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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 image was 
brought from Pherae. This gymnasium was built for the Sicyonians 
by Clinias, and here they still train the lads. There is an image 
of Artemis of white marble, carved only to the waist ; and there is a 
Hercules, the lower part of which is like the square images of 
Hermes. 



XI 

1. Turning thence towards the gate called Sacred we come to a 
temple of Athena not far from the gate. The temple was dedicated 
by Epopeus, and in size and splendour surpassed all the temples of 
the time. But of this as of many another temple the memory was 
doomed in time to pass away ; for God <destroyed it> by thunder- 



chs. x-xi TITANS 87 

bolts. But no bolt fell on the altar, and it remains to this day as 
Epopeus made it. 2. In front of the altar is a barrow erected to 
Epopeus, and near the grave are the Averting Gods : beside their 
images are performed the ceremonies which the Greeks observe for 
the purpose of averting evils. They say that Epopeus made the 
neighbouring sanctuary for Artemis and Apollo, and that the 
sanctuary of Hera beyond it was made by Adrastus : in neither of 
the sanctuaries were there images left. Behind the sanctuary of Hera 
he built altars, one to Pan and one of white marble to the Sun. 
Descending towards the plain we come to a sanctuary of Demeter : 2 
they say it was founded by Plemnaeus as a thanksgiving to the 
goddess for bringing up his son. A little beyond the sanctuary of 
Hera, which Adrastus founded, is a temple of Carnean Apollo : only 
the columns of it are standing, you shall find neither walls nor roof 
in it, nor yet in the temple of Forerunner Hera. The latter was 
founded by Phalces, son of Temenus, because he alleged that Hera 
had been his guide on the way to Sicyon. 

3. Following the direct road that leads from Sicyon to Phlius, 3 
and turning aside to the left for just ten furlongs, we come to a 
grove called Pyraea, in which there is a sanctuary of Protecting 
Demeter and the Maid. Here the men celebrate a festival by 
themselves ; but they leave the Nymphon, as it is called, to the 
women to celebrate their festival in. In the Nymphon are images of 
Dionysus, Demeter, and the Maid, of which only the faces are 
exposed to view. 

The road to Titane is sixty furlongs, and impassable for carriages 
by reason of its narrowness. 4. Having advanced, it seems to 4 
me, twenty furlongs and crossed the Asopus to the left, we come 
to a grove of evergreen oaks and a temple of the goddesses 
whom the Athenians name Venerable, and the Sicyonians. name 
Eumenides ('kindly'). On one day every year they celebrate a 
festival in their honour, at which they sacrifice sheep big with 
young, pour libations of honey mixed with water, and use flowers 
instead of wreaths. They perform similar ceremonies at the altar 
of the Fates : it stands in the grove under the open sky. 

5. Having returned to the road and again crossed the Asopus, we 5 
come to the top of a mountain. Here, according to the natives, 
Titan first dwelt. They say that he was a brother of the Sun, and 
that from him the place was called Titane. Methinks that Titan 
was skilled to mark the seasons of the year, and when the sun quickens 
and ripens seeds and fruits ; and therefore he was deemed a brother 
of the Sun. 6. Afterwards Alexanor, son of Machaon, son of 
Aesculapius, came to Sicyon and made the sanctuary of Aesculapius 
at Titane. People live round about it, mostly suppliants of the 6 
god ; and within the enclosure are ancient cypress - trees. It is 
impossible to learn of what wood or metal the image is made ; nor 



88 TITANE bk. ii. corinth 

do they know who made it, though one or two refer it to Alexanor 
himself. Only the face and the hands and feet of the image 
are visible, for a white woollen shirt and a mantle are thrown 
over it. There is a similar image of Health : you can hardly see 
it either, so covered is it with women's hair, which they poll in 
honour of the goddess, and so swathed in strips of Babylonish 
raiment. Whoever would here propitiate one of them, is instructed 

7 to worship the one which they call Health. 1 7. There are images 
also of Alexanor and Euamerion. To the former they make 
offerings after sunset as to a hero : to Euamerion they sacrifice as 
to a god. If my conjecture is right, this Euamerion is he whom 
the Pergamenians, in compliance with an oracle, name Teles- 
phorus (' accomplisher '), and whom the Epidaurians name Acesis 
(' cure '). There is also a wooden image of Coronis. It does not 
stand in the temple ; but when they are sacrificing a bull, a 
lamb, and a pig to the god they bring Coronis to the sanctuary of 
Athena and honour her there. All the portions of the victims 
which they offer (and they are not content with cutting off the 
thighs) they burn on the ground, except birds, which they burn on 

S the altar. 8. The gables contain a figure of Hercules and figures 
of Victories at the ends. In the colonnade are dedicated images 
of Dionysus and Hecate, Aphrodite and the Mother of the Gods, and 
Fortune : these images are of wood, but the image of Aesculapius, 
surnamed Gortynian, is of stone. People are afraid to go in 
among the sacred serpents ; so they set down food for them at 
the entrance and trouble themselves no more about it. Within the 
enclosure is a bronze statue of Granianus, a native of Sicyon who 
won two victories in the pentathlum at Olympia; a third in the 
single race, and two more in the double course, running both with 
and without his shield. 

XII 

1. In Titane there is also a sanctuary of Athena, to which they 
carry up Coronis : it contains an ancient wooden image of Athena, 
which is also said to have been struck by lightning. After de- 
scending from this hill (for the sanctuary is built on a hill) we come 
to an altar of the winds, on which the priest sacrifices to the winds 
one night in every year. He also performs other secret rites at 
four pits, soothing the fury of the blasts ; and he chants, they say, 
Medea's spells. 
2 We now return from Titane to Sicyon. On the way down to 
the sea we have on the left of the road a temple of Hera. It has 
no longer an image nor a roof : they say it was dedicated by Proetus, 
son of Abas. 2. Having descended to what is called the harbour of 
Sicyon, and bent our steps in the direction of Aristonautae, the sea- 

1 The text is corrupt and the meaning uncertain. See Critical Note. 



chs. xi-xn PHLIUS 89 

port of Pellene, we perceive, a little above the road on the left, a 
sanctuary of Poseidon. Proceeding by the high road we come to 
the river Helisson, and after it to the Sythas, both rivers falling into 
the sea. 

3. Phliasia borders on the territory of Sicyon. The city of 3 
Phlius is just forty furlongs from Titane : a straight road leads 
to it from Sicyon. That the Phliasians are not related to the 
Arcadians is proved by the catalogue of the Arcadians in Homer, 
for the Phliasians are not included in that catalogue. That 
they were originally Argives and afterwards became Dorians, when 
the Heraclids had returned to Peloponnese, will appear in the 
sequel. I know that the accounts given of the Phliasians are mostly 
discrepant, but I will follow the one which is most generally accepted. 
4. They say that the first man born in this land was Aras, an 4 
aboriginal. He founded a city round about the hill, which is 
called the Arantine hill to this day. It is not far from another 
hill on which the Phliasians have their acropolis and the sanctuary of 
Hebe. Here then he built a city, and from him both land and city 
were called Arantia in days of old. 5. It was for this king that 
Asopus, who is said to have been a son of Celusa and Poseidon, 
discovered the water of the river which is still called Asopus after 
its discoverer. The tomb of Aras is in a place Celeae, where 
they say that Dysaules, an Eleusinian, is also buried. Aras had a 5 
son Aoris, and a daughter Araethyrea. The Phliasians say that these 
two were skilful in the chase and brave in war. Araethyrea died 
first, and Aoris, in memory of his sister, changed the name of the 
country to Araethyrea. Hence Homer, enumerating the subjects of 
Agamemnon, has the verse : 

They dwelt in Ornea and lovely Araethyrea. 

The graves of the children of Aras are, I believe, on the Arantine hill 
and nowhere else. Round tombstones surmount their graves ; and 
before the Phliasians celebrate the mysteries of Demeter, they look 
towards these tombs and invite Aras and his children to partake of 
the libations. 6. Phlias, the third who gave his name to the country, 6 
is said by the Argives to have been a son of Cisus, the son of 
Temenus. But I cannot agree with them, for I know that he is 
called a son of Dionysus, and is said to have been one of those who 
sailed in the Argo. And the verses of the Rhodian poet bear me 
out : 

After them came Phlias from Araethyrea, 
Where he dwelt in wealth through Dionysus 
His sire : his home was by the springs of Asopus. 

They say that the mother of Phlias was Araethyrea, not Chthono- 
phyle, who was his wife and bore him Androdamas. 



90 PHLIUS BK. II. CORINTH 



XIII 

i. The return of the Heraclids threw the whole of Peloponnese, 
except Arcadia, into confusion. Many of the cities received fresh 
settlers from the Dorian horde, and the changes that befell the 
inhabitants were still more numerous. Phlius fared as follows. 
Rhegnidas, a Dorian, son of Phalces, son of Temenus, led an army 
against it from Argos and Sicyonia. Some of the Phliasians were 
content with the terms which Rhegnidas offered them, namely, that 
they should remain in possession, but should accept Rhegnidas as 
their king, and admit him and his Dorians to a share in the land. 

2 But Hippasus and his party urged his countrymen to resist, and 
not to yield up to the Dorians without a struggle so much that they 
held dear. However, the people took the opposite view. So Hip- 
pasus, with such as cared to join him, fled to Samos. 2. This 
Hippasus was the great-grandfather of the famous sage, Pythagoras. 
For Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus, who was the son of 
Euphron, who was the son of Hippasus. This is the account which 
the Phliasians give of themselves, and in most particulars the 
Sicyonians agree with them. 

3 3. I shall now add a notice of the most remarkable sights. In 
the acropolis of Phlius there is a grove of cypresses and a sanctuary 
of awful and immemorial sanctity. The goddess of the sanctuary is 
named Ganymeda by the most ancient Phliasian authorities, but 
Hebe by the later authorities. Homer also mentions Hebe in 
the single combat of Menelaus and Alexander, where he says that 
she was the cupbearer of the gods ; and again, in Ulysses' descent to 
hell, he says she was the wife of Hercules. Olen in his hymn 
to Hera says that Hera was nurtured by the Seasons, and was the 

4 mother of Ares and Hebe. Of the honours which the Phliasians 
pay to the goddess the greatest is this : slaves who take sanctuary 
here are safe, and when prisoners are loosed from their bonds 
they hang their fetters on the trees in the grove. The Phliasians 
also hold a yearly festival which they call Ivy-cutters. Image 
they have none, neither preserved in secret nor shown openly. 
The reason for this is given in a sacred story of theirs. On the 
left as we quit the sanctuary is a temple of Hera, containing an image 

5 of Parian marble. In the acropolis is another enclosure : it is sacred 
to Demeter, and contains a temple and image of Demeter and her 
daughter. There is also a bronze image of Artemis here which 
appeared to me ancient. Going down from the acropolis we pass 
on the right a temple of Aesculapius, the image of which represents 
a young and beardless man. Below this temple is a theatre, and 
not far from it is a sanctuary of Demeter with ancient seated images. 

6 4. In the market-place stands a bronze she-goat, mostly gilded. 



chs. xm-xiv PHLIUS CELEAE 91 

It is worshipped by the Phliasians for the following reason : The 
constellation which they name the Goat always blights the vines 
at its rising, and to avert its baleful influence they worship the bronze 
goat in the market-place, and adorn it with gold. 5. Here is also 
the tomb of Aristias, son of Pratinas. This Aristias and his father 
Pratinas composed the most popular satyric dramas ever written 
except those of Aeschylus. 6. Behind the market-place is a house 7 
named by the Phliasians the house of divination. According to them, 
Amphiaraus coming to this house and sleeping the night in it began 
for the first time to divine. Up to that time, according to their 
story, he had been an ordinary person and no diviner. From that 
time the building has been always shut up. 7. Not far off is what 
they call the Navel {Omphalos) : if what they say is true, this spot is 
the centre of the whole of Peloponnese. Proceeding onward from 
the Navel we come to an ancient sanctuary of Dionysus, another 
of Apollo, and another of Isis. The image of Dionysus may be 
seen by every one, and so may that of Apollo ; but only the priests 
may behold the image of Isis. 8. Here is another story told by 8 
the Phliasians. When Hercules returned safely from Libya, bringing 
the apples called the apples of the Hesperides, he came to Phlius on 
some private business ; and while staying there was visited by Oeneus, 
from Aetolia, his kinsman by marriage. Oeneus on his arrival either 
feasted Hercules or was feasted by him. At all events, Oeneus had 
as cupbearer a boy called Cyathus ; and Hercules, being dissatisfied 
with the draught which Cyathus handed to him, struck the boy on 
the head with one of his fingers. The blow killed him on the spot, 
and there is a chapel to his memory at Phlius. It stands beside 
the sanctuary of Apollo, and contains a group of statuary in stone, 
representing Cyathus handing a cup to Hercules. 

XIV 

1. Celeae is distant just about five furlongs from the city. They 
celebrate the mysteries of Demeter there every third year, not annually. 
The high-priest of the mysteries is not appointed for life, but at each 
celebration a new priest is elected, who may, if he chooses, take a 
wife. In these respects their practice differs from that observed 
at Eleusis ; but the actual mysteries are an imitation of the 
Eleusinian mysteries, indeed the Phliasians themselves admit that 
they imitate the rites of Eleusis. 2. They say that the mysteries 2 
were instituted by Dysaules, brother of Celeus, who came to their 
country after he had been expelled from Eleusis by Ion, son of 
Xuthus, at the time when Ion was chosen commander-in-chief of the 
Athenians in the war against Eleusis. But I cannot agree with the 
Phliasians that any man of Eleusis was defeated in battle and driven 
into exile ; for peace was concluded before the war was fought out, 



92 CELEAE CLEONAE bk. ii. corinth 

and even Eumolpus himself was suffered to remain in Eleusis. 

3 It is possible, however, that Dysaules may have come to Phlius for 
some other cause than the one alleged by the Phliasians. But he 
was not, in my opinion, related to Celeus, nor did he belong to any 
other of the illustrious families of Eleusis. For Homer would never 
have passed him over in silence in his hymn to Demeter. In that 
hymn Homer enumerates the men who were taught the mysteries 
by the goddess, but he knows no Eleusinian of the name of Dysaules. 
The verses are these : 

She showed to Triptolemus and Diodes, smiter of horses, 
And mighty Eumolpus and Celeus, leader of peoples, 
The way of performing the sacred rites, and explained to all of them 
the orgies. 

4 However that may be, it was this man Dysaules, according to the 
Phliasians, who instituted the mysteries here, and he it was who 
gave to the place the name of Celeae. There is here, as I have 
said, the tomb of Dysaules. The grave of Aras must therefore be 
older ; for according to the Phliasian tradition Dysaules came after 
the reign of Aras. 3. For the Phliasians say that Aras was a con- 
temporary of Prometheus, son of Iapetus, and lived three genera- 
tions before Pelasgus, son of Areas, and the so-called aborigines of 
Athens. On the roof of what is called the Anactorum stands a 
chariot which they say is the chariot of Pelops. These were the 
chief objects of interest in Phliasia. 



XV 

1. On the way from Corinth to Argos there is a small city 
Cleonae. Some say that Cleones was a son of Pelops, others that 
Cleone was one of the daughters of the river Asopus which flows by 
Sicyon : at all events it was from one or other of these two that the 
city got its name. Here is a sanctuary of Athena : the image is a 
work of Scyllis and Dipoenus. Some say that these two artists were 
pupils of Daedalus : others maintain that Daedalus took to wife a 
woman of Gortyna, and that she bore him Dipoenus and Scyllis, 
Besides this sanctuary there is also at Cleonae the tomb of Eurytus 
and Cteatus. They were shot here by Hercules when they were on 
their way from Elis to witness, as ambassadors, the Isthmian games. 
The charge he brought against them was that in his war with 
Augeas they had been arrayed against him. 

From Cleonae there are two roads to Argos. One, a short cut, 
is a mere footpath : the other is over the pass of the Tretus, as it is 
called. The latter, like the former, is a narrow defile shut in by 
mountains on all sides, but it is better adapted for driving. 



chs. xiv-xvi NEMEA MYCENAE 



2. In these mountains is still shown the lion's cave, and 
about fifteen furlongs from it is Nemea. In Nemea there is 
a temple of Nemean Zeus, which is worth seeing, though the roof 
had fallen in, and there was no image left. The temple stands in a 
grove of cypresses ; and it was here, they say, that the serpent killed 
Opheltes, who had been set down by his nurse on the grass. The 3 
Argives sacrifice to Zeus in Nemea as well as in Argos, and they 
choose a priest of Nemean Zeus. Moreover they announce a race 
to be run by armed men at the winter celebration of the Nemean 
festival. 3. Here is the grave of Opheltes enclosed by a stone wall, 
and within the enclosure there are altars. Here, too, is a barrow, the 
tomb of Lycurgus, the father of Opheltes. The spring is named 
Adrastea, perhaps because Adrastus discovered it, or perhaps for 
some other reason. They say that the district got its name from 
Nemea, another daughter of Asopus. Above Nemea is Mount 
Apesas, where they say that Perseus first sacrificed to Apesantian 
Zeus. 

4. Having ascended to the Tretus and resumed the road to Argos, 4 
we have on the left the ruins of Mycenae. That Perseus was the 
founder of Mycenae is known to every Greek, but I will narrate the 
cause of its foundation and the pretext on which the Argives after- 
wards destroyed Mycenae. They say that Inachus reigned in the 
country which is now named Argolis, and that he gave his name to 
the river and sacrificed to Hera. What happened before his time 
is forgotten. 5. Another legend is that the first man born in this 5 
country was Phoroneus, and that his father Inachus was not a man, 
but the river of that name. Inachus, so runs the legend, arbitrated 
in the dispute between Poseidon and Hera for the possession 
of the country, and he was assisted by Cephisus and Asterion ; 
and because they decided that the country belonged to -Hera, 
Poseidon made their water to disappear. Therefore neither 
the Inachus nor any of the said rivers has any water, except 
after rain : in summer their streams are dry, with the exception 
of the streams at Lerna. It was Phoroneus, son of Inachus, 
who brought mankind together for the first time ; for hitherto they 
had lived scattered and solitary. And the place where they first 
assembled was named the city of Phoronicum. 

XVI 

1 . Argos, the son of Phoroneus' daughter, reigned after Phoroneus, 
and gave his name to the district. Argos begat Pirasus and 
Phorbas, Phorbas begat Triopas, and Triopas begat Iasus and 
Agenor. Io, daughter of Iasus, went to Egypt either in the way 
that Herodotus states, or in the way commonly alleged by the 
Greeks. Iasus was succeeded on the throne by Crotopus, son of 



94 MYCENAE bk. ii. corintk 

Agenor, and Crotopus had a son Sthenelas. But Danaus sailed 
from Egypt against Gelanor, son of Sthenelas, and deposed the 
house of Agenor. Every one knows the sequel, how the daughters 
of Danaus wrought a bold bad deed on their cousins, and how 

2 Lynceus came to the throne on the death of Danaus. 2. But the 
sons of Abas, son of Lynceus, divided the kingdom amongst them- 
selves, Acrisius remaining in Argos, and Proetus taking the 
Heraeum, Midea, Tiryns, and the coast of Argolis. Traces still 
remain of the house of Proetus at Tiryns. Afterwards Acrisius, 
learning that Perseus was alive and distinguishing himself, retired to 
Larisa on the Peneus. But Pe%w, bent on seeing his mother's 
father, and showing him kindness by word and deed, went to him 
at Larisa. Being in the prime of youthful vigour, and delighting in 
his invention of the quoit, he was exhibiting his skill in public. But 
as fate would have it, Acrisius unwittingly got in the way of the 

3 quoit as it was being thrown. Thus the prophecy of the god was 
fulfilled on Acrisius, nor did the precautions which he took with 
reference to his daughter and her son avail to avert his doom. 

3. When Perseus returned to Argos, ashamed at the notoriety of 
the homicide, he persuaded Megapenthes, son of Proetus, to change 
kingdoms with him. So when he had received the kingdom of 
Proetus he founded Mycenae, because there the cap (mykes) of his 
scabbard had fallen off, and he regarded this as a sign to found a 
city. I have also heard that being thirsty he chanced to take up a 
mushroom (mykes), and that water flowing from it he drank, and 

4 being pleased gave the place the name of Mycenae. In the Odyssey 
Homer mentions a woman Mycene in the following verse : 

Tyro and Alcmena and well-crowned Mycene. 

That she was the daughter of Inachus and wife of Arestor is 
affirmed in the epic which the Greeks call the Great Eoeae. They 
say, then, that from her the city got its name. But I cannot accept 
the account which they attribute to Acuselaus, that Myceneus was a 
son of Sparton, and Sparton a son of Phoroneus ; for the Lacedae- 
monians themselves do not admit it. The Lacedaemonians cer- 
tainly have in Amyclae a statue of a woman Sparta, but it would 
surprise them even to hear of Sparton son of Phoroneus. 

5 4. The Argives destroyed Mycenae out of jealousy. For while 
they remained inactive at the time of the invasion of the Medes, the 
Mycenaeans sent eighty men to Thermopylae, who fought side by 
side with the Lacedaemonians. But this spirited conduct of the 
Mycenaeans proved their ruin, by exasperating the Argives. However, 
parts of the circuit wall are still left, including the gate, which is sur- 
mounted by lions. These also are said to be the work of the 

6 Cyclopes, who made the walls of Tiryns for Proetus. 5. Among 
the ruins of Mycenae is a conduit called Persea, and there are 



chs. xvi-xvii MYCENAE HERAEUM 95 

underground buildings of Atreus and his children, where their 
treasures were kept. There is a grave of Atreus, and graves of all 
those who on their return from Ilium with Agamemnon were 
murdered by Aegisthus after a banquetwhich hegave them. The tomb 
of Cassandra is disputed : the Lacedaemonians of Amyclae claim that 
it is at Amyclae. Another tomb is that of Agamemnon ; another 
is that of Eurymedon the charioteer ; another is that of Teledamus 
and Pelops. The two last are said to have been twin children of 7 
Cassandra, who were murdered by Aegisthus in their infancy after he 
had murdered their parents .... for Orestes gave her in marriage 
to Pylades. Hellanicus adds that Pylades had Medon and Strophius 
by Electra. But Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus were buried at a little 
distance from the wall ; for they were deemed unworthy to be buried 
within the walls, where Agamemnon himself and those who had been 
murdered with him were laid. 

XVII 

1. To the left of Mycenae, at a distance of fifteen furlongs, is 
the Heraeum. Beside the road flows a water which is called 
the Water of Freedom : the women who minister at the sanctuary 
employ it for purifications and for the secret sacrifices. 2. The 
sanctuary itself is on the lower slope of Euboea. For they 
name this mountain Euboea, saying that the river Asterion had 
three daughters, Euboea, Prosymna, and Acraea, and that they 
were nurses of Hera. The mountain opposite the Heraeum 2 
is called after Acraea : the ground about the sanctuary is called 
after Euboea; and the district below the Heraeum is called Prosymna. 
The Asterion flowing above the Heraeum falls into a gully and 
disappears. On its banks grows a plant which they also name 
Asterion : they offer the plant to Hera, and twine its leaves into 
wreaths for her. 3. They say that the architect of the temple was 3 
Eupolemus an Argive. The sculptures over the columns represent, 
some the birth of Zeus and the battle of the gods and giants, others 
the Trojan war and the taking of Ilium. Before the entrance 
stand statues of women who have been priestesses of Hera, and 
statues of heroes, including Orestes ; for they say that the statue 
which the inscription declares to be the Emperor Augustus is really 
Orestes. In the fore-temple are ancient images of the Graces on the 
left ; and on the right is a couch of Hera, and a votive offering 
consisting of the shield which Menelaus once took from Euphorbus 
at Ilium. 4. The image of Hera is seated on a throne, and is of 4 
colossal size : it is made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Poly- 
clitus. On her head is a crown with the Graces and the Seasons 
wrought on it in relief: in one hand she carries a pomegranate, in 
the other a sceptre. The story about the pomegranate I shall omit 



96 HERAEUM 



BK. II. CORINTH 



as it is of a somewhat mystic nature; but the cuckoo perched 
on the sceptre is explained by a story, that when Zeus was in 
love with the maiden Hera he changed himself into this bird, 
and that Hera caught the bird to play with it. This and similar 

5 stories of the gods I record, though I do not accept them. 5. It 
is said that beside the image of Hera once stood an image of 
Hebe, also of ivory and gold, a work of Naucydes. And beside it 
is an antique image of Hera on a column. But her most ancient 
image is made of the wood of the wild pear-tree : it was dedicated 
in Tiryns by Pirasus, son of Argos, and when the Argives 
destroyed Tiryns they brought the image to the Heraeum. It 

6 is a small seated image : I saw it myself. 6. Amongst the remark- 
able dedicatory offerings is an altar, on which is wrought in 
relief the fabled marriage of Hebe and Hercules : the altar is of 
silver. Further, there is a peacock of gold and shining stones 
dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian, because this bird is considered 
sacred to Hera. There is also a golden crown and a purple robe, 
offerings of Nero. 

7 7. Above this temple are the foundations of the former temple, 
together with the few other remains of it that escaped the flames. It 
was burned down through Chryseis, the priestess of Hera, having 
fallen asleep, when the flame of the lamp caught the wreaths. 
Chryseis fled to Tegea and took sanctuary in the temple of Athena 
Alea. In spite of this great calamity the Argives did not take down 
the statue of Chryseis, and it still stands in front of the burnt temple. 

XVIII 

1. On the way from Mycenae to Argos is a shrine of the hero 
Perseus beside the road on the left. He is honoured here by the 
people of the neighbourhood ; but he is most honoured in Seriphus, 
and in Athens there is a precinct of Perseus, and an altar of Dictys 
and Clymene, who are called the saviours of Perseus. 2. In Argolis, 
going on a little way from this shrine, we come to the grave of Thyestes 
on the right. Over the grave is the stone figure of a ram, because 
Thyestes obtained the golden lamb, after he had committed adultery 
with his brother's wife. Prudence did not restrain Atreus from 
retaliating : he murdered the children of Thyestes and served up the 
2 notorious banquet. Afterwards I cannot say for certain whether 
Aegisthus was the aggressor, or whether Agamemnon began the 
feud by murdering Tantalus the son of Thyestes. They say that 
Tantalus was Clytaemnestra's first husband, Tyndareus having o-iven 
her to him in marriage. I do not wish to charge them with having 
been by nature wicked ; but if the guilt of Pelops and the aven- 
ging ghost of Myrtilus dogged their steps so long, well might 
the Pythian priestess tell the Spartan Glaucus, son of Epicydes, 



chs. xvii-xviii ARGOS 97 

when he meditated perjury, that vengeance would pursue his 
descendants. 

3. A little beyond the Rams (for so they name the tomb of 
Thyestes) we come to a place Mysia and a sanctuary of Mysian 
Demeter on the left of the road. The name is derived from a man 
Mysius, one of those mortals, the Argives say, who entertained 
Demeter. The sanctuary has no roof, but contains another 
temple, built of burnt bricks, and wooden images of the Maid and 
Pluto and Demeter. Farther on we come to the river Inachus, 
and crossing it we come to an altar of the Sun. From this altar you 
will come to the gate which gets its name from the neighbouring 
sanctuary of Ilithyia. 

4. The Argives are the only Greeks I know who have been 4 
divided into three kingdoms. For in the reign of Anaxagoras, son 
of Argus, son of Megapenthes, the women were smitten with mad- 
ness, and quitting their houses roamed up and down the land, till 
Melampus, son of Amythaon, cured them on condition that he and 
his brother Bias should share the kingdom equally with Anaxagoras. 
From Bias sprang five kings who reigned for four generations, down 
to Cyanippus, son of Aegialeus : on the mother's side they were 
Neleids. Melampus was the ancestor of six kings in six generations, 
down to Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus. But the native dynasty 5 
of the house of Anaxagoras outlasted the other two. For Iphis, 
son of Alector, son of Anaxagoras, bequeathed the throne to Sthenelus, 
son of his brother Capaneus. And when, after the capture of Ilium, 
Amphilochus emigrated and settled among the people now called 
Amphilochians, and Cyanippus died childless, Cylarabes, the son 
of Sthenelus, had the kingdom to himself. 5. But as he also left no 
children, Orestes, son of Agamemnon, made himself master of Argos. 
For he dwelt near ; and, besides the kingdom he inherited, from 
his fathers, he had added a large part of Arcadia to his domains, and 
had succeeded to the crown of Sparta. Moreover his allies the 
Phocians furnished him with a body of troops which was kept in 
constant readiness for service. But if he was king of Lacedaemon, 6 
it was by the consent of the Lacedaemonians themselves. For they 
thought that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a better right 
to the throne than Nicostratus and Megapenthes, the sons of Menelaus 
by a slave girl. When Orestes died, his son Tisamenus succeeded 
him. His mother was Hermione, daughter of Menelaus. Orestes 
had also a bastard son called Penthilus, whose mother, according to 
the poet Cinaethon, was Erigone, daughter of Aegisthus. 

6. It was in the reign of this Tisamenus that the Heraclids re- 7 
turned to Peloponnese. Their names were Temenus and Cresphontes, 
sons of Aristomachus: the third brother Aristodemus was dead, but his 
children came with their uncles. In my opinion their claim to 
Argos and the kingdom of Argos was perfectly just ; for whereas 

VOL. I H 



j 



98 ARGOS BK. II. CORINTH 

Tisamenus was descended from Pelops, the Heraclids were 
descendants of Perseus. They declared that Tyndareus had been 
driven out by Hippocoon, but that Hercules slew Hippocoon and 
his children, and handed over the country in trust to Tyndareus. 
They told the same sort of story about Messenia, how that it also 
had been given in trust to Nestor by Hercules after he had captured 

8 Pylus. 7. So they drove Tisamenus out of Lacedaemon and Argos, 
and expelled the descendants of Nestor from Messenia. These 
descendants of Nestor were, first, Alcmaeon, son of Sillus, son of 
Thrasymedes ; second, Pisistratus, son of Pisistratus ; and, third, the 
sons of Paeon, son of Antilochus. With them was also expelled 
Melanthus, son of Andropompus, son of Bonis, son of Penthilus, 
son of Periclymenus. Tisamenus went with his army and his 

9 children to the country which is now called Achaia. Where 
Pisistratus went I know not ; but all the rest of the Neleids went 
to Athens, where they give their names to the house of the Paeonids 
and the house of the Alcmaeonids. Melanthus even came to the 
throne, from which he had driven Thymoetus, son of Oxyntes, the 
last Athenian king of the house of Theseus. 

XIX 

1. The history of Cresphontes and the sons of Aristodemus it 
is not material that I should here relate. But Temenus openly 
employed Deiphontes, son of Antimachus, son of Thrasyanor, son of 
Ctesippus, son of Hercules, as his general in the battles instead of 
his own sons, and he took his advice in everything ; and as he had 
previously made him his son-in-law, and loved his daughter 
Hyrnetho the best of all his children, he was suspected of trying 
to divert the kingdom to her and Deiphontes. Therefore his sons 
plotted against him, and Cisus, the eldest of them, mounted the 

2 throne. 2. But from time immemorial the Argives have loved 
equality and freedom ; and they now reduced the kingly power so 
low that Medon, son of Cisus, and his descendants, had nothing 
but the title of king left them. At last, Meltas, son of Lacedas, 
ninth descendant of Medon, was condemned by the people and 
actually deposed. 

3 3. The most famous building in Argos is a sanctuary of Wolfish 
(Lukios) Apollo. The present image was made by Attalus, an 
Athenian, but originally both the temple and the wooden image 
were dedicated by Danaus ; for I am persuaded that in those 
days all images were of wood, especially the Egyptian images. 
The reason why Danaus founded a sanctuary of Wolfish Apollo 
was this. When he came to Argos he claimed the kingdom 
against Gelanor, son of Sthenelas. The people sat in judgment : 
many plausible pleas were urged on both sides ; and it was thought 



chs. xvm-xix ARGOS 99 

that Gelanor had made out quite as good a case as his opponent. 
But the people deferred their decision, it is said, till the next day. 
At break of day a herd of kine, browsing before the walls, was 4 
attacked by a wolf, who fell upon and fought the bull, the leader of 
the herd. So it struck the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull 
and Danaus like the wolf; for just as the wolf does not live among 
men, so Danaus had not dwelt among them till that day. And since 
the wolf killed the bull, Danaus got the kingdom. So he founded 
a sanctuary of Wolfish Apollo, because he thought that Apollo had 
brought the wolf on the herd. 4. In this sanctuary is the throne of 5 
Danaus, and there is a statue of Biton, representing a man carrying 
a bull on his shoulders. According to the poet Lyceas, when the 
Argives were driving beasts to Nemea to sacrifice to Zeus, Biton by 
reason of his vigour and strength took up a bull and carried it. 

5. Next to this statue is a fire which they keep burning : they name 
it the fire of Phoroneus, for they do not admit that Prometheus 
gave fire to men, but refer the discovery of fire to Phoroneus. 

6. Of the wooden images of Aphrodite and Hermes, they say that the 6 
one is a work of Epeus, the other an offering of Hypermnestra. 
For Hypermnestra, as the only one of his daughters who had disre- 
garded his command, was brought to trial by Danaus, who thought 
his own safety imperilled by the escape of Lynceus, and that by not 
sharing in the crime of her sisters she had inflamed the infamy that 
attached to himself as the contriver of the deed. Being tried and 
acquitted by the Argives, Hypermnestra dedicated an image of 
Victorious Aphrodite to commemorate her escape. Inside the 7 
temple is a statue of Ladas, the fleetest runner of his age ; also a 
Hermes with a tortoise which he has lifted in order to make a lyre. 
In front of the temple is a pedestal adorned with sculptures in relief : 
they represent a bull and a wolf fighting and a virgin hurling a rock 
at the bull : they think that the virgin is Artemis. Danaus 
dedicated these, also some pillars near from .... of Zeus and a 
wooden image of Artemis. 

7. There are also graves : one of them is the grave of Linus, son 8 
of Apollo by Psamathe, daughter of Crotopus : the other, they say, 
is the grave of Linus the poet. The history of the latter Linus 
can be told more appropriately in another place ; so I omit it here. 
The story of the former has been already told by me in describing 
Megara. After these graves there is an image of Apollo as God of 
Streets, and an altar of Rainy Zeus, where the men who banded 
together to restore Polynices to Thebes swore to take Thebes or 
die. As to the tomb of Prometheus, the Argives tell a story which 
to me seems less likely than the story told by the Opuntians. 
But the Argives stick to their version of it. 



IOO ARGOS BK. II. CORINTH 



XX 

i. Passing over a statue of Creugas, a pugilist, and a trophy 
erected to commemorate a victory over the Corinthians, you come 
to a seated statue of Gracious Zeus, in white marble, a work of 
Polyclitus. I was told that it was made for the following reason. 
From the time that the Lacedaemonians first turned their arms 
against the Argives, there was no cessation of hostilities till 
Philip, the son of Amyntas, compelled them to stay within their 
original boundaries. Before that time, if the Lacedaemonians were 
not meddling outside Peloponnese, they were sure to be encroaching 
on the Argive territory ; and on the other hand, when the Lacedae- 
monians were occupied with a foreign war, it was the turn of the 

2 Argives to retaliate on them. When feeling on both sides ran very 
high, the Argives resolved to maintain a regiment of a thousand 
picked men. The commander of the regiment was one Bryas of 
Argos. Among other acts of oppression committed by him on the 
people, this man violated a girl whom he had torn from the arms 
of her friends as they were escorting her to the house of the bride- 
groom. When night fell the girl waited till Bryas was asleep, and 
then put out his eyes. At daybreak, being discovered, she threw 
herself on the protection of the people. The people refused to give 
her up to the vengeance of the soldiery. A fight ensued, the 
popular party were victorious, and in their fury they left not a man 
of their enemies alive. Afterwards they took various steps to cleanse 
themselves from the stain of tribal blood : among others, they set 
up an image of Gracious Zeus. 

3 2. Hard by is a relief cut in stone : it represents Cleobis and 
Biton drawing the wagon with their mother on it to the sanctuary 
of Hera. 3. Opposite to it there is a sanctuary of Nemean Zeus : the 
bronze image of the god, who is represented standing, is a work 
of Lysippus. Beyond it we come to the grave of Phoroneus on 
the right. Down to the present day they still sacrifice to Phoroneus 
as to a hero. Over against the sanctuary of Nemean Zus is a 
temple of Fortune. It must be very old if it be true that in this 
temple Palamedes dedicated the dice which he had invented. 

4 The neighbouring tomb they name the tomb of Chorea the 
Bacchanal. They say she was one of the women who marched with 
Dionysus to Argos, and that Perseus, being victorious in the battle, 
put most of the women to the sword. The others were buried in 
a common grave ; but in consideration of her higher rank they 
made a separate tomb for Chorea. 4. At a little distance is a 
sanctuary of the Seasons. 

5 Returning from it you perceive a statue of Polynices, son of 
Oedipus, and statues of all the captains who perished with him in 



ch. xx ARGOS 101 

the assault on Thebes. Their number is reduced by Aeschylus to 
seven, but more than seven leaders marched from Argos and 
Messene, not to speak of some Arcadians. Near these seven (for 
the Argives also have adopted Aeschylus' account) are statues of 
the men who captured Thebes. They were Aegialeus, son of 
Adrastus ; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus, son of Talaus ; Poly- 
dorus, son of Hippomedon ; Thersander ; the two sons of Amphi- 
araus, Alcmaeon and Amphilochus ; and Diomede and Sthenelus. 
Besides these there were present at the siege Euryalus, son of 
Mecisteus, and Adrastus and Timeas, sons of Polynices. Not far 6 
from the statues is shown the tomb of Danaus and a cenotaph of 
the Argives who met their death at Ilium or on the journey home. 
5. Here, too, is a sanctuary of Saviour Zeus. Passing it we come 
to a building where the Argive women bewail Adonis. On the 
right of the entrance is a sanctuary of Cephisus. They say that 
the water of this river was not utterly dried up by Poseidon, but 
just on the spot where the sanctuary stands they hear it flowing 
underground. Beside the sanctuary of Cephisus is a head of 7 
Medusa made of stone : they say that it too is a work of the 
Cyclopes. The place behind is still named the Judgment Place, 
because they say Hypermnestra was here brought to judgment 
by Danaus. 6. Not far from it is a theatre : among other things 
worth seeing it contains the statue of one man killing another ; 
the slayer is the Argive Perilaus, son of Alcenor ; the slain man is 
the Spartan Othryadas. Perilaus had previously won a prize for 
wrestling at the Nemean games. 

7. Above the theatre is a sanctuary of Aphrodite, and in front 8 
of the image of the goddess stands a relief representing Telesilla, 
the song-writer : her books are lying at her feet, and she is looking 
at a helmet which she holds in her hand and is about to put on her 
head. Telesilla was distinguished as a woman, and still more as 
a poetess. The Lacedaemonians, under Cleomenes, son of Anax- 
andrides, had inflicted a dreadful defeat on the Argives. Of the 
latter, some fell in the battle, others escaped to the grove of Argos, 
but only to perish miserably. For those who at first came out and 
surrendered were instantly despatched ; and the rest, discovering 
the snare, were burned to death in the grove. Thus when Cleo- 
menes led the Lacedaemonians against Argos, the city was denuded 
of its fighting men. 8. But Telesilla took the slaves, and the males 9 
who were too old or too young to bear arms, and mounted all of 
them on the wall. Then she gathered all the weapons that were 
left in the houses, or preserved in the sanctuaries, and with these 
she armed all the women who were in the prime of life, and drew 
them up in array at the point where she knew the enemy would 
approach. The Lacedaemonians came on ; and the women, un- 
dismayed by their cheering, stood their ground and fought stoutly. 



102 



ARGOS BK. II. CORINTH 



Then the Lacedaemonians, reflecting that victory, purchased by the 
slaughter of the women, would be odious and defeat disgraceful, 
10 gave ground and left the women in possession of the field. This 
battle was foretold by the Pythian priestess in an oracle which 
Herodotus has recorded, whether he understood it or not : 

But when the female conquers the male 

And drives him away, and wins glory among the Argives, 

Then will she cause many Argive women to scratch both their cheeks. 

These were the words of the oracle which referred to the battle of 
the women. 

XXI 

i. Having descended thence and turned again towards the 
market-place, we come to the tomb of Cerdo, wife of Phoroneus, and 
to a temple of Aesculapius. The sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed 
Persuasion, was also dedicated by Hypermnestra, after her acquittal 
at the trial to which she had been brought by her father on account 
of Lynceus. 2. Here, too, is a bronze statue of Aeneas, and a 
place called Delta. The explanation given of the name did not 

2 satisfy me, so I omit it. In front of it is an altar of Zeus, God of 
Flight, and near it is the tomb of Hypermnestra, mother of 
Amphiaraus. The other tomb is that of Hypermnestra, daughter of 
Danaus ; and Lynceus is buried with her. Opposite these is the 
grave of Talaus, son of Bias. I have already told the story of Bias 

3 and his descendants. 3. The sanctuary of Trumpet Athena is said 
to have been founded by Hegeleos. They say that this Hegeleos 
was a son of Tyrsenus, that Tyrsenus was a son of Hercules by 
the Lydian woman, that Tyrsenus invented the trumpet, that his 
son Hegeleos taught the Dorians who accompanied Temenus how 
to play on the instrument, and that therefore he gave Athena the 
surname of Trumpet. 4. They say that in front of the temple of 
Athena is the grave of Epimenides. The Argive story is that the 
Lacedaemonians, in a war with the Cnosians, took Epimenides 
prisoner, but put him to death because he did not prophesy good 
luck to them ; and the Argives (according to their own account) 

4 removed his body and buried him here. 5. The building of white 
marble, situated just at the middle of the market-place, is not a 
trophy of the victory over Pyrrhus the Epirot, as the Argives say : 
his corpse was burned here, and this you will find is his monument, 
on which are sculptured in relief the elephants and everything that 
Pyrrhus used in battle. This building was erected where the pyre 
stood, but the bones of Pyrrhus are deposited in the sanctuary of 
Demeter, beside which, as I have shown in my account of Attica, 
his death took place. At the entrance to this sanctuary of Demeter 



chs. xx-xxi ARGOS 103 

you may see the bronze shield of Pyrrhus hanging up over the 
door. 

6. Not far from the building in the market-place of Argos is a 5 
mound of earth : they say that in it lies the head of the Gorgon 
Medusa. If we leave out the mythical element, the story told of 
her is this : she was a daughter of Phorcus, and when her father 
died she reigned over the people who dwell round about the Lake 
Tritonis. She used to go out hunting, and she led the Libyans to 
battle. But being encamped with her army over against the host of 
Perseus, who was accompanied by picked troops from Peloponnese, 
she was assassinated by night, and Perseus, admiring her beauty even in 
death, cut off her head and brought it to show to the Greeks. 7. But 6 
a Carthaginian named Procles, the son of Eucrates, thought that the 
following account was more plausible. The desert of Libya contains 
wild beasts, such as a man would not believe in if he were told of 
them ; and amongst these monsters are wild men and wild women. 
Procles said that he had seen one of these men who had been 
brought to Rome. He conjectured, therefore, that one of these 
women had wandered to the Lake Tritonis, and there harried the 
people of the neighbourhood till Perseus slew her ; and because the 
people who dwell round about the Lake Tritonis are sacred to Athena, 
it was supposed that the goddess had aided him in his exploit. 

8. In Argos beside this monument of the Gorgon is the grave 7 
of Gorgophone (' Gorgon-slaying '), daughter of Perseus. The reason 
why the name was given her is manifest as soon as it is mentioned. 
They say that she was the first woman who married a second time ; 
for on the decease of her husband Perieres, son of Aeolus, to whom 
she had been married as a maid, she wedded Oebalus. But before 
that time it had been the custom for women to remain single after 
their husbands' death. 9. In front of this grave is a trophy of 8 
stone, erected to commemorate a triumph over Laphaes an Argive. 
He was a tyrant (I give the Argives' own account), and the people 
rose up and expelled him. He fled to Sparta, and the Lacedae- 
monians tried to restore him to power. But in the battle the 
Argives were victorious, and put the tyrant and most of the Lacedae- 
monians to the edge of the sword. 10. The sanctuary of Latona is 
not far from the trophy : the image is a work of Praxiteles. The 9 
statue of the virgin beside the goddess is named Chloris ('the pale 
woman '). They say she was a daughter of Niobe, and that her 
original name was Meliboea. When the children of Amphion were 
slain by Apollo and Artemis, she and her brother Amyclas alone 
were spared of all the brothers and sisters, because they had prayed 
to Latona. But Meliboea grew so pale with fear at the moment, 
and continued so pale for the rest of her life, that her name was 
accordingly changed from Meliboea to Chloris. The Argives say 
that the temple of Latona was originally built by the brother and 



104 ARGOS BK. II. CORINTH 

sister. But I prefer to follow Homer, and to suppose that none 
of the children of Niobe were left alive. In this I am borne out by 
the verse : 

But they, though they were but twain, destroyed them all. 

Thus Homer knew that the house of Amphion was destroyed root 
and branch. 

XXII 

i. The temple of Flowery Hera is on the right of the sanctuary 
of Latona, and in front of it is a grave of women. These women 
fell in the battle against the Argives under Perseus. They formed 
part of the host which Dionysus led thither from the islands of the 
Aegean ; therefore the Argives surname them the Sea-Women. 
2. Opposite the tomb of the women is a sanctuary of Demeter, 
who is surnamed Pelasgian after the founder of the sanctuary, 
Pelasgus, son of Triopas. The grave of Pelasgus is not far from 

2 the sanctuary. Over against the grave is a bronze vessel of no 
great size : it supports ancient images of Artemis, Zeus, and 
Athena. 3. Lyceas in his poem says that it is the image of 
Zeus the Contriver, and that the Argives who went to the 
Trojan war swore here to continue the war till they should either 
take Ilium or fall sword in hand. 4. Others have stated that in 

3 the bronze vessel are deposited the bones of Tantalus. Now that 
the Tantalus, who was son to Thyestes or to Broteas (for some say 
one, some the other), and who was the husband of Clytaemnestra 
before she married Agamemnon, was buried here, I am not prepared 
co dispute. But as for the Tantalus who is said to have been the 
son of Zeus and Pluto, I know that his grave is on Mount Sipylus, 
for I have seen it there, and well worth seeing it is. Besides, 
Tantalus was never reduced to flee from Sipylus, as Pelops after- 
wards was, when Ilus the Phrygian led a host against him. But 
enough of this disquisition. They say that the ceremony observed 
at the neighbouring pit was instituted by one Nicostratns, a native, 
and they still throw burning torches into the pit in honour of the 

4 Maid, Demeter's daughter. 5. Here is a sanctuary of Poseidon, 
surnamed the God of the Dashing Wave. For they say that 
Poseidon flooded most of the country, because Inachus and his 
assessors decided that the land was Hera's and not his. Hera 
prevailed on Poseidon to let the sea retire, and on the spot from 
which the wave retreated the Argives made a sanctuary to Poseidon 
of the Dashing Wave. 

5 6. A little farther on is the grave of Argus, who is reputed to 
be a son of Zeus and Niobe, daughter of Phoroneus. Next is a 
temple of the Dioscuri, containing images of the Dioscuri and their 
children, Anaxis and Mnasinus, together with images of their 
mothers, Hilaira and Phoebe. The images are by Dipoenus and 



chs. xxi-xxiii ARGOS 105 

Scyllis, and are made of ebony : the horses are also mostly of 
ebony, with a few pieces of ivory. 7. Near the sanctuary of the 6 
Lords is a sanctuary of Ilithyia. It was dedicated by Helen 
when she was being taken to Lacedaemon, after Aphidna had 
been captured by the Dioscuri in the absence of Theseus, who 
had gone off with Pirithous to Thesprotis. For they say that 
she was with child at the time, and that she was brought to 
bed in Argos and founded the sanctuary of Ilithyia. The girl 
of whom she was delivered she gave to Clytaemnestra, who was 
by this time the wife of Agamemnon. Helen herself afterwards 
married Menelaus. In reference to this episode, the poets Eupho- 7 
rion the Chalcidian and Alexander the Pleuronian, as well as 
Stesichorus the Himeraean before them, agree with the Argives in 
representing Iphigenia as the daughter of Theseus. 8. Over against 
the sanctuary of Ilithyia is a temple of Hecate : the image is a 
work of Scopas, and is of stone. The other images of Hecate 
which face it are of bronze : one of them is by Polyclitus, the other 
by his brother Naucydes, son of Mothon. 

