliv. , Iv. 






lxxxviii INTRODUCTION 



in accepting or rejecting the opinions of his predecessor. Another 
proof of his independence is furnished by his speaking of the 
treasuries at Olympia as treasuries, whereas Polemo had designated 
the same buildings less correctly as temples. 1 
Things Second, let us take the things mentioned by Polemo, but not 

b ^oienf k y Pausanias. They include at Munychia the worship of the hero 
but not by Acratopotes ; 2 at Athens a picture of the marriage of Pirithcus, 3 an 
Pausanias. inscription relating to the sacrifices offered to Hercules at Cynosarges, 4 
and cups dedicated by a certain Neoptolemus, apparently on the 
Acropolis ; 5 in Attica a township called Crius ; 6 at Sicyon the 
Painted Colonnade 7 (to which Polemo seems to have devoted a 
special treatise), pictures by the painters Aristides, Pausanias, and 
Nicophanes, 8 a portrait of the tyrant Aristratus partly painted by 
Apelles, 9 and an obscene worship of Dionysus ; 10 at Phlius a 
colonnade called the Colonnade of the Polemarch and containing a 
painting or paintings by Sillax of Rhegium ; u at Argos a sanctuary 
of Libyan Demeter ; 12 at Sparta a chapel and bronze statue of 
Cottina, a bronze ox dedicated by her, a sanctuary of Corythallian 
Artemis, a festival called kopis (described by Polemo in detail), and 
the worship of two heroes Matton and Ceraon ; 13 at Olympia a 
hundred and thirty-two silver cups, two silver wine-jugs, one silver 
sacrificial vessel, and three gilt cups, all preserved in the treasury of 
the Metapontines, 14 a cedar-wood figure of a Triton holding a silver 
cup, a silver siren, three silver cups of various shapes, a golden 
wine-jug, and two drinking-horns, all preserved in the treasury of the 
Byzantines, 15 thirty-three silver cups of various shapes, a silver pot, 
a golden sacrificial vessel, and a golden bowl, all preserved in the 
temple of Hera, 16 and a statue of a Lacedaemonian named Leon who 
won a victory in the chariot-race ; 17 at Elis the worship of Gourmand 
Apollo ; 18 at Scolus in Boeotia the worship of Big-loaf Demeter ; 19 
at Thebes a temple of Aphrodite Lamia, 20 a statue of the bard Cleon 
(about which Polemo told an anecdote), 21 and games held in honour 
of Hercules ; 22 and finally at Delphi a golden book of the poetess 
Aristomache in the Sicyonian treasury, 23 a treasury of the Spinatians 
containing two marble statues of boys, 24 a sanctuary of Demeter 

1 Fragment xxii. - Fragment xl. 

3 Fragment lxiii. Compare Bencker, of. cit. p. 17 sq. 

4 Fragment lxxviii. 5 Fragment i. 

6 Fragment ix. 7 Fragments xiv. , xv. 

8 Fragment xvi. 9 Fragment xvii. 10 Fragment lxxii. 

11 Fragment Iviii. 12 Fragment xii. 13 Fragments xviii. , xl. , Ixxxvi. 

14 Fragment xxii. 15 lb. 16 lb. 

17 Fragment xix. 18 Fragments lxx. , lxxi. 19 Fragment xxxix. 

20 Fragment xv. 21 Fragment xxv. 22 Fragment xxvi. 

23 Fragment xxvii. 

24 Fragment xxviii. In the text of Polemo (reported by Athenaeus, xiii. p. 
606 b) we must read ev ry 2Tn.va.Twv drjo-avpip with Meineke for the ev ry in.v6.Kwv 
drjaavpy of the MSS. See vol. 5. p. 296 sq. 



INTRODUCTION lxxxix 



Hermuchus, 1 and a curious custom of offering to Latona at the 
festival of the Theoxenia the largest leek that was to be found. 2 

All these are mentioned by Polemo as things existing or customs 
practised within that portion of Greece which Pausanias has described. 
When we remember that the mention of them occurs in a few brief 
fragments, which are all that remain to us of the voluminous works 
of Polemo, we can imagine what a multitude of things must have 
been described by Polemo, which are passed over in total silence by 
Pausanias. 

To sum up the result of this comparison of Polemo with Result of 
Pausanias, we find that both writers mention some of the same com P arison 
things and record some of the same traditions, but that this agree- Poiemoand 
ment never amounts to a verbal coincidence ; that Polemo men- Pausanias. 
tions many things which are not noticed by Pausanias ; and that 
Pausanias repeatedly adopts views which differ from or contradict 
views expressed by Polemo. Thus there is nothing in the remains 
of Polemo to show that Pausanias, treading as he so often did in 
Polemo's footsteps, copied the works of his predecessor; on the 
contrary the very frequent omission by Pausanias of things mentioned 
by Polemo, and the not infrequent adoption by him of opinions 
which contradict those of Polemo, go to prove either that he was 
unacquainted with Polemo's writings, or that he deliberately dis- 
regarded and tacitly controverted them. 

Yet in recent years it has been maintained that Pausanias Theory 
slavishly copied from Polemo the best part of his descriptions of that 
Athens, Olympia, and Delphi, and a good deal besides, and that he co^d^ 
described these places substantially not as they were in his own from 
age but as they had been in the time of Polemo, about three Polemo 
hundred years before ; for it is a part of the same theory that writCTs'of 
Pausanias had travelled and seen very little in Greece, had com- Polemo's 
piled the bulk of his book from the works of earlier writers, and date> 
had added only a few hasty jottings of his own to give the book a 
modern air. 3 

As to the proposition that Pausanias borrowed largely from 
Polemo it is not needful to say any more. We have seen that it 

1 Fragment xxxix. 2 Fragment xxxvi. 

3 This was the theory of Mr. A. Kalkmann {Pausanias der Perieget (Berlin, 
1886), pp. 59, 64, 72-76, 77-81, 108, iii-ii6, 120-122, etc.), but he has since 
substantially retracted it by admitting that Pausanias saw all the chief objects 
of interest for himself [Archaologischer Anzeiger, 1895, p. 12). The view 
that Pausanias borrowed largely from Polemo was suggested by L. Preller in his 
edition of Polemo (pp. 50, 181) and revived by Professor U. von Wilamowitz- 
Moellendorff {Hermes, 12 (1877), P- 346). Yet Preller admitted that he could not 
detect clear traces of this borrowing in any single passage of Pausanias, and he 
added very justly that the mere notice of the same things by the two writers is no 
proof that the one borrowed from the other, since both may have derived their 
accounts direct from the same sources, namely the monuments themselves and the 
explanations of the guides. 



xc 



INTRODUCTION 



Pausanias 
did not 
describe 
Greece as 
it was in 
his own 
time. 



has no foundation in the existing remains of Polemo. Whether it 
would be established or refuted by the lost works of Polemo we 
cannot say. It will be time to consider the question when these 
lost works are found, if that should ever be. 

Theory that On the other hand the proposition that Pausanias described 
Greece not as it was in his own time, but as it had been in an 
earlier age, while it is of wider scope than the former is also more 
susceptible of verification. It could be established very simply by 
proving that he spoke of things as existing which from other sources 
are known to have ceased to exist before his time. It could not, of 
course, be established merely by showing that he mentions little or 
nothing of later date than say the age of Polemo, about 170 B.C., 
unless it could be further shown that the things he mentions had 
ceased to exist between that age and his own. For obviously all 
the things he notices might have existed in 170 B.C. and still be 
in existence when he wrote, and in describing them he would be 
as truly describing the Greece of his own time as a writer of the 
present day who, professing to record the most notable things in 
Athens at the end of the nineteenth century a.d., should choose to 
mention no building or statue later than the time of Pausanias, or 
even of Polemo himself. Thus all the attempts that have been 
made to invalidate the testimony of Pausanias as to the state of Greece 
in the second century a.d. by demonstrating merely that the things 
he describes were in existence in the second century b.c. must be 
dismissed as irrelevant. Even if the premises be admitted, the con- 
clusion which it is sought to establish would not follow from them. 
It remains, therefore, to examine the evidence which has been 
thought to prove that some of the things mentioned by Pausanias as 
existing had ceased to exist before his time. If this were indeed 
proved, then the proposition that he did not describe Greece as it 
was in his own time would be proved also, and we should be sure 
that his descriptions were borrowed either wholly or in part from 
earlier writers, even if we could not hazard any guess as to who 
these writers were. 

In the first place, then, it has been maintained that the descrip- 

scnption of t\ on w hich Pausanias gives of the state of Piraeus did not apply 
to his own time. 1 His account of the ship-sheds, the two market- 
places, the sanctuaries, the images, and so on implies, it is said, that 
the port was in a fairly thriving state when he wrote about the 
middle of the second century a.d., and this cannot have been the 
case since Piraeus was burnt by Sulla in 86 B.C., and still lay in a 
forlorn condition when Strabo wrote in the age of Augustus. 2 This 
remarkable criticism entirely overlooks the fact that between the 
destruction of Piraeus by Sulla and the time of Pausanias more 

1 A. Kalkmann, Pausanias der Perieget, pp. 54-56. 
2 Strabo, ix. p. 395 sq. 



His de- 



INTRODUCTION XC1 



than two hundred years had elapsed, during the greater part of 
which Greece had enjoyed profound peace and had been treated 
with special favour and indulgence by the Roman emperors. Is it 
beyond the bounds of possibility that during these two centuries the 
blackened ruins should have been cleared away ? that new buildings 
should have sprung up, and population should have gathered once 
more around the harbour ? Does the Palatinate, we may ask by 
analogy, remain to this day the wilderness to which it was reduced 
by the armies of Louis XIV. two centuries ago ? But such questions 
need no answer. In the case of Piraeus, fortunately, we are not left 
merely to balance probabilities or improbabilities against each other. 
We have positive evidence of a great revival of the port after its 
destruction by Sulla. 1 A single inscription of the first century B.C. 
or the second century a.d. testifies to the existence of the dock- 
yards, the colonnades, the Exchange, the government buildings, the 
sanctuaries. Another, contemporary with Pausanias, proves that 
Roman merchants were then settled in the port. A third deals 
with the regulation of traffic in the market. Portraits of Roman 
emperors found on the spot speak of gratitude for imperial favour, 
and remains of Roman villas and Roman baths bear witness to the 
return not merely of prosperity but of wealth and luxury. In short, 
if Pausanias had described Piraeus as lying in ruins, as his critic 
thinks he should have done, he might have described it as it was 
in the early part of the first century B.C., but he certainly would not 
have described it as it was in his own time two hundred years later. 

Again, it has been argued that Pausanias copied his description of His de- 
Arcadia from much older writers because, it is said, he pictures the scnption of 
country as in a flourishing state, whereas Strabo says that most of the 
famous cities of Arcadia had either ceased to exist or had left hardly 
a trace of themselves behind. 2 How little the testimony of Strabo 
is worth when he speaks of the interior of Greece is shown by his 
famous statement that not a vestige of Mycenae remained. 3 Con- 
trast this statement with the brief but accurate description which 
Pausanias gives of the walls and the lion-gate of Mycenae as they 
were in his day 4 and as they remain down to this ; then say whether 
the testimony of Strabo is to outweigh that of Pausanias on questions 
of Greek topography. In fact it is generally recognised that Strabo 
had visited very few parts of Greece, perhaps none but Corinth. 5 

1 See vol. 2. p. 14 sq. ; W. Gurlitt, Ueber Pausanias, pp. 193-248. 

2 A. Kalkmann, Pausanias der Perieget, p. 174 sq. ; Strabo, viii. p. 388. 

3 viii. p. 372. 4 ii. 16. 5. 

5 See C. G. Groskurd, Strabons Erdbeschreibung, 1. p. xxiv. ; W. M. Leake, 
Topography of Athens,- 1. p. 32 ; E. Curtius, Der Peloponnesos, 1. p. 120 ; 
E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, 2. p. 266 ; B. Niese, in Hermes, 13 
(1878), p. 43; A. Vogel, in Philologus, 41 (1882), p. 516; H. F. Tozer, Selections 
from Strabo (Oxford, 1893), p. 18 sq. ; id. , History of ancient Geography (Cambridge, 
1897), p. 241. 






xcii INTRODUCTION 



We may therefore well hesitate to confide in his vague sweeping 
assertion as to the desolation of Arcadia. A simple fact suffices 
to upset it. Coins of the Roman period prove that seven out 
of the eleven cities which he says had ceased to exist or had left 
hardly a trace behind were still inhabited and doing business long 
after the agreeable, but not too scrupulously accurate, geographer 
had been gathered to his fathers. 1 Nor, again, is it true to say that 
Pausanias describes Arcadia as if it were in a prosperous state. On 
the contrary, the long array of ruined or shrunken cities, deserted 
villages, and roofless shrines, which he has not failed to chronicle, 2 
leave on the reader, as they left on the writer himself, a melancholy 
impression of desolation and decay. The only two cities which from 
his description we should gather to have been in a tolerably thriving 
condition are Tegea and Mantinea. As to the former we have 
the precious testimony of Strabo himself that " it kept pretty well 
together." 3 As to Mantinea, if we cannot trust the evidence of 
Pausanias, we can surely trust the architectural and inscriptional 
evidence which proves that in the Roman period the theatre was 
rebuilt, and that not many years before Pausanias was born Roman 
merchants resided in the city, great reconstructions were carried out 
in the market-place, a marble colonnade added to it, banqueting- 
halls and treasuries built, a bazaar surrounded with workshops 
erected, and a semicircular hall reared which, in the words of an 
inscription referring to it, " would by itself be an ornament of the 
city." The remains of these buildings, together with the ancient 
walls and gates of the city almost in their entire extent though not 
to their full height, were visible down to the year 1890 a.d. at 
least. 4 All this in a city which, if we were to believe Strabo, had 
vanished from the earth before his time leaving little or no traces 
of it behind. So much for the comparative value of the testimony 
of Strabo and Pausanias with regard to Arcadia. 
Grove of Again, in Boeotia our author is accused of describing things 

Poseidon at that were not as if they were, 5 and the witness for the prosecution 
Onchestus. j s a g a j n Strabo. Pausanias says that the grove of Poseidon at 

1 The seven are Caphyae, Clitor, Heraea, Mantinea, Megalopolis, Orchomenus, 
and Pheneus. See T. E. Mionnet, Description de Midailles antiques Grecques et 
Romaines, 2. pp. 247-253 ; id.. Supplement, 4. pp. 275 sq., 278-288 ; B. V. Head, 
Historia Numorum, pp. 374-379. 

2 See above, p. xiv. note 6. All the ruins, etc., referred to in Book viii. were in 
Arcadia. 

3 viii. p. 388. 

4 See vol. 4. pp. 202 sqq. , 210 sqq. , 214 sqq. The inscriptions are now published 
{Bulletin de Correspondance helUnique, 20 (1896), p. 119 sqq.). When I last visited 
Mantinea, in October 1895, most of the ruins about the market-place, which were 
excavated by the French some ten years ago, had again disappeared beneath the 
soil. 

5 A. Enmann, in Fleckeisen s lahrbiicher, 30 (1884), p. 504 sq. ; A. Kalkmann, 
Pausanias der Perieget, p. 176. 



INTRODUCTION xciu 



Onchestus existed in his time. Strabo says that there were no 
trees in it. Where is the inconsistency between these statements? 
Strabo wrote in the reign of Augustus ; Pausanias wrote in the 
reign of Marcus Aurelius. Did trees cease to grow after the time 
of Strabo ? 

Further, Pausanias has been reproached with not knowing that Limnae 
Limnae in Messenia belonged to the Messenians in his time. 1 This and . . 
is a strange reproach. He treats of Limnae under Messenia, 2 and Messenia. 
does not say that it belonged to anybody but the Messenians. 
What more could he do ? Was it needful for him to say of every 
place in Messenia that it belonged to the Messenians ? of every town 
in Arcadia that it belonged to the Arcadians ? of every temple in 
Athens that it belonged to the Athenians? The ground of the 
offence is Pausanias's statement that the neighbouring town of 
Thuria in Messenia had been bestowed by Augustus on the Lace- 
daemonians. 3 The truth of this statement is not disputed. It is 
confirmed by coins which prove that in the reign of Septimius 
Severus, long after the time of Pausanias, Thuria continued to belong 
to the Lacedaemonians. But the critics have assumed quite 
gratuitously that along with Thuria the emperor Augustus transferred 
Limnae also to the Lacedaemonians, and that Pausanias believed 
Limnae to belong to them still in his time, although we know from 
the evidence of Tacitus 4 and of boundary stones that in his time 
Limnae belonged to Messenia. Both these assumptions are baseless. 
We have no reason to suppose that Augustus gave Limnae to the 
Lacedaemonians, none to suppose that Pausanias believed it to 
belong to them. On the contrary we have, as I have just pointed 
out, the best of grounds for supposing that he held it to belong to 
Messenia. The truth is, the critics have confused two distinct, 
though neighbouring districts, and have shifted the burden of this 
confusion to the shoulders of the innocent Pausanias, in whose work 
not a shadow of it can be detected. 

Lastly, it has been assumed 5 that Pausanias's account of the Temple of 
temple of Apollo at Delphi is irreconcileable with the remains of the A P olI at 
building and with inscriptions relating to it which have recently been e p 
discovered by the French at Delphi. The combined evidence of 
architecture and inscriptions proves conclusively that the temple 
built by the Alcmaeonids in the sixth century B.C. was afterwards 
destroyed, probably by an earthquake, and that it was rebuilt in the 



1 A. Kalkmann, op. cit. p. 164 sq. See vol. 3. p. 425 sqq. 

2 iv. 31. 3. 3 iv. 31. 1. 

4 Annals, iv. 43. 

5 By Mr. Th. Homolle [Comptes Rendus de V Acadtmie des Inscriptions, 23 (1895), 
pp. 328, 340) and Mr. H. Pomtow {Archaologischer Anzeiger, 1895, p. 4 ; Rhciu- 
isches Museum, N. F. 51 (1896), p. 329). As to the French discoveries at Delphi 
and their bearing on the history of the temple, see vol. 5. p. 328 sqq. 



xciv INTRODUCTION 



fourth century B.C. Yet Pausanias, it is said, describes the temple 
of the sixth century B.C. as if it still existed in his time. Let us 
look at the facts in the light of the French discoveries. Observe, 
then, that Pausanias mentions the Gallic shields hanging on the 
architrave of the temple. 1 These shields were captured in 279 B.C. 
Hence the temple which he describes cannot have been the old one 
built in the sixth century B.C., since that temple, as we now know, 
was afterwards destroyed and rebuilt in the fourth century B.C. But 
did Pausanias believe it to be the old one ? There is nothing to 
show that he did, but on the contrary there is a good deal to show 
that he did not. In the first place, he does not say that the temple 
was built by the Alcmaeonids. He says it was built for the Am- 
phictyons by the architect Spintharus. 2 The date of Spintharus is 
otherwise unknown, but we have no reason to suppose that he lived 
in the sixth rather than in the fourth century B.C. In the second 
place, Pausanias tells us that the first sculptures for the gables of the 
temple were executed by Praxias, a pupil of Calamis, but that as the 
building lasted some time, Praxias died before it was finished, and 
the rest of the sculptures were executed by another artist. 3 Now we 
have the evidence of Pausanias himself that the sculptor Calamis 
was at work as late as 427 B.C. 4 His pupil Praxias may therefore 
easily, at least in the opinion of Pausanias, have been at work at the 
end of the fifth century B.C. or in the early part of the fourth century 
B.C., and this is precisely the time when, if we may judge from the 
historical and inscriptional evidence, the old temple was destroyed 
and preparations at least for rebuilding it were being made. At all 
events, Pausanias cannot possibly have supposed that the pupil of a 
man who was at work in 427 b.c. can have executed sculptures for 
a temple that was built in the sixth century b.c. In short, neither 
was the temple which Pausanias describes the temple of the sixth 
century B.C. nor can he possibly have supposed it to be so. The 
temple he describes was in all probability the temple of the fourth 
century B.C. His statement that the temple was long in building is 
amply confirmed by the inscriptions which prove that the process 
of reconstruction dragged on over a period of many years. 

Thus in every case an analysis of the evidence adduced to prove 
that Pausanias described a state of things which had passed away 
before his time, reveals only some oversight or misapprehension on 
the part of his critics. We might take it, therefore, without further 
discussion that he described Greece as it was in his own age. But 
if any reader is still sceptical, still blinded by the phantom Polemo, 
New let him turn to Pausanias's description of new Corinth 5 and read it 

Connth. ^fa attention. Here was a city built in 44 B.C. more than a century 

1 x. 19. 4. 2 x. 5. 13. 3 x. 19. 4. 

4 ; o a s 



i. 3. 4. s ii. 2. 6-ii. 5. 1. 



INTRODUCTION xcv 



after the time of Polemo, upon whom Pausanias is supposed by some 
to have been slavishly dependent. Yet he describes the city minutely 
and in topographical order, following up each street as it led out of the 
market-place. Amongst the many temples he mentions in it is one of 
Octavia x and another of Capitolian Jupiter ; 2 among the many water- 
works is the aqueduct by which Hadrian, the author's contemporary, 
brought the water of the Stymphalian Lake to Corinth. 3 And his 
description of the city with its temples, images, fountains, and portals 
is amply borne out by coins of the Imperial age. 4 In the face of 
this single instance it is impossible to maintain that Pausanias must 
needs have borrowed most of his descriptions from writers who lived 
before 170 B.C. If he could describe Corinth so well without their 
aid, why should he not have described Athens, Olympia, and Delphi 
for himself? Nor does his power of description fail him when he 
comes down to works which were produced in his own lifetime. 
Not to mention his many notices of the works of Hadrian, such as 
the Olympieum at Athens with its colossal image of gold and ivory, 
and the library with its columns of Phrygian marble, its gilded roof, 
its alabaster ornaments, its statues and paintings, 5 he has given us 
a minute account of the images dedicated by his contemporary images 
Herodes Atticus in the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmus. 6 He de- ? ed J? ate 1 
scribes the images of Amphitrite and Poseidon, made of gold and Atticus 
ivory, standing erect in a car drawn by gilt horses with ivory hoofs ; at the 
the image of Palaemon, also made of gold and ivory, standing on a Isthmus - 
dolphin ; the two Tritons beside the horses, each of them made of 
gold from the waist upward and of ivory from the waist downward ; 
and the reliefs on the pedestal of the images, comprising a figure 
of the Sea holding up the infant Aphrodite, with Nereids and the 
Dioscuri on either side. If he could describe in such detail the 
work of an obscure contemporary artist whom he does not condescend 
to mention, what reason have we to think that he could not describe 
for himself the famous images by the great hand of Phidias, the 
image of the Virgin at Athens and the image of Zeus at Olympia ? 
In short, if Pausanias copied his descriptions from a book, it must 
have been from a book written in his own lifetime, perhaps by 
another man of the same name. The theory of the copyist Pau- 
sanias reduces itself to an absurdity. 

The best proof that Pausanias has pictured for us Greece as it Pausanias 
was in his own day and not as it had ceased to be long before, is ^g^f 
supplied by the monuments. In all parts of the country the truth- m0 nu- & 
fulness of his descriptions has been attested by remains of the ments. 
buildings which he describes, and wherever these remains are most 

1 ii- 3- * 2 4- 5- 3 3- 5- 

4 F. Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias, 
pp. 10-28. 

5 i. 18. 6-9. 6 ii. 1. 7-9. 



. 



xcvi INTRODUCTION 



numerous, as for example at Olympia, Delphi, and Lycosura, 1 we 
have most reason to admire his minute and painstaking accuracy. 
That he was infallible has never been maintained, and if it had 
been, the excavations would have refuted so foolish a contention, 
for they have enabled us to detect some errors into which he 
fell. For example, he mistook the figure of a girl for that of a 
man in the eastern gable of the temple of Zeus at Olympia ; 2 he 
misinterpreted the attitude of Hercules and Atlas in one of the 
metopes of the same temple ; 3 he affirmed that the colossal images 
at Lycosura were made of a single block of marble, 4 whereas we 
know that they were made of several blocks fitted together ; and he 
described the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea as the largest in Pelo- 
ponnese, 5 though in fact it was much smaller than the temple of Zeus 
at Olympia. These and similar mistakes, like the slips he sometimes 
made in reading inscriptions, do not lend any colour to an imputa- 
tion of bad faith. All they show is that he shared the common 
weaknesses of humanity, that his eye sometimes deceived him, that 
his attention sometimes flagged, that occasionally he may have lent 
too ready an ear to the talk of the local guides. If these are sins, 
they are surely not unpardonable. Those who have followed in his 
footsteps in Greece and have formed from personal experience some 
idea, necessarily slight, of the magnitude of the task he set him- 
self and of the difficulties he had to overcome in accomplishing 
it, will probably be the readiest to make allowance for inevitable 
imperfections, will be most grateful to him for what he has done, 
and least disposed to censure him for what he has left undone. 
Without him the ruins of Greece would for the most part be a laby- 
rinth without a clue, a riddle without an answer. His book furnishes 
the clue to the labyrinth, the answer to many riddles. It will be 
read and studied so long as ancient Greece shall continue to engage 
the attention and awaken the interest of mankind ; and if it is allow- 
able to forecast the results of research in the future from those of 
research in the past we may venture to predict that, while they will 
correct the descriptions of Pausanias on some minor points, they will 
confirm them on many more, and will bring to light nothing to shake 
the confidence of reasonable and fair-minded men in his honour and 
good faith. 

1 The latest reports of the excavations at Lycosura furnish a fresh and striking 
instance of Pausanias's exactitude. See Mr. B. Leonardos, in Upa/criKa ttjs 'Apxcu- 
oXoyiKrjs 'Eraipias, 1896 (published 1897), p. 95 sqq. ; and vol. 5. of this work, 
p. 622 sqq. 

2 v. 10. 6. See vol. 3. p. 509. 3 v. 10. 9. See vol. 3. p. 524 sq. 
4 viii. 37. 3. See vol. 4. p. 379. 5 viii. 45. 5. See vol. 4. p. 425. 



BOOK FIRST 

ATTICA 



i. Cape Sunium, in the land of Attica, juts out from that part of the 
Greek mainland which faces the Cyclades and the Aegean Sea. 
When you have sailed past the cape you come to a harbour, and 
there is a temple of Sunian Athena on the summit of the cape. 
Sailing on you come to Laurium, where the Athenians once had 
silver mines, and to a desert island of no great size called the island 
of Patroclus ; for Patroclus built a fort and erected a palisade on it. 
This Patroclus was the admiral in command of the Egyptian galleys 
which Ptolemy, the son of <Ptolemy, the son of> Lagus, sent to the 
help of the Athenians when Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, had 
invaded their country in person at the head of an army, and was 
ravaging it while his ships blockaded the coast. 

2. Piraeus was a township from of old, but before the 
archonship of Themistocles it was not a seaport. Down to that 
time Phalerum was the port of Athens, it being the point of the 
coast nearest to the city. It was from Phalerum, they say, that 
Menestheus sailed with his ships for Troy, and Theseus before him 
sailed from Phalerum to pay to Minos the forfeit for the death of 
Androgeus. But when Themistocles was appointed archon he made 
Piraeus the port of Athens, because it seemed to him to lie more 
conveniently for navigation and to have three harbours instead of the 
single one at Phalerum. And there were ship-sheds there down to 
my time; and beside the largest harbour is the grave of Themistocles. 
For they say that the Athenians repented of what they had done 
to Themistocles, and that his kinsmen took up his bones and brought 
them from Magnesia. Certain it is that the sons of Themistocles 
not only returned from exile, but dedicated in the Parthenon a 
picture containing a portrait of Themistocles. 

3. Best worth seeing in Piraeus is a precinct of Athena and . 
Zeus. Both the images are of bronze : Zeus holds a sceptre and a 

vol. 1 B 



2 THE HARBOURS OF ATHENS bk. i. attica 

Victory, Athena holds a spear. Here is a painting of Leosthenes 
and his sons by Arcesilaus. It was Leosthenes who, at the head of 
the Athenians and all the Greeks, defeated the Macedonians in 
Boeotia and again outside Thermopylae ; and after overpowering 
them shut them up in Lamia, over against Oeta. Behind the Long 
Colonnade, which stands beside the sea, there are statues of Zeus 
and the People, a work of Leochares. In the Long Colonnade 
there is a market for the sea- side population : there is another 
market for those who dwell farther from the harbour. Beside 
the sea Conon built a sanctuary of Aphrodite after vanquishing the 
Lacedaemonian fleet at Cnidus in the Carian peninsula ; for the 
Cnidians honour Aphrodite above all the gods, and they have 
sanctuaries of the goddess. The oldest is the sanctuary of 
Bountiful Aphrodite : next to it is the sanctuary of Aphrodite of 
the Height ; and newest of all is the sanctuary of her who is 
generally called Cnidian Aphrodite, but whom the Cnidians them- 
selves call Aphrodite of the Fair Voyage. 

4 4. The Athenians have another harbour at Munychia, with a 
temple of Munychian Artemis, and another harbour at Phalerum, as 
I said before. At the latter harbour is a sanctuary of Demeter. 
Here, too, is a temple of Sciradian Athena, and farther off is a 

, temple of Zeus. And there are altars of gods named Unknown, and 

? of heroes, and of the children of Theseus, and of Phalerus ; for the 

Athenians say that this Phalerus sailed with Jason to Colchis. 

There is an altar also of Androgeus, son of Minos. It is called the 

altar of the hero, but antiquaries know that it is the altar of Andro- 

5 geus. Twenty furlongs away is Cape Colias, on which, when the 
fleet of the Medes was destroyed, the wrecks were washed up by the 
waves. Here is an image of Colian Aphrodite, and here are the 
goddesses named Genetyllides. I think that the goddesses whom 
the Phocaeans of Ionia call Gennaides are the same as the goddesses 
at Colias. On the way from Phalerum to Athens is a temple of 
Hera that has neither doors nor roof: they say it was fired by 
Mardonius, the son of Gobrias. The existing image is, so they say, 
a work of Alcamenes ; it cannot, therefore, have been injured by 
the Medes. 



II 

1. Entering the city we come to the tomb of Antiope the 
Amazon. Pindar says that this Antiope was carried off by Pirithous 
and Theseus ; but, as told by the poet Hegias of Troezen, the story 
is that when Hercules was besieging Themiscyra on the Thermodon 
and could not take it, Antiope surrendered the place because she 
had fallen in love with Theseus, who had gone with Hercules to the 
war. So says the poet Hegias ; but the Athenians say that, when 



chs. i -i I THE APPROACH TO ATHENS 3 

the Amazons came, Antiope was shot with an arrow by Molpadia, 
and that Molpadia was slain by Theseus. There is a tomb of 
Molpadia also at Athens. 