Following a straight street which leads to the gymnasium named 8 
Cylarabis after the son of Sthenelus, we come to the grave of 
Licymnius, son of Electryon : Homer says that he was killed by 
Tleptolemus, son of Hercules ; and on account of this murder 
Tleptolemus fled from Argos. 9. A little aside from the street 
that leads to Cylarabis and to the adjoining gate, is the tomb of 
Sacadas, the first who played the Pythian tune on the flute at 
Delphi. It is thought that the dislike of flute-players which Apollo 9 
had entertained ever since his contest with the Silenus Marsyas was 
relinquished for the sake of this Sacadas. 10. In the gymnasium 
of Cylarabes is an image of Capanean Athena, and they point out 
the graves of Sthenelus and of Cylarabes himself. Not far from the 
gymnasium the Argives who sailed with the Athenians to conquer 
Syracuse and Sicily are buried in one common grave. 

XXIII 

1. Going from here along <Hollow> Street, as it is called, we 
have on the right a temple of Dionysus : they say that the image 
came from Euboea. For when the Greeks, returning from Ilium, 
were shipwrecked at Caphereus, those of the Argives who contrived 
to escape to land were distressed by cold and hunger. So they 
prayed that one of the gods would save them in their present strait ; 
and straightway as they went forward they spied a cave of Dionysus, 
and in the cave was an image of the god and some wild goats, which 
had sought shelter there from the storm. These the Argives 
killed and ate, and used their skins as garments. And when the 
storm was over, and they had refitted their ships and were sailing 



106 ARGOS BK. II. CORINTH 

for home, they took with them the wooden image from the cave ; 

2 and they worship it to this day. 2. Close to the temple of 
Dionysus you will see the house of Adrastus, and a little way from 
it is a sanctuary of Amphiaraus. Over against the sanctuary is the 
tomb of Eriphyle. Next after these is a precinct of Aesculapius, 
and beyond it a sanctuary of Baton. Baton was, like Amphiaraus, 
of the race of the Melampodids, and when Amphiaraus went forth 
to battle Baton used to drive his chariot. So when, after the rout 
under the walls of Thebes, the earth yawned and swallowed 
Amphiaraus and his chariot, Baton disappeared along with him. 

3 3. Returning from Hollow Street you come to what they say is 
the grave of Hymetho. Now if they admit the sepulchre is empty, 
and is merely a monument to her memory, that is like enough ; but 
if they think the body of Hyrnetho lies here, I for one do not 
believe them. But any one who does not know about Epidaurus 

4 may believe them if he likes. 4. The most famous sanctuary of 
Aesculapius in Argos contains at the present day a seated image of 
Aesculapius in white marble. Beside the god stands Health, and 
there are seated figures of Xenophilus and Strato, the sculptors 
who made the images. The sanctuary was originally founded by 
Sphyrus, son of Machaon and brother of that Alexanor who is 
revered by the Sicyonians at Titane. 

5 5. Like the Athenians and Sicyonians, the Argives worship 
Pheraean Artemis, and like them they say that her image was 
brought from Pherae in Thessaly. But I cannot agree with the 
Argives when they assert that the tomb of Dejanira, daughter of 
Oneus, is in Argos, also the tomb of Helenus, son of Priam, and 
that they have the image of Athena, which was carried away from 
Ilium, and the loss of which caused the city to be taken. For the 
Palladium, as the image is called, was notoriously taken to Italy 
by Aeneas ; and we know that Dejanira died near Trachis, and not at 
Argos, and her grave is near Heraclea, at the fool of Mount Oeta. 

6 6. As to Helenus, son of Priam, I have already shown that he 
went with Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, to Epirus ; that he married 
Andromache, and acted as guardian to the children of Pyrrhus ; and 
that the district of Cestrine got its name from his son Cestrinus. 
The Argive guides themselves are aware that not all the stories they 
tell are true ; yet they stick to them, for it is not easy to persuade 
the vulgar to change their opinions. 

7 7. There are other things worth seeing at Argos ; for instance, 
an underground structure, over which was the brazen chamber which 
Acrisius made to imprison his daughter in. But when Perilaus 
made himself tyrant he pulled it down. Besides this structure 
there is the tomb of Crotopus and a temple of Cretan Dionysus. 
8. For they say that, after warring with Perseus, the god laid aside 
his enmity, and was greatly honoured by the Argives, who gave him, 



chs. xxiii-xxiv LARISA 107 

amongst other marks of respect, this special precinct for himself. 
The epithet Cretan was added afterwards, because, when Ariadne 8 
died, Dionysus buried her here. Lyceas says that when the temple 
was being rebuilt they found an earthenware coffin, and that it was 
the coffin of Ariadne. He said he saw it himself, and that other 
Argives saw it also. Near the temple of Dionysus is a temple of 
Heavenly Aphrodite. 

XXIV 

1. They call the acropolis Larisa after the daughter of Pelasgus, 
who gave her name also to two cities of Thessaly, one situated 
beside the sea, and the other on the river Peneus. On the way 
up to the acropolis is the sanctuary of Hera of the Height ; also 
a temple of Apollo, said to have been first built by Pythaeus, 
who came from Delphi. The present image is a standing figure 
of bronze called Apollo Diradiotes, because the place also is 
called Diras. His mode of giving oracles for he gives oracles 
to this day is this. A woman, who is debarred from intercourse 
with the other sex, acts as his mouthpiece. Every month a lamb is 
sacrificed by night, and the woman tastes of the blood, and becomes 
possessed by the god. 2. Adjoining the temple of Apollo Diradiotes 2 
is a sanctuary of Sharp-sighted Athena, as they call her. It was 
dedicated by Diomede, because once when he was fighting at Ilium 
the goddess lifted the darkness from his eyes. Adjoining the temple of 
Apollo is also the stadium in which they celebrate the games in 
honour of Nemean Zeus and the games of Hera. 3. As we enter 
the acropolis there is on the left of the road another tomb of the 
sons of Aegyptus. Their heads are here, but the headless trunks 
are at Lerna. For the youths were butchered at Lerna, and -their 
heads were cut off by their wives to show their father that the deed 
was done. 4. On the summit of Larisa is a temple of Larisian Zeus. 3 
The roof is gone, and the image, which is made of wood, no longer 
stands on its pedestal. There is also a temple of Athena which is 
worth seeing. 5. Amongst the votive offerings which it contains is 
a wooden image of Zeus with two eyes in the usual place, and a 
third eye on the forehead. They say that this Zeus was the 
paternal god of Priam, son of Laomedon, and stood in the court- 
yard under the open sky ; and when Ilium was taken by the Greeks, 
Priam fled for refuge to this god's altar. In the division of the spoil 
Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, got this image, and that is why it stands 
here. The reason why it has three eyes may be conjectured to be 4 
the following. All men agree that Zeus reigns in heaven, and there 
is a verse of Homer which gives the name of Zeus also to the god 
who is said to bear rule under the earth : 

Both underground Zeus and august Proserpine. 



108 CENCHREAE OENOE bk. ii. corinth 

Further, Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, applies the name of Zeus 
also to the god who dwells in the sea. So the artist, whoever he 
was, represented Zeus with three eyes, because it is one and the 
same Zeus who reigns in all the three realms of nature, as they are 
called. 

5 6. Of the roads which lead from Argos to various parts of 
Peloponnese, one goes to Tegea in Arcadia. On the right of the 
road is Mount Lycone, wooded chiefly with cypresses. On the top of 
the mountain is built a sanctuary of Artemis of the Steep (Artemis 
Orthia), and there are images of Apollo, Latona, and Artemis made 
of white marble : they are said to be works of Polyclitus. Having 
descended from the mountain we see on the left of the hitrh road a 

6 temple of Artemis. 7. A little farther on, to the right of the road, 
is a mountain named Chaon. Cultivated trees grow at the foot of 
it, and here the water of the Erasinus comes to the surface. Up to 
this point it flows underground from Stymphalus in Arcadia, just 
as the Rhiti, near the sea at Eleusis, flow from the Euripus. Where 
the Erasinus gushes in several streams from the mountain they sacrifice 
to Dionysus and Pan, and in honour of the former they hold a festival 

7 called Tyrbe. 8. Having returned to the road to Tegea we see 
Cenchreae on the right of what is called the Wheel. How Cenchreae 
got its name they do not say ; but perhaps it too was named after 
Cenchreus, son of Pirene. The Argives who defeated the Lace- 
daemonians at Hysiae are buried at Cenchreae, each grave being 
shared by many men. I found that the combat took place when 
Pisistratus was archon at Athens, in the fourth year of the . . . 
Olympiad in which Eurybotus, the Athenian, won the foot-race. 
Having descended into the lower ground you reach the ruins of 
Hysiae, once a city of Argolis. It was here, they say, that the 
Lacedaemonian defeat occurred. 



XXV 

1. The road from Argos to Mantinea is not the same as that to 
Tegea, for it starts from the Diras gate. On this road there is a 
double sanctuary, with one entrance on the west and another on the 
east. In the eastern sanctuary there is a wooden image of 
Aphrodite : in the western sanctuary there is a wooden image of 
Ares. They say that the images were dedicated by Polynices and 
2 the Argives who took the field in his cause. 2. Going on from 
here and crossing a torrent called Charadrus, we come to Oenoe, so 
named, the Argives say, from Oeneus. They say that Oeneus, king 
of Aetolia, was dethroned by the sons of Agrius, and came to 
Diomede at Argos. Diomede marched into Calydonia on behalf 
of the banished king, but told him that it was not in his power to 



chs. xxiv-xxv LYRCEA ORNEAE 109 

stay with him there. He therefore invited the king to return with 
him, if he chose, to Argos. The invitation was accepted, and hence- 
forth Diomede paid him all the attentions which were due to his 
father's father; and when he died he buried him here. So the 
Argives call the place Oenoe. 3. Above Oenoe is Mount Artemi- 3 
sius, and there is a sanctuary of Artemis on the top of the moun- 
tain. In this mountain are also the springs of the Inachus ; for it 
really has springs though its water does not run far. There was 
nothing else worth seeing here. 

4. Another road leads from the Diras gate to Lyrcea. It was 4 
to Lyrcea that Lynceus is said to have escaped alone of all the fifty 
brothers ; and when he got there safe he lit a beacon-fire. For it 
had been agreed between him and Hypermnestra that he should 
light the beacon if he escaped Danaus and reached some place of 
safety. They say that she kindled another beacon on Larisa, to 
show that she also was now out of danger. Therefore the Argives 
annually celebrate a festival of beacon-fires. The place was then 5 
called Lyncea ; but because Lyrcus, a bastard son of Abas, after- 
wards dwelt there, it took its name from him. Among the ruins there 
is a likeness of Lyrcus on a monument, as well as some other 
insignificant remains. From Argos to Lyrcea is just about sixty 
furlongs, and it is as many from Lyrcea to Orneae. 5. Homer does 
not mention the city of Lyrcea in the Catalogue, because it already 
lay desolate at the time of the Greek expedition against Ilium. 
But Orneae was still inhabited, and Homer mentions it in its geo- 
graphical order before Phlius and Sicyon. The place was named after 6 
Omeus, son of Erechtheus. Orneus had a son Peteos, who had a 
son Menestheus, who with a body of Athenians helped Agamemnon 
to conquer the realm of Priam. Thus the city got its name from 
Orneus ; but the inhabitants were afterwards removed by the Argives 
and settled in Argos. In Orneae there is a sanctuary of Artemis 
with a standing image of wood, and there is another temple dedi- 
cated to all the gods in common. Beyond Orneae are the territories 
of Sicyon and Phlius. 

6. On the way from Argos to Epidauria there is a structure on 7 
the right which much resembles a pyramid : on it are sculptured in 
relief shields of the Argolic shape. Here the fight for the kingdom 
took place between Proetus and Acrisius. They say that the battle 
was drawn, and that afterwards the combatants came to terms, 
neither being able to get decidedly the better. They say, too, that 
this was the first battle in which generals and common soldiers alike 
were all armed with shields ; and as those who fell on both sides 
were fellow-citizens and kinsmen, a common tomb was made for 
them here. 

7. Going on from here and turning off to the right, we reach 8 
the ruins of Tiryns. Like Orneae, Tiryns was depopulated by the 



no TIRYNSMIDEA bk. ii. corinth 

Argives, who desired to swell their own capital by adding to it the 
population of Tiryns. They say that the hero Tiryns, from whom 
the city got its name, was a son of Argus, who was a son of Zeus. 
Nothing is left of the ruins of Tiryns except the wall, which is a 
work of the Cyclopes, and is made of unwrought stones, each stone 
so large that a pair of mules could not even stir the smallest of them. 
In ancient times small stones have been fitted in so as to bind 
together the large stones. 

9 8. Having descended in the direction of the sea we come to 
the chambers of the daughters of Proetus. We now return to the 
high road and come to Midea on the left. They say that Electryon, 
father of Alcmena, reigned in Midea. But in my time there was 

10 nothing of Midea left except the foundation. 9. On the straight 
road to Epidaurus is a village Lessa, containing a temple of 
Athena, with a wooden image exactly like the one on Larisa, the 
acropolis of Argos. Above Lessa is Mount Arachnaeus, which 
long ago, in the days of Inachus, got the name of Sapyselaton. On 
the mountain there are altars of Zeus and Hera ; and when rain is 
needed they sacrifice to them here. 



XXVI 

1. At Lessa are the frontiers of Argolis and Epidauria ; but 
before reaching the city of Epidaurus you will come to the sanctuary 
of Aesculapius. 2. Who dwelt in the country before Epidaurus 
came to it, I know not. The natives could not even inform me 
who were the descendants of Epidaurus. They say,- however, that the 
last king who reigned over them before the Dorians came into 
Peloponnese was Pityreus, a descendant of Ion the son of Xuthus. 

2 He, they say, surrendered the land to Deiphor.ces and the Argives 
without striking a blow, and retired with his people to Athens, where 
he settled, while Deiphontes and the Argives took possession of 
Epidauria. The latter had separated from the rest of the Argives 
after the death of Temenus, because Deiphontes and Hyrnetho hated 
the sons of Temenus, and their army was more attached to them 
than to Cisus and his brothers. 3. Epidaurus, from whom the 
country got its name, was a son of Pelops, according to the Eleans ; 
but according to the Argives and the epic called the Great Eoeae 
the father of Epidaurus was Argos, the son of Zeus. But the Epi- 
daurians father Epidaurus upon Apollo. 

3 4. The country is sacred in a very high degree to Aesculapius, and 
this is how it is said to have come about. The Epidaurians say that 
Phlegyas came to Peloponnese nominally to view the land, but really to 
spy out the number of the people and see whether they were a fighting 
race. For Phlegyas was the greatest warrior of the age and made forays 






chs. xxv-xxvi AESCULAPIUS AT EPIDAURUS in 

in all directions, carrying off the crops and driving away the cattle. 
When he came to Peloponnese his daughter came with him ; and 4 
she, all unknown to her father, was with child by Apollo. In the land 
of Epidaurus she was delivered of a male child, whom she exposed 
upon the mountain which is named Titthium (' nipple ') in our day, 
but then it was called Myrgium. But one of the goats that browsed 
on the mountain gave suck to the forsaken babe ; and a dog, the 
guardian of the flock, watched over it. Now when Aresthanas for 5 
that was the name of the goatherd perceived that the tale of the 
goats was not full, and that the dog too kept away from the flock, 
he went up and down, they say, looking everywhere. At last he 
found the babe and was fain to take it up in his arms. But as he 
drew near he saw a bright light shining from the child. So he 
turned away, ' For surely,' thought he, ' the hand of God is in 
this,' as indeed it was. And soon the fame of the child went 
abroad over every land and sea, how that he had all power to heal 
the sick and that he raised the dead. 

5. Another story told of him is this : "While he was still in the 6 
womb of his mother Coronis, she admitted Tschys, son of Elatus, to 
her arms ; and Artemis avenged the insult offered to Apollo by 
slaying her. The pyre was already lighted when Hermes, they say, 
snatched the infant from the flames. 

6. The third story, which represents Aesculapius as the son of 7 
Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus, is to my mind the most unlikely of 
them all. For when Apollophanes, the Arcadian, came to Delphi 
and inquired of the god whether Aesculapius was the son of Arsinoe 
and therefore a Messenian, the Pythian priestess gave answer : 

O born to be the world's great joy, Aesculapius, 

Offspring of love, whom Phlegyas' daughter, fair Coronis, bore to me 

In rugged Epidaurus. 

This oracle is the best proof that Aesculapius was not the son of 
Arsinoe, but that Hesiod or some interpolator of Hesiod composed 
the verses to please the Messenians. 

7. Another proof that the god was born in Epidaurus is this : 8 
I find that his most famous sanctuaries are offshoots from the one 
at Epidaurus. For instance, the Athenians professedly assign to 
Aesculapius a share in the mysteries, and give to the day on which 
they do so the name of Epidauria ; and they date their worship of 
Aesculapius as a god from the time when this practice was instituted. 
Again, the worship of Aesculapius was introduced into Pergamus by 
Archias, son of Aristaechmus, because, hunting on Pindasus, he had 
strained a limb and had been healed of the strain in Epidauria. 9 
And in our time the sanctuary of Aesculapius beside the sea at 
Smyrna was founded from the one at Pergamus. Again, at Balagrae 
in the land of Cyrene, Aesculapius is worshipped under the title of 



ii2 GROVE OF AESCULAPIUS bk. ii. corinth 

Physician, and this worship also came from Epidaurus. And from 
this Cyrenian sanctuary, again, is derived the one at Lebene in Crete. 
The Cyrenians differ from the Epidaurians in this, that whereas the 
Cyrenians sacrifice goats, it is against the Epidaurian custom to do so. 
10 That Aesculapius was held to be a god from the first, and did not 
merely acquire this reputation in course of time, I find from various 
evidence, in particular from the words which Homer puts in the 
mouth of Agamemnon touching Machaon : 

Talthybius, hither call with speed Machaon, 
The mortal who is son to Aesculapius, 

which is as if he said, a man the son of a god. 

XXVII 

i. The sacred grove of Aesculapius is surrounded by mountains 
on every side. Within the enclosure no death or birth takes place : 
the same rule is observed in the island of Delos. The sacrifices, 
whether offered by a native or a foreigner, are consumed within the 

2 bounds. I know that the same thing is done at Titane. 2. The 
image of Aesculapius is half the size of the image of Olympian Zeus 
at Athens : it is of ivory and gold. An inscription sets forth that the 
sculptor was Thrasymedes, a Parian, son of Arignotus. The god is 
seated on a throne, grasping a staff in one hand, and holding the other 
over the head of the serpent : a dog crouches at his side. On the 
throne are carved in relief the deeds of Argive heroes : Bellerophon 
killing the Chimaera, and Perseus after he has cut off Medusa's 
head. Over against the temple is the place where the suppliants of 

3 the god sleep. 3. Near it is a round building of white marble : it 
is called the Rotunda (T/10/os), and is worth seeing. It contains a 
picture of Love by Pausias : the god has thrown away his bow and 
arrows, and has picked up a lyre instead. Here, too, is another 
painting by Pausias : it represents Drunkenness drinking out of a 
crystal goblet : in the picture you can see the crystal goblet and the 
woman's face through it. 

Tablets stood within the enclosure. There used to be more of 
them : in my time six were left. On these tablets are engraved 
the names of men and women who have been healed by Aesculapius, 
together with the disease from which each suffered, and the manner 

4 of the cure. The inscriptions are in the Doric dialect. 4. Apart 
from the others stands an ancient tablet with an inscription stating 
that Hippolytus dedicated twenty horses to the god. The people 
of Aricia tell a tale that agrees with the inscription on this tablet. 
They say that Hippolytus, done to death by the curses of Theseus, 
was raised from the dead by Aesculapius ; and that being come 
to life again, he refused to forgive his father, and disregarding his 



CHS. xxvi-xxviii GROVE OF AESCULAPIUS 113 

entreaties went away to Aricia in Italy. There he reigned, and 
there he consecrated to Artemis a precinct, where down to my time 
the priesthood of the goddess is the prize of victory in a single 
combat. The competition is not open to free men, but only to 
slaves who have run away from their masters. 

5. In the Epidaurian sanctuary there is a theatre which in my 5 
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 Poly- 
clitus ? For it was Polyclitus who made this theatre and the round 
building also. 

6. Within the grove is a temple of Artemis and an image of 
Epione ; also a sanctuary of Aphrodite and Themis ; and a stadium 
formed, like most Greek stadiums, by banks of earth ; also a water- 
basin worth seeing for its roof and decorations. 

7. The buildings erected in our time by the Roman senator 6 
Antoninus include a bath of Aesculapius and a sanctuary of the 
gods whom they name Bountiful. Further, he built a temple 
to Health, Aesculapius, and Apollo, the two last under the surname 
Egyptian. He also rebuilt a colonnade called the Colonnade of 
Cotys : the roof had fallen in, and the whole edifice was in ruins, 
having been built of unburnt brick. The Epidaurians who 
were engaged about the sanctuary suffered much hardship, because 
their women were not allowed to bring forth under shelter, and 
their sick were obliged to die under the open sky. To remedy the 
inconvenience Antoninus had a house built, where a man may die and 

a woman may lie in without sin. 8. Above the grove is Mount 7 
Titthium and another mountain named Cynortium. On the latter 
is a sanctuary of Maleatian Apollo. The sanctuary itself is ancient, 
but everything about it, including the cistern in which the rain-water 
is collected, is a gift of Antoninus to the Epidaurians. 

XXVIII 

1. The . . . serpents and another sort, of a somewhat yellower 
hue, are considered sacred to Aesculapius and are tame. They 
breed nowhere but in Epidauria. I observe that other countries 
have their characteristic fauna. For example, Libya alone produces 
land-crocodiles not less than two ells long. From India alone are 
brought parrots and other strange creatures. But the huge snakes, 
upwards of thirty ells long, such as are bred in India and Libya, 
are said by the Epidaurians not to be serpents, but a different 
species of animal. 

2. On the way up to Mount Coryphum there is beside the 2 
path an olive-tree called the Twisted Olive, because Hercules 

vol. 1 1 



H4 HYRNETHIUM bk. ii. corinth 

wrenched it with his hand into this shape. Whether he also 
set it to mark the boundary of Asine in Argolis, I cannot be 
sure ; for when a country has been depopulated it is no longer 
possible to ascertain the exact boundaries. On the top of the 
mountain is a sanctuary of Coryphaean Artemis, which is men- 

3 tioned in a song of Telesilla. On the way down to the city of 
Epidaurus there is a place where wild olives grow. They call 
the place Hyrnethium. 3. The story connected with it I will relate 
as the Epidaurians tell it and as it probably happened. Cisus 
and the other sons of Temenus knew that they could not wound 
Deiphontes more deeply than by parting him from Hyrnetho. So 
Cerynes and Phalces came to Epidaurus ; but the youngest brother 
Argaeus disapproved of the plot. Reining up their chariot under 
the city wall, they sent a herald to their sister under colour of desiring 

4 to speak with her. But when she came at their call, the young men 
fell to accusing Deiphontes of many things, and besought her 
earnestly to come back to Argos, promising her, among the rest, 
that they would wed her to a far better husband than Deiphontes, 
lord of a more numerous following and of wealthier lands. But 
stung by these words Hyrnetho spoke up to them. She said that 
Deiphontes was a dear husband to her and had been a blameless 
son-in-law to Temenus ; but as for them, if the truth were told, they 

5 were the murderers of Temenus rather than his sons. They 
answered never a word, but laid hold of her, and placing her in the 
chariot galloped away. But word came to Deiphontes that Cerynes 
and Phalces were carrying away Hyrnetho against her will. He 
hastened to the rescue ; and getting wind of it the Epidaurians joined 
in the hue and cry. Coming up with the fugitives Deiphontes shot 
Cerynes dead. But Phalces clung so tight to Hyrnetho that Deiphontes 
feared to shoot, lest he should miss him and kill her. So he grappled 
with him and strove to wrench him away. But Phalces held on, 
and in that iron grip his sister expired ; for she was with child. 

6 When he saw what he had done to his sister, he drove the chariot 
more furiously, to gain upon his pursuers before the whole country- 
side should gather on his track. But Deiphontes and his children 
for sons and a daughter had been born to him : the sons were 
Antimenes, Xanthippus, and Argeus ; the daughter was Orsobia : 
they say she afterwards married Pamphilus, the son of Aegimius 
took up Hyrnetho's dead body and bore it to the spot 

7 which was afterwards called Hyrnethium. And they made a shrine 
for her, and bestowed honours on her : in particular a rule was 
made that of the olives and all the trees that grew there, no man 
might take home with him the broken boughs, or use them for any 
purpose whatever ; but they leave the branches where they lie. 

8 because they are sacred to Hyrnetho. 4. Not far from the city 
is the tomb of Melissa, wife of Periander, son of Cypselus ; also 



chs. xxviii-xxix EPIDAURUS AEGINA 115 

the tomb of Procles, father of Melissa. Procles was tyrant of 
Epidaurus, just as his son-in-law Periander was tyrant of Corinth. 

XXIX 

1. In the city of Epidaurus the most noteworthy objects are 
the following. There is a precinct of Aesculapius with images 
of the god himself and Epione, who, they say, was his wife. These 
images are of Parian marble and stand under the open sky. There 
are temples in the city, one of Dionysus, and another of Artemis, in 
which the goddess appears to be represented hunting ; and there 
is a sanctuary of Aphrodite. The sanctuary near the harbour on 
the headland jutting out into the sea is said to belong to Hera. 
The image of Athena in the acropolis is of wood and is worth 
seeing : they surname it Cissaean. 

2. The Aeginetans inhabit the island opposite Epidauria. 2 
They say that at first it was uninhabited ; but when Zeus brought 
Aegina, daughter of Aesopus, to the desert island, the name of the 
island was changed from Oenone to Aegina. Being grown to man's 
estate, Aeacus asked Zeus for inhabitants ; so Zeus, they say, 
caused the people to spring up from the ground. They cannot 
tell of any king who reigned in the land except Aeacus, and even 
of his children not one is known to have abode in the island. 
Peleus and Telamon had to flee for the murder of Phocus, and the 
children of Phocus in their turn settled near Parnassus in the country 
that is now called Phocis. 3. The region had already received its 3 
name before they settled in it ; for Phocus, son of Ornytion, had 
gone there a generation before. But whereas in the time of Phocus 
it was only the district about Tithorea and Parnassus that was called 
Phocis, in the time of Aeacus the name was extended to the whole 
people, from the borders of the Minyae, in Orchomenus, to Scarphea 
in Locris. 4. From Peleus sprang the kings of Epirus. Telamon 4 
had two sons, Ajax and Teucer. Ajax remained in a private 
station, and was the ancestor of a less illustrious line, though two of 
its members rose to fame Miltiades, who led the Athenians at 
Marathon, and Cimon his son. But the house of Teucer were 
kings of Cyprus down to Evagoras. The epic poet Asius says that 
Phocus had two sons, Panopeus and Crisus. Panopeus had a son 
Epeus who, according to Homer, made the wooden horse ; and 
Crisus was the grandfather of Pylades. The father of Pylades was 
Strophius, son of Crisus : his mother was Anaxibia, sister of 
Agamemnon. Such are the families of the Aeacids as they are 
called. From the beginning they went forth to other lands. 
5. Afterwards some of those Argives, who under the command of 5 
Deiphontes had seized Epidaurus, crossed over to Aegina, and sett- 
ling amongst the old inhabitants established the Dorian customs 



Il6 AEGINA BK. II. CORINTH 

and language in the island. Aegina rose to such a pitch of power 
that her fleet was more than a match for that of Athens ; and in the 
Persian war she fitted out more vessels than any Greek state except 
Athens. But her prosperity was not permanent : the people were 
expelled by the Athenians, and settled at Thyrea in Argolis, which 
the Lacedaemonians bestowed on them. When tne Athenian fleet 
was captured at the Hellespont the exiles regained possession of the 
island, but they never attained to their former wealth or power. 

6 Of all the Greek islands Aegina is the most difficult of approach ; 
for sunken rocks and reefs rise all round it. They say that Aeacus 
contrived that it should be so, from fear of the inroads of pirates 
and to make it dangerous for a foe. 6. Near the harbour in which 
vessels mostly anchor is a temple of Aphrodite ; and in the most 
conspicuous part of the city is the Aeaceum, as it is called, a quad- 

7 rangular enclosure of white marble. At the entrance is a relief 
representing the envoys once sent by the Greeks to Aeacus. The 
cause of the embassy is explained by the Aeginetans, with who p 
every one else is in accord. A drought had for some time afflicte i 
Greece, and no rain fell on Peloponnese or on the rest of Greece, 
till they sent messengers to Delphi to inquire the cause and to beg 
for a riddance of the evil. The Pythian priestess told them to 
propitiate Zeus, and that, if their prayers were to be answered, Aeacus 

8 must be their intercessor. So from every city they sent men to 
petition Aeacus. And he by sacrifices and prayers to Panhellenian 
Zeus procured rain for Greece ; and the Aeginetans caused these 
likenesses to be made of the envoys who came to him. Within the 
enclosure grow ancient olives, and there is an altar that rises but 
little above the ground : it is told as a secret that this altar is the 

9 tomb of Aeacus. 7. Beside the Aeaceum is the grave of Phocus, 
consisting of a mound of earth surrounded by a basement and 
surmounted by a rough stone. When Telamon and Peleus 
challenged Phocus to a match at the pentathlum, and it came to 
the turn of Peleus to heave the stone (for they used a stone instead 
of a quoit), he threw and hit Phocus purposely. This they did to 
please their mother. For she was Endeis, daughter of Sciron, 
but Phocus was the son of a different mother, a sister of Thetis, 
if the Greeks say true. I believe it was as much to wipe out this 
old score as from friendship to Orestes that Pylades afterwards 

10 plotted the murder of Neoptolemus. So when Phocus was killed 
by the blow of the quoit, the sons of Endeis embarked on a 
ship and fled. Afterwards Telamon, by mouth of herald, denied 
that he had plotted the death of Phocus. However, Aeacus would 
not suffer him to set foot on the island, but bade him plead his 
defence from the deck of a ship, or, if he pleased, he might 
make a mole in the sea and plead from it. So he sailed into 
what is called the Secret Harbour, and set about making a mole by 



chs. xxix-xxx AEGINA 117 

night. The mole was completed and remains to our day. But 
being judged not guiltless of Phocus's death, he sailed away the 
second time to Salamis. 8. Not far from the Secret Harbour is a 1 1 
theatre that is worth seeing : in size and style it closely resembles 
the Epidaurian theatre. Behind the theatre is built one side of a 
stadium : it mutually supports and is supported by the theatre. 

XXX 

1. There are temples not far from each other, one of Apollo, 
one of Artemis, and the third of Dionysus. The image of Apollo is 
naked and made of wood ; it is of native workmanship : the image of 
Artemis is clothed, and so is that of Dionysus, who is represented 
with a beard. The sanctuary of Aesculapius is not here, but in 
another place : his image is a seated figure in stone. 2. Of all the 2 
gods the most honoured by the Aeginetans is Hecate. Every year 
they celebrate mysteries of Hecate which they affirm to have been 
instituted by Orpheus the Thracian. Within the enclosure is a 
temple. The wooden image is a work of Myron : it has one face 
and one body. Alcamenes, it seems to me, was the first who made 
three images of Hecate attached to each other. There is such 
a triple image of her at Athens : it stands beside the temple of 
the Wingless Victory, and the Athenians call it Hecate on the 
Tower. 

3. In Aegina, on the way to the mountain of Panhellenian Zeus, 3 
there is a sanctuary of Aphaea, about whom Pindar composed a 
song for the Aeginetans. The Cretans say (for her legend is 
native to Crete) that Carmanor, who purified Apollo for the slaughter 
of the python, had a son Eubulus, whose daughter Carme became 
the mother of Britomartis by Zeus. Britomartis delighted in running 
and hunting, and she was very dear to Artemis. But Minos fell in 
love with her, and she, flying from him, flung herself into some nets 
that were let down to catch fish. Artemis made her a goddess, 
and she is worshipped not only by the Cretans, but also by the 
Aeginetans, who say that Britomartis appears to them in their 
island. Her surname is Aphaea in Aegina, and Dictynna ('she 
of the nets ') in Crete. 4. There is nothing remarkable on Mount 4 
Panhellenius except the sanctuary of Zeus. They say that Aeacus 
made this sanctuary for Zeus. 5. But the story of Auxesia and Damia 
how no rain fell on the land of Epidaurus, how in obedience to an 
oracle the people caused these images to be made out of olive-wood 
which they got from the Athenians, how the Epidaurians left off paying 
the dues which they had covenanted to pay to Athens on the ground 
that the images were in possession of the Aeginetans, and how the 
Athenians who crossed over to Aegina to recover the images perished 
miserably all this has been accurately and circumstantially narrated 



u8 TROEZEN bk. ii. corinth 

by Herodotus, and I have no mind to tell over again what has been 
already told so well. I will only say that I saw the images and 
sacrificed to them according to the ritual observed in sacrificing at 
Eleusis. 

5 6. This account of Aegina may suffice : I have given it for the 
sake of Aeacus and his exploits. Epidauria is bordered by Troezeniaj 
the inhabitants of which are as much given to magnifying their 
native land as any people I know. They say that the first man 
born in the country was Orus. Now to me Orus looks like an 
Egyptian, not a Greek name. However that may be, they affirm 
that he reigned, and that the country was called Oraea after him. 
But, they continue, Althepus, son of Poseidon by Leis, daughter of 
Orus, succeeded Orus on the throne, and named the country Althepia. 

6 They say that in his reign Athena and Poseidon had a disnute 
for the possession of the land, but ended by holding it in comm ">n ; 
for such was the command of Zeus. So they worship Athena under 
the titles of Polias ('urban') and Sthenias ('strong'), and Poseidon 
under the title of King. Moreover, their ancient coins have for 

7 device a trident and a face of Athena. 7. Althepus was succeeded 
on the throne by Saron. They said that it was Saron who built the 
sanctuary to Saronian Artemis on the shore where the sea is so 
swampy and shallow that it was called the Phoebaean lagoon. Saron 
took the greatest delight in hunting, and one day it befell that he 
chased a doe which fled from him into the sea. He plunged in after 
it. The doe swam far from land, and Saron after it, till, transported 
by the ardour of the chase, he found himself in the open sea. 
Then his strength failed, the waves washed over him, and he was 
drowned. His body was cast ashore at the grove of Artemis on 
the Phoebaean lagoon : they buried it within the sacred enclosure ; 
and from that time the arm of the sea has been known as the Saronic, 

8 instead of the Phoebaean, lagoon. What kings reigned after him 
they do not know till you come to Hyperes and Anthas. These, they 
say, were sons of Poseidon and Alcyone, daughter of Atlas, and 
founded the cities of Hyperea and Anthea in the land. But 
Aetius, son of Anthas, having succeeded to the dominions both of 
his father and of his uncle, named one of the cities Posidonias. 8. 
When Troezen and Pittheus joined Aetius there were three kings 
instead of one, but the balance of power inclined to the sons of 

9 Pelops. A proof of it is this : when Troezen died, Pittheus united 
Hyperea and Anthea, and, gathering the people into the present city, 
named it Troezen after his brother. Many years afterwards the 
descendants of Aetius, son of Anthas, set out from Troezen to plant 
a colony, and founded Halicarnassus and Myndus in Caria. But 
Anaphlystus and Sphettus, the sons of Troezen, migrated to Attica, 
and the townships are named after them. The history of Theseus, 
the son of Pittheus' daughter, is too well known to be told here. 






chs. xxx-xxxi TROEZEN 119 

9. This much, however, it is necessary that I should add. After 10 
the return of the Heraclids, Troezen, like other places, received 
a colony of Dorians from Argos. Even before that event, however, 
Troezen had been subject to Argos : Homer in the Catalogue says 
that the Troezenians were commanded by Diomede. For Diomede 
and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, as guardians of the young 
Cyanippus, son of Aegialeus, led the Argives to Troy. But 
Sthenelus, as I showed before, came of a more illustrious house, 
being one of the Anaxorids, as they were called, and he had 
the best title to the kingdom of Argos. Such is the history of 
Troezen, omitting a list of the cities which claim to be its colonies. 
I will now describe the appointments of the sanctuaries and the 
other sights of Troezen. 

XXXI 

1. In the market-place of Troezen there is a temple with images 
of Saviour Artemis. The story was that Theseus founded the 
temple and named the goddess Saviour when he returned from Crete, 
after vanquishing Asterion, son of Minos. He esteemed this the 
most notable of his exploits, not so much, I think, because 
Asterion was braver than all the other men who met their death at 
his hand, as because 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. 2. In this temple there are altars of the gods 2 
who are said to bear sway underground. Hither, they say, Semele 
was brought from hell by Dionysus ; and hither Hercules dragged 
up the hound of hell. But I do not believe that Semele ever died, 
seeing that she was the wife of Zeus ; and as for the hound of hell, 
as they call it, I shall state my views of that animal in another place. 

3. Behind the temple is the tomb of Pittheus, whereon stand 3 
three chairs of white marble. They say that Pittheus and two 
men with him sat as judges on these chairs. 4. Not far off 
is a sanctuary of the Muses : they said it was made by Ardalus, 
son of Hephaestus. They think that this Ardalus invented the 
flute, and they call the Muses Ardalides after him. Here, they say, 
Pittheus gave lessons in the art of rhetoric. I have myself read a 
book, published by a man of Epidaurus, which purports to be a 
treatise by Pittheus. 5. Not far from the sanctuary of the Muses 
is an ancient altar, which is also said to have been dedicated by 
Ardalus. On this altar they sacrifice to the Muses and to Sleep, 
because, say they, Sleep is to the Muses the dearest god. 6. Near 4 
the theatre is a temple of Wolfish (Lukeia) Artemis, built by 
Hippolytus. Touching the surname I could learn nothing from the 



120 TROEZEN BK. II. CORINTH 

guides ; but it occurred to me that Hippolytus may have extirpated 
wolves which were ravaging Troezenia, or that this surname of 
Artemis may have been current among the Amazons, from whom he 
was descended on his mother's side. But there may very well be 
some other explanation which I do not know. 7. The stone in front 
of the temple, called the sacred stone, is said to be the stone on 
which nine men of Troezen once purified Orestes after the murder 

5 of his mother. 8. Not far from the temple of Wolfish Artemis are 
altars at no great intervals from each other. The first is the altar 
of Dionysus, called Saviour in obedience to an oracle. The second 
is named the altar of the Themides (' laws ') : Pittheus dedicated it, 
they say. The third is an altar to the Sun of Freedom ; and well 
might they set up such an altar after escaping the yoke of Xerxes 
and his Persians. 

6 9. The sanctuary of Thearian Apollo was built, they said, isy 
Pittheus, and it is the oldest sanctuary I know. The temple of 
Athena at Phocaea in Ionia, which was burned by Harpagus the 
Mede, is undoubtedly ancient, and so is the temple of Pythian 
Apollo at Samos ; but both were built long after the sanctuary at 
Troezen. The present image is an offering of Auliscus : the artist 
was Hermon, a native of Troezen. The wooden images of the 

7 Dioscuri are also by Hermon. 10. In a colonnade in the market- 
place are statues of women and children, all in stone. They repre- 
sent the women and children whom the Athenians entrusted for 
safe keeping to the Troezenians at the time when they had made up 
their minds to evacuate Athens and not to await the attack of the 
Persians on land. But it is said that they set up statues, not of all 
the women (for the statues are not numerous), but only of the ladies 

8 of high degree. 11. In front of the sanctuary of Apollo is a building 
called the booth of Orestes. For till he was purified of his mother's 
blood none of the Troezenians would receive him in his house ; but 
here they lodged and fed and purified him, till they had cleansed all 
his guilt away. And still the descendants of the men who purified 
him dine here on set days. They say that the things which were 
used in purifying him were buried a little way from the booth, and 
that from them a laurel sprang up, the very laurel which still stands 

9 in front of the booth. They say that amongst the things used in 
purifying Orestes was water from Hippocrene (' the Horse's Fount '). 
12. For the Troezenians have also a fountain called Hippocrene, 
and the legend told of it does not differ from the Boeotian legend. 
For the Troezenians also say that the horse Pegasus stamped on the 
ground with his hoof and the water gushed out : Bellerophon, they 
say, had come to Troezen to ask Aethra in marriage from Pittheus ; 
but before he could marry her, he was forced to flee from Corinth. 

10 13. There is a Hermes here called Polygius. They say that 
Hercules leaned his club against this image, and the club, which was of 



cus. xxxi-xxxii TROEZEN 121 

wild olive wood, struck root in the ground, if you please, and 
sprouted afresh, and the tree is still growing. According to them, 
Hercules cut the club from the wild olive-tree which he discovered 
beside the Saronic Sea. 14. There is also a sanctuary of Zeus 
surnamed Saviour : they say it was made by King Aetius, son of 
Anthas. There is a water which they name the Golden Stream. 
They say that after a drought of nine years in which no rain 
fell, all the other waters were dried up, but even then the Golden 
Stream flowed on the same as ever. 

XXXII 

1. A precinct of great renown is consecrated to Hippolytus, son 
of Theseus : it contains a temple and an ancient image. They 
say that these were made by Diomede, and that he was besides 
the first who sacrificed to Hippolytus. There is a priest of Hippo- 
lytus at Troezen who holds office for life, and there are annual 
sacrifices. Further, they observe the following custom : Every 
maiden before marriage shears a lock of her hair for Hippolytus, 
and takes the shorn lock and dedicates it in the temple. They 
will not allow that Hippolytus was killed by being dragged by his 
horses, and though they know his grave they do not show it. They 
think that the constellation called the Charioteer in the sky is 
Hippolytus, and that he receives this honour from the gods. 2. 
Within this enclosure is a temple of Seafaring Apollo : it was 
dedicated by Diomede after his escape from the storm which 
burst on the Greeks as they were sailing back from Ilium. And 
they say that Diomede was the first to celebrate the Pythian games in 
honour of Apollo. The Troezenians also honour Damia and Auxesia, 
but they do not tell the same story about them which the- Epi- 
daurians and Aeginetans tell. They say that Damia and Auxesia 
were maidens who came from Crete, and that in a faction fight, 
in which the whole city turned out to take part, these damsels 
were stoned to death by the opposite party. And they hold a 
festival in their honour, which they name the Stone-throwing. 
3. In the other part of the enclosure there is a stadium called 
the stadium of Hippolytus, and above it is a temple of Peeping 
Aphrodite ; for from this very spot the amorous Phaedra used to 
watch Hippolytus at his manly exercises. Here still grows the 
myrtle with the pierced leaves, as I told before. For being at 
her wit's end and finding no ease from the pangs of love, she used 
to wreak her fury on the leaves of this myrtle. Here, too, is . 
Phaedra's grave near the tomb of Hippolytus, which is a mound of 
earth not far from the myrtle-tree. The image of Aesculapius was 
made by Timotheus however, the Troezenians say that it is not 
Aesculapius, but a statue of Hippolytus. I saw, too, the 



122 TROEZEN BK. II. CORINTH 

house of Hippolytus. In front of it is a fountain called the foun- 
tain of Hercul'es, because Hercules, according to the Troezenians, 
discovered the water. 

5 4. In the acropolis there is a temple of Athena, who is called 
Sthenias ('strong'). The wooden image of the goddess was 
wrought by Callon of Aegina. Callon was a pupil of Tectaeus and 
Angelion, the artists who made the image of Apollo for the 
Delians, and who were themselves trained in the school of Dipoenus 

6 and Scyllis. 5. Descending from the acropolis, we come to a sanc- 
tuary of Pan the Deliverer. For once when the plague had ravaged 
Athens and crossed over into Troezenia, Pan revealed to the magis- 
trates in dreams a remedy for the plague. 6. There is also a temple 
of Isis, and above it a temple of Aphrodite of the Height. '."his 
latter temple was built here by the Halicarnassians because Troezen 
was their mother-city ; but the image of Isis was dedicated by the 
people of Troezen. 

7 7. On the road that leads through the mountains to Hermionis 
is a spring of the river Plyllicus, originally called the Taurius. 
There is also a rock named the rock of Theseus : it was formerly 
called the altar of Strong Zeus, but the name was changed 
after Theseus had picked up from under it the boots and sword of 
Aegeus. Near the rock is a sanctuary of Bridal Aphrodite, made 
by Theseus when he took Helen to wife. 

8 Outside the walls there is also a sanctuary of Poseidon the 
Nurturer. For they say that, being wroth with them, Poseidon 
blasted the country, by causing the salt water to reach the seeds 
and roots of plants ; till at last, softened by sacrifices and prayers, 
he no longer sent the salt water over the land. Above the temple 
of Poseidon is a temple of Demeter the Lawgiver : it was founded, 
they say, by Althepus. 

9 8. The harbour is at a place called Celenderis. On the way 
down to it we come to a place which they name Genethlium 
(' birthplace ') : they say Theseus was born there. In front of this 
place is a temple of Ares : it marks the scene of one of Theseus' 
victories over the Amazons. These Amazons were probably some of 
the host that fought against Theseus and the Athenians in Attica. 

10 On the road to the Psiphaean Sea there grows a wild olive named 
the Twisted Rhachos. Rhachos is the name given by the Troezenians 
to every species of olive that does not bear fruit, whether it be the 
kotinos, the fthulia, or the elaios. This particular rhachos they 
surname Twisted, because Hippolytus' chariot was upset through 
the reins getting entangled in the tree. Not far from it is the 
sanctuary of Saronian Artemis, the story of which I have already 
told. I will only add that every year they celebrate in her honour 
a festival called Saronia. 



chs. xxxii-xxxiii CALAURIA 123 



XXXIII 

1. Troezenia includes some islands. One of them is near the land, 
and you can wade out to it. It was formerly called Sphaeria, but got 
the name of the Sacred (Hiera) Isle for the following reason. In the 
isle is the tomb of Sphaerus, who is said to have been the charioteer 
of Pelops. Now Aethra, in obedience forsooth to a dream sent by 
Athena, crossed over to the island with libations for the dead man ; 
and in the island Poseidon, it is said, embraced her. Therefore she 
founded here a temple of Apaturian Athena, and changed the name 
of the island from Sphaeria to the Sacred Isle. She also made it a 
rule that before marriage the Troezenian maidens should dedicate 
their girdles to Apaturian Athena. 2. They say that in the olden 2 
days, when Delphi was sacred to Poseidon, Calauria was sacred to 
Apollo, and that the two gods exchanged the places. In proof of it 
they still quote an oracle : 

! Tis as q-ood to dwell at Delos and Calauria 
As at holy Pytho and windy Taenarum. 

3. However that may be, there is here a holy sanctuary of 
Poseidon ; and the service of the sanctuary is performed by a girl till 
she is old enough to wed. Within the enclosure is the tomb of 3 
Demosthenes. Never, I think, did fortune show her spiteful nature 
so plainly as in her treatment, first of Homer, and afterwards of 
Demosthenes. For Homer was first struck blind, and then, as if 
this great calamity were not enough, came pinching poverty, and 
drove him forth to wander the wide world a beggar. And Demos- 
thenes lived to taste of exile in his old age, and his end was violent. 
4. Abundant evidence has been produced by Demosthenes himself 
and by others to show that he never fingered a penny of the gold 
that Harpalus brought from Asia ; but here I will tell the sequel of 
the tale. When Harpalus fled from Athens he sailed to Crete, where 4 
he was murdered not long afterwards by the slaves who waited on him. 
But some say that he was assassinated by Pausanias, a Macedonian. 
The steward of his treasures fled to Rhodes, where he was arrested 
by Philoxenus, a Macedonian, who had demanded the surrender of 
Harpalus himself from the Athenians. Having this slave in his 
power, Philoxenus questioned him till he had fully ascertained who 
had received any of Harpalus' money. When he had informed 
himself of the facts, he sent letters to Athens. In these letters, 5 
though he gave a list of the men who had taken bribes from Harpalus, 
with the amount each had received, he did not so much as 
mention Demosthenes, though Demosthenes was bitterly hated by 
Alexander, and had given personal offence to himself. So honours 
are paid to Demosthenes by the inhabitants of Calauria and in other 
parts of Greece also. 



124 METHANA bk. ii. corinth 



XXXIV 

i. In Troezenia there is a peninsula which runs far out into the 
sea, and on the peninsula is built a little town, Methana, beside the sea. 
Here is a sanctuary of Isis ; and in the market-place there are two 
images, one of Hermes, the other of Hercules. 2. About thirty 
furlongs from the town are warm baths. They say that the water 
first made its appearance in the reign of Antigonus, son of Deme- 
trius, king of Macedonia, but that before the water appeared a great 
flame burst up from the ground, and when it had died down the 
water gushed forth. To this day the water still wells up hot and 
intensely salt. If you bathe in it you will find no cold water 
near, and it is not safe to take a plunge and a swim in the sea, 

2 for it swarms with sharks, not to speak of other sea beasts. 3. But 
what surprised me most at Methana was this. When the vines are 
budding, and a south-wester sweeps down on them from the Saronic 
Gulf, it blights the tender shoots. So, while the squall is still coming, 
two men take a cock, every feather of which must be white, rend it 
in two, and run round the vines in opposite directions, each carrying 
a half of the cock, and when they come back to the place from which 

3 they started they bury the pieces there. This is their device for 
counteracting a south-wester. 4. The islets, nine in number, which 
lie off the coast are called the Isles of Pelops, and there is one of 
them on which they say that no rain falls when it is raining every- 
where else. Whether this be so I know not, but the people at 
Methana said so, and I have seen folk before now trying to keep 
off hail by sacrifices and spells. 

4 5. Methana, then, is a peninsula of Peloponnese. Inside of it 
Troezenia is bounded by Hermionis. The Hermionians say that 
the founder of the ancient city was Hermion, son of Europs. 
Europs was a son of Phoroneus, but according to Herophanes, 
the Troezenian, he was a bastard ; for if Phoroneus had had a 
legitimate son the kingdom of Argos would never have devolved 

5 on his daughter's son, Argus, son of Niobe. But even supposing 
Europs was legitimate, and died before Phoroneus, sure am I that his 
son would not have ranked with Niobe's son, whose reputed father 
was Zeus. Afterwards the town of Hermion, like other places, 
received an influx of Dorian settlers from Argos. But there was no 
fighting, I take it, or the Argives would have told of it. 

6 6. There is a road from Troezen to Hermion by the rock 
which was formerly called the altar of Strong Zeus, but which the 
moderns have named the rock of Theseus ever since Theseus 
picked up the tokens there. Following a mountain road which runs 
by this rock we pass a temple of Apollo, surnamed Apollo of the 
Plane-tree Grove ; and a place I lei, in which there are sanctuaries 



ch. xxxiv , HERMION 125 

of Demeter and her daughter the Maid. Towards the sea on the 
borders of Hermionis there is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed 
Warmth. 7. Just eighty furlongs off is Cape Scyllaeum, called 7 
after the daughter of Niseus. For when Minos had taken Nisaea 
and Megara through her treason, he declared that never should 
she be his wife, and bade the Cretans pitch her overboard. The 
drowned woman was washed ashore by the waves on this cape. 
But no grave of her is shown ; for they say that the corpse 
was left to be mangled by the birds of the sea. 8. Sailing from 8 
Scyllaeum towards the capital you round another cape named 
Bucephala ('ox-head'), and after it there are islands. The first 
island is Haliussa (' salt island ') : it has a harbour where there is 
good anchorage for ships. The next is Pityussa (' pine-tree island '), 
and the third is that which they name Aristerae. Having sailed 
past these islands you come to another cape called Colyergia, running 
out from the mainland, and after it to an island called Tricrana 
('three-headed'), and to a mountain jutting out into the sea from 
Peloponnese. The mountain is Buporthmus (' ox-ferry '), and 
on it is a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter, and a sanctuary 
of Athena, who bears the surname of Guardian of the Anchorage. 
9. Off Buporthmus lies an island called Aperopia, and not far from 9 
Aperopia is another island, Hydrea. 

After Hydrea there is a long crescent-shaped beach on the 
mainland ; and after the beach a spit of land runs eastward into the 
sea. On this promontory there are harbours. The length of the 
spit is about seven furlongs : its greatest breadth is not more than 
three. 10. Here stood the former city of Hermion, and there are 10 
still some sanctuaries on the spot. On the seaward end of the 
spit stands a sanctuary of Poseidon. Farther inland is a temple 
of Athena ; and beside it are foundations of a stadium, in 
which the sons of Tyndareus are said to have contended. There 
is also another small sanctuary of Athena, but its roof has fallen in. 
Further, there is a temple to the Sun, another to the Graces, and 
another to Serapis and Isis. There are also enclosures formed of 
large unhewn stones : within these enclosures they perform secret 
rites in honour of Demeter. Such are the remains of Hermion on 11 
this site. 

The present city is just four furlongs from the cape on which 
the sanctuary of Poseidon stands. The town begins on flat ground, 
but rises gradually up the slope of Mount Pron; for that is the name 
of the mountain. 11. A wall runs all round the town. Hermion 
presented a number of notable objects. Those which struck me 
personally as most worthy of mention were as follows. There is a 
temple of Aphrodite, surnamed Goddess of the Deep Sea and 
Goddess of the Haven. Her image is of white marble ; it is of 
colossal size and admirable workmanship. There is also another 



* 



126 HERMION 



BK. II. CORINTH 



12 temple of Aphrodite. Various honours are paid to the goddess 
of this temple by the Hermionians. Amongst others, it is the 
custom that every maid and every widow who is about to wed shall 
offer sacrifice here before her marriage. There are also two 
sanctuaries of Demeter, surnamed Warmth : one of them is on the 
frontier of Troezenia, as I said before : the other is here in the city. 

XXXV 

i. Near the latter sanctuary is a temple of Dionysus of the 
Black Goatskin : in his honour they hold a musicl contest 
annually, and offer prizes for swimming-races and boat-races. 2. 
There is also a sanctuary of Artemis surnamed Iphigenia, and a 
bronze Poseidon with one foot on a dolphin. Entering the shrine 
of Hestia we find no image but an altar, on which they sacrifice to 

2 Hestia. There are three temples of Apollo with three images. 
One of these Apollos has no surname : another is called Pythaean 
Apollo and the third is called Apollo of the Borders. The name 
Pythaean they borrowed from the Argives ; for Telesilla says that 
Argolis was the first place in Greece visited by Pythaeus, the son of 
Apollo. Why they call Apollo the god of the Borders I cannot say 
for certain; but I infer that in some dispute about boundaries, 
whether submitted to the arbitration of the sword or of justice, the 
Hermionians were successful, and hence instituted the worship 

3 of Apollo of the Borders. The sanctuary of Fortune is, accord- 
ing to the Hermionians, the newest in their city : the image is a 
standing figure of Parian marble and colossal size. There are 
cisterns in the city. One of them is very ancient : the water runs 
into it from an unseen source. Yet the whole town might - down 
and draw water from that cistern and it would never run dry. 
Another cistern has been made in our time : the water which flows 
into it is brought from a place called Limon (' meadow '). 

4 ' 3. But the most remarkable object of all is a sanctuary of Demeter 
on Mount Pron. The Hermionians say that the founders of this 
sanctuary were Clymenus, son of Phoroneus, and his sister Chthonia. 
But the Argive story is this. When Demeter came to Argolis 
she was hospitably received by Athera and Mysius. However, 
Colontas neither opened his house to the goddess nor paid her any 
other mark of respect. But this churlish behaviour was not to the 
mind of his daughter Chthonia. They each had their reward : the 
house of Colontas was burnt down and he in it ; but Chthonia was 
brought by Demeter to Hermion and founded the sanctuary. 4. 

5 However that may have been, the goddess herself is certainly called 
Chthonia ('subterranean'), and they celebrate a festival called 
Chthonia every year in summer-time. The manner of it is this : 
The procession is headed by the priests of the gods and the annual 



1 






chs. xxxiv-xxxv HERMION 127 

magistrates for the time being, and they are followed by both women 
and men. And it is the custom for boys also to do honour to 
the goddess by joining in the procession : they wear white robes and 
garlands on their heads. The garlands are twined of the flower 
which the people here call Cosmosandalum ; in size and colour it 
seems to me a hyacinth, and it is even inscribed with the same 
mournful letters. The procession is brought up by some men 6 
driving a fine, full-grown cow from the herd, fastened with cords, 
but still wild and frisky. Having driven it to the temple, some of 
them slip the cords and let the cow rush into the sanctuary. 
Others meanwhile hold the doors open, and as soon as they see 
the cow inside the temple, they clap them to. Four old women 7 
remain inside : it is they who butcher the cow. Whichever of 
them gets the chance cuts the beast's throat with a sickle. Then 
the doors are opened, and the men whose business it is drive up a 
second cow, and after it a third, and then a fourth. The old 
women butcher them all in the same way. Another odd thing 
about the sacrifice is this : on whichever side the first cow falls, all 
must fall. Such is the way in which the sacrifice is performed by 8 
the Hermionians. In front of the temple stand a few statues of 
women who have been priestesses of Demeter. Inside the temple 
there are chairs on which the old women await the cows as they 
are driven in one by one. There are also images, not very old, of 
Athena and Demeter. But the thing they reverence above every- 
thing else I did not see ; indeed no man, native or foreigner, has 
seen it. The old women alone may be presumed to know what it is. 

5. There is also another temple, and statues stand all round it. 9 
This temple is opposite the one of Chthonia : it is called the temple 
of Clymenus, and here they sacrifice to him. For myself I do not 
believe that Clymenus was an Argive who came to Hermion : the 
name is a title of the god who is said to reign underground. 
Beside the temple of Clymenus there is another temple with an 
image of Ares. 6. On the right of the sanctuary of Chthonia is a 10 
colonnade called by the natives the Colonnade of Echo : if you speak, 
the echo repeats the words at least thrice. 7. Behind the temple of 
Chthonia are places, one of which the Hermionians call the place 
of Clymenus, another the place of Pluto, and the third the 
Acherusian Lake. All of them are enclosed by stone walls. In 
the place of Clymenus there is a chasm in the earth, through 
which Hercules, as the Hermionians tell the tale, dragged up the 
hound of hell. 8. At the gate, through which a straight road leads 11 
to Mases, there is a sanctuary of Ilithyia within the city wall. 
They propitiate the goddess on a great scale daily with sacrifices 
and incense ; and besides all this a vast number of votive offerings 
are made to her. But no one, unless perhaps the priestesses, 
is allowed to see the image. 



128 HALICE ASINE bk. ii. corinth 



XXXVI 

i. Going along the straight road to Mases about seven furlongs, 
and turning to the left, we strike the road to Halice. Though 
Halice in our day is deserted, it was once inhabited. Mention is 
made of natives of Halice on the Epidaurian tablets, which record 
the cures wrought by Aesculapius ; but I know of no other authentic 
document in which mention is made of the town or its inhabitants. 

2. But however that may be, a road runs to Halice between Mount 
Pron and another mountain, known of old as Thornax, but which 
took the name of Cuckoo Mountain, because, they say, the 
transformation of Zeus into a cuckoo was fabled to have here taken 

2 place. There are still sanctuaries on the tops of these two moun- 
tains : on Cuckoo Mountain there is a sanctuary of Zeus, and on 
Mount Pron there is a sanctuary of Hera. There is also a temple 
at the foot of Cuckoo Mountain ; but it has neither doors nor roof, 
and there is no image in it. It was said to be a temple of Apollo. 

3. Beside it runs a road to Mases, which those who have diverged 
from the straight road may take. In the olden time Mases was a 
city, as Homer represents it in his list of the Argives, but in our 

3 day it is used by the Hermionians as a seaport. From Mases 
a road on the right leads to Cape Struthus ('cape of sparrows'). 
From this cape it is two hundred and fifty furlongs by the crest of 
the mountains to Philanorium and to the Bolei. These Bolei are 
heaps of unhewn stones. 4. Twenty, furlongs from the Bolei is 
another place named Didymi (' twins '), where are sanctuaries of 
Apollo, Poseidon, and Demeter. The images are standing figures 
of white marble. 

4 5. From this point begins a district once called Asinaea ; 
it belongs to Argos. There are ruins of the town of Asine beside 
the sea. When King Nicander, son of Charilus, son of Polydectes, 
son of Eunomus, son of Prytanis, son of Eurypon, marched at the 
head of a Lacedaemonian army into Argolis, the Asinaeans joined 
him and helped to lay waste the country. But when the Lacedae- 
monian force had retired home, the Argives under King Eratus 

5 took the field against Asine. For a while the Asinaeans made a 
stand behind their walls ; and some of the Argives fell, including 
Lysistratus, one of their foremost men. But when the walls were 
carried the Asinaeans embarked with their wives and children on 
shipboard, and abandoned their native land. The Argives razed 
the city to the ground and annexed its territory to their own, but they 
suffered the sanctuary of Pythaean Apollo to stand, and it may be 
seen to this day. Beside it they buried Lysistratus. 

6 6. The sea at Lerna is not more than forty furlongs from the 
city of Argos. Going down from Argos towards Lerna we first 



chs. xxxvi-xxxvii LERNA 129 

come to the Erasinus, which falls into the Phrixus, which again falls 
into the sea between Temenium and Lerna. Turning to the left 
from the Erasinus we come, after a walk of about eight furlongs, 
to a sanctuary of the Lords Dioscuri : their wooden images 
are in the same style as those in Argos. 7. Having returned 7 
to the direct road, you will cross the Erasinus and come to the 
Chimarrhus river. Near it is an enclosure of stones : they say that 
when Pluto, as the story goes, ravished Demeter's daughter, the 
Maid, he here descended to his supposed subterranean realm. Lerna 
is, as I said before, beside the sea, and they celebrate mysteries here 
in honour of Lernaean Demeter. 8. There is a sacred grove begin- 8 
ning at a mountain which they call Pontinus. This mountain does 
not let the rain-water flow off, but absorbs it. A river, also called 
Pontinus, flows from it. And on the top of the mountain there is 
a sanctuary of Athena Saitis, now a mere ruin, and foundations of a 
house of Hippomedon, who went to Thebes to uphold the cause of 
Polynices, son of Oedipus. 

XXXVII 

1. Beginning at this mountain, the grove, which consists mostly 
of plane-trees, reaches down to the sea. It is bounded on the one 
side by the river Pontinus, and on the other side by another river, 
called Amymone, after the daughter of Danaus. 2. In the grove 
are images of Demeter, surnamed Prosymne, and of Dionysus : 
there is also a small seated image of Demeter. These images 2 
are made of stone. In another temple there is a seated wooden 
image of Saviour Dionysus. There is also a stone image of Aphrodite 
beside the sea. They say that it was dedicated by the daughters of 
Danaus, and that Danaus himself made the sanctuary of Athena on 
the banks of the Pontinus. 3. The Lernaean mysteries are said to 
have been instituted by Philammon. The stories told about the rites 
are clearly not ancient. Other stories, I am told, purporting to be 3 
by Philammon, have been found engraved on a piece of copper 
fashioned in the shape of a heart. But these stories also have 
been proved not to be by Philammon. The discovery was made 
by Arrhiphon, an Aetolian of Triconium by descent, but now 
one of the most distinguished men in Lycia. He is a man 
quick to detect what had eluded every one else before him. The 
way in which he detected the spuriousness of the verses in question 
was this. The composition, a medley of verse and prose, was 
wholly in the Doric dialect. But before the return of the Heraclids 
to Peloponnese the Argives spoke the same dialect as the Athenians ; 
indeed, in Philammon's time, the very name of the Dorians was 
probably not universally known in Greece. All this Arrhiphon 
proved. 

vol. 1 K 



130 LERNA NAUPLIA bk. ii. corinth 

4 4. At the source of the Amymone grows a plane-tree : they 
say that under this plane-tree the hydra was bred. I believe that 
this beast was larger than other water-snakes, and that its venom 
was so deadly that Hercules poisoned the barbs of his arrows with 
its gall ; but I do not think it had more than one head. The 
poet Pisander, of Camirus, multiplied the hydra's heads to make 
the monster more terrific, and to add to the dignity of his own 

5 verses. 5. I saw also a spring, called the spring of Amphiaraus, 
and the Alcyonian Lake. Through this lake, the Argives say, 
Dionysus went to hell to fetch up Semele ; and t>ey say that 
Polymnus showed him this way down to hell. The lake is bottomless. 
I never heard of any one who was able to sound its depth. Nero 
himself made the experiment, taking every precaution to ensure 
success. He had lines made many furlongs long : these he joined 

6 together and weighted with lead, but he could find no bottom. I 
was told, too, that smooth and still as the water of the lake looks to 
the eye, it yet has the property of sucking down any one who is rash 
enough to swim in it : the water catches him, and sweeps him down 
into the depths. The circuit of the lake is not great, about a third 
of a furlong. Grass and rushes grow on the brink. The lake is 
the scene of certain yearly rites, performed by night, in honour of 
Dionysus. But it would be sinful for me to divulge them. 

XXXVIII 

1. On the way from Lerna to Temenium we pass the mouth of 
the River Phrixus. Temenium belongs to Argos, and was named 
after Temenus, the son of Aristomachus, because in the war with the 
Achaeans, under Tisamenus, the place was seized and fortified by 
Temenus and the Dorians, who used it as a base of operations. 
In Temenium there is a sanctuary of Poseidon, another of 
Aphrodite, and the tomb of Temenus, at which the Dorians of 
Argos pay their devotions. 

2 2. From Temenium to Nauplia I judge the distance to be fifty 
furlongs. Nauplia is now uninhabited. Its founder was Nauplius, 
said to be a son of Poseidon and Amymone. Some remains of 
walls are still left, and there is a sanctuary of Poseidon, also harbours, 
and a spring called Canathus. The Argives say that every year 

3 Hera recovers her virginity by bathing in this spring. This story 
is a secret one and is borrowed from a mystery, which they celebrate 
in honour of Hera. 3. The people of Nauplia tell a tale about an 
ass, how, by browsing on a vine-shoot, it made the grapes more 
plentiful ever after ; and therefore they have an ass carved on a 
rock, because that animal taught them to prune the vines. But the 
story is not worth repeating, so I omit it. 

4 4. From Lerna another road runs by the seaside to a place 



I 



CHS. XXXVII-XXXVIII 



THY RE A TIS 



i.ii 



which they name Genesium. Beside the sea is a small sanctuary of 
Genesian Poseidon. Adjoining Genesium is another place, named 
Apobathmi ('landing-place'), where they say Danaus and his 
daughters first landed in Argolis. From here we pass through what 
is called Anigraea by a rough and narrow road, and come to a tract 
of country on the left, reaching down to the sea, where trees, 
especially olives, thrive well. 5. Going up inland ... we reach a 5 
place where a battle was fought between three hundred picked 
Argives and as many picked Lacedaemonians for the possession of 
the district. All fell, save one Spartan and two Argives ; and the 
earth was heaped over the slain on this spot. But the Lacedae- 
monians took the field with their whole forces, and, gaining a 
decisive victory over the Argives, possessed themselves of the 
district. Afterwards they assigned it to the Aeginetans, who had 
been driven from their island by the Athenians. In my time 
Thyreatis belonged to the Argives, who say that they recovered it 
by the award of an arbitration. 6. Leaving the graves in which so 6 
many men are buried together, we come to Athene, once an 
Aeginetan settlement, and to another village, Neris, and to a third, 
Eva, the largest of all. In this last village there is a sanctuary of 
Polemocrates. Polemocrates is one of the sons of Machaon, and 
brother of Alexanor. He heals the people here and is worshipped 
by the neighbourhood. 7. Above the villages rises Mount Parnon. 7 
On it the Lacedaemonian boundary meets the boundaries of 
Argolis and Tegea. Stone images of Hermes stand on the frontier, 
and the place gets its name from them. A river called Tanaus 
flows through Argolis into the Gulf of Thyrea : it is the only stream 
that comes down from Mount Parnon. 



BOOK THIRD 

LACONIA 



i. Laconia begins immediately to the west of the images of 
Hermes. According to the Lacedaemonians themselves, the first 
king who reigned in this country was Lelex, an aboriginal, and from 
him the people over whom he ruled were named Leleges. Lelex 
had a son Myles, and a younger son Polycaon. Where Polycaon 
departed to, and why, I will show elsewhere. 2. After the death of 
Myles his son Eurotas succeeded to the throne. By means of a 
canal he carried down to the sea the stagnant water of the plain ; 
and the stream that was left after the swamp had been drained he 

2 named the Eurotas. Having no male issue he left the kingdom to 
Lacedaemon. The mother o f Lacedaemon was Taygete, after 
whom the mountain was named : his father, according to common 
fame, was Zeus. 3. Lacedaemon married Sparta, a daughter of 
Eurotas. When he came to the throne he first of all gave the 
country and people new names derived from his own, and next he 
founded and named after his wife the city which is called Sparta to 

3 this day. His son, Amyclas, desirous like his father of leaving some 
memorial of himself, founded a city in Laconia. Sons were born to 
him, of whom Hyacinth, the youngest and the fairest of all, was 
cut off before him. Hyacinth's tomb is at Amyclae under the 
image of Apollo. When Amyclas died, the kingdom devolved on 
his eldest son Argalus, and on his death it passed to Cynortas. 

4 4. Cynortas had a son, Oebalus, who married an Argive wife, 
Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, and had a son Tyndareus. The 
succession of Tyndareus to the throne was disputed by Hippocoon, 
who claimed it as the elder, and being joined by Icarius and his 
party he was far more than a match for Tyndareus, whom he put in 
fear and forced to quit the country. The Lacedaemonians say that 
Tyndareus fled to Pellana. But the Messenians have a tradition 
that the banished Tyndareus came to Messenia to his half-brother by 
the mother's side, Aphareus, son of Perieres ; and they say that he 



CHS. I-H HISTORY OF SPARTA 133 

settled at Thalamae in Messenia, and that his children were born to 
him there. Afterwards he was brought back by Hercules and 5 
recovered the sovereignty. His sons also sat on the throne, and so 
did his son-in-law Menelaus, the son of Atreus, and Orestes, who 
had married Menelaus' daughter, Hermione. 

On the return of the Heraclids in the reign of Tisamenus, son of 
Orestes, Temenus and Cresphontes assumed the reins of govern- 
ment in Argos and Messene respectively. 5. But in Lacedaemon, 
as the children of Aristodemus were twins, two royal houses arose ; 
for such, they say, was the pleasure of the Pythian priestess. They 6 
say that Aristodemus himself died in Delphi before the Dorians 
returned to Peloponnese. Those who wish to invest him with a 
halo of glory say that he was shot by Apollo for not consulting the 
oracle, and for learning, from a chance encounter with Hercules, the 
future return of the Dorians to Peloponnese. But the truer story 
is that he was murdered by the children of Pylades and Electra, 
the cousins of Tisamenus, son of Orestes. 6. The names of his 7 
children were Procles and Eurysthenes. Twins though they were, 
they were at bitter feud. But their mutual hatred, deep as it was, 
did not prevent them from co-operating with their guardian Theras, 
son of Autesion, and brother of their mother Argia, in his scheme of 
founding a colony. 7. Theras directed the colony to the island 
which was then named Calliste, hoping that the descendants of 
Membliarus would voluntarily resign the kingdom in his favour, and 
so they did ; for they reflected that Theras could trace his lineage S 
to Cadmus himself, whereas they themselves were descendants of 
Membliarus, a common man whom Cadmus had left in the island to 
govern the colony. Theras called the island Thera after himself; 
and the people of Thera still sacrifice to him yearly as a hero and the 
founder of their country. But while Procles and Eurysthenes agreed 
in heartily forwarding the plans of Theras, their ideas in every other 
respect were diametrically opposed. And even if they had been of 9 
one mind, I would not have huddled their descendants together in 
one catalogue. For in the two houses the generations did not 
succeed each other at equal intervals, such that cousin was always 
contemporary of cousin, cousins' children always contemporary of 
cousins' children, and so on. I will therefore trace the pedigree of 
each house separately, instead of shuffling them up together. 

II 

1. Eurysthenes, the elder of Aristodemus' sons, is said to have 
had a son Agis, from whom the house of Eurysthenes are called the 
Agids. In his time the Lacedaemonians assisted Patreus, son of 
Preugenes, in founding a city in Achaia, which is still called Patrae 
after him. Public aid was also given to Gras, when he set sail to 



134 HISTORY OF SPARTA bk. III. laconia 

found a colony. This Gras was the son of Echelas, who was the 
son of Penthilus, who was the son of Orestes. He was destined to 
occupy the country between Ionia and Mysia, which is now called 
Aeolis. His ancestor Penthilus before him had conquered the 

2 island of Lesbos lying off that very same coast. 2. When Eches- 
tratus, son of Agis, reigned in Sparta, the Lacedaemonians expelled 
all the Cynurians of military age, alleging as a reason that the lands 
of their kinsmen the Argives were harried by freebooters from 
Cynuria, and that the Cynurians themselves openly made raids 
across the border. The Cynurians are said to be Argives by 
descent : they say that their founder was Cynurus, son of Perseus. 3. 

3 Not many years afterwards Labotas, son of Echestratus, came to the 
throne of Sparta. Herodotus, in his history of Croesus, says that the 
young Labotas (whom, however, he calls Leobotes) had for his 
guardian the lawgiver Lycurgus. It was in that age that the 
Lacedaemonians first resolved to make war on Argos. They 
charged the Argives with perpetually encroaching on Cynuria, which 
was theirs by right of conquest, and with stirring up their vassals to 
revolt. In the wars of that age, they say, neither side distinguished 

4 itself by any memorable feats of arms ; and the reigns of the next 
two kings of this house, Doryssus, son of Labotas, and Agesilaus, 
son of Doryssus, were soon cut short by death. 

4. It was in the reign of Agesilaus that Lycurgus gave the 
Lacedaemonians their laws. Some say that in framing them he 
followed the instructions of the Pythian priestess : others aver that 
he borrowed his legislation from Crete. The Cretans maintain that 
the laws in question were drawn up for them by Minos, whose 
deliberations were assisted by the inspiration of God. An allusion 
to the legislation of Minos may be found, I think, in the following 
verses of Homer : 

And among them is the mighty city of Cnosus, where Minos 
Reigned for nine years, the familiar friend of great Zeus. 

5 To Lycurgus I shall recur hereafter. 

5. Agesilaus had a son Archelaus, in whose reign the Lacedae- 
monians after a successful war reduced the population of Aegys, one 
of the vassal cities, to slavery, because they suspected the people of 
favouring the Arcadian interest. In this conquest Archelaus was 
aided by Charillus, the king of the other royal house. The martial 
deeds performed by Charillus, when he held an independent com- 
mand, will be chronicled by me when I pass to the history of 

6 the Eurypontids. 6. Archelaus had a son Teleclus. In his 
reign the Lacedaemonians, after a successful war, captured the 
vassal cities of Amyclae, Pharis, and Geranthrae, which up to that 
time had been still held by the Achaeans. The inhabitants of the 
two latter towns, seized with panic at the approach of the Dorians, 



chs. ii-iii HISTORY OF SPARTA 135 

capitulated on condition of being suffered to withdraw from Pelo- 
ponnese. But the people of Amyclae were not expelled so easily ; 
for they offered a long and not inglorious resistance. The trophy 
which the Dorians erected for the fall of Amyclae proves that the 
victors regarded this as the proudest triumph of their arms. Not 
long afterwards Teleclus was assassinated by some Messenians in a 
sanctuary of Artemis, which stood at a place called Limnae (' lakes ') 
on the frontiers of Laconia and Messenia. 7. The murdered 7 
king was succeeded by his son Alcamenes. The Lacedae- 
monians now despatched Charmidas, son of Euthys, to Crete. 
He was a man of standing and repute in Sparta. The 
object of his mission was to compose the civil dissensions that 
raged in Crete, to persuade the people to abandon all the towns 
which, on account of their distance from the sea or other circum- 
stances, could not easily be defended, and to assist them in founding 
new cities conveniently situated on the coast. They also destroyed 
the Achaean city of Helos by the sea, and defeated in battle an 
Argive force which had attempted to relieve the town. 

Ill 

1. Alcamenes died, and his son Polydorus succeeded to the 
throne. The Lacedaemonians now sent colonies to Crotona in 
Italy, and to Locri at Cape Zephyrium. 2. It was in the reign of 
Polydorus, too, that the Messenian war, as it is called, raged most 
hotly. Messenians and Lacedaemonians differ in the accounts 
which they respectively give of the origin of the war. I shall notice 2 
these accounts, and narrate the final issue of the war hereafter : 
for the present I shall content myself with mentioning that in the 
first Messenian war the Lacedaemonians were generally led by 
Theopompus, son of Nicander, the king of the other house. The 
war was over, and Messene had been reduced to subjection, when 
King Polydorus fell by the hand of an assassin. The assassin was 
one Polemarchus, a Lacedaemonian of respectable birth, but, as his 
action proved, of a bold and desperate temper. At the time of his 3 
death the king's reputation stood high both in Sparta and throughout 
Greece, and he had endeared himself to his people by his mild and 
affable deportment, and by a series of judgments in which he had 
tempered justice with mercy. Honours were heaped on his 
memory. But his assassin has also a tomb in Sparta. Perhaps his 
former character had been fair : perhaps his friends buried him 
secretly. 3. During the reign of Polydorus' son, Eurycrates, the 4 
Messenians submitted to the Lacedaemonian yoke, and Argos also 
gave no trouble. 4. But in the reign of Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, 
fate began to drive the Messenians from Peloponnese, and they 
revolted from the Lacedaemonians. For a time they held their 



136 HISTORY OF SPARTA bk. hi. laconia 

own, but being overpowered they were suffered to leave Peloponnese 
under a safe conduct. The remnant that was left in the land, with 
the exception of the inhabitants of the maritime towns, became 

5 serfs of the Lacedaemonians. A full account of the Messenian 
rebellion would be out of place here. 

5. Anaxander had a son Eurycrates, and Eurycrates the second 
had a son Leon. In their reigns the Lacedaemonians were generally 
unsuccessful in the war with Tegea. But in the re'gn of Anaxan- 
drides, son of Leon, they got the better of the Tegeans. It 
happened thus. A Lacedaemonian, named Lichas, came to Tegea 
at a time when there chanced to be a truce between the two states. 

6 6. At the time of his arrival the Spartans were searching for the 
bones of Orestes in compliance with the injunction of an oracle. 
Well, then, Lichas perceived that the bones were buried in a 
smithy. This is how he made the discovery. He compared the 
things he saw in the smithy with the words of the Delphic oracle. 
Thus the ' winds,' spoken of by the oracle, were the smith's bellows, 
because the bellows also gave out a strong blast : the ' blow,' to which 
the oracle referred, was the hammer, and the ' counterblow ' was the 
anvil ; and the ' woe to man ' was naturally the iron, because in 
that age iron was already in use for weapons of war. But in the 
heroic age the god would have said that bronze was ' a woe to man.' 

7 The oracle which the Lacedaemonians received touching the bones of 
Orestes resembled an oracle which was afterwards given to the 
Athenians. They were told that they could not conquer Scyros 
unless they brought back Theseus from Scyros to Athens. The 
bones of Theseus were discovered, as in the parallel case, by the 
shrewdness of one man, Cimon, son of Miltiades, and not long 

8 afterwards he conquered Scyros. That weapons in the heroic 
age were all of bronze is shown by Homer's lines about the axe of 
Pisander and the arrow of Meriones ; and I am confirmed in this view 
by the spear of Achilles, which is dedicated in the sanctuary of 
Athena at Phaselis, and by the sword of Memnon in the temple 
of Aesculapius at Nicomedia ; for the blade and the spike at the 
butt-end of the spear and the whole of the sword are of bronze. This 

9 I know to be so. 7. Anaxandrides, son of Leon, was the only 
Lacedaemonian who had two wives and inhabited two houses at the 
same time. His first wife was excellent, but she had no children. 
When the ephors ordered him to divorce her, he would not promise 
to do so, but yielded to them so far as to take a second wife in 
addition to his first. The second wife had a son Cleomenes, after 
whose birth the first wife, who had never conceived before, gave 

10 birth successively to Dorieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus. 8. On 
the death of Anaxandrides the Lacedaemonians reluctantly rejected 
Dorieus, whom they esteemed a wiser man and a better soldier than 
Cleomenes, and gave the kingdom to the latter, to which, as the 
elder, he had a legal right. 



chs. Ill-iv HISTORY OF SPARTA 137 



IV 

1. Dorieus could not brook to stay in Lacedaemon as a subject 
of Cleomenes, so he set out to found a colony. No sooner was 
Cleomenes on the throne than he mustered an army of Lacedae- 
monians and their allies and invaded Argolis. The Argives gave 
him battle, but Cleomenes was victorious. Near the battlefield was 
a sacred grove of Argus, son of Niobe. Here about five thousand 
of the routed army took refuge. Cleomenes, who was generally out 
of his mind, seems to have been so on the present occasion, for he 
ordered the Helots to set fire to the grove. It was soon all in a 
blaze, and the men who had taken sanctuary perished with it in the 
flames. 2. Cleomenes also twice led an army to Athens. On the 2 
first occasion he freed Athens from the tyranny of the sons of 
Pisistratus, thereby winning golden opinions for himself and the 
Lacedaemonians. The object of his second expedition was to abet 
Isagoras, an Athenian, in an attempt to make himself despot of 
Athens. But the Athenians defended their freedom gallantly, and 
the baffled Cleomenes contented himself with laying waste the 
country. He is even said to have ravaged what they call the Orgas, 
or sacred land of the Eleusinian goddesses. 3. He also went to 
Aegina and arrested the influential men who had sided with the 
Medes, and had persuaded the citizens to give earth and water to 
King Darius, son of Hystaspes. While he tarried in Aegina, 3 
Demaratus, the king of the other house, traduced him to the 
Lacedaemonian multitude. 4. On his return from Aegina Cleo- 
menes intrigued to have Demaratus deposed. For this purpose he 
bribed the prophetess at Delphi to utter oracles about Demaratus 
which he dictated, and he raised up a rival claimant to the crown in 
the person of Leotychides, a man of the blood royal and of the same 
branch as Demaratus. It happened that when Demaratus was 4 
born, his father Aristo had blurted out some silly words about the 
brat not being his. These words were now laid hold of 
by Leotychides. The Lacedaemonians referred the question, 
as usual, to the Delphic oracle, and the prophetess answered 
them as Cleomenes wished. So Demaratus was unjustly deposed 5 
through the enmity of Cleomenes. 5. But Cleomenes after- 
wards incurred his death in a mad fit : seizing a sword he 
wounded himself, and then proceeded to hack and mangle his whole 
body. In his miserable end the Argives profess to see a retribution 
for his treatment of the men who took sanctuary in the grove of 
Argus : the Athenians declare it was a punishment for ravaging the 
Orgas ; and the Delphians maintain that it was a penalty for bribing 
the prophetess to utter lies about Demaratus. But it may be 6 
that heroes and gods concurred in wreaking their wrath on the head 



138 HISTORY OF SPARTA bk. hi. laconia 

of Cleomenes. We know that at Eleus the hero Protesilaus avenged 
himself single-handed on a Persian named Artayctes ; yet Protesi- 
laus, as a hero, certainly does not rank above Argus. Again, the 
Megarians incurred the displeasure of the Eleusinian goddesses by 
tilling some of the sacred land, and never succeeded in appeasing 
the offended divinities. But, barring Cleomenes, we know of no 
man who ever dared to tamper with the oracle. 

7 As Cleomenes had no sons the kingdom devolved on Leonidas, 
son of Anaxandrides and full brother of Dorieus. 6. Xerxes 
now led his host against Greece, and Leonidas, with three 
hundred Lacedaemonians, met him at Thermopylae. There have 
been many wars of the Greeks, and many of the barbarians, but 
there have been few, indeed, which owed their brightest glory to the 
valour of a single arm, as the Trojan war was ennobled by Achilles, 
and the battle of Marathon by Miltiades. But, to my mind, the 
exploit of Leonidas outdid all the exploits that have been performed 

8 before or since. For of all the kings that reigned, first over the 
Medes, and afterwards over the Persians, Xerxes gave proof of the 
highest spirit, and he distinguished himself brilliantly on the march. 
Yet Leonidas with a handful of men whom he led to Thermopylae 
would have prevented the great king from so much as setting eyes 
on Greece and from burning Athens, if the man of Trachis had not 
led the army of Hydarnes by the path over Mount Oeta, and so 
enabled them to surround the Greeks. Thus Leonidas was crushed, 

9 and the barbarians entered Greece. 7. Pausanias, son of Cleom- 
brotus, was never king. As guardian of Plistarchus, the orphan son 
of Leonidas, he led the Lacedaemonians to Plataea, and he after- 
wards conducted a fleet to the Hellespont. I give high praise to 
Pausanias' treatment of the Coan lady. She was the daughter of a 
man of some note in Cos, Hegetorides, son of Antagoras ; and a 
Persian named Pharandates, the son of Teaspis, kept her against 

10 her will as his concubine. But when Mardonius fell at the battle 
of Plataea, and the barbarians were cut to pieces, Pausanias sent the 
lady to Cos with the ornaments which the Persian had bestowed on 
her and the rest of her baggage. And Pausanias would not mutilate 
the dead body of Mardonius, as Lampon the Aeginetan advised him 
to do. 



1. Plistarchus, son of Leonidas, died very soon after he had 
come to the throne ; and he was succeeded by Plistoanax, son of 
the Pausanias who commanded at Plataea. 2. Plistoanax had a son 
Pausanias. This Pausanias repaired to Attica, ostensibly as a foe of 
Thrasybulus and the Athenians, and with the intention of placing 
on a secure basis the tyranny of the cabal to whom Lysander had 



chs. iv-v HISTORY OF SPARTA 139 

entrusted the government. He defeated in battle the Athenians 
who held Piraeus ; but immediately after the battle he resolved to 
lead his army home, rather than draw upon Sparta the foul disgrace 
of bolstering up the tyranny of wicked men. 3. Returning from 2 
Athens with these barren laurels, he was impeached by his enemies. 
Now when a king of Lacedaemon was put upon his trial, the court 
was composed of the elders, as they were styled, eight-and-twenty in 
number, the whole bench of ephors, and the king of the other royal 
house. Well, fourteen of the elders, and with them Agis, the king 
of the other house, found Pausanias guilty ; but the rest of the 
court acquitted him. 4. Not long afterwards the Lacedaemonians 3 
mustered an army to attack Thebes. The pretext will be related 
hereafter when I come to speak of Agesilaus. Lysander repaired to 
Phocis and, having called the whole population to arms, marched 
instantly into Boeotia, and proceeded to assault the walls of Haliartus, 
because the people refused to renounce their allegiance to Thebes. 
But some Thebans and Athenians had secretly thrown themselves 
into the town : they now sallied out and drew up in front of the 
walls, and among the Lacedaemonians who fell before them was 
Lysander himself. 5. Meantime the task of mustering the Tegean 4 
and other Arcadian levies had detained Pausanias so long, that he 
was too late to take part in the action. When he reached Boeotia 
and learned of the defeat and death of Lysander, he advanced upon 
Thebes, meaning to offer battle. The Thebans took the field to meet 
him, and a body of Athenian troops under Thrasybulus was reported 
to be hovering in the neighbourhood, ready to fall on the rear of the 
Lacedaemonian army as soon as it should be engaged with the 
enemy. Alarmed at the prospect of being caught betwixt two 5 
hostile forces, Pausanias concluded a truce with the Thebans, and 
carried off his dead from under the walls of Haliartus. His conduct 
was disapproved of at home. But in my judgment he acted wisely. 
For he knew that to be taken at once in front and rear had been 
the source of every disaster to the Lacedaemonian arms : he re- 
membered the defeats of Thermopylae and Sphacteria, and he 
feared to add a third calamity to the list. 6. However, being 6 
censured by his countrymen for the tardiness of his advance into 
Boeotia, he did not dare to stand his trial, but with the leave of 
the Tegeans took sanctuary in the temple of Athena Alea. From 
of old this sanctuary had been looked upon with awe and veneration 
by the whole of Peloponnese, and had afforded the surest 
protection to all who took refuge in it. This was shown by the 
Lacedaemonians in the case of Pausanias and of Leotychides before 
him, and by the Argives in the case of Chrysis ; for while these 
persons remained in the sanctuary, neither Lacedaemonians nor 
Argives would so much as demand their surrender. 

7. After the flight of Pausanias, the guardianship of his sons Agesi- 7 



140 



HISTORY OF SPARTA 



BK. III. LACONIA 



polis and Cleombrotus, both very young, devolved upon Aristodemus 
their next of kin ; and the Lacedaemonian success at Corinth was gained 

8 under his command. 8. When Agesipolis grew up and assumed 
the government, the first of the Peloponnesians upon whom he 
made war were the Argives. On marching from Tegean into Argive 
territory he was met by a herald, whom the Argives had sent for the 
purpose of ratifying afresh a treaty which they alleged had existed 
between the different branches of the Dorian race from time 
immemorial. But the king refused to treat, and advancing laid 
waste the country. A shock of earthquake was now felt ; but still, 
though the Lacedaemonians were the most superstitious of all the 

9 Greeks, he would not retire. Indeed, he sat down before the walls 
of Argos. But when the earth continued to quake and the thunder 
to roll, killing some of his men and driving others crazy, he at last 
sullenly broke up his camp and retreated from Argolis. 9. He next 
.directed his march against Olynthus. Victory attended his arms, 
most of the towns of Chalcidice had fallen, and he was in hones of 
taking Olynthus itself, when suddenly he sickened and died. 



VI 

1. Agesipolis dying childless, the kingdom devolved on Cleom- 
brotus. Under his command the Lacedaemonians fought the battle 
of Leuctra against the Boeotians. Cleombrotus behaved himself 
bravely on that occasion, but fell at the beginning of the battle. It 
seems to be the will of fate that, when an army is about to sustain a 
great defeat, the general should be the first to fall. Thus at the 
battle of Delium the Athenian commander Hippocrates, son of 
Ariphoron, was cut off; and so at a later time was Leosthenes, 

2 another Athenian general, in Thessaly. Of the sons of Cleom- 
brotus, Agesipolis the elder did nothing worthy of record ; and 
when he died his younger brother Cleomenes succeeded to the 
throne. Two sons were born to Cleomenes, first Acrotatus and 
next Cleonymus. 2. Acrotatus died before his father ; and on the 
decease of Cleomenes, a dispute as to the succession arose betwixt 
Cleonymus, the son of Cleomenes, and Areus, son of Acrotatus. 
The elders decided that the throne belonged by right of descent 

3 to Areus, not to Cleonymus. The heart of Cleonymus swelled 
high with rage at being excluded from the throne ; and to 
soothe him and reconcile him to his native land, the ephors loaded 
him with honours, and appointed him to the command of the 
forces. But it ended in his proving a traitor to his country : 
amongst his many treasons he induced Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides 
to invade the land. 

4 3. It was in the reign of Areus, son of Acrotatus, that 
Antigonus, son of Demetrius, attacked the Athenians by land and 



chs. v-vn HISTORY OF SPARTA 141 

sea. Athens was supported by an Egyptian fleet under Patroclus ; 
and the Lacedaemonians put all their forces into the field, under 
the command of King Areus, to protect her. But Antigonus drew 5 
his lines so closely round the city, that it was impossible for the 
relieving forces to effect an entrance. In these circumstances, 
Patroclus sent messengers to Areus urging him to attack Antigonus, 
and promising to support the attack by falling upon the Macedonian 
rear. But till that attack was made, Patroclus thought it too much 
to expect his Egyptian sailors to charge down on Macedonian troops. 
The Lacedaemonians were eager to be led into action, for they 
liked the Athenians and thirsted for military glory. But Areus, 6 
thinking it a pity to waste so much good courage on other people's 
business, resolved to bottle it up and preserve it for home con- 
sumption. So when supplies ran short he led his army to the 
right-about. The Athenians, after holding out for a very long 
time, were granted peace by Antigonus on condition of allow- 
ing him to establish a garrison on the Museum hill ; however, in 
course of time he voluntarily withdrew it. 

Areus had a son Acrotatus, and he had a son Areus, who 
sickened and died at the age of eight. 4. Leonidas, son of 7 
Cleonymus, a very old man, was the only surviving descendant of 
the house of Eurysthenes in the male line ; so the Lacedaemonians 
gave the kingdom to him. At bitter feud with Leonidas was 
Lysander, a descendant of Lysander, son of Aristocritus. This 
Lysander gained over Leonidas' son-in-law, Cleombrotus ; and 
having secured him, he brought various charges against Leonidas, 
amongst others that in his youth he had sworn to his father 
Cleonymus that he would be the ruin of Sparta. So Leonidas 8 
was deposed, and Cleombrotus reigned in his stead. Now, if 
Leonidas had yielded to passion and gone away like Demarat.us, 
the son of Ariston, to the king of Macedonia or the king of Egypt, 
it would have profited him nothing if the Spartans had afterwards 
changed their minds. But as it was, when his countrymen sen- 
tenced him to exile, he went to Arcadia, and not many years after- 
wards the Lacedaemonians brought him back from thence and 
made him their king again. 5. The valour and daring of his son 9 
Cleomenes have been already described by me in my account of 
Aratus the Sicyonian, where I also mentioned that after Cleomenes 
there were no more kings of Sparta. And I recorded besides the 
manner of his death in Egypt. 

VII 

1. Thus of the race of Eurysthenes, known as the Agids, 
Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, was the last king in Sparta. The 
history of the other house, as I have been informed, is as follows. 



142 HISTORY OF SPARTA bk. hi. laconia 

Procles, the son of Aristodemus, had a son whom he named Sous, 
and Sous had a son Eurypon, who is said to have become so famous 
that the family were named Eurypontids after him, instead of Proclids, 

2 as they had been called before. 2. Eurypon had a son, Prytanis, 
in whose reign the hostility of Lacedaemon to Argos first broke out. 
Even before this quarrel the Lacedaemonians h^d made war on the 
Cynurians. But in the succeeding generations, while Eunomus, 
son of Prytanis, and Polydectes, son of Eunomus, sat upon the 

3 throne, Sparta remained at peace. 3. But Charillus, son of 
Polydectes, ravaged the Argive territory, and not many years after- 
wards he led the Spartan expedition against Tegea, at the time 
when the Lacedaemonians, lured on by a deceitful oracle, hoped to 
capture that city, and so to sever the Tegean plain from Arcadia. 

4 4. On the death of Charillus his son Nicander succeeded to the 
throne. It was in the reign of Nicander that the Messenians mur- 
dered Teleclus, the king of the other house, in the sanctuary of 
the Lady of the Lake. Nicander also invaded Argolis, and laid 
most of the country waste. For the share which the Asinaeans took 
in this Lacedaemonian invasion, they were soon afterwards punished 
by the Argives with exile and the total ruin of their country. 5. 

5 An account of Theopompus, who succeeded his father, Nicander, 
on the throne, will be given when I come to treat of Messenia. He 
was still reigning when the Lacedaemonians fought the Argives for 
the possession of the Thyrean district. In that conflict the king, 
broken by age and still more by sorrow, took no part ; for he had 

6 lived to see his son Archidamus cut off before him. However, 
Archidamus did not die childless, but left a son Zeuxidamus, 
who was succeeded on the throne by his - son Anaxidamus. 
6. It was in the reign of Anaxidamus that the Messenians, after 
being vanquished a second time by the Spartans, were driven 
forth from Peloponnese into exile. Anaxidamus had a son 
Archidamus, and Archidamus had a son Agesicles, and both father 
and son were privileged to spend all their days in quietness and 

7 peace. 7. Aristo, son of Agesicles, married a woman who is said 
to have been the foulest maid and the fairest wife in Lacedaemon, 
for Helen transformed her. Only seven months after Aristo 
wedded her she bore him a son Demaratus. He was sitting with 
the ephors in council when a servant came with tidings that a child 
was born to him. But Aristo, forgetting the verses in the Iliad 
about the birth of Eurystheus, or perhaps because he had never 
heard of them, said that considering the number of months the 

8 child was not his. He afterwards repented of his words ; but his 
thoughtlessness, coupled with the hatred of Cleomenes, sufficed to 
drive his son Demaratus from the throne, on which he had won for 
himself a fair reputation, particularly by aiding Cleomenes to 
free Athens from the Pisistratids. Demaratus betook himself 



CHS. VII-VIII 



HISTORY OF SPARTA 



143 



to the court of King Darius in Persia, and they say that 
his descendants long survived in Asia. 8. Leotychides, being 9 
made king in room of Demaratus, fought at the battle of 
Mycale on the side of the Athenians, who were commanded by 
Xanthippus, the son of Ariphron. Afterwards he marched into 
Thessaly against the Aleuads ; but when he might have conquered 
the whole of Thessaly, for victory always attended his arms, he 
suffered himself to be bribed by the Aleuads. Being impeached at 10 
home he withdrew into exile at Tegea, where he took sanctuary in 
the temple of Athena Alea. His son Euxidamus had died before his 
father's banishment, leaving, however, a son Archidamus, who, when 
Leotychides retired to Tegea, succeeded to the throne. 9. This 
Archidamus wrought sad havoc in Attica, invading it year after year, 
and marching from one end of it to the other with fire and sword. 
He also besieged and took the town of Plataea, which had been on 
kindly terms with Athens. It is fair to add that he had not been 11 
one of the promoters of the war, but had done all in his power to 
maintain the treaty. 10. The chief instigator of the war was one 
Sthenelaidas, a man of some influence in Sparta, who happened to 
be ephor at the time. Greece had been stable and strong 
before, but this war shook it to its foundations, and afterwards 
Philip, son of Amyntas, brought the rickety and decaying structure 
with a crash to the ground. 