2. Going up from Piraeus we come to ruins of the walls which 2 
Conon reared after the sea-fight at Cnidus. For the walls of 
Themistocles, built after the retreat of the Medes, were pulled down 
in the reign of the Thirty, as they are named. There are graves on 
the road, the most famous being the grave of Menander, the son of 
Diopithes, and a cenotaph of Euripides. Euripides is buried in 
Macedonia, whither he had gone to the court of King Archelaus. 
The manner of his death has been told by many ; be it as they say. 
3. Thus we see that in those days poets associated with kings ; 3 
and in still earlier times Anacreon resided with Polycrates, tyrant of 
Samos, and Aeschylus and Simonides journeyed to Syracuse to the 
court of Hiero. And Philoxenus resided with Dionysius, the 
Sicilian tyrant of a later age ; and Antagoras the Rhodian and 
Aratus of Soli resided with Antigonus, ruler of Macedonia. But 
Hesiod and Homer either had not the luck to associate with kings, 
or disdained to do so : Hesiod because he was of rustic manners 
and loath to roam ; Homer because he had travelled into far 
countries, and esteemed the largess of princes less than the applause 
of the people. For Homer himself has told how Alcinous was. 
attended by Demodocus, and how Agamemnon left a poet with his 
wife. Not far from the gate is a grave surmounted by a warrior 
standing beside a horse : who he is I know not, but both horse and 
warrior are by Praxiteles. 

4. When we have entered into the city we come to a building 4 
for the getting ready of the processions which are conducted at 
yearly and other intervals. Hard by is a temple of Demeter with 
images of the goddess, her daughter, and Iacchus, who is holding a 
torch. An inscription in Attic letters on the wall declares that they 
are works of Praxiteles. Not far from the temple is a Poseidon on 
horseback hurling a spear at the giant Polybotes, in reference to 
whom the Coans tell the myth about Cape Chelone ; but the 
existing inscription assigns the statue, not to Poseidon, but to some 
one else. Colonnades run from the gate to the Ceramicus ; and 
in front of them are bronze statues of such men and women as had 
some title to fame. One of the colonnades contains sanctuaries of 5 
the gods and a gymnasium called the gymnasium of Hermes. In 
it, too, is the house of Pulytion, in which, they say, some illustrious 
Athenians parodied the Eleusinian mysteries ; but in my time it was 
consecrated to Dionysus. This Dionysus they call the Minstrel for 
much the same reason that Apollo is called Leader of the Muses. 
Here are images of Healing Athena and Zeus and Memory and the 
Muses, and an Apollo, the work and offering of Eubulides, and an 
effigy of Acratus, one of Dionysus' attendant sprites ; it is only a 



4 CER AMICUS ROYAL COLONNADE bk. i. attica 

face of him built into a wall. After the precinct of Dionysus is 
a building containing images of clay : they represent Amphictyon, 
king of Athens, feasting Dionysus and other gods. Here, too, is 
Pegasus of Eleutherae, who introduced the god to the Athenians : 
he was aided by the Delphic oracle, which reminded the Athenians 
that, in the days of Icarius, the god had once sojourned in the 
6 land. 5. Now Amphictyon got the kingdom thus : They say that 
Actaeus was the first who reigned in what is now Attica ; and on 
his death Cecrops succeeded to the throne, being the husband of 
Actaeus' daughter. There were born to him three daughters, Herse, 
Aglaurus, and Pandrosus, and a son, Erysichthon. The son did not 
come to the kingdom, but died in his father's lifetime, and Cecrops 
was succeeded on the throne by Cranaus, the most powerful of the 
Athenians. They say that Cranaus had daughters, amongst whom 
was Atthis : after her they name the country Attica, which before 
was called Actaea. But Amphictyon rose up against Cranaus, and 
deposed him, though he had the daughter of Cranaus to wife. He 
was himself afterwards banished by Erichthonius and his fellow- 
rebels. They say that Erichthonius had no human being for father, 
but that his parents were Hephaestus and Earth. 

Ill 

1. The place called the Ceramicus has its name from a hero 
Ceramus, said to be a son of Dionysus and Ariadne. First on 
the right is a colonnade called the Royal Colonnade, where the 
king sits during his year of office, which is called the kingship. On 
the tiled roof of this colonnade are terra -cotta images Theseus 
hurling Sciron into the sea, and Day carrying Cephalus, who, they 
say, was exceeding fair, and was ravished by Day ; for she loved 
him and bore him a son, Phaethon . . . and made him guardian 
of the temple. This tale is told by Hesiod in his poem on women 

2 as well as by other writers. Near the colonnade stand statues of 
Conon and his son Timotheus, and Evagoras, king of Cyprus, who 
prevailed on King Artaxerxes to give Conon the Phoenician galleys. 
Evagoras did this because he considered himself an Athenian and 
of Salaminian descent ; for he traced his lineage up to Teucer and 
the daughter of Cinyras. Here stands an image of Zeus, named 
Zeus of Freedom, and a statue of the Emperor Hadrian, the bene- 
factor of his subjects and especially of Athens. 

3 2. Behind is built a colonnade with paintings of the gods, who 
are called the Twelve. On the opposite wall are painted Theseus, 
Democracy, and the People. The painting signifies that it was 
Theseus who established political equality at Athens. There is, 
indeed, a popular tradition that Theseus handed over the conduct of 
affairs to the people, and that the government continued to be a 



chs. n-iv PAINTINGS COUNCIL HOUSE 5 

democracy from his time down to the insurrection and tyranny of 
Pisistratus. But falsehood, in general, passes current among the 
multitude because they are ignorant of history and believe all that they 
have heard from childhood in choirs and tragedies. And Theseus, 
in particular, is the subject of such a falsehood. For, in point of 
fact, not only was he king himself, but his descendants, after the 
death of Menestheus, continued to bear rule down to the third 
generation. If I cared to trace pedigrees, I could have enumerated 
the kings from Melanthus to Clidicus son of Aesimides. 

3. Here, too, is painted the battle fought at Mantinea by the 4 
Athenians, who were sent to help the Lacedaemonians. Xenophon 
and others have written the history of the whole war, including the 
seizure of the Cadmea, the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at 
Leuctra, the Boeotian invasion of Peloponnese, and the arrival of 
an Athenian contingent to aid the Lacedaemonians. The picture 
represents the cavalry fight, in which the best-known figures are 
Grylus, the son of Xenophon, on the Athenian side, and Epaminondas 
the Theban among the Boeotian cavalry. Euphranor painted these 
pictures for the Athenians ; and he also executed the Apollo, sur- 
named Paternal, in the temple hard by. In front of the temple is 
an image of the god by Leochares, and another by Calamis. The 
latter image is called Averter of Evil. They say this name was 
given to the god because by an oracle from Delphi he stayed the 
plague which afflicted Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war. 

4. There is a sanctuary also of the Mother of the Gods : her 5 
image is a work of Phidias. Near it is the Council House of the 
Five Hundred, as they are called, who form the annual council of 
Athens. In the Council House are a wooden image of Counsellor 
Zeus, an Apollo by Pisias, and a figure of the People by Lyson. 
The picture of the Lawgivers is by Protogenes of Caunus : the 
portrait of Callipus, who led the Athenians to Thermopylae to 
prevent the irruption of the Gauls into Greece, is by Olbiades. 

IV 

1. These Gauls inhabit the farthest parts of Europe on the shore 
of a great sea, which at its extremities is not navigable. The sea 
ebbs and flows, and contains beasts quite unlike those in the rest of 
the sea. Through their country flows the river Eridanus, on whose 
banks people think that the daughters of the Sun bewail the fate of 
their brother Phaethon. The name Gauls came into vogue late, 
for of old the people were called Celts both by themselves and others. 
A host of them mustered and marched towards the Ionian Sea : 
they dispossessed the Illyrian nation and the Macedonians, as well 
as all the intervening peoples, and overran Thessaly. When they 
were come near to Thermopylae most of the Greeks awaited 



GALLIC INVASION bk. i. attica 



passively the attack of the barbarians ; for they had suffered heavily 
before at the hands of Alexander and Philip, and afterwards the 
nation had been brought low by Antipater and Cassander, so that in 
their weakness each thought it no shame to refrain from taking 

2 part in the national defence. 2. But the Athenians, although 
they were more exhausted than any of the Greeks by the long 
Macedonian war and many defeats in battle, nevertheless appointed 
the said Callipus to the command, and hastened to Thermopylae with 
such of the Greeks as volunteered. Having seized the narrowest 
part of the pass, they attempted to hinder the barbarians from 
entering into Greece. But the Celts discovered the path by which 
Ephialtes the Trachinian once guided the Medes ; and after over- 
powering the Phocians, who were posted on it, they crossed Mount Oeta 

3 before the Greeks were aware. 3. Then it was that the Athenians 
rendered a great service to Greece ; for on both sides, surrounded as 
they were, they kept the barbarians at bay. But their comrades on 
the ships laboured the most ; for at Thermopylae the Lamian Gulf is 
a swamp, the cause of which, it seems to me, is the warm water that 
here flows into the sea. So their toil was the greater ; for when 
they had taken the Greeks on board, they made shift to sail through 

4 the mud in ships weighed down with arms and men. 4. Thus they 
strove to save the Greeks in the way I have described. But the 
Gauls were inside of Pylae; and, scorning to capture the other towns, 
they were bent on plundering Delphi and the treasures of the god. 
The Delphians, and those of the Phocians who inhabit the cities 
round about Parnassus, put themselves in array against them, and 
there came also a force of Aetolians ; for at that time the Aetolian 
race excelled in youthful vigour. But when they came to close 
quarters, thunderbolts and rocks, breaking away from Parnassus, 
came hurtling down upon the Gauls ; and dreadful shapes of men in 
arms appeared against the barbarians. They say that two of these 
phantom warriors, Hyperochus and Amadocus, came from the 
Hyperboreans, and that the third was Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. For 
this help in battle the Delphians sacrifice to Pyrrhus as to a hero, 
though formerly they held his very tomb in dishonour as that of 
a foe. 

5 5. Most of the Gauls crossed to Asia in ships and plundered the 
sea-coast. But afterwards the people of Pergamus, which was 
called Teuthrania of old, drove them away from the sea into the 
country now called Galatia. They captured Ancyra, a city of the 
Phrygians, founded in former days by Midas, son of Gordius, and 
took possession of the land beyond the Sangarius. The anchor 
which Midas found still existed, even down to my time, in the 
sanctuary of Zeus ; and there is a fountain called the fountain of 
Midas : they say that Midas mixed wine with the water of the foun- 
tain to catch Silenus. This town of Ancyra, then, was captured 



chs. iv-v ROTUNDA EPONYMOUS HEROES 7 

by the Gauls, and likewise Pessinus under Mount Agdistis, where 
they say that Attis is buried. 6. The Pergamenians have spoils C 
taken from the Gauls, and a picture representing the battle with 
them. The country inhabited by the Pergamenians is said to have 
been sacred to the Cabiri of old ; but the Pergamenians themselves 
claim to be Arcadians of the band which crossed to Asia with Tele- 
phus. Of their other wars, if indeed they waged any, the fame has 
not gone abroad ; but three most renowned achievements are theirs, 
to wit, the empire of lower Asia, the expulsion of the Gauls from 
thence, and Telephus' bold attack on the army of Agamemnon at the 
time when the Greeks, after missing Ilium, were plundering the 
Mysian plain in the belief that it was the land of Troy. But I 
return to the point from which I digressed. 

V 

1. Near the Council House of the Five Hundred is the so-called 
Rotunda. Here the Presidents sacrifice, and here, too, are certain 
silver images of no great size. Higher up stand statues of the 
heroes from whom the Athenian tribes afterwards got their names. 
Herodotus has told who it was that established ten tribes instead of 
four and replaced their old names by new ones. 2. The eponymous 2 
heroes, for so they call them, are, first, Hipothoon, son of Poseidon 
by Alope, daughter of Cercyon ; second, Antiochus, one of the 
children of Hercules, who had him by Meda, daughter of Phylas ; 
third, Ajax, son of Telamon; and the following Athenians, to wit, Leos, 
who is said to have given his daughters for the public safety at the 
bidding of the oracle ; Erechtheus, who vanquished the Eleusinians 
in battle, and slew their leader Immaradus, son of Eumolpus ; Aegeus ; 
Oeneus, bastard son of Pandion ; and Acamas, one of the sons of 
Theseus. 

3. I saw also the statues of Cecrops and Pandion amongst the 3 
eponymous heroes, but which Cecrops and which Pandion they 
hold in honour I do not know. For there were two kings of the 
name of Cecrops : the first married the daughter of Actaeus, and 
the second migrated to Euboea ; the latter was the son of Erech- 
theus, who was the son of Pandion, who was the son of Erichthonius. 
Similarly there were two kings called Pandion : one was the son of 
Erichthonius, the other was the son of Cecrops the second. The 
latter Pandion was driven from the throne by the Metionids, and 
fled with his children to Megara; for his wife was a daughter of Pylas, 
king of Megara. It is said that Pandion fell sick and died there, 
and his tomb is by the sea-shore in the land of Megara, on a bluff, 
which is called the bluff of Diver-bird Athena. 4. His sons drove 4 
out the Metionids and returned from Megara ; and Aegeus, being 
the eldest, obtained the kingdom of Athens. But in respect of his 



8 HISTORY OF PTOLEMY I bk. i. attica 

daughters Pandion was unlucky, and they left no children to avenge 
him, although it was for the sake of power that he had connected 
himself by marriage with the Thracian prince. However, there is 
no way whereby man can evade the decrees of heaven. They say 
that Tereus, though wedded to Procne, outraged Philomela in 
defiance of Greek law ; and having moreover mutilated the damsel, 
he impelled the women to take vengeance. There is another 
statue of Pandion on the Acropolis which is worth seeing. 
5 5. These are the old eponymous heroes of Athens. But in later 
times there were tribes called after Attalus the Mysian and Ptolemy 
the Egyptian ; and in my time there was also a tribe called after 
the Emperor Hadrian, the prince who did most for the glory of 
God and the happiness of his subjects. He never made war of his 
own free will, but he quelled the revolt of the Hebrews who dwell 
over above the Syrians. The sanctuaries that he either built or 
adorned with votive offerings and other fittings, and the gifts that he 
bestowed on Greek cities and the barbarians who sought his bounty, 
are all recorded at Athens in the common sanctuary of the gods. 

VI 

1. The age of Attalus and Ptolemy is so remote that the 
tradition of it has passed away, and the writings of the historians 
whom the kings engaged to record their deeds fell into neglect still 
sooner. For these reasons I propose to narrate their exploits, 
and the manner in which the sovereignty of Egypt, of Mysia, 

2 and of the border lands, devolved on their ancestors. 2. The 
Macedonians believe that Ptolemy, though nominally the son 
of Lagus, was really the son of Philip, son of x^myntas ; for 
they say that his mother was with child when Philip gave her in 
marriage to Lagus. Amongst other brilliant exploits of Ptolemy 
in Asia, it is said that when Alexander was in danger amongst 
the Oxydracians it was Ptolemy more than any of his com- 
rades who came to his rescue. On the death of Alexander he 
opposed those who would have transferred the whole power to 
Aridaeus, son of Philip, and the division of the nations into separate 

3 kingdoms was mainly due to him. 3. After passing into Egypt he 
put to death Cleomenes, the satrap of Egypt appointed by Alexander, 
because he believed him to be favourable to Perdiccas, and therefore 
not faithful to himself. He prevailed on the Macedonians who 
were charged with the conveyance of Alexander's body to Aegae 
to deliver it to himself, and he buried it in Macedonian fashion at 
Memphis. But knowing that Perdiccas would go to war, he kept 
Egypt on the watch. To lend a colour to his expedition, Perdiccas 
brought with him Aridaeus, son of Philip, and the young Alexander, 
son of Alexander by Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes ; but his real 



chs. v-vi HISTORY OF PTOLEMY I 9 

object was to deprive Ptolemy of the kingdom of Egypt. However, 
he was repulsed : his military reputation declined ; and being 
unpopular with the Macedonians for other reasons, he fell by the 
hands of his body-guards. 

4. The death of Perdiccas at once elevated Ptolemy to 4 
power : he conquered Syria and Phoenicia ; and when Seleucus, 
son of Antiochus, was expelled by Antigonus and fled to him, 
he received him and prepared to retaliate on Antigonus. He 
induced Antipater's son, Cassander, and Lysimachus, king of 
Thrace, to take part in the war, by representing to them the 
ftyght of Seleucus and the formidable growth of Antigonus' power. 

For a time Antigonus was occupied with preparing for war, and 5 
/did not care to face the hazard. But when he heard that Ptolemy 
had been called away to Libya by the revolt of Cyrene, he at once 
overran Syria and Phoenicia, and then, entrusting them to his son 
Demetrius, a youth with a reputation for wisdom above his years, 
marched towards the Hellespont. But before reaching the sea, he led 
his army back again on hearing that Demetrius had been defeated 
in battle by Ptolemy. Demetrius, however, had not been forced by 
Ptolemy to evacuate the country wholly, and he had even surprised 
and cut to pieces a handful of Egyptian troops. Ptolemy did not 
await the arrival of Antigonus, but retired to Egypt. 6. When the 6 
winter was over Demetrius sailed to Cyprus and defeated Menelaus, 
Ptolemy's satrap, in a sea-fight, and afterwards, when Ptolemy him- 
self attacked him, he treated him in the same way. Ptolemy fled 
to Egypt, where he was besieged by Antigonus and Demetrius by sea 
and land. His peril was extreme, but he saved his kingdom, his 
army encamping over against the enemy at Pelusium, and his 
galleys assailing them from the river. In these circumstances 
Antigonus had no longer any hope of conquering Egypt, but he 
despatched Demetrius with a powerful army and fleet against 
Rhodes, hoping, if he could attach the island to his cause, to use it 
as a base of operations against Egypt. But the Rhodians sustained 
the siege with valour and skill, and Ptolemy put forth all his power 
to assist them. 7. Baffled in Rhodes and Egypt, Antigonus not 7 
long afterwards ventured to take the field against Lysimachus. 
Cassander, and the forces of Seleucus. But he lost most of his army, 
and fell himself, worn out chiefly by the long war against Eumenes. 
Of the kings who overthrew Antigonus, the wickedest in my opinion 
was Cassander, who, though it was by Antigonus' means that he had 
recovered the government of Macedonia, nevertheless marched to 
make war on his benefactor. 

8. On the death of Antigonus, Ptolemy recovered Syria, conquered 8 
Cyprus, and restored Pyrrhus to Thesprotia in Epirus. Cyrene had 
revolted, but was taken in the fourth year after the revolt by Magas, 
son of Berenice, whom Ptolemv at that time had to wife. If 



io HISTORY OF PTOLEMY II bk. i. attica 

Ptolemy was really the son of Philip, son of Amyntas, it must have 
been from his father that he inherited his mania for women. When 
he was married to Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, and had children 
by her, he fell in love with Berenice, whom Antipater had sent to 
Egypt in Eurydice's train. She took his fancy and he had children 
by her ; and when his end was near, he left the kingdom of Egypt 
to Ptolemy, his son by her, and not by the daughter of Antipater. 
This Ptolemy, son of Berenice, is he who gave his name to the 
Athenian tribe. 



VII 

i. This Ptolemy fell in love with his full sister, Arsinoe, and 
married her, contrary to the customs of the Macedonians, but agree- 
ably to those of the Egyptians over whom he ruled. Next he put 
to death his brother Argaeus, because he was plotting against him, 
as is said. It was Ptolemy who brought down the body of Alex- 
ander from Memphis. He also put to death another brother, a son 
of Eurydice, because he learnt that he was inciting the Cyprians to 
revolt. He had a uterine brother Magas, whom Berenice bore to 
Philip, an obscure and ignoble Macedonian. This Magas, having 
been promoted by his mother Berenice to the government of 
Cyrene, roused the Cyrenians to revolt, and marched against Egypt. 

2 2. Ptolemy fortified the pass and awaited the attack of the Cyrenians. 
But tidings reached Magas on the march that the Marmarids, a tribe 
of Libyan nomads, had revolted ; so he returned to Cyrene. Ptolemy 
would have hastened in pursuit, but was prevented by the following 
cause. When he was making ready to resist the attack of Magas, he 
engaged, amongst other mercenaries, four thousand Gauls ; but 
finding that they were plotting to seize Egypt, he took them to a 
desert island on the river, where they perished by hunger and each 

3 other's swords. 3. Magas, having to wife Apame, daughter of 
Antiochus, son of Seleucus, persuaded Antiochus to break the treaty 
which his father Seleucus had made with Ptolemy, and to march on 
Egypt. But when Antiochus was about to take the field, Ptolemy 
despatched troops against all his subjects : against the weaker he 
sent marauding bands to scour the country, while he held in check 
the more powerful by an army. So that Antiochus was never able to 
march against Egypt. I have already mentioned that this Ptolemy 
sent a fleet to support the Athenians against Antigonus and the 
Macedonians, but it did little to save Athens. His children were 
borne to him by Arsinoe, daughter of Lysimachus, not by his sister 
Arsinoe, who had previously died childless. A province of Egypt 
is called Arsinoites after her. 



chs. vi-viii HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGITON n 



VIII 

i. The subject requires that I should relate also the history of 
Attalus, for he is another of the eponymous heroes of Athens. A 
Macedonian named Docimus, a general of Antigonus, who after- 
wards surrendered himself and his treasures to Lysimachus, had a 
Paphlagonian eunuch Philetaerus. How Philetaerus revolted from 
Lysimachus and drew Seleucus over to his side, I shall take occasion 
to mention when I treat of Lysimachus. 2. Attalus was the son 
of Attalus, and nephew of Philetaerus, and he succeeded to the 
dominion which his cousin Eumenes transmitted to him. His 
greatest achievement was compelling the Gauls to retreat from the 
coast into the territory which they still occupy. 

3. After the statues of the eponymous heroes, there are images 2 
of gods, to wit, Amphiaraus, and Peace carrying the child Wealth. 
Here is a bronze statue of Lycurgus, son of Lycophron, and another 
of Callias, who, as most of the Athenians relate, negotiated the 
peace between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. 4. There 
is also a statue of Demosthenes, whom the Athenians forced to 
withdraw to Calauria, the island off Troezen : afterwards they re- 
ceived him back, but banished him again after the defeat at Lamia. 
In his second exile Demosthenes crossed once more to Calauria, 3 
where he drank poison and died : he was the only Greek exile 
whom Archias did not deliver up to Antipater and the Mace- 
donians. This Archias was a native of Thurii, and did a foul 
deed : he brought to Antipater for punishment all who had sided 
against the Macedonians before the overthrow of the Greeks in 
Thessaly. Such was the end of the great love that Demosthenes 
bore his country. Well, methinks, has it been said that the man 
who throws himself heart and soul into a political career and puts 
his trust in the people never yet came to a good end. 5. Near 4 
the statue of Demosthenes is a sanctuary of Ares, where are two 
images of Aphrodite : the image of Ares was made by Alcamenes, 
that of Athena by a native of Paros named Locrus. Here, too, is 
an image of Enyo, made by the sons of Praxiteles. Round about 
the temple stand images of Hercules, Theseus, and Apollo binding 
his hair with a fillet ; and there are statues of Calades, who is said 
to have drawn up laws for the Athenians, and of Pindar, who received 
this statue and other honours from the Athenians, because he 
praised them in a song. Not far off stand statues of Harmodius 5 
and Aristogiton, who slew Hipparchus : the cause and the manner of 
the deed have been told by others. These statues are by Critias ; 
but the old ones were made by Antenor. Xerxes carried them off 
with other booty when he captured Athens after its evacuation by 
the Athenians but Antiochus afterwards sent them back to Athens 



12 STATUES OF THE PTOLEMIES bk. i. attica 

6 6. Before the entrance of the theatre which they call the 
Music Hall, are statues of Egyptian kings. All bear the name 
of Ptolemy, but each has a surname of his own : one they call 
Philometer, another Philadelphus, while another, the son of Lagus, 
is called Soter (' saviour '), a name bestowed upon him by the 
Rhodians. Philadelphus is he whom I mentioned among the 
eponymous heroes. Near him is a statue of his sister Arsinoe. 

IX 

i. Ptolemy, surnamed Philometer, was the seventh in descent 
from Ptolemy, son of Lagus. His surname was given to him 
sarcastically, for none of the kings is known to have been hated 
so heartily by his mother. Though he was her eldest son she 
would not suffer him to be called to the throne, but had previously 
contrived that he should be sent by his father to Cyprus. For 
the ill-will that Cleopatra bore her son various causes are alleged ; 
amongst others that she expected that her younger son Alexander 
would be more dutiful. 2. Therefore she would fain have persuaded 

2 the Egyptians to elect Alexander king. When the multitude opposed, 
she sent Alexander to Cyprus, nominally as general, but really be- 
cause she wished by his means to overawe Ptolemy. Lastly, she 
caused the eunuchs whom she deemed most attached to her to be 
wounded, and then brought them before the multitude, pretending 
that Ptolemy had plotted against her and had treated her eunuchs 
thus. The Alexandrines rushed to kill Ptolemy, but he escaped 
from them on shipboard ; so they made Alexander, who had 

3 returned from Cyprus, their king. 3. Retribution overtook 
Cleopatra for Ptolemy's exile : she was put to death by Alexander, 
whom she had herself been instrumental in setting on the throne 
of Egypt. When the crime came to light and Alexander fled for 
fear of the people, Ptolemy returned and made himself master of 
Egypt for the second time. He made war on the rebel Thebans, 
and having subdued them in the second year after the revolt, he 
treated them with such severity that not even a memorial was left of 
that golden age in which the riches of Thebes had surpassed the 
riches both of the Delphic sanctuary and of Orchomenus, the two 
wealthiest places in Greece. Not long afterwards Ptolemy came 
by his appointed end, and the Athenians, who had received at his 
hands many benefits which I need not specify, set up bronze statues 
of him and of Berenice, his only legitimate child. 

4 4. After the Egyptians are statues of Philip and Alexander his 
son : their achievements were too great to be described in a parenthesis. 
The Egyptian kings were real benefactors, and the honours bestowed 
on them were a tribute, of true respect ; but the compliment to Philip 
and Alexander was rather the fruit of popular adulation; and even the 



chs. viii-ix HISTORY OF LYSIMACHUS 13 

statue of Lysimachus was erected from motives of temporary interest 
rather than esteem. 

5. This Lysimachus was a Macedonian, and one of Alexander's j 
guard. Alexander once in a rage shut him up in a lion's den ; but 
finding that he overcame the beast, Alexander admired him ever 
afterwards, and honoured him with the noblest of the Mace- 
donians. After Alexander's death Lysimachus reigned over those 
Thracian tribes bordering on Macedonia over whom Alexander 
and Philip before him had ruled. 6. These tribes are probably 
but a small part of the Thracian stock ; for no single nation, except 
the Celts, is more numerous than the Thracians collectively. Hence 
no one ever conquered the whole Thracian people till the Romans 
did so. But the whole of Thrace is subject to the Romans, who 
hold also all the lands of the Celts that are worth having, disregard- 
ing only such as they deem useless on account of the severity of 
the cold or the poverty of the soil. 7. The first of the neigh- 6 
bouring tribes on whom Lysimachus made war were the Odrysians. 
Next he marched against the Getae and their chief Dromichaetes. 
Having engaged a far superior force of that warlike tribe, he had 
a hairbreadth escape himself; but his son Agathocles, then serving 
his first campaign with him, fell into the hands of the Getae. 
Fresh defeats and anxiety at the captivity of his son induced him 
to conclude a peace with Dromichaetes, whereby he ceded to 
that chief all his domains beyond the Danube, and gave him, some- 
what reluctantly, his daughter to wife. Some say that it was not 
Agathocles, but Lysimachus himself who fell into the hands of the 
enemy, and that he was rescued by Agathocles, who negotiated on 
his behalf with the Getan chief. On his return he married Aga- 
thocles to Lysandra, daughter of Ptolemy (the son of Lagus) and 
Eurydice. 8. He also crossed over to Asia and helped to put an 7 
end to the rule of Antigonus. He founded, too, the present city of 
Ephesus down to the sea, importing inhabitants from Lebedus and 
Colophon, which cities he destroyed, so that the iambic poet Phoenix 
lamented the capture of Colophon. I suppose that Hermesianax, 
the elegiac poet, was no longer in life, else no doubt he too would 
have bewailed the taking of Colophon. 9. Lysimachus also en- 
gaged in a war with Pyrrhus, son of Aeacides. Taking advantage 
of the departure of Pyrrhus from Epirus, for indeed Pyrrhus was 
generally roving, he pillaged the country and advanced as far as 
the sepulchres of the kings. 10. The rest of the story is to me 3 
incredible ; but Hieronymus the Cardian states that Lysimachus 
opened the sepulchres and scattered the bones of the dead. This 
Hieronymus has the reputation of having written disparagingly of 
the kings in general except Antigonus, to whom he is said to have 
been unduly partial. As to the graves of the Epirots in particular, 
it is perfectly plain that the story of a Macedonian having opened 



i 4 HISTORY OF LYSIMACHUS bk. i. attica 

the sepulchres of the dead is a scurrilous fabrication of the writer. 
Besides, Lysimachus was of course aware that they were the fore- 
fathers of Alexander as well as of Pyrrhus ; for Alexander was an 
Epirot and an Aeacid by his mother's side. Moreover, the sub- 
sequent alliance of Pyrrhus with Lysimachus proves that even as 
enemies they had not proceeded to extremities. Hieronymus may 
have had other grudges against Lysimachus, but certainly he had 
one very strong one : Lysimachus had destroyed the city of Cardia, 
and had founded Lysimachia in its stead on the isthmus of the 
Thracian Chersonese. 



X 

i. During the reign of Aridaeus, and afterwards of Cassander 
and his sons, Lysimachus continued on friendly terms with the 
Macedonians. But when the sovereignty devolved on Demetrius, 
son of Antigonus, Lysimachus made sure that he would be attacked 
by that prince, and resolved to take the initiative. For he knew that 
Demetrius inherited his father's grasping ambition, and perceived 
that no sooner had he set foot in Macedonia, whither he had been 
summoned by Alexander, son of Cassander, than he had murdered 

2 Alexander and reigned in his stead. 2. But having encountered 
Demetrius at Amphipolis, he was near being driven from Thrace. 
However, Pyrrhus came to his help and so he retained Thrace, 
and afterwards reigned over the Nestians and Macedonians. But 
the greater part of Macedonia Pyrrhus kept in his own hands by 
means of the military force which he had brought with him from 
Epirus, and of the friendly footing on which, for the time being, he 
stood with Lysimachus. The alliance between the two lasted so 
long as Demetrius, who had crossed into Asia, was able to hold 
his own in the war with Seleucus. But when Demetrius fell into 
the hands of Seleucus the friendship between Lysimachus and 
Pyrrhus was dissolved and they went to war. By a decisive victory 
gained over Antigonus, son of Demetrius, as well as over Pyr- 
rhus himself, Lysimachus made himself master of Macedonia, and 

3 compelled Pyrrhus to retreat into Epirus. 3. Love is the source of 
many misfortunes to mankind, as Lysimachus learned to his cost. For 
at an advanced age, blest with children and grandchildren for 
Agathocles had children by Lysandra he married Lysandra's sister 
Arsinoe. This Arsinoe is said to have plotted against Agathocles, 
from fear that her children would be at his mercy on the death of 
Lysimachus. It has been stated by some writers that Arsinoe con- 
ceived a passion for Agathocles, which being unrequited, she 
plotted his death. They say that his wife's wickedness afterwards 
came to the knowledge of Lysimachus, but that he could do 

4 nothing, being bereft of all his friends. 4. When Lysimachus, 



chs. ix-xi LYSIMACHUS PYRRHUS 15 

then, left Arsinoe free to make away with Agathocles, Lysandra 
fled to Seleucus, taking her children and brothers with her. . . . 
Alexander, a son of Lysimachus by an Odrysian woman, followed 
them in their flight to Seleucus. So they went up to Babylon and 
besought Seleucus to go to war with Lysimachus. And at the 
same time Philetaerus, to whose care were committed Lysimachus' 
treasures, indignant at the death of Agathocles, and suspicious of 
Arsinoe, seized Pergamus on the Caicus, and sent a herald to sur- 
render himself and the treasures to Seleucus. 5. No sooner did 5 
all this come to the ears of Lysimachus, than he made haste to 
cross over into Asia, and, assuming the offensive, gave battle to 
Seleucus ; but he was decisively defeated and slain. Alexander, his 
son by the Odrysian woman, succeeded by many prayers addressed 
to Lysandra in obtaining his body, which he afterwards conveyed 
to the Chersonese, and buried in the place where his grave is still 
to be seen, between the village of Cardia and Pactya. Such was 
the history of Lysimachus. 

XI 

1. The Athenians have a statue of Pyrrhus also. This 
Pyrrhus was related to Alexander only by ancestry. For Pyrrhus 
was a son of Aeacides, the son of Arybbas, and Alexander was a son 
of Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus ; and Neoptolemus and 
Arybbas were sons of Alcetas the son of Tharypas. From Tharypas 
to Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, there are fifteen generations. After the 
taking of Ilium, Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, was the first who, dis- 
daining to return to Thessaly, landed in Epirus, and there took up 
his abode in compliance with the oracles of Helenus. He had no 
child by Hermione, but by Andromache he had Molossus and 
Pielus and Pergamus, his youngest son. After Pyrrhus' death at 
Delphi, Andromache married Helenus, and bore him a son, 
Cestrinus. 2. When Helenus died and bequeathed the kingdom 2 
to Molossus, son of Pyrrhus, Cestrinus with a band of Epirot 
volunteers took possession of the land beyond the river Thyamis. 
And Pergamus crossed over to Asia and engaged in a single 
combat for the sovereignty with Arius, lord of Teuthrania, and slew 
him, and gave to the city his own name, which it still bears. 
Andromache accompanied him, and she has a shrine in the city 
to this day. But Pielus abode in Epirus, and it was to him, and 
not to Molossus, that Pyrrhus, son of Aeacides, and his fathers traced 
their ancestry. 

3. Down to the time of Alcetas, son of Tharypas, Epirus was 3 
under one king ; but the sons of Alcetas quarrelled and resolved 
to share the government equally. They remained loyal to each 
other ; and afterwards, when Alexander, son of Neoptolemus, died 



i6 HISTORY OF PYRRHUS bk. i. attica 

in Lucania, and Olympias had returned to Epirus from fear of 
Antipater, Aeacides, son of Arybbas, remained obedient to her, 
and marched with her against Aridaeus and the Macedonians, 

4 though the Epirots were not willing to follow him. 4. But 
Olympias, on being victorious, behaved infamously in regard to the 
death of Aridaeus, and far more infamously towards certain Mace- 
donians ; for which reason she was thought to have afterwards 
received no more than she deserved at the hands of Cassander. 
Even the Epirots hated her so much that at first they would not 
receive Aeacides. When in course of time he had obtained their 
forgiveness his return to Epirus was next opposed by Cassander. A 
battle was fought at Oeniadae between Aeacides and Cassander's 
brother Philip, in which Aeacides was wounded and died not long 
afterwards. 

5 5. The Epirots now recalled Alcetas and raised him to the 
throne. He was a son of Arybbas and elder brother of Aeacides, 
but a man of such unbridled passions that his father had expelled 
him the kingdom. On his return he at once began to vent his fury 
on the Epirots, till they rose up against him by night and put him 
and his children to death. Having slain him they recalled Pyrrhus, 
son of Aeacides. Scarcely was he come when Cassander, taking 
advantage of his youth and of his being not yet firmly established on 
the throne, marched against him. But at the approach of the 
Macedonians Pyrrhus betook himself to Egypt, to the court of 
Ptolemy, son of Lagus ; and Ptolemy gave him to wife the uterine 
sister of his own children, and restored him at' the head of an 

6 Egyptian armament. 6. On coming to the throne, the first of the 
Greeks whom Pyrrhus attacked were the Corcyraeans, because he saw 
that their island lay off his own coast, and he did not wish that others 
should use it as a base of operations against himself. After the 
capture of Corey ra, what he suffered in the war with Lysimachus, 
and how he expelled Demetrius, and reigned over Macedonia till he 
was in turn expelled by Lysimachus, these events, the most im- 
portant in Pyrrhus' career up to that time, have been already told by 

7 me in my account of Lysimachus. 7. We know of no Greek before 
Pyrrhus who warred with the Romans ; for it is said that Diomede 
and his Argives fought no more battles with Aeneas. The conquest 
of all Italy was one of the many dreams of Athenian ambition, but 
the Syracusan disaster prevented Athens from measuring her strength 
with Rome. Alexander, son of Neoptolemus, a kinsman of Pyrrhus, 
but older, fell in Lucania before he crossed swords with the Romans. 



XII 

1. Thus Pyrrhus is the first who crossed the Ionian Sea from 
Greece to attack the Romans. He did so at the invitation of the 



chs. xi-xii HISTORY OF PYRRHUS 17 

Tarentines. 2. They had been involved in war with the Romans 
before they summoned him, but being unable by themselves to hold 
out they persuaded him to join them. .They had previously done 
him a service by aiding him with ships in his war against Corcyra. 
But what chiefly moved him were the representations of the Tarentine 
envoys that Italy was as rich as the whole of Greece put together, 
and that it would not be right in him to give the go-by to friends 
who now implored his protection. The words of the envoys 
brought to Pyrrhus' mind the capture of Ilium, and he hoped for a 
like success, seeing that he was a descendant of Achilles, and that 
his adversaries would be Trojan colonists. As soon as he had 2 
accepted the proposal for he was not in the habit of dallying 
when his resolution was taken he manned war-ships and fitted out 
transports for the conveyance of horses and infantry. 3. There 
are certain works by obscure historians that bear the title of Memoirs. 
In reading them I am struck with profound wonder, both at the 
personal daring which Pyrrhus displayed in battle, and at the fore- 
sight with which he provided for future encounters. Thus, he 
passed the sea to Italy unknown to the Romans, and at first con- 
cealed his arrival from them. It was in a battle between the 
Tarentines and Romans that he first showed himself with his army, 
and his unlooked-for attack naturally threw the Romans into con- 
fusion. Being well aware that he was no match for the Romans in 3 
the field, he made ready to let loose the elephants on them. 4. 
Alexander was the first European who acquired elephants after his 
conquest of Porus and the Indian host. On the death of Alexander 
others of the kings acquired elephants, but Antigonus got the 
most. The beasts were captured by Pyrrhus after the battle with 
Demetrius. At their appearance a panic now seized the Romans, 
who fancied they were no mere animals. Of course ivory, as applied 4 
to manufactures and the use of man, has been known to all men 
from of old ; but, except the Indians themselves and the Libyans 
and their neighbours, no one had beheld the beasts themselves until 
the Macedonians crossed into Asia. This is clear from the evidence 
of Homer, who represents the couches and houses of the wealthier 
kings as adorned with ivory, but makes no mention of an elephant. 
Whereas if he had seen or heard of them, he would, it seems to 
me, have much rather mentioned them than a battle of pygmies and 
cranes. 5. An embassy from Syracuse diverted Pyrrhus to Sicily. 5 
For the Carthaginians had crossed over and were laying waste the 
Greek cities : Syracuse alone was left, and they were already be- 
sieging it. When Pyrrhus heard this from the ambassadors, he left 
Tarentum and the Italiots of the coast to shift for themselves, and 
crossing to Sicily, forced the Carthaginians to retreat from Syracuse. 
Confident in himself, he now aspired to fight the Carthaginians at 
sea with only his Epirots to help him, though of all the barbarians 
vol. 1 c 



"< 



18 HISTORY OF PYRRHUS bk. i. attica 

of that age the Carthaginians were the most experienced seamen, 
being descended from Phoenicians of Tyre, whereas the Epirots, 
even after the taking of Ilium, were generally ignorant of the sea and 
of the use of salt. A verse of Homer in the Odyssey bears me out : 

Men who know not the sea, 
Nor eat food seasoned with salt. 

XIII 

i. After his defeat Pyrrhus sailed for Tarentum with the re- 
mainder of his fleet. There he suffered a severe reverse, and 
knowing that the Romans would not let him go without fighting, he 
provided for his retreat in the following manner. After being 
defeated on his return from Sicily, he first of all sent letters to 
various parts of Asia, and especially to Antigonus, asking some of 
the kings for men and others for money ; but from Antigonus he 
asked both. When the messengers were come and letters were 
delivered to him, he called together the captains both of his 
Epirots and of the Tarentines, and without reading them a word of 
the letters which he had received, he assured them that aid would 
come. A report soon reached the Romans also that the Mace- 
donians and other nations of Asia were crossing over to the help 
of Pyrrhus. Hearing this the Romans remained inactive. But 
that very night Pyrrhus crossed over to the headlands of the 
Ceraunian Mountains. 

2 2. When he had rested his army after their discomfiture in 
Italy, he declared war against Antigonus, charging him, among other 
offences, with having failed to support him in Italy. Having beaten 
the forces of Antigonus and his Gallic mercenaries, he drove them 
into the maritime cities, while he made himself master of Upper 
Macedonia and of Thessaly. The greatness of the battle and the 
decisive nature of Pyrrhus' victory are best shown by the Celtic 
arms dedicated in the sanctuary of Itonian Athena, between Pherae 
and Larissa, with the following inscription : 

3 Pyrrhus the Molossian hung up these shields as a gift to Itonian 

Athena : 
From the bold Gauls he took them 
When he conquered all the host of Antigonus. And no wonder ; 
For the Aeacids are warriors now as of old. 

These he dedicated there. But the shields of the Macedonians 
he dedicated to Zeus at Dodona : they bear the inscription : 

These shields once laid waste the golden Asian land, 
These shields brought slavery upon the Greeks ; 

But now they hang ownerless on the pillars Aqueous Zeus, 
Spoils of the boastful Macedon. 



chs. xii-xm HISTORY OF PYRRHUS 19 

3. Pyrrhus came very near subjugating Macedonia completely ; 4 
indeed, he was only prevented from doing so by Cleonymus, who 
persuaded him ever ready as he was to grasp at whatever came to 
hand to quit Macedonia and repair to Peloponnese. Why 
Cleonymus, himself a Lacedaemonian, should have brought a 
hostile army into Lacedaemonian territory, I will explain, but I 
must first set forth his lineage. Pausanias, who led the Greeks at 
Plataea, had a son Plistoanax, who had a son Pausanias, who had a 
son Cleombrotus, who fell fighting Epaminondas and the Thebans 
at Leuctra. Cleombrotus had two sons, Agesipolis and Cleomenes ; 
and Agesipolis dying childless, Cleomenes came to the throne. To 5 
Cleomenes were born two sons, Acrotatus the elder, and Cleonymus 
the younger. Acrotatus died first ; and when Cleomenes died 
afterwards, Areus, son of Acrotatus, claimed the throne, and 
Cleonymus in some way or other prevailed on Pyrrhus to march 
into the country. 

4. Before the battle of Leuctra the Lacedaemonians had never 
suffered a reverse, so that they did not acknowledge to having been 
ever beaten on land. For they said that Leonidas was victorious, 
but had not men enough to annihilate the Medes ; and as for the 
action with the Athenians under Demosthenes at the island of 
Spacteria, they asserted it was a cheat and not a victory. But after 6 
their first disaster in Boeotia they sustained a severe reverse at the 
hands of Antipater and the Macedonians ; and the invasion of 
Demetrius was a third and unexpected calamity. 

5. In the invasion of Pyrrhus, seeing for the fourth time a 
hostile army, they drew out in order of battle with their Argive and 
Messenian allies. Pyrrhus was victorious, and came very near 
taking the city without resistance ; but after ravaging the country 
and driving off booty he remained for a little while inactive. The 
Lacedaemonians made ready for a siege, Sparta having been already, 
in the war with Demetrius, fortified with deep ditches, a strong 
palisade, and at the weakest points with masonry. 6. Meantime, 7 
while the Laconian war was lingering on, Antigonus had recovered 
the cities of Macedonia, and he now hastened to Peloponnese, 
aware that, if Pyrrhus conquered Lacedaemon and the better 
part of Peloponnese, he would not go to Epirus, but would return 
to Macedonia to renew the war. Antigonus was about to move his 
army from Argos into Laconia, when Pyrrhus came to Argos in 
person. Pyrrhus was once more victorious, and pursued the fugitives 
into the city, where his troops naturally broke their ranks. 7. The 8 
fight now raging beside sanctuaries and houses, in the streets, and up 
and down the city, Pyrrhus was left alone, and received a wound 
in the head: they say that he was killed by a tile flung by a woman; 
but the Argives say that it was not a woman that slew him, but 
Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is the tale which the 



20 ENNEACRUNUS TRIPTOLEMUS bk. i. attica 

Argives tell about the death of Pyrrhus, and which Lyceas, the local 
antiquary, has told in verse. On the spot where Pyrrhus fell there 
is a sanctuary of Demeter : it was erected in obedience to an oracle, 
9 and in it Pyrrhus is buried. 8. It strikes me as wonderful that so 
many of the Aeacids should have died in the same way by the 
visitation of God. For Homer says that Achilles was slain by 
Alexander, son of Priam, and by Apollo ; the Pythian priestess 
ordered the Delphians to kill Pyrrhus, son of Achilles ; and the son 
of Aeacides came by his end in the way which the Argives narrate 
in prose and Lyceas in verse. Their account, however, differs 
from that of the historian Hieronymus of Cardia. History written 
by a courtier must needs be partial ; and if Philistus is fairly excused 
for concealing the worst excesses of Dionysius, because he hoped to 
be restored to Syracuse, Hieronymus may surely be pardoned for 
writing to please Antigonus. The great age of Epirot history 
ended thus. 



XIV 

i. On entering the Music Hall at Athens we observe, among other 
things, an image of Dionysus which is worth seeing. Near the 
Music Hall is a fountain called Enneacrunus (' with nine jets '). It 
was adorned as at present by Pisistratus. For though there are 
wells throughout all the city, this is the only spring. Above the 
fountain are temples : one of them is a temple of Demeter and the 
Maid (Kore), in the other there is an image of -Triptolemus. 2. I 
will tell the story of Triptolemus, omitting what relates to Deiope. 

2 Of all the Greeks it is the Argives who most dispute the claim of 
the Athenians to antiquity and to the possession of gifts of the gods, 
just as among the barbarians it is the Egyptians who dispute the 
claims of the Phrygians. The story runs that when Demeter came 
to Argos, Pelasgus received her in his house, and that Chrysanthis, 
knowing the rape of the Maid, told it to her. They say that 
afterwards Trochilus, a priest of the mysteries, fled from Argos on 
account of the enmity of Agenor, and came to Attica, where he 
married an Eleusinian wife, and there were born to him two 
sons, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. This is the Argive story. 
But the Athenians and those who take their side know that 
Triptolemus the son of Celeus was the first who sowed cultivated 

3 grain. However, some verses of Musaeus (if his they are) declare 
Triptolemus to be a child of Ocean and Earth ; while other 
verses, which are attributed, in my opinion, with just as little 
reason, to Orpheus, assert that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons 
of Dysaules, and that, as a reward for the information they gave her 
about her daughter, Demeter allowed them to sow the grain. 
Choerilus the Athenian, in a drama called Alope, says that Cercyon 






chs. xiii-xiv HEAVENLY APHRODITE 21 

and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was a daughter r 
Amphictyon, but that the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, and 
that the father of Cercyon was Poseidon. I purposed to pursue the 
subject, and describe all the objects that admit of description in the 
sanctuary at Athens called the Eleusinium, but I was prevented from 
so doing by a vision in a dream. I will therefore turn to what may 
be lawfully told to everybody. 3. In front of this temple, in 4 
which is the image of Triptolemus, stands a bronze ox as in the 
act of being led to sacrifice ; and Epimenides the Cnosian is 
portrayed sitting, of whom they say that going into the country he 
entered a cave and slept, and did not awake till forty years had 
come and gone, and afterwards he made verses and purified cities, 
Athens among the rest. Thales, who stayed the plague at Lacedae- 
mon, was in no way related to Epimenides, nor did he belong to 
the same city ; for Epimenides was a Cnosian, but Thales was a 
Gortynian, according to Polymnastus the Colophonian, who com- 
posed verses on him for the Lacedaemonians. 4. Farther on is a 5 
temple of Good Fame, another offering from the spoils of the Medes 
who landed at Marathon in Attica. I surmise that this is the 
victory of which the Athenians were proudest. Even Aeschylus, in 
the prospect of death, though his reputation as a poet stood so 
high, and he had fought in the sea-fights of Artemisium and Salamis, 
recorded nothing but his father's name, and his own name, and his 
city, and that the grove at Marathon and the Medes who landed in 
it were the witnesses of his manhood. 5. Above the Ceramicus and 6 
the Royal Colonnade is a temple of Hephaestus. Knowing the 
story about Erichthonius, I was not surprised that an image of 
Athena stood beside Hephaestus ; but observing that Athena's 
image had blue eyes, I recognised the Libyan version of the myth. 
For the Libyans say that she is a daughter of Poseidon and the 
Tritonian lake, and that therefore she, like Poseidon, has blue 
eyes. 6. Hard by is a sanctuary of Heavenly Aphrodite. The 7 
first people to worship the Heavenly Goddess were the Assyrians, 
and next to them were the inhabitants of Paphos in Cyprus and 
the Phoenicians of Ascalon in Palestine. The Cytherians learnt 
the worship from the Phoenicians. Aegeus introduced it into 
Athens, deeming that his own childlessness (for up to that time he 
had no offspring) and the misfortune of his sisters were due to the 
wrath of the Heavenly Goddess. The image still existing in my 
time is of Parian marble, and is a work of Phidias. However, 
there is an Athenian township, Athmonia, the inhabitants of which 
say that their sanctuary of the Heavenly Goddess was founded by 
Porphyrion, who reigned before Actaeus. There are other stories 
which the people of the townships tell quite differently from the 
people of the capital. 



22 THE PAINTED COLONNADE bk. i. attica 



XV 

i. On the way to the colonnade, which from its paintings they call 
the Painted Colonnade, there is a bronze Hermes, surnamed Hermes 
of the Market, and near it a gate. On this gate there is a trophy of 
a victory gained by the Athenian cavalry over Plistarchus, who com- 
manded the cavalry and the mercenary troops of his brother 
Cassander. 2. The first painting in this colonnade represents the 
Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in Argolis : 
the painter has not depicted the heat of battle, when doughty 
deeds are done : the fight is just beginning, the combatants are still 

2 advancing to the encounter. On the middle wall are Theseus and 
the Athenians fighting the Amazons. It would appear that the 
intrepidity of the Amazons alone was not abated by reverses ; for 
though Themiscyra was taken by Hercules, and though afterwards 
the army which they sent against Athens was destroyed, nevertheless 
they came to Troy to fight the Athenians and all the Greeks, 
3. Next after the Amazons is a picture of the Greeks after their 
conquest of Ilium : the kings are gathered together to consult on the 
outrage offered by Ajax to Cassandra : Ajax himself appears in the 

3 picture, also Cassandra and other captive women. 4. The last 
painting'depicts the combatants at Marathon : the Boeotians of Plataea 
and all the men of Attica are closing with the barbarians. In this 
part of the picture the combatants are evenly matched ; but farther 
on the barbarians are fleeing and pushing each other into the marsh. 
At the extremity of the picture are the Phoenician ships and the 
Greeks slaughtering the barbarians who are rushing into the ships. 
Here, too, are depicted the hero Marathon, after whom the plain was 
named ; Theseus, seeming to rise out of the earth ; and Athena and 
Hercules ; for the people of Marathon, according to their own 
account, were the first to regard Hercules as a god. Of the com- 
batants the most conspicuous in the painting are Callimachus, who 
had been chosen to command the Athenians ; Miltiades, one of the 
generals ; and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall afterwards 

4 make mention again. 5. In this colonnade are some bronze 
shields, on some of which there is an inscription stating that they 
were taken from the Scionians and their allies ; but those shields 
which are smeared with pitch to preserve them from the injurious 
effects of time and rust, are said to be the shields of the Lace- 
daemonians who were taken in the island of Sphacteria. 



XVI 

1. There are bronze statues of Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, and 
Seleucus. The former stands in front of the colonnade, the latter 



chs. xv-xvn SANCTUARY OF THESEUS 23 

a little farther off. To Seleucus were vouchsafed beforehand no 
obscure tokens of his future greatness ; for as he was sacrificing to 
Zeus at Pella, before setting out from Macedonia with Alexander, 
the wood lying on the altar advanced of itself to the image and took 
fire without any light being applied to it. After the death of 
Alexander, Seleucus, fearing Antigonus, who had come to Babylon, 
fled to Ptolemy, son of Lagus ; but returning to Babylon, he 
vanquished the army of Antigonus and slew Antigonus himself; and 
when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, afterwards marched against 
him, Seleucus took him prisoner. Being thus successful, and having 2 
shortly afterwards vanquished Lysimachus, he committed the whole 
empire of Asia to his son Antiochus, and hastened in person to 
Macedonia. 2. He had with him an army of Greeks and bar- 
barians. But when his army had advanced to Lysimachia he was 
assassinated by Ptolemy, brother of Lysandra. This Ptolemy had 
fled to him from Lysimachus, and was called Thunderbolt from his 
daring character. The assassin gave up the treasures to the guards 
to plunder, and reigned over Macedonia until, venturing to give 
battle to the Gauls (he was the first king we know of who did so), he 
was slain by them, and Antigonus the son of Demetrius regained 
the sovereignty. 3. Seleucus I believe to have been one of the 3 
justest and most pious of kings ; for he sent back to the Milesians 
at Branchidae the bronze Apollo which had been carried off by 
Xerxes to Ecbatana in Media ; and when he founded Seleucia on 
the river Tigris, and brought Babylonian colonists to it, he left 
standing both the walls of Babylon and the sanctuary of Bel, and 
allowed the Chaldeans to dwell round about the sanctuary as before. 

XVII 

1. In the market-place of Athens, amongst other objects which are 
not universally known, there is an altar of Mercy, to whom, though 
he is of all gods the most helpful in human life and in the vicissi- 
tudes of fortune, the Athenians are the only Greeks who pay honour. 
Humanity is not the only characteristic of the Athenians : they are 
also more pious than other people, for they have altars of Modesty, 
of Rumour, and of Impulse. Clearly people who are more pious 
than their neighbours have a proportionate share of good luck. 
2. In the gymnasium of Ptolemy, so called after its founder, not far 2 
from the market-place, there are some stone figures of Hermes which 
are worth seeing, and a bronze statue of Ptolemy : here too are 
statues of Juba the Libyan and Chrysippus of Soli. Beside the 
gymnasium is a sanctuary of Theseus, with paintings of the Athen- 
ians fighting the Amazons. This war is represented also on the 
shield of Athena and on the pedestal of Olympian Zeus. In the 
sanctuary of Theseus there is also painted the battle of the Centaurs 






24 SANCTUARY OF THESEUS bk. i. attica 

and Lapiths : Theseus has already slain a Centaur, but the others 

3 are fighting on equal terms. To those who may be unacquainted 
with the legend, the painting on the third wall is not clear, partly, no 
doubt, by reason of the effects of time, but partly also because 
Micon has not painted the whole story. 3. When Minos brought 
Theseus and the rest of the youthful band to Crete, he fell in love 
with Periboea; and when Theseus stoutly withstood him, Minos broke 
into angry abuse of him, and said he was no son of Poseidon, ' For,' 
said he, ' if I fling into the sea the signet ring I wear on my finger, 
you could not bring it back to me.' With these words, so runs the 
tale, he flung the ring into the sea, from which Theseus emerged 
with the signet ring and a golden crown, a gift of Amphitrite. 

4 4. Of the death of Theseus many inconsistent tales are told. One 
story is that he was bound fast till Hercules brought him to the 
upper world. But the most plausible story I have heard is this. 
Theseus made a raid into the Thesprotian land to carry off the wife 
of the king ; but he lost most of his army, and he and Perithous, 
who marched with him to forward his marriage, were taken and 

5 kept bound by the Thesprotian king in Cichyrus. 5. Amongst the 
things worth seeing in the Thesprotian land is a sanctuary of Zeus 
in Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Beside Cichyrus is a 
lake called the Acherusian Lake, and the river Acheron, and there too 
flows Cocytus, a joyless stream. It appears to me that Homer 
had seen these things, and boldly modelled his descriptions of hell 
on them, and that in particular he bestowed on the rivers of 
hell the names of the rivers in Thesprotis. 6. Now when Theseus 
was held a prisoner, the sons of Tyndareus marched against Aphidna 
and took it, and brought back Menestheus and set him on the 

6 throne. The sons of Theseus took refuge with Elephenor in Euboea. 
Menestheus heeded them not ; but knowing that Theseus himself, if 
ever he returned from Thesprotis, would prove a troublesome adver- 
sary, he courted the favour of the people so successfully that when 
Theseus afterwards came back safe they sent him about his business. 
So Theseus set out to go to Deucalion in Crete, but being driven 
by gales out of his course he landed in the island of Scyros, and 
the people received him splendidly as befitted the famous house to 

which he belonged and the renown of his personal exploits. 
On that account Lycomedes plotted his death. The dedication 
of a sacred close to Theseus by the Athenians was subsequent to 
the landing of the Medes at Marathon. Cimon, son of Miltiades, 
had laid waste Scyros in retaliation, forsooth, for the murder of 
Theseus, and had then brought back the hero's bones to Athens. 

XVIII 

1. The sanctuary of the Dioscuri is ancient. The Dioscuri 



chs. xvii-xviii PRYTANEUM ILITHYIA 25 

themselves are represented on foot and their sons on horseback. 
Here is a painting by Polygnotus of the marriage of the Dioscuri 
to the daughters of Leucippus, and a painting by Micon of those 
who sailed with Jason to the land of the Colchians. Micon has 
bestowed most pains on Acastus and his horses. 2. Above the 2 
sanctuary of the Dioscuri is a precinct of Aglaurus. They say that 
Athena put Erichthonius in a chest, and gave him in charge to 
Aglaurus and her sisters Herse and Pandrosus, forbidding them to 
pry into that which she had committed to their care. Pandrosus, 
they say, obeyed her, but the other two opened the chest, and when 
they saw Erichthonius they went mad and flung themselves down 
the steepest part of the Acropolis. It was at this point that the 
Medes ascended and massacred those Athenians who thought they 
knew more about the oracle than Themistocles, and had fortified 
the Acropolis with logs and stakes. 3. Hard by is the Prytaneum, 3 
in which the laws of Solon are inscribed. In it are also images of 
the goddesses Peace and Hestia, and statues of the pancratiast 
Autolycus and other people. The names on the statues of 
Miltiades and Themistocles have been altered into those of a 
Roman and a Thracian. 

4. Going thence to the lower parts of the city we come to a 4 
sanctuary of Serapis, a god whom the Athenians got from Ptolemy. 
Of the Egyptian sanctuaries of Serapis the most famous is at 
Alexandria, but the oldest is at Memphis. Into the latter sanctuary 
neither strangers nor priests may enter until they bury Apis. 5. 
Not far from the sanctuary of Serapis is a place where they say 
that Pirithous and Theseus covenanted before they went on their 
expedition to Lacedaemon and afterwards to Thesprotis. Near it is 5 
a temple of Ilithyia, who is said to have come from the Hyper- 
boreans to Delos to help Latona in her pangs. The rest of the world, 
they say, learned the name of Ilithyia from the Delians, who sacrifice 
to her, and sing a hymn of Olen in her honour. The Cretans 
believe that Ilithyia was born at Amnisus in the land of Cnosus, 
and that she is a child of Hera. The Athenians are the only 
people whose wooden images of Ilithyia are draped to the tips of 
the feet. The women said that two of these images were Cretan, 
dedicated by Phaedra, but that the oldest was brought by 
Erysichthon from Delos. 

6. Before you come to the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus there 6 
are two statues of Hadrian in Thasian, and two in Egyptian stone. 
It was Hadrian, the Roman emperor, who dedicated the temple and 
image of Olympian Zeus. The image is worth seeing. It surpasses 
in size all other images except the Colossuses at Rhodes and Rome: 
it is made of ivory and gold, and considering the size the workman- 
ship is good. Before the columns stand bronze statues which the 
Athenians call the ' Colonies.' The whole enclosure is just four 



-5- -~^ 



26 OLYMPIAN ZEUS PYTHIAN APOLLO bk. i. attica 

furlongs round about, and is full of statues ; for every city set up 
a statue of the Emperor Hadrian, but the Athenians surpassed them 

7 all by erecting the notable Colossus behind the temple. 7. In 
the enclosure are the following antiquities : a bronze Zeus, a 
temple of Cronus and Rhea, and a precinct of Olympian Earth. 
Here the ground is cloven to a cubit's width ; and they say that 
after the deluge which happened in Deucalion's time the water ran 
away down this cleft. Every year they throw into it wheaten meal 

8 kneaded with honey. 8. On a column is a statue of Isocrates, who 
left behind him a threefold reputation : a reputation for industry, in 
that, though he lived to the age of ninety-eight, he never left off 
taking pupils ; a reputation for prudence, in that he steadily 
abstained from politics and from meddling with public affairs ; and 
a reputation for a generous spirit, because the tidings of the battle 
of Chaeronea grieved him so that he died a voluntary death. There 
is also a group, in Phrygian marble, of Persians supporting a bronze 
tripod : the figures and the tripod are both worth seeing. They say 
that the old sanctuary of Olympian Zeus was built by Deucalion, and 
in proof that Deucalion dwelt at Athens they point to a grave not far 

9 from the present temple. 9. Hadrian also built for the Athenians 
a temple of Hera and Panhellenian Zeus, and a sanctuary common 
to all the gods. But most splendid of all are one hundred columns : 
walls and colonnades alike are made of Phrygian marble. Here, 
too, is a building adorned with a gilded roof and alabaster, and 
also with statues and paintings : books are stored in it. There is 
also a gymnasium named after Hadrian ; it, too, has one hundred 
columns from the quarries of Libya. 