VIII 

1. Archidamus at his death left two sons. Agis was the elder, and 
succeeded to the throne rather than Agesilaus. Archidamus had also a 
daughter, Cynisca, who was passionately fond of the Olympic games, 
and was the first woman who bred horses and won an Olympic victory. 
After Cynisca other women, chiefly Lacedaemonian, have won Olympic 
victories, but none of them was more famous for her victories than 
she. It seems to me that in all the wide world there is no people 2 
so dead to poetry and poetic fame as the Spartans. For, bating the 
epigram that somebody concocted upon Cynisca, and another which 
Simonides wrote for Pausanias to be graved on the votive tripod at 
Delphi, there is never a poet that sang the praises of the kings of 
Lacedaemon. 2. In the reign of Agis, son of Archidamus, the 3 
Lacedaemonians had various grudges against the Eleans : in par- 
ticular they were very sore at being debarred from the Olympic 
games and from the sanctuary at Olympia. So they sent a herald 
to the Eleans, commanding them to set free Lepreum and all their 
other vassal states. The Eleans replied that whenever they saw the 
vassal states of Sparta free they would have no hesitation in liberat- 
ing theirs. So the Lacedaemonians, under King Agis, invaded 
Elis. The army had advanced as far as Olympia and the Alpheus 4 



144 HISTORY OF SPARTA bk. in. laconia 

when a shock of earthquake induced it to retire. But next year 
Agis ravaged the country and carried off much booty. Hereupon a 
certain man of Elis called Xenias put himself at the head of the 
wealthy classes, and revolted against the democracy. He was a 
private friend of Agis and a public friend of the Lacedaemonian 
state. But before Agis could bring up an army to his aid, the 
popular leader Thrasydaeus defeated and expelled Xenias and 
5 his faction from the city. Agis led back his army, leaving, how- 
ever, behind him a corps under Lysistratus a Spartan, which was 
to co-operate with the Elean exiles and the people of Lepreum in 
harrying the land of Elis. In the third year of the war the 
Lacedaemonians under Agis were preparing to invade Elis once 
*more. But the exhausted Eleans, with Thrasydaeus at their head, 
I now consented to resign the suzerainty of their vassal states, to 
i dismantle the walls of their city, and to suffer the Lacedaemonians 
Ito offer sacrifice to the god in Olympia and to compete in the 
6|01ympic games. 3. Agis used also perpetually to invade Attica, 
"and he built the fort at Decelea as a standing menace to Athens. 
But when the naval power of Athens was shattered at Aegospotami, 
Agis and Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, in defiance of the faith 
which Sparta had publicly plighted to Athens, proposed to the allies, 
of their own motion, and without the sanction of the Spartan state, 

7 that Athens should be destroyed root and branch. Such were the 
feats of arms that most redounded to the honour of Agis. 

4. The indiscretion of which Aristo had been guilty in reference 
to his son Demaratus was repeated by Agis in reference to his son 
Leotychides : for some devil put it into his head to say in the hear- 
ing of the ephors that he did not think Leotychides was his own son. 
However, like Aristo, he afterwards repented, and when they were 
carrying him home from Arcadia on a bed of sickness, and he was 
come to Heraea, he took the people of the town to witness that he 
believed Leotychides to be his very son, and with prayers and tears 
he charged them to convey this message to the Lacedaemonians. 5. 

8 When he was gone, Agesilaus endeavoured to exclude Leotychides 
from the succession by reminding the Lacedaemonians of what Agis 
had once said about him. But the Arcadians came from Heraea 
and witnessed in favour of Leotychides all that they had heard from 

9 the dying lips of Agis. The dispute between Agesilaus and Leoty- 
chides was further embroiled by the Delphic oracle, which ran 
thus : 

Proud Sparta ! beware 

Lest from thee, the sound-footed, should grow a lame reign. 

Too long shall toils unlooked-for hold thee down, 

And baleful billows of tumultuous war. 

10 Leotychides would have it that this was a poetical allusion to 



chs. viii-ix HISTORY OF SPARTA 145 

Agesilaus, who halted on one foot ; but Agesilaus applied it to his 
rival's bastardy. The Lacedaemonians might, if they chose, have 
referred the issue to Delphi. That they did not do so was due, I 
suspect, to the intrigues of Lysander, the son of Aristocratus, who 
left no stone unturned to secure the crown for <Agesilaus>. 

IX 

1. So Agesilaus, son of Archidamus, was king; and the Lace- 
daemonians resolved to cross the sea to Asia and conquer 
Artaxerxes, son of Darius ; for they were informed by their leading 
men, and especially by Lysander, that in the war with Athens it was 
not Artaxerxes, but Cyrus, who had furnished them with the subsidy 
for their fleet. Being appointed to transport the army to Asia, and to 
command the land force, Agesilaus sent envoys all over Peloponnese 
and the rest of Greece, except Argos, calling for contingents. The 2 
Corinthians were most eager to join in the Asiatic expedition ; but 
their temple of Olympian Zeus was suddenly destroyed by fire, 
and taking this as an evil omen they reluctantly stayed at home. 
The pretext assigned by the Athenians was that, exhausted by 
the Peloponnesian war and the plague, their city was only in process 
of recovering its former prosperity ; but their chief reason for keep- 
ing quiet was the information they had received through messengers 
that Conon, son of Timotheus, had repaired to the Persian court. 
To Thebes also an envoy was sent in the person of Aristomenidas, 3 
the maternal grandfather of Agesilaus : he was on excellent terms 
with the Thebans, and had been one of the judges who voted death 
to the prisoners when Plataea fell. The Thebans gave the same 
reply as the Athenians : they refused to assist. 2. When the whole 
allied army was mustered, and the fleet was ready to put to sea, 
Agesilaus repaired to Aulis to sacrifice to Artemis, because Aga- 
memnon had there propitiated the goddess before he led the armada 
against Troy. But Agesilaus, it seems, set up for being king of 4 
a greater city than Agamemnon ruled : like Agamemnon, he 
claimed the headship of Greece ; and he nattered himself that 
to vanquish King Artaxerxes and gain the wealth of Persia 
would be a more signal triumph than to have conquered the 
realm of Priam. While he was sacrificing, some armed Thebans 
came up, flung the burning thigh - bones from the altar, 
and hustled his majesty out of the sanctuary. Agesilaus was 5 
vexed that the sacrifice was not completed ; nevertheless he crossed 
over to Asia and marched on Sardes. 3. In that age Lydia was the 
most important region of Lower Asia. The wealth and pomp of its 
capital, Sardes, had no rival, and the city was the official seat of the 
satrap of the Sea-board, just as Susa was the residence of the king. 
A battle was fought in the plain of the Hermus with Tissaphernes, 6 

vol. 1 L 



146 



HISTORY OF SPARTA 



BK. III. LACONIA 



satrap of Ionia, who had massed a larger body of infantry than 
had ever been brought together since the time when the hosts 
of Darius and Xerxes had marched against the Scythians and 
Athens. But Agesilaus defeated this Persian host, horse and foot. 
Delighted with his energy, his countrymen promoted him to the 
command of the fleet also. He appointed Pisander, whose sister 
he had married, admiral of the fleet, while he applied himself 

7 vigorously to the conduct of the operations by land. But some 
envious god suffered not Agesilaus to carry his plans to a successful 
issue. 4. For when Artaxerxes heard of the victories of Agesilaus, and 
how continually he marched forward carrying everything before him, 
he caused Tissaphernes, in spite of his former services, to be put 
to death, and sent down to the sea Tithraustes, a shrewd man, 

8 who bore the Lacedaemonians a grudge. No sooner had Tithraustes 
reached Sardes than he began scheming how he might compel the 
Lacedaemonians to recall their army from Asia. Accordingly he 
placed a sum of money in the hands of Timocrates, a Rhodian, and 
sent him to Greece with instructions to stir up a war in Greece 
against the Lacedaemonians. Those who fingered his money are 
said to have been Cylon and Sodamas at Argos, and Andro- 
clides, Ismenias, and Amphithemis at Thebes. Cephalus, the 
Athenian, also got a share, and so did Epicrates, and such of the 
Corinthians as favoured the Argive interest, to wit, Polyanthes and 

9 Timolaus. But it was the Locrians of Amphissa who brought about 
an open rupture. There was a piece of land in possession of the 
Phocians to which the Locrians asserted a rival claim. Instigated 
by the Theban faction of which Ismenias was the head, the Locrians 
now cut down the ripe corn of the district and drove off the cattle. 
The Phocians retaliated by invading Locris with all their forces and 

10 laying the country waste. So the Locrians got the Thebans to help 
them, and ravaged Phocis. 5. Then the Phocians repaired to 
Lacedaemon and denounced the Thebans, setting forth the wrongs 
they had suffered at their hands. The Lacedaemonians decided on 
war with Thebes, and amongst the grounds of complaint which they 
put forward was the insult which the Thebans had offered to 

11 Agesilaus when he was sacrificing at Aulis. The Athenians, being 
early apprised of the intention of the Lacedaemonians, sent to Sparta, 
praying them not to take up arms against Thebes, but to submit the 
quarrel to arbitration. However, the Lacedaemonians angrily dis- 
missed the Athenian embassy. The events which followed, com- 
prising the expedition of the Lacedaemonians and the death of 
Lysander, have already been included in the account I gave of 

12 Pausanias. 6. Beginning with the march of the Lacedaemonians 
into Boeotia, the war known as the Corinthian war continued steadily 
to assume larger proportions. This, therefore, was the cause which 
compelled Agesilaus to lead back his army from Asia. He crossed 



chs. ix-x HISTORY OF SPARTA 147 

the straits from Abydus to Sestos, marched through Thrace, and 
reached Thessaly. Here the Thessalians, moved by a regard for 
Thebes and a friendship of long standing with Athens, attempted 
to stop him. 7. But he drove their cavalry before him, and 13 
marched through their country from end to end. A victory over 
the Thebans and their allies at Coronea opened for him a passage 
through Boeotia. When the day was lost, some of the Boeotians 
sought refuge in the sanctuary of Itonian Athena. Agesilaus had 
been wounded in the action, but hurt though he was, he respected 
the right of sanctuary. 

X 

1. Not long afterwards the Corinthian exiles, who had been 
banished for siding with Sparta, celebrated the Isthmian games. 
Cowed by the presence of Agesilaus, Corinth submitted in silence. 
But no sooner had Agesilaus broken up his camp and taken the 
road for Sparta than the Corinthians and Argives together celebrated 
the Isthmian games afresh. Once more Agesilaus marched against 
Corinth at the head of an army. But the festival of Hyacinth now 
drawing near, he gave the Amyclaean battalion leave to go home 
and celebrate the customary rites of Apollo and Hyacinth. That 
battalion was attacked on the march by the Athenians under Iphi- 
crates and cut to pieces. 2. Agesilaus also went to Aetolia to 2 
succour the Aetolians who were hard bestead by the Acarnanians. 
He forced the Acarnanians to conclude a peace, though they were 
near taking Calydon and all the other cities of Aetolia. 3. After- 
wards he sailed to Egypt to aid the Egyptians in their revolt from 
the King of Persia. In Egypt he signalised himself by many 
memorable deeds. But he was now grown old, and death over- 
took him on the journey. The body was brought home, and "laid 
in the grave with more splendid marks of honour than had ever 
dignified the funeral of a Spartan king. 

4. In the reign of Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, the Phocians 3 
seized the sanctuary at Delphi. This involved them in war with 
Thebes. The prospect of pay drew mercenaries to the Phocian 
standards ; and both Sparta and Athens publicly espoused the same 
cause. The Athenians professed to recollect some service, God 
knows what, which the Phocians had done them in days of old. 
The Spartans also made a pretext of friendship for Phocis ; but 
they were really animated, I believe, by hatred of Thebes. Theo- 
pompus, son of Damasistratus, says that King Archidamus himself 
had a finger in the sacred pie, and that his zeal for the Phocian 
alliance was whetted by his wife Dinicha, who had been bribed 
by the Phocian leaders. Now, to be a resetter of sacred moneys, 4 
and to back up men who have rifled the seat of the most famous 



V 



148 CARYAE SELLASIA bk. hi. laconia 

oracle in the world, is not what I should call meritorious. Still it 
is to his credit that when the reckless Phocians would have put 
the men of Delphi to the sword, sold the women and children into 
slavery, and razed the city to the ground, ^rchidamus, by his inter- 

5 cession, saved the Delphians from this dreadful doom. 5. After- 
wards he crossed to Italy to fight for the Tarentines in a border 
war with barbarians. Here he met his death at the hands of the 
barbarians, and the wrath of Apollo prevented his corpse from 
receiving burial. 6. His elder son Agis fell fighting Antipater and 
the Macedonians ; but his younger son, Eudamidas, sat on the 
throne of Lacedaemon, and his reign was peaceful. Of Agis, the 
son of Eudamidas, and Eurydamidas, the son of Agis. I have 
spoken in the section on Sicyon. 

6 7. On the way from the images of Hermes the whole country- 
side is clothed with oak-woods. The name of the place, however, 
Scotitas ('dark'), is not derived from the thickness of the woods, 
but from Zeus Scotitas, whose sanctuary we reach by turning 
out of the road to the left for a distance of just about ten 
furlongs. Returning thence, and going on a little, and then again 
turning to the left, we come to an image of Hercules and a 
trophy : it was said to have been erected by Hercules after he had 

7 slain Hippocoon and his sons. 8. A third cross-road leads on the 
right to Caryae, and to the sanctuary of Artemis ; for Caryae is 
sacred to Artemis and the nymphs, and an image of Artemis 
Caryatis stands here under the open sky. Here every year the 
Lacedaemonian maidens dance in troops their national dance. 9. 
Returning and going along the highway you come to the ruins of 
Sellasia. The inhabitants, as I mentioned before, were carried away 
into slavery by the Achaeans after the battle in which they defeated 
the Lacedaemonians and their king Cleomenes, son of Leoni- 

8 das. 1 o. Going on you will come to Thornax, where there is 
an image of Pythaean Apollo, just like the one at Amyclae : I shall 
describe its form in speaking of the latter. For the Lacedaemonians 
think more of the Amyclaean one; and so when Croesus the Lydian 
sent an offering of gold to the Pythaean Apollo they employed it 
to adorn the image at Amyclae. 

XI 

1. Proceeding from Thornax you reach the capital. Its original 
name was Sparta, but in course of time it acquired the additional 
name of Lacedaemon, which had hitherto been applied to the 
country. To prevent misconceptions, I stated in my Attica that 
I had not described everything, 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 



chs. x-xi SPARTA 149 

the most valuable traditions from out of the mass of insignifi- 
cant stories which are current among every people. My plan 
was adopted after mature deliberation, and I will not depart from 
it. 2. The Lacedaemonians of Sparta have a market-place that is 2 
worth seeing, and in the market-place are the Council House of 
the Senate, and the offices of the Ephors, of the Guardians of the 
' Laws, and of the so-called Bidiaeans. The Senate is the supreme 
assembly of the Lacedaemonian constitution: the rest are magistrates. 
The Ephors and Bidiaeans are each five in number. The duties of 
the latter are to arrange the athletic games of the lads, especially the 
games at the Plane-tree Grove. The Ephors transact the most 
important executive business, and one of their number gives his 
name to the year, just as is done at Athens by one of the nine 
Archons. 3. The most striking ornament of the market-place is 3 
a colonnade which they name the Persian Colonnade. Built 
originally from the spoils of the Persian war, it grew in course 
of time into the spacious and splendid edifice which it now is. 
On the pillars are figures of Persians in white marble : one of 
them is Mardonius, son of Gobryas. Artemisia, daughter of 
Lygdamis, and queen of Halicarnassus, is also represented. They 
say she freely joined Xerxes in his expedition against Greece, 
and distinguished herself by her prowess in the sea-fight at Salamis. 
4. In the market-place there is a temple of Caesar, the first Roman 4 
who aspired to the throne, and the founder of the present system of 
government. There is also in the market-place a temple to 
Caesar's son Augustus, who placed the monarchy on a firmer 
basis, and attained a height of dignity and power which his father 
never reached. [His name Augustus is equivalent in Greek to 
sebastos (' august,' ' reverend ').] 5. Beside the altar of Augustus they 5 
show a bronze statue of Agias. They say that the predictions which 
this Agias delivered to Lysander were the means of capturing 
the whole Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, all but ten galleys which 
escaped to Cyprus. The rest of the ships, with their crews, were 
taken by the Lacedaemonians. Agias was a son of Agelochus, who 
was a son of Tisamenus. 6. Tisamenus was one of the Iamids 6 
of Elis. It was foretold to him that he would engage in five most 
famous contests. So he trained for the pentathlum at Olympia, but 
was beaten. He won two events, however; for he beat Hieronymus 
the Andrian in running and leaping. But being vanquished by him 
in wrestling, and so losing the prize, he perceived that what the 
oracle meant was this, that the god would allow him, as a soothsayer, 
to win five victories in war. The Lacedaemonians, getting 7 
wind of what the Pythian priestess had prophesied to Tisamenus, 
persuaded him to emigrate from Elis and serve the Spartan 
commonwealth in the capacity of soothsayer. So he won for Sparta 
five victories in war, first, over the Persians at Plataea ; second, over 



l S SPARTA BK. III. LACONIA 



the Tegeans and Argives at Tegea ; third, over all the Arcadians 
(except the Mantineans) at Dipaea, a town in the Arcadian district 

8 of Maenalia ; fourth, over the rebel H^ots who had established 
themselves in Ithome. It was not all the Helots who revolted, but 
only the Messenians, who separated themselves from the old Helots. 
These events I will describe presently. On that occasion the 
Lacedaemonians, hearkening to Tisamenus and the Delphic oracle, 
granted the rebels terms and suffered them to depart. Last of 
all ^ Tisamenus acted as soothsayer at the battle of Tanagra, in 
which the Lacedaemonians encounte pd the Argives and Athenians. 

9 Such I ascertained to be the hist< \y of Tisamenus. 7. In the 
market-place at Sparta there are fmages of Pythaean Apollo, 
Artemis, and Latona. This whole p ice is called Chorus, because at 
the festival of the Gymnopaediae, o which the Lacedaemonians 
attach the greatest importance, the. lads dance choral dances in 
honour of Apollo. 8. Not far from these is a sanctuary of Earth 
and of Market Zeus ; another of Market Athena and Poseidon, whom 
they surname Asphalius (' securer '); and a third of Apollo and Hera. 

10 There is also a colossal statue of the Spartan People. The 
Lacedaemonians have also a sanctuary of the Fates, and beside it is 
the grave of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. For in obedience to an 
oracle they brought the bones of Orestes from Tegea and buried 
them here. Beside the grave of Orestes is a statue of Polydorus, 
son of Alcamenes : the Spartans honour King Polydorus so highly 
that his likeness is graved on the signet with which the magistrates 

1 1 seal everything that needs sealing. There is also a Market Hermes 
carrying the infant Dionysus ; also what is called the old Ephorea 
(office of the Ephors), containing the tombs of Epimenides the 
Cretan, and of Aphareus, son of Perieres. The story which the 
Lacedaemonians tell about Epimenides is in my opinion more 
probable than the one which the Argives tell. Here the Fates 
.... the Lacedaemonians have also some. . . . There is also 
a Hospitable Zeus and a Hospitable Athena. 

XII 

1. Going from the market-place by the street which they name 
Apheta, we come to the so-called Booneta (' bought with oxen '). 
I must first tell the story about the name of the street. 2. 
They say that Icarius set the wooers of Penelope to run a race. 
Of course Ulysses won; and it is said that they started to run 
2 down the street called Apheta (' started '). It seems to me that in 
instituting the race Icarius copied Danaus ; for Danaus hit upon this 
device to get his daughters married. When no man would wed 
one of these blood-stained damsels, Danaus gave out that he would 
bestow them in marriage, without requiring wedding presents, upon 



chs. xi-xn SPARTA 151 

such as might choose them for their beauty. A few men came, and 
Danaus set them to run a race. He who came in first had the first 
choice, and the second had the second, and so on to the last ; and 
the daughters that were left had to wait till other wooers came and 
had run another race. 3. On this street there is, as I have said, 3 
what is called the Booneta : it was once the house of King 
Polydorus, and when he died they bought it from his widow, and 
paid the price in oxen. For as yet there was no silver or gold 
money, but after the ancient fashion people bartered oxen and slaves, 
and ingots of silver and gold. And those who sail to India say 4 
that the Indians give goods in exchange for Greek wares, but know 
nothing of money, though they have plenty of gold and bronze. 
4. Over against the office of the Bidiaeans is a sanctuary of Athena. 
Ulysses is said to have set up her image and named her Goddess of 
Paths, after he had vanquished the wooers of Penelope in the race. 
He founded three sanctuaries of the Goddess of Paths at some 
distance from each other. Proceeding by the street Apheta we 5 
come to shrines of heroes : there is a shrine of lops, who is supposed 
to have lived about the time of Lelex or Myles ; and a shrine of 
Amphiaraus, son of Oicles, which the Spartans think was made for 
Amphiaraus by the sons of Tyndareus, because he was their cousin. 
There is also a shrine of the hero Lelex himself. 5. Not far from 
these is a precinct of Taenarian Poseidon : they surname him 
Taenarian . . . Not far off is an image of Athena, which they say 
was dedicated by the Spartan colonists of Tarentum in Italy. The 6 
place called Hellenium is said to have received its name because it 
was here that the Greeks (Hellenes), who were preparing to resist the 
passage of Xerxes into Europe, met and concerted a plan of resist- 
ance. The other story is that here the men who went to the 
Trojan war for the sake of Menelaus deliberated how they- might 
sail to Troy and avenge upon Alexander the rape of Helen. 6. 
Near the Hellenium they point out the tomb of Talthybius. The 7 
people of Aegium in Achaia also show a tomb in their market-place 
which they assert to be the tomb of Talthybius. When the heralds 
whom King Darius sent to Greece to demand earth and water were 
murdered, the wrath of Talthybius at the crime was manifested 
against Lacedaemon as a state ; but at Athens it fell on the house 
of a private man, Miltiades, son of Cimon. For it was Miltiades 
who caused the Athenians to kill the heralds that came to Attica. 
7. The Lacedaemonians have an altar of Apollo Acritas, and a 8 
sanctuary of Earth which is called Gaseptum. Above it is Maleatian 
Apollo. At the end of Apheta Street, and close to the city wall, is a 
sanctuary of Dictynna, and the royal graves of the Eurypontid line. 
Beside the Hellenium is a sanctuary of Arsinoe, daughter of Leu- 
cippus, and sister of the wives of Pollux and Castor. Beside what 
are called the Phruria ('watch-posts') is a temple of Artemis, and a 



152 SPARTA BK. III. LACONIA 

little farther on is the tomb of the Iamids, the soothsayers who 
9 came from Elis. There is also a sanctuary of Maron and Alpheus, 
who, next to Leonidas himself, are though 1- to have fought best of 
all the Lacedaemonians who marched to Thermopylae. The 
sanctuary of Tropaean ('turner to flight') Zeus was made by the 
Dorians after they had conquered the Amyclaeans and the rest of 
the Achaeans, who in those days possessed Laconia. The sanctuary 
of the Great Mother is venerated exceedingly. After it are shrines 
of the heroes Hippolytus, son of Theseus, and Aulon the Arcadian, 
son of Tlesimenes. Some say that Tlesimenes was a brother, 
others that he was a son of Parthenopaeus, son of Melanion. 

10 8. There is another way out of the market-place, and here is 
what they call the Scias, where the public assemblies are still held. 
They say that this Scias was a work of Theodoras the Samian, 
who discovered how to smelt iron and to mould images out of it. 
Here the Lacedaemonians hung the lute of Timotheus the Milesian 
after they had condemned him for adding four new strings to the seven 

11 strings of the old lute. 9. Beside the Scias is a round building in 
which are images of Zeus and Aphrodite, both surnamed Olympian. 
The Spartans say it was built by Epimenides, but their account of 
him does not tally with that of the Argives, for the Spartans even 
deny that they made war on the Cnosians at all. 

XIII 

1. Near it is the grave of Cynortas, son of Amyclas, and 
the tomb of Castor, over which a sanctuary has been made. 
For they say that it was not till forty years after the battle 
with Idas and Lynceus that the sons of Tyndareus were ranked 
with the gods. Beside the Scias is shown the grave of Idas and 
Lynceus. It is natural to suppose that they were buried in Mes- 

2 senia rather than here. But though the Messenian exiles have 
been restored to their homes, their calamities and long exile from 
Peloponnese have effaced from their memory much of the ancient 
history of their country, so that it is now open to any one to lay 
claim to traditions to which the true heirs have forgotten their right. 
2. Opposite to Olympian Aphrodite is a temple of the Saviour Maid 
(Kore). Some say that it was made by Orpheus the Thracian, 
others that it was the work of Abaris, who came from the land 

3 of the Hyperboreans. Carneus, whom they surname Domestic, 
was worshipped in Sparta even before the return of the Heraclids. 
He had a shrine in the house of Crius, son of Theocles, a sooth- 
sayer. As the daughter of Crius was filling her pitcher with water, 
some spies of the Dorians fell in with her and talked with her, and 

4 came to Crius, who told them how Sparta should be taken. 3. All 
the Dorians have been wont to worship Carnean Apollo from the 






chs. xii-xiii SPARTA 153 

time of Carnus, an Acarnanian, who was inspired with the gift of 
soothsaying by Apollo. This Carnus was slain by Hippotes, son of 
Phylas, and therefore the wrath of Apollo fell on the Dorian camp. 
Hippotes fled on account of the murder, and from that time the 
Dorians have been wont to propitiate the Acarnanian seer. But the 
Domestic Carneus of the Lacedaemonians is not this Carnus, but 
the deity who was worshipped in the house of the soothsayer Crius, 
while the Achaeans still held Sparta. The poetess Praxilla says 5 
that Carneus was the son of Europa, and was brought up by Apollo 
and Latona. Another story is that in the grove of Apollo, on the 
Trojan Mount Ida, there grew some cornel-trees (kraneiai) which 
the Greeks cut down to make the Wooden Horse ; but perceiving 
that the god was wroth with them they appeased him with sacrifices, 
and named him Carnean Apollo after the cornel-trees, transposing 
the letter R, which is assumed to have been an ancient trick of 
speech. 

4. Not far from Carneus is an image called the image of Aphe- 6 
taeus. Here they say was the starting-point from which the wooers 
of Penelope began to run. There is also a square flanked with 
colonnades, where small wares used to be sold long ago. Beside it 
is an altar of Ambulian Zeus, Ambulian Athena, and the Ambulian 
Dioscuri. 5. Opposite is the place named Colona, and a temple 7 
of Dionysus Colonatas. Beside the temple is the precinct of a 
hero who is said to have guided Dionysus on his way to Sparta. 
To this hero the women who are called the Dionysiades and 
the Leucippides sacrifice before they sacrifice to the god ; but 
the other eleven women, whom they also name Dionysiades, 
are set to run a race. This practice was derived from Delphi. 
Not far from the temple of Dionysus is a sanctuary of Zeus 8 
of the Fair Wind, on the right of which is a shrine of -the 
hero Pleuron. The sons of Tyndareus are descended on their 
mother's side from Pleuron ; for Areus in his epic poem says that 
Thestius the father of Leda was the son of Agenor, who was the son 
of Pleuron. 6. Not far from the shrine of the hero is a hill, and 
on the hill is a temple of Argive Hera. They say the temple was 
founded by Eurydice, daughter of Lacedaemon and wife of Acrisius, 
the son of Abas. The sanctuary of Protectress Hera was made by 
the direction of an oracle at a time when the Eurotas was flooding 
the country far and wide. There is an ancient wooden image called 9 
Aphrodite Hera : it is the custom for a mother, at the marriage of 
her daughter, to sacrifice to the goddess. 7. On the road to the 
right of the hill is a statue of Hetoemocles. Hetoemocles and his 
father Hipposthenes between them carried off eleven prizes at 
Olympia for wrestling, the father gaining one more prize than his 
son. 



154 SPARTA BK. III. LACOMA 



XIV 

i. Going westward from the market-place we come to a cenotaph 
of Brasidas, son of Tellis. Not far from the grave is the theatre : 
it is built of white marble, and is worth seeing. Opposite the 
theatre is the tomb of Pausanias, who commanded at Plataea : 
the other tomb is that of Leonidas. Every year speeches are 
spoken over the graves, and games are held, in which none but 
Spartans may compete. The bones of Leonidas were removed 
from Thermopylae by Pausanias forty years after the battle. There 
is also a tablet with the names of the men who looked the Persians 
in the face at Thermopylae : the names of their fathers are also 

2 recorded. 2. There is a place in Sparta that goes by the name of 
Theomelida. In this quarter of the city are the graves of the 
Agid kings, and near them is what is called the Club-room of the 
Crotanians, the Crotanians being a division of the Pitanatians. Not 
far from the Club-room is a sanctuary of Aesculapius, called ' In 
Agids.' Farther on we come to the tomb of Taenarus : they say 
that the cape which juts out into the sea was named after him. 
There are also sanctuaries of Horse-tending Poseidon and Aeginaean 
Artemis. Having returned to the Club-room we come to a sanctuary 
of Artemis Issora : they surname her also the Lady of the Lake. 
But in reality she is not Artemis, but Britomartis of Crete. I have 

3 told her story in describing Aegina. 3. Close to the tombs of the 
Agids you will see a tablet inscribed with a list of the Olympic and 
other prizes for running won by Chionis, a Lacedaemonian. He 
gained seven victories at Olympia, four in the single and the rest 
in the double race. In his time the shield race at the close of the 
games was not yet instituted. They say that Chionis joined Battus 
of Thera in his expedition, and helped him to found Cyrene and 

4 subdue the neighbouring Libyans. 4. The sanctuary of Thetis, 
they say, was constructed for the following cause. In the war with 
the Messenian rebels, King Anaxander invaded Messenia, and 
among the women who fell into his hands was Cleo, priestess of 
Thetis. Anaxander's wife, Leandris, asked him to give her Cleo. 
She found that the priestess was in possession of the wooden image 
of Thetis, and with Cleo's help she founded a temple in honour of 
the goddess. Leandris did this, being warned by a vision in a 

5 dream. The wooden image of Thetis is still preserved in secret. 
5. The Lacedaemonians say that the worship of Subterranean 
{ChtJwnia) Demeter was taught them by Orpheus ; but in my opinion 
they, like other people, derived it from the sanctuary at Hermion. 
There is also a sanctuary of Serapis (the newest sanctuary in Sparta), 
and another of Olympian Zeus. 

6 6. The Lacedaemonians give the name of the Course to the 



ch. xiv SPARTA 155 

place where the youths are still in the habit of practising running. 
On the left of the way, as you go from the grave of the Agids to 
the Course, is the tomb of Eumedes, one of the sons of Hippo- 
coon. There is also an ancient image of Hercules, to which the 
Sphaereans sacrifice. The Sphaereans are the lads just entering 
on manhood. There are also two gymnasiums in the Course, one 
of which was built as a votive offering by Eurycles, a Spartan. 
Outside the Course and opposite the image of Hercules is a house 
which at present belongs to a private man, but was of old the 
house of Menelaus. Going forward from the Course you come 
to a sanctuary of the Dioscuri and the Graces, and to another of 
Ilithyia, Carnean Apollo, and Leader Artemis. 7. The sanctuary 7 
of Agnitas is built on the right of the Course. Agnitas is a 
surname of Aesculapius, because the image of the god was of agnos 
wood. The agnos is a kind of willow just like the rhamnos. Not 
far from Aesculapius stands a trophy : they say that it was erected 
by Pollux for his victory over Lynceus. This seems to me to 
strengthen the probability that the sons of Aphareus are not buried 
in Sparta. At the beginning of the Course are the Dioscuri, 
Starters of the Race, and a little farther on is a shrine of the 
hero Alcon : they say that Alcon was a son of Hippocoon. Beside 
the shrine of Alcon is a sanctuary of Poseidon, whom they surname 
Poseidon of the House. 

8. There is a place, Plane-tree Grove, so called from the S 
tall plane-trees which grow in an unbroken line around it. The 
place where the lads fight is surrounded by a moat as an island 
is surrounded by the sea. It is entered by two bridges. On 
each of the bridges is an image of Hercules on one side, and a 
statue of Lycurgus on the other. For amongst the laws which 
Lycurgus laid down for the framing of the constitution were rules 
regulating the fighting of the lads. 9. The following customs are 9 
also observed by the lads. Before the fight they sacrifice in the 
Phoebaeum, which is outside the city, not far from Therapne. 
Here each of the two divisions of the lads sacrifices a puppy to 
Enyalius (the War-god), judging that the most valiant of domestic 
animals must be acceptable to the most valiant of the gods. I 
know of no other Greeks except the Colophonians who are in the 
habit of sacrificing puppies. The Colophonians sacrifice a black 
female puppy to the Wayside Goddess. Both the Colophonian 
sacrifice and the sacrifice offered by the lads at Lacedaemon 
are offered by night. After the sacrifice the lads pit tame boars 10 
against each other, and the side whose boar wins generally con- 
quers in Plane-tree Grove. All this is done in the Phoebaeum. 
On the morrow, a little before noon, they enter by the bridges 
into the said place. The entrance by which each of the two 
bands passes into the arena is decided by lot during the previous 



156 SPARTA BK. III. LACONIA 

night. In fighting they strike, and kick, and bite, and gouge out 
each other's eyes. Thus they fight man against man. But they 
also charge in serried masses, and push each other into the water. 

XV 

1. At Plane-tree Grove is a shrine of the heroine Cynisca, 
daughter of Archidamus, king of Sparta. She was the first woman 
who bred horses and gained a chariot victory at Olympia. 2. 
Behind the colonnade which is built beside Plane-tree Grove 
there are shrines of heroes : one of Alcimus, another of Enarae- 
phorus, and not far off one of Dorceus, and next to it one of 

2 Sebrus : these are said to have been sons of Hippocoon. From 
Dorceus the fountain near his shrine gets its name of Dorcea, 
and the place Sebrium is called after Sebrus. On the right 
of Sebrium is the tomb of Alcman, the sweetness of w T hose 
songs was not impaired by the Laconian dialect, the least musical 

3 of languages. 3. There are sanctuaries of Helen and Hercules. 
That of Helen is near the grave of Alcman : that of Hercules 
is close to the city wall, and in it is an armed image of 
Hercules ; the attitude of the image is said to have been sug- 
gested by the fight with Hippocoon and his sons. The hatred of 
Hercules for the house of Hippocoon is said to have originated in 
this, that when he came to Sparta to be purified after the murder of 

4 Iphitus they refused to purify him. The following circumstance 
also helped to kindle the feud. A boy named Oeonus, a cousin of 
Hercules (for he was a son of Licymnius, the brother of Alcmena), 
came to Sparta with Hercules. The lad was going about looking at 
the town, and had come opposite the house of Hippocoon, when a 
watch-dog flew at him. Oeonus threw a stone at the dog and knocked 
him over. So the sons of Hippocoon rushed out and despatched 

5 Oeonus with their clubs. This goaded Hercules to fury against 
Hippocoon and his sons ; and, in the heat of passion, he attacked 
them at once. But he was wounded and slunk away. However, 
afterwards he marched against Sparta and succeeded in punishing 
Hippocoon and his sons for the murder of Oeonus. The tomb of 
Oeonus stands beside the sanctuary of Hercules. 

6 4. Going from the Course eastward you have on the right a 
path and a sanctuary of Athena, called Athena Serve-them-right. 
For when Hercules meted out to Hippocoon and his sons the 
punishment which their wanton aggression had deserved, he 
founded a sanctuary of Athena with the surname of Serve-them- 
right (Axiopoinos), because the ancients called punishments poinai. 
There is also another sanctuary of Athena to which a different 
road leads from the Course. It is said to have been dedicated 
by Theras, son of Autesion, son of Tisamenus, son of Thersander, 



chs. xiv-xv SPARTA 157 



when he was on the point of leading a colony to the island 
which is now called after him, but which of old was known as 
Calliste. 5. Near it is a temple of Hipposthenes, who won so many 7 
victories in wrestling. They worship him in obedience to an oracle, 
paying honours to him as to Poseidon. Opposite this temple is an 
ancient image of Enyalius in fetters. The notion of the Lacedae- 
monians about this image is that, being held fast by the fetters, 
Enyalius will never run away from them ; just as the Athenians have 
a notion about the Victory called Wingless, that she will always stay 
where she is because she has no wings. That is why Athens and Sparta 
have set up these wooden images after this fashion. 6. In Sparta 8 
there is a club-room called the Painted Club-room. Beside it there 
are shrines of heroes, to wit, of Cadmus, son of Agenor, and of his 
descendants Oeolycus, son of Theras, and Aegeus, son of Oeolycus. 
They say that the shrines were made by Maesis, Laeas, and Europas, 
who were sons of Hyraeus, son of Aegeus. They also made the shrine 
to the hero Amphilochus because their ancestor Tisamenus was a son 
of Demonassa, sister of Amphilochus. 7. The Lacedaemonians are 9 
the only Greeks who surname Hera Goat-eating, and sacrifice goats 
to the goddess. They say that Hercules founded the sanctuary and 
was the first to sacrifice goats, because in the fight with Hippocoon 
and his sons he had not been hampered by Hera, who had thwarted 
him, as he fancied, in all his other adventures. And the reason 
why he sacrificed goats was, they say, because he had no other 
victims to offer. 

Not far from the theatre is a sanctuary of Poseidon Genethlius 10 
('of the race or family'), and shrines of two heroes, Cleodaeus, 
son of Hyllus, and Oebalus. The most famous of the Spartan 
sanctuaries of Aesculapius is near the Booneta, and to the left 
is a shrine of the hero Teleclus. I shall mention him here- 
after in treating of Messenia. 8. A little way farther on is a 
small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of 
armed Aphrodite. This is the only temple I know that has an 
upper story : the upper story is sacred to Morpho. Morpho is a 1 1 
surname of Aphrodite : she is seated wearing a veil and with fetters 
on her feet. They say that Tyndareus put the fetters on her, meaning 
to symbolise by these bonds the fidelity of women to their husbands. 
The other explanation, that Tyndareus punished the goddess with 
fetters because he thought it was she who had brought his daughters 
to shame, is one that 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. 



158 SPARTA BK. III. LACONIA 



XVI 

1. Hard by is a sanctuary of Hilaira and Phoebe : the author 
of the epic called the Cypria says they were daughters of Apollo. 
Young maidens act as their priestesses, who, like the goddesses, are 
called Leucippides. One of these priestesses decorated one of the 
images by replacing the ancient face with a face in the style of art of 
to-day ; but a dream forbade her to decorate the other image also. 
2. An egg is here hung by ribbons from the roof: they say it is the 

2 famous egg which Leda is reported to have given birth to. Every 
year the women weave a tunic for the Apollo of Amyclae, and they 
give the name of Tunic to the building where they weave it. 3. Near 
it is a house which the sons of Tyndareus are said to have originally 
inhabited ; but afterwards it was acquired by one Phormio, a 
Spartan. To him came the Dioscuri in the likeness of strangers. 
They said they had come from Cyrene, and desired to lodge in his 
house, and they begged he would let them have the chamber which 

3 they had loved most dearly while they dwelt among men. He 
made them free of all the rest of his house ; only that one chamber 
he said he would not give, for it was his daughter's bower, and she 
was a maiden. On the morrow the maiden and all her girlish 
finery had vanished, and in the chamber were found images of the 
Dioscuri and a table with silphium on it. So runs the tale. 

4 4. Going in the direction of the gate from the Tunic you come 
to a shrine of the hero Chilon, the reputed sage, and of the 
Athenians . . . who sailed with Dorieus, son of Anaxandrides, on 
his expedition to Sicily. They went on the expedition in the belief 
that the land of Eryx belonged of right to the descendants of 
Hercules, and not to the barbarians who occupied it. For the 
story goes that Hercules wrestled with Eryx on these terms : 
if Hercules won, the land of Eryx was to be his ; but if he 
were beaten, Eryx was to take the kine of Geryon and depart. 

5 For Hercules was driving these kine ; they had swum across to 
Sicily, and Hercules had crossed over to find them. But the favour 
of the gods did not attend Dorieus, son of Anaxandrides, as it had 
attended Hercules before ; for Hercules slew Eryx, but Dorieus 
and most of his army with him were slain by the Egestaeans. 

6 5. The Lacedaemonians have also made a sanctuary for the law- 
giver Lycurgus as for a god. Behind the temple is the grave of 
his son Eucosmus, and beside the altar is the grave of Lathria and 
Anaxandra. They were twin sisters, and therefore the sons of 
Aristodemus, being also twins, took them to wife. They were 
daughters of Thersander, son of Agamedidas. Thersander was 
king of the Cleestonaeans, and was a grandson of Ctesippus, son of 
Hercules. Opposite the temple is the tomb of Theopompus, son of 



ch. xvi SPARTA 159 

Nicander ; also the tomb of Eurybiadas, who commanded the Lace- 
daemonian galleys in the sea-fights with the Medes at Artemisium 
and Salamis. Hard by is what is called the shrine of the hero 
Astrabacus. 

6. The place called Limnaeum is a sanctuary of Artemis Orthia. 7 
The wooden image is said to be the famous one which Orestes and 
Iphigenia once stole from the Tauric land. The Lacedaemonians 
say it was brought to their country because Orestes was king of the 
country. This story seems to me more likely than the one which the 
Athenians tell. For what could have induced Iphigenia to leave 
the image at Brauron ? or why, when the Athenians were preparing 
to evacuate the country, did they not take the image with them on 
board ship ? To this day the name of the Tauric goddess stands 8 
so high that the Cappadocians on the Euxine claim to possess the 
image, and a like claim is set up by the Lydians who own the 
sanctuary of Artemis Anaeitis. And yet we are asked to believe 
that the Athenians calmly allowed the image to fall into the hands 
of the Mede ! For the image at Brauron was carried to Susa, and 
was afterwards presented by Seleucus to the Syrians of Laodicea, 
who possess it to this day. There are, besides, the following proofs 9 
that the Orthia at Lacedaemon is the very wooden image that was 
brought from the land of the barbarians. , In the first place, Astra- 
bacus and Alopecus, the sons of Irbus, who was the son of 
Amphisthenes, who was the son of Amphicles, who was the son of 
Agis, went mad as soon as they found the image. In the second 
place, when the Spartan Limnatians, the Cynosurians, and the people 
of Mesoa and Pitane were sacrificing to Artemis they fell out, and 
from words they came to bloodshed, and after many had been slain 
on the altar a plague wasted the rest. 7. Thereupon they were 10 
bidden by an oracle to wet the altar with human blood. A man 
upon whom the lot fell was sacrificed ; but Lycurgus changed the 
custom into that of scourging the lads, and so the altar reeks witli 
human blood. The priestess stands by them holding the wooden 
image. It is small and light ; but if the scourgers lay on lightly 
because a lad is handsome or noble, then the image grows so 
heavy in the woman's hands that she can hardly hold it, and she lays 
the blame on the scourgers, saying they are weighing her down. 
Thus has the relish for human blood continued ingrained in the 
image since the days when the sacrifices were offered to it in the 
Tauric land. They call the image Lygodesma ('willow-bound ') as 
well as Orthia ('upright'), because it was found in a thicket of 
willows, and the willows twining round it kept the image upright. 



i6o SPARTA BK. III. LACONIA 



XVII 

i. Not far from the sanctuary of Orthia is a sanctuary of 
Ilithyia. They say that they built it and recognised Ilithyia as a 
goddess in obedience to an oracle they received from Delphi. 

2. The Lacedaemonians have not an acropolis rising to a con- 
spicuous height like the Cadmea at Thebes and the Larisa at Argos ; 
but there are several hills in the city, and the highest of them they 

2 name the acropolis. 3. Here there is a sanctuary of Athena, who 
is surnamed both Protectress of the City and She of the Brazen 
House. The construction of the sanctuary was begun, they say, 
by Tyndareus. After his death his children wished to complete 
the edifice, and the spoils of Aphidna were destined to furnish 
the means of carrying it on. But they also left it unfinished, and 
many years elapsed before the Lacedaemonians had it completed, 
both the temple and the image of Athena being made of bronze. 
The artist was Gitiadas, a native of Laconia. He also composed 

3 some Doric songs, including a hymn to the goddess. On the 
bronze are wrought in relief many both of the labours of Hercules, 
and of the tasks which he voluntarily achieved ; also some of the 
deeds of the sons of Tyndareus, particularly the rape of the 
daughters of Leucippus. Hephaestus, too, is portrayed unloosing 
his mother from her bonds (I narrated this legend in my account of 
Attica). Perseus, too, is seen setting out for Libya to attack Medusa : 
the nymphs are giving him the cap and the shoes which were to bear 
him through the air. The reliefs include also Amphitrite, Poseidon, 
and the birth of Athena. These last are the largest, and, in my 
opinion, the best worth seeing. 

4 4. There is also another sanctuary of Athena here : it is the 
sanctuary of Athena the Worker. Near the southern colonnade 
is a temple of Zeus surnamed Orderer, and in front of the 
temple is the tomb of Tyndareus. The western colonnade 
has two eagles with two Victories upon them. These were 
dedicated by Lysander to commemorate his two battles, the battle 
of Ephesus, in which he beat the Athenian galleys under Antiochus, 
pilot of Alcibiades, and the later battle of Aegospotami, in which 

5 he destroyed the navy of Athens. 5. On the left of the sanctuary 
of Athena of the Brazen House they founded a sanctuary of the 
Muses, because the Lacedaemonians used to march out to battle, 
not with trumpets blowing, but to the melody of flutes and the 
harping of lyres and lutes. Behind the sanctuary of Athena of 
the Brazen House is a temple of Warlike Aphrodite : the wooden 

6 images here are as ancient as any in Greece. 6. On the right of 
the sanctuary of Athena of the Brazen House is an image of 
Supreme Zeus, which is the oldest bronze image in existence. 



chs. xvii-xviii SPARTA 161 

For it is not made in one piece, but the parts have been 
hammered separately, then fitted to each other, and fastened with 
nails to keep them together. They say that the image was made by 
Clearchus of Rhegium ; some say that Clearchus was a pupil of 
Dipoenus and Scyllis, others say that he was a pupil of Daedalus 
himself. Near what is called the Scenoma (' tent ') is a statue of a 
woman : the Lacedaemonians say that it represents Euryleonis who 
won an Olympic victory with a two-horse chariot. 

7. Beside the altar of the Goddess of the Brazen House stand 7 
two statues of Pausanias, who commanded at Plataea. His history 
is well known, and I will not repeat it : the accurate narratives of 
previous writers are sufficient. I will content myself with supple- 
menting their accounts by what I heard from a man of Byzantium. 
He said that the cause why the intrigues of Pausanias were detected, 
and why he alone failed to find protection in the sanctuary of the 
Goddess of the Brazen House, was simply that he was sullied with 
an indelible stain of blood. 8. For when he was at the Helles- 3 
pont with the allied fleet, he took a fancy for a Byzantine maiden ; 
and at nightfall Cleonice, for that was the girl's name, was brought 
to him by the men to whom his orders had been given. Pausanias, 
who had meantime been slumbering, was wakened by the noise ; for 
in approaching him the girl had accidentally upset the light. Now, 
conscious as he was that he was betraying Greece, Pausanias was 
haunted by an ever-present sense of uneasiness and alarm. So 
he started up and stabbed the girl with his sword. This guilt 9 
Pausanias was never able to expiate. He tried all sorts of 
purifications, he offered supplications to Zeus, God of Flight, 
and he had recourse to the wizards at Phigalia in Arcadia. 
But all in vain. He paid to Cleonice and the god the penalty of 
his crime. And at the bidding of the Delphic oracle the Lacedae- 
monians caused the bronze statues to be made ; and they revere a 
spirit called Epidotes, because they say he averts the wrath which 
the God of Suppliants cherishes at their treatment of Pausanias. 