XIX 

1. After the temple of Olympian Zeus there is near it an image 
of Pythian Apollo. There is also another sanctuary of Apollo, 
where he is surnamed Delphinian. They say that when the temple 
was finished all but the roof, Theseus came to the city, a stranger as 
yet to every one. He wore a garment that reached to his feet, and 
had his hair neatly plaited ; so when he came to the temple of the 
Delphinian Apollo, the men who were making the roof asked him 
jeeringly why a marriageable maiden like him was rambling alone. 
Theseus answered them nothing, but unyoking, so it is said, the oxen 
from the cart which stood by, he tossed them up higher than the 
2 roof which the men were making for the temple. 2. Of the place 
called the Gardens and of the temple of Aphrodite no story is told, 
nor yet of the Aphrodite which stands near the temple. The form 
of this image is square like the images of Hermes : the inscription 
sets forth that Heavenly Aphrodite is the eldest of the Fates. The 
image of Aphrodite in the Gardens is a work of Alcamenes, and few 



chs. xvm-xx LYCEUM STADIUM TRIPODS 27 

things at Athens are so well worth seeing as this. 3. There is a 3 
sanctuary of Hercules which is called Cynosarges : the story of the 
white bitch may be learnt by reading the oracle. There are altars of 
Hercules and Hebe, whom they believe to be a child of Zeus and 
wedded to Hercules. There is also an altar of Alcmena and of 
Iolaus, who shared most of the labours of Hercules. 4. The 
Lyceum takes its name from Lycus, son of Pandion : but from the 
first and down to our times it has been deemed sacred to Apollo, 
and here the god was first named Lycean (' wolfish '). It is said 
that Lycus also gave his name to the Termilae, who are called 
Lycians after him : he came to them when he fled from 
Aegeus. 5. Behind the Lyceum is the tomb of Nisus, king of 4 
Megara, who was slain by Minos. The Athenians brought his 
body and buried it here. A story is told of this Nisus that he had 
purple hair on his head, and that he was doomed to die whenever 
it should be shorn. When the Cretans came into the land they 
carried the other cities in Megaris by storm, but laid siege to Nisaea 
in which Nisus had taken refuge. Thereupon, it is said, the 
daughter of Nisus fell in love with Minos and sheared her father's 
hair. So runs the tale. 

6. The Athenian rivers are the Ilissus, and a river that 5 
has the same name as the Celtic Eridanus, and falls into the 
Ilissus. It was at the Ilissus, they say, that Orithyia was playing 
when the North Wind carried her off and wedded her. And 
they say it was on account of this affinity that the North Wind 
helped them, and destroyed most of the barbarian galleys. 
The Athenians deem the Ilissus sacred to various deities, and in 
particular there is an altar of the Ilissian Muses on its bank. The 
spot, too, is shown where the Peloponnesians slew the Athenian 
king Codrus, son of Melanthus. 7. Across the Ilissus is a district 6 
called Agrae and a temple of Huntress Artemis. They say that 
Artemis first hunted here after she came from Delos ; therefore 
her image has a bow. Wonderful to see, though not so impressive 
to hear of, is a stadium of white marble. One may best get an idea 
of its size as follows. It is a hill rising above the Ilissus, of a 
crescent shape in its upper part, and extending thence in a double 
straight line to the bank of the river. It was built by the Athenian 
Herodes, and the greater part of the Pentelic quarries was used up 
in its construction. 



XX 

1. There is a street called Tripods leading from the Prytaneum. 
The place is so called from certain relatively large temples on which 
stand tripods. These tripods are of bronze, but enclose most 
memorable works of art. For here is the Satyr of which Praxiteles 



28 SANCTUARY OF DIONYSUS bk. i. attica 

is said to have been very proud. They say that once when Phryne 
asked for the most beautiful of his works, he lover-like promised to 
give her it, but would not tell which he thought the most beautiful. 
So a servant of Phryne ran in declaring that Praxiteles' studio had 
caught fire, and that most, but not all, of his works had perished. 

2 Praxiteles at once ran for the door, protesting that all his labour was 
lost if the flames had reached the Satyr and the Love. But Phryne 
bade him stay and be of good cheer, telling him that he had suffered 
no loss, but had only been entrapped into saying which were the most 
beautiful of his works. So Phryne chose the Love. In the neigh- 
bouring temple of Dionysus is a boy Satyr handing a cup : the Love 
which stands in the same place, and the Dionysus, are works of 
Thymilus. 

3 2. But the oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is beside the theatre. 
Within the enclosure there are two temples and two images of 
Dionysus, one surnamed Eleutherian, the other made by Alca- 
menes of ivory and gold. Here, too, are pictures representing 
Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. For the Greeks say 
that Hera flung Hephaestus down as soon as he was born, and that he, 
bearing her a grudge, sent her as a gift a golden chair with invisible 
bonds. When Hera sat down on it she was held fast, and 
Hephaestus would not listen to the intercession of any of the gods, 
till Dionysus, his trustiest friend, made him drunk, and so brought 
him to heaven. There are also depicted Pentheus and Lycurgus 
suffering retribution for the insults they offered to Dionysus, and 
Ariadne asleep, and Theseus putting to sea, and Dionysus come to 
carry Ariadne off. 

4 3. Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theatre is a 
structure said to have been made in imitation of the tent of 
Xerxes. It was rebuilt, for the old edifice was burned by the 
Roman general Sulla when he captured Athens. The cause of the 
war was this. Mithridates was king of the barbarians about the 
Euxine Sea. But the pretext on which he made war on the 
Romans, and how he crossed into Asia, and the cities which he con- 
quered or made friends with, all this I leave to such as wish to 
study the history of Mithridates : I will relate only as much as con- 

5 cerns the capture of Athens. There was one Aristion, an Athenian, 
whom Mithridates employed as an envoy to the Greek cities. This 
man persuaded the Athenians to prefer Mithridates to the Romans ; 
but he did not persuade all of them, only the turbulent part of the 
populace : the respectable Athenians fled to the Romans. A 
battle took place : the Romans gained a decisive victory, and pursued 
Aristion and the Athenians into the city ; but Archelaus and the bar- 
barians they chased into Piraeus. (Archelaus was another general 
of Mithridates. On a former occasion he had overrun the territory 
of the Magnesians of Sipylus, but they wounded him and slaughtered 



chs. xx-xxi THE THEATRE 29 

most of his troops.) 4. So Athens was invested. But when word of it 6 
came to Taxilus, a general of Mithridates, who was besieging Elatea 
in Phocis, he raised the siege and marched towards Attica. Hearing 
of this the Roman general left a part of his army to besiege Athens, 
and advanced in person with the main body into Boeotia to meet 
Taxilus. Two days afterwards messengers came to both the Roman 
camps : Sulla was informed that the walls of Athens were captured, 
and the troops which had taken Athens were told that Taxilus had 
been defeated at Chaeronea. On his return to Attica Sulla shut up 
his Athenian adversaries in the Ceramicus, and ordered them to be 
decimated. His rage at the Athenians not abating, some of them 7 
made their way secretly to Delphi ; and in answer to their inquiries 
whether it was fated that Athens also should now at last be laid 
waste, the Pythian priestess gave the oracle about the wine skin. 
Sulla was afterwards attacked by the disease to which I am told Phere- 
cydes of Syros succumbed. But though Sulla treated the mass of the 
Athenians with a cruelty unworthy of a Roman, I do not think that 
this was the cause of his calamity. The cause was rather the wrath 
of the God of Suppliants, because when Aristion took refuge in the 
sanctuary of Athena, Sulla dragged him away and put him to death. 
Though Athens suffered thus in the Roman war, it flourished again in 
the reign of Hadrian. 

XXI 

1. In the theatre at Athens there are statues of tragic and comic 
poets, but most of the statues are of poets of little mark. For none 
of the renowned comic poets was there except Menander. Among 
the famous tragic poets there are statues of Euripides and Sophocles. 
2. It is said that after the death of Sophocles the Lacedaemonians 
had invaded Attica, and that their general saw Dionysus standing 
by him and bidding him to pay to the new siren the honours 
which are customarily paid to the dead ; and it seemed to him 
that the dream referred to Sophocles and his poetry ; for to this day 
whatever is winsome in verse and prose they liken to a siren. 3. 
The statue of Aeschylus was made, I think, long after his death and 2 
long after the painting of the battle of Marathon. Aeschylus said 
that, when he was a stripling, he fell asleep in a field while he was 
watching the grapes, and that Dionysus appeared to him and bade 
him write tragedy ; and as soon as it was day, for he wished to obey 
the god, he tried and found that he versified with the greatest ease. 
Such was the tale he told. 4. On what is called the south wall of 3 
the Acropolis, which faces towards the theatre, there is a gilded head 
of the Gorgon Medusa, and round about the head is wrought an 
aegis. 5. At the top of the theatre is a cave in the rocks under 
the Acropolis ; and over this cave is a tripod. In it are figures of 



*m 



30 SANCTUARY OF AESCULAPIUS bk. i. attica 

Apollo and Artemis slaying the children of Niobe. This Niobe I 
myself saw when I ascended Mount Sipylus. Close at hand it is 
merely a rock and a cliff with no resemblance to a woman, mourning 
or otherwise ; but if you stand farther off, you will think you see a 
weeping woman bowed with grief. 

4 6. On the way from the theatre to the Acropolis at Athens 
Calos is buried. This Calos was sister's son to Daedalus, and 
studied art under him : Daedalus murdered him and fled to 
Crete, but afterwards took refuge with Cocalus in Sicily. 7. The 
sanctuary of Aesculapius is worth seeing for its images of the god 
and his children, and also for its paintings. In it is a fountain 
beside which, they say, Halirrothius, son of Poseidon, violated 
Alcippe, daughter of Ares, and was therefore slain by Ares. And 
this, they say, was the first murder on which sentence was pro- 

5 nounced. Here among other things is dedicated a Sarmatian 
corselet : any one who looks at it will say that the barbarians are 
not less skilful craftsmen than the Greeks. 8. For the Sarrnatians 
neither dig nor import iron, being the most isolated of all the bar- 
barous peoples in these regions. But their ingenuity has supplied 
the defect. Their spears are tipped with bone instead of iron, 
their bows and arrows are of the cornel-tree, and the barbs of the 
arrows are of bone. They throw ropes round the enemies whom 
they fall in with ; then wheeling their horses round they upset 

6 their foes entangled in the ropes. They make their corselets in the 
following way. Every man breeds many mares, for the land is not 
divided up into private lots, and it produces nothing but wild 
forest ; for the people are nomads. These mares they not only 
employ in war, but also sacrifice to their local gods, and more- 
over use them as food. They collect the hoofs, clean them, and 
split them till they resemble the scales of a dragon. Anybody who 
has not seen a dragon has at least seen a green fir-cone. Well, the 
fabric which they make out of the hoofs may be not inaptly likened 
to the clefts on a fir-cone. In these pieces they bore holes, and 
having stitched them together with the sinews of horses and oxen, 
they use them as corselets, which are inferior to Greek breastplates 
neither in elegance nor strength, for they are both sword-proof and 

7 arrow-proof. Linen corselets, on the other hand, are not so service- 
able in battle, for they yield to the thrust of iron ; but they are use- 
ful to huntsmen, for the teeth of lions and leopards break off short 
in them. 9. Linen corselets may be seen dedicated in various 
sanctuaries, particularly at Gryneum, where Apollo has a most 
beautiful grove both of cultivated trees and of all trees which, with- 
out bearing fruit, are pleasant to smell or to see. 



. 



chs. xxi-xxii PROPYLAEA WINGLESS VICTORY 31 



XXII 

1. After the sanctuary of Aesculapius, proceeding by this road 
towards the Acropolis, we come to a temple of Themis. In front of 
it is a barrow erected in memory of Hippolytus. They say his death 
was brought about by curses. Even foreigners who have learned 
the Greek tongue are familiar with the love of Phaedra, and how the 
nurse sought to serve her by a bold bad deed. 2. The Troezenians 
have also a grave of Hippolytus, and the tale which they tell runs 
thus : When Theseus was about to marry Phaedra, he did not wish 2 
that, in case he should have children by her, Hippolytus should either 
be ruled by them or should reign in their stead. So he sent him away 
to Pittheus to be reared by him and be king of Troezen. Afterwards 
Pallas and his sons revolted against Theseus, and he, after slaying 
them, went to Troezen to be purified, and there Phaedra first saw 
and loved Hippolytus, and laid the plot of death. There is a 
myrtle-tree at Troezen, of which the leaves are all pierced. They 
say it did not grow thus at first, but that Phaedra, sick of love, pricked 
it with the brooch she wore in her hair. 3. The worship of Vulgar 3 
Aphrodite and of Persuasion was instituted by Theseus when he 
gathered the Athenians from the townships into a single city. In 
my time the ancient images were gone, but the existing images were 
by no obscure artists. There is also a sanctuary of Earth, the 
Nursing-Mother, and of Green Demeter : the meaning of these sur- 
names may be learnt by inquiring of the priests. 

4. There is but one entrance to the Acropolis : it admits of no 4 
other, being everywhere precipitous and fortified with a strong wall. 
The portal (Propylaea) has a roof of white marble, and for the 
beauty and size of the blocks it has never yet been matched. 
Whether the statues of the horsemen represent the sons of Xenophon, 
or are merely decorative, I cannot say for certain. On the right of 
the portal is a temple of Wingless Victory. 5. From this point the 
sea is visible, and it was here, they say, that Aegeus cast himself 
down and perished. For the ship that bore the children to Crete 5 
used to put to sea with black sails ; but when Theseus sailed to 
beard the bull called the son of Minos (i.e., the Minotaur), he told 
his father that he would use white sails if he came back victorious 
over the bull. However, after the loss of Ariadne he forgot to do 
so. Then Aegeus, when he saw the ship returning with black sails, 
thought that his son was dead ; so he flung himself down and was 
killed. There is a shrine to him at Athens called the shrine of the 
hero Aegeus. 

6. On the left of the portal is a chamber containing 6 
pictures. Among the pictures which time had not effaced, were 
Diomede and Ulysses, the one at Lemnos carrying off the bow of 






32 PICTURES GRACES OF SOCRATES bk. i. attica 

Philoctetes, the other carrying off the image of Athena from Ilium. 
Among the paintings here is also Orestes slaying Aegisthus, and 
Pylades slaying Nauplius' sons, who came to the rescue of Aegis- 
thus, and Polyxena about to be slaughtered near the grave of 
Achilles. Homer did well to omit so savage a deed, and he did 
well, I think, to represent Scyros as captured by Achilles, therein 
differing from those who say that Achilles lived in the company of 
the maidens at Scyros : it is this latter version of the legend that 
Polygnotus has painted. Polygnotus also painted Ulysses at the 
river approaching the damsels who are washing clothes with 

7 Nausicaa, just as Homer described the scene. Amongst other 
paintings there is a picture of Alcibiades containing emblems of 
the victory won by his team at Nemea. Perseus is also depicted 
on his way back to Seriphos, carrying the head of Medusa to 
Polydectes. But I do not care to tell the story of Medusa 
in treating of Attica. 7. Passing over the picture of the boy 
carrying the water - pots, and the picture of the wrestler by 
Timaenetus, there is a portrait of Musaeus. I have read verses in 
which it is said that Musaeus received from the North Wind the 
gift of flying ; but I believe that the verses were composed by 
Onomacritus, and that nothing can with certainty be ascribed to 
Musaeus except the hymn which he made on Demeter for the 
Lycomids. 

8 8. Just at the entrance to the Acropolis are figures of Hermes 
and the Graces, which are said to have been made by Socrates, the 
son of Sophroniscus. The Hermes is named Hermes of the Portal. 
The Pythian priestess bore witness that Socrates was the wisest of 
men, a title which she did not give even to Anacharsis, though he 
was quite willing to receive it, and had indeed come to Delphi for 
the purpose. 

XXIII 

1. It is one of the sayings of the Greeks that there were Seven 
Sages. Amongst these they reckon the Lesbian tyrant and 
Periander, son of Cypselus. Yet Pisistratus and his son Hippias 
were more humane than Periander and sager in the arts both of 
war and peace, until the death of Hipparchus exasperated Hippias. 
Amongst the objects on which Hippias vented his fury was a woman 
2 named Leaena ( ' lioness '). 2. The story has never before been 
put on record, but is commonly believed at Athens. He tortured 
Leaena to death, knowing that she was Aristogiton's mistress, and 
supposing that she could not possibly be ignorant of the plot. As 
a recompense, when the tyranny of the Pisistratids was put down, 
the Athenians set up a bronze lioness in memory of the woman. 
Beside it is an image of Aphrodite, which they say was an offering 
of Callias and a work of Calamis. 



chs. xxii-xxiii DI1TREPHES HEALTH ATHENA 



33 



\ 



5' 

tell 



Near it is a bronze statue of Diitrephes pierced with 
the deeds of Diitrephes which the 
the following 
Thracian 



Amongst 



of is 
Syracuse some 
the expedition ; 
cidian Euripus 



arrows. 3 
Athenians 
After Demosthenes had sailed for 
mercenaries arrived too late to join 



so Diitrephes led them back. In the Chal- 
he landed at the place where once stood the 
inland Boeotian town of Mycalessus, and marching up from the coast 
he took the town. The Thracians massacred not only the fighting 
men, but also the women and children, as I can prove. For all the 
Boeotian cities which the Thebans laid waste were inhabited in my 
time, the people having escaped when the cities fell. Therefore 
if the barbarians had not put every soul in Mycalessus to the sword, 
the remnant would afterwards have reoccupied the city. 4. In 4 
regard to the statue of Diitrephes I was surprised that it was 
pierced with arrows, since the Cretans are the only Greek people 
who are accustomed to the use of the bow. For we know that 
the Opuntian Locrians, whom Homer described as coming to 
Ilium with bows and slings, carried heavy arms as early as the 
Medic wars. Even the Malians did not continue to practise 
archery ; indeed, I believe that they were unacquainted with it 
before the time of Philoctetes, and gave it up not long afterwards. 
5. Near the statue of Diitrephes (for I do not wish to mention the 
obscurer statues) are images of gods one of Health, who is said to 
be a daughter of Aesculapius, and one of Athena, who is also sur- 
named Health. 6. There is also a stone of no great size, but big 5 
enough for a little man to sit on. They say that when Dionysus 
came into the country Silenus rested on this stone. Elderly Satyrs 
are named Silenuses. Wishing to know particularly who the Satyrs 
are, I have for that purpose talked with many persons. 7. 
Euphemus, a Carian, said that when he was sailing to Italy he 
was driven by gales out of his course and into the outer ocean, into 
which mariners do not sail. And he said that there were many 
desert islands, but that on other islands there dwelt wild men. 
The sailors were loath to put in to these latter islands, for they had 6 
put in there before, and had some experience of the inhabitants. 
However, they were forced to put in once more. These islands, 
said he, are called by the seamen the Isles of the Satyrs, and the 
dwellers on them are red-haired, and have tails on their loins little 
less than the tails of horses ; who when they clapped eyes on them 
ran down to the ship, and without uttering a syllable attempted to 
get at the women in the ship. At last the sailors, in fear, cast out 
a barbarian woman on the island, and the Satyrs outraged her most 
grossly. 

8. Among other things that I saw on the Acropolis at Athens 7 
were the bronze boy holding the sprinkler, and Perseus after he has 
done the deed on Medusa. The boy is a work of Lycius, son of 

VOL. I D 



aesg 






34 ATHENA AND MARSYAS bk. i. attica 

Myron : the Perseus is a work of Myron. 9. There is also a 
sanctuary of Brauronian Artemis : the image is a work of Praxiteles. 
The goddess gets her surname from the township of Brauron ; 
and at Brauron is the old wooden image which is, they say, the 

8 Tauric Artemis. 10. There is also set up a bronze figure of the 
so-called Wooden Horse. Every one who does not suppose that 
the Phrygians were the veriest ninnies, is aware that what Epeus 
made was an engine for breaking down the wall. But the story goes 
that the Wooden Horse had within it the bravest of the Greeks, 
and the bronze horse has been shaped accordingly. Menestheus 
and Teucer are peeping out of it, and so are the sons of Theseus. 

911. Among the statues that stand after the horse, the one 
of Epicharinus, who practised running in armour, is by Critias. 
Oenobius was a man who did a good deed to Thucydides, son 
of Olorus; for he carried a decree recalling Thucydides from 
banishment. But on his way home Thucydides was murdered, 
10 and his tomb is not far from the Melitian gate. 12. The histories 
of Hermolycus, the pancratiast, and of Phormio, the son of 
Asopichus, have been told by other writers, so I pass them by. 
This much, however, I have to add as regards Phormio. He 
ranked among the Athenian worthies, and came of no obscure 
family, but he was in debt. So he retired to the township of 
Paeanieus, and lived there till the Athenians elected him admiral. 
But he said he could not go to sea, since he owed money, and could 
not look his men in the face until he had paid his debts. So the 
Athenians discharged all his debts, for they were determined that 
he should have the command. 

XXIV 

1. Here Athena is represented striking Marsyas the Silenus, 
because he picked up the flutes when the goddess had meant that 
they should be thrown away. 2. Over against the works I have 
mentioned is the legendary fight of Theseus with the bull, which 
was called the bull of Minos, whether this bull was a man or, as the 
prevalent tradition has it, a beast ; for even in our own time women 
have given birth to much more marvellous monsters than this. 
2 Here, too, is Phrixus, son of Athamas, represented as he appeared 
after being carried away by the ram to the land of the Colchians : 
he has sacrificed the ram to some god, apparently to him whom 
the Orchomenians call Laphystian ; and having cut off the thighs 
according to the Greek custom, he is looking at them burning. 
Among the statues which stand next in order is one of Hercules 
strangling the serpents according to the story ; and one of Athena 
rising from the head of Zeus. There is also a bull set up by the 
Council of the Areopagus for some reason or other : one might 



chs. xxiii-xxiv ZEUS POLIEUSTHE PARTHENON 35 

make many guesses on the subject if one chose to do so. 3-13 
observed before that the zeal of the Athenians in matters of religion 
exceeds that of all other peoples. Thus they were the first to give 
Athena the surname of the Worker, and <to make> images of Hermes 
without limbs ; . . . and in the temple with them is a Spirit of the 
Zealous. He who prefers the products of art to mere antiquities 
should observe the following : There is a man wearing a helmet, 
a worV of Cleoetas, who has inwrought the man's nails of silver. 
There is also an image of Earth praying Zeus to rain on her, either 
because the Athenians themselves needed rain, or because there was a 
drought all over Greece. Here also is a statue of Timotheus, son 
of Conon, and a statue of Conon himself. A group representing 
Procne and Itys, at the time when Procne has taken her resolution 
against the boy, was dedicated by Alcamenes ; and Athena is 
represented exhibiting the olive plant, and Poseidon exhibiting the 
wave. 4. There is also an image of Zeus made by Leochares, and 4 
another of Zeus surnamed Polieus ('urban'). I will describe the 
customary mode of sacrificing to the latter, but without giving the 
reason assigned for it. They set barley mixed with wheat on the 
altar of Zeus Polieus, and keep no watch ; and the ox which they 
keep in readiness for the sacrifice goes up to the altar and eats of 
the grain. They call one of the priests the Ox-slayer, and here he 
throws away the axe (for such is the custom), and flees away ; 
and they, as if they did not know the man who did the deed, 
bring the axe to trial. Such is their mode of procedure. 

5. All the figures in the gable over the entrance to the temple 5 
called the Parthenon relate to the birth of Athena. The back 
gable contains the strife of Poseidon with Athena for the possession 
of the land. The image itself is made of ivory and gold. Its 
helmet is surmounted in the middle by a figure of a sphinx (I 
will tell the story of the sphinx when I come to treat of Boeotia), and 
on either side of the helmet are griffins wrought in relief. 6. Aristeas 6 
of Proconnesus says in his poem that these griffins fight for the gold 
with the Arimaspians who dwell beyond the Issedonians, and that 
the gold which the griffins guard is produced by the earth. He 
says, too, that the Arimaspians are all one-eyed men from birth, and 
that the griffins are beasts like lions, but with the wings and beak of 
an eagle. So much for the griffins. 7. The image of Athena stands 7 
upright, clad in a garment that reaches to her feet : on her breast is 
the head of Medusa wrought in ivory. She holds a Victory about 
four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear. At her feet lies 
a shield, and near the spear is a serpent, which may be Erichthonius. 
On the pedestal of the image is wrought in relief the birth of 
Pandora. Hesiod and other poets have told how this Pandora was 
the first woman, and how before the birth of Pandora womankind 
as yet was not. The only statue I saw there was that of the 



36 OFFERINGS OF ATT ALUS bk. i. attica 

Emperor Hadrian ; and at the entrance there is a statue of 
Iphicrates, who did many marvellous deeds. 
8 8. Over against the temple is a bronze Apollo : they say the 
image was made by Phidias. They call it Locust Apollo, because, 
when locusts blasted the land, the god said he would drive them 
out of the country. And they know that he drove them out, but 
how he did it they do not say. I have myself known locusts to 
disappear from Mount Sipylus three several times in different ways. 
Once they were swept away by a storm that broke over them : once 
they were destroyed by intense heat following after rain ; and once 
they were caught in a sudden cold and perished. All this I have 
seen happen to them. 

XXV 

i. On the Acropolis at Athens is a statue of Pericles, the son of 
Xanthippus, and one of Xanthippus himself, who fought the sea- 
fight at Mycale against the Medes. The statue of Pericles stands 
in a different part of the Acropolis ; but near the statue of Xan- 
thippus is one of Anacreon the Teian, the first poet, after Sappho the 
Lesbian, to write mostly love poems. The attitude of the statue is 
like that of a man singing in his cups. The figures of women near it 
were made by Dinomenes : they represent Io, daughter of Inachus, 
and Callisto, daughter of Lycaon. The tales told of these two 
women are exactly alike the love of Zeus, the wrath of Hera, and 
the transformation of Io into a cow, and of Callisto into a bear. 

22. At the south wall are figures about two cubits high, 
dedicated by Attalus. They represent the legendary war of the 
giants who once dwelt about Thrace and the isthmus of Pallene, 
the fight of the Athenians with the Amazons, the battle with the 
Medes at Marathon, and the destruction of the Gauls in Mysia. 

There is a statue also of Olympiodorus, who earned fame both by 
the greatness and the opportuneness of his exploits, for he infused 
courage into men whom a series of disasters had plunged in despair. 

3 3. For the disaster at Chaeronea was the beginning of evil to 
all the Greeks ; and the yoke of slavery which it brought with it 
pressed not least heavily on the states that had held aloof or had 
sided with Macedonia. Most of the cities Philip captured. With 
the Athenians he nominally made a treaty, but in reality he inflicted 
on them the deepest injuries of all, for he wrested islands from them 
and deposed them from the empire of the sea. For a time the 
Athenians kept quiet during the reign of Philip and afterwards of 
Alexander. But when Alexander died and the Macedonians chose 
Aridaeus king, though the whole government was vested in Anti- 
pater, the Athenians could no longer brook the thought that Greece 
should for ever be at the feet of Macedonia ; so they were bent on 



chs. xxiv-xxv LA MI AN WAR THE TYRANTS 37 

war and stirred up others to action. 4. The cities that joined them 4 
were these : in Peloponnese there were Argos, Epidaurus, Sicyon, 
Troezen, Elis, Phlius, Messene ; outside the Isthmus of Corinth 
there were the Locrians, Phocians, Thessalians, Carystians, and the 
Acarnanians who belonged to the Aetolian League. But the 
Boeotians, who enjoyed the Theban territory of which the Thebans 
had been dispossessed, fearing that the Athenians might restore 
Thebes, not only did not join the alliance, but furthered the cause 
of Macedonia with all their might. Each contingent of the allies 5 
was led by its own general, but the command of the whole army was 
voted to the Athenian Leosthenes, out of regard for the dignity of 
his native city and his own military reputation. He had indeed 
already conferred a benefit on the whole of Greece ; for when 
Alexander would have banished to Persia all the Greek mercen- 
aries who had served under Darius and his satraps, Leosthenes 
anticipated his design by shipping them to Europe. The bright 
hopes that had been conceived of him he now surpassed by brighter 
deeds ; and his death, by striking dismay into every heart, contributed 
not a little to the disaster which ensued. The Athenians had to 
receive a Macedonian garrison which occupied Munychia, and 
afterwards Piraeus, and the Long Walls. 5. When Antipater 6 
was dead, Olympias crossed over from Epirus, put Aridaeus to 
death, and reigned for a time ; but not long afterwards she was 
besieged and captured by Cassander, who handed her over to the 
multitude. After Cassander came to the throne (to confine myself 
to his dealings with the Athenians) he captured the fortress of 
Panactum in Attica and also Salamis, and contrived that Demetrius, 
son of Phanostratus, who inherited from his father a reputation for 
ability, should be made tyrant of Athens. This Demetrius was 
deposed from the tyranny by Demetrius, son of Antigonus, a young 
man ambitious of standing well with the Greeks. Cassander, how- 7 
ever, in whose mind there rankled a bitter hatred of Athens, gained 
over Lachares, hitherto a popular leader, and persuaded him to 
compass the tyranny ; and of all the tyrants we know of he was the 
most merciless to man and the most reckless of God. But Demetrius, 
son of Antigonus, though he had quarrelled with the Athenian 
people, nevertheless put down the tyranny of Lachares also. When 
the walls were captured Lachares fled to Boeotia. But as he had 
taken down golden shields from the Acropolis, and had stript the 
very image of Athena of all the ornaments that could be removed, 
he was suspected of being very rich, and was therefore murdered 
by some men of Coronea. Having freed the Athenians from their S 
tyrants, Demetrius, son of Antigonus, did not restore Piraeus to 
them after the flight of Lachares. At a later time he defeated 
the Athenians, and introduced a garrison into Athens itself, having 
fortified what is called the Museum. 6. The Museum is a hill 



38 OLYMPIODORUSTHE ERECHTHEUM bk. i. attica 

within the ancient circuit of the city, opposite the Acropolis, where 
they say that Musaeus sang and, dying of old age, was buried. 
Afterwards a monument was built here to a Syrian man. But at the 
time I speak of Demetrius fortified and held the hill. 

XXVI 

i. Some time afterwards a few men, bethinking them of their 
forefathers, and of what a change had come over the glory of Athens, 
without more ado put themselves under the command of Olympio- 
dorus. He led them, old men and striplings alike, against the 
Macedonians, looking for victory rather to stout hearts than strong 
arms. When the Macedonians marched out to meet him he 
defeated them : they fled to the Museum, and he took the place. 

2 Thus Athens was freed from the Macedonians. 2. All the Athenians 
fought memorably, but Leocritus, son of Protarchus, is said to have 
been the boldest in the action. For he was the first to mount the 
wall and the first to leap into the Museum. He fell in the fight, 
and among other marks of honour which the Athenians bestowed 
on him they engraved his name and his exploit on his shield, and 

3 dedicated it to Zeus of Freedom. 3. This was Olympiodorus' 
greatest feat, apart from his achievements in recovering Piraeus and 
Munychia. But when the Macedonians made a raid on Eleusis, he 
put the Eleusinians in order of battle and vanquished the Macedonians. 
Before this, when Cassander had invaded Attica, Olympiodorus sailed 
to Aetolia and persuaded the Aetolians to come to the rescue. And 
to this allied force it was chiefly due that the Athenians escaped a 
war with Cassander. Olympiodorus is honoured at Athens both on 
the Acropolis and in the Prytaneum : at Eleusis there is a painting 
to his memory ; and the Phocians of Elatea dedicated a bronze 
statue of him at Delphi because he helped them when they revolted 
from Cassander. 

4 4. Near the statue of Olympiodorus stands a bronze image of 
Artemis surnamed Leucophryenian. It was dedicated by the sons 
of Themistocles; for the Magnesians, whom the king gave to Themis- 
tocles to govern, hold Leucophryenian Artemis in honour. 5. But I 
must proceed, for I have to describe the whole of Greece. Endoeus 
was an Athenian by birth and a pupil of Daedalus. When Daedalus 
fled on account of the murder of Calus, Endoeus followed him to 
Crete. There is a seated image of Athena by Endoeus : the in- 
scription states that it was dedicated by Callias and made by 
Endoeus. 

5 6. There is also a building called the Erechtheum. Before the 
entrance is an altar of Supreme Zeus, where they sacrifice no living 
thing ; but they lay cakes on it, and having done so they are for- 
bidden by custom to make use of wine. Inside of the building are 



chs. xxv-xxvn THE ERECHTHEUM 39 

altars : one of Poseidon, on which they sacrifice also to Erechtheus 
in obedience to an oracle ; one of the hero Butes ; and one of 
Hephaestus. On the walls are paintings of the family of the Butads. 
Within, for the building is double, there is sea-water in a well. This 
is not very surprising, for the same thing may be seen in inland 
places, as at Aphrodisias in Caria. But what is remarkable about 
this well is that, when the south wind has been blowing, the well 
gives forth a sound of waves ; and there is the shape of a trident 
in the rock. These things are said to have been the evidence pro- 
duced by Poseidon in support of his claim to the country. 

7. The rest of the city and the whole land are equally sacred to 6 
Athena ; for although the worship of other gods is established in the 
townships, the inhabitants none the less hold Athena in honour. But 
the object which was universally deemed the holy of holies many years 
before the union of the townships, is an image of Athena in what is 
now called the Acropolis, but what was then called the city. The 
legend is that the image fell from heaven, but whether this was so 
or not I will not inquire. Callimachus made a golden lamp for 
the goddess. They fill the lamp with oil, and wait till the same day 7 
next year, and the oil suffices for the lamp during all the intervening 
time, though it is burning day and night. The wick is made of 
Carpasian flax, which is the only kind of flax that does not take fire. 
A bronze palm-tree placed over the lamp and reaching to the roof 
draws off the smoke. Callimachus, who made the lamp, though 
inferior to the best artists in the actual practice of his art, so far 
surpassed them all in ingenuity, that he was the first to bore holes in 
stones, and assumed, or accepted at the hands of others, the title of 
the Refiner away of Art. 

XXVII 

1. In the temple of the Polias is a wooden Hermes, said to be 
an offering of Cecrops, but hidden under myrtle boughs. Amongst 
the ancient offerings which are worthy of mention is a folding-chair, 
made by Daedalus, and spoils taken from the Medes, including 
the corselet of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea, 
and a sword said to be that of Mardonius. Masistius, I know, 
was killed by the Athenian cavalry; but as Mardonius fought against 
the Lacedaemonians, and fell by the hand of a Spartan, the Athenians 
could not have got the sword originally, nor is it likely that the 
Lacedaemonians would have allowed them to carry it off. 2. About 2 
the olive they have nothing to say except that it was produced by 
the goddess as evidence in the dispute about the country. They 
say, too, that the olive was burned down when the Medes fired 
Athens, but that after being burned down it sprouted the same day 
to a height of two cubits. 3. Contiguous to the temple of Athena 



40 ARREPHOROITOLMIDES bk. i. attica 

is a temple of Pandrosus, who alone of the sisters was blameless in 

3 regard to the trust committed to them. 4. What surprised me very 
much, but is not generally known, I will describe as it takes place. 
Two maidens dwell not far from the temple of the Polias : the 
Athenians call them Arrephoroi. These are lodged for a time with 
the goddess ; but when the festival comes round they perform the 
following ceremony by night. They put on their heads the things 
which the priestess of Athena gives them to carry, but what it is 
she gives is known neither to her who gives nor to them who carry. 
Now there is in the city an enclosure not far from the sanctuary of 
Aphrodite called Aphrodite in the Gardens, and there is a natural 
underground descent through it. Down this way the maidens go. 
Below they leave their burdens, and getting something else, which 
is wrapt up, they bring it back. These maidens are then discharged, 
and others are brought to the Acropolis in their stead. 

4 5. Near the temple of Athena is a well-wrought figure of an 
old woman, just about a cubit high, purporting to be the handmaid 
Lysimache. There are also large bronze figures of men confronting 
each other for a fight : they call one of them Erechtheus and 
the other Eumolpus. And yet Athenian antiquaries themselves 
are aware that it was Eumolpus' son Immaradus that was 

5 killed by Erechtheus. 6. On the pedestal there is a statue of 
. . . . , who was soothsayer to Tolmides, and a statue of Tolmides 
himself. Tolmides, in command of an Athenian fleet, ravaged 
various places, particularly the coast of Peloponnese, burned the 
Lacedaemonian docks at Gythium, and captured the vassal town of 
Boeae, and the island of Cythera : then landing in the territory 
of Sicyon he devastated the country ; and when the Sicyonians gave 
battle, he routed them and drove them towards the city. After return- 
ing to Athens he led Athenian colonists to Euboea and Naxos, and 
invaded Boeotia with an army. Having laid waste most of the 
country and reduced Chaeronea by siege, he advanced into the 
territory of Haliartus and there fell in battle, and his whole army 
was worsted. Such I ascertained to be the history of Tolmides. 

6 7. There are ancient images of Athena. No part of them has been 
melted off, though they are somewhat blackened and brittle ; for 
the flames reached them at the time when the Athenians embarked 
on their ships, and the city, abandoned by its fighting men, was 
captured by the king. There is also the hunting of a boar, but 
whether it is the Calydonian boar I do not know for certain. There 
is also Cycnus fighting with Hercules. They say that this Cycnus 
slew Lycus, a Thracian, and others in single combats for which prizes 
were offered ; but he was himself killed by Hercules at the river 
Peneus. 

7 8. Of the stories which they tell in Troezen about Theseus, there 
is one that when Hercules visited Pittheus at Troezen he laid down 



chs. xxvii-xxviii THESEUS BRONZE ATHENA 41 



the lion's skin at dinner, and that there came in to him some Troe- 
zenian children, among whom was Theseus, then just seven years 
old. They say that when the rest of the children saw the skin they 
ran away, but that Theseus, not much afraid, slipped out, snatched 
an axe from the servants, and at once came on in earnest, thinking 
the skin was a lion. That is the first story which the Troezenians 8 
tell of him. The next is this : Aegeus deposited boots and a sword 
under a rock as tokens of the boy's identity, and then sailed away 
to Athens ; but when Theseus was sixteen years old, he pushed up 
the rock and carried off what Aegeus had deposited there. There is a 
statue on the Acropolis illustrative of this story: it is all of bronze 
except the rock. 9. They have also dedicated a representation of 9 
another exploit of Theseus. The story about it runs thus : The land 
of Crete, especially the part about the river Tethris, was being 
devastated by a bull. It appears that of old the wild beasts were 
more formidable to men than they are now. For example, there was 
the Nemean lion and the Parnassian lion, serpents in many parts of 
Greece, and boars at Calydon, at Erymanthus, and at Crommyon in 
the land of Corinth. Some of these beasts were said to be produced 
by the earth, others to be sacred to gods, others to be let loose for 
the punishment of men. This particular bull is said by the Cretans 10 
to have been sent into their land by Poseidon, because Minos, 
though he ruled the Greek seas, did not honour Poseidon more than 
any other god. They say that this bull was brought from Crete to 
Peloponnese, and that this was one of the so-called twelve labours of 
Hercules. When it was let loose on the plain of Argos, it fled through 
the Isthmus of Corinth and away into Attica to the township of 
Marathon, and killed all whom it met, including Androgeus, son of 
Minos. But Minos would not believe that the Athenians were guilt- 
less of the death of Androgeus ; so he sailed against Athens, and 
harried it until a covenant was made with him that he should take 
seven maidens and as many boys to the legendary Minotaur, to dwell 
in the Labyrinth at Cnosus. It is said that Theseus afterwards 
drove the bull of Marathon to the Acropolis and sacrificed it to the 
goddess. The offering was dedicated by the township of Marathon. 

XXVIII 

1. Why they set up a bronze statue of Cylon, though he com- 
passed the tyranny, I cannot say for certain. I surmise that it was 
because he was an extremely handsome man, and gained some repu- 
tati m by winning a victory in the double race at Olympia. More- 
over he had the honour to marry a daughter of Theagenes, tyrant of 
Megara. 2. Besides the things I have enumerated, there are two 2 
tithe-ol brings from spoils taken by the Athenians in war. One is a 
bronze .mage of Athena made from the spoils of the Medes who 



42 APOLLO'S CAVE AREOPAGUS bk. i. attica 

landed at Marathon. It is a work of Phidias. The <battle> of the 
Lapiths with the Centaurs on her shield, and all the other figures in 
relief, are said to have been wrought by Mys, but designed, like all 
the other works of Mys, by Parrhasius, son of Evenor. The head 
of the spear and the crest of the helmet of this Athena are visible 
to mariners sailing from Sunium to Athens. There is also a bronze 
chariot made out of a tithe of spoils taken from the Boeotians and 
the Chalcidians of Euboea. There are two other offerings, a statue 
of Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, and an image of Athena, sur- 
named Lemnian, after the people of Lemnos who dedicated it. 
This image of Athena is the best worth seeing of the works of 
Phidias. 

3 3. The whole of the wall which runs round the Acropolis, 
except the part built by Cimon, son of Miltiades, is said to have 
been erected by the Pelasgians who once dwelt at the foot of the 
Acropolis. For they say that Agrolas and Hyperbius .... and 
inquiring who they were, all I could learn was that they were 
originally Sicilians who migrated to Acarnania. 

4 4. Descending not as far as the lower city, but below the 
portal, you come to a spring of water, and near it a sanctuary of 
Apollo in a cave. They think it was here that Apollo had inter- 

. course with Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus Philippides was 

sent to Lacedaemon to tell that the Medes had landed, but came 
back reporting that the Lacedaemonians had deferred their march, for 
it was their custom not to march out to war before the moon was full. 
But Philippides said that Pan met him about Mount Parthenius, 
and told him that he wished the Athenians well and would come to 
Marathon to fight for them. So the god Pan has- been honoured 
for this message. 

5 5. . . . where is also the Areopagus. It is called the 
Areopagus (' hill of Ares ') because Ares was the first to be tried 
there. I have already told how he killed Halirrothius, and 
why he did so. They say that Orestes was afterwards tried for 
the murder of his mother, and there is an altar of Warlike Athena 
which he dedicated after his acquittal. The unwrought stones on 
which the accused and the accusers stand are named respectively 

6 the stone of Injury and the stone of Ruthlessness. 6. Near this is 
a sanctuary of the goddesses whom the Athenians call the Vener- 
able Ones, but whom Hesiod in the Theogony calls the Furies. 
Aeschylus was the first to represent them with snakes in their 
hair. But there is nothing terrible in their images nor in the 
other images of the nether gods. There are images also of Pluto 
and Hermes and Earth. Persons who have been acquitted in the 
court of the Areopagus sacrifice here, and sacrifices are offered on other 

7 occasions both by strangers and citizens. 7. Within the enclosure 
is the tomb of Oedipus. After much inquiry I found that his bones 



ch. xxvm COURTS OF JUSTICE 43 

were brought from Thebes ; for Sophocles' version of the death of 
Oedipus is, in my opinion, rendered incredible by Homer's state- 
ment, that, when Oedipus died, Mecisteus went to Thebes and took 
part in the funeral games. 

8. The Athenians have other, though less famous, courts ofS 
justice. The court called Parabystum (' pushed aside ') is so named 
because it is in an obscure part of the city, and they resort to it 
only in the most trivial cases. The court called Trigonum (' tri- 
angular') gets its name from its shape. The Batrachium ('frog- 
green ') and the Phoenicium (' red ') are named after their colours, 
and retain their names to the present day. But the greatest and 
most frequented court is called the Heliaea. 9. Amongst the courts for 
the trial of homicides is the one called after the Palladium, where cases 
of involuntary homicide are tried. Nobody denies that Demophon 
was the first person tried here, but there is a difference of opinion 
as to the crime for which he was tried. They say that after the 9 
capture of Ilium Diomede was sailing homeward, and that night 
having fallen when they arrived off Phalerum, the Argives dis- 
embarked as in an enemy's country, taking it in the dark for some 
land other than Attica. Hereupon Demophon, they say, being also 
unaware that the men from the ships were Argives, came out 
against them and slew some of them, and carried off the Palladium. 
But an Athenian, who did not see him coming, was knocked down 
by Demophon's horse and trampled to death. For this Demophon 
was brought to trial, some say by the kinsmen of the man 
who had been trampled under foot, others say by the Argive 
community. 10. In the court of Delphinium are held the 10 
trials of persons who plead that the homicide which they committed 
was justifiable. On such a plea Theseus was acquitted when he 
had slain the rebel Pallas and his sons. But in former days, -before 
the acquittal of Theseus, the custom was that every manslayer either 
fled the country or, if he stayed, was slain even as he slew. 1 1. The 
court called the Court in the Prytaneum, where iron and all lifeless 
things are brought to trial, originated, I believe, on the following 
occasion : When Erechtheus was king of the Athenians, the Ox- 
slayer slew an ox for the first time on the altar of Zeus Polieus ; and 
having done so he left his axe there and fled from the country ; but 
the axe was tried and acquitted, and every year it is tried down to 
the present time. Other lifeless things are said to have inflicted of 11 
their own accord a righteous punishment on men. The best and 
most famous instance is that of the sword of Cambyses. 12. In 
Piraeus, beside the sea, is a court called Phreattys. Here exiles, 
against whom in their absence another charge has been brought, 
make their defence from a ship, the judges listening on the shore. 
The legend runs that Teucer was the first to plead thus in his 
defence before Telamon, asserting that he had nothing to do with 



44 ROAD TO ACADEMY GRAVES bk. I. attica 

the death of Ajax. These details may suffice. I have entered 
into them for the sake of those who are interested in the courts 
of justice. 

XXIX 

i. Near the Areopagus is shown a ship made for the procession 
at the Panathenian festival. Larger ships than this have no doubt 
been built, but I have yet to learn that any man has built a larger 
vessel than the one at Delos, which is decked for nine banks of 
oars. 

2 2. Outside of the city, in the townships and on the roads, the 
Athenians have sanctuaries of the gods and graves of heroes and men. 
Close to the city is the Academy, once the property of a private man, 
but in my time a gymnasium. On the way to it there is an en- 
closure sacred to Artemis, with wooden images of Ariste ('best') 
and Calliste ('fairest'). In my opinion, confirmed by the verses of 
Sappho, these names are epithets of Artemis. I know that another 
explanation of them is given, but I shall pass it over. There is also 
a temple of no great size, to which they bring the image of 

3 Eleutherian Dionysus every year on appointed days. 3. Such are 
the sanctuaries in this quarter. 

Of the graves the first is that of Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, a 
man in every respect the best of all the famous men of Athens 
before or after him. To prove what I say it will be enough, 
omitting most of his exploits, to mention that setting out 
from Thebes with sixty men he put down the tyranny of the so- 
called Thirty, and persuaded the Athenians to bury their quarrels 
and live in unity. This is the first grave. After it are the graves 

4 of Pericles, Chabrias, and Phormio. 4. There are also tombs of 
all the Athenians who fell in battle by sea or land, except the men 
who fought at Marathon ; for these, as a meed of valour, are buried 
on the field. The others are laid beside the road that leads to the 
Academy ; and tombstones stand on their graves telling the name 
and township of each man. The first buried here were the men who 
in Thrace, after conquering the country as far as Drabescus, were 
surprised and massacred by the Edonians ; it is said, too, that 

5 thunderbolts fell upon them. Amongst their generals were Leagrus, 
who had the chief command, and Sophanes of Decelia, who slew 
the Argive Eurybates. This Eurybates had won a victory in the 
pentathlum at Nemea, and he was fighting for the Aeginetans when 
he fell. This was the third army which the Athenians sent outside 
of Greece. All Greece, indeed, united in the war against Priam 
and the Trojans. But the first foreign expedition on which the 
Athenians went by themselves was under Iolaus to Sardinia, the 
second was to Ionia, and the third was this expedition to Thrace. 

6 5. In front of the tomb is a tombstone on which are represented 



CHS. xxvm-xxix GRAVES ON ROAD TO ACADEMY 45 

horsemen fighting. Their names are Melanopus and Macartatus, 
who were slain in a pitched battle with the Lacedaemonians and 
Boeotians at the place where the territory of Eleon marches with that 
of Tanagra. There is a grave also of the Thessalian cavalry, who 
came for old friendship's sake when the Peloponnesians under 
Archidamus first invaded Attica. Hard by is the grave of some 
Cretan bowmen. Then come more tombs of Athenians : the tomb of 
Clisthenes, who devised the existing system of tribes ; and the tomb 
of the Athenian cavalry who fell at the time when the Thessalians 
were their comrades in danger. Here, too, lie the Cleonaeans 7 
who came to' Attica with the Argives. Why they came I 
will mention when I come to speak of the Argives. There 
is also a grave of the Athenians who warred with the Aeginetans 
before the Medes marched against Greece. 6. It seems that 
even a democracy is capable of a just resolution ; for the Athen- 
ians allowed their slaves to share the honour of a public burial, 
and to have their names carved on the tombstone which sets forth 
that they were faithful to their masters in the war. Here, too, are 
tombs of other men ; but their battlefields are far and wide. 
7. The flower of the army of Olynthus are buried here, and 
Melesander, who sailed up the Maeander into the interior of 
Caria, and the men who fell in the war with Cassander, and 
the Argives who drew sword for Athens in days gone by. The 8 
alliance with Argos is said to have been brought about as follows. 
The city of Lacedaemon having been shaken by an earthquake, the 
Helots revolted and withdrew to Ithome. On their revolt the 
Lacedaemonians sent for help to Athens and elsewhere. The 
Athenians despatched to their aid a body of picked troops under 
Cimon, son of Miltiades, but the Lacedaemonians suspected and 
dismissed them. The insult appeared to the Athenians intoler- 9 
able, and on their way back they concluded an alliance with the 
Argives, the eternal foes of Lacedaemon. Afterwards when the 
Athenians were on the point of engaging the Boeotians and 
Lacedaemonians at Tanagra, they were reinforced by a body of 
Argives. At first the Argives had the best of it, but nightfall pre- 
vented them from ensuring their victory, and on the morrow 
Thessalian treachery enabled the Lacedaemonians to win the day. 
I will mention also the following : Apollodorus, a captain of 10 
mercenaries, but a native Athenian, who being sent by Arsites, 
satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, successfully defended the city of 
Perinthus when Philip had invaded its territory. He is buried here, 
and Eubulus, son of Spintharus, and brave men worthy of a happier 
fate, the men who fell upon the tyrant Lachares, and those who 
planned the seizure of Piraeus when it was held by a Macedonian 
garrison, but who, before they achieved their purpose, were betrayed 
by their confederates to death. 8. Here, too, are laid the men who 1 1 



46 GRAVES ON ROAD TO ACADEMY bk. i. attica 



fell at Corinth. There and at Leuctra God showed that they whom 
the Greeks call brave are powerless without fortune ; for the 
Lacedaemonians, after vanquishing the Corinthians and Athenians, 
the Argives and Boeotians at Corinth, were humbled in the dust 
by the Boeotians single-handed at Leuctra. 9. After the men 
who met their death at Corinth, an inscription in elegiacs signifies 
that one and the same monument is raised to the men who fell in 
Euboea and Chios, and who perished in the farthest regions of Asia 

12 and in Sicily. Inscribed are the names of the generals, except 
Nicias, and the names of the soldiers, both citizens and Plataeans. 
According to Philistus, whose account I follow, the reason why 
Nicias was left out was that he surrendered voluntarily, whereas 
Demosthenes made terms for every one but himself, and tried 
to kill himself when he was taken. Therefore the name of Nicias 
was not inscribed on the stone, because he was deemed to have 

13 been a voluntary captive and no true soldier. 10. On another 
monument are the names of the men who fought in Thrace and 
at Megara, and on the occasion when Alcibiades persuaded the 
Arcadians of Mantinea and the Eleans to revolt from Lacedaemon, 
and the men who defeated the Syracusans before the arrival of 
Demosthenes in Sicily. 1 1. Here, too, are buried the men who fought 
in the sea-fights at the Hellespont, and those who engaged the 
Macedonians at Chaeronea, and those who marched with Cleon 
to Amphipolis, and those who fell at Delium in the land of Tanagra, 
and those whom Leosthenes led to Thessaly, and those who sailed 
with Cimon to Cyprus. Of those who joined Olympiodorus in driving 

14 out the Macedonian garrison, not more than thirteen lie here. 1 2. The 
Athenians say that once when the Romans were engaged in a war 
with a neighbouring people, Athens sent a small contingent to their 
help ; and afterwards five Attic galleys were present at a sea-fight 
between the Romans and Carthaginians ; the grave of these men, 
therefore, is here also. 13. I have already narrated the deeds of 
Tolmides and his men, and the manner of their death. Be it known 
to any whom it may concern that they also are laid by this road- 
side. 14. Here, too, lie the men whom on the great day Cimon led 

1 5 to victory by sea and land. Here are buried Conon and Timotheus, 
a glorious father and a glorious son, like Miltiades and Cimon 
before them. 15. Here, too, repose Zeno, son of Mnaseus, 
Chrysippus of Soli, Nicias, son of Nicomedes, the greatest animal 
painter of his time, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew Hippar- 
chus, son of Pisistratus, and the orators Ephialtes and Lycurgus, son 
of Lycophron. It was Ephialtes who was mainly instrumental in 

16 degrading the tribunal of the Areopagus. 16. Lycurgus brought 
into the public chest 6500 talents more than Pericles had amassed : 
he made processional vessels for the goddess, and golden figures of 
Victory, and ornaments for a hundred maidens, and arms and missiles 



chs. xxix-xxx ACADEMY COLONUS HIPPIUS 47 

of war, and four hundred ships of battle. In respect of buildings, he 
completed the theatre which others had begun, and during his 
administration he constructed ship-she Is in Piraeus, and the 
gymnasium beside what is called the Lyceum. Everything made of 
silver and gold was carried off by the tyrant Lachares, but the 
buildings remained to my time. 

XXX 

1. Before the entrance to the Academy is an altar of Love, with 
an inscription stating that Charmus was the first Athenian to 
dedicate an altar to Love. The altar in the city called the altar of 
Love Returned is said to have been dedicated by foreign residents, 
because Meles, an Athenian, scorning a foreign resident Timagoras, 
who loved him, bade him go up to the top of the rock and throw 
himself down. Timagoras, reckless of his life, and wishing to 
gratify the lad in everything, went and threw himself down. 
But when Meles saw Timagoras dead, he was seized with such 
remorse that he leaped from the same rock and perished. From 
that time the foreign residents have worshipped a spirit of Love 
Returned, the avenger of Timagoras. 2. In the Academy is an 2 
altar of Prometheus, and they run from it to the city with burning 
torches. The object of the contest is to keep the torch burning 
during the race ; for if the first runner lets his torch out, he forfeits 
all claim to the victory, which falls to the second instead. But if 
the torch of the second is out also, then the third is the winner ; 
but if all their torches are extinguished, nobody wins. There is an 
altar of the Muses and another of Hermes ; and within they have 
made an altar of Athena and one of Hercules. There is also an 
olive-plant, said to be the second that appeared. 3. Not far from 3 
the Academy is the tomb of Plato, to whom God foreshadowed his 
future greatness in philosophy. The manner of the sign was this. 
Socrates, the night before Plato was to become his disciple, dreamed 
that a swan flew into his bosom. Now a swan is reputed to be 
versed in the Muses' craft, because they say that the Ligurians who 
dwell in the Celtic land beyond the Eridanus had a king named 
Cycnus ('swan'), skilled in the Muses' arts, who at his death was 
turned by the will of Apollo into the bird. That a votary of the 
Muses was king of the Ligurians I believe, but that a man should 
be turned into a bird is to me incredible. 4. In this neighbourhood 4 
is seen the tower of Timon, the only man who saw no way to be 
happy save by shunning the rest of mankind. Here, too, is shown 
a place called Colonus Hippius ('horse knoll'), said to be the first 
spot in Attica to which Oedipus came. This is another legend at 
variance with Homer's poetry ; still the people repeat it. There is 
an altar of Horse Poseidon and Horse Athena, and a shrine of the 



4 8 THE TOWNSHIPS bk. i. attica 

heroes Pirithous, Theseus, Oedipus, and Adrastus. The grove of 
Poseidon, and the temple, were burned by Antigonus when he invaded 
Attica ; and that was not the only time his troops ravaged Athenian 
territory. 

XXXI 

i. The small townships of Attica, to take them in order of 
situation, offer the following notable features. Alimus has a sanctuary 
of Lawgiver Demeter and the Maid. In Zoster ('girdle') on the sea 
there is an altar of Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Latona. They do 
not say that Latona gave birth to the children here, only that she 
loosed her girdle in preparation for the birth, and that so the place 
got its name. Prospalta has also a sanctuary of the Maid and Demeter, 
and Anagyrus has a sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods. At 
Cephale the Dioscuri are chiefly worshipped, for the people here 

2 name them Great Gods. 2. In Prasiae there is a temple of Apollo. 
It is said that the first-fruits of the Hyperboreans come thither : the 
Hyperboreans, they say, hand them over to the Arimaspians, the 
Arimaspians to the Issedonians, and from the Issedonians the 
Scythians convey them to Sinope, and from there they are brought 
by Greeks to Prasiae, and the Athenians carry them to Delos. 
These first-fruits, it is said, are hidden in wheaten straw, and nobody 
knows what they are. At Prasiae there is the tomb of Erysichthon, 
who died on the voyage as he was returning from Delos after the 

3 sacred embassy. I have already mentioned that Cranaus, king of 
Athens, was expelled by Amphictyon, his kinsman by marriage. 
They say that Cranaus fled with his partisans to the township of 
Lamptrae, where he died and was buried. His tomb is in Lamptrae 
to this day. In Potami is the grave of Ion, the son of Xuthus ; for 
Ion also dwelt amongst the Athenians, and commanded them in 

4 the war against the Eleusinians. So runs tradition. At Phlya 
there are altars of Dionysus - given Apollo and Light - bringing 
Artemis, and Flowery Dionysus, and the Ismenian Nymphs, and 
Earth, whom they name Great Goddess. Another temple contains 
altars of Demeter, the Sender-up of Gifts, and of Zeus, god of 
Acquisition, and of Athena Tithrone, and of the First-born Maid, and 
of the goddesses named Venerable. 3. In Myrrhinus is a wooden 
image of Colaenis. The Athmonians honour Amarysian Artemis. 

5 On inquiry I found that the guides knew nothing definite about 
these goddesses. My own conjecture on the subject is this : there 
is a place Amarynthus in Euboea, and the inhabitants honour 
Amarysia ; but the Athenians also celebrate a festival of x\marysia 
with no less splendour than the Euboeans. That is the reason, I 
believe, why the goddess got the name of Amarysia among the 
Athmonians. And I think that Colaenis at Myrrhinus was called 
after Colaenus. I have already observed that many people in the 



chs. xxx-xxxn MARATHON 49 



townships aver that they were ruled over by kings before the reign 
of Cecrops. Now Colaenus is the name of a man who, according to 
the Myrrhinusians, ruled before Cecrops reigned. There is a town- 6 
ship Acharnae : the inhabitants worship Apollo, god of Streets, and 
Hercules, and there is an altar of Health Athena. They name 
Athena the goddess of Horses ; and Dionysus they call Minstrel and 
also Ivy ; for they say that the ivy plant first appeared there. 

XXXII 

i. The mountains of Attica are Pentelicus, where are quarries; 
and Parnes, where wild boars and bears may be hunted ; and Hymet- 
tus, which produces the best food for bees, except the land of the 
Alazones. For the Alazones leave the bees free to follow the cattle 
to pasture, and do not keep them shut up in hives; so the bees 
work anywhere, and the product is so blent that wax and honey are 
inseparable. 2. On the Attic mountains are images of the gods. 2 
On Pentelicus there is an image of Athena, on Hymettus an image 
of Hymettian Zeus ; and there are altars of Showery Zeus and 
Foreseeing Apollo. On Parnes is a bronze image of Parnethian 
Zeus, and an altar of Sign-giving Zeus. There is another altar on 
Parnes, on which they sacrifice, invoking Zeus now as the Showery 
"od, now as the Averter of Ills. There is a small mountain called 
Anchesmus, with an image of Anchesmian Zeus. 

3. Before describing the islands I will resume the subject of the 3 
townships. There is a township of Marathon equally distant from 
Athens and from Carystus in Euboea. It was at this point of 
Attica that the barbarians landed, and were beaten in battle, and 
lost some of their ships as they were putting off to sea. In the 
plain is the grave of the Athenians, and over it are tombstones with 
the names of the fallen arranged according to tribes. There is 
another grave for the Boeotians of Plataea and the slaves ; for 
slaves fought then for the first time. There is a separate tomb of 4 
Miltiades, son of Cimon. He died subsequently, after he had 
failed to capture Paros, and had been put on his trial for it by the 
Athenians. Flere every night you may hear horses neighing and 
men fighting. To go on purpose to see the sight never brought 
good to any man ; but with him who unwittingly lights upon it by 
accident the spirits are not angry. 4. The people of Marathon 
worship the men who fell in the battle, naming them heroes ; and 
they worship Marathon, from whom the township got its name ; and 
Hercules, alleging that they were the first of the Greeks who 
deemed Hercules a god. Now it befell, they say, that in the 5 
battle there was present a man of rustic aspect and dress, who 
slaughtered many of the barbarians with a plough, and vanished 
after the fight. When the Athenians inquired of the god, the only 
vol. 1 e 



50 MARATHON BRAURON bk. i. attica 

answer he vouchsafed was to bid them honour the hero Echetlaeus. 
There is also a trophy of white marble. The Athenians assert that 
they buried the Medes, because it is a sacred and imperative duty 
to cover with earth a human corpse, but I could find no grave ; 
for there was neither a barrow nor any other mark to be seen : 
they just carried them to a trench and flung them in pell-mell. 

65. In Marathon there is a spring called Macaria, of which they tell 
the following tale. When Hercules fled from Tiryns to escape 
Eurystheus, he went to reside with his friend Ceyx, king of Trachis. 
But when Hercules had departed this life, and Eurystheus demanded 
that the hero's children should be given up, the king of Trachis 
sent them to Athens, pleading his own weakness and the power of 
Theseus to protect them. But when they were come as suppliants 
to Athens they were the occasion of the first war that the Pelopon- 
nesians waged on the Athenians ; for Theseus would not surrender 
them at the demand of Eurystheus. It is said that an oracle 
declared to the Athenians that one of the children of Hercules must 
die a voluntary death, since otherwise they could not be victorious. 
Then Macaria, daughter of Hercules and Dejanira, slew herself, and 
thereby gave to the Athenians victory and to the spring her name. 