XVIII 

1. Near the statues of Pausanias is an image of Aphrodite 
Ambologera (' she who staves off old age '). It was set up at the 
behest of an oracle. There are also images of Sleep and Death, 
whom, in harmony with the lines in the Iliad, they believe to be 
brothers. Going towards what is called the Alpium, we come to a 2 
temple of Athena Ophthalmitis (' goddess of eyes '). They say 
that it was dedicated by Lycurgus when Alcander knocked out one 
of his eyes because he happened not to like the laws which Lycurgus 
made. Lycurgus escaped to this place, and the Lacedaemonians 
saved him from losing the other eye also. So he built a temple of 

vol. 1 M 



i62 AMYCLAE bk. in. laconia 

3 Athena Ophthalmitis. 2. Going farther on, you come to a sanctuary 
of Ammon. From the earliest times the Libyan oracle is known to 
have been consulted by the Lacedaemonians more frequently than 
by the rest of the Greeks. It is said that when Lysander was 
besieging Aphytis in Pallene, Ammon appeared to him by night and 
foretold him that it would be better for him and for Lacedaemon to 
desist from the war with the Aphytaeans. So Lysander raised 
the siege and induced the Lacedaemonians to revere the god 
more than ever ; and the Aphytaeans are not a whit behind the 
Libyans of Ammon themselves in their respect for Ammon. 

4 3. The story of Cnagian Artemis is as follows. They say that 
Cnageus, a native of Laconia, marched with the Dioscuri to 
Aphidna. In the battle he was taken prisoner and sold into 
slavery in Crete. Now in the place of his bondage there was a 
sanctuary of Artemis ; and in course of time he made his escape, 
carrying off with him the virgin priestess, who took the image with her. 

5 They say that is why they name the goddess Cnagian x\rtemis. But it 
seems to me that this Cnageus must have come to Crete in some 
other way than the Lacedaemonians say he did ; for I do not believe 
that there was a battle at Aphidna at all. How could there be, 
when Theseus was a prisoner in Thesprotis, and the Athenians were 
not unanimous for him, but leaned rather to the side of Menestheus ? 
Even if a battle did take place, it is incredible that some of the 
victors were taken prisoners, especially as their victory proved so 
decisive that Aphidna itself fell into their hands. But enough of 
this. 

6 4. On the way down from Sparta to Amyclae we come to a river 
Tiasa. They think Tiasa is a daughter of the Eurotas. Beside it 
is a sanctuary of the Graces, Phaenna and Cleta, as the poet Alcman 
calls them. They believe that it was Lacedaemon who founded the 

7 sanctuary of the Graces here and gave them their names. 5. The 
things worth seeing at Amyclae are these. On a monument is the 
likeness of a man named Aenetus, who practised the pentathlum : 
they say that he won the prize at Olympia, and that even while they 
were placing the crown on his head he expired. So there is a like- 
ness of him. And there are bronze tripods, the more ancient of 
which, they say, are a tithe-offering of the spoils of the Messenian 

S war. Under the first tripod stood an image of Aphrodite, and 
under the second tripod an image of Artemis. The tripods and 
the reliefs on them are both by Gitiadas. The third tripod is 
by Callon of Aegina : under it stands an image of the Maid, the 
daughter of Demeter. There is also an image of a woman, sup- 
posed to be Sparta, holding a lyre : it is by Aristander of Paros. 
Further, there is an image of Aphrodite called 'the Aphrodite 
beside the Amyclaean god ' : it is by Polyclitus of Argos. These 
tripods are larger than the others, and were dedicated from the spoils 



CH. XVIII 



AMYCLAE 163 



taken at the victory of Aegospotami. 6. There are offerings by 9 
Bathycles the Magnesian, who made the throne of the Amyclaean 
god. He offered them on the completion of the throne, and they 
consist of the Graces and an image of Leucophryenian Artemis. 
From whom Bathycles learned his art, and in the reign of what 
king of Lacedaemon he made the throne, I omit to inquire. But I 
saw the throne, and I will describe it as I saw it. 7. It is supported 10 
both in front and behind by two Graces and two Seasons : on the 
left hand stand Echidna and Typhos, and on the right Tritons. 
To describe all the reliefs in detail would be tedious to my readers ; 
but I may say in brief (most of the work being tolerably well known) 
that Poseidon and Zeus are represented carrying away Taygete, 
daughter of Atlas, and her sister Alcyone. There are also reliefs 
representing Atlas, and the single combat of Hercules with Cycnus, 
and the battle of the Centaurs at the home of Pholus. But why 11 
Bathycles represented the Bull of Minos (the Minotaur), as it is called, 
bound and led along alive by Theseus, I do not know. And on the 
throne is a troop of Ph?e,acians dancing and Demodocus is singing. 
Perseus, too, is represents 1 slaying Medusa. Passing over Hercules' 
fight with the giant Thurius, and Tyndareus' fight with Eurytus, 
we have the rape of the daughters of Leucippus. Here, too, are 
Dionysus and Hercules : Hermes is seen bearing the infant Dionysus 
to heaven, and Athena is leading Hercules to dwell thenceforward 
with the gods. And Peleus is giving Achilles to be reared by Chiron, 12 
who is said to have also taught him. And Cephalus is carried 
off by Day for the sake of his beauty ; and to the wedding of 
Harmonia the gods are bringing gifts. And Achilles' combat 
with Memnon is also wrought, and Hercules punishing Diomede 
the Thracian, and punishing Nessus, too, at the river Evenus. 
And Hermes is leading the goddesses to Alexander to be judged. 
And Adrastus and Tydeus are stopping the fight between Amphiaraus 
and Lycurgus, son of Pronax. Io, daughter of Inachus, is changed 13 
into a cow, and Hera is looking at her. And Athena is fleeing 
from Hephaestus, who is pursuing her. Besides these there are 
wrought some of the deeds of Hercules ; what he did to the Hydra, 
and how he dragged up the hound of hell. And Anaxis and 
Mnasinus are seated on horseback ; but one horse is carrying 
Nicostratus and Megapenthes, son of Menelaus. And Bellerophon 
is slaying the Lycian monster, and Hercules is driving the kine of 
Geryon. 8. At the upper extremities of the throne are, at either 14 
side, the sons of Tyndareus on horseback ; and there are sphinxes 
under the horses and wild beasts running upwards, on the side of 
Castor a leopard, and on the side of Pollux a lion. Highest of all a 
dance is wrought on the throne : the dancers are the Magnesians who 
helped Bathycles to make the throne. 9. Going under the throne, 15 
you see, inwards from the Tritons, the hunt of the Calydonian boar 



164 AMYCLAE BK. III. LACONIA 

and Hercules slaying the sons of Actor. And Calais and Zetes are 
driving the Harpies from Phineus. And Pirithous and Theseus 
have carried off Helen, and Hercules is throttling the lion. And 
16 Apollo and Artemis are shooting arrows at Tityus. Here, too, is 
wrought Hercules' fight with Oreus the Centaur, and Theseus' 
combat with the Bull of Minos (the Minotaur). And there is repre- 
sented the wrestling of Hercules with Achelous, and the story 
how Hera was bound fast by Hephaestus, and the games which Acastus 
held in memory of his father, and the story of Menelaus and the 
Egyptian Proteus in the Odyssey. Last of all there is Admetus 
yoking a boar and a lion to his car, and the Trojans offering libations 
to Hector. 



XIX 

1. The part of the throne where the god would sit is not 
continuous, but contains several seats. Beside each seat a wide 
space is left : the middle space is widest of all, and here the image 

2 stands. 2. I know of no one who has measured the size of the 
image, but one would guess it to be quite thirty cubits. It is not 
the work of Bathycles, but is an ancient and rude image ; for 
except that it has a face and feet and hands, it otherwise resembles 
a bronze pillar. On its head it has a helmet, and in its hands a 

3 spear and bow. 3. The pedestal of the image is in the form of an 
altar, and they say that Hyacinth is buried in it ; and at the Hyacin- 
thian festival, before sacrificing to Apollo, they bring a sacrifice for 
Hyacinth, as for a hero, into this altar through a bronze door. The 
door is on the left side of the altar. 4. On the altar is an image 
of Biris wrought in relief, also images of Amphitrite and Poseidon. 
Zeus and Dionysus are conversing with each other, and near them 

4 stand Dionysus and Semele, and beside Semele is Ino. Upon the 
altar are also represented Demeter and the Maid and Pluto, and 
besides them the Fates and the Seasons, and likewise Aphrodite and 
Athena and Artemis. They are carrying to heaven Hyacinth and 
Polybaea : the latter, they say, was Hyacinth's sister and died a 
maid. Hyacinth is here represented with a beard ; but Nicias, 
son of Nicomedes, painted him as the pink of youthful beauty, 

5 hinting at the love of Apollo for him. Further, on the altar is 
represented Hercules, also in the act of being led to heaven by 
Athena and the rest of the gods. And on the altar are also the 
daughters of Thestius, and the Muses, and Seasons. The story of 
the Zephyr wind, and how Hyacinth was unwittingly slain by Apollo, 
and the legend about the flower, may not be literally true, but let 
them pass. 

6 5. Amyclae was destroyed by the Dorians, and has since 
remained a mere village, but it contained a sanctuary of Alexandra 



CHS. XVIII-XIX 



THEKAPNE 165 



and an image of her, which are worth seeing. The Amyclaeans say 
that Alexandra is no other than Cassandra, the daughter of Priam. 
Here, too, is a likeness of Clytaemnestra and the reputed tomb of 
Agamemnon. 6. The deities worshipped by the people here are 
the Amyclaean god and Dionysus. The latter they surname Psilax, 
and very rightly, I think. For the Dorians call wings psila, and 
wine uplifts men and raises their spirits, as wings do birds. Such 
were the notable objects at Amyclae. 

7. Another road leads from the capital to Therapne. On this 7 
road there is a wooden image of Athena Alea. Before you cross 
the Eurotas, a little above the bank, they show you a sanctuary of 
Wealthy Zeus. Having crossed the river we come to a temple of 
Cotylean Aesculapius, which was built by Hercules. He gave 
Aesculapius the name of Cotylean, because he had himself been healed 
of the wound which he received in the hollow of his hand (kotiile) 
in the first battle with Hippocoon and his sons. The oldest 
building on this road is a sanctuary of Ares. It is on the left of 
the road : they say that the image was brought by the Dioscuri 
from Colchis. 8. They surname him Theritas, from Thero ; for 8 
they say that Thero was the nurse of Ares. But perhaps they learned 
the name Theritas from the Colchians ; for certainly the Greeks know 
of no nurse of Ares called Thero. However, it seems to me that Ares 
got the surname Theritas, not because of his nurse, but because a 
man must needs be fierce when he fights a foe, as Homer says of 
Achilles : 

And fierce as a lion is he. 

9. Therapne got its name from the daughter of Lelex. It 9 
contains a temple of Menelaus, and they say that Menelaus and 
Helen were buried here. 10. The story told by the Rhodians is 
different. They say that when Menelaus was dead, and Orestes 
was still roaming, Helen was driven forth by Nicostratus and 
Megapenthes, and betook herself to Rhodes, where she had a 
friend in Polyxo, the wife of Tlepolemus. For Polyxo was an 10 
Argive by birth, and when her husband Tlepolemus fled to Rhodes, 
she had fled with him. She was now the queen of the island, 
having been left a widow with an orphan son. They say she wished 
to avenge her husband's death on Helen ; and she now had Helen 
in her hands. So when Helen was bathing, the queen sent some 
handmaidens in the guise of Furies, who seized her and hanged her on 
a tree. Hence there is in Rhodes a sanctuary of Helen of the Tree. 
11. I know that the people of Crotona tell another story n 
about Helen, and that the people of Himera agree with them. 
I will record it also. In the Euxine Sea there is an island over 
against the mouths of the Danube : it is sacred to Achilles, and 
is called the White Isle. Its circumference is twenty furlongs, 



166 THERAPNE TAYGETUS bk. hi. laconia 

and all the isle is wooded, and full of beasts, both wild and 
tame ; and there is in it a temple of Achilles, with an image of 

12 him. The first who sailed to this island is said to have been a 
Crotonian named Leonymus. War had broken out between the 
Crotonians and the Italian Locrians, who, being akin to the Opuntian 
Locrians, call upon Ajax, son of Oileus, to help them in battle. 
Leonymus, as general of the Crotonian army, attacked the enemy at 
the point where he had heard that Ajax was posted in the van. He 
received, we are told, a wound in the breast, and being enfeebled by 
it he repaired to Delphi. When he was come, the Pythian priestess 
bade him sail to the White Isle, telling him that Ajax would there 

13 appear to him and would heal him of his wound. In time he came 
back from the White Isle sound and well, and used to tell that 
he had seen Achilles, and Ajax the son of Oileus, and Ajax the son 
of Telamon. And Patroclus and Antilochus, he said, were with 
them ; and Helen was wedded to Achilles, and she had bidden 
him sail to Himera, and tell Stesichorus that the loss of his eyesight 
was a consequence of her displeasure. Therefore Stesichorus com- 
posed his palinode. 

XX 

1. In Therapne I saw the fountain Messeis. Some of the Lace- 
daemonians, however, have asserted that it is the fountain now named 
Polydeucia, not the fountain at Therapne, which was called Messeis 
of old. The fountain Polydeucia and a sanctuary of Pollux (Poly- 
deuces) are on the right of the road to Therapne. 

2 Not far from Therapne is what is called the Phoebaeum, in which 
is a temple of the Dioscuri ; and here the lads sacrifice to Enyalius. 
2. At no great distance from it is a sanctuary of Poseidon, surnamed 
Earth-holder. Going on thence in the direction of Taygetus, you come 
to a place which they name Alesiae : they say that Myles, son of Lelex, 
was the first man who invented a mill, and that he ground corn 
(alesal) in this place Alesiae. Here is a shrine of the hero Lace- 

3 daemon, son of Taygete. 3. From this place we cross a river 
Phellia, and then passing Amyclae and pursuing the straight road in 
the direction of the sea, we come to the site of Pharis, once a 
Laconian city. Turning away from the Phellia to the right is the 
road that goes to Mount Taygetus. In the plain is a precinct of 
Messapian Zeus. They say that he was so surnamed after a priest of 
his. 4. From this point leaving Taygetus we come to a place where 
once stood the city of Bryseae. There is still left here a temple of 
Dionysus, and an image under the open sky. But the image 
in the temple may be seen by women only ; for women alone 

4 perform in secrecy the sacrificial rites. 5. Above Bryseae rises 
Mount Taletum, a peak of Taygetus. They call this peak sacred 



chs. xix-xx TAYGETUS 167 

to the Sun, and amongst the sacrifices which they here offer to the 
Sun are horses. The same sacrifice, I am aware, is offered by the 
Persians. Not far from Mount Taletum is a place called Euoras, 
where wild animals, especially wild goats, are to be found. Indeed, 
wild goats and boars may be hunted all over Mount Taygetus, and 
it swarms with deer and bears. Between Taletum and Euoras is 5 
a place which they name Therae : they say that Latona from the 
heights of Taygetus . . . There is a sanctuary of Demeter surnamed 
Eleusinian. Here, Lacedaemonians say, Hercules was hidden by 
Aesculapius while he was being healed of his wound. There is a 
wooden image of Orpheus in it, a work, they say, of Pelasgians. 
6. I know also of the following custom which is observed here. 
There was a city by the sea called Helos, which Homer mentions 6 
in his list of the Lacedaemonians : 

Who dwelt in Amyclae and Helos, the city by the sea. 

It was founded by Heleus, the youngest of the sons of Perseus, and 
the Dorians afterwards besieged and took it. Its people were the first 
slaves of the Lacedaemonian commonwealth, and they were the first 
who were called Helots, as indeed Helots they were. The name Helots 
was extended to the slaves subsequently acquired, though these were 
Dorians of Messenia ; just as the whole Greek race were called 
Hellenes from the district in Thessaly once called Hellas. But to 7 
return : from this Helos a wooden image of the Maid, the daughter of 
Demeter, is brought up on stated days to the sanctuary of Eleusinian 
Demeter. 7. Fifteen furlongs from this sanctuary is Lapithaeum, so 
called from a native man of the name of Lapithus. Lapithaeum is in 
Taygetus, and not far off is Dereum, where is an image of Dereatian 
Artemis in the open air, and beside it is a spring which they name 
Anonus. Going on beyond Dereum about twenty furlongs you 
come to Harplea, which extends to the plain. 

8. On the road from Sparta to Arcadia there stands in the 8 
open air an image of Athena surnamed Parea. Beyond it there 
is a sanctuary of Achilles, which it is not customary to open. But 
the lads who are about to take part in the combat in Plane-tree 
Grove are wont to sacrifice to Achilles before the fight. The 
Spartans say that the sanctuary was made by Prax, a grandson 
of Pergamus, son of Neoptolemus. 9. Going on we come to 9 
a place called the Horse's Tomb. For here Tyndareus sacrificed 
a horse and swore the suitors of Helen, making them stand on 
the pieces of the horse. The oath was to defend Helen and 
him who might be chosen to marry her, if ever they should be 
wronged. Having sworn them he buried the horse here. The seven 
pillars which are not far from this tomb ... in accordance, I believe, 
with an ancient fashion, which they say are images of the planets. 
On the road is a precinct of Cranius, surnamed Stemmatian, and a 



i68 BELEMINA CROCEAE bk. hi. laconia 

io sanctuary of Mysian Artemis. 10. The image of Modesty, distant 
about thirty furlongs from the city, is said to be an offering of Icarius 
and to have been made for the following reason. After Icarius had 
given Penelope in marriage to Ulysses, he tried to induce his son-in-law 
to take up his abode in Lacedaemon. Failing in the attempt, he next 
besought his daughter to stay behind. And when she was setting 

ii out for Ithaca, he followed the chariot, entreating her. Ulysses 
stood it for a time, but at last he told Penelope either to 
follow him freely, or, if she liked her father better, to go back to 
Lacedaemon. They say that she answered nothing, but simply drew 
down her veil in reply to the question. So Icarius, seeing that she 
wished to depart with Ulysses, let her go, and set up an image of 
Modesty ; for they say that Penelope had reached this point of 
the road when she drew down her veil. 

XXI 

i. Twenty furlongs farther on the stream of the Eurotas ap- 
proaches very near the road, and here is the tomb of Ladas, the 
fleetest runner of his day. He was crowned at Olympia for a victory 
in the long race ; and being taken ill, I suppose, immediately after 
the victory, he was on his way home, but died here, and his grave 
is above the high road. His namesake, who also won a victory at 
Olympia, but in the short race, not the long, was a native of 
Aegium in Achaia, according to the Elean register of Olympic 

2 victors. 2. Farther on in the direction of Pellana is the Characoma 
(' entrenchment '), as it is called ; and after it is Pellana, which was 
a city in days of old. They say that Tyndareus dwelt here when he 
fled from Sparta before Hippocoon and his sons. The objects of 
interest which I here observed were a sanctuary of Aesculapius and 
the Pellanian spring. They say that, drawing water at this spring, a 
girl fell into it and vanished ; but the hood that she wore on her 

3 head appeared in another spring called Lancea. 3. A hundred 
furlongs distant from Pellana is Belemina, the best watered place in 
Laconia ; for it is traversed by the river Eurotas, and is abundantly 
supplied with springs of its own. 

4 4. Going down to the sea in the direction of Gythium, we come 
to the Lacedaemonian village of Croceae. The stone quarry is not 
one continuous mass of rock, but the stones are dug out in the 
shape of pebbles. They are hard to work, but once worked they 
might grace sanctuaries of the gods, and they are especially fitted to 
adorn swimming-baths and fountains. In front of the village stands 
a stone image of Croceatian Zeus, and at the quarry there are bronze 

5 images of the Dioscuri. 5. After Croceae, turning off to the right 
from the straight road to Gythium, you will come to the town of 
Aegiae : they say that this is the town which Homer names Augeae. 



chs. xx-xxn GYTHIUM 169 



Here is a lake called the Lake of Poseidon, and at the lake is a 
temple with an image of the god. But they fear to fish in the lake, 
for they say that he who catches fish in it is turned into the fish 
called the Fisher. 

6. Gythium is thirty furlongs from Aegiae : it is built beside the 6 
sea, and now belongs to the Free Laconians, whom the Emperor 
Augustus released from the relation of serfdom in which they had 
stood to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. The whole of Peloponnese, 
except the Isthmus of Corinth, is surrounded by sea ; but the 
finest shell-fish for the manufacture of the purple dye, next to 
the shell-fish of the Phoenician Sea, are furnished by the coast of 
Laconia. The Free Laconians have eighteen cities. The first, 7 
which we reach by descending from Aegiae to the sea, is Gythium ; 
after it are Teuthrone and Las and Pyrrhichus; and on Taenarum are 
Caenepolis, Oetylus, Leuctra, Thalamae, also Alagonia and Gerenia. 
On the farther side of Gythium, on the sea-coast, are Asopus, Acriae, 
Boeae, Zarax, Epidaurus Limera, Brasiae, Geronthrae, Marius. These 
are all that are left out of what were once the four-and-twenty cities 
of the Free Laconians. The reader will please to remember that 
all the other cities mentioned by me in this book belong to Sparta, 
and are not, like the foregoing, independent. 7. The people of 8 
Gythium say that their city was founded by no mortal man, but that 
Hercules and Apollo, after contending for the possession of the 
tripod, and making it up again between them, jointly founded the city. 
In the market-place of Gythium there are images of Apollo and Her- 
cules, and near them is an image of Dionysus. In another part of the 
town is Carnean Apollo, and a sanctuary of Amnion, and a bronze 
image of Aesculapius (the temple is roofless), and a spring of water be- 
longing to the god, and a holy sanctuary of Demeter, and an image 
of Earth-holding Poseidon. 8. The people of Gythium talk of an 9 
Old Man who lives in the sea. I found that he was no other than 
Nereus. Their name for him was suggested by the passage in 
Homer's Iliad, where Thetis is speaking : 

Go you now down into the sea's broad bosom 

To see the old man of the sea and your father's house. 

In Gythium there is a gate called the gate of Castor, and in the 
acropolis there is a temple of Athena with an image of the goddess. 

XXII A. 

1. Just three furlongs from Gythium is an unwrought stone: they 
say that Orestes, sitting down on it, was relieved of his madness ; 
therefore the stone was named Zeus Cappotas (' reliever ') in the 
Doric tongue. 2. Off Gythium lies the island of Cranae, where 
Alexander, according to Plomer, embraced Helen for the first time 



170 ACRIAE GERONTHRAE bk. ill. laconia 

after he had carried her off. On the mainland opposite to the 
island is a sanctuary of Aphrodite Migonitis ; and the whole place 

2 is called Migonium. They say that this sanctuary was founded 
by Alexander. And when Menelaus had taken Ilium, and had 
returned safe home eight years after the sack of Troy, he set up 
images of Thetis and of the goddess Praxidica (' exacter of punish- 
ment ') near the sanctuary of Migonitis. Above Migonium is a 
mountain called Larysium, sacred to Dionysus ; and they celebrate 
a festival of Dionysus at the beginning of spring. Among the stories 
which they tell of the rites is that they find here a ripe bunch of 
grapes. 

3 3. About thirty furlongs to the left of Gythium there are on the 
mainland walls of a place called Trinasus (' three islands '), which 
appears to me to have been a fort and not a city. I suppose it got 
its name from the islets, three in number, which here lie off the 
mainland. About eighty furlongs beyond Trinasus you come to the 

4 ruins of Helos. 4. About thirty furlongs beyond them is a city, Acriae, 
on the sea. Here there is a temple of the Mother of the Gods, with 
a stone image of her : both are worth seeing. The people of Acriae 
say that it is the most ancient sanctuary of this goddess in Pelo- 
ponnese. The oldest of all her images, however, is on the rock of 
Coddinus at Magnesia, to the north of Sipylus : the Magnesians 

5 say it was made by Broteas, son of Tantalus. Acriae also pro- 
duced an Olympic victor, by name Nicocles, who won five prizes for 
running in two Olympiads. A monument is raised to him between 
the gymnasium and the part of the city wall which is beside 

6 the harbour. 5. Geronthrae lies inland from Acriae at a 
distance of one hundred and twenty furlongs. It was inhabited 
before the Heraclids came to Peloponnese, but the Dorians of 
Lacedaemon expelled the Achaean population, and sent colonists of 
their own to it. In my time the town belonged to the Free Laconians. 
On the way from Acriae to Geronthrae is a village called Palaea 
(' old ') : in Geronthrae itself there is a temple of Ares with a sacred 

7 grove. Every year they hold a festival in honour of the god, during 
which it is forbidden to women to enter the grove. Round about 
the market-place are the springs of drinking water. In the acropolis 
is a temple of Apollo with the ivory head of his image : the rest 
of the image was destroyed by fire along with the former temple. 

8 6. Marius is another town of the Free Laconians : it is distant a 
hundred furlongs from Geronthrae. Here there is an ancient 
sanctuary common to all the gods : it is surrounded by a grove con- 
taining springs. There are springs in the sanctuary of Artemis 
also. Marius is certainly as well supplied with water as a place can 
be. Above the town is a village, Glyppia, which is also in the 
interior. And twenty furlongs from Geronthrae is another village, 
Selinus. 



chs. xxii-xxiii ASOPUSBOEAECYTHERA 171 

These places lie inland from Acriae. 7. But on the sea there is the 9 
city of Asopus, distant sixty fujlongs from Acriae. In it is a temple 
of the Roman emperors, and about twelve furlongs inland from 
the city is a sanctuary of Aesculapius, whom they name Philolaus 
('friend of the people'). The bones which are preserved in the 
gymnasium, and which people venerate, are human bones in spite of 
their extraordinary size. In the acropolis is a sanctuary of Athena, 
surnamed Cyparissia (' she of the cypress '). At the foot of the 
acropolis are the ruins of a city called the city of the Paracypressian 
Achaeans. In this district there is also a sanctuary of Aesculapius, dis- 10 
tant about fifty furlongs from Asopus : the place where the sanctuary 
is situated is named Hyperteleatum. 8. Two hundred furlongs from 
Asopus is a cape jutting into the sea : they call it Onugnathus (' the 
jaw of the ass '). Here is a sanctuary of Athena without either image 
or roof: it is said to have been made by Agamemnon. There is also 
the tomb of Cinadus, one of the 'pilots of Menelaus' ship. 9. After 11 
the cape the Bay of Boeae runs into the land, and there is the city of 
Boeae at the head of the bay. This city was founded by Boeus, one of 
the Heraclids, and he is said to have gathered people into it from three 
cities, Etis, Aphrodisias, and Side. Of these three ancient cities two 
are said to have been founded by Aeneas when, on his flight to Italy, 
he was driven into this bay by storms : they say that Etias was his 
daughter. The third of the cities is said to have been called after Side, 
daughter of Danaus. So when the people of these three towns went 12 
forth into the world they sought to know where it was the will of 
heaven that they should dwell. And it was foretold them that Artemis 
would show them where they should abide. So when they were 
gone ashore, and a hare appeared to them, they took the hare as 
their guide. And when it dived into a myrtle tree, they built a city 
where the myrtle stood. And they worship that very myrtle-tree till 
this day, and they call Artemis by the name of Saviour. In the 13 
market-place of Boeae there is a temple of Apollo, and in a different 
part of the town there are temples of Aesculapius, Serapis, and 
Isis. Not more than seven furlongs from Boeae are some ruins : 
on the left as you go to them stands a stone image of Hermes. 
Among the ruins there is a not inconsiderable sanctuary of 
Aesculapius and Health. 

XXIII 

1. Cythera lies opposite Boeae ; and to Cape Platanistus (' plane- 
tree grove '), the nearest point in the island to the mainland, 
it is a sail of forty furlongs from Cape Onugnathus on the mainland. 
In Cythera there is the sea-port of Scandea on the coast : the 
city of Cythera is about ten furlongs inland from Scandea. The 
sanctuary of the Heavenly Goddess is most holy, and of all Greek 



172 EPIDELIUMEPIDAURUSLIMERA bk. hi. laconia 

sanctuaries of Aphrodite this is the most ancient. The goddess 
is represented by a wooden image armed. 

2 Sailing from Boeae, in the direction of Cape Malea, we come to a 
harbour named Nymphaeum, and a standing image of Poseidon, 
and close to the sea a cave in which is a spring of sweet water. 
The neighbourhood is thickly peopled. 

2. After rounding Cape Malea you reach a place on the coast 
one hundred furlongs from Malea, on the borders of the territory of 

3 Boeae. It is sacred to Apollo and is named Epidelium ; for the 
wooden image of Apollo which is now there once stood in Delos. 
In the days when Delos was a mart of Greece, and traders were 
believed to be safe there under the protection of the god, Meno- 
phanes, general of Mithridates, knowing that the island was un- 

4 fortified and the people unarmed, sailed to it with a fleet, massacred 
the population, foreigners and natives alike, looted much of the 
merchandise and all the votive offerings, sold the women and 
children into slavery, and razed the town of Delos to the ground. 
Whether he did it out of pure wantonness, or by the express orders 
of Mithridates, who can tell ? A covetous man thinks more of gain 
than of godliness. In the hurly-burly of the sack a saucy barbarian 
hurled this wooden image into the sea ; and the waves washed it 
to this spot in the territory of Boeae, and therefore they name the 

5 place Epidelium (' New Delos '). 3. .But neither Menophanes nor 
Mithridates himself eluded the wrath of the god. Menophanes was 
overtaken by it immediately ; for when he put out to sea after the 
sack of Delos the merchants who had escaped lay in wait for him 
and sent him to the bottom. At a later time Mithridates, shorn 
of his kingdom and hounded from land to land by the Romans, 
was driven by the god to lay hands on himself. Some say, how- 
ever, that one of his mercenaries dealt him, as a favour, the fatal 
stroke. Such was the fate that befell these impious men. 

6 4. The territory of Boeae is bordered by Epidaurus Limera, 
which is distant from Epidelium about two hundred furlongs. The 
people say that they are not Lacedaemonians, but Epidaurians of 
Argolis,>and that being sent by the State to consult Aesculapius at 
Cos, they touched at this point of Laconia in the course of their 
voyage, and that here dreams were vouchsafed to them, in consequence 

7 of which they staid and took up their abode on the spot. They say, 
too, that they had brought with them from their home in Epidaurus a 
serpent, which escaped from the ship and dived into the earth not 
far from the sea. And so, what with the vision they had seen in 
their dreams, and what with the omen of the serpent, it seemed 
good to them to abide and dwell there. Where the serpent dived 
into the ground there are altars of Aesculapius, and olive-trees grow 

8 round about them. 5. Going forward on the right about two 
furlongs we come to what is called the water of Ino. It is as big 



chs. xxm-xxiv ZARAX BRASIAE 173 

as a small lake, but much deeper. At the festival of I no they 
throw barley loaves into this water. If the water takes and keeps the 
loaves, it is a good augury for the person who threw them in ; but 
if it sends them up to the surface, it is judged a bad omen. The 9 
craters at Etna give like indications. For people cast vessels of gold 
and silver and all sorts of victims into them ; and if the fire 
swallows them up the people are glad, taking it for a happy omen ; 
but if the flame rejects what a man throws into it they think evil will 
befall that man. 6. On the way that leads from Boeae to Epidaurus 10 
Limera there is in the Epidaurian territory a sanctuary of Artemis 
of the Lake. The city is built on high ground not far from 
the sea, and the sights worth seeing here are a sanctuary of 
Aphrodite, a sanctuary of Aesculapius with a standing image of the 
god in stone, a temple of Athena on the acropolis, and another of 
Zeus, surnamed Saviour, in front of the harbour. 7. Opposite the 11 
city a cape called Minoa juts into the sea. The bay does 
not differ from the other inlets of the sea in Laconia ; but the 
beach here affords pebbles of finer shape and of every hue. 

XXIV 

1. A hundred furlongs from Epidaurus is Zarax, a place with a 
good harbour ; but of all the towns of the Free Laconians this is 
most decayed, for it was the only town in Laconia which was 
destroyed by Cleonymus, son of Cleomenes, son of Agesipolis. 
The history of Cleonymus has been given by me elsewhere. There 
is nothing in Zarax but a temple of Apollo at the end of the 
harbour with an image holding a lute. 

2. Going on from Zarax beside the sea for about a hundred fur- 2 
longs, and then turning inland, and going up country for about ten 
furlongs, you come to the ruins of Cyphanta. Amongst the ruins is 

a grotto sacred to Aesculapius : the image is of stone. There is 
also a spring of cold water gushing from a rock. They say that Ata- 
lanta was hunting here, and that, being tormented with thirst, she struck 
the rock with her spear, and so the water flowed out. 3. Brasiae is 3 
the farthest seaside town of the Free Laconians in this direction : it 
is two hundred furlongs from Cyphanta by sea. The people here 
say, though nobody else agrees with them, that Semele had a son by 
Zeus, that being detected by Cadmus she and her infant Dionysus 
were put into a chest, and that the chest drifted to their shore. 
Semele, they say, was dead when they found her, so they buried 
her splendidly ; but Dionysus they brought up. Hence the name of 4 
their town, which had been Oreatae before, was changed to Brasiae, 
because the chest was washed ashore. And of waifs cast up by the 
sea it is still commonly said that they ekbebrasthai. The people of 
Brasiae say, too, that in her wanderings Ino came to their country, 



174 LAS BK. III. LACONIA 

and desired to be nurse to Dionysus. And they show the cavern 
where Ino nursed Dionysus, and they call the plain the Garden of 

5 Dionysus. 4. There is here a sanctuary of Aesculapius and one of 
Achilles, and they hold a festival of Achilles every year. There is a 
small headland at Brasiae, jutting gently into the sea, and on it 
stand bronze figures not more than a foot high, with caps on then- 
heads. Whether the people suppose them to be the Dioscuri or the 
Corybantes I do not know. Anyhow there are three of them ; and 
an image of Athena makes four. 

6 5. On the right of Gythium is Las, distant ten furlongs 
from the sea and forty from Gythium. The town is now built 
between the mountains of Ilium, Asia, and Cnacadium, but it 
used to stand on the top of Mount Asia. There are still some 
ruins of the old town, and in front of the walls an image of 
Hercules, and a trophy of victory over the Macedonians. These 
Macedonians were part of the army with which Philip invaded 
Laconia : they had straggled from the main body and were harry- 

7 ing the coast. Amongst the ruins is a temple of Athena sur- 
named Asia : they say that it was made by Pollux and Castor 
when they came safe back from Colchis, and that there is a sanc- 
tuary of Athena Asia in Colchis also. I know that the sons of 
Tyndareus went on the voyage with Jason ; but that the Colchians 
worship Athena Asia is a statement that I give on the authority of 
the people of Las, from whom I had it. Near the modern town is 
a fountain called Galaco ('milky') from the colour of the water, 
and beside the fountain is a gymnasium. There stands also an 

8 ancient image of Hermes. On Mount Ilium is a temple of Dionysus, 
and on the very summit a temple of Aesculapius. At Mount Cnaca- 
dium is a sanctuary of Carnean Apollo. 6. If you go on about 
thirty furlongs from the sanctuary of Carnean Apollo, you come to a 
place Hypsa on the Spartan border, where there is a sanctuary of 
Aesculapius-and of Artemis surnamed Daphnaea (' she of the laurel '). 

9 By the sea there is a temple of Artemis Dictynna ('goddess of 
nets ') on a cape, and they hold a yearly festival in her honour. 
To the left of this cape the river Smenus falls into the sea, and 
the water of the river is sweet to drink, none sweeter. Its sources 
are in Mount Taygetus, and its distance from Las is not more than 

10 five furlongs. 7. In a place called Arainum there is the grave of 
Las, with a statue over the tomb. The people here say that this 
Las was their founder and was slain by Achilles, who landed in their 
country to ask Helen in marriage from Tyndareus. But to tell the 
truth, it was Patroclus that killed Las ; for it was Patroclus who 
wooed Helen. To prove that Achilles did not ask Helen in 
marriage I will not adduce the fact that he is not mentioned among 

11 the wooers of Helen in the Catalogue of Women. But at the 
beginning of his poem Homer says that Achilles went to Troy to 



CHS. XXIV-XXV PYRRHICHUS TAENARUM 175 

please the sons of Atreus, and not because he was bound by the 
oaths exacted by Tyndareus ; and again, in the description of the 
games Homer represents Antilochus as saying that Ulysses is a 
generation older than himself, and he represents Ulysses as telling 
Alcinous in his account of hell that he had wished to see Theseus 
and Pirithous, men of a former generation ; and we know that 
Theseus carried off Helen. So it is a sheer impossibility that 
Achilles can have been a suitor of Helen. 

XXV 

1. Going on from the tomb you come to the mouth of a river, 
called the Scyras, because Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, sailing from 
Scyros to wed Hermione, put in here with his ships : before that 
time the river had no name. Crossing the river we come to an 
ancient sanctuary at some distance from an altar of Zeus. 2. Forty 
furlongs from the river is the inland town of Pyrrhichus. Some say 2 
that the town got its name from Pyrrhus, son of Achilles ; others 
that Pyrrhichus is one of the gods called Curetes. Some say that 
Silenus came from Malea and dwelt here. That Silenus was 
brought up at Malea is proved by the following passage in an ode 
of Pindar : 

The strong one, the dancer 

Whom the Malea-born Silenus, husband of Nais, reared ; 

and that he also bore the name of Pyrrhichus, though it is not 
mentioned by Pindar, is affirmed by the people about Malea. In 3 
the market-place at Pyrrhichus is a well which the people believe to 
have been given them by Silenus. They would run short of water 
if this well were to fail. In their land there is a sanctuary of 
Artemis, surnamed Astratea, because here the Amazons ceased from 
their forward march (strateia) ; also a sanctuary of Amazonian 
Apollo. The images of both are of wood, and are said to have 
been dedicated by the women who came from the Thermedon. 
3. From Pyrrhichus you descend to the sea and reach Teuthrone. 4 
The people there declare that their founder was Teuthras, an 
Athenian. They revere Issorian Artemis above all gods, and they 
have a spring of water called Naia. 

4. One hundred and fifty furlongs from Teuthrone Cape 
Taenarum juts into the sea; and there are two harbours, the 
harbour of Achilles and the harbour of Psamathus. On the cape 
is a temple like a cave, and in front of it an image of Poseidon. 
Some Greek poets have said that here Hercules dragged up the 5 
hound of hell. But no road leads underground through the cave, 
nor is it easy to believe that gods have an underground abode 
in which the souls of the dead assemble. Hecataeus, the Milesian. 



176 TAENARUM THALAMAE bk. hi. laconia 



hit on a likely explanation : he said that Taenarum was the 
home of a dreadful snake called the hound of hell, because its 
bite was instantly fatal ; and this snake, he said, was brought by 

6 Hercules to Eurystheus. Homer, who was the first to call the 
creature brought by Hercules the hound of hell, neither gave it 
a proper name nor made a monster of it, like the Chimaera. But 
later poets invented the name Cerberus, and endued him with 
three heads, representing him in all other respects as a dog. 
Whereas Homer no more implied that the creature was the 
domestic dog than if he had called a serpent the hound of hell. 

7 5. Amongst the votive offerings at Taenarum is a bronze statue 
of the minstrel Arion on a dolphin. In his history of Lydia Hero- 
dotus tells the story of Arion and the dolphin on hearsay ; but I 
have actually seen the dolphin at Poroselene that was mauled by 
fishermen, and testifies its gratitude to the boy who healed it. I 
saw that dolphin answer to the boy's call, and carry him on its back 

8 when he chose to ride. There is also a spring at Taenarum. 
Nowadays there is nothing wonderful about the spring; but they 
say that formerly when people looked into the water they could see 
the harbours and the ships. A woman stopped these exhibitions for 
ever by washing dirty clothes in the water. 

9 6. From Cape Taenarum it is a sail of about forty furlongs to 
Caenepolis, which was also called Taenarum of old. In it there is 
a hall of Demeter, and beside the sea a temple of Aphrodite 
with a standing image of stone. Thirty furlongs from here is 
Thyrides, a promontory of Taenarum, and ruins of a city Hippola : 
among the ruins is a sanctuary of Artemis Hippolaitis. 7. A little 

10 way off is the town of Messa and a harbour. From this harbour it is 
a hundred and fifty furlongs to Oetylum. The hero, from whom 
the town got its name, was by descent an Argive, being a son of 
Amphianax, son of Antimachus. At Oetylum a sanctuary of 
Serapis, and in the market-place a wooden image of Carnean Apollo, 
are worth seeing. 

XXVI 

1. From Oetylum to Thalamae the distance by road is about 
eighty furlongs : on the road is a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. 
Inquirers of the oracle go to sleep, and the goddess reveals to them 
in dreams all that they wish to know. Bronze images stand in the 
open part of the sanctuary : one is an image of Pasiphae, the 
other is of the Sun. The image in the temple I could not see 
clearly by reason of the garlands, but they say that it, too, is of 
bronze. Water flows from a sacred spring, sweet to drink. Pasi- 
phae is a surname of the Moon, and not a local divinity of the 
people of Thalamae. 



chs. xxv-xxvi PEPHNUSLEUCTRA CARDAMYLE 177 



2. From Thalamae it is a distance of twenty furlongs to a 2 
place on the coast named Pephnus. Off it lies an islet also 
called Pephnus, no bigger than a large rock ; and the people of 
Thalamae say that the Dioscuri were born on it. I know that 
Alcman also says so in a song. They say, however, that they were 
not brought up in Pephnus, but that it was Hermes who took them 
to Pellana. In this islet are bronze images of the Dioscuri, a foot 3 
high : they stand under the open sky, but the sea that breaks over 
the rock in winter will not wash them away. This is a marvel ; and 
the ants here are whiter than ants elsewhere. The Messenians say 
that this district was theirs of old, so they think that the Dioscuri 
belong to them rather than to the Lacedaemonians. 

3. From Pephnus it is twenty furlongs to Leuctra. Why 4 
the town is called Leuctra, I do not know; but if it is after 
Leucippus, son of Perieres, as the Messenians say, that, I suppose, is 
the reason why the people here honour Aesculapius above all the 
gods, believing him to be the son of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus. 
There is a stone image of Aesculapius, and elsewhere an image of 
Ino. There is also a temple of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, with 5 
an image of her : the natives call her Alexandra. There are also 
wooden images of Carnean Apollo, just like the images at Sparta. 
On the acropolis is a sanctuary of Athena, with an image of the 
goddess. There is also a temple and a grove of Love at Leuctra. 
Water flows through the grove in winter, but even in flood it could not 
sweep away the leaves that fall from the trees in spring. 4. I will 6 
mention an event which I know to have happened in my time on 
the sea-coast of Leuctra. Sparks were carried by the wind into a 
wood, and most of the trees were burned down ; and when the 
place had been stript bare, an image of Ithomatian Zeus was found 
standing there. The Messenians say that this is a proof that 
Leuctra belonged to Messenia of old. But it may be that Leuctra 
was originally inhabited by Lacedaemonians who worshipped Itho- 
matian Zeus. 

5. Cardamyle, mentioned by Homer among the gifts promised 7 
by Agamemnon, is subject to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta, having 
been severed from Messenia by the Emperor Augustus. It is eight 
furlongs from the sea, and sixty from Leuctra. Here, not far from 
the beach, is a sacred precinct of the daughters of Nereus ; for to 
this place it is said they came up from the sea to behold Pyrrhus, 
son of Achilles, when he was going to Sparta to wed Hermione. 
In the town is a sanctuary of Athena, also a Carnean Apollo, as is 
usual with the Dorians. 

6. The city which in Homer is named Enope is at the present S 
day called Gerenia. The people are Messenians, but belong to the 
confederacy of the Free Laconians. In this city, according to some, 
Nestor was brought up : according to others, he fled to it when 

vol. 1 n 



178 GEREN1A BK. III. LACONIA 

9 Pylus was captured by Hercules. 7. Here in Gerenia is the tomb 
of Machaon, son of Aesculapius, and here he has a holy sanctuary. 
In his sanctuary the sick may be made whole. They name the 
sacred place Rhodus, and there is a standing image of Machaon 
in bronze : on his head is a wreath, which the Messenians in 
their local dialect call kiphos. The author of the epic called the 
Little Iliad says that Machaon was killed by Eurypylus, son of 

10 Telephus. That is why (as I myself know) the following rule 
is observed in the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Pergamus : though 
they begin the hymns with Telephus, they say not a word about 
Eurypylus in them ; indeed, they will not even name him in 
the temple, because they know he was the murderer of Machaon. 
It is said that Machaon's bones were brought back by Nestor. 
But Podalirius, they say, when the Greeks were sailing back after 
the sack of Ilium, was carried out of his course, and being driven to 
Syrnus, on the mainland of Caria, he took up his abode there. 

11 8. In the district of Gerenia is Mount Calathium. On it is a 
sanctuary of Claea, and there is a cavern just beside the sanctuary. 
The mouth of the cavern is narrow, but the interior is worth 
seeing. Inland from Gerenia about thirty furlongs is Alagonia : I 
have already mentioned the town in the list of Free Laconian cities. 
There are sanctuaries of Dionysus and Artemis there that are worth 
seeing. 



BOOK FOURTH 

MESSENIA 



i. The boundary between Messenia and that portion of its territory 
which was severed from it by the emperor and assigned to 
Laconia is constituted at present, in the direction of Gerenia, by the 
glen called Choerius ('Sow-dale'). 2. They say that the land was 
once uninhabited, and that it received its first inhabitants in the 
following manner. Lelex reigned in the country which is now 
called Laconia, but which was then called after him Lelegia. When 
he died his elder son Myles succeeded to the kingdom. Polycaon 
was a younger son, and therefore remained in a private station, till 
he married an Argive wife, Messene, daughter of Triopas, son of 
Phorbas. Now Messene was proud, for her father was more 2 
illustrious and powerful than any Greek of the day ; and she thought 
scorn that her husband should remain a private man. So they 
gathered together a host from Argos and Lacedaemon and came to 
this country, and the whole land was named Messene after the wife of 
Polycaon. 3. Cities, too, were founded, and amongst others Andania, 
where they built their palace. But before the battle of Leuctra, 3 
fought between the Thebans and Lacedaemonians, and before the 
foundation of the present city of Messene at the foot of Ithome, I 
think that no city was as yet called Messene. I gather this especially 
from Homer. For in the list of the men who went to Ilium, while 
enumerating Pylus, Arene, and other cities, he mentions no city 
called Messene. And in the following passage in the Odyssey he 
shows that the Messenians were a people and not a city : 

For Messenian men carried off sheep from Ithaca. 
But still more clearly, in speaking of the bow of Iphitus : 4 

And they two met each other in Messene 
In the house of Ortilochus. 

For by the house of Ortilochus in Messene, Homer meant the town 



l8 HISTORY OF MESSENIA bk. iv. messenia 



of Pherae, and this he himself explains in the visit of Pisistratus to 
Menelaus : 

And to Pherae they came, to the house of Diocleus, 
Son of Ortilochus. 

5 4- However that may be, the first who reigned in this country 
were Polycaon, son of Lelex, and his wife Messene. It was to this 
Messene that Caucon, son of Celaenus, son of Phlyus, brought the 
orgies of the Great Goddesses from Eleusis. The Athenians say 
that Phlyus himself was a son of Earth, and they are supported by 
the hymn which Musaeus composed on Demeter for the Lycomids. 

6 But many years after the time of Caucon the mysteries of the Great 
Goddesses were raised to higher honour by Lycus, son of Pandion; 
and the place where he purified the initiated is still named the 
oak-coppice of Lycus. And that there is an oak-coppice in this 
country called the oak-coppice of Lycus is mentioned by the Cretan 
poet Rhianus : 

Beside the rugged Elaeus, and above the oak-coppice of Lycus. 