7 6. At Marathon there is a mere, most of which is marshy. Into 
this mere the barbarians, ignorant of the roads, rushed in their 
flight, and it is said that this was the cause of most of the carnage. 
Above the mere are the stone mangers of the horses of Artaphernes, 
and there are marks of a tent on the rocks. A river flows out of 
the mere : near the mere the water of the river is good for cattle, 
but where it falls into the sea it is briny and full of sea-fishes. A 
little way from the plain is a mountain of Pan and a grotto that is 
worth seeing : its entrance is narrow, but within are chambers and 
baths, and what is called Pan's herd of goats, being rocks which 
mostly resemble goats. 

XXXIII 

1. Some way from Marathon is Brauron, where they say that 
Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, fleeing from the Taurians, 
landed with the image of Artemis. Here, it is said, she left the 
image and went to Athens, and afterwards to Argos. There is 
indeed an old wooden image of Artemis here ; but in another place 
I will show who, in my opinion, possess the image which was 
brought from the barbarians. 
2 2. Just sixty furlongs from Marathon is Rhamnus, on the 
road that runs beside the sea to Oropus. The dwellings of the 
people are beside the sea, but a little above the sea is a sanctuary 
of Nemesis, who of all deities is most inexorable towards the proud. 
It appears that the barbarians who landed at Marathon incurred 



chs. xxxii-xxxiii RHAMNUS 51 

the wrath of this goddess ; for, lightly deeming it an easy task to 
capture Athens, they brought with them Parian marble wherewith 
to make a trophy, as if the victory were already won. 3. Of this 3 
very marble Phidias wrought an image of Nemesis. On the head 
of the goddess is a crown ornamented with deers and small figures 
of Victory : in her left hand she carries an apple bough, in her right 
a bowl, on which are worked figures of Ethiopians. 

The meaning of the Ethiopians I could not myself guess, nor 
could I accept the views of those who believed that they understood 
it : they said that the Ethiopians are wrought on the bowl on 
account of the Ocean river, because the Ethiopians dwell beside 
it, and Ocean is the father of Nemesis. 4. But beside the Ocean 4 
(which is not a river, but the farthest sea that is navigated by 
men) dwell Iberians and Celts, and it embraces the island of 
the Britons. Of the Ethiopians above Syene the farthest to- 
wards the Red Sea are the Fish-eaters, and the gulf about which 
they dwell is named after them. The most righteous of them 
inhabit the city of Meroe and the plain called the Ethiopian plain. 
These are they who show the Table of the Sun, but they have no 
sea and no river except the Nile. There are other Ethiopians 5 
who dwell next to the Moors, and reach as far as the Nasamonians. 
The Nasamonians are called Atlantes by Herodotus, but those 
who profess to know the dimensions of the earth call them 
Lixitae. They are the most distant of the Libyans, and dwell 
beside Atlas, sowing nothing, but subsisting on wild vines. But 
neither these Ethiopians nor the Nasamonians have any river. For 
the water of Atlas, though it gives rise to three streams, swells none 
of them into a river, but is all immediately absorbed by the sand. 
Thus the Ethiopians dwell beside no Ocean river. The water of 6 
Atlas is turbid, and at the spring there were crocodiles not less than 
two cubits in size, but at the approach of the men they plunged 
into the spring. Not a few have supposed that this water, 
reappearing out of the sand, forms the Egyptian Nile. 5. Atlas is 
so lofty that it is said to touch the sky with its peaks, but it is 
inaccessible by reason of the water and of the trees that grow all over 
it. The side of the Atlas towards the Nasamonians is known ; but 
no man, so far as we know, has yet sailed past the side that faces 
to the open sea. But enough of this. 

6. Neither this nor any other ancient image of Nemesis has 7 
wings : even the most holy wooden images at Smyrna are wingless. 
But in later times men have represented Nemesis with wings like 
Love, because they hold that the goddess hovers chiefly in Love's 
train. 7. I will now describe the figures on the pedestal of the 
image, but for the sake of clearness I will prefix the following 
observation. They say that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, 
but that Leda suckled and reared her. As for Helen's father, 



52 RHAMNUSOROPUS bk. i. attica 

the people of Rhamnus are at one with all the rest of the Greeks 
8 in holding that he was Zeus, and not Tyndareus. Phidias, 
acquainted with these legends, has represented Helen brought by 
Leda to Nemesis, and has portrayed Tyndareus and his sons, and 
a man named Hippeus standing by with a horse. There are also 
Agamemnon and Menelaus and Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. This 
Pyrrhus was the first that had Hermione, daughter of Helen, to 
wife. Orestes, on account of the crime he wrought on his mother, 
is omitted, though Hermione cleaved to him throughout, and bore 
him a son. Next on the pedestal is one Epochus and another 
young man : of them I heard nothing except that they were brothers 
of Oenoe, from whom the township gets its name. 

XXXIV 

i. The land of Oropus, between Attica and the territory of 
Tanagra, was originally Boeotian, but in our time it belongs to the 
Athenians, who waged a continual war for it, but never got firm 
possession of it till Philip gave it to them after he had captured 
Thebes. The city is beside the sea, but contains nothing of 
importance to record. 

Just twelve furlongs from the city is a sanctuary of Amphiaraus. 

2 2. It is said that when Amphiaraus was fleeing from Thebes the 
earth yawned and swallowed him and his chariot : but they say 
that it did not happen here, but at a place Harma (' chariot ') on 
the way from Thebes to Chalcis. The Oropians were the first to 
recognise Amphiaraus as a god, but afterwards all the Greeks 
did so too. I could enumerate others who once were men, 
and now receive divine honours from the Greeks : to some 
of them cities are dedicated, as Eleus in Chersonese is dedicated 
to Protesilaus, and Lebadea in Boeotia to Trophonius. The 
Oropians have a temple of Amphiaraus and an image of him 

3 in white marble. The altar is divided into parts. One part is 
sacred to Hercules, Zeus, and Paeon Apollo ; another to heroes 
and wives of heroes ; a third to Hestia, Hermes, Amphiaraus, 
and the children of Amphilochus. But x\lcmaeon, on account of 
what he did to Eriphyle, is not worshipped in the temple of 
Amphiaraus, nor in the shrine of Amphilochus. A fourth part of 
the altar is sacred to Aphrodite and Panacea, and also to Jason, 
Health, and Healing Athena. A fifth part belongs to the Nymphs 
and Pan and the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. There is an altar 
to Amphilochus in the city of Athens, and at Mallus in Cilicia he 
has the most infallible of all the oracles of the present day. 

4 3. Near the temple at Oropus there is a spring which they call the 
spring of Amphiaraus. They neither sacrifice into it, nor do they 
use its water for purification or for washing the hands ; but when a 



chs. xxxni-xxxv OROPUS SALAMIS 53 

man has been healed in consequence of an oracle vouchsafed to 
him, it is customary for him to drop silver and gold coins into the 
spring; for it was here, they say, that Amphiaraus rose as a god. 
Iophon of Cnosus, a professional antiquary, published oracles in 
hexameter verse, which, he alleged, were delivered by Amphiaraus 
to the Argives who marched to Thebes. These verses were 
eminently adapted to catch the popular taste ; but in point of fact, 
with the exception of the men who are said to have been inspired 
by Apollo in days of old, not one of the soothsayers uttered oracles : 
their skill lay in the interpretation of dreams, and in distinguishing 
the nights of birds and the inwards of victims. And my opinion 5 
is that Amphiaraus devoted himself chiefly to the interpretation of 
dreams ; for it is clear that when he was recognised as a god he 
instituted divination by dreams. Those who come to inquire of 
Amphiaraus are wont to purify themselves first of all. Purification 
consists in sacrificing to the god. They sacrifice both to 
him and to all those whose names are on the <altar>. After 
these preliminaries they sacrifice a ram, and spreading the skin 
under them go to sleep, awaiting a revelation in a dream. 

XXXV 

1. The Athenians have the following islands not far from the 
coast : one called the island of Patroclus, of which I have already 
given an account ; another beyond Sunium, as you sail with Attica 
on the left. On this latter island they say that Helen landed after 
the taking of Ilium, and hence the name of the island is Helene. 

2. Salamis lies over against Eleusis, and extends as far as the 2 
territory of Megara. <It is said that Cychreus> first called the island 
by its present name after his mother Salamis, daughter of Asopus, and 
that afterwards it was colonised by the Aeginetans under Telamon ; but 
they say that Philaeus, the son of Eurysaces, the son of Ajax, on being 
made an Athenian citizen, surrendered the island to the Athenians. 
Many years afterwards the Athenians expelled the Salaminians, on 
the ground that they had purposely been slack in the war with 
Cassander, and had willingly enough surrendered their city to the 
Macedonians. They also sentenced to death Ascetades, who had 
been chosen general of Salamis, and they swore that for all time 
they would bear the treachery of the Salaminians in mind against 
them. 

There are still ruins'of the market-place, and there is a temple 3 
of Ajax : the image is of ebony. To this day honours continue 
to be paid by the Athenians to Ajax and Eurysaces ; for there 
is an altar of Eurysaces at Athens. A stone is shown in Salamis 
not far from the harbour : on this stone they say that Telamon sat 
gazing at the ship as his children sailed away to Aulis to join the 



54 SALAMIS bk. i. attica 

4 national Greek expedition. 3. The inhabitants of Salamis say that 
when Ajax died, the flower appeared for the first time in their land : 
it is white, with a tinge of red, smaller than a lily both in flower and 
leaf, and there are letters on it as on the hyacinth. From the 
Aeolians who afterwards inhabited Ilium I heard a story about 
the award in the affair of the arms. They said that when Ulysses 
was cast away the arms were washed ashore at the grave of Ajax. 

5 As to the size of Ajax, a man of Mysia said that the sea had 
washed against the side of the grave that faces the beach, and had 
made the entrance to the tomb not difficult ; and he told me I might 
judge of the size of the corpse from this : the knee bones or knee 
pans (as doctors call them) were about the size of a quoit used by a 
boy who practises the pentathlum. As to the remotest tribe of Celts 
called Cabarenses, who dwell on the borders of the frozen desert, I 
was not astonished at their stature, which does not differ from that 
of Egyptian corpses. 4. But I will mention what struck me as 

6 remarkable. Protophanes, a citizen of Magnesia on the Lechaeus, 
was victorious in the pancratium and in wrestling on the same day 
at Olympia. Robbers, expecting to find some plunder, entered his 
grave ; and after the robbers some people went in to view the corpse, 
the ribs of which were not separate, but were united in a single 
piece from the shoulders to the smallest ribs which doctors call 
false. 5. In front of the city of Miletus is the island of Lade, and 
detached from Lade are two islets, one of which they name the isle 
of Asterius. They say that Asterius is buried in it, and that he 
was a son of Anax, and that Anax was a son of Earth. At all 

7 events the corpse is not less than ten cubits. 6. The following 
affair excited my surprise. In Upper Lydia there is a city of no 
great size called Temenothyrae : here a hillside having been swept 
away by a storm, some bones came to light, the shape of which 
seemed to prove that they were the bones of a man, though the size 
of them could never have suggested that they were so. Immediately 
a story got abroad that the skeleton was that of Geryon, the son 
of Chrysaor, and that the chair was his too ; for there is a man's 
chair wrought in a rocky spur of a mountain. And to a winter 
torrent they gave the name of Ocean, and said that some men in 
ploughing had lighted on the horns of cows ; for the story goes that 

3 Geryon bred very fine cows. But when I gainsaid them and showed 
that Geryon is at Cadiz, where, though he has no tomb, there 
is a tree that takes diverse forms, the Lydian guides let out the 
truth, to wit, that the skeleton was that of Hyllus, that Hyllus was 
a son of Earth, and that the river was named after him. They 
said, too, that Hercules called his son Hyllus after the river on 
account of his former stay with Omphale. 



chs. xxxv-xxxvi THE SACRED WAY 55 



XXXVI 

1. But to return to the subject in hand. In Salamis there is a 
sanctuary of Artemis and a trophy of the victory which Themistocles, 
son of Neocles, was instrumental in winning for the Greeks. There 
is also a sanctuary of Cychreus. It is said that while the Athenians 
were engaged in the sea-fight with the Medes a serpent appeared 
among the ships, and God announced to the Athenians that this 
serpent was the hero Cychreus. 2. In front of Salamis is an island 2 
called Psyttalia. They say that about four hundred barbarians 
landed on it, and that, when the fleet of Xerxes was worsted, the 
Greeks crossed over and put them to the sword. The island con- 
tains no really artistic image, only some rude wooden idols of Pan. 

3. On the road from Athens to Eleusis, which the Athenians 3 
call the Sacred Way, there is the tomb of Anthemocritus. He was 
the victim of a most foul crime perpetrated by the Megarians ; for 
when he came as a herald to forbid them to encroach on the sacred 
land, they slew him. And the wrath of the two goddesses abides 
upon them for that deed to this day ; for they were the only Greek 
people whom even the Emperor Hadrian could not make to thrive. 4 
After the tombstone of Anthemocritus is the grave of Molottus, who 
had the honour of commanding the Athenians when they crossed into 
Euboea to help Plutarch. And there is a place which is called Scirum 
for the following reason. When the Eleusinians were at war with 
Erechtheus they were joined by a soothsayer from Dodona na^cd. 
Scirus, who also founded the ancient sanctuary of Sciradian Athena at 
Phalerum. He fell in the battle, and the Eleusinians buried him 
near a winter torrent ; and both the place and the torrent take their 
name from the hero. 4. Near it is the tomb of Cephisodorus, a 5 
popular leader and a most determined opponent of Philip, son of 
Demetrius, king of Macedonia. Cephisodorus gained for the Athen- 
ians the alliance of two kings, Attalus the Mysian and Ptolemy the 
Egyptian, as well as the alliance of independent peoples, to wit, the 
Aetolians and the islanders of Rhodes and Crete. But when the 6 
succours from Egypt, Mysia, and Crete were mostly delayed, and the 
Rhodians, whose strength was in ships only, were of little avail 
against the Macedonian infantry, Cephisodorus sailed with other 
Athenians to Italy and begged help of the Romans. The Romans 
sent a general with a force, who reduced the power of Philip and his 
Macedonians so low, that afterwards Perseus, the son of Philip, lost 
his kingdom and was himself carried a prisoner to Italy. This 
Philip was the son of Demetrius ; for Demetrius was the first of 
this house that sat on the throne of Macedonia after he had slain 
Alexander, son of Cassander, as I have already narrated 



56 THE SACRED WAY bk. i. attica 



XXXVII 

i. After the tomb of Cephisodorus is the grave of Heliodorus 
Halis, whose picture may be seen in the great temple of Athena. 
There is also the grave of Themistocles, son of Poliarchus, and 
grandson of the Themistocles who fought the sea - fight against 
Xerxes and the Medes. All his later descendants I will pass over 
except Acestium. She was the daughter of Xenocles, the son of 
Sophocles, the son of Leon : all these her ancestors up to Leon, the 
third in the ascending line, were privileged to be Torch-bearers ; 
and in her own lifetime she saw first her brother Sophocles bearing 
a torch, and after him her husband Themistocles, and after his death 
her son Theophrastus. Such bliss, they say, was hers. 

2 A little farther on is a precinct of the hero Lacius, and a township 
named Laciadae after him. There is also a tomb of Nicocles of 
Tarentum, the most famous of all who have played and sung to the 
harp. There is also an altar of Zephyr, and a sanctuary of Demeter 
and her daughter : along with them are worshipped Athena and 
Poseidon. 2. They say that in this place Phytalus received Demeter 
in his house, and that for so doing the goddess gave him the fig- 
tree. This story is attested by the inscription on the grave of 
Phytalus : 

Here the lordly hero Phytalus once received the august 

Demeter, when she first revealed the autumnal fruit 

Which the race of mortals names the sacred fig ; 

Since when the race of Phytalus hath received honours that wax not old. 

3 Before you cross the Cephisus there is the tomb of Theodoras, 
the best tragic actor of his time. Beside the river are two statues, 
one of Mnesimache, the other a votive offering representing her son 
shearing his hair in honour of the Cephisus. That this was an ancient 
custom of all the Greeks may be inferred from the poetry of Homer, 
who says that Peleus vowed to shear the hair of Achilles in honour 
of the Spercheus if Achilles came home safe from Troy. 

4 3. After we have crossed the Cephisus we come to an ancient 
altar of Gracious Zeus. At this altar Theseus was purified by the 
descendants of Phytalus after he had slain the robbers, especially 
Sinis, who was related to him through Pittheus. Here, too, is 
the grave of Theodectes of Phaselis, and the grave of Mnesitheus. 
The latter is said to have been a good physician and to have 
dedicated images, amongst others an image of Iacchus. Beside 
the road is built a small temple called the temple of Cyamites. 
I cannot say with certainty whether he was the first who 
sowed beans (kuamoi), or whether they made up the name of a 
bean-hero because the discovery of beans cannot be attributed to 



chs. xxxvii-xxxviii THE SACRED WAY 57 

Demeter. Any one who has seen the mysteries at Eleusis, or has 
read what are called the works of Orpheus, knows what I mean. 
4. Among the largest and stateliest of the tombs is one of a 5 
Rhodian who migrated to Athens : another was erected by the 
Macedonian Harpalus, who fled from Alexander and crossed the sea 
from Asia to Europe. When he came to Athens, the Athenians 
apprehended him ; but by bribing Alexander's partisans and others 
he escaped. Previously he had married Pythionice : I do not 
know her extraction, but she had been a courtesan in Athens and 
Corinth. He loved her so passionately that when she died he 
reared in her memory the best worth seeing of all ancient Greek 
tombs. 

There is a sanctuary in which are images of Demeter and her 6 
daughter, and also of Athena and Apollo ; but the sanctuary was 
originally made for Apollo alone. For they say that Cephalus, son 
of Deion, joined Amphitryo in his expedition against the Teleboans, 
and was the first to inhabit the island which is now called after him 
Cephallenia. Up to that time he had dwelt as an exile in Thebes, 
whither he fled from Athens on account of the murder of his wife 
Procris. Nine generations afterwards his descendants Chalcinus and 
Daetus sailed to Delphi, and requested of the god leave to return to 
Athens. He bade them first sacrifice to Apollo at that place in 7 
Attica where they should see a galley running on the land. But 
when they were about Mount Poecilus there appeared to them 
a serpent hastening to his hole ; so they sacrificed to Apollo at 
that place, and afterwards when they were come to the city the 
Athenians made them citizens. 

After this is a temple of Aphrodite, and in front of it is- a wall 
of unwrought stones that is worth seeing. 

XXXVIII 

1. What are called the Rhiti only resemble rivers in that they 
flow, for their water is salt. One might suppose that they flow under 
ground from the Chalcidian Euripus, falling into a lower sea. The 
Rhiti are said to be sacred to the Maid and Demeter ; and the 
priests alone are allowed to catch the fish in them. The Rhiti were 
of old, as I am apprised, the boundary between the Eleusinians and 
the rest of the Athenians. 2. Across the Rhiti the first dweller was 2 
Crocon, at the place which is still called the palace of Crocon. The 
Athenians say that this Crocon married Saesara, daughter of Celeus ; 
not all of them, however, say so, but only those who are of the 
township of Scambonidae. I could not find the grave of Crocon, 
but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in pointing out the tomb of 
Eumolpus. 3. They say that this Eumolpus came from Thrace, and 
that he was a son of Poseidon and Chione, who is said to have 



58 ELEUSISELEUTHERAE bk. i. attica 

been a daughter of the North Wind and Orithyia. Homer says 
nothing of the lineage of Eumolpus, but in his verses calls him 

3 ' manly.' In a battle between the Eleusinians and the Athenians, 
there fell Erechtheus, king of Athens, and Immaradus, son of 
Eumolpus ; and peace was made on these terms : the Eleusinians 
were to perform the mysteries by themselves, but were in all other 
respects to be subject to the Athenians. The sacred rites of the 
two goddesses were celebrated by Eumolpus and the daughters of 
Celeus : Pamphos and Homer agree in calling these damsels 
Diogenia, Pammerope, and Saesara. On Eumolpus' death, Ceryx, 
the younger of his sons, was left. But the Ceryces themselves say 
that Ceryx was a son of Hermes by Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, 

4 and not a son of Eumolpus. 4. There is a shrine of the hero 
Hippothoon, after whom they name the tribe ; and hard by is a 
shrine of the hero Zarex. They say that this Zarex learned music 
from Apollo. I believe that he was a Lacedaemonian, and came 
as a stranger into the country, and that the city of Zarax, on the 
sea-coast of Laconia, is called after him. If the Athenians have a 
native hero Zarex, I know nothing about him. 

5 5. At Eleusis flows the Cephisus, a more impetuous stream 
than the Cephisus mentioned before. Beside it is a place which 
they call Erineus. They say that Pluto, when he carried off the 
Maid, descended here. At this Cephisus a robber named Polypemon, 

6 and surnamed Procrustes, was slain by Theseus. 6. The Eleusinians 
have a temple of Triptolemus, and another of Artemis of the Portal 
and of Father Poseidon, and a well called Callichorum, where the 
Eleusinian women first danced and sang in honour of the goddess. 
They say that the Rarian plain was the first to be sown and the first 
to bear crops, and therefore it is their custom to take the sacrificial 
barley and to make the cakes for the sacrifices out of its produce. 
Here is shown what is called the threshing-floor of Triptolemus 

7 and the altar. But my dream forbade me to describe what is within 
the wall of the sanctuary ; and surely it is clear that the uninitiated 
may not lawfully hear of that from the sight of which they are 
debarred. 7. The hero Eleusis, after whom they name the city, 
is said by some to be a son of Hermes and of Daira, daughter of 
Ocean ; but others have made him the son of Ogygus. For the 
old legends, being unencumbered by genealogies, left free scope for 
fiction, especially in the pedigrees of heroes. 

8 8. Beyond Eleusis, in the direction of Boeotia, the Athenian 
territory marches with the Plataean. Formerly Eleutherae was the 
limit of Boeotia on the side of Attica ; but when the Eleutherians 
cast in their lot with Athens, Cithaeron became the boundary of 
Boeotia. The accession of Eleutherae to Athens was the result, 
not of conquest, but partly of a desire to share the Athenian citizen- 
ship, and partly of a hatred of Thebes. In this plain there is a 



chs. xxxviii-xxxix ROAD TO MEGARA 59 



temple of Dionysus : it was from here that the old wooden image was 
brought to Athens : the image now in Eleutherae is a copy of it. 
9. A little farther off is a cave of no great size, and beside it is a 9 
spring of cold water. It is said that when Antiope had brought 
forth, she placed the babes in the cave ; and that the shepherd, 
finding the babes at the spring, stript them of their swaddling clothes, 
and washed them here for the first time. Ruins of the town-wall of 
Eleutherae and of the houses still exist. From these remains it is 
clear that the city was built a little above the plain beside Mount 
Cithaeron. 

XXXIX 

1. Another road leads from Eleusis to Megara. Following this 
road we come to a well called the Flowery Well. The poet 
Pamphos says that Demeter sat on this well in the likeness of an 
old woman after the rape of her daughter ; and that thence she was 
conducted, in the character of an old woman, by the daughters of 
Celeus to their mother Metanira, who entrusted her with the up- 
bringing of the boy. 2. A little way from the well is a sanctuary of 2 
Metanira, and after it are graves of the men who marched against 
Thebes. For Creon, who, as guardian of Laodamas, son of 
Eteocles, was at that time supreme in Thebes, did not suffer the 
relatives to take up and bury their dead. So Adrastus implored the 
help of Theseus : a battle was fought by the Athenians against the 
Boeotians, and Theseus, being victorious in the battle, conveyed the 
bodies into the territory of Eleusis and buried them there. But the 
Thebans say that they voluntarily granted leave to take up the 
dead, and deny that they fought a battle. 3. After the graves of 3 
the Argives there is the tomb of Alope, who is said to have been 
here put to death by her father Cercyon after she had borne 
Hippothoon to Poseidon. Cercyon is said to have ill-treated 
strangers, especially by wrestling with them against their will. The 
place was called the wrestling-ground of Cercyon down to my time : 
it is a little way from the grave of Alope. Cercyon is said to have 
killed all who wrestled with him except Theseus, who threw him by 
skill rather than strength. For the art of wrestling was invented by 
Theseus, and from his time onward it was systematically taught, 
whereas formerly wrestlers had relied on stature and strength alone. 

Such are, in my opinion, the most famous of the Athenian traditions 
and sights : from the mass of materials I have aimed from the out- 
set at selecting the really notable. 4. Next to Eleusis is Megaris, 4 
which also of old belonged to the Athenians, King Pylas having 
bequeathed it to Pandion. This is proved by the grave of 
Pandion in Megarian territory, and by the fact that Nisus, 
relinquishing to Aegeus, the eldest of the family, the sovereignty 
of Attica, was invested with the kingdom of Megara and of all the 



60 MEGARA bk. i. attica 

country as far as Corinth. The Megarian seaport is still called Nisaea 
after him. But afterwards in the reign of Codrus the Peloponnesians 
marched against Athens ; and, having achieved no brilliant success, 
on their return they took Megara from the Athenians, and gave it to 
such of the Corinthians and of their other allies as chose to settle in 

5 it. Thus the Megarians changed their customs and language, and 
became Dorians. They say that the city got its present name in 
the time of Car, the son of Phoroneus, who reigned in this land : 
then for the first time, they say, they made sanctuaries of 
Demeter, and the people named them Megara. This is what the 
Megarians say about themselves. 5. But the Boeotians affirm that 
Megareus, son of Poseidon, dwelt in Onchestus, and came with an 
army of Boeotians to help Nisus in waging war against Minos ; that 
having fallen in the battle he was buried on the spot; and that the city, 
which had previously been called Nisa, got the name of Megara from 

6 him. The Megarians say that Lelex came from Egypt and reigned 
in the eleventh generation after Car, the son of Phoroneus, and 
that the people were called Leleges in his reign ; and that Cleson, 
son of Lelex, begat Pylas, and Pylas begat Sciron, and Sciron 
married .... daughter of Pandion, and afterwards claimed the 
throne against Pandion's son Nisus. Aeacus, they say, arbitrated 
between them, awarding the kingdom to Nisus and his posterity, but 
to Sciron the command in war. They say that Megareus, son of 
Poseidon, succeeded Nisus on the throne, having married the king's 
daughter Iphinoe ; but about the Cretan war and the capture of the 
city in the reign of Nisus they profess to know nothing. 

XL 

1. In the city there is a water-basin : it was built by Theagenes, 
with regard to whom I have already mentioned that he gave his 
daughter in marriage to Cylon the Athenian. This Theagenes, 
having made himself tyrant, built the water-basin, which is worth 
seeing for its size, its decorations, and the number of its columns. 
Water flows into it, called the water of the Sithnidian nymphs. 
The Megarians say that the Sithnidian nymphs are natives of 
the country ; that Zeus had an intrigue with one of them ; and 
that Megarus, a son of Zeus and this nymph, escaped from 
Deucalion's flood to the tops of Mount Gerania, which up to 
that time had not borne the name of Gerania, but then received it, 
because Megarus in swimming followed the cries of some flying 
2 cranes (geranoi). 2. Not far from this water-basin is an ancient 
sanctuary : at the present day statues of Roman emperors stand in 
it, also a bronze image of Artemis surnamed Saviour. They say 
that some men of the army of Mardonius, after scouring the 
Megarian territory, wished to make their way back to Mardonius at 



Tl 



chs. xxxix-xli MEGARA 61 

Thebes, but by the will of Artemis night overtook them on the way, 
and missing the road, they strayed into the mountainous part of the 
country. To try if a hostile army was near, they shot some bolts 
which, striking the neighbouring rock, gave out a mournful sound, 
whereat the archers redoubled their exertions. At last their arrows 3 
were spent in shooting at imaginary foes : day began to break : the 
Megarians came down on them, and, fighting in armour against 
men who had no armour and but few missiles, they slaughtered 
most of them. For this the Megarians had an image made of 
Saviour Artemis. Here, too, are images of the Twelve Gods, as 
they are called : they are said to be works of Praxiteles, but the 
image of Artemis was made by Strongylion. 

3. Next, on entering the precinct of Zeus, which is called 4 
the Olympieum, we come to a temple which is worth seeing. 
But the image of Zeus was not finished in consequence of 
the outbreak of the war of the Peloponnesians with Athens, in 
which the Athenians annually ravaged the Megarian territory by sea 
and land, thereby crippling the public revenues and reducing private 
families to the lowest depths of penury. The face of the image of 
Zeus is of ivory and gold, but the rest is of clay and gypsum. They 
say that it was made by Theocosmus, a native artist, assisted by 
Phidias. Over the head of Zeus are the Seasons and P'ates ; and it 
is plain to all that Destiny obeys Zeus alone, and that Zeus orders the 
Seasons aright. Behind the temple lie some half-wrought blocks of 
wood : Theocosmus intended to adorn them with ivory and gold, 
and thus complete the image of Zeus. 4. In the temple itself is 5 
dedicated the bronze beak of a galley. They say they took this ship 
in a sea-fight with the Athenians off Salamis. The Athenians admit 
that for a time they ceded the island to the Megarians ; but they say 
that afterwards Solon stirred them up by his verses, they renewed 
the strife, and, being victorious in the war, regained Salamis. The 
Megarians, however, assert that exiles from Megara, whom they 
name Dorycleans, went to the colonists in Salamis, and betrayed 
the island to the Athenians. 

5. After the precinct of Zeus we ascend the acropolis, which 6 
to the present day is still called Caria, after Car, the son of 
Phoroneus. Here is a temple of Nocturnal Dionysus, also a 
sanctuary of Epistrophian Aphrodite, and what is called the oracle 
of Night, and a roofless temple of Dusty Zeus. The images of 
Aesculapius and Health were made by Bryaxis. Here, too, is what 
is called the hall (megaron) of Demeter : they said it was made by 
King Car. 

XLI 

1. Descending from the acropolis, on the northern side, we come 
to the tomb of Alcmena, near the Olympieum. For they say that 



62 MEGARA bk. i. attica 

journeying to Thebes from Argos she died by the way at Megara, 
and that a dispute arose among the Heraclids, some of them wishing 
to convey Alcmena's corpse back to Argos, and others to convey 
it to Thebes ; for the grave of the sons of Hercules, by Megara, 
and the grave of Amphitryo, are at Thebes. But the god at Delphi 
announced in an oracle that it was better for them to bury Alcmena 

2 in Megara. 2. Thence the local guide led us to a place which 
he alleged was named Rhus (' stream '), because water from the 
mountains above the city once flowed this way. But Theagenes, 
who was then tyrant, diverted the water, and made here an altar 
to Achelous. 3. Near it is the tomb of Hyllus, son of Hercules, 
who engaged in single combat with an Arcadian named Echemus, 
son of Aeropus. Who this Echemus was that slew Hyllus I will 
show elsewhere ; but Hyllus is buried at Megara. This might 
rightly be called an expedition of the Heraclids into Peloponnese 

3 in the reign of Orestes. 4. Not far from the tomb of Hyllus is 
a temple of Isis, and beside it is a temple of Apollo and Artemis. 
They say that Alcathous built it after slaying the lion, which was 
called the lion of Cithaeron. Among others who, the Megarians 
say, were destroyed by this lion, was Euippus, son of their king 
Megareus. His elder son Timalcus, marching to Aphidna with 
the Dioscuri, had met his death still earlier at the hand of Theseus. 
So Megareus promised that whoever should slay the lion of 
Cithaeron should marry his daughter, and succeed him in the 
kingdom. Therefore Alcathous, son of Pelops, attacked and over- 
came the beast, and when he was come to the throne he made this 
sanctuary of Artemis and Apollo, surnaming them respectively 

4 Huntress and Hunter. 5. Such is the tale they tell. But though 
I wish to conform to the Megarian tradition, I am unable to do so 
on all points. That the lion was killed on Cithaeron by Alcathous 
I believe ; but what writer says that Timalcus, son of Megareus, 
went to Aphidna with the Dioscuri ? and, if he did go, how could 
it be thought that he was killed by Theseus, when Alcman, in the 
song on the Dioscuri, which tells how they captured Athens and 
carried away captive Theseus' mother, says that Theseus himself 

5 was absent ? Pindar's account is similar : he represents Theseus 
as wishing to be connected by marriage with the Dioscuri, so that 
at last he went away to aid Pirithous in achieving his famous 
wedding. Obviously, any one who has studied genealogy must 
impute great credulity to the Megarians, since Theseus was a 
descendant of Pelops. But, in point of fact, the Megarians know 
the truth, but conceal it, not wishing it to appear that their city was 
captured in the reign of Nisus : they would have it supposed that 
Nisus was succeeded on the throne by his son-in-law Megareus, 

6 and Megareus again by his son-in-law Alcathous. But it is clear 
that the occasion when Alcathous arrived from Elis was after the 



chs. xli-xlii MEGARA 63 

death of Nisus and the ruin of Megara. This is proved by the fact 
that he rebuilt the city wall from the foundations, the circuit of the 
old wall having been pulled down by the Cretans. So much for 
Alcathous and the lion. He certainly built the temple of Huntress 
Artemis and Hunter Apollo, whether he slew the lion on Cithaeron 
or elsewhere. 

6. Descending from this sanctuary we come to a shrine of 
the hero Pandion. That Pandion was buried on the bluff called 
the bluff of Diver-bird Athena, has already been indicated by 
me ; but he is also worshipped in the city by the Megarians. 7. 7 
Near the shrine of the hero Pandion is the tomb of Hippolyte. 
I will tell her story as it is told by the Megarians. When the 
Amazons marched against the Athenians on account of Antiope, 
and were vanquished by Theseus, most of them died fighting ; but 
Hippolyte, who was sister to Antiope, and at that time held the 
command of the women, escaped with a few others to Megara. 
There, however, the disaster which had overtaken her army filled 
her with despondency at the situation in which she found herself, 
and with despair of ever returning safe home to Themiscyra; so she 
died of grief, and they buried her. Her tomb is shaped like an 
Amazonian shield. 8. Not far from it is the grave of Tereus, who 8 
married Procne, daughter of Pandion. According to the Megarians, 
Tereus reigned at Pagae in Megaris. But my belief, supported 
by evidence which is still extant, is that he reigned over Daulis, 
which lies beyond Chaeronea for of old the greater part of 
what is now called Greece was peopled by barbarians. When the 
women had retaliated on Itys for the deed which Tereus had 
wrought on Philomela, Tereus could not catch them. He died by 9 
his own hand at Megara ; and the people immediately raised a 
barrow to him, and they sacrifice every year, using gravel in the 
sacrifice instead of barley groats. And they say that the hoopoe first 
appeared here. But the women went to Athens, and there, 
mourning both their wrongs and their revenge, they wept themselves 
to death. The fable that they were turned into a nightingale and 
a swallow was suggested, I suppose, by the plaintive and dirge-like 
song of these birds. 

XLII 

1. The Megarians have yet another acropolis, which takes its name 
from Alcathous. On the right of the ascent to this acropolis is the 
tomb of Megareus, who, at the time of the Cretan invasion, came 
from Onchestus to fight for the Megarians. There is also shown a 
hearth of the gods who are called Prodomeis (' builders before '), and 
they say that Alcathous first sacrificed to them when he was about to 
begin building the wall. Near this hearth is a stone, on which they 2 



64 MEGARA bk. i. attica 

say that Apollo laid down his lyre when he was helping Alcathous 
to build the wall. Another proof that Megara belonged to the 
Athenians is this : Alcathous appears to have sent his daughter 
Periboea with Theseus to Crete in payment of the tribute. When 
he was building the wall, as the Megarians say, Apollo helped him 
in the work, and laid down his lyre on the stone ; and if any one 
chance to hit the stone with a pebble, it sounds exactly like a lyre 

3 that is struck. 2. This surprised me; but what surprised me far 
more than anything was the Colossus of the Egyptians. At Thebes, 
in Egypt, when you have crossed the Nile to the Tunnels (Sziringes), 
as they are called, you come to a seated image which gives out a 
sound. Most people name it Memnon ; for they say that Memnon 
marched from Ethiopia to Egypt and onward as far as Susa. The 
Thebans, however, say that the image represents, not Memnon, but 
a native called Phamenoph. I have also heard some people allege 
that it is Sesostris. This image Cambyses cut in two ; and now the 
part from the head to the middle of the body is thrown down ; but 
the rest of it remains seated, and every day at sunrise it rever- 
berates ; and the sound may be best likened to the breaking of 
the string of a lute or lyre. 

4 3. The Megarians have a Council House. It was once, they 
say, the grave of Timalcus, of whom I affirmed a little above that 
he was not slain by Theseus. 4. On the summit of the acropolis 
is built a temple of Athena. The image is gilt, except the hands 
and feet, which, as well as the face, are of ivory. Here, too, is 
another sanctuary of Athena, called Victory, and another of Ajacian 
Athena. The Megarian guides say nothing about it, but I will state 
my own opinion on the subject. Telamon, son of Aeacus, married 
Periboea, daughter of Alcathous. I apprehend, therefore, that Ajax, 
having succeeded Alcathous in the kingdom, made the image of 

5 Athena. 5. The old temple of Apollo was of brick, but afterwards the 
Emperor Hadrian built it of white marble. The image called the 
Pythian Apollo, and the other called the Receiver of Tithes, are very 
like the Egyptian wooden images ; but the one which they surname 
Founder resembles Aeginetan works. All of them are made of 
ebony. 6. I have heard a Cyprian, who was skilled in simples, say 
that the ebony-tree does not put forth leaves, and that there is no 
fruit on it nay, that it is never seen in the sunlight, but consists 
of underground roots, which the Ethiopians dig up ; for there are 

6- men among them who know how to find the ebony. 7. There is 
also a sanctuary of Lawgiver Demeter. 

Descending thence we come to the tomb of Callipolis, son of 
Alcathous. Alcathous had an elder son, Ischepolis, whom he sent 
to help Meleager to destroy the wild beast in Aetolia. He perished 
there, and Callipolis was the first to learn of his death ; so running 
up to the acropolis, where his father was at that moment offering 



CHS. XLII-XLIII 



MEGARA 



65 



burnt sacrifices to Apollo, he flung the wood from the altar. But 
Alcathous, not yet apprised of the death of Ischepolis, judged 
Callipolis guilty of impiety, and, in the heat of passion, killed him 
on the spot by smiting him on the head with one of the billets that 
had been flung from the altar. 

8. On the way to the Prytaneum is a shrine of the heroine Ino. 
It is surrounded by a stone wall, and olive-trees grow beside it. 
The Megarians are the only Greeks who say that the corpse of Ino 
was cast ashore on their coasts, and that Cleso and Tauropolis, 
daughters of Cleson, son of Lelex, found and buried it. They say, 
too, that she was first named Leucothea among them, and that 
they offer sacrifices every year. 



XLIII 

i. They say that there is a shrine also of the heroine Iphigenia ; 
for she too, according to them, died in Megara. I heard another 
story of Iphigenia told by Arcadians, and I know that Hesiod in his 
Catalogue of Women says that Iphigenia did not die, but became 
Hecate by the will of Artemis. In harmony with this account, 
Herodotus writes that the Taurians on the borders of Scythia 
sacrifice castaways to a virgin, and say that the virgin is Iphigenia, 
daughter of Agamemnon. Adrastus also is revered by the Megarians. 
They say that he too died amongst them when he was leading back 
his army after he had taken Thebes ; and that the causes of his 
decease were old age and the death of Aegialeus. There is also a 
sanctuary of Artemis, which Agamemnon made when he came to 
persuade Calchas, who dwelt in Megara, to follow him to Ilium. 

2. They say that in the Prytaneum are buried Euippus', son of 2 
Megareus, and Ischepolis, son of Alcathous. Near the Prytaneum 
is a rock which they name Anaclethra (' recall '), because Demeter, 
if you please, when she wandered seeking her daughter, here called 
her back. The Megarian women to this day perform a mimic repre- 
sentation of the legend. There are graves in the city of Megara. 3 
One of them they made for the men who fell in the invasion of the 
Medes. Another, called the Aesymnium, was also a tomb of heroes. 
3. For when Hyperion, son of Agamemnon, and last king of Megara, 
was slain by Sandion for his greed and insolence, the Megarians 
resolved to be governed by a king no longer, but to have elective 
magistrates, and thus to obey each other in turn. Then Aesymnus, 
who was second to none of the Megarians in reputation, went 
to the god at Delphi, and inquired by what means the Megarians 
would be prosperous. In reply the god said, amongst other things, 
that the Megarians would fare well if they took counsel with the 
majority. Thinking that these words referred to the dead, they 
built here a Council House in order that the grave of the heroes 

vol. 1 F 



66 MEGARA BK. i. attic-* 

4 might be within the Council House. 4. As you go thence to the 
shrine of the hero Alcathous, which in my time the Megarians used 
as a record-office, there is a tomb which they said was the tomb of 
Pyrgo, who was the wife of Alcathous before he married Euaechme, 
daughter of Megareus ; and there is another tomb which they said 
was that of Iphinoe, daughter of Alcathous : they say she died a 
maid. It is the custom for girls to bring libations to the tomb of 
Iphinoe before marriage, and to offer clippings of their hair, just as 
the daughters of the Delians used once to shear their hair in honour 

5 of Hecaerge and Opis. 5. Beside the entrance to the sanctuary of 
Dionysus is the grave of Astycratea and Manto. They were daughters 
of Polyidus, son of Coeranus, son of Abas, son of Melampus, who came 
to Megara to purify Alcathous after the murder of his son Callipolis. 
Polyidus also built the sanctuary to Dionysus, and dedicated a 
wooden image, which in our time is all hidden except the face, the 
only visible part of it. Beside it stands a Satyr, a work of Praxiteles, 
in Parian marble. This Dionysus they call Paternal ; but another 
Dionysus they surname Dasyllian, and say that his image was 

6 dedicated by Euchenor, son of Coeranus, son of Polyidus. 6. 
After the sanctuary of Dionysus is a temple of Aphrodite : 
the image of Aphrodite is made of ivory, and is surnamed Praxis 
(' action ') : it is the most ancient object in the temple. The images 
of Persuasion and another goddess whom they name Comforter are 
works of Praxiteles. But Scopas made the images of Love and 
Longing and Yearning (if indeed their functions are, like their 
names, distinct). Near the temple of Aphrodite is a sanctuary of 
Fortune : the image of Fortufie is also a work of Praxiteles. And 
in the neighbouring temple are images of the Muses and a bronze 
Zeus, both by Lysippus. 

7 7. The Megarians have also the grave of Coroebus. I will 
here relate the poetical account of him, though it equally concerns 
the history of Argos. They say that when Crotopus was reigning 
in Argos his daughter Psamathe had a child by Apollo, and that 
being in great dread of her father she exposed the child. It was 
found and destroyed by sheep-dogs of Crotopus, and Apollo sent 
Punishment into the city of the Argives. She snatched the 
children from their mothers, until Coroebus to please the Argives 
murdered her. But after the murder a second plague fell upon 
them and abated not ; so Coroebus went voluntarily to Delphi to be 

8 punished by the god for the murder of Punishment. The Pythian 
priestess would not allow him to return to Argos, but bade him take 
up a tripod and carry it from the sanctuary, and wherever it fell out 
of his hands, there he was to build a temple of Apollo and to take 
up his abode. At Mount Gerania the tripod slipped and fell from 
his hands before he was aware ; and there he founded the village of 
Tripodisci. The grave of Coroebus is in the market-place of Megara : 



chs. xliii-xliv NISAEA PAGAE 67 

elegiac verses are carved on it, telling the tale of Psamathe and of 
Coroebus ; and the grave is surmounted by a figure of Coroebus in 
the act of murdering Punishment. These images are the most 
ancient Greek images in stone that I have seen. 

XLIV 

1. Near the grave of Coroebus is the grave of Orsippus, who 
won the race at Olympia running naked, whereas according to an 
ancient custom athletes had previously worn girdles in the games. 
They say that afterwards Orsippus as general annexed part of the 
neighbouring territory. I believe that at Olympia he purposely 
dropped his girdle, knowing that a man can run more easily naked 
than girt with a girdle. 

2. Descending from the market-place by the street that is called 2 
Straight, we have on the right a sanctuary of Tutelary Apollo : it 
can be found by turning a little way out of the street. In it is an 
image of Apollo that is worth seeing ; also images of Artemis, 
Latona, and others : Latona and her children are by Praxiteles. 
3. In the old gymnasium, near the gate called the Gate of 
the Nymphs, is a stone in the shape of a small pyramid : they 
name it Apollo Carinus ; and there is a sanctuary of the Ilithyias 
here. Such are the sights that the city had to show. 

4. Having gone down to the port, which is still called Nisaea, 3 
we come to a sanctuary of Malophorian ('sheep-bearing' or 'apple- 
bearing ') Demeter. Among the explanations offered of this sur- 
name is that it was given to Demeter by the first men who reared 
sheep in the country. We may infer that the roof of the sanctuary 
has fallen in through the effects of time. 5. Here, too, there is an 
acropolis which is also named Nisaea. Descending from the acro- 
polis we come to the tomb of Lelex beside the sea. They say that 
Lelex came from Egypt and reigned, and that he was a son of 
Poseidon and Libya, daughter of Epaphus. Parallel to Nisaea lies 
the small island of Minoa : here the Cretan fleet anchored in the 
war with Nisus. 

6. The mountainous part of Megaris borders on Boeotia : in it 4 
are the Megarian cities of Pagae and Aegosthena. A little way out 
of the high-road which leads to Pagae a rock is shown with arrows 
sticking all over it : it was at this rock that the Medes shot in the 
night. 7. In Pagae there was left a bronze image of Saviour Artemis 
which was worth seeing : it is equal in size to the image at Megara, 
and not different in shape. Here, too, is a shrine of the hero 
Aegialeus, son of Adrastus. For when the Argives marched against 
Thebes the second time, he was slain at Glisas in the first battle, 
and his kinsmen carried him to Pagae, in Megaris, and buried 
him there, and the shrine is still called by his name. 8. In 5 



68 AEGOSTHENA SCIRONIAN ROAD bk. i. attica 

Aegosthena there is a sanctuary of Melampus, son of Amythaon, 
and a small figure of a man carved in relief on a monument ; and 
they sacrifice to Melampus and hold a yearly festival. They say he 
divines neither by dreams nor in any other way. And I heard 
another thing in Erenea, a Megarian village, that Autonoe, daughter 
of Cadmus, migrated thither from Thebes out of excess of grief at 
the death of Actaeon (which they narrate in the usual way) and at 
the whole fortunes of the house of her fathers. Autonoe's tomb is 
in this village. 

6 9. Among the graves on the road from Megara to Corinth is 
that of the Samian fluteplayer Telephanes : they say that the grave 
was made by Cleopatra, daughter of Philip, son of Amyntas. There 
is also a tomb of Car the son of Phoroneus : it was originally a 
mound of earth, but afterwards in obedience to an oracle it was 
adorned with mussel -stone. Megaris is the only part of Greece 
where this mussel-stone is found, and many buildings in the city are 
made of it. It is very white and softer than other stone, and there 
are sea-mussels all through it. Such is the nature of this stone. 

10. The road which is still named after Sciron was first, they 
say, made passable for foot-passengers by Sciron when he was war 
minister of Megara ; but the Emperor Hadrian made it so wide 

7 and convenient that even chariots could meet on it. 11. Stories 
are told of the rocks that rise especially at the narrow part of 
the road. Of the Molurian rock it is told how Ino flung her- 
self from it into the sea with her younger son Melicertes 
in her arms ; for her elder son Learchus had been killed by his 
father. One story is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness : 
another is that he wreaked on Ino and her children his ungovern- 
able rage when he perceived that the famine which had visited the 
Orchomenians, and the supposed death of Phrixus, were caused, not 

8 by the deity, but by the machinations of the stepmother Ino. So 
she fled and hurled herself and the child from the Molurian rock 
into the sea. But the boy, it is said, was landed on the Isthmus of 
Corinth by a dolphin : his name was changed from Melicertes to 
Palaemon ; and the Isthmian games were held in his honour, and 
other marks of respect bestowed on him. 12. The Molurian rock 
was deemed sacred to Leucothoe and Palaemon ; but the rocks 
next after it they esteem accursed, because Sciron dwelt beside 
them, and hurled every stranger he met with into the sea. A tor- 
toise swam at the foot of the cliffs to pounce on the people who were 
thrown in. Sea tortoises are like land tortoises, except in respect of 
their size and of their feet ; for they have feet like the feet of seals. 
But justice overtook Sciron ; for he was hurled by Theseus into the 

9 same sea. 13. On the top of the mountain is a temple of Zeus, who 
is here called Hurler. They say that when a drought had fallen on 
Greece, Aeacus, in obedience to an oracle, sacrificed to Panhellenian 



CH.XLIV TOMB OF EURYSTHEUS 69 

Zeus in Aegina . . . and brought and hurled it, and hence Zeus'Js 
called Hurler. Here, too, are images of Aphrodite, Apollo, and Pan. 
14. Farther on we come to the tomb of Eurystheus. They say 10 
that he was killed here by Iolaus as he was fleeing from Attica after 
the battle with the Heraclids. Descending from this road we 
come to a sanctuary of Latoan Apollo, and after it to the boundaries 
of Megaris and Corinth, where they say that Hyllus, son of Hercules, 
engaged in single combat with the Arcadian Echemus. 



BOOK SECOND 

CORINTH 



i . The district of Corinth is part of Argolis, and got its name from 
Corinthus. That Corinthus was a son of Zeus has never yet, so 
far as I know, been seriously asserted by anybody except by a 
majority of the Corinthians themselves. Eumelus, son of Amphi- 
lytus, a member of the Bacchid family, and reputed author of the 
poems which pass under his name, says in his prose history of 
Corinth, if the work is indeed by him, that first of all Ephyra, 
daughter of Ocean, dwelt in this land ; and that afterwards Mara- 
thon, son of Epopeus, son of Aloeus, son of the Sun, fleeing from 
the lawlessness and wantonness of his father, migrated to the coast 
of Attica; but that when Epopeus was dead, Marathon went to 
Peloponnese, and having divided the kingdom between his two 
sons, Sicyon and Corinthus, returned himself to Attica ; and from 
Sicyon and Corinthus the districts that had been called Asopia and 
Ephyraea received respectively their new names. 

2 2. The old population of Corinth is entirely gone : the 
present population is a colony planted by the Romans. For this 
change the Achaean League is answerable. For when Critolaus was 
appointed general of the League, he stirred up a war with Rome, 
by persuading the Achaeans and most of the Greek states outside of 
Peloponnese to revolt ; and in this war the Corinthians, as members 
of the League, took part. When victory had declared for their 
arms, the Romans disarmed the populations of the other Greek 
states, and dismantled the walls of the fortified towns. But Corinth 
was laid utterly waste by the Roman commander Mummius. After- 
wards, they say, it was repeopled by Caesar, who instituted at Rome 
the system of government under which we live. Carthage also, they 
say, was repeopled in his reign. 

3 3. To the Corinthian territory belongs the place which is called 
Cromyon, after Cromus, son of Poseidon. Here, they say, was bred 
<the sow Phaea, the destruction of which was> one of the so-called 



ch. I ISTHMUS OF CORINTH 71 

tasks of Theseus. Farther on the pine-tree still grew by the sea- 
shore in my time ; and there was an altar of Melicertes. They say 
that the child Melicertes was landed on this spot by a dolphin, and 
that Sisyphus found him lying, buried him on the Isthmus, and 
instituted the Isthmian games in his honour. 4. At the beginning 4 
of the Isthmus is the place where the robber Sinis used to catch 
hold of pine-trees and draw them down. Then he would tie his 
vanquished foes to the trees and let the stems fly up. Whereupon 
each of the pine-trees dragged the captive towards itself, and if the 
cords did not give way in either direction, but pulled with equal 
force on both sides, he was rent in sunder. Sinis himself perished 
in this very way at the hands of Theseus ; for Theseus cleared the 
road from Troezen to Athens of the rogues who infested it. Besides 
those whom I have enumerated above he slew Periphetes in sacred 
Epidaurus. Periphetes was a reputed son of Hephaestus, and 
fought with a bronze mace. 

5. The Isthmus of Corinth reaches on the one side to the sea 5 
at Cenchreae, and on the other to the sea at Lechaeum. Thus in 
virtue of the Isthmus all the land to the south is mainland. He 
who attempted to turn Peloponnese into an island desisted before he 
had dug through the Isthmus. The beginning of the cutting may 
still be seen ; but it was not carried as far as the rock. So Pelo- 
ponnese is still, what nature made it, mainland. Alexander, the 
son of Philip, wished to dig through the promontory of Mimas ; 
but this was the only undertaking of his which did not succeed. 
The Cnidians began to dig through their isthmus, but were stopped 
by the Pythian priestess. So hard is it for man to do violence 
to the works of God. 6. The Corinthians tell the following story 6 
about their country. But the story is not peculiar to them ; for 
the Athenians, I believe, were the first to relate a similar tale in 
glorification of Attica. The Corinthian story is that Poseidon had 
a dispute with the Sun for the possession of the country, and that 
Briareus acted as mediator, awarding to Poseidon the Isthmus and 
its neighbourhood, but to the Sun the height which dominates the 
city. From that time, they say, the Isthmus has belonged to 
Poseidon. 

7. At the Isthmus there are a theatre and a stadium of white 7 
marble, both of which are worth seeing. On entering the sanctuary 
of the god you have on the one side statues of athletes who have 
been victorious in the Isthmian games, and on the other side a row 
of pine-trees, most of them shooting straight up into the air. On 
the temple, which is not very large, stand bronze Tritons. In the 
fore-temple are images, two of Poseidon, one of Amphitrite, and 
one of the Sea, which is also of bronze. The images inside the 
temple were dedicated in my time by the Athenian Plerodes. They 
include four horses gilded all over except the hoofs, which are 



72 CORINTH BK. II. CORINTH 

S of ivory. Beside the horses are two Tritons : from the waist 
upward they are of gold, but from the waist downward they are 
of ivory. On the chariot stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and the 
boy Palaemon is erect on a dolphin. These statues also are made 
of ivory and gold. On the pedestal on which the chariot stands are 
figures sculptured in relief: in the middle is the Sea holding up the 
child Aphrodite, and on either side are the Nereids, as they are 
called. I know that there are altars to the Nereids elsewhere in 
Greece, and that some people have dedicated precincts to them 
beside harbours, where honours are paid to Achilles also. Doto 
has a holy sanctuary at Gabala, where is still preserved the robe by 
which, as the Greeks say, Eriphyle was bribed to wrong her son 

9 Alcmaeon. 8. On the pedestal of Poseidon's statue are wrought 
in relief the sons of Tyndareus, because they too are saviours of 
ships and of seafaring men. The other votive offerings consist of 
images of Calm and of the Sea, and a horse fashioned in the like- 
ness of a sea-monster from the breast onward ; also statues of Ino 
and Bellerophon and the horse Pegasus. 

II 

i. Within the enclosure is a temple of Palaemon on the left : it 
contains images of Poseidon, Leucothea, and Palaemon himself. 
There is also what is called the shrine : an underground 
passage leads down to it. Here, they say, Palaemon is hidden. 
Whoever forswears himself here, be he Corinthian or be he 
stranger, he cannot possibly escape. 2. There is also an ancient 
sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes ; and they sacrifice to 

2 the Cyclopes on it. They say that Neleus came to Corinth, died 
there, and was buried at the Isthmus ; but no one who has read 
the works of Eumelus would think of searching for the graves of 
Sisyphus and Neleus. For Eumelus says that the tomb of Neleus 
was not shown by Sisyphus even to Nestor, it being needful that 
it should remain unknown to all the world. And he says that Sisy- 
phus was buried indeed on the Isthmus, but that there were few of 
the Corinthians even in his own day who knew the grave. The 
Isthmian games were not discontinued even after the destruction of 
Corinth by Mummius ; but so long as the city lay desolate, the con- 
duct of the games was entrusted to the Sicyonians. But when 
Corinth was restored the honour devolved on its present inhabitants. 

3 3. The ports of Corinth received their names from Leches and 
Cenchrias, said to be sons of Poseidon and Pirene, daughter of 
Achelous. But in the Great Eoeae it is said that Pirene was a 
daughter of Oebalus. In Lechaeum there is a sanctuary of Posei- 
don with a bronze image. On the way from the Isthmus to 
Cenchreae there is a temple of Artemis with an ancient wooden 



chs. i-ii CORINTH 73 

image. In Cenchreae there is a temple of Aphrodite with an image 
of stone ; and beyond the temple there is a bronze image of 
Poseidon on the mole that runs into the sea. At the other 
extremity of the harbour are sanctuaries of Aesculapius and Isis. 
Over against Cenchreae is the bath of Helen : a copious stream of 
tepid salt water flows from a rock into the sea. 

4. On the road up to Corinth there are tombs : in particular 4 
Diogenes of Sinope, whom the Greeks surname the Dog, is buried 
near the gate. In front of the city is a grove of cypresses named 
Craneum. Here there is a precinct of Bellerophon and a temple 
of Black Aphrodite, and the grave of Lais, which is surmounted by 

a lioness holding a ram in her fore-paws. There is another tomb 5 
in Thessaly which claims to be the tomb of Lais ; for she went to 
Thessaly, too, for love of Hippostratus. It is said that she was a 
native of Hycara in Sicily, that she was captured as a child by the 
Athenians under Nicias, and that being sold to a Corinthian pur- 
chaser she surpassed in beauty all the courtesans of the age, and 
was so much admired by the Corinthians that they still claim her 
as a native of Corinth. 

5. The remarkable objects in the city include some remains of 6 
ancient Corinth, but most of them date from the period of the 
restoration. In the market-place (for most of the sanctuaries are 
there) is an image of Artemis surnamed Ephesian ; also wooden 
images of Dionysus gilded all over except the faces, which are 
adorned with red paint. One of these images of Dionysus is 
named the Deliverer, the other Bacchius. 6. The story told about 7 
these wooden images I, too, will record. They say that among 
the insults which Pentheus dared to offer to Dionysus he at last 
went to Mount Cithaeron to spy upon the women, and getting up 
into a tree watched their doings ; but the women discovered him, 
dragged him instantly down, and tore him limb from limb. Afterwards 
the Corinthians, according to their own account, were ordered by the 
'Pythian priestess to find the tree and to worship it as much as the 
^ r od himself; so they had these images made out of the tree. 7. There 8 
is also a temple of Fortune : the image is erect, and is of Parian 
ma r ble. Beside it is a sanctuary of all the gods. Near it there is 
built a water-basin : at the basin is a bronze Poseidon, and under 
the feet of Poseidon is a dolphin spouting water. And there is a 
bronze Apollo surnamed Clarian, and an image of Aphrodite 
made by Hermogenes of Cythera. There are also two images of 
Hermes, both of them of bronze, and both erect : one of them is 
provided with a temple. Of the images of Zeus, which are also 
under the open sky, one has no surname : another is called Sub- 
terranean ; and the third they name Highest. 



74 CORINTH bk. ii. corinth 



III 

i. In the middle of the market-place is a bronze Athena : on its 
pedestal are figures of the Muses in relief. Above the market- 
place is a temple of Octavia, sister of Augustus. Augustus was 
Emperor of Rome after Caesar, the founder of the present city of 
Corinth. 

2 2. Leaving the market-place by the road that leads to Lechaeum 
we come to a portal. Above it are two gilded chariots, one bear- 
ing Phaethon, child of the Sun, the other the Sun himself. A 
little way beyond the portal, on the right as you go out, is a bronze 
Hercules. 3. Beyond it is an entrance to the water of Pirene. 
They say that Pirene was a woman who was turned into a spring of 
water by the tears she shed in bewailing her son Cenchrias, whom 

3 Artemis had unwittingly killed. The spring is adorned with white 
marble, and there are chambers made like grottos, from which the 
water flows into a basin in the open air. The water is sweet to 
drink, and they say that the so-called Corinthian bronze gets its 
colour by being plunged red-hot into this water ; for, in point of 
fact, Corinth has no bronze of its own. Near Pirene there is also 
an image of Apollo, and an enclosure containing a painting of 
Ulysses attacking the suitors. 

4 4. Proceeding again along the straight road in the direction of 
Lechaeum, we come to a seated figure of Hermes in bronze : beside 
him stands a ram, because Hermes above all the gods is thought 
to watch over and increase the flocks. As Homer says in the 
Iliad : 

The son of Phorbas of the many sheep, whom most 
Of all the Trojans Hermes loved and gave him wealth. 