7 5. And that this Lycus was the son of Pandion is shown by the 
verses inscribed on the statue of Methapus. For Methapus also 
made some changes in the mode of celebrating the mysteries. 
Methapus was an Athenian by descent, and he was a deviser of 
mysteries and all sorts of orgies. It was he who instituted the 
mysteries of the Cabiri for the Thebans ; and he also set up in the 
chapel of the Lycomids a statue inscribed with an epigram, which 
contains a passage confirming what I have said : - 

8 And I purified houses of Hermes . . . ,and paths 

Of Demeter and of the first-born Maid, where they say 
That Messene instituted for the Great Goddesses a rite 
Which she learned from Caucon, illustrious scion of Phlyus. 
And I marvelled how Lycus, son of Pandion, 
Established all the sacred rites of Atthis in dear Andania. 

9 This epigram shows that Caucon, a descendant of Phlyus, came to 
the house of Messene, and in regard to Lycus it shows, amongst 
other things, that the mysteries were anciently celebrated in Andania. 
It is natural to suppose that Messene established the mysteries in the 
place where she and Polycaon dwelt rather than anywhere else. 

II 

1. Wishing very much to learn who were the sons of Polycaon 
by Messene, I read the poem called the Eoeae and the epic 
called the Nanpactia, and, moreover, all the genealogies composed 



chs. i-ii HISTORY OF MESSENIA 181 



by Cinaethon and Asius. But they had nothing to say on the 
subject. I am aware that in the Great Eoeae it is said that 
Polycaon, son of Butas, married Euaechme, daughter of Hyllus, son 
of Hercules, but no account is given in the poem of Messene's 
husband or of Messene herself. 2. But in after time, when there 2 
was none of the descendants of Polycaon left (the family lasted five 
generations, I think, and not more), the people fetched Perieres, son 
of Aeolus, to be their king. To his court, the Messenians say, 
came Melaneus, who drew a good bow and was hence reckoned a 
son of Apollo. Perieres allotted him Carnasium, then called 
Oechalia, to dwell in. They say the city got the name of Oechalia 
from the wife of Melaneus. Most things in Greece are subjects 3 
of dispute. In the present case the Thessalians, on the one side, 
affirm that Eurytion, which is now deserted, was of yore a city and 
was called Oechalia ; but the Euboeans, on the other side, have a 
different story, with which Creophylus in his poem Heraclea agrees. 
Hecataeus the Milesian says that Oechalia is in Scius, which forms 
part of the district of Eretria. But the Messenian story seems to 
me the more probable, especially on account of the bones of 
Eurytus, which I shall speak of in the sequel. 

3. Perieres had by Gorgophone, daughter of Perseus, two sons, 4 
Aphareus and Leucippus, and when ' Perieres died, these sons suc- 
ceeded to the kingdom of Messenia ; but Aphareus had the more 
power of the two. On coming to the throne, Aphareus founded a 
city Arene, (and named it) after the daughter of Oebalus, who was 
at once his wife and his half-sister on the mother's side ; for Gor- 
gophone married Oebalus also. Her story has already been twice 
touched on by me in treating of Argolis and Laconia. Aphareus, 5 
then, founded the city of Arene in Messenia ; and when his cousin 
Neleus fled from Iolcus to escape Pelias, Aphareus received him 
in his house, and gave him the lands beside the sea, including 
Pylus and other cities. Neleus took up his abode and established 
his palace at Pylus. He was called a son of Poseidon, but really 
he was a son of Cretheus, son of Aeolus. 4. Lycus, son of Pan- 6 
dion, also came to Arene, when he was driven from Athens by his 
brother Aegeus ; and he revealed to Aphareus, his sons, and his wife 
Arene, the orgies of the Great Goddesses. He brought the orgies 
to Andania, and exhibited them to them there, because it was there 
also that Caucon had initiated Messene. The elder and more 7 
manly of the sons of Aphareus was Idas, and the younger was 
Lynceus, of whom Pindar said (believe it who likes) that his sight 
was so sharp that he saw through the trunk of an oak. 5. We 
do not know that Lynceus had offspring, but Idas had by Marpessa 
a daughter Cleopatra, who married Meleager. The author of the 
epic called the Cypria says that Protesilaus, the first man who dared 
to leap ashore when the Greek fleet touched the Troad, had to wife 



1 82 HISTORY OF MESSENIA bk. iv. messenia 

Polydora, a daughter of Meleager, son of Oeneus. If this is true, 

these three women, beginning with Marpessa, all slew themselves 
because their husbands had died before them. 



Ill 

i. But the sons of Aphareus came to blows with their cousins 
the Dioscuri about the kine ; and in the fight Lynceus was 
slain by Pollux, and Idas was killed by a thunderbolt. So the 
house of Aphareus being left without a male, Nestor, son of 
Neleus, succeeded to the whole kingdom of Messenia, including 
that part over which Idas had been king. Only the Messenians 
who obeyed the sons of Aesculapius were not subject to Nestor. 

2 2. For they say that the sons of Aesculapius were Messenians, and 
went to the Trojan war : Aesculapius, according to them, was the 
son, not of Coronis, but of Arsinoe, daughter of Leucippus. And 
there is a deserted village in Messenia that they call Tricca, and 
they quote the verses of Homer in which Nestor is represented 
attending kindly to Machaon, who has been hit by an arrow, their 
inference being that he would not have shown so much interest in 
anybody but a neighbour and the king of a kindred people. But 
as the principal confirmation of their view respecting the sons of 
Aesculapius, they point to the tomb of Machaon at Gerenia, and to 
the sanctuary of the sons of Machaon at Pharae. 

3 3. Two generations after the end of the Trojan war and the 
death of Neleus, which befell after he had returned home, the 
expedition of the Dorians and the return of the Heraclids drove 
the descendants of Neleus from Messenia. This I have already 
mentioned incidentally in my account of Tisamenus. Here I will 
add that when the Dorians gave Argos to Temenus, Cresphontes 
asked them for Messenia, on the plea that he too was older than 

4 Aristodemus. Aristodemus was dead ; but the claim of Cresphontes 
was strongly opposed by Theras, son of Autesion. Theras came of 
Theban stock, and was the fourth descendant of Polynices, son of 
Oedipus. At this time he was guardian of the sons of Aristodemus, 
being their uncle on the mother's side ; for Aristodemus married 
Argea, daughter of Autesion. But Cresphontes had set his heart 
on getting Messenia as his share ; so he entreated Temenus, and 
having won him over, he pretended to leave the question to be 

5 decided by lot. Temenus took a pitcher with water in it, and 
dropped into it the lots of Cresphontes and the sons of Aristodemus, 
an agreement having been made that they whose lot came up first 
should have the first choice of land. Temenus had made both the 
lots ; but the lot of the sons of Aristodemus he made of earth 
dried in the sun, and the lot of Cresphontes he made of earth 
baked in the fire. So the lot of the sons of Aristodemus was 



chs. ii-iii HISTORY OF MESSENIA 183 

dissolved in the water; and the lot thus falling on Cresphontes, 
he chose Messenia. The old Messenian commonalty were not 6 
driven out by the Dorians, but submitted to be ruled by Cres- 
phontes, and to give the Dorians a share of their land. These 
concessions they were induced to make by the suspicion with which 
they regarded their own kings, because they were by descent 
Minyans from Iolcus. Cresphontes married Merope, daughter of 
Cypselus, then king of the Arcadians : by her he had several 
children, of whom the youngest was Aepytus. 4. He built the 7 
palace, which was to be the residence of himself and his sons, in 
Stenyclerus. Of old the kings, including Perieres, dwelt in Andania ; 
but after Aphareus had founded Arene, he and his sons dwelt there. 
During the reigns of Nestor and his descendants the palace was at 
Pylus ; but Cresphontes established the residence of the king in 
Stenyclerus. As he governed on the whole in the interest of the 
commons, the men of property revolted and murdered him and all 
his sons except Aepytus, who being still a child was being brought 
up by Cypselus, and was the only one of the family who escaped. 
5. When Aepytus was grown to manhood, the Arcadians restored 8 
him to Messenia, and his restoration was supported by the other 
kings of the Dorians, to wit, the sons of Aristodemus, and Isthmius, 
son of Temenus. On coming to the throne Aepytus punished the 
murderers of his father, and all who had been accomplices in the 
murder ; and winning over the Messenian nobles by blandishments 
and the commons by his bounty, he rose so high in their esteem 
that his descendants were called Aepytids instead of Heraclids. 

6. His son Glaucus, who reigned after him, was content to imitate 9 
the public policy and the private behaviour of his sire ; but in 
piety he surpassed him. The precinct of Zeus on the top of 
Ithome, as it had been consecrated by Polycaon and Messerie, had 
hitherto been unhonoured by the Dorians. Glaucus it was who 
introduced among the Dorians the reverence for that holy place. 
He was the first, too, that sacrificed to Machaon, son of Aesculapius, 
at Gerenia ; and he assigned to Messene, daughter of Triopas, the 
marks of homage that are regularly paid to heroes. His son 10 
Isthmius made the sanctuary of Gorgasus and Nicomachus at 
Pharae. Isthmius had a son Dotadas, who, though Messenia 
possessed other ports, constructed the one at Mothone. Dotadas' 
son Sybotas introduced a custom that the king should sacrifice 
every year to the river Pamisus, and should sacrifice to Eurytus, 
son of Melaneus, as to a hero, in Oechalia before the celebration 
of the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, which were still held at 
Andania. 



1 84 HISTORY OF MESSENIA bk. iv. messenia 



IV 

i. In the time of Phintas, son of Sybotas, the Messenians for 
the first time sent a sacrifice and a chorus of men to Apollo at 
Delos. The hymn to the god sung by the procession was com- 
posed for the purpose by Eumelus, and this hymn is believed to be 
the only genuine poem of Eumelus in existence. It was also in 
the reign of Phintas that the first dispute with Lacedaemon took 
place. The cause of the dispute, about which, as usual, there are 

2 differences of opinion, is said to have been this. 2. On the 
borders of Messenia there is a sanctuary of Artemis, who is here 
called the Lady of the Lake ; and the only Dorians who shared 
the possession of the sanctuary were the Messenians and Lace- 
daemonians. The Lacedaemonians say that some of their maidens 
who went to the festival were violated by men of Messenia, who 
also killed the Lacedaemonian king Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son 
of Agesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of Labotas, son of Echestratus. 
son of Agis, when he tried to prevent them. Further, they say 

3 that the violated maidens destroyed themselves from shame. But 
the Messenians say that Teleclus, moved by the goodliness of the 
land of Messenia, plotted against the Messenians of highest rank 
who had gone to the sanctuary ; that, in pursuance of his plot, 
he chose some beardless Spartan youths, dressed and decked 
them as girls, and giving them daggers introduced them to the 
Messenians who were taking their ease ; that the Messenians in self- 
defence slew the beardless youths and Teleclus himself; and that 
the Lacedaemonians, conscious that they had been the aggressors 
(for the Government had been privy to the king's plot), did not 
demand reparation for the murder of Teleclus. These are the 
statements of both sides : a man may believe one or other according 
to the side he favours. 

4 3. In the next generation the mutual hatred of Lacedaemon and 
Messenia came to a head. At Lacedaemon the king of the one 
house was Alcamenes, son of Teleclus, and the king of the other was 
Theopompus, son of Nicander, son of Charillus, son of Polydectes, 
son of Eunomus, son of Prytanis, son of Eurypon ; while the kings 
of Messenia were Antiochus and Androcles, sons of Phintas. The 
Lacedaemonians began the war, for which, bent as they were on 
picking a quarrel, and resolved on war in any case, the occasion that 
offered itself was not only sufficient, but in the highest degree 
specious, although, if their temper had been more pacific, it might 
have been removed by arbitration. What happened was this. 4. 

5 There was a man of Messenia called Polychares, a man of some 
mark, who had moreover gained a prize at Olympia in 
the fourth Olympiad, when the only contest was the short foot- 









chs. iv-v AFFAIR OF POLYCHARES 18 



5 



race. He had cows, but not grazing land enough to keep them. 
So he turned them over to a Spartan called Euaephnus, who was to 
feed them on his land and to get a share of the produce. But 6 
Euaephnus, it should seem, was a man who cared more for ill-gotten 
gains than for honesty, and who was cunning withal ; for he went 
and sold Polychares' cows to some merchants whose ship had put 
into Laconia. Then he hied to Polychares with tidings and 
said that some rovers had come ashore, overpowered him, and 
carried off both cows and cowherds. But just as he was trying to 
delude him, up comes one of the cowherds who had run away from 
the merchants, and finding Euaephnus with his master, he gives him 
the lie before Polychares. So the rogue was caught, and because he 7 
could not deny it, he earnestly besought both Polychares and his 
son to forgive him, pleading that of all the motives in human nature 
which drive us into crime, the love of lucre is the most irresistible. 
He also acknowledged the price he had received for the cows, 
and desired that Polychares' son would go with him to fetch 
it. But when they were come on Laconian ground, Euaephnus 
did a worse deed than the first, for he slew Polychares' son. When 8 
the father knew of this fresh wrong, he went to Lacedaemon and 
troubled the kings and the ephors, bitterly bewailing his boy, and 
reckoning up all the wrongs he had suffered at the hand of the man 
whom he had made his friend, and whom he had trusted above all 
the Lacedaemonians. But when he got no redress, though he went 
to the rulers continually, he was driven out of his mind, and being 
now reckless of his life, he wreaked his anger by murdering every 
Lacedaemonian that he caught. 

V 

1. So the Lacedaemonians say that they went to war because 
Polychares was not given up to them, and on account of the murder 
of Teleclus ; moreover, their suspicions, they say, had been 
previously roused by the fraud of Cresphontes touching the lots. 
With regard to Teleclus the Messenians urge the counter-plea which 
I have mentioned, and they show that the sons of Aristodemus 
helped to restore Aepytus, son of Cresphontes, which they would 
never have done if they had been on bad terms with Cresphontes. 
As to Polychares, they say that they did not give him up to the 2 
Lacedaemonians to punish, because neither did the Lacedaemonians 
give up Euaephnus to them ; but they say that they were willing 
either to be tried by their common kinsmen, the Argives, in an 
assembly of the league, or to refer the case to the court of the 
Areopagus at Athens, because that court was believed to have tried 
cases of manslaughter from of old. They affirm, too, that the 3 
Lacedaemonians did not go to war for the reasons alleged, but that 



1 86 CAPTURE OF AMPHEA bk. iv. messenia 

their designs on Messenia, like more of their doings, were prompted 
by sheer greed, casting up against them their insatiable encroach- 
ments on the territories both of Arcadia and Argos. They also 
reproach the Lacedaemonians with having been the first who, in 
consideration of presents received from him, made friends with the 
barbarian Croesus, after he had enslaved all the Greeks of Asia and 

4 more especially the Dorians of the mainland of Caria. They show, 
too, that when the Phocian chiefs seized the sanctuary at Delphi, the 
kings and every man of rank at Sparta individually, and the board 
of ephors and the Senate collectively, got a share of the treasures of 
the god. And above all, to prove that the Lacedaemonians would 
stick at nothing in the pursuit of lucre, they twit them with the 
alliance which they formed with Apollodorus, the tyrant of Cassandria. 

5 Why the Messenians think this last reproach so galling, it would be 
foreign to my subject to relate. The people of Cassandria suffered 
nearly as much as the Messenians, but there is nothing in the 
tyranny of Apollodorus to match the high spirit of the Messenians 
and the length of time during which they maintained the struggle. 
These, then, are the causes alleged by either people for the war. 

6 2. A Lacedaemonian embassy now repaired to Messenia and 
demanded the surrender of Polychares. The Messenian kings 
answered the ambassadors that they would consult with the people and 
report their decision to Sparta. So when the embassy had taken its 
leave the kings convened an assembly of the burghers. Opinions 
were very much divided. Androcles was for surrendering Polychares 
as a criminal of the deepest dye. He was opposed by Antiochus, 
who insisted especially how pitiful it would be if Polychares should 
have to suffer under the eyes of Euaephnus, and he detailed all the 

7 torments he would have to endure. At last the debate waxed so 
hot that both sides flew to arms. But the fight did not last 
long, for Antiochus' side far outnumbered Androcles' side, and soon 
knocked him and his chief supporters on the head. Antiochus now 
reigned alone, and sent to Sparta offering to leave the case to the 
courts I have mentioned. To the bearers of this letter the Lacedae- 

8 monians are said to have vouchsafed no reply. 3. Not many months 
afterwards Antiochus died, and Euphaes, his son, reigned in his 
stead. The Lacedaemonians neither declared war on the Messenians 
by mouth of herald, nor openly renounced their friendship ; but 
having made their preparations with the utmost possible secrecy, 
they began by swearing an oath that neither for the length of the 
war, if it should be protracted, nor for the calamities it might entail, 
great as these might be, would they swerve to the right hand or to the 
left till by their good swords they had made Messenia their own. 

9 After taking this oath they marched out by night against Amphea : 
the command of the army was entrusted to Alcamenes, son of 
Teleclus. Amphea was a town in Messenia, on the borders of 



chs. v-vi DATE OF ARISTOMENES 187 

Laconia : it was a small town, but stood on a high hill, and was sup- 
plied with copious springs of water ; and in other respects it promised 
to be a suitable base of operations in the war. The gates were 
open and there was no garrison within the walls ; so they carried the 
town, and slaughtered all the Messenians whom they caught in it, 
some in their beds, some in the sanctuaries and beside the altars, to 
which at the first alarm they had fled for refuge. There were few 
that escaped. 4. This was the first attack that the Lacedaemonians 10 
made on Messenia : it befell in the second year of the ninth 
Olympiad, in which Xenodocus, a Messenian, won the foot-race. 
At that time the annual archons elected by lot did not yet exist at 
Athens; for at first the people onlystript the descendants of Melanthus, 
the Medontids, as they were called, of most of their power, and 
transformed them from kings into responsible magistrates ; but after- 
wards they also fixed a period of ten years as the term of their 
magistracy. At the time that Amphea was taken, Aesimides, son of 
Aeschylus, was archon at Athens, in the fifth year of his office. 

VI 

1. Before I write the history of the war, and of all that God had 
laid up for both sides to do or suffer in the course of it, I wish to 
determine the date of a Messenian hero. This war which 
the Lacedaemonians and their allies waged on the Messenians 
and their supporters, received its name of Messenian, not from the 
aggressors, like the Median and Peloponnesian wars, but from the 
suffering people, just as the war at Ilium came to be known as the 
Trojan, and not the Greek war. The history of this war of the 
Messenians was composed by Rhianus of Bene in epic verse, 
and by Myron of Priene in prose. Neither of these writers 2 
composed a complete history of the war from beginning to end : 
each of them chose a special part. The narrative of Myron 
embraces the capture of Amphea and the subsequent events not later 
than the death of Aristodemus. Rhianus did not touch on this first 
war at all : what he did write was the history of the revolt of the 
Messenians from the Lacedaemonians, and not the whole of it, but 
only the events subsequent to the battle of the Great Trench, as the 
place was called. 2. The Messenian, for whose sake I have made 3 
all this mention of Rhianus and Myron, is Aristomenes, the first and 
greatest glory of the Messenian name. Myron has introduced him 
into his prose history, and in the verses of Rhianus he shines out 
like Achilles in the Iliad of Homer. In view of this wide discrepancy 
between my authorities, nothing was left for me but to accept the 
one narrative and reject the other. Of the two writers, Rhianus 
appeared to me to take the more probable view as to the date of 
Aristomenes. The writings of Myron, on the other hand, reveal an 4 



1 88 WAR WITH LACEDAEMON bk. iv. messenia 

indifference to truth and probability which is best exemplified in his 
history of Messenia. For instance, he says that Theopompus, king 
of Lacedaemon, perished by the hand of Aristomenes shortly before 
the death of Aristodemus ; whereas we know that Theopompus did 
not die before the conclusion of the war, neither in battle nor in his 

5 bed. In fact, it was this very Theopompus who put an end to the 
war, as is proved by the elegiacs of Tyrtaeus : 

To our God-beloved king Theopompus, 

Through whom we took spacious Messene. 

Aristomenes, then, in my opinion, was contemporary with the second 
Messenian war, and I will narrate his history in due course. 

6 3. When the Messenians heard of the fate of Amphea from the 
fugitives who had escaped from the sack, they came from their 
different towns and met in Stenyclerus. And when the people were 
gathered in assembly, first the nobles, and last of all the king, implored 
them not to be cast down at the fall of Amphea, as if by that the 
issue of the war were decided, and not to dread the military power of 
their enemies, as if it were superior to their own. It was true, he 
said, that the Lacedaemonians had been longer disciplined in the 
art of war ; but a stronger necessity was laid on the Messenians to 
quit themselves like men ; and the gods, he added, would surely look 
more kindly on blows struck, not in wanton aggression, but for home 
and country. 

VII 

1. Thus Euphaes spoke and broke up the assembly. From 
that day he kept the whole male population of Messenia under 
arms, compelling the untrained to learn, and the trained to practise 
more diligently than ever, the art of war. The Lacedaemonians 
made raids into Messenia, but, looking on the country as their own, 
they did not ravage it, nor fell trees, nor pull down houses ; but any 
cattle that they fell in with they drove off, and they carried away the 

2 corn and the fruits of the ground. They made assaults on the 
towns, but took none, for the walls were strong and the garrisons 
wary. So they had to fall back with nothing but hard knocks for 
their pains, till at last they left the towns alone. The Messenians, 
on their side, harried the coasts of Laconia and the farms about 

3 Mount Taygetus. 2. But in the third year after the taking of 
Amphea, Euphaes, anxious to turn to account the passion of the 
Messenians, which was now wound up to the highest pitch of exaspera- 
tion against the Lacedaemonians, and believing that his countrymen 
were now well enough disciplined, announced that he would take 
the field, and ordered even the slaves to follow with stakes and 
everything necessary for throwing up entrenchments. But the 



chs. vi-vn WAR WITH LACEDAEMON 189 

Lacedaemonians got word from the garrison at Amphea that the 
Messenians were coming out ; so they took the field also. Now 4 
there was in Messenia a place that offered a fair field for a battle, 
but a deep glen ran along the front of it. Here Euphaes drew 
up the Messenians, and placed Cleonnis in command. The horse 
and light infantry, numbering together less than five hundred, were 
led by Pytharatus and Antander. When the armies advanced 5 
to the encounter the foot rushed at each other with all the 
reckless fury of hate, but the glen was between them, and 
they could not close. Meantime the cavalry and light infantry 
skirmished above the glen, but being evenly matched in numbers 
and discipline, the fight was indecisive. While this engage- 6 
ment was going on, Euphaes ordered the slaves to fortify, first 
the rear, and then both flanks of the army, with a stockade ; and 
when darkness fell, and the combatants parted, he fortified also his 
front on the side of the glen. So at break of day the Lacedae- 
monians were struck by the foresight of Euphaes. They could not 
fight the Messenians, unless the latter sallied from their stockade ; 
and they gave up all thought of besieging them, for which they were 
wholly unprepared. 

3. So they went home. But next year, stung by the taunts of 7 
the old men, who twitted them with cowardice and with forgetting 
their oath, they, for the second time, openly marched against the 
Messenians. They were led by both the kings, Theopompus, son of 
Nicander, and Polydorus, son of Alcamenes; for Alcamenes himself 
was no more. The Messenians sat down opposite them, and when 
the Spartans offered battle the Messenians drew out to meet them. 
The Lacedaemonian left was led by Polydorus, the right by Theo- 8 
pompus, and the centre was commanded by Euryleon, a Lacedae- 
monian of Theban descent, sprung of the line of Cadmus ; for he was 
the fourth descendant of Aegeus, son of Oeolycus, son of Theras, son 
of Autesion. On the Messenian side Antander and Euphaes faced 
the Lacedaemonian right : the other wing, facing Polydorus, was 
under Pytharatus, and the centre under Cleonnis. 4. Just as thev 9 
were about to engage, the kings passed along the ranks encouraging 
their men. The exhortation which Theopompus addressed to the 
Lacedaemonians was, according to Lacedaemonian custom, brief: 
he reminded them of the oath they had sworn against the Mes- 
senians, and how noble an ambition it was to outdo the glory of 
their fathers, who had conquered the neighbouring peoples, and to 
win a wealthier land. The address of Euphaes, though longer, was 
not more so than he perceived the occasion warranted. He showed 10 
that they were not about to fight for land or goods alone : they well 
knew, he said, the consequences of defeat ; their wives and children 
would be dragged into slavery ; death without torture would be 
the least that could befall the men ; their sanctuaries would be 



190 INDECISIVE BATTLE bk. iv. messenia 

pillaged, and the homes of their fathers given to the flames. 
These, he said, were no mere conjectures ; there was proof patent to 
all in the doom of their friends who had fallen into the enemy's 
ii hands at Amphea. Death with honour, he said, was better than 
evils like these, and it was far easier now, while they were still 
unconquered, to meet and vanquish the foe with a courage as high 
as his own than, disheartened and dejected, to retrieve defeat. 
Thus Euphaes spoke. 

VIII 

i. The generals on both sides gave the word, and the Mes- 
senians advanced on the Lacedaemonians at a run. They exposed 
themselves recklessly as those who desired death, and every man 
panted to strike the first blow. The Lacedaemonians came on to 
meet them bravely too, but were careful not to break their line. 

2 When the armies were near they threatened each other, brandishing 
their weapons and glaring fiercely at the foe. They broke, too, into 
taunts and jeers. The Lacedaemonians stigmatised the Messenians 
as slaves already, who were no more free than the Helots ; while 
the Messenians upbraided the Lacedaemonians with their wickedness 
in attacking men of the same blood out of simple greed, and re- 
proached them with impiety towards the gods of the Dorians, especi- 
ally towards Hercules. But now, even while they flouted, they began 
to get to work, charging home in serried masses, especially the 

3 Lacedaemonians, and man attacking man. In numbers, as well as 
in discipline and experience, the Lacedaemonians were much 
superior ; for the troops of the neighbouring and now subject 
peoples followed them to the war ; and the Dryopians of Asine, who 
had been expelled from their country by the Argives a generation 
before, and had thrown themselves on the protection of Lacedaemon, 
were also obliged to serve in the ranks ; and to meet the Messenian 
light infantry the Lacedaemonians had taken Cretan bowmen into 

4 their pay. These advantages were balanced on the side of the Mes- 
senians by desperation and the contempt of death : their sufferings 
seemed to them light afflictions demanded by their country's 
honour ; and by a natural exaggeration they magnified the weight of 
every blow they struck and its fatal effect on the enemy. Some 
burst forward from the ranks and signalised themselves by deeds of 
splendid valour : others, wounded to death, still with their last 

5 breath retained their proud and defiant spirit unbroken. They 
cheered each other on ; the unwounded inciting the wounded not 
tamely to await the last necessity, but to give back blow for blow, 
and thus joyously accept their fate ; and the wounded, when they 
felt their strength ebbing and their breath failing, would exhort the 
unwounded to be good men and true like themselves, and not to let 



chs. vii-viii INDECISIVE BATTIE 191 



the blood of their comrades be shed in vain for their country. At 6 
first the Lacedaemonians abstained from mutual exhortation, and 
were not so forward as the Messenians to display extraordinary feats 
of valour; but being trained to arms from their childhood they 
employed a deeper formation, and trusted to time to wear out the 
endurance, and to fatigue and wounds to exhaust the spirit, of their 
adversaries. 2. Such were the different tactics and the different 7 
feelings on the one side and on the other. But both sides were 
alike in this, that no quarter was asked for, either by prayers or 
promises sometimes, perhaps, because they despaired of receiving it 
at the hands of an implacable foe, but oftener because they disdained 
to tarnish the laurels they had won. Both sides, too, were alike 
in the silence with which the slayers did their work : no boast, no 
taunt escaped them, for neither side could as yet indulge in assured 
hopes of victory. But the most unlooked-for death of all was that of 
those who attempted to spoil the fallen ; for in doing so they either 
exposed an unguarded part of their person to the stroke of javelin 
or sword, which they were too busy to foresee, or the men they 
attempted to spoil were still in life and despatched their spoilers. 
3. The prowess of the kings was also remarkable. Theopompus S 
rushed furiously at Euphaes to take his life. Seeing him coming 
on, Euphaes remarked to Antander that, the conduct of Theopompus 
did not differ from the desperate adventure of his ancestor Polynices ; 
for Polynices, he said, had led an army from Argos against his 
native country, had slain his brother with his own hand, and had by 
him been slain ; and Theopompus wished to plunge the race of 
the Heraclids as deep in guilt as the descendants of Laius and 
Oedipus, but at least he would give Theopompus cause to rue that 
day. So saying, he advanced to meet him. With that, the battle, 9 
despite the weariness of the combatants, burst out again with the 
utmost fury ; fresh vigour nerved the arms and steeled the hearts of 
either side, so that a spectator might have thought the combat just 
beginning. At last, by valour combined with an excess of fury that 
bordered on frenzy, for the king's division was composed of the 
picked Messenian troops, Euphaes and his men overpowered their 
antagonists, forced back Theopompus, and routed the Lacedae- 
monians who were opposed to them. But the other Messenian 10 
wing was hard pressed. For their general Pytharatus was dead, 
and the want of a commander, while it did not damp their courage, 
impaired their discipline. Neither Polydorus on the one side, nor 
Euphaes on the other, pursued the flying enemy. Euphaes pre- 
ferred to succour his beaten countrymen. He did not, however, 
engage the division of Polydorus; for it was now dark, and the 11 
Lacedaemonians were prevented, chiefly by their ignorance of the 
ground, from pressing the pursuit of the retiring foe. Besides, 
it was part of their traditional tactics to be slow in pursuit ; for they 



192 SETTLEMENT ON I THOME ek. iv. messenia 

thought more of not weakening their formation than of cutting up 
the fugitives. In the centre, where Euryleon commanded on the 
Lacedaemonian, and Cleonnis on the Messenian side, the battle 
was indecisive ; but here, too, the fall of night parted the 
combatants. 

12 4. In this battle the whole, or at least the brunt of the fighting, 
fell on the heavy infantry of both sides. The cavalry were few in 
number, and they effected nothing worth speaking of; for the 
Peloponnesians were not good riders in those days. The light 
troops on the side of the Messenians and the Cretan archers on the 
side of the Lacedaemonians were not engaged at all, since, in 
accordance with the ancient practice still observed in those days, 

13 they were drawn up in the rear of the heavy infantry. Next 
morning neither side thought of renewing the battle nor of being the 
first to erect a trophy ; but as the day wore on, heralds passed 
between them to arrange for the burial of the dead, and this being 
mutually granted, they proceeded to inter them. 

IX 

1. After this battle the Messenians began to find themselves in 
evil case. They were exhausted by the expense of maintaining the 
garrisons in the towns, and their slaves deserted to the Lacedae- 
monians. Sickness, too, broke out among them, and being of the 
nature of the plague, it spread confusion and alarm, though it did 
not attack the whole population. In these circumstances it was 
resolved to abandon all of the numerous inland towns, and to settle 

2 on Mount Ithome. There was already a small town there which they 
say is mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue : 

And ladder-like Ithome. 

To this town they moved up, and in it they settled, extending the 
ancient circuit so as to afford a sufficient protection to all. The 
place was naturally strong ; for Ithome is as high as any mountain 
in Peloponnese, and at this side it was especially inaccessible. 

3 2. They resolved also to send a sacred envoy to Delphi. So they 
despatched Tisis, son of Alcis, because he was a man of the first 
quality, and was believed to be a great adept in divination. On his way 
back from Delphi he fell into an ambush which was laid for him by 
some Lacedaemonian soldiers belonging to the garrison of Amphea. 
As he would not submit to be taken prisoner, but stood on his 
defence, his enemies wounded him till a voice from the unseen 

4 cried to them, ' Let go the bearer of the oracle.' Tisis reached 
Ithome and reported the oracle to the king, and not long afterwards 
he died of his wounds. But Euphaes assembled the Messenians 
and laid the oracle before them : 



chs. viii-ix ARISTODEMUS' SACRIFICE 193 

A spotless maiden to the gods below, 

Chosen by lot, of the blood of the Aepytids, 

Shall ye sacrifice in nocturnal slaughter. 

But if ye are balked, then take a daughter of another race 

And sacrifice her, if her sire give her freely to be slain. 

3. After this declaration of the god, all the maidens of the race of 5 
the Aepytids cast lots, and the lot fell on the daughter of Lyciscus. 
But the soothsayer Epebolis forbade that she should be sacrificed ; 
for he said that she was not the daughter of Lyciscus, but a supposi- 
titious child foisted on him by his barren wife. While he was 
unfolding the girl's history, Lyciscus deserted to Sparta, taking the 
girl with him. 4. In the midst of the gloom which the news of his 6 
flight spread among the Messenians, Aristodemus freely offered his 
daughter as a victim. He was one of the race of the Aepytids, and 
more distinguished than Lyciscus both in peace and war. But 
the affairs and especially the purposes of man are hidden by Fate as 
a pebble is hidden by the slime of a river. Thus when Aristodemus 
had set his heart on saving Messenia, fate interposed the following 
obstacle. 5. There was a man of Messenia (his name is not told) 7 
who loved the daughter of Aristodemus, and was just about to make 
her his wife. He at first argued with Aristodemus that by betrothing 
his daughter he had relinquished his rights over her, and that these 
rights had now vested in himself as her betrothed husband. 
But, seeing that this had no effect, he resorted to an impudent 
device, declaring that the girl was with child by him. At last 8 
he worked up Aristodemus so far that in a frenzy of passion 
he killed his daughter then he cut her open and showed that she 
was not with child. Epebolus, who was present, desired that some 
one else should offer his daughter ; for the death of the daughter of 
Aristodemus, he said, profited them nothing, seeing that her father 
had murdered her instead of sacrificing her to the gods, to whom the 
Pythian priestess had commanded that sacrifice should be made. 
At these words of the soothsayer the crowd rushed upon the girl's 9 
suitor to kill him, because they thought he had stained Aristodemus 
with needless guilt, and jeopardised their own chance of safety. But 
he was a great friend of Euphaes, and Euphaes persuaded the 
Messenians that the oracle was fulfilled by the death of the girl, and 
that what Aristodemus had done was enough. All the men of the 10 
Aepytid race protested that he spoke the truth ; for every one of 
them was anxious to save his daughter from the peril in which she 
stood. So the people hearkened to the king's advice, broke up the 
assembly, and betook themselves to sacrifice and feasting. 



vol. 1 



194 



DEATH OF EUPHAES bk. iv. messenia 



i. When the Lacedaemonians heard of the oracle that had been 
vouchsafed to the Messenians, they were cast down, they and their 
kings, and they shrank especially from beginning hostilities. But 
in the fifth year after the escape of Lyciscus from Ithome, the 
sacrifices were favourable, and they marched against Ithome ; the 
Cretans, however, were no longer with them. The allies of the 
Messenians were also late. The Spartans had already incurred the 
suspicions of many of the Peloponnesians, especially of the Arcadians 
and Argives. The Argives, unknown to the Lacedaemonians, intended 
to come to the help of the Messenians, but as private volunteers 
only : the State took no public action. The Arcadians had openly 
proclaimed war, but neither had their forces as yet come up. For 
on the strength of the oracle the Messenians were ready to brave 

2 the danger single-handed. 2. On the whole the fight went much as 
before; and again the daylight failed before the battle was over. It is 
not, however, recorded that a wing or even a regiment on either side 
gave way. Indeed, without observing their original formations, the 
bravest on both sides met in the middle and there the struggle was 

3 hottest. Euphaes, with more than kingly ardour, pressed recklessly 
on the division of Theopompus. Receiving many fatal wounds, he 
fainted and fell, but still breathed. The Lacedaemonians strove to 
drag him into their ranks. But their love of Euphaes and the fear 
of shame roused the Messenians ; and they deemed it better to shed 
their blood and sacrifice their lives in defence of their king than to 

4 save themselves by abandoning him. 3. The fall of Euphaes pro- 
longed the fight, and nerved both sides to more desperate feats of 
arms. He revived to learn that the battle was not lost, and died a 
few days afterwards. He had reigned thirteen years, during the 
whole of which he had been at war with the Lacedaemonians. 4. 

5 Being childless, he had bequeathed the throne to a successor to be 
elected by the people. The claim of Aristodemus was disputed by 
Cleonnis and Damis, who were esteemed better men and better 
soldiers. Antander had been killed in the battle fighting in defence 
of Euphaes. The soothsayers, Epebolus and Ophioneus, were 
unanimously against bestowing the honours of the line of Aepytus 
on a man who had imbrued his hands in his own daughter's 

6 blood. Nevertheless, Aristodemus was elected and reigned. The 
Messenian soothsayer, Ophioneus, was blind from his birth, and 
possessed a gift of prophecy by virtue of which, on learning the 
circumstances of individuals or of states, he predicted the future. 
That was his manner of prophesying. After coming to the throne, 
Aristodemus exerted himself steadily to gratify the commons in all 
that was reasonable : he treated the nobility with reject, especially 



chs. x-xi BATTLE AT ITHOME 195 



Cleonnis and Damis ; and he was studiously attentive to the allies, 
sending gifts to the most influential of the Arcadians, as well as to 
Argos and Sicyon. In his reign hostilities were confined to a 7 
ceaseless guerrilla warfare and to forays at harvest-time. In their 
raids into Laconia the Messenians were joined by the Arcadians ; 
and though the Argives did not choose to reveal their hatred of 
the Lacedaemonians prematurely, they prepared to take part in the 
war as soon as it should break out. 



XI 

1. In the fifth year of the reign of Aristodemus, both sides, worn 
out by the length and costliness of the war, gave notice that they 
would fight a pitched battle; so they were joined by their allies. 
The only Peloponnesian people who joined the Lacedaemonians 
were the Corinthians ; but the Messenians were reinforced by the 
whole Arcadian levies and by picked Argive and Sicyonian troops. 
The Lacedaemonians entrusted their centre to the Corinthians, the 
Helots, and the contingents of the vassal states, while they 
posted themselves under their kings on either wing : their forma- 
tion was deeper and closer than it had ever been before. On 2 
the other side Aristodemus' order of battle was as follows. Such 
of the Arcadians and Messenians as, though strong and brave, 
were poorly armed he furnished with the best arms he could get, 
and then, since time was pressing, drew them up in line with the 
Argives and Sicyonians. His line of battle he made long and thin, 
that it might not be surrounded by the enemy ; and he also took 
care that its rear should rest on Mount Ithome. Committing the 3 
command of it to Cleonnis, he himself remained behind with Damis 
and the light troops. These troops included a few slingers or 
archers, but the mass of them, by the lightness of their equip- 
ment and by their personal activity, were equally adapted to 
advance or retreat. Each man had a corselet or shield, or, lack- 



Iing these, he wore a garment of goatskin or sheepskin : some were 
clad in the skins of wild beasts, wolfskins and bearskins being 
especially worn by the highlanders of Arcadia. Each carried a 4 
bundle of darts, and some of them spears as well. 2. These 
troops remained in ambush in a place on Mount Ithome, which 
afforded the best concealment. Meanwhile the heavy infantry of 
the Messenians and their allies withstood the first onset of the 
Lacedaemonians and quitted themselves like men. They were 
outnumbered by the enemy ; but on the other hand they were 
picked troops fighting against militia, and thus by their combined 
resolution and skill they were able to prolong the conflict. 
And now the signal was given, and the Messenian light troops 5 
came on at a run, and surrounding the Lacedaemonians, poured in 



196 MESSENIAN VICTORY bk. iv. messenia 

a shower of javelins on their flanks, while the bolder spirits ran in 
and stabbed them at close quarters. Confronted with this second 
and unlooked-for danger the Lacedaemonians did not quail, but 
faced towards the skirmishers and endeavoured to repel them. But 
the ease with which these light troops retired embarrassed the 

6 Lacedaemonians, and their embarrassment enraged them. Now 
nothing is so calculated to put a man beside himself as an indignity. 
So on the present occasion, the Spartan wounded, and the men 
who, in consequence of the gaps in the ranks, were exposed to the 
charge of the skirmishers, rushed out to meet them whenever they 
saw them coming on, and, their blood being up, pursued the re- 
treating foe to a distance. The Messenian light troops adhered 
to their tactics : when the enemy stood still they stabbed and shot at 
him ; when he pursued, they fled faster than he could follow ; and 

7 when he tried to fall back, they came on again. This they did 
dispersedly, at different points of the enemy's line ; and meanwhile 
their heavy infantry pressed the foe in their front with renewed 
courage. 3. At last, exhausted by wounds and the length of the 
struggle, as well as disordered by the unaccustomed attack of the 
light troops, the Lacedaemonians broke their ranks. In the rout 

8 they suffered still more severely from the light troops. Their exact 
losses in the field it was impossible to ascertain, but I am persuaded 
that they were heavy. While the retreat of the rest to their homes 
was unmolested, that of the Corinthians must have been difficult ; 
for whether they attempted to return through Argolis or by Sicyon, 
their march lay through an enemy's land. 

XII 

1. Smarting under a defeat which had cost them so many 
precious lives, the Lacedaemonians began to despair of the issue 
of the war. Therefore they sent sacred envoys to Delphi, to whom 
the Pythian priestess gave the following oracle : 

Phoebus bids thee not to fight with the sword only. 
By guile a people holds the Messenian land, 

And they will be caught by the very devices which they were the first 
to use. 

2 The kings and the ephors laid their heads together, but, with all 
the will in the world to devise devices, they could think of nothing 
better than to copy the Trojan trick of Ulysses. So they sent a 
hundred men to Ithome. These men pretended to be deserters, and 
a public sentence of banishment was pronounced on them, but 
really they were in the plot. No sooner, however, had they come 
than they were sent to the right-about by Aristodemus, who observed 
that, though the iniquities of the Lacedaemonians were novel, their 



chs. xi-xn ORACLE OF THE TRIPODS 197 

stratagems were stale. 2. Foiled in this attempt, the Lacedaemonians 3 
next endeavoured to break up the Messenian confederacy. The 
envoys went first to Arcadia, but as their overtures were rejected 
there, they spared themselves the journey to Argos. 3. Being in- 
formed of the Lacedaemonian intrigues, Aristodemus in his turn 
sent envoys to inquire of the god. The Pythian priestess made 
them answer : 

God gives thee glory in war ; but beware lest by deceit 4 

The treacherous, hateful ambush of Sparta should ascend 

The well-built walls ; for their war god is the mightier. 

And the strong coronal of towers shall have cruel inhabitants, 

When the two shall have started up together from their hidden ambush. 

But the sacred day shall not behold this consummation 

Before destiny overtake the things which changed their nature. 

At the time Aristodemus and the soothsayers were at a loss to 
guess the meaning ; but not many years were to pass before the god 
unfolded and accomplished the oracle. 

4. Another thing that befell the Messenians at this time was as 5 
follows. While Lyciscus dwelt as a stranger at Sparta, the daughter 
died whom he had taken with him on his flight from Messene. 
Going often to visit her tomb, he was waylaid and captured by some 
Arcadian horsemen, and being carried to Ithome and brought before 
the national assembly, he maintained in his defence that in retiring 
from Messenia he had not deserted his country, but only yielded 
credence to the assertion of the soothsayer that the girl was not 
his true-born daughter. This defence was not believed till the 6 
woman who then held the priesthood of Hera presented herself in 
the theatre. This woman confessed that she was the mother of 
the girl, and had given it to the wife of Lyciscus to palm off as 
her own. ' But now,' said she, ' I am come to reveal the secret 
and to lay down the priesthood.' This she said, because it was the 
custom in Messenia that if the child of a priestess or priest died 
before her or him the priesthood should pass to another. The 
people believed the woman ; so they chose a priestess in her stead, 
and admitted that the conduct of Lyciscus had been excusable. 

5. After that, the twentieth year of the war now drawing on, 7 
they resolved to send again to Delphi to inquire about victory. To 
the inquiry of the envoys the Pythian priestess answered : 

To those who first set up about the altar to Zeus of Ithome 

Twice five times ten tripods, fortune gives 

The Messenian land with glory in war. 

For thus Zeus willed. Deceit advanced thee, 

But there is retribution hereafter, and thou canst not deceive God. 

Do as fate directs. But ruin falls on some before others. 

When they heard this, they deemed that the oracle was in their 8 



ig8 EVIL OMENS bk. iv. messenia 

favour, and gave them the victory in the war ; for so long as they 
had the sanctuary of the god of Ithome within their walls, they 
| fancied that the Lacedaemonians could not anticipate them in 
setting up tripods. They intended to make tripods of wood ; 
for they had not money enough left to make them of bronze. 
6. But one of the Delphians reported the oracle to Sparta. 
On receiving the information the Spartans called a council, but 

9 could hit on no plan. However Oebalus, a man of no mark, but 
a shrewd fellow, as his conduct proved, made a hundred tripods 
of clay, the first material that came to hand, and hiding them in a 
bag, he shouldered the bag and some nets as well, as if he were a 
huntsman. Being unknown to most even of his countrymen, it was 
the easier for him to pass undetected among the Messenians. He 
joined some peasants, and in their company entered Ithome ; and 
as soon as night fell he set up these clay tripods to the god, and 

10 then returned to Sparta to tell the Lacedaemonians. The sight of 
the tripods threw the Messenians into great consternation, and they 
guessed rightly that they came from the Lacedaemonians. However, 
Aristodemus comforted them as best he could in the circumstances, 
and as the wooden tripods were already made, he set them up round 
the altar of the god of Ithome. 7. It happened, too, that Ophioneus, 
the seer who had been blind from his birth, received his sight in a 
most marvellous way : he was seized with a violent headache, and 
after it his eyes were opened. 

XIII 

1. After that, the balance of fate beginning to- incline against the 
Messenians, God showed forth to them by signs and wonders the things 
that should come to pass. For the image of Artemis, which with 
its arms was all of bronze, let fall its shield ; and when Aristodemus 
was about to sacrifice to Zeus of Ithome, the rams that were to be 
offered dashed their horns against the altar and expired from the 
shock. Yet a third sign was given them : every night the dogs 
gathered on the same spot and howled, and at last the whole pack 

2 went over to the Lacedaemonian camp. These things troubled 
Aristodemus, and a vision of the night dismayed him. It was on 
this wise. He thought he was about to go forth to battle and had 
donned his armour. On the altar before him lay the entrails of the 
victims. Anon his daughter appeared to him, clad in a sable robe, 
her mangled breast and belly bared. She dashed the entrails from 
the altar, she stript him of his arms, and in their stead she put a 

3 golden crown on his head and arrayed him in a white mantle. In 
his mood of gloom and despondency it seemed to Aristodemus 
that the dream foreboded his death. For it was a custom with the 
Messenians to crown their illustrious dead and clothe them in white 



chs. xn-xiv ITHOME TAKEN 199 

raiment when they carried them to the grave. While he pondered, there 
comes one to him with tidings that the soothsayer Ophioneus saw 
no longer, but was of a sudden struck blind, even as he had been 
in the beginning. So Aristodemus understood the meaning of the 
oracle, that by ' the two coming out of their ambush and returning 
again to their fate ' the Pythian priestess had meant the eyes of 
Ophioneus. 2. Then, bethinking him of himself and his affairs, 4 
how he had murdered his daughter all in vain, and seeing no hope 
of safety left for his country, he slew himself on his child's grave. 
All that human foresight could do he had done to save Messenia, 
but fortune brought to naught both his deeds and his counsels. He 
died after a reign of six years and a few months. Despair seized 5 
the Messenians, and they even thought of sending a suppliant 
embassy to the Lacedaemonians, so utterly were they broken by the 
death of Aristodemus. 3. Pride, however, held them back from taking 
this step, and at a national assembly they chose no king, but 
appointed Damis general with absolute powers. He associated 
Cleonnis and Phyleus with himself in the command, and made 
ready even in their present straits to give battle. For he was driven 
to it by the state of siege, especially by the famine, which threatened 
to anticipate the sword of the enemy. Once more the Messenians 6 
were not inferior to their adversaries in valour and daring, but their 
generals perished to a man, and with them all the men of most mark. 

4. After that they held out for about five months, but towards the 
end of the year they abandoned Ithome, having maintained the war 
for twenty years, as the poet Tyrtaeus says : 

But in the twentieth left they the fat fields, 

And fled from the mighty Ithomian mountains. 

5. This war came to an end in the first year of the fourteenth 7 
Olympiad, in which Dasmon of Corinth won the foot-race, while the 
Medontids still held the ten years' archonship at Athens, and when 
Hippomanes had completed the fourth year of his office. 

XIV 

1. All the Messenians who had friends at Sicyon, Argos, and 
Arcadia, withdrew to these states, and the priestly race who were 
charged with the celebration of the orgies of the Great Goddesses 
withdrew to Eleusis ; but the bulk of the common people were 
scattered each to his old home. 2. The Lacedaemonians first razed 2 
Ithome to the ground, and then took the other cities one after the 
other. Out of the spoils they dedicated bronze tripods to the Amy- 
claean god: under the first tripod stands an image of Aphrodite; under 
the second, an image of Artemis ; under the third, an image of the 
Maid, the daughter of Demeter. These they dedicated there. But 3 



200 MESSENIAN REVOLT bk. iv. messenia 

of the land of Messenia they gave to the Asinaeans, who had been 
expelled by the Argives, the district beside the sea which the Asin- 
aeans still possess: and to the descendants of Androcles (for Androcles 
had a daughter, and she had children, who on the death of Androcles 

4 fled to Sparta) they assigned the district called Hyamia. 3. What 
they did to the Messenian people was this. In the first place, they 
made them swear that they would never revolt nor commit any other 
seditious act. In the second place, though no fixed tax was laid on 
them, they had to bring to Sparta the half of the produce of their 
farms. It was also stipulated that at the funerals of the Spartan 
kings and nobles, men and women should come from Messenia 
dressed in black ; and a penalty was imposed for transgressions of 

5 the rule. Tyrtaeus refers in some verses to the despiteful punish- 
ments which the Lacedaemonians inflicted on the Messenians : 

Like asses galled with heavy loads, 
To their masters bringing by doleful necessity 
Half of all the fruit that the tilled land yields. 

That they were also obliged to join in mourning is shown by the 
following passage : 

Themselves and their wives alike bewailing their masters, 
Whene'er death's baneful lot has fallen on any. 

6 4. In these circumstances the Messenians, seeing no hope of 
mercy from the Lacedaemonians in the future, and thinking that 
death in battle or exile from Peloponnese would be preferable to their 
present lot, resolved to revolt at all hazards. To this step they were 
urged especially by the younger generation, men who had never 
seen war, but clear spirits who would rather die in a free country 

7 than live at ease, if that were possible, in slavery. 5. Of the new 
generation that had grown up in Messenia, the youth of Andania 
were at once the most numerous and the flower, and amongst them 
was Aristomenes, who is still worshipped as a hero by the Messenians. 
They think that even the circumstances of his birth were above the 
common ; for his mother Nicotelea, they say, was visited by a demon 
or a god in the likeness of a serpent. A like tale is told, I am aware, 
about Olympias by the Macedonians, and about Aristodama by the 

8 Sicyonians, but with a difference. For the Messenians do not father 
Aristomenes on Hercules or Zeus, as the Macedonians father 
Alexander on Amnion, and as the Sicyonians father Aratus on 
Aesculapius. Most of the Greeks say that the sire of Aristomenes 
was Pyrrhus, but I know that at the libations the Messenians them- 
selves call him Aristomenes, son of Nicomedes. So he, in the hey- 
day of youth and spirit, with other men of rank, stirred up the 
people to revolt. The movement was at first kept secret, and 






chs. xiv-xv BATTLE OF DERAE 201 

messengers were sent by stealth to Argos and to the Arcadians, 
to ask whether they would be willing to stand by Messenia 
unflinchingly and as stoutly as in the former war. 

XV 

1. When all the preparations for the war were made, and the 
allies showed themselves heartier than had been expected, for the 
hatred of the Argives and Arcadians for the Lacedaemonians was 
now kindled into a flame, the Messenians revolted in the thirty- 
eighth year after the taking of Ithome, it being the fourth year of the 
twenty-third Olympiad, in which Icarus of Hyperesia won the foot- 
race. At Athens the annual archons were already instituted, and 
Tlesias was the archon. As to the Lacedaemonian kings at the 2 
time, Tyrtaeus does not mention their names, but Rhianus in his 
epic represents Leotychides as king at the time of this war. In this 

I cannot possibly agree with him. And though Tyrtaeus does not 
name, yet he may be supposed to indicate the kings in the 
following passage. He has these verses on the former war : 

About it they fought nineteen years 
Ceaselessly, ever keeping up a patient spirit, 
They the spearmen, our fathers' fathers. 

Clearly, then, this war was fought in the second generation after the 3 
first war, and chronology shows that the kings then reigning in 
Sparta were, of the one house, Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, son of 
Polydorus ; and of the other house, Anaxidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, 
son of Archidamus, son of Theopompus. I have carried the 
reckoning down to the third descendant of Theopompus, because 
Archidamus, son of Theopompus, died before his father, and the 
throne of Theopompus devolved on his son's son Zeuxidamus. 
But Leotychides is known to have reigned after Demaratus, son 
of Aristo, and Aristo was the sixth descendant of Theopompus. 

2. In the first year after the revolt the Messenians encountered 4 
the Lacedaemonians at a place in Messenia called Derae. Both 
sides were without their allies. The result was indecisive, but they 
say that Aristomenes displayed such prodigies of valour, that after 
the battle the Messenians were for electing him king, he being of 
the race of the Aepytids ; but he deprecated the honour, so they 
elected him general with absolute powers. To win glory in battle by 5 
the sacrifice of life was, in the opinion of Aristomenes, what any 
man would be ready to do ; but for himself, he considered it above 
all incumbent on him to strike fear into the Lacedaemonians at the 
opening of the war, and thus make himself a terror to them for the 
future. In this frame of mind he went by night to Lacedaemon, 
and set up against the temple of the Goddess of the Brazen House 



202 TYRTAEUS bk. iv. messenia 

a shield with the inscription : ' Presented by Aristomenes to the 
goddess from Spartan spoils.' 

6 3. Now the Lacedaemonians received an oracle from Delphi, 
bidding them take the Athenian to be their counsellor. Accord- 
ingly they sent to the Athenians to report the oracle, and begging 
for a man who should advise them what to do. The Athenians, re- 
luctant to disobey the god, and yet unwilling that the Lacedaemonians 
should acquire the best portion of Peloponnese without any serious 
risk, had recourse to artifice. There was one Tyrtaeus, a school- 
master, generally thought to be a poor-witted creature, and lame 
of one leg ; so they sent him to Sparta. When he was come, 
he sang elegiacs and likewise anapaests to the great folk in private, 
and he gathered the common folk about him and sang to them too. 

7 4. But a year after the battle of Derae, both sides being reinforced 
by their allies, they prepared to join battle at a place called the 
Boar's Grave. With the Messenians were the Eleans and Arcadians, 
and contingents had arrived from Argos and Sicyon. With them, 
too, were the Messenians who had withdrawn into exile, and the 
hereditary celebrants of the orgies of the Great Goddesses, who 
had come back from Eleusis, and the descendants of Androcles ; 

8 for these last were especially zealous in the Messenian cause. The 
Lacedaemonians were joined by the Corinthians, and some of the 
people of Lepreum came out of hatred to the Eleans. The 
Asinaeans were bound by oaths to both sides. The place called the 
Boar's Grave is at Stenyclerus in Messenia, and they say that 
Hercules there exchanged oaths with the sons of Neleus over the 
pieces of a boar. 

XVI 

1. Before the battle the seers on both sides offered sacrifice. 
The Lacedaemonian seer was Hecas, a descendant and namesake 
of the Hecas who had gone to Sparta with the sons of Aristodemus. 
The Messenian seer was Theoclus, a descendant of Eumantis. 
This Eumantis was an Elean, one of the family of the Iamids, 
and had been brought to Messenia by Cresphontes. The presence 
of their seers fired both sides with fresh ardour for the fray. 

2 Amid this general enthusiasm, in which every man partook ac- 
cording to his age and vigour, the foremost were the Lacedae- 
monian king Anaxander and his Spartans ; while on the 
Messenian side Phintas and Androcles, the descendants of 
Androcles, and their division strove to play the men. Tyrtaeus and 
the high priests of the Great Goddesses took no part in the fray, 

3 but stirred up the hindmost of their respective sides. 2. With 
regard to Aristomenes, he had about him eighty picked Messenians of 
his own age, every one of whom reckoned it the highest honour to 



chs. xv-xvi BATTLE OF BOAR'S GRAVE 203 



be thought worthy of fighting at his side. They were quick, too, to 
observe each other's movements, especially their leader's, whose 
actions they even anticipated. Aristomenes and they bore the first 
brunt of battle, being confronted by the crack Lacedaemonian 
troops under Anaxander. Reckless of wounds, and wrought to the 
highest pitch of fury, they routed Anaxander's division by their 
combined endurance and dash. Ordering another Messenian 4 
regiment to pursue the fugitives, Aristomenes charged in person 
where the enemy was making the best stand, drove them before 
him, and then turned on others. Having beaten these also, it was 
easier for him to attack the troops that still stood their ground, and 
this he did till he had broken the whole Lacedaemonian line, 
Spartans and allies alike. Lost to honour they fled without waiting 
for each other, and he hung on their rear striking more terror 
than it would seem possible that a single man could inspire. But 5 
there was a wild pear-tree growing on the plain, and the seer 
Theoclus bade him not to pass it j for he said that the Dioscuri 
were sitting on the tree. But Aristomenes, hurried away by his 
passion, did not listen to all that the seer said, and when he came 
to the pear-tree he lost his shield. His error allowed a portion of 
the routed army to escape, for he lost time in trying to find his 
shield. 

3. This defeat discouraged the Lacedaemonians, and they desired 6 
to make peace. But Tyrtaeus did what he could to change their 
resolution by singing his verses, and he enrolled Helots in the 
regiments to replace the fallen. 4. When Aristomenes returned to 
Andania the women threw ribbons and fresh flowers on him, and 
recited in his honour a song which is sung to this day : 

To the midst of the Stenyclerian plain and to the top of the mountain 
Aristomenes followed the Lacedaemonians. 

He also recovered his lost shield, after going to Delphi, and then, 7 
as the Pythian priestess bade him, descending into the shrine of 
Trophonius at Lebadea. Afterwards he took the shield to Lebadea 
and dedicated it there, where I saw it suspended myself: the blazon 
on it is an eagle whose outstretched wings touch the rim of the 
shield on either side. 5. On his return from Boeotia, after learning 
from Trophonius where the shield was, and also recovering it, he 
immediately set about still greater enterprises. He collected a body 8 
of Messenian troops, and taking with them his own picked corps, he 
waited for nightfall, and then approached a city of Laconia, the 
ancient name of which was Pharis, as it also appears in Homer's 
Catalogue, but which the Spartans and the neighbours call Pharae. 
Having reached it he cut to pieces those who attempted to resist, 
seized some cattle, and drove them off to Messenia. On the road 
he was attacked by a force of heavy Lacedaemonian infantry under 






204 BATTLE OF GREAT TRENCH bk. iv. messenia 

King Anaxander, but he routed them. He would fain have pursued 
Anaxander, but being wounded with a javelin in the buttocks he 
had to stay his pursuit. However, he was not despoiled of the cattle 

9 which he was driving off. After an interval long enough to allow 
his wound to heal, he attempted to make an entrance by night into 
Sparta itself, but phantoms of Helen and the Dioscuri turned him 
back. However, he waylaid by day the maidens who were dancing 
at Caryae in honour of Artemis, and seizing the wealthiest and 
noblest of their number, carried them off to a village in Messenia, 
where he rested for the night, committing the charge of the maidens 

10 to some men of the regiment. But flown with wine, I suppose, and 
lust, the young men attempted to violate the maidens. Aristomenes 
tried to prevent a deed so repugnant to Greek manners, but they 
paid no heed to him ; so he was forced to kill the most riotous of 
them. The captives were ransomed for large sums, and left his 
hands, as they entered them, maidens. 

XVII 

i. There is a place Aegila in Laconia, the seat of a holy sanc- 
tuary of Demeter. Aristomenes and his men, knowing that the 
women were celebrating a feast there. . . . But the women being 
inspired by the goddess to resist, most of the Messenians were 
wounded by the knives with which the women were sacrificing the 
victims, and by the spits on which they roasted the flesh. Aristo- 
menes received blows from their torches and was taken alive. 
However, that same night he escaped to Messenia. Archidamea, 
priestess of Demeter, was accused of having released him. She 
released him, not for a bribe, but because she had been in love with 
him before. The excuse she made was that Aristomenes had 
burned through the cords that bound him and so made his escape. 

2 2. In the third year of the war the Messenians were reinforced 
by troops from all the cities in Arcadia. But when a battle was 
imminent at the place called the Great Trench, the Lacedaemonians 
corrupted by a bribe Aristocrates, son of Hicetas, the Trapezuntian, 
the king and general for the time being of the Arcadians. The 
Lacedaemonians were the first we know of who bribed an enemy, 
and the first who made victory in war a saleable commodity. 

3 Before they misconducted themselves in the Messenian war by pro- 
curing the treachery of Aristocrates the Arcadian, battles were 
decided by valour and the will of God. It is known that in later 
times also, when they lay at anchor opposite to the Athenian fleet at 
Aegospotami, the Lacedaemonians bought Adimantus and other 

4 Athenian generals. 3. In course of time, however, they were them- 
selves visited by what is called the retribution of Neoptolemus. 
For Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, slew Priam at the altar of the 



chs. xvi-xvii BATTLE OF GREAT TRENCH 205 

God of the Courtyard, and by a notable coincidence he was him- 
self slaughtered at Delphi beside the altar of Apollo. Hence to be 
treated as one has treated others is called the retribution of Neopto- 
lemus. Accordingly, at the height of their prosperity, when they 5 
had destroyed the Athenian navy, and when Agesilaus had subdued 
the greater part of Asia, the Lacedaemonians were unable to wrest 
the whole of his empire from the Mede ; for the barbarian circum- 
vented them by their own device by sending moneys to Corinth, 
Argos, Athens, and Thebes. By these moneys the Corinthian war 
was kindled ; and thus Agesilaus was compelled to abandon the ope- 
rations in Asia. So the stratagem which the Lacedaemonians 6 
employed against the Messenians was destined by Providence to be 
turned with disastrous effect against themselves. 

4. But when Aristocrates had received the money from Lacedae- 
mon, he concealed for the present from the Arcadians the treachery 
he meditated ; but just as the engagement was about to begin, he 
alarmed them by informing them that they were caught in a 
disadvantageous position, from which, in case of a reverse, there 
could be no retreat ; and he added that the sacrificial omens had not 
been what they could wish. He therefore gave orders that at a 
signal from him every man should take to flight. When the Lace- 7 
daemonians were advancing to the encounter, and the attention of 
the Messenians was turned on the enemy in their front, at the very 
beginning of the battle Aristocrates led off the Arcadians, and thus the 
Messenian left wing and centre were left blank ; for in the absence 
of the Eleans, the Argives, and the Sicyonians, both these positions 
were occupied by the Arcadians. But Aristocrates did more than 
this : he directed his flight through the Messenian lines. The 8 
unexpectedness of this movement so bewildered, and the passage of 
the Arcadians through their ranks so disordered the Messenians, 
that most of them nearly forgot the business in hand ; and in- 
stead of looking at the Lacedaemonians, now charging down on 
them, they stared at the fleeing Arcadians, some of them imploring 
the retreating troops to stand by them, others reviling them as 
traitors and villains. 5 . The Messenians being thus left alone, it 9 
was not difficult for the Lacedaemonians to surround them, and 
never was a victory won with more ease or less trouble. Aristo- 
menes and his men, indeed, kept together, and attempted to 
check the most impetuous of their asssilants, but being few in 
number they could do but little. The losses of the Messenian 
commonalty were so heavy, that they who had begun by hoping 
to prove the masters instead of the slaves of the Lacedaemonians, 
could now no longer hope even to save themselves. Amongst the 
nobles who fell were Androcles and Phintas, and, after a most 
gallant fight, Phanas, who had won the long foot-race at Olympia. 

6. After the battle Aristomenes collected the fugitives, and per- 10 



206 SETTLEMENT ON IRA bk. iv. messexMA 



suaded them to abandon Andania and most of the inland towns and 
to settle on Mount Ira. Penned in here they were besieged by 
the Lacedaemonians, who expected to take them immediately ; 
but even after the defeat at the Trench the Messenians held out 
for eleven years. That the siege lasted so long is shown by the 
following verses of Rhianus, which refer to the Lacedaemonians : 

In the coombs of the white mountain they encamped 
For two-and-twenty winters and verdant seasons. 

He counts summers and winters, meaning by the ' verdant seasons ' 
the time when the corn is green, or a little before harvest. 

XVIII 

i. When the Messenians <settled> on Ira, and were shut out 
from the rest of their territory except in so far as the people of 
Pylus and Mothone preserved for them the districts on the coast, 
they harried Laconia and their own land, which they now regarded 
as the enemy's country. These forays were especially conducted by 
Aristomenes with his picked men, whose numbers he had raised to 
three hundred, but they were also made by any men who chose 

2 to muster for the purpose. They plundered the Lacedaemonian 
country, and carried off whatever they could lay hands on : the 
corn, cattle, and wine which they took they consumed, but the 
movables and men they sold. The Lacedaemonians, seeing that 
they were tilling the land more for the benefit of the people at Ira 
than for their own, decreed that Messenia and the adjoining 
part of Laconia should be left unsown so long as the war lasted. 

3 2. This produced a scarcity at Sparta, and with the scarcity a 
sedition ; for the persons who owned property in these districts were 
discontented at their lands being left uncultivated. However, 
Tyrtaeus composed these dissensions. 3. Late in the evening 
Aristomenes marched out at the head of his picked men, and so 
rapid were his movements that he was at Amyclae before the sun 
rose. He took the town, pillaged it, and beat a retreat before the 

4 Spartans could come to the rescue. Afterwards he continued to 
scour the country, till in an encounter with more than half the 
Lacedaemonian regiments under their two kings he received 
amongst other wounds a blow on the head from a stone which 
stunned him, and when he was down a body of Lacedaemonians 
rushed on him and took him prisoner. About fifty of his men also 
were taken. They were all sentenced by the Lacedaemonians to be 
thrown into the abyss into which they throw the greatest malefactors. 

5 4. The rest of the Messenians were killed on the spot by the fall ; 
but on this, as on other occasions of his life, one of the gods watched 
over Aristomenes. Those who magnify the story of his life say that 



chs. xvii-xix ESCAPE OF ARISTOMENES 207 

when he was cast into the abyss an eagle flew under him, and 
supported him with its wings until it had brought him to the bottom 
unmaimed and unwounded. And Providence was about to show 
him a way even out of the abyss. When he reached the bottom of the 6 
chasm he lay down, and drawing his mantle about him, awaited the 
death which he believed to be inevitable. But on the second day 
afterwards he heard a noise, and uncovering his face, his eyes being 
now accustomed to the darkness, he perceived a fox battening on 
the corpses. Guessing that the beast had an entrance somewhere, 
he waited till it came near, and then caught it with one hand, and 
whenever it turned on him he held out his mantle to it with the 
other hand, and allowed the beast to bite it. Most of the way he 
ran with it as it ran, but in the very difficult places he was dragged 
by it. At last he spied a hole large enough for the fox, and light 
shining through it. When he let the fox go, it ran, I suppose, into 7 
its lair. But the hole was not large enough to let Aristomenes out, 
so he widened it with his hands and got safe home to Ira. Now, if 
the capture of Aristomenes was strange, his spirit and prowess being 
so great that no one would have thought he could have been taken 
prisoner, much stranger was his escape from the abyss, and plainly 
the hand of God was in it. 



XIX 

1. Word was at once brought to the Lacedaemonians by deserters 
that Aristomenes was returned safe, but the story appeared as in- 
credible as if it had been said that a dead man had come to life. 
However, Aristomenes gave them in person the following proof of its 
truth. The Corinthians despatched a force to help the Lacedae- 
monians to take Ira. Learning from his scouts that the march of 2 
these troops was somewhat disorderly, and that no watch was kept in 
their camp, Aristomenes fell on them by night, and slaughtered most 
of them in their sleep, including the generals Hypermenides, 
Achladaeus, Lysistratus, and Sidectus. By plundering the generals' 
tent he made the Spartans very well aware that it was Aristomenes 
and nobody else who had done this. 2. He sacrificed to Zeus of 3 
Ithome the sacrifice called Hecatomphonia (' hundred slain '). This 
sacrifice had been customary from time immemorial : the rule was 
that it was offered by Messenians who had slain a hundred foemen. 
The first time that Aristomenes offered this sacrifice was after the 
battle at the Boar's Grave; and the nocturnal slaughter of the Corinth- 
ians furnished him with the second occasion. They say that he 
offered it yet a third time for the raids which he afterwards conducted. 

3. The Hyacinthian festival was now drawing on, so the Lacedae- 4 
monians made a truce of forty days with the Messenians of Ira, 
and returning home celebrated the festival. But some Cretan bow- 



2o8 THE HE-GOAT bk. iv. messenia 

men, whom the Lacedaemonians hired from Lyctus and other cities, 
went roaming up and down Messenia. Now Aristomenes, trusting 
to the truce, had gone some distance from Ira, and was walking on 
carelessly, when seven of these bowmen waylaid him, seized him, and 
bound him with the thongs which they had on their quivers. 

5 Evening was now coming on. So two of the archers repaired to 
Sparta with the good news that Aristomenes was a prisoner ; but the 
rest went off to a farm in Messenia. 4. Here there dwelt a girl 
with her mother, and she was an orphan, for her father was dead. 
On the night before the damsel had dreamed a dream : wolves brought 
a lion to the farm, and the lion was bound and without his claws, 
but she loosed the lion from his bonds, and found and gave him his 
claws ; and thus it seemed in the vision that the wolves were torn in 

6 pieces by the lion. So when the Cretans brought in Aristomenes, 
the damsel perceived that the vision of the night was come true, 
and she inquired of her mother who he was. And being told, she 
was strengthened in her mind, and looking at him steadfastly she 
understood that which she was bidden to do. So she helped the 
Cretans freely to wine, and when they were drunk she stole the dagger 
from him who slept most soundly, and severed the bonds that bound 
Aristomenes, and he, taking the sword, despatched <the men>. 
This damsel was taken to wife by Gorgus, Aristomenes' son. Thus 
Aristomenes repaid the damsel for saving him, for Gorgus was not 
yet eighteen years old when he married. 

XX 

1. But in the eleventh year of the siege it was fated that Ira 
should be taken and the Messenians driven from their homes. In 
truth, the god fulfilled upon them an oracle which he had given to 
Aristomenes and Theoclus. For when they went to Delphi after 
the defeat at the Trench, and asked how they could be saved, the 
Pythian priestess answered them thus : 

When a he-goat drinks Neda's eddying water 

I will save Messene no more, for destruction is near. 

2 The springs of the Neda are in Mount Lycaeus, and the river, after 
flowing through Arcadia and turning again towards Messenia, forms the 
boundary between the coast districts of Messenia and Elis. So the 
Messenians feared lest the he-goats should drink of the Neda ; but 
after all what the deity foreshadowed was this. The wild fig-tree is 
called by some Greeks olunthe, but the Messenians call it tragos 
(' he-goat '). Well, in those days there was a wild fig-tree by the 
Neda which did not grow straight, but bent towards the stream and 

3 brushed the water with the tips of its leaves. Theoclus, the seer, 
observing this, inferred that by ' the goat drinking of the Neda ' the 



chs. xix-xx THE COWHERD'S LEMAN 209 

Pythian priestess signified this fig-tree, and he concluded that the 
doom of the Messenians was now come. From the rest he kept it 
secret, but he took Aristomenes to the fig-tree, and showed him that 
their time of grace had expired. Though persuaded that it was so, 
and that their last hour had come, Aristomenes nevertheless took 
such precautions as the circumstances allowed. 2. The Messenians 4 
had a certain secret thing : if it were to disappear entirely, 
Messenia would be lost for ever ; but if it were preserved, the 
oracles of Lycus, son of Pandion, declared that the Messenians 
would one day recover the country. So when night was falling, 
Aristomenes, who knew the oracles, carried the thing to the 
loneliest part of Ithome, and there buried it on the mountain, 
imploring Zeus, god of Ithome, and the gods who had hitherto saved 
the Messenians, to remain guardians of the trust committed to them, 
and not to suffer the only hope the Messenians had of a restoration 
to their home to fall into the hands of the Lacedaemonians. 

3. After that misfortunes began to betide Messenia in consequence 5 
of an adultery, as they had betided Troy before. The Messenians 
were masters of the mountain and of the skirts of Ira as far as the 
Neda, and some of them had even dwellings outside the gates. No 
deserter came to them from Laconia except a slave of Emperamus : 
he was a cowherd, and brought his master's cows with him. His 
master, Emperamus, was a man of repute in Sparta. This cowherd 6 
grazed his herd not far from the Neda. Now one of the Messenians, 
whose house was outside the walls, had a wife, and the cowherd saw 
her when she came for water. Being smitten with her he made 
bold to speak to her, and by presents he won her. After that he 
used to watch for the times when her husband went away on garrison 
duty. For the Messenians took turns of guarding the acropolis, that 
being the place by which they especially feared lest the enemy 
should make his way into the city. So whenever he went away the 
cowherd visited the woman. Well, one night when it came to the 7 
husband's turn to mount guard with some others, it happened to be 
raining heavily, and the guard quitted their posts. For the rain, 
pouring down in sheets, drove them away, there being no battle- 
ments or towers, so hastily had the walls been built. Besides, they 
never dreamed that the Lacedaemonians would stir in such wild 
weather on a moonless night. Not many days before Aristomenes 8 
had been wounded in rescuing a Cephallenian merchant, his friend, 
from a party of Lacedaemonians and Apteraean archers, who were 
commanded by Euryalus, a Spartan. The merchant was bringing 
into Ira a supply of necessaries when he was taken by the enemy. 
Aristomenes saved him and his goods, but was himself wounded, 
and so could not go the round of the watch as was his wont. This 
was the chief cause of the acropolis being deserted. So they all 9 
(quitted their posts, including the husband of the faithless wife. 
vol. 1 p 



2io IRA BETRAYED ek. iv. messema 



She had the cowherd in the house at the time, and hearing her 
husband coming she hid her lover as fast as she could. When her 
husband entered she welcomed him more kindly than she had ever 
done before, and asked what brought him home. But he, not 
knowing that she was false and that the cowherd was in the house, 
told the truth, and said that he and the rest had left their posts on 
10 account of the violence of the rain. The cowherd listened to him, 
and when he had heard it all exactly, he deserted back from the 
Messenians to the Lacedaemonians. The kings were absent from 
the Lacedaemonian camp at the time, and the commander of the 
besieging force was Emperamus, the cowherd's master. So the cow- 
herd went to him, and after begging forgiveness for having run away, 
he explained that now was the time to take Ira, and he recounted 
all he had heard from the Messenian. 



XXI 

i. His story was believed, and he guided Emperamus and the 
Spartans. The march was difficult, for it was dark and the rain fell 
without cessation ; but their ardour surmounted all difficulties. 
When they came to the acropolis of Ira they climbed into it, each man 
making the best of his way by ladders or otherwise. The disaster 
was announced to the Messenians chiefly by the unusual barking of 
the dogs, which was uncommonly persistent and furious. Discern- 
ing then that the time for the last and most desperate struggle had 
come, without stopping to pick up all their weapons, they snatched 
whatever came first to hand, and hurried to the defence of the only 

2 home that was left them out of the whole of Messenia. The first 
to perceive that the enemies were inside, and the first to hasten to 
meet them, were Aristomenes' son Gorgus, Aristomenes himself, 
Theoclus the seer, and his son Manticlus ; with them, too, was 
Euergetidas, a man who was looked up to in Messenia, and who had 
gained fresh distinction through his marriage, for his wife was 
Hagnagora, sister of Aristomenes. Though they saw that they were 
caught in the toils, hope did not quite desert the Messenians even 

3 in this crisis. 2. Only Aristomenes and the seer knew that the ruin of 
Messenia could no longer be deferred ; for they understood the 
ambiguous oracle which the Pythian priestess had uttered touching 
the he-goat. But they concealed their knowledge, and kept it a 
secret from the rest. Hastily traversing the city, they exhorted all 
the Messenians they fell in with to play the men, and they summoned 

4 from their houses those who were still indoors. 3. In the darkness of 
night nothing worth speaking of was effected on either side ; for 
on the one side the Spartans were deterred by their ignorance of 
the ground as well as by the valour of Aristomenes ; and on the 
other side the Messenians had received no watchword from their 



chs. xx-xxi IRA TAKEN 211 

generals, and besides, the rain put out the torches and any other 
lights that were lit. But when it was day, and they could see each 5 
other, Aristomenes and Theoclus tried to rouse the Messenians to 
the extreme of bravery by words suitable to the occasion, and 
particularly by reminding them of the prowess of the Ionians of 
Smyrna, who, when the Lydians under Gyges, son of Dascylus, were 
in possession of Smyrna, drove the enemy out by their valour and 
enthusiasm. 4. The Messenians hearkened, and were filled with fury, 6 
and gathering in knots just as they happened to stand, they charged 
the Lacedaemonians. The women, too, were eager to pelt the enemy 
with tiles and anything else they could lay their hands on ; but the 
violence of the rain prevented them from doing so and from mount- 
ing on the roofs. But they dared to take arms, and thus fired the 
courage of the men still more, when they beheld even the women 
choosing rather to perish with their country than be dragged as 
slaves to Lacedaemon ; so that after all they might perhaps have 
eluded their doom. But the rain came down heavier than ever, 7 
accompanied with loud peals of thunder, and the lightning flashed 
in their faces, dazzling their eyes. All this inspired the Lacedae- 
monians with courage, for they said God himself was fighting for 
them ; and as the lightning was on their right, the seer Hecas declared 
that the sign was auspicious. 5. He also devised the following 8 
stratagem. The Lacedaemonians were far the more numerous, but 
as the battle was fought up and down the town in confined spaces 
which did not allow them to form in line, the rearmost men in each 
corps were useless. These he ordered to retire to the camp and 
get some food and sleep, and then to come back before evening to 
relieve their comrades. 6. Thus the Lacedaemonians, resting and 9 
fighting by turns, were the better able to hold out. But -the 
Messenians were hard put to it ; for they fought incessantly day and 
night, and it was now the third night. Another day dawned ; the 
want of sleep, the rain, and the cold distressed them, and hunger 
and thirst told on them. The women especially were exhausted by 
the unwonted toil of battle and by the incessant fatigue. 7. So 10 
the seer Theoclus came up to Aristomenes and said : ' Wherefore 
thus toil in vain? It is fated beyond a doubt that Messene must 
be taken, and the calamity which stares us in the face was long ago 
foreshadowed to us by the Pythian priestess and lately revealed by 
the fig-tree. For myself, the catastrophe which God is bringing on 
our country is mine also ; but save thou the Messenians as far as it 
is in thy power, and save thyself.' When he had thus spoken to 
Aristomenes, he rushed upon the enemy, and cried out to the 
Lacedaemonians, ' No ! you will not enjoy the lands of the 
Messenians with impunity for ever.' Then flinging himself on the n 
enemies that faced him, he dealt death among them and received 
his own, and thus having glutted his fury with the blood of the foe, 



212 THE TRAITOR ARISTOCRATES bk. iv. messenia 

he yielded up the ghost. 8. But Aristomenes recalled the 
Messenians from the fight, except the brave men who fought 
in the front. These he allowed to stay, but the rest he ordered 
to enclose the women and children within their ranks and to follow 
12 where he opened the way. Having appointed Gorgus and Manticlus 
to command the rear, he hastened in person to the head of the 
column, and by bowing his head and Avaving his spear he signified 
his resolution to withdraw, and his request that a passage should be 
opened. Emperamus and the Spartans present were content to let 
the Messenians through, and not further to exasperate reckless 
men at bay. And this, too, was the advice of the seer Hecas. 

XXII 

i. No sooner had the Arcadians heard of the capture of Ira 
than they desired Aristocrates to lead them, either to save the 
Messenians or to perish with them. But he, being in the pay of 
Lacedaemon, refused to lead them, and declared that he knew not of 

2 a single Messenian left whom they could help. But when they got 
more certain intelligence that the Messenians survived and had been 
compelled to forsake Ira, they made ready food and clothing, and 
awaited them at Mount Lycaeus. They also sent some of their 
chief men to comfort the Messenians, and to guide them on the 
journey. So when the Messenians had come safe to Mount Lycaeus, 
the Arcadians welcomed them, and treated them kindly, and desired 
to distribute them among their own cities, and to divide the land 

3 afresh for their sakes. 2. But sorrow for the sack of Ira and hatred 
of the Lacedaemonians suggested to Aristomenes the following plan. 
He chose out five hundred Messenians whom he knew to care least 
for their lives, and asked them whether they were willing to die with 
him in avenging their country. This question he put to them in the 
hearing of Aristocrates and of the rest of the Arcadians. For he did 
not know that Aristocrates was a traitor, but supposed that on the 
former occasion he had run away from battle, not out of treachery, 
but out of sheer cowardice and poltroonery. So he put the question 

4 to the five hundred in the presence of Aristocrates. When they 
answered that they were ready to die with him he disclosed his 
whole plan, how he was resolved at all hazards to lead them against 
Sparta the following evening. For at the moment most of the Spartans 
were away at Ira, and others were going about plundering the 
property of the Messenians. ' And if,' said Aristomenes, ' we can 
seize and hold Sparta, we may recover our own by giving them back 
what is theirs ; and if we fail, we shall at least die together, and 

5 future ages will remember our exploit' When he had finished 
speaking, three hundred of the Arcadians volunteered to share the 
hazardous enterprise. For the present they deferred their march, 



chs. xxi-xxiii IS STONED 213 

because the sacrificial omens were not favourable. 3. Next day they 
learned that their secret was already known to the Lacedaemonians, 
and that they had been a second time betrayed by Aristocrates ; 
for he had immediately written a letter describing Aristomenes' 
plans, and sent it to Anaxander at Sparta by the hands of the slave 
upon whose fidelity he knew he could best depend. On his return 6 
the slave was waylaid by some Arcadians who had been at enmity 
with Aristocrates before, and who now had their suspicions about 
him. Having waylaid the slave, they brought him back to the 
Arcadians, and divulged to the people the answer sent from 
Lacedaemon. Anaxander wrote that the Lacedaemonians had not 
allowed Aristocrates to be a loser by his previous flight at the 
battle of the Great Trench, and that they would be under a fresh 
obligation to him for his present revelations. 4. When this was 7 
publicly announced, the Arcadians proceeded to stone Aristocrates 
with their own hands, and exhorted the Messenians to do so also. 
The Messenians looked to Aristomenes, but he kept his eyes on the 
ground and wept. So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates to death, 
and cast him unburied beyond the boundaries, and they set up a 
tablet in the precinct of the Lycaean god with this inscription : 

Surely time discovered a punishment for a wicked king, 

And discovered, with the help of Zeus, the betrayer of Messene 

Easily. Hard it is for a forsworn man to hide from God. 
Hail, King Zeus ! and save Arcadia. 



XXIII 

1. The Messenians taken at Ira or elsewhere in Messenia were 
incorporated by the Lacedaemonians among the Helots. But when 
Ira was taken, the people of Pylus and Mothone and the other 
inhabitants of the coast sailed away to Cyllene, the port of the Elis. 
Thence they sent to the Messenians in Arcadia, desiring to go forth 
with them to seek a country in which to dwell, and requesting that 
Aristomenes would lead them to a new home. Aristomenes replied, 2 
that for himself so long as he lived he would make war on the 
Lacedaemonians, and he was sure that he would always be a thorn 
in the side of Sparta ; but he gave them Gorgus and Manticlus to be 
their leaders. Euergetidas had withdrawn to Mount Lycaeus with the 
rest of the Messenians. But when he saw that the plan of Aristo- 
menes for the capture of Sparta had fallen through, he prevailed on 
about fifty of the Messenians to return with him to Ira to attack the 
Lacedaemonians, and finding them still plundering he turned their 3 
joy of victory into mourning ; but he perished himself. When 
Aristomenes had given leaders to the Messenians, he ordered 
every one who wished to join the colony to repair to Cyllene. All 



214 MESSENIANS TAKE Z ANCLE bk. IV. messenia 

joined it except a few who were debarred by age or poverty ; these 
last, therefore, abode in Arcadia. 

4 2. Ira was taken and the second war between the Lacedaemonians 
and the Messenians was concluded when Autosthenes was archon 
at Athens, in the first year of the twenty-eighth Olympiad, in which 
Chionis the Laconian was victorious. 

5 When the Messenians were assembled at Cyllene they resolved 
to winter there, and they were furnished by the Eleans with food and 
necessaries ; but when spring came round they deliberated where 
they should go. Gorgus was of opinion that they should seize 
Zacynthus, the island off the coast of Cephallenia, and exchanging 
their continental for an island home make expeditions to the coast 
of Laconia and ravage the country. Manticlus advised them to 
forget Messene and their hatred of the Lacedaemonians, and 
sailing to Sardinia take possession of that greatest and wealthiest 

6 of islands. 3. Meantime Anaxilas sent to the Messenians, inviting 
them to Italy. He was tyrant of Rhegium, and was the third lineal 
descendant of Alcidamidas, who had migrated from Messene to 
Rhegium after the death of King Aristodemus and the capture of 
Ithome. So Anaxilas sent for the Messenians. When they came 
he told them that the people of Zancle, who were at feud with him, 
possessed a fertile country and a city finely situated in Sicily, and 
that if the Messenians would help him to conquer Zancle, he would 
give them the city and its territory. They accepted the proposal, 

7 and Anaxilas transported them to Sicily. The site on which Zancle 
stands was originally seized by corsairs : the land was uninhabited, 
and they built a stronghold about the harbour, and used it as their 
headquarters whence they scoured sea and land. Their cap- 
tains were Crataemenes, a Samian, and Perieres of Chalcis, and these 

8 men afterwards decided to invite other Greek settlers. 4. But now 
Anaxilas beat the Zancleans by sea, while the Messenians defeated 
them by land. So Zancle was besieged on the land side by the 
?Messenians, and blockaded on the side of the sea by the people of 
Rhegium ; and when the walls fell into the hands of the enemy, 
the inhabitants fled for refuge to the altars and sanctuaries of the 
gods. Anaxilas exhorted the Messenians to kill these refugees 
and enslave the rest of the men together with the women and 

9 children. But Gorgus and Manticlus begged Anaxilas not to 
compel them to retaliate upon Greeks the cruelties which they had 
themselves suffered at the hands of kinsmen. Then they raised 
the Zancleans from the altars, and after exchanging oaths both 
peoples dwelt together ; but they altered the name of the city 

10 from Zancle to Messene. 5. These events happened in the 
twenty-ninth Olympiad, in which Chionis the Laconian gained his 
second victory, when Miltiades was archon at Athens. Manticlus 
also founded the sanctuary of Hercules at Messene. It is outside 



chs. xxiii-xxiv REVOLT OF MESSENIANS 215 

the wall, and the god is called Hercules Manticlus, just as Bel in 
Babylon is named after an Egyptian man, Belus son of Libya, and 
as Ammon in Libya is named after the shepherd who founded 
the sanctuary. Thus the banished Messenians ceased from their 
wanderings. 

XXIV 

1. After Aristomenes had refused the leadership of the 
Messenians who set out to found a new home, he gave in marriage 
his sister Hagnagora, and his eldest and his second daughter. His 
sister he gave to Tharyx of Phigalia, and his daughters to Damo- 
thoidas of Lepreum and Theopompus of Heraea. He then went to 
Delphi and inquired of the god. The oracle which was vouchsafed 
to him is not mentioned ; but Damagetus the Rhodian, king of 2 
Ialysus, who had come at that time to the sanctuary of Apollo and 
inquired where he should get a wife, was told by the Pythian priestess 
to marry the daughter of the noblest of the Greeks. Now Aristomenes 
had a third daughter, so the king married her, thinking Aristomenes 
far the noblest of the Greeks of that age. Aristomenes went with his 
daughter to Rhodes, from which he purposed going to the court of 
Ardys, son of Gyges, at Sardes, and to the court of King Phraortes 
at Ecbatana in Media ; but before he could do so he fell sick and 3 
died, for the Lacedaemonians were to be troubled by Aristomenes 
no more. Damagetus and the Rhodians built him a splendid tomb, 
and paid honours to him from that time forward. The history of 
the Diagorids in Rhodes (the descendants of Diagorus, who was 
the son of Damagetus, who was the son of Dorieus, who was the son 
of Damagetus by the daughter of Aristomenes) I pass over, lest it 
should appear an impertinent digression. 

2. When the Lacedaemonians had made themselves masters of 4 
Messenia they divided it all, except the territory of Asine, amongst 
themselves ; only they gave Mothone to the Nauplians, who had 
lately been expelled from Nauplia by the Argives. 

It fell out that the Messenians, who were taken in Messenia, and 5 
who were compelled to rank with the Helots, afterwards revolted from 
the Lacedaemonians in the seventy - ninth Olympiad, in which 
Xenophon the Corinthian was victorious, Archimedes being archon 
at Athens. The opportunity which they seized to revolt was this. 
Certain Lacedaemonians, condemned to death on some charge 
or other, took sanctuary at Taenarum ; but the college of ephors 
tore them from the altar and put them to death. For this violation 6 
of the rights of his sanctuary the wrath of Poseidon fell on the 
Spartans, and by an earthquake he levelled the whole city with the 
ground. And in addition to this calamity those Helots who had 
originally been Messenians revolted and took refuge on Mount 



216 MESSENIAA r S AT NAUPACTUS BK. IV. messenia 

Ithome. In order to subdue them the Lacedaemonians called in 
troops from their allies, in particular an Athenian force under 
Cimon, son of Miltiades, who was a public friend of theirs. But 
when the Athenians arrived it appears that the Lacedaemonians 
suspected them of treacherous designs and, moved by this suspicion, 

7 soon afterwards sent them away from Ithome. 3. The Athenians, 
resenting the suspicion which they saw that the Lacedaemonians 
had harboured of them, made friends with the Argives ; and when 
the Messenians, who were besieged in Ithome, capitulated and 
marched out, the Athenians gave them Naupactus. They had 
wrested it from the Ozolian Locrians, who dwell on the borders of 
Aetolia. For the permission to depart from Ithome the Mes- 

1 senians were indebted to the strength of the place ; moreover, the 
Pythian priestess warned the Lacedaemonians that retribution would 
surely overtake them if they harmed the men who had thrown 

I themselves on the protection of Zeus of Ithome. Hence the 
Messenians were suffered to quit Peloponnese under the terms of a 
capitulation. 



XXV 

1. But after they got Naupactus, they were not content with 
having received a city and a country from the Athenians, but 
were filled with a vehement longing to show to the world that 
by their own right hands they could win a goodly heritage. 
And knowing that the Acarnanians of Oeniadae possessed a 
fertile land and were eternal foes to the Athenians, they marched 
against them; and being their superiors in. valour, though 
not in numbers, they defeated them, shut them up within 
the walls of their town, and besieged them. Of all the means of 
taking a city which the wit of man has devised, not one was 
neglected by the Messenians. They planted ladders and attempted 
to climb into the city : they essayed to undermine the wall, they 
brought up against it such engines as it was possible to construct at 
short notice, and were constantly battering pieces of it down. The 
townspeople, therefore, fearing that if the city were taken they would 
fall by the sword, and their wives and children would be carried 
away into slavery, chose to capitulate and march out. For just a 
year the Messenians occupied the town and possessed the land. 
2. But in the year following the Acarnanians mustered a force from 
all their cities, and deliberated whether they should attack Naupactus. 
But this plan was rejected, because they saw that their march must 
lie through the country of the Aetolians, their perpetual enemies. 
Besides, they suspected, what was the case, that the Naupactians 
possessed a navy, and they thought that while the enemy was 
4 master of the sea a land force could effect but little. So they 



chs. xxiv-xxv SIEGE OF OENIADAE 217 

immediately changed their plan, and turned their arms against the 
Messenians in Oeniadae. They prepared to lay siege to the town, 
never supposing that such a handful of men would dare to give 
battle to the whole Acarnanian army. The Messenians had laid in 
a store of corn and all other necessaries, expecting to stand a long 
siege. But before the siege began they thought they would fight a 5 
battle in the open : they reflected that they were Messenians, who 
had been a match for the Lacedaemonians themselves in valour, 
though not in fortune ; why then should they cower before this mob 
that was come out of Acarnania ? They remembered, too, the 
exploit of the Athenians at Marathon, how three hundred thousand 
of the Medes had been destroyed by less than ten thousand men. 3. 
So they gave battle to the Acarnanians ; and the course of the action 6 
is said to have been as follows. As the Acarnanians were far the 
, more numerous they had no difficulty in surrounding the Messenians : 
; they were only prevented from doing so entirely by the gates in the 
f rear of the Messenians, and the vigorous support which the latter 
I received from their friends on the wall. In this direction, therefore, 
[the Messenians were saved from being surrounded ; but both their 
[flanks were enclosed by the Acarnanians, who showered darts on 
fthem from all sides. The Messenians were massed together, and 7 
/whenever in a compact body they charged the enemy, they threw 
him into disorder at that point, and killed and wounded many, but 
could not put them utterly to flight ; for where the Acarnanians saw 
a part of their line being broken by the Messenians, they reinforced 
the beaten troops and checked the Messenians by the help of their 
superior numbers. Whenever the Messenians were driven back, 8 
they attempted to cut through the Acarnanian phalanx at another 
place. But the upshot was always the same : they broke and drove 
the enemy before them for a little way ; but then the Acarnanians 
poured down on them again, and the Messenians had to fall sullenly 
back. 4. The conflict was maintained on even terms till the even- 
ing, but at nightfall the Acarnanians received reinforcements from 
their cities, and thus the Messenians were besieged. There was no 9 
fear that the Acarnanians could storm the town either by escalade 
or by driving the Messenians from their posts. But by the eighth 
month all their provisions were spent. So they jeeringly told the Acar- 
nanians from the battlements that they had food to last a ten years' 
siege ; but at the time of the first sleep they marched out from 10 
Oeniadae. The Acarnanians, however, perceived their flight, and 
so the Messenians were compelled to fight a battle, in which they 
lost about three hundred and slew still more of the enemy. But 
most of them cut their way through, and reaching the friendly 
territory of Aetolia returned safe to Naupactus. 



2iS RETURN OF MESSEN1ANS bk. iv. messenia 



XXVI 

i. Of the hatred of Sparta, which always rankled in their breasts, 
the Messenians afterwards gave the most striking proof in the war of 
the Peloponnesians against the Athenians; for they allowed Naupactus 
to be used as a base of operations against Peloponnese, and Messenian 
slingers from Naupactus helped to capture the Spartans who were 

2 shut up in Sphacteria. 2. But after the defeat of the Athenians at 
Aegospotami, the Lacedaemonians, being now masters of the sea, ex- 
pelled the Messenians from Naupactus also. Some of the exiles sailed 
to their kindred in Sicily and Rhegium, but most of them went to 
the Euesperitae in Libya, who, having suffered much in war with the 
neighbouring barbarians, invited any and all of the Greeks to settle 
amongst them. To them the bulk of the Messenians withdrew, 
under the leadership of Comon, who had also commanded them at 
Sphacteria. 

3 3. A year before the victory of the Thebans at Leuctra, God 
foreshadowed to the Messenians their return to Peloponnese. In 
the first place, they say that at Messene, on the strait, the 
priest of Hercules dreamed that Hercules Manticlus was invited as 
a guest to Ithome by Zeus. In the second place, Comon, living 
among the Euesperitae, dreamed that he lay with his dead mother, 
and that thereafter she came to life again. He hoped that, if 
the Athenians got a powerful navy, the Messenians would be 
restored to Naupactus ; but as it turned out, the dream signified 

4 that they should recover Messene. Not long afterwards the defeat 
of the Lacedaemonians took place at Leuctra. It had been due 
a very long time ; for at the end of the oracle vouchsafed to 
Aristodemus, King of Messenia, it is said : 

Do as fate directs ; but ruin falls on some before others, 

meaning that for the time being he and the Messenians must suffer, 
but that afterwards ruin would overtake Lacedaemon also. 4. 