In the mysteries of the Mother there is a story told of Hermes 
and the ram which I know, but forbear from repeating. After the 
image of Hermes there are images of Poseidon and Leucothea, and 

5 one of Palaemon on a dolphin. 5. There are baths in many parts 
of Corinth, some of them built at the public expense, and one by 
the Emperor Hadrian. The most celebrated is near the image 
of Poseidon. This bath was built by Eurycles, a Spartan, who 
adorned it with stones of various sorts, particularly with the stone 
which is quarried at Croceae, in Laconia. On the left of the 
entrance stands an image of Poseidon, and beyond it an image of 
Artemis hunting. There are many water-basins up and down the 
whole city, for there is plenty of running water, besides the water 
which the Emperor Hadrian brought from Lake Stymphalus. The 
water-basin which is best worth seeing is the one beside the image 
of Artemis : over it is a statue of Bellerophon, and the water flows 
through the hoof of his horse Pegasus. 



ch. in CORINTH 75 

We now leave the market-place by another road, the one which 6 
leads to Sicyon. On the right of the road we see a temple with a 
bronze image of Apollo, and a little farther on a water-basin called 
after Glauce ; for they say she threw herself into it, thinking the 
water would be an antidote to Medea's drugs. 6. Above this 
water -basin stands the Music Hall, as it is called. Beside 
it is the tomb of the children of Medea. Their names were 
Mermerus and Pheres. They are said to have been stoned to 
death by the Corinthians on account of the gifts they brought 
to Glauce. And because their death had been violent and unjust, 7 
they caused the infant children of the Corinthians to pine away, 
till, at the bidding of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were instituted 
in their honour, and an image of Terror was set up. That 
image remains to this day : it is a likeness of a woman of terrific 
aspect. But since the destruction of Corinth by the Romans and 
the extinction of its old inhabitants, the sacrifices in question have 
been discontinued by the new inhabitants ; and the children no 
longer poll their hair and wear black garments in honour of the 
children of Medea. 7. Medea thereupon went to Athens and married 8 
Aegeus ; but afterwards being detected plotting against Theseus she 
fled from Athens also, and coming to the land which was then called 
Aria, she caused the people to be called Medes after herself. The 
child whom she took with her in her flight to the Arians is said to 
have been her son by Aegeus, and to have been named Medus. But 
Hellanicus calls him Polyxenus, and says that his father was Jason. 
There is an epic poem current in Greece called the Naupadia. 9 
In this poem it is said that Jason migrated from Iolcus to Corcyra 
after the death of Pelias, and that his elder son Mermerus was killed 
by a lioness while he was hunting on the opposite mainland ; but 
of Pheres nothing is recorded. Cinaethon, the Lacedaemonian, 
who also composed genealogies in verse, said that Jason had a son 
Medeus and a daughter Eriopis by Medea ; but he has said nothing 
more about the children. 8. Eumelus says that the Sun gave the 10 
district of Asopia to Aloeus, and the district of Ephyraea to 
Aeetes ; and that when Aeetes was departing to Colchis he left 
the country in charge of Bunus, a son of Hermes and Alcidamea. 
But when Bunus died, Epopeus, son of Aloeus, thus got possession 
of the kingdom of Ephyraea also. Afterwards, when Corinthus, son 
of Marathon, left no child, the Corinthians sent for Medea from 
Iolcus and committed the government to her. Thus through her " 
means Jason reigned in Corinth. Children were born to Medea, 
but every child as it was born she took and hid in the sanctuary 
of Hera, thinking that thus they would be immortal ; but at last 
she saw that her hopes were vain. At the same time she was 
detected by Jason, who, rejecting her prayers for forgiveness, sailed 
away to Iolcus. So she placed the government in the hands of 







76 CORINTH bk. ii. corinth 

Sisyphus, and took her departure also. Such is the account I have 
read. 



IV 

i. Not far from the tomb of Medea's children is a sanc- 
tuary of Athena the Bridler. For they say that Athena above all 
the gods helped Bellerophon in his exploits, and that in particular 
she handed over to him Pegasus, tamed and bridled with her 
own hands. Her image is of wood, but the face and hands and 

2 feet are of white marble. 2. Like every attentive reader of 
Homer, I am persuaded that Bellerophon was not an independent 
monarch, but a vassal of Proetus, king of Argos. Even after 
Bellerophon had migrated to Lycia, the Corinthians are known to 
have been still subject to the lords of Argos or Mycenae. Again, 
in the army which attacked Troy, the Corinthian contingent was 
not commanded by a general of its own, but was brigaded with the 
Mycenian and other troops commanded by Agamemnon. 3. 

3 Glaucus, the father of Bellerophon, was not the only son of 
Sisyphus : another son Ornytion was born to him, and afterwards 
Thersander and Almus. Ornytion had a son Phocus, who was 
fathered on Poseidon. This Phocus went to dwell in Tithorea, in 
the land that is now called Phocis ; but Thoas, younger son of 
Ornytion, abode in Corinth. Thoas begat Damophon, and Damo- 
phon begat Propodas, and Propodas begat Doridas and Hyanthidas. 
In the reign of these two last kings the Dorians marched against 
Corinth. Their leader was Aletes, son of Hippotes, who was the 
son of Phylas, who was the son of Antiochus, who was the son of 
Hercules. The kings Doridas and Hyanthidas surrendered the 
crown to Aletes, and abode in Corinth ; but the people stood to their 

4 arms, and being worsted were banished by the Dorians. Aletes and 
his descendants reigned for five generations down to Bacchis, son of 
Prumnis. 4. Then the Bacchids, as they are called, reigned other 
five generations. The last of the line was Telestes, son of Aristo- 
demus : he was slain by Arieus and Perantas, who had a grudge 
against him. Thenceforth there were no longer kings of Corinth, 
but instead there were annual presidents, chosen from the house 
of the Bacchids, until Cypselus, son of Eetion, made him- 
self tyrant, and drove the Bacchids into exile. Cypselus was a 
descendant of Melas, son of Antasus. Melas had come from 
Gonussa, above Sicyon, to join the expedition of the Dorians 
against Corinth. At first Aletes, warned of God, bade him retire to 
some other part of Greece ; but afterwards, mistaking the purport 
of the oracle, he suffered him to settle in Corinth. Such I found 
to be the history of the kings of Corinth. 

5 5. The sanctuary of Athena the Bridler is beside the theatre, 



chs. in-v ACRO-CORINTH 77 



and near it is a naked wooden image of Hercules : they say it is 
a work of Daedalus. The works of Daedalus are somewhat 
uncouth to the eye, but there is a touch of the divine in them for 
all that. Above the theatre is a sanctuary of Zeus, who is called 
Capitolian in the Roman tongue : in Greek he would be named 
Coryphaean. 6. Not far from this theatre is the old gymnasium 
and a spring called Lerna : the spring is surrounded by a colon- 
nade, and there are seats for the refreshment of visitors in summer 
time. Near this gymnasium are temples of the gods, one of Zeus 
and one of Aesculapius. The images of Aesculapius and Health 
are of white marble, but the image of Zeus is of bronze. 

7. We now ascend towards the Aero-Corinth, which is the 6 
summit of a mountain that rises above the city. Briareus, as 
arbitrator, awarded the summit to the Sun ; but the Sun, according 
to the Corinthians, resigned it to Aphrodite. On the way up to 
the Aero-Corinth there is a precinct of the Marine Isis, and another 
of the Egyptian Isis ; and there are two precincts of Serapis, one 
of which is called ' in Canopus.' After them are altars to the Sun, 
and a sanctuary of Necessity and Violence, which it is not customary 
to enter. Above it is a temple of the Mother of the Gods and a 7 
throne : the image of the goddess and the throne are both of stone. 
There is a temple of the Fates, and a temple of Demeter and the 
Maid : in neither of these temples are the images exposed to view. 
Here, too, is the sanctuary of Bunaean Hera, founded by Bunus, 
son of Hermes ; hence the goddess herself is called Bunaean. 



1. On the summit of the Aero-Corinth there is a temple of 
Aphrodite. Her image represents the goddess armed, and there 
are images of the Sun, and of Love, the latter bearing a bow. 
The spring behind the temple is said to have been a gift of 
Asopus to Sisyphus. For Sisyphus, so runs the tale, knew that 
Zeus had carried off Asopus' daughter Aegina, but he refused to 
answer the father's questions till water were given him on Acro- 
Corinth. Asopus gave him it ; so he blabbed, and now in hell, if 
all tales be true, he pays the penalty of his wagging tongue. I 
have heard say that this spring is Pirene, and that the water in the 
city flows from it underground. 2. The Asopus, which I have just 2 
mentioned, rises in Phliasia, and flowing through the land of Sicyon 
falls into the sea there. The Phliasians say that Asopus had three 
daughters, Corcyra, Aegina, and Thebe, and that from Corcyra and 
Aegina the islands called Scheria and Oenone received their new 
names, while Thebe gave her name to the city which lies under 
the Cadmea. The Thebans, however, do not agree, asserting that 
Thebe was a daughter of the Boeotian, not the Phliasian Asopus. 



78 TENEA bk. ii. corinth 

3 For the rest, Philasians and Sicyonians affirm that the water of 
the river is not its own, but comes from abroad : they say that the 
Maeander, descending from Celaenae through Phrygia and Caria, 
and falling into the sea near Miletus, comes to Peloponnese and 
forms the Asopus. I have heard the Delians tell a similar tale, 
how that the water which they call Inopus comes to them from the 
Nile. Indeed, the Nile itself, according to one story, is only the 
Euphrates which vanishes in a swamp to rise again above Ethiopia 
as the Nile. Such are the tales I heard about the Asopus. 

4 3. Following the hill road from the Aero-Corinth we come to 
the Teneatic gate and a sanctuary of Ilithyia. Tenea is just sixty fur- 
longs off. The people there say that they are Trojans, that they 
were brought as captives by the Greeks from Tenedos, and that 
by Agamemnon's leave they settled where they are. That is why 
they worship Apollo above all the gods. 

5 4. Taking the road that leads from Corinth, not inland, but to 
Sicyon, we come to a burnt temple not far from the city, on the left 
of the road. Of course there have been more wars than one in the 
land of Corinth, and houses and sanctuaries lying outside the city walls 
have naturally been given to the flames ; but this particular temple 
is said to have been a temple of Apollo, and to have been burnt 
down by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles. Afterwards I heard another 
version of the story, namely, that the temple was built by the 
Corinthians in honour of the Olympian Zeus, and that it was 
accidentally destroyed by fire. 

6 5. In this direction the land of Corinth is bounded by the land 
of Sicyon. The Sicyonians say of their country that its first inhabit- 
ant was Aegialeus, an aboriginal ; that all the portion of Pelopon- 
nese which is still called Aegialus was named after King Aegialeus ; 
that he founded the city of Aegialea in the plain ; and that the 
acropolis was where the sanctuary of Athena now stands. They 
say that Aegialeus begat Europs, and Europs begat Telchis, and 

7 Telchis begat Apis. This Apis grew so powerful before Pelops came 
to Olympia that all the country south of the Isthmus was called 
Apia after him. Apis begat Thelxion, Thelxion begat Aegyrus, 
Aegyrus begat Thurimachus, and Thurimachus begat Leucippus, 
who had a daughter Calchinia, but no sons. They say that this 
Calchinia was beloved by Poseidon, and the son she had by 
him was brought up by Leucippus, who at last bequeathed the 

8 throne to him : his name was Peratus. The story told of Plem- 
naeus, son of Peratus, struck me as surprising : every child his 
wife bore him used to give up the ghost immediately after uttering 
its first squall, till Demeter took pity on him, and coming to 
Aegialea in the guise of a stranger woman, nursed his son Ortho- 
polis. This Orthopolis had a daughter Chrysorthe, and she, they 
believe, had a child by Apollo. The child was named Coronus, and 



chs. v-vi HISTORY OF SICYON 79 



he had two sons : the elder was called Corax, and the younger was 
called Lamedon. 



VI 

i. Corax died childless, and just about that time Epopeus came 
from Thessaly and obtained the kingdom. It was in his reign, 
they say, that a hostile army first invaded the land, which hitherto 
had always remained at peace. 2. The cause of the invasion was 
this. Antiope, daughter of Nycteus, was famous in Greece for her 
beauty, and rumour said that her father was not Nycteus at all, but 
the river Asopus, which divides the lands of Thebes and Plataea. 
Now, whether Epopeus had proposed for her hand, or whether from 2 
the first he had harboured a more audacious design, I know not ; 
but certain it is he carried off the maid. The Thebans came in 
arms, and in the fight Nycteus and Epopeus were both wounded, 
but the victory was with Epopeus. They carried the wounded 
Nycteus back to Thebes, and on his deathbed he committed the 
regency of Thebes to his brother Lycus. For Nycteus himself 
was merely regent on behalf of the boy Labdacus, the son of Poly- 
dorus, the son of Cadmus. Thus Nycteus bequeathed the regency 
to Lycus, and besought him to march with a greater army against 
Aegialea, to take vengeance on Epopeus, and to do a mischief to 
Antiope herself if he caught her. Meanwhile Epopeus straightway 3 
offered a thankoffering for his victory, and built a temple of 
Athena. When it was completed he prayed that the goddess would 
show him by a sign whether the temple was finished to her mind ; 
and they say that after his prayer olive oil flowed in front of the 
temple. But afterwards Epopeus also died of his hurt, which had 
been neglected at first. So Lycus needed not to go to war, for 
Lamedon, son of Coronus, who succeeded Epopeus on the throne, 
surrendered Antiope. As they were taking her to Thebes by way 
of Eleutherae, she was there delivered of a child beside the road. 
Of this event the poet Asius, son of Amphiptolemus, has said : 4 

And Antiope bore Zethus and divine Amphion, 

She the daughter of Asopus, the deep-eddying river, 

Having conceived by Zeus and by Epopeus, shepherd of peoples. 

Homer has given them a grander lineage, and says that they 
founded Thebes, thereby distinguishing, as I conceive him, the 
lower city from the Cadmea. When Lamedon came to the throne 5 
he married an Athenian wife, Pheno, daughter of Clytius. After- 
wards, having gone to war with Archander and Architeles, sons of 
Achaeus, he induced Sicyon to come from Attica to fight for him, 
and gave him his daughter Zeuxippe to wife. Then when Sicyon 
came to the throne the country was called Sicyonia after him, and 



So HISTORY OF SICYON bk. ii. coeinth 

the city was named Sicyon instead of Aegialea. 3. They say that 
Sicyon was the son, not of Marathon, son of Epopeus, but of 
Metion son of Erechtheus. Asius agrees with them but Hesiod 
says that Sicyon was a son of Erechtheus, and Ibycus says that 

6 he was a son of Pelops. Sicyon had a daughter Chthonophyle, 
who, they say, bore a son Polybus to Hermes. Afterwards Phlias, 
son of Dionysus, married her, and she had a son Androdamas. 
Polybus gave his daughter Lysianassa in marriage to the king of 
Argos, Talaus the son of Bias ; and when Adrastus fled from Argos, 
he came to Polybus at Sicyon ; and afterwards, when Polybus died, 
Adrastus sat on the throne of Sicyon. When Adrastus was re- 
stored to Argos, Ianiscus, a descendant of Clytius, the father-in- 
law of Lamedon, came from Attica and became king. And when 
Ianiscus died, Phaestus, who is said to have been one of the 

7 sons of Hercules, reigned in his stead ; but when Phaestus, in obedi- 
ence to an oracle, migrated to Crete, Zeuxippus, son of Apollo and 
of the nymph Syllis, is said to have succeeded to the throne. 4. 
After the death of Zeuxippus, Agamemnon led an army against 
Sicyon and against its king Hippolytus, son of Rhopalus, son of 
Phaestus. Alarmed at the advance of the army, Hippolytus 
agreed to be subject to Agamemnon and to Mycenae. This Hip- 
polytus was the father of Lacestades. But Phalces, son of Temenus, 
with his Dorians seized Sicyon by night ; however, as Lacestades 
was also an Heraclid, Phalces did him no harm, and shared the 
government with him. 

VII 

1. From that time the Sicyonians became Dorians, and formed 
part of Argolis. The city in the plain, which Aegialeus had built, 
was demolished by Demetrius, son of Antigonus, who built 
the present city beside what was of old the acropolis. When the 
power of Sicyon was decayed (of which it would be wrong to ask 
the cause ; rather let us rest content with what Homer says of 
Zeus : 

Who the proud head of many a city has brought low), 

as I was saying, then, when the power had departed from Sicyon, 
it was surprised by an earthquake, which nearly depopulated the 
city and robbed it of much of its splendour. The same earth- 
quake injured also the cities of Lycia and Caria, and the shock 
was especially felt in the island of Rhodes, so that the Sibylline 
oracle touching Rhodes appeared to be fulfilled. 
2 2. Having passed from Corinthian into Sicyonian territory, we 
come to the tomb of Lycus a Messenian, whoever he may have 
been ; for I do not find that any Messenian of the name of Lycus 



chs. vi-vu SICYON Si 

practised the pentathlum or won an Olympic victory. The tomb 
is a mound of earth. 3. But the native Sicyonians generally bury 
their dead in a uniform way : they cover the body with earth, build 
a basement of stone over it, set up pillars on the basement, and 
place on the pillars a superstructure like the gables of temples : 
they carve no inscription except the dead man's name (but not 
his father's), and the word ' Farewell.' 4. After the tomb of 3 
Lycus we cross the Asopus and see on the right the Olympium : 
a little farther on, to the left of the road, is the grave of the 
Athenian Eupolis, the comic poet. Going on and turning in the 
direction of the city, we come to the tomb of a woman Xenodice, 
who died in childbed. The tomb is not in the usual Sicyonian 
style, but is planned so as to suit the painting with which it is 
adorned ; and certainly the painting is well worth seeing. Farther 4 
on is the grave of the Sicyonians who fell at Pellene and Dyme 
in Achaia, and in Megalopolis and at Sellasia. I will tell their 
story more fully in the sequel. At the gate is a spring in a grotto, 
the water of which does not rise from the ground, but flows from 
the roof of the grotto : so they call it the Dripping Spring. 

5. In the present acropolis is a sanctuary of Fortune of the 5 
Height, and beyond it a sanctuary of the Dioscuri. The images 
both of the Dioscuri and Fortune are of wood. The theatre is 
built at the foot of the acropolis and on the stage of the theatre 
is the statue of a man with a shield. They say it represents 
Aratus, the son of Clinias. 6. Beyond the theatre is a temple of 
Dionysus : the image of the god is of gold and ivory, and beside 
it are female Bacchantes in white marble. [They say that these 
women are sacred and that they rave in honour of Dionysus.] The 
Sicyonians have other images which they keep secret ; but on one 
night every year they convey them from the Tiring-room, as- it is 
called, to the sanctuary of Dionysus, escorting them with lighted 
torches and the music of their native hymns. The image which they 6 
name Bacchius, and which was set up by Androdomas, son of Phlias, 
leads the way, and it is followed by the image called the Deliverer, 
which was brought from Thebes by the Theban Phanes, at the 
bidding of the Pythian priestess. Phanes came to Sicyon at the 
time when Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, mistaking the meaning 
of the oracle, lost the chance of returning to Peloponnese. On the 
way from the sanctuary of Dionysus to the market-place there is on 
the right a temple of Artemis of the Lake. A glance shows that 
the roof of the temple has fallen ; but whether the image was carried 
elsewhere, or how it perished, they cannot tell. 

7. On entering the market-place we come to a sanctuary of 7 
Persuasion ; it also is without an image. Their worship of Persua- 
sion is explained by the following legend. Apollo and Artemis, after 
slaying the python, came to Aegialea to be purified. But fear seized 
vol. 1 G 



82 SICYON BK. II. CORINTH 

them on the spot, which is still called Terror, and they betook them- 
selves to Carmanor in Crete. At the same time sickness attacked the 
people of Aegialea, and the seers bade them propitiate Apollo and 

8 Artemis. So they sent seven boys and seven maidens to the river 
Sythas to offer supplication, and they say that, persuaded by the 
children, the deities came to what was then the acropolis, and the place 
where they came to first is the sanctuary of Persuasion. A similar 
ceremony is still observed : on the festival of Apollo the children go 
to the Sythas, and after bringing (as it is thought) the deities to the 
sanctuaryof Persuasion, they convey them back, they say, to the temple 
of Apollo. The temple is in the present market-place : they say it 
was originally built by Proetus, because his daughters here recovered 

9 from their madness. 8. They say also that Meleager dedicated in this 
temple the spear wherewith he despatched the boar. Here, too, they 
say, are dedicated the flutes of Marsyas. For after the misfortune 
which befell the Silenus, they say that the river Marsyas swept the flutes 
down into the Maeander, that they reappeared in the Asopus, were 
washed ashore on Sicyonian ground, and were presented to Apollo 
by the shepherd who found them. Of these dedicatory offerings 
none is left ; for when the temple was burned they perished in 
the flames. The present temple and image were dedicated by 
Pythocles. 

VIII 

i. The precinct near the sanctuary of Persuasion is consecrated 
to the Roman emperors : it was once the house of the tyrant 
Cleon. For the tyranny of Clisthenes, son of Aristonymus, son 
of Myron, fell in the time when the Sicyonians still inhabited 
the lower city, but Cleon was tyrant in the present city. 

2. In front of this house is a shrine of the hero Aratus, a man who 
achieved greater things than any Greek of his time. His history is this. 

2 After the tyranny of Cleon, many of the leading men were smitten 
with such an unbridled rage for power that two men, Euthydemus 
and Timoclidas, were actually tyrants at the same time. The people, 
however, put Ciinias, father of Aratus, at their head, and drove out these 
tyrants. But not many years afterwards Abantidas made himself 
tyrant. Before this happened, Ciinias was dead, and Abantidas drove 
Aratus into exile, or perhaps Aratus withdrew voluntarily. Abantidas 
was assassinated by some men of Sicyon, but his father Paseas 

3 immediately stepped into his place. He too was assassinated, and 
his assassin, Nicocles, reigned in his stead. To attack this Nicocles 
Aratus came with Sicyonian exiles and Argive mercenaries. He 
made the attempt by night, and eluding some of the guards in the 
darkness and overpowering others, he made his way inside the walls. 
Dawn was now beginning to glimmer, the people rallied round him, 



chs. vii-ix SICYON 



and at their head he hastened to the tyrant's house. This he cap- 
tured without difficulty, but Nicocles himself stole away unobserved. 3. 
To the people of Sicyon Aratus restored a free and equal government, 
and he made peace between them and the exiles, restoring to the latter 
their houses and all their possessions which had been sold, and making 
good the price to the purchasers from his own purse. At this time 4 
all Greece stood in fear of the Macedonians under Antigonus the 
guardian of Philip, son of Demetrius ; so Aratus caused the Sicyonians, 
Dorians though they were, to join the Achaean League. He was 
immediately elected general by the Achaeans, and leading them 
against the Locrians of Amphissa, and into the country of their 
enemies the Aetolians, he laid waste the land. 4. Corinth was 
held by Antigonus, and there was a Macedonian garrison in the 
place ; but by a sudden attack Aratus disconcerted and defeated 
them. Amongst the slain was Persaeus, commander of the 
garrison, who had studied philosophy under Zeno, son of Mnaseus. 
After the liberation of Corinth by Aratus, the Epidaurians and 5 
Troezenians, who inhabit the coast of Argolis, and the Megarians 
from beyond the Isthmus, joined the League, and Ptolemy formed 
an alliance with the Achaeans. But the Lacedaemonians under 
King Agis, son of Eudamidas, by a rapid movement captured Pellene 
before Aratus could prevent them. When he arrived with his 
army, the Lacedaemonians gave battle ; and being worsted they 
made terms, evacuated Pellene, and returned home. 5. Thus success- 6 
ful in Peloponnese, Aratus thought shame to leave the Macedonians 
in undisturbed possession of Piraeus and Munychia, of Salamis and 
Sunium. Having no hope of capturing these places by force of 
arms, he bribed Diogenes, the commander of the garrisons, to 
abandon the places for the sum of one hundred and fifty talents, of 
which he himself contributed one-sixth to the Athenians. He- also 
prevailed on Aristomachus, tyrant of Argos, to restore the democracy 
and join the Achaean confederacy ; and he captured Mantinea, 
which was held by a Lacedaemonian garrison. But it is given 
to no man to see all his wishes fulfilled. Even Aratus was com- 
pelled by circumstances to become an ally of the Macedonians and 
of Antigonus. It happened thus. 

IX 

1. Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, having suc- 
ceeded to the kingdom in Sparta, imitated Pausanias in his thirst for 
absolute power, and his discontent with the existing constitution ; 
and being a man of a more fiery temperament than Pausanias, and 
no craven, he soon, by his daring spirit, carried all before him. 
Eurydamidas, the king of the other branch, was a boy. Cleomenes 
poisoned him ; and, through the agency of the ephors, transferred 



84 SIC YON BK. II. CORINTH 

the sovereignty to his own brother, Epiclidas. Further, he broke the 
power of the Senate, substituting for it a merely nominal Council 
of Elders. And now, his ambition taking a higher flight, he aimed 
at the sovereignty of Greece. The first upon whom he fell were 
the Achaeans. He hoped that a victory would win them to his 
side : at all events, he was determined that they should not thwart 
him in the prosecution of his schemes. Near Dyme, beyond Patrae, 
he engaged and defeated an Achaean force commanded by Aratus. 

2 2. Thus Aratus, alarmed for the safety of the Achaeans and Sicyon 
itself, was obliged to invoke the aid of Antigonus. Cleomenes 
meanwhile violated the treaty which he had made with Antigonus. 
Amongst other acts, by which he openly set the treaty at defiance, 
he expelled the population of Megalopolis. So Antigonus crossed 
into Peloponnese, and the Achaeans encountered Cleomenes near 
Sellasia. Victory rested with the Achaeans : Sellasia was enslaved ; 
and Lacedaemon itself was taken. Accordingly Antigonus and 
the Achaeans restored to the Lacedaemonians their hereditary con- 

3 stitution. 3. But, of the sons of Leonidas, Epiclidas fell in the battle, 
and Cleomenes fled to Egypt, where he received from Ptolemy 
the highest marks of honour. However, having been found guilty 
of conspiring against the king, he was cast into prison, but 
escaped and stirred up a riot in Alexandria. At last, being taken, 
he fell by his own hand. In their joy at being rid of Cleomenes 
the Lacedaemonians resolved to be ruled by kings no longer, but 
the rest of their old constitution remains in force till this day. 
Antigonus, grateful to Aratus for his services and his co-operation in 

4 achieving so brilliant a success, remained his steady friend. 4. But 
when Philip came to the throne, Aratus could not approve of the new 
king's cruelty to his subjects, and even endeavoured partially to 
restrain it ; so Philip murdered him by administering poison to his 
unsuspecting victim. From Aegium, where he died, they carried 
Aratus to Sicyon, and buried him there, and the shrine is still 
named the shrine of Aratus. Two Athenians, Euryclides and Micon, 
met with the like treatment at the hand of Philip. They were 
orators of some influence with the people, and Philip poisoned them. 

5 5. After all, the fatal cup was destined to prove disastrous to Philip 
himself. For his younger son, Perseus, poisoned his brother 
Demetrius, and this broke his father's heart, and he died. In this 
digression I have had in view the inspired saying of Hesiod, that 
the mischief which a man plots against another recoils first upon 
himself. 

6 6. Beyond the shrine of Aratus is an altar to Isthmian 
Poseidon, an image of Gracious Zeus, and an image of Artemis 
named Paternal. The images are rude : that of Zeus resembles 
a pyramid, and that of Artemis a column. Here also is their 
Council House, and a colonnade called the Colonnade of Clisthenes, 



chs. ix-x SIC YON 85 

after the man who built it. Clisthenes built it from the spoils of 
the war against Cirrha, in which he fought on the side of the 
Amphictyons. In the open part of the market-place is a bronze 
Zeus, a work of Lysippus, and beside it is a gilded Artemis. 
7. Near them is a sanctuary of Wolfish (Lukios) Apollo, but it is 7 
in ruins and not at all worth seeing. When the flocks of the 
Sicyonians were so infested by wolves that they got no return from 
them, the god told them of a place where lay a dry trunk of a 
tree, and bade them take the bark of this tree, mix it with flesh, 
and set it out for the wolves. As soon as the wolves tasted it 
they were poisoned by the bark. This trunk lay in the sanctuary 
of the Wolfish God, but even the Sicyonian guides did not know 
what kind of tree it was. Next to this sanctuary are bronze 8 
images : they say they are the daughters of Proetus, but the 
inscription refers to different women. Here is a bronze Hercules, 
made by Lysippus, the Sicyonian. Near it stands an image of 
Hermes of the Market. 

X 

1. In the gymnasium, not far from the market-place, is dedicated 
a stone image of Hercules, a work of Scopas. Elsewhere there is a 
sanctuary of Hercules : the whole enclosure they name Paedize : in 
the middle of the enclosure is the sanctuary, and in the sanctuary 
is an ancient wooden image, the work of Laphaes, a Phliasian. In 
sacrificing they observe the following custom. They say that 
Phaestus, coming to Sicyon, found the people offering to Hercules 
as to a hero : he would do nothing of the sort, but insisted on 
sacrificing to Hercules as to a god. And to this day the Sicyonians, 
after slaying a lamb and burning the thighs on the altar, eat part of 
the flesh as of a regular sacrificial victim, and offer part of the flesh 
as to a hero. Of the festival which they celebrate in honour of 
Hercules the first day is styled Names {Ojio?nata), and the second 
day is called Heraclea. 

2. From here a road leads to a sanctuary of Aesculapius. On 2 
entering the enclosure we have on the left a double building. In 
the outer chamber is an image of Sleep, of which nothing is left but 
the head. The inner chamber is consecrated to Carnean Apollo, and 
none but the priests are allowed to enter it. In the colonnade is a 
huge bone of a sea-monster, and beyond it an image of Dream, and 
one of Sleep lulling a lion to slumber, and the surname of Sleep is 
Bountiful. Entering the sanctuary of Aesculapius we have on one 
side of the entrance a sitting image of Pan, and on the other 

a standing image of Artemis. 3. Inside is an image of the god, 3 
beardless : it is of gold and ivory, and is a work of Calamis. In 
one hand he holds a sceptre, and in the other the fruit of a culti- 



86 SIC YON BK. II. CORINTH 

vated pine-tree. They say that the god was brought to them from 
Epidaurus in the likeness of a serpent, riding in a carriage drawn 
by mules, and that the person who brought him was a Sicyonian 
woman Nicagora, mother of Agasicles, and wife of Echetimus. There 
are small images here hanging from the roof. They say that the 
woman on the serpent is Aristodama, mother of Aratus, and they 
believe that Aratus was a son of Aesculapius. Such were the objects 
of note in this enclosure. 

4 4. <Near> it is another <enclosure> sacred to Aphrodite. The 
first image in it is that of Antiope ; for they say that her children 
were natives of Sicyon, and they will have it that through her children 
Antiope herself also belongs to Sicyon. Beyond it is the sanctuary 
of Aphrodite. A female sacristan, who is henceforward forbidden 
to have intercourse with the other sex, and a virgin, who holds the 
priesthood for a year and goes by the name of the Bath-bearer, 
enter into the sanctuary : every one else, without distinction, 
may only see the goddess from the entrance, and pray to her 

5 from there. The image was made in a sitting attitude by Canachus, 
the Sicyonian, who also wrought the Apollo at Didyma, in the 
land of Miletus, and the Ismenian Apollo for the Thebans. It 
is made of gold and ivory : on her head the goddess carries a 
firmament {polos), in one hand a poppy, and in the other an apple. 
They sacrifice the thighs of victims, save those of swine : the other 
parts of the animal they burn with juniper wood. Along with the 

6 thighs they burn the leaf of the paideros. 5. The paideros is a 
plant that grows in the enclosure in the open air, but nowhere else, 
neither in the land of Sicyon nor in any other land. Its leaves 
are less than those of the oak, but larger than those of the evergreen 
oak : in shape they resemble oak leaves : one side of them is 
blackish, the other is white : their colour may be best likened to 
that of the leaves of the white poplar. 

7 6. Going up from here to the gymnasium we have on the right 
a sanctuary of Pheraean Artemis : they say the wooden