5 So after their victory at Leuctra the Thebans sent messengers 
to Italy, Sicily, and the Euesperitae, inviting all Messenians in any 
part of the world whither they had strayed to return to Peloponnese. 
They assembled faster than could have been expected, for they 
yearned towards the land of their fathers, and hatred of Sparta still 

6 rankled in their breasts. 5. But to Epaminondas it did not seem 
easy to found a city that would be a match for Lacedaemon ; and 
where to build it, he could not think ; for the Messenians refused 
to settle again in Andania and Oechalia, the scenes of then- 
calamities in days gone by. In his perplexity they say that an old 
man, much like a high priest of the mysteries, stood by him in the 
night and said, ' On thee I bestow power to conquer whomsoever 



chs. xxvi-xxvii RETURN OF MESSENIANS 219 

thou mayest turn thine arms against ; and if thou art taken from 
the world, I will look to it, O Theban, that thou art neither name- 
less nor inglorious. But do thou give back to the Messenians their 
fatherland and their cities, for the wrath of the Dioscuri against them 
is at an end.' 6. So spake the vision to Epaminondas ; and it 7 
made the following revelation to Epiteles, son of Aeschines, who 
had been elected general by the Argives and charged to found 
Messene anew. The dream commanded him, wherever he found 
a yew-tree and a myrtle growing on Mount Ithome, to dig up the 
ground between them and save the old woman, for she was worn 
out and fainting by reason of her long confinement in the bronze 
chamber. When day dawned Epiteles went to the spot indicated, 
dug, and found a bronze urn. Straightway he took it to Epaminon- 8 
das, told the dream, and bade him take off the lid and see what was 
in it. After sacrificing and praying to the dream, Epaminondas opened 
the urn and found a very thin sheet of tin rolled up like a scroll. On 
it the mysteries of the Great Goddesses were engraved, and this it 
was that had been deposited by Aristomenes. They say that the 
man who appeared to Epiteles and Epaminondas in sleep was 
Caucon, who came from Athens to Messene, daughter of Triopas, 
at Andania. 

XXVII 

1. The wrath of the sons of Tyndareus against the Messenians 
began before the battle of Stenyclerus, and I conjecture that it 
originated in the following way. There were two blooming youths 
of Andania, Panormus and Gonippus, friends of each other, who 
used to march out to battle together and to make raids together into 
Laconia. Once when the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a 2 
festival in camp in honour of the Dioscuri, and were carousing and 
making merry after the midday meal, Gonippus and Panormus ap- 
peared to them, clad in white tunics and purple cloaks, riding on 
gallant steeds, with caps on their heads and spears in their hands. 
When the Lacedaemonians saw them, they did obeisance and prayed, 3 
thinking that the Dioscuri were come to the sacrifice. But when once 
the young men were in their midst, they galloped through them all, 
stabbing with their spears ; and after laying many low they rode 
off to Andania. Thus they dishonoured the sacrifice of the Dioscuri. 
It was this, I believe, which roused the hatred of the Dioscuri against 
the Messenians. But now, as the dream signified to Epaminondas, 
the restoration of the Messenians to their country was no longer 
unwelcome to the Dioscuri. 2. However, what chiefly moved 4 
Epaminondas to restore the Messenians was the oracles of Bacis. 
Among the predictions which Bacis had uttered under the 
inspiration of the nymphs was one touching the return of the 
Messenians : 



220 MESSENE FOUNDED bk. iv. messenia 

And then Sparta's bright flower shall perish, 

And Messene shall again be inhabited for evermore. 

I found that Bacis had also spoken of the way in which Ira should 
be taken ; for this is one of his oracles : 

And the men of Messene which fell by thunder and rain. 

5 When the record of the mysteries was found it was copied into 
books by the men of the priestly race. 

3. To Epaminondas the site on which the city of Messene now 
stands appeared the most suitable, and he accordingly desired the 
seers to inquire whether the gods would be willing to take up their 
abode there. Being informed by them that the omens were propitious 
he prepared to found the city. He ordered stones to be brought, 
and he sent for men who were skilled in laying out streets, 
building houses and sanctuaries, and erecting city walls. 4. 

6 When all was ready, the victims being furnished by the Arcadians, 
Epaminondas and the Thebans sacrificed to Dionysus and 
Ismenian Apollo in the customary way : the Argives sacrificed to 
Argive Hera and Nemean Zeus ; and the Messenians sacrificed 
to Zeus of Ithome and to the Dioscuri, while their priests 
sacrificed to the Great Goddesses and Caucon. They also joined 
in calling upon the heroes to come and dwell with them, chiefly 
Messene, daughter of Triopas, and next to her Eurytus and Aphareus 
and his children, and of the Heraclids they invited Cresphontes and 
Aepytus; but loudest of all was the cry for Aristomenes, and the whole 

7 people joined in it. Thus the day was spent in sacrifice and prayer. 
But on the following days they proceeded to rear the circuit wall, 
and to build houses and sanctuaries within it. They worked to the 
music of Boeotian and Argive flutes alone ; and keen was the com- 
petition between the melodies of Sacadas and Pronomus. To the 
capital they gave the name of Messene, but they founded other towns 

8 also. The Nauplians were not expelled from Mothone, and the Asin- 
aeans were also suffered to remain where they were, the Messenians 
remembering the former kindness of the Asinaeans in refusing to 
fight on the Lacedaemonian side against Messenia. When the 
Messenians were returning to Peloponnese, the Nauplians brought 
them such gifts as they had to offer ; and while they put up ceaseless 
prayers to God for the restoration of the Messenians, they at the 
same time besought the Messenians to leave them in peace. 

9 5. The Messenians returned to Peloponnese and recovered their 
country two hundred and ninety-seven years after the capture of Ira, 
when Dyscinetus was archon at Athens, in the third year of the 
hundred and second Olympiad, in which Damon of Thurii was 
victorious for the second time. Now the Plataeans also were exiled 
from their country for a long time, and so were the Delians, when 



chs. xxvii-xxvm MESSENIANS SEIZE ELIS 221 

they dwelt at Adramyttium after they had been driven from their 
island by the Athenians. The Minyans of Orchomenus, again, were 10 
banished by the Thebans from Orchomenus after the battle of 
Leuctra, and were restored to Boeotia by Philip, son of Amyntas, 
who also restored the Plataeans. Thebes itself was destroyed by 
Alexander, but restored not many years afterwards by Cassander, 
son of Antipater. Now of those whom I have just enumerated, 
the exile of the Plataeans is found to have lasted the longest, 
but even it did not extend over more than two generations. But 11 
the Messenians wandered for nearly three hundred years far from 
Peloponnese, and in all that time they are known to have dropped 
none of their native customs, nor did they unlearn their Doric 
tongue ; indeed, they speak it to this day with greater purity than 
any other of the Peioponnesians. 

XXVIII 

1. After their return the Messenians had at first nothing to fear 
from the Lacedaemonians, who, restrained by dread of the Thebans, 
submitted to the foundation of Messene and to the union of the 
Arcadians in a single city. But when the Thebans were diverted 
from Peloponnese by the Phocian or Sacred War, the Lacedae- 
monians plucked up courage, and could no longer keep their hands 
off the Messenians. 2. The latter, backed by the Argives and 2 
Arcadians, maintained the struggle, and called on the Athenians to 
help them. The Athenians replied that they would never join the 
Messenians in invading Laconia, but if the Lacedaemonians began 
the war and marched against Messenia, the Athenians promised to 
stand by the Messenians. At last the Messenians formed an alliance 
with Philip, son of Amyntas, and the Macedonians ; and they say it 
was this which prevented them from taking part in the battle of 
Chaeronea. But, on the other hand, they would not draw sword 
against Greece. When after the death of Alexander the Greeks took 3 
up arms against Macedonia for the second time, the Messenians 
shared in the war, as I showed in my description of Attica. They 
did not, however, join with the Greeks in fighting the Gauls, because 
Cleonymus and the Lacedaemonians declined to conclude a truce 
with them. 

3. Not long afterwards the Messenians, by a mixture of craft 4 
and daring, made themselves masters of Elis. Of old the Eleans 
were the most law-abiding people in Peloponnese ; but in addition 
to all the evil which Philip, son of Amyntas, did to Greece, and which 
I have mentioned already, he distributed bribes among the leading 
men of Elis, and then the people for the first time fell out among 
themselves and flew to arms. Henceforward the chance of a col- 5 
lision was, of course, much increased between men who were already 



222 MACEDONIANS SEIZE MESSENE bk. iv. messenia 

divided among themselves on the question of the policy to be 
adopted towards Lacedaemon ; and civil war broke out. Learning 
this, the Lacedaemonians prepared to support their party in 
Elis. But while they were being arrayed in divisions and 
distributed in regiments, a thousand picked Messenians reached 
Elis before them with Laconian scutcheons on their shields. 

6 Seeing the shields, the party favourable to Sparta among 
the Eleans thought it was a force sent to their help, and 
admitted them within the walls. But when the Messenians 
had thus obtained an entrance, they turned the Lacedaemonian 
party out and put the city in the hands of their own partisans. 4. 

7 The stratagem is Homeric, but the Messenians certainly imitated it 
opportunely. For in the Iliad Homer represents Patroclus as clad 
in the armour of Achilles, and says that the barbarians fancied it 
was Achilles who was attacking them, and that their front ranks 
were thrown into disorder. Homer is the author of other pieces of 
strategy also, when he makes the Greeks send two scouts instead of 
one by night among the Trojans, and again afterwards, when he 
makes a pretended deserter enter Ilium to spy out the enemy's 

^secrets. Moreover, he represents the Trojans who were too 
Hyoung and too old to fight as manning the walls while the men in 
|the prime of life were encamped over against the Greeks ; and once 
|more, that the wounded Greeks may not be quite idle, he repre- 
sents them arming the combatants. Thus Homer's ideas have 
proved useful to mankind in all manner of ways. 

XXIX 

1. Not long afterwards the Macedonians under Demetrius, son of 

Philip, son of Demetrius, seized Messene. In the section on 

Sicyon I have already mentioned most of the wrongs which Perseus 

did to Philip and his son Demetrius ; but the story of the taking of 

2 Messene was as follows. Philip was in want of money, and it being 

absolutely necessary that he should procure some, he sent Demetrius 

with some ships to Peloponnese. Demetrius landed in one of the 

fless frequented harbours of Argolis, and immediately set off with 

|his army by the shortest road to Messene. His van was composed 

|of the light troops who knew the way to Ithome, and just about 

jdawn he made his way unobserved over the wall, at the point 

'where it ran between the city and the summit of Ithome. 

3lWhen it was day, and the inhabitants perceived the peril in 

I which they stood, the first idea that crossed them was that 

the Lacedaemonian troops had made their way into the city, 

so they rushed at them recklessly by reason of their old hatred. 

But when from their arms and language they recognised that they 

were Macedonians under Demetrius, son of Philip, they were 



chs. xxviii-xxix REPULSE OF MACEDONIANS 223 

sore afraid, remembering the martial skill of the Macedonians 
and the success that everywhere attended their arms. Nevertheless, 4 
the magnitude of the danger nerved them with superhuman courage, 
and at the same time they ventured to hope for the best, believing 
that it must surely have been by the will of God that they had been 
restored to Peloponnese after so long an exile. So they attacked 
the Macedonians with the utmost courage from the side of the city, 
while the garrison of the acropolis fell on them from above. Similarly 5 
the Macedonians, like the brave veterans they were, at first stood stoutly 
to their arms. But being exhausted by marching, assailed by the 
men, and pelted by the women with tiles and stones, they broke and 
fled. Most of them were pushed over the crags and perished, Ithome 
being here very precipitous ; but a few flung away their arms and 
made good their escape. 

2. The reason why the Messenians did not at first join the 6 
Achaean League appears to me to have been this : When the 
Lacedaemonians were assailed by Pyrrhus, son of Aeacides, the 
Messenians voluntarily came to their help ; and in gratitude for this 
service Sparta treated them in a more friendly and peaceable spirit. 
So the Messenians were loath to rip up the old sore by joining the 
League, which was the open and bitter foe of Lacedaemon. I cannot, 7 
however, be blind to the fact, to which I presume the Messenians 
were also alive, that even without them the League was directed 
against the Lacedaemonians, for the Argives and Arcadians formed 
a not inconsiderable proportion of the confederates. In time, how- 
ever, the Messenians joined the confederacy. 3. Not long after- 
wards, Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, captured the 
Arcadian city of Megalopolis in time of truce. Of the people who 8 
were in the city when it was taken some perished at the time ; but 
a body (amounting, it is said, to more than two-thirds of the 
population) escaped with Philopoemen, son of Craugis. The 
fugitives were welcomed by the Messenians, who thus repaid 
the Arcadians in kind for the services they had received at 
their hands long ago in the time of Aristomenes, and afterwards 
at the foundation of Messene. How unstable are the affairs of 9 
man ! Fortune allowed the Messenians to save their saviours, 
the Arcadians, and, stranger still, to capture Sparta; for they 
fought against Cleomenes at Sellasia, and they formed part of the 
Achaean army, under Aratus, which conquered Sparta. 4. Scarcely 10 
were the Lacedaemonians rid of Cleomenes when another tyrant 
arose in the person of Machanidas ; and when he was dead another 
cropped up in the person of Nabis. Not content with robbing men 
Nabis rifled sanctuaries, and soon amassed a large hoard, by means 
of which he mustered an army. He seized Messene, but the arrival 
that same night of the Megalopolitans under Philopoemen compelled 
the Spartan tyrant to capitulate and retire. 5. Afterwards the " 



224 



ABIA PHARAE BK. iv. messenia 



Achaeans, having some complaint against the Messenians, marched 
against them with their whole forces and ravaged most of the country. 
They mustered again when the corn was ripe, intending to invade 
Messenia. But Dinocrates, a popular leader, and for the time 
being the general of the Messenians, with a force collected from the 
capital and its neighbourhood, had occupied the passes leading from 
Arcadia into Messenia, and thus obliged the Arcadian army under 

12 Lycortas to retreat without striking a blow. They had <not> been 
gone long when Philopoemen arrived with a handful of cavalry. 
But failing to get tidings of his friends, he was worsted and taken 
alive by the Messenians in an engagement in which they occupied 
higher ground. The manner of his capture and his death I will 
describe hereafter in my account of Arcadia. The Messenians who 
had him put to death were punished, and Messene was again 
enrolled in the Achaean confederacy. 

13 Hitherto I have recounted the many sufferings of the Mes- 
senians, and how, after scattering them to the ends of the earth and 
to lands the farthest from Peloponnese, God afterwards brought them 
safe back to their own land. I must now address myself to a 
description of the country and its towns. 

XXX 

1. There is at present in Messenia a town Abia on the coast, 
just twenty furlongs from the Choerius glen. They say that 
of old it was called Ire, and that it was one of the seven towns 
which Homer makes Agamemnon promise to Achilles. They 
say that when the Dorians under Hyllus were -conquered by the 
Achaeans, Abia, nurse of Glenus, son of Hercules, went away to Ire 
and dwelt there, and founded a sanctuary of Hercules, and hence 
Cresphontes afterwards gave the town a new name after her, and 
assigned her various other honours. There was a famous sanctuary 
of Hercules at Abia and another of Aesculapius. 

2 2. Pharae is seventy furlongs from Abia : there is a salt spring 
by the way. The Emperor Augustus separated Pharae from 
Messenia, and attached it to Laconia. They say that its founder 
Pharis was a son of Hermes and Phylodamia, daughter of Danaus, 
and that he had a daughter Telegone, but no sons. The family 
is traced farther down by Homer in the Iliad, who mentions 
that Diodes had twin sons, Crethon and Ortilochus, and that 
Diodes himself was a son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. But 
Homer omits Telegone : she it was, according to the Messenian 

3 legend, who bore Ortilochus to Alpheus. I was further told 
at Pharae, that besides his twin sons Diodes had a daughter 
Anticlea, who had two sons, Nicomachus and Gorgasus, by 
Machaon, son of Aesculapius, and these two latter (I was told) 



chs. xxix-xxxi THURIA LIMNAE 225 

remained at Pharae, and when Diodes died they succeeded him in 
the kingdom. They have retained down to this day the power of 
healing the sick and the maimed, and in return people bring them 
sacrifices and votive offerings to the sanctuary. There is also a 
temple of Fortune at Pharae with an ancient image. 3. Homer was 4 
the first, so far as I know, to mention Fortune. The passage is in the 
hymn to Demeter, where in the list of the daughters of Ocean who 
sported with the Maid, the daughter of Demeter, he mentions 
Fortune as one of Ocean's daughters. The verses run thus : 

We all in the sweet meadow, 

Leucippe and Phaeno and Electra and Ianthe, 

And Melobosis and Fortune and Ocyroe, fair as a budding flower. 

But he adds nothing about her being the mightiest of the divini- 5 
ties, and wielding the greatest influence over human affairs, as in 
the Iliad he represents Athena and Enyo as paramount in war, 
Artemis as dreaded by women in childbed, and Aphrodite as 
busied with marriages. With regard to Fortune, however, he adds 
not a word. 4. But Bupalus, a clever architect and sculptor, in 6 
making an image of Fortune for the Smyrnaeans, was the first, so far 
as we know, to represent her with a firmament {polos) on her head, 
and bearing in one hand what the Greeks call the horn of Amalthea. 
Thus far he indicated the functions of the goddess. Pindar after- 
wards sang of Fortune, and in particular he called her Pherepolis 
( s city-supporter '). 

XXXI 

1. A little way from Pharae is a grove of Carnean Apollo and 
a spring of water in it. Pharae is about six furlongs from the sea. 2. 
Eighty furlongs inland from Pharae you come to Thuria: they say that 
Thuria is the town named Anthea in Homer. Augustus gave Thuria 
to the Lacedaemonians of Sparta. For Antony, a Roman, made war 
on Augustus, the Emperor of Rome, and amongst other Greeks the 
Messenians sided with Antony, because the Lacedaemonians adhered 

:to Augustus. Therefore Augustus visited with various degrees of 2 
displeasure those who had sided against him. The old town of 

[Thuria stood on a height : the present town is in the plain. How- 
ever, the upper town is not entirely deserted : there are some 
remains of the town wall, and there is also a sanctuary of the 

|Syrian goddess. The river Aris flows past the town which stands 
in the plain. 3. In the interior is a village Calamae, and a place 3 
Limnae (' lakes '), in which there is a sanctuary of Artemis of the 
Lake (Limnatis\ where they say that Teleclus, king of Sparta, met 
his end. Going from Thuria in the direction of Arcadia you come 4 
to the springs of the Pamisus : at these springs there are cures for 
little children. 

vol.i o 



226 MESSENE bk. iv. messenia 

4. Turning to the left from the springs, and going on about 

forty furlongs, you come to the city of the Messenians under 

Mount Ithome, It is enclosed not by Mount Ithome only ; the 

part of it towards the Pamisus is enclosed also by Mount Eva. 

They say that this mountain got its name because Dionysus and the 

women with him first uttered here the Bacchic exclamation, Evoe. 

5. Messene is surrounded by a wall, the whole circuit of which is 

(built of stone, and there are towers and battlements on it. I have 

lot seen the walls of Babylon, or the Memnonian walls at Susa in 

3 ersia, nor have I heard of them from people who have seen them ; 

jut Ambrosus in Phocis, Byzantium, and Rhodes are fortified in 

the best style, and yet the walls of Messene are stronger than theirs. 

6 "In the market-place of Messene is an image of Saviour Zeus and a 
water-basin called Arsinoe, which takes its name from the daughter 
of Leucippus : water flows underground into it from a spring called 
Clepsydra. There is a sanctuary of Poseidon and another of 
Aphrodite. Most noteworthy of all is an image of the Mother of 
the Gods, in Parian marble, a work of Damophon, who, when 
the ivory in the image of Zeus at Olympia had cracked, fitted it 
together with the utmost accuracy : honours are paid to Damophon 

7 by the Eleans. 6. Damophon also made the Laphria, as it is called, 
at Messene. The Messenian worship of her arose as follows : The 
Calydonians worship Artemis above all the gods, and surname her 
Laphria ; and from them the Messenians, who received Naupactus 
from the Athenians, and consequently dwelt close to Aetolia, 
borrowed the name. The form of the image I will describe else- 
where. The name of Laphria has reached only the Messenians and 

8 the Patreans of Achaia. But all cities recognise Ephesian Artemis, 
and some persons worship her privately above all the gods. The 
causes of this are, in my opinion, primarily two : first, the fame of 
the Amazons who are reputed to have set up the image ; and, second, 
the vast antiquity of the sanctuary. With these causes three others 
have co-operated to spread the renown of the Ephesian Artemis : 
the size of the temple, which is the largest building in the world, 
the prosperity of the city of Ephesus, and the distinction which 

9 the goddess there enjoys. 7. There is also a temple of Ilithyia at 
Messene with a stone image. Near it is a hall of the Curetes, 
where they sacrifice all animals alike : they begin with oxen and 
goats, and end with birds, throwing all of them into the flames. 
There is also a holy sanctuary of Demeter at Messene, and images 
of the Dioscuri carrying the daughters of Leucippus. I have shown 
above how the Messenians claim that the sons of Tyndareus belong 

10 to them and not to the Lacedaemonians. 8. But the images in 
the sanctuary of Aesculapius are at once the most numerous and 
the best worth seeing. For besides images of the god and his 
sons, and images of Apollo, the Muses, and Hercules, the sanctuary 



chs. xxxi-xxxii MESSENE 227 

contains an image of the City of Thebes, a statue of Epaminondas, 
son of Cleommis, an image of Fortune, and one of Artemis, 
Bringer of Light. The marble images are the works of Damo- 
phon, the only Messenian sculptor of note that I know of. The 
statue of Epaminondas is of iron, and is the work of some other 
artist. 9. There is also a temple of Messene, daughter of Triopas, 11 
with an image of gold and Parian marble. At the back of the 
temple are paintings of the kings of Messene. First there are 
portraits of Aphareus and his sons, who reigned before the arrival 
of the Dorian expedition in Peloponnese. Next there are portraits 
of those who reigned after the return of the Heraclids, including a 
painting of Cresphontes, one of the leaders of the Dorians, and 
paintings of Nestor, Thrasymedes, and Antilochus, three members 
of the royal house that dwelt in Pylus, Thrasymedes and Antilochus 
being preferred to the other sons of Nestor on account of their 
age, and because they shared in the expedition against Troy. Leu- 12 
cippus, brother of Aphareus, is also painted, and Hilaira, Phoebe, 
and Arsinoe. There is also a painting of Aesculapius, who, 
according to the Messenians, was a son of Arsinoe ; and paintings of 
Machaon and Podalirius, because they also took part in the Trojan 
war. These paintings are by Omphalion, a pupil of Nicias, son of 
Nicomedes. Some say that he was also Nicias's slave and favourite. 

XXXII 

1. What the Messenians name the Place of Sacrifice contains 
images of all the gods recognised by the Greeks. It contains 
also a bronze statue of Epaminondas and ancient tripods, 
which Homer calls fireless. The images in the gymnasium are by 
Egyptians, and represent Hermes, Hercules, and Theseus. All 
the Greeks, and by this time many of the barbarians also, are wont 
to honour these three deities in gymnasiums and wrestling schools. 
2. ... I found that <Aethidas> was older than myself. And 2 
because he was a man of some property the Messenians honour him 
as a hero. Some of the Messenians, indeed, said that Aethidas was 
certainly very wealthy, but that it is not he who is sculptured on 
this monument, but an ancestor and namesake of his. They say 
that the elder Aethidas commanded the Messenians at the time 
when Demetrius, son of Philip, at the head of an army, made his 
stealthy and unlooked-for entrance into the city by night. 

3. There is also a tomb of Aristomenes here, and they say 3 
it is not a mere cenotaph. When I inquired how and whence 
they brought hither the bones of Aristomenes, they said they 
had fetched them from Rhodes, and that it was the god at 
Delphi who had commanded them to do so. They told me, 
further, the ceremonies which they observe at the grave. The 



228 MESSENE bk. iv. messenia 

bull which is to be sacrificed they take to the tomb and tie to the 
pillar which stands on the grave; and the bull being wild, and 
not used to being tied, will not stand still. Now if in his struggles 
and plunges the pillar shakes, it is a good omen ; but if the 

4 pillar does not move, it forebodes misfortunes. 4. They will have 
it, too, that the dead Aristomenes was present at the battle of 
Leuctra, and they say that he helped the Thebans, and was the 
chief cause of the disaster that befell the Lacedaemonians. The 
first people I know of 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 

5 through all the ages. 5. A story which I heard myself at Thebes 
lent some countenance to the Messenian statement, though it does 
not entirely agree with it. The Thebans say that just before the 
battle of Leuctra they sent envoys to inquire of various oracles, and 
in particular of the oracle of the god at Lebadea (Trophonius). 
The replies given by the Ismenian god and the Ptoan god are still 
preserved, as also the oracles given at Abae and Delphi. Tro- 
phonius, they say, replied in hexameter verse : 

Before you engage with the foemen, set up a trophy 

And adorn it with my shield, which was deposited in the temple 

By bold Aristomenes the Messenian. Verily I 

Will destroy the host of the shielded foe. 

6 When this oracle was reported, they say that Xenocrates, at the 
request of Epaminondas, sent for the shield of Aristomenes, and 
with it decorated a trophy in a place where it would be seen by 
the Lacedaemonians. Some of them, we may presume, knew the 
shield by having seen it at their leisure at Lebadea, but all knew it 
by hearsay. When the Thebans had gained the victory, they 
restored the shield to Trophonius, in whose shrine it had been 
dedicated. There is a bronze statue of Aristomenes in the stadium 
at Messene. Not far from the theatre is a sanctuary of Serapis and 
Isis. 

XXXIII 

1. On the way to the summit of Ithome, where is the acropolis 
of Messene, there is a spring called Clepsydra. 2. To enumerate 
all the peoples who claim that Zeus was born and brought up among 
them would be impracticable even if the attempt were seriously 
made. But, however that may be, the Messenians are one of the 
peoples who advance the claim ; for they say that the god was 
brought up amongst them, and that the women who brought him up 
were Ithome and Neda ; Neda, so they say, gave her name to the 



chs. xxxii-xxxiii OECHALIA ANDANIA 229 

river, and Ithome gave hers to the mountain. They relate that when 
Zeus was stolen by the Curetes for fear of his father, these nymphs 
washed him here, and that the water has its name from the theft 
which the Curetes committed (Clepsydra, 'stolen water'). Every 
day they carry water from the spring to the sanctuary of Zeus of 
Ithome. 3. The image of Zeus is a work of Ageladas, and was 2 
originally made for the Messenians of Naupactus. A priest annually 
chosen keeps the image in his house. They also celebrate an 
annual festival called Ithomaea. Anciently they also held a musical 
competition. This may be inferred from the verses of Eumelus, 
amongst other evidence. For Eumelus in the hymn for the proces- 
sion at Delos writes as follows : 

To the god of Ithome was acceptable the muse 
That hath clean and free sandals. 

In writing these verses he seems to be aware that they held a 
musical competition also. 

4. Following the Arcadian road that leads to Megalopolis, you 3 
see at the gate a Hermes of Attic workmanship. For the use of 
square-shaped images of Hermes is Athenian, and from Athens 
the usage has passed to the rest of the world. Going down thirty 
furlongs from the gate you come to the stream of the Balyra. They 
say that the river got its name because here Thamyris threw away 
{apobalein) his lyre when he lost his sight : he was the son (they say) 
of Philammon and the nymph Argiope. They say that Argiope 
had previously dwelt at Parnassus, but that when she was with 
child she removed to the land of the Odrysians ; for Philammon 
would not take her into his house. Therefore they call Thamyris 
an Odrysian and a Thracian. The Leucasia and the Amphitus 
unite their streams in one. 

5. Crossing them you come to a plain named the Stenyclerian 4 
plain : they say there was a/fiero Stenyclerus. Opposite the plain is 
what was anciently called Oechalia, but is now called the Carnasian 
grove : it is mostly filled with cypresses. There is an image of 
Carnean Apollo, and another of Hermes carrying a ram. Hagne 
('holy') is a surname of the Maid, the daughter of Demeter : a 
spring of water rises beside her image. With regard to the rites 5 
of the Great Goddesses (for their mysteries are celebrated in the 
Carnasian grove) I am resolved to be silent ; for in point of 
sanctity I regard them as second only to the Eleusinian mysteries. 
However, my dream did not debar me from proclaiming to all and 
sundry that in the Carnasian grove were preserved the bronze urn 
found by the Argive general and the bones of Eurytus, son of 
Melaneus. 6. Past the Carnasian grove flows a river, the Charadrus ; 6 
and going on towards the left for just eight furlongs you reach 
the ruins of Andania. The guides agree that the city got its name 



230 DORIUMTHE PA MIS US bk. iv. messenia 

from a woman Andania ; but I am not able to say who her parents 
were or whom she married. Going from Andania, in the direction 
of Cyparissiae, we come to Polichna as it is called, and to the 
rivers Electra and Coeus. The names may refer to Electra, 
daughter of Atlas, and Coeus, father of Latona ; or perhaps Electra 
and Coeus may be local heroes. 
7 7. Having crossed the Electra we come to a spring named 
Achaia, and to the ruins of a city called Dorium. According to 
Homer, it was here in Dorium that Thamyris met with his mis- 
fortune for asserting that he would vanquish the Muses themselves 
in singing. But Prodicus the Phocaean (if the epic poem called 
the Minyad is really by him) says that Thamyris is punished in hell 
for his boastfulness touching the Muses. But my opinion is that 
Thamyris lost the sight of his eyes by disease. The same thing 
happened to Homer afterwards. But whereas Homer bore up 
against his misfortune and continued to compose poetry to the 
last, Thamyris yielded to the pressure of his haunting calamity and 
sang no more. 

XXXIV 

1. From Messene to the mouth of the Pamisus is a journey of 
eighty furlongs. The Pamisus flows through tilled land : its waters 
are clear ; and vessels sail up it from the sea for about ten furlongs. 
Sea-fish also ascend it, especially in spring-time. Fish do the same 
thing also in the Rhine and the Maeander ; but above all they 
swim up the stream of the Achelous, which falls into the sea 

2 opposite the Echinadian islands. But the fish -that swim up the 
Pamisus are of a very different sort, because its water is clear and 
not slimy like that of the rivers I have named. But the gray 
mullet, being a fish that lives in mud, loves turbid rivers. The 
rivers of Greece do not breed creatures that are deadly to man, as 
do the Indus and the Egyptian Nile, and also the Rhine, Danube, 
Euphrates, and Phasis. These rivers breed creatures that prey 
upon men most voraciously : in shape the creatures resemble the 
shads in the Hermus and Maeander, but they are stronger and of a 

3 darker hue than the shads. The Indus and the Nile both contain 
crocodiles, and the Nile contains hippopotamuses also, which are as 
dangerous to man as the crocodile. But in the rivers of Greece you 
have nothing to fear from monsters ; for in the Aous, which flows 
through Thesprotis in Epirus, the sharks are not native to the 
river, but come up from the sea. 

4 2. Corone is a town on the right of the Pamisus : it lies on the 
coast at the foot of Mount Mathia. On this road there is a place 
beside the sea which they deem sacred to Ino ; for they say that 
here she came up out of the sea as a full-blown goddess, with the 



chs. xxxiii-xxxiv CORONEASINE 231 

name of Leucothea instead of Ino. A little farther on we come to 
the mouth of the river Bias, said to have been named after Bias, 
son of Amythaon. Twenty furlongs from the road is the spring of 
the Plane-tree Grove : the water flows out of a broad plane-tree 
which is hollow inside : the breadth of the tree is like that of a 
small cavern, and it is from here that the drinking-water descends 
to Corone. 3. The ancient name of Corone was Aepea ; but when 5 
the Messenians were restored to Peloponnese by the Thebans, they 
say that Epimelides, being sent to repeople the town, called it 
Coronea, because he himself came from Coronea in Boeotia ; but 
from the first the Messenians did not pronounce the name rightly, 
and as time went on the wrong pronunciation prevailed more and 
more. Another story is that in digging the foundations of the 
wall they lit on a bronze crow (korofte). There are temples here of 6 
Artemis called Child-rearer, of Dionysus, and of Aesculapius. The 
images of Aesculapius and Dionysus are of stone, but the image of 
Saviour Zeus in the market-place is of bronze. The image of 
Athena that stands in the acropolis under the open sky is also of 
bronze : she is holding a crow in her hand. I saw also the tomb 
of Epimelides. Why they call the harbour the harbour of the 
Achaeans I do not know. 

4. Going on from Corone about eighty furlongs you come 7 
to a sanctuary of Apollo beside the sea : it is held in honour be- 
cause, according to the Messenians, it is of great antiquity, and 
the god heals diseases. They name him Crested - lark Apollo. 
His image is of wood ; but the image of Argeot (Apollo) is of 
bronze, and they say that it was dedicated by the Argonauts. 5. 
Next to Corone is Colonides, their lands marching together. The 8 
people of Colonides say that they are not Messenians, but were 
brought from Attica by Colaenus, who, in accordance with an 
oracle, was guided by a crested lark to the place where he was to 
plant his colony. However they were destined, in course of time, 
to adopt the dialect and customs of the Dorians. The town of 
Colonides lies on a height a little way from the sea. 

6. The people of Asine were originally neighbours of the people 9 
of Lycorea on Mount Parnassus, and were named Dryopians after 
their founder. This name they preserved when they came to Pelo- 
ponnese. But two generations afterwards, in the reign of Phylas, 
the Dryopians were conquered in battle by Hercules and brought to 
Delphi as an offering to Apollo. But in obedience to an oracle 
which the god gave to Hercules they were brought to Peloponnese, 
where they first occupied Asine, near Hermion : being driven thence 
by the Argives they settled in Messenia by the permission of the 
Lacedaemonians, and, in course of time, when the Messenians were 
restored, the Asinaeans were not expelled from their city. But 10 
what the Asinaeans say about themselves is this. They admit that 



232 ASINE MOTHONE bk. iv. messenia 

they were conquered by Hercules in battle, and that their city on 
Parnassus was taken ; but they deny that they were made prisoners 
and brought to Apollo : they say that when the walls were captured 
by Hercules they abandoned the city and fled to the peaks of 
Parnassus ; afterwards, having crossed in ships to Peloponnese, they 
threw themselves on the protection of Eurystheus, who, being a foe 

n of Hercules, bestowed on them Asine in Argolis. The Asinaeans are 
the only people of .the stock of the Dryopians who still pride them- 
selves on the name. Herein they differ from the people of Styra 
in Euboea, who are also Dryopians by descent, but took no part in 
the fight with Hercules because they dwelt far from the city. But 
the Styrians scorn to be called Dryopians, just as the Delphians shrink 
from being called Phocians. Whereas it gives the Asinaeans the 
greatest pleasure to be called Dryopians, and it is plain that they have 
founded their holiest sanctuaries in memory of their old sanctuaries 
on Parnassus; for they have both a temple of Apollo and a sanctuary 
of Dryops with an ancient image. They also celebrate mysteries every 
other year in honour of Dryops, whom they affirm to be a son of 

12 Apollo. 7. The city, too, stands by the sea just like their old 
Asine in Argolis. It is forty furlongs from Colonides to Asine, and 
as far from Asine to Acritas, which is a headland running into the 
sea with a desert island called Theganussa lying off it. After 
Acritas there is port Phoenicus with the Oenussian islands lying 
opposite to it. 

XXXV 

1. Before the army mustered to attack Troy,, and so long as 
the Trojan war lasted, the town of Mothone was called Pedasus ; 
but afterwards it changed its name and was called, according to the 
inhabitants themselves, after the daughter of Oeneus. For they say 
that after the capture of Ilium, Oeneus, son of Porthaon, returned 
with Diomede to Peloponnese, and there had a daughter Mothone 
born to him by a concubine. But in my opinion the place got its 
name from the rock Mothon. It is this rock also that makes the 
harbour; for, stretching along under water, it narrows the entrance for 
ships, and at the same time stands as a breakwater against heavy seas. 

2 2. I mentioned before that when the Nauplians weie expelled by the 
Argives in the reign of Damocratidas, king of Argos, for siding with 
the Lacedaemonians, they received Mothone from the Lacedae- 
monians, and that they were not afterwards molested by the 
restored Messenians. The Nauplians, in my opinion, were of 
Egyptian extraction. They sailed with Danaus to Argolis, and two 
generations afterwards they were settled in Nauplia by Nauplius, son 

3 of Amymone. The Emperor Trajan granted the people of Mothone 
freedom and independence. 3. At -an earlier time Mothone was over- 



chs. xxxiv-xxxv MOTHONE 



taken by a calamity which befell no other town on the coast of 
Messenia. Thesprotian Epirus fell a prey to anarchy. For 
Deidamia, daughter of Pyrrhus, had no children, and when she 
came to die she left the government in the hands of the people. 
She was a daughter of Pyrrhus, son of Ptolemy, son of Alexander, 
son of Pyrrhus. The history of Pyrrhus, son of Aeacides, has been 4 
already narrated by me in my description of Athens. As a tactician 
and strategist Pyrrhus was preferred by Procles, the Carthaginian, to 
Alexander himself; but Procles admitted that for good fortune and the 
splendour of his exploits Alexander carried off the palm. So, then, 5 
when the kingly government came to an end in Epirus, the common 
people grew saucy and set all authority at naught. Hence the 
Illyrians, who inhabit the coast of the Ionian Sea north of Epirus, 
overran and subdued them. No people ever yet, so far as we know, 
throve under a democracy, except the Athenians ; and they certainly 
nourished under it. For in mother-wit they had not their equals 
in Greece, and they were the most law-abiding of peoples. 4. But the 6 
Illyrians, having tasted the sweets of conquest, and hungering for 
more, built ships and plundered all who fell in their way. One time, 
pretending to treat the Mothonian territory as a friendly country, 
they came to anchor off it, and despatched a messenger to the city 
with a request that a supply of wine might be sent to the ships. A 
few men brought the wine, and the Illyrians bought it of them at their 
own price, and sold them some of the wares they had brought with 
them. Next day more people came from the city, and the Illyrians 7 
allowed them also to make a profit. At last women as well as men 
came down to the vessels to sell wine and get goods in exchange 
from the barbarians. Then the Illyrians had the hardihood to 
kidnap many men and yet more women, and putting them on board 
they made sail for the Ionian Sea, leaving the city of Mothdne 
desolate. 

5. In Mothone there is a temple of Athena of the Winds : 8 
they say that Diomede dedicated the image and give the god- 
dess this title. For the country used to suffer from stormy and 
unseasonable winds till Diomede prayed to Athena, and from that 
day forward the winds have wrought no havoc on the land. 6. 
There is also a sanctuary of Artemis here, and a well of water mixed 
with pitch : in appearance, the water is very like the fragrant oil of 
Cyzicus. Water may assume every hue and smell. The bluest 9 
water I ever saw was the water at Thermopylae, not all of it, only 
the water that descends into the swimming-bath which the natives 
call the Women's Pots. Red water, red as blood, may be seen 
in the land of the Hebrews, near the city of Joppa. The 
water is hard by the sea, and the local legend runs that when 
Perseus had slain the sea-beast, to which the daughter of Cepheus 
was exposed, he washed off the blood at this spring. I have seen 10 



234 PYLUS BK. IV. MESSENIA 

black water welling up from springs at Astyra, which is the 
name of the hot baths at Atarneus opposite to Lesbos. The 
town of Atarneus is the price which the Chians received from 
the Medes for surrendering Pactyes, the Lydian, who had thrown 
himself on their protection. As I said, the water at Astyra is 
black ; but above Rome, across the river Anio, there is white water. 
When a man first enters this water it feels cold and makes him 

ii shiver, but after a little it heats him like the most fiery drug. These 
are the wonderful and peculiar springs which I have myself seen. Less 
marvellous springs I knowingly omit ; for it is no great wonder to 
find salt and astringent water. But I will mention two waters of 
different sorts. In the White Plain in Caria, beside the village of 
Dascylus, as it is called, there is hot water which is sweeter than 

12 milk to drink. Again Herodotus, I know, affirms that a spring of 
bitter water flows into the river Hypanis. Why should we not 

j believe him, when in our own time there has been found at 
Dicaearchia, in the land of the Tyrrhenians, a hot spring so acid 
that in a few years it corroded the lead through which it flowed ? 

XXXVI 

i. From Mothone it is a journey of just one hundred fur- 
longs to Cape Coryphasium ; and on the cape lies Pylus. Pylus 
was founded by Pylus, son of Cleson : he brought from Megaris the 
Leleges, who at that time occupied it. But he did not enjoy the 
city which he had founded, being driven out by Neleus and the 
Pelasgians of Iolcus. So he withdrew to the neighbouring 
country and there occupied Pylus in Elis. But Neleus, after 
he became king, raised the repute of Pylus so high that Homer 

2 calls it the city of Neleus. 2. Here there is a sanctuary of Athena 
surnamed Coryphasian, and a house called the house of Nestor, 
and in it is a painting of Nestor. His tomb is in the city : the 
tomb a little way from Pylus is said to be that of Thrasymedes. 
3. There is also in the city a cave, in which they say that the 

3 cows of Nestor and of Neleus before him were stalled. These cows 
must have been of Thessalian breed, having belonged to Iphiclus, 
father of Protesilaus. For Neleus asked these cows as a bridal 
present from his daughter's suitors, and in order to get them 
Melampus, to please his brother Bias, went to Thessaly. Here the 
cowherds of Iphiclus laid him by the heels ; but at Iphiclus' request 
Melampus divined for him and received the cows as his guerdon. 
Thus we see that people in those days set great store on amassing 
wealth in the shape of herds of horses and kine. For Neleus 
coveted the cows of Iphiclus, and Eurystheus, moved by the fame of 
the Iberian kine, commanded Hercules to lift the cattle of Geryon. 

4 Eryx, also, who then reigned in Sicily, is known to have conceived so 



chs. xxxv-xxxvi SPHACTERIA CYPARISSIAE 235 



keen a love of the oxen from Erythea, that he wrestled with Hercules 
for them, and staked his kingdom against the kine. Again, Homer in 
the Iliad says that the first marriage present given by Iphidamas, son 
of Antenor, to his father-in-law was a hundred kine. These facts 
confirm my view that the men of those times delighted chiefly in 
cattle. But it seems to me that the kine of Neleus must have 5 
mostly grazed beyond the borders ; for the district of Pylus is in 
general sandy and could not furnish so much grass for cows. In 
proof of it I may refer to Homer, who in speaking of Nestor always 
adds that he was king of sandy Pylus. 

4. Off the harbour lies the island of Sphacteria, just as Rhenea 6 
lies off the roadstead of Delos. We see that human fortunes can 
confer renown on places previously unknown. Thus Caphareus in 
Euboea is famous for the storm which there burst upon the Greeks 
under Agamemnon as they were returning from Ilium ; and every- 
one has heard of Psyttalia at Salamis, because of the Medes who 
perished there. So Sphacteria is known to the world for the 
disaster that there befell the Lacedaemonians. The Athenians set up 

a bronze image of victory on the Acropolis to commemorate the affair 
of Sphacteria. 

5. Having come to Cyparissiae from Pylus we see a spring 7 
below the city near the sea. They say that Dionysus made the 
water flow by smiting the earth with his wand ; hence they name 
it the spring of Dionysus. There is also a sanctuary of Apollo at 
Cyparissiae, and another of Athena surnamed Cyparissian. In the 
Defile {Anion), as it is called, there is a temple of Aulonian 
Aesculapius and an image of him. At this point the river Neda 
flows between Messenia and Elis. 



BOOK FIFTH 



ELIS I 



i. The Greeks who say that Peloponnese is divided into five 
parts and not more, must hold that the Eleans are comprised 
with the Arcadians in Arcadia, and that the second part belongs to 
the Achaeans, and the other three to the Dorians. Of the races 
that inhabit Peloponnese the Arcadians and Achaeans are aborigines. 
When the Achaeans were driven from their country by the Dorians 
they did not withdraw from Peloponnese, but expelled the Ionians 
and took possession of the country which was anciently known as 

2 Aegialus, but which is now called after these Achaeans. The 
Arcadians have continued from the beginning down to the present 
time in possession of their own country. The rest of Peloponnese is 
occupied by immigrant races. The present Corinthians are the 
youngest of the Peloponnesians : it is two hundred and seventeen 
years since they received their lands from the emperor. The 
Dryopians came to Peloponnese from Parnassus, and the Dorians 
from Oeta. 

3 2. We know that the Eleans crossed over from Calydon and 
the rest of Aetolia. Their earlier history I find to be as follows. 
They say that the first who reigned in this land was Aethlius, that 
he was the son of Zeus and Protogenia, daughter of Deucalion, and 

4 that he had a son Endymion. The Moon, they say, loved Endymion, 
and he had fifty daughters by the goddess. Others, with more 
probability, say that Endymion married a wife : some say that she 
was Asterodia ; others that she was Chromia, daughter of Itonus, 
son of Amphictyon ; others that she was Hyperippe, daughter of 
Areas : at all events they agree that he begot Paeon, Epeus, and 
Aetolus, and a daughter Eurycyda. 3. Endymion set his sons to run 
a race at Olympia for the kingdom : Epeus won the race and obtained 
the kingdom, and his subjects were then named Epeans for the first 

5 time. Of his brothers they say that Aetolus abode in the land, but 
that Paeon, sore at his discomfiture, fled far, far away, and that the 



ch. i HERCULES AND AUG E AS 237 

region beyond the river Axius was named Paeonia after him. 4. As 
touching the death of Endymion the people of Heraclea near Miletus 
do not agree with the Eleans ; for while the Eleans show Endymion's 
tomb, the people of Heraclea say that he went away to Mount Latmus. 
. . . And there is a shrine of Endymion on Latmus. Epeus 6 
married Anaxiroe, daughter of Coronus, by whom he had a daughter 
Hyrmina, but no male issue. 5. The following events also took 
place in the reign of Epeus. Oenomaus, son of Alxion (though the 
poets have given out that he was a son of Ares, and the common 
tradition is to the same effect), was a prince in the land of Pisa ; but 
he was deposed by Pelops the Lydian when the latter crossed over 
from Asia. At the death of Oenomaus, Pelops acquired not only 7 
the land of Pisa, but also the border district of Olympia, which he 
severed from the territory of Epeus. The Eleans said that Pelops 
was the first to found a temple of Hermes in Peloponnese and to 
sacrifice to the god, which he did for the purpose of averting the 
wrath of the deity at the death of Myrtilus. 

6. Aetolus, who reigned after Epeus, had to flee from Pelopon- 8 
nese, because the children of Apis convicted him on trial of in- 
voluntary homicide ; for Apis, son of Jason, from Pallantium in 
Arcadia, was driven over and killed by Aetolus at the funeral 
games celebrated in memory of Azan. From Aetolus, son of 
Endymion, the people about the Achelous got their name because 
he fled to that part of the mainland. But the lordship of the 
Epeans passed to Eleus : his mother was Eurycyda, daughter of 
Endymion, and his father, if you please, was Poseidon. From Eleus 
the people took their present name of Eleans instead of their old 
name of Epeans. 

7. Eleus had a son Augeas. , Those who magnify his history give 9 
the name of Eleus a twist, and affirm that Augeas was a son of the 
sun (Jielios). This Augeas had so many cows and flocks of goats 
that most of the land lay untilled by reason of their dung. So 
Augeas persuaded Hercules, by the promise of a portion of the land 
of Elis, or of some other reward, to cleanse the country from the 
dung. This Hercules did by turning the stream of the Menius 10 
upon the dung. But because he had achieved the ta r !c rather by craft 
than by the sweat of his brow, Augeas refused him his reward, 
and turned his elder son Phyleus out of house and home because 
he spoke up and told his father he was wronging a man who had 
done him a good turn. But lest Hercules should attack Elis, 
Augeas prepared to resist him : in particular he made friends with 
the sons of Actor, and also with Amarynceus. 8. This Amarynceus 11 
was a brave soldier : his father Pyttius was of Thessalian extraction, 
and had come from Thessaly to Elis. To Amarynceus, therefore, 
Augeas gave a share in the government of Elis. But Actor and his 
sons were of the native race and possessed a share of the kingdom. 



238 MOLINE 1 S CURSE bk. v. elis i 

For the father of Actor was Phorbas, son of Lapithus, and his mother 
was Hyrmina, daughter of Epeus. Actor gave his mother's name to 
the city of Hyrmina, which he founded in Elis. 

II 

i. Hercules did not cover himself with glory in the war with 
Augeas. For the sons of Actor, then in the prime of youth and 
valour, always turned to flight the army of his allies, until 
the Corinthians proclaimed the Isthmian truce and the sons of 
Actor went as envoys to the games : then Hercules waylaid and slew 
them in Cleonae. 2. The murderer being unknown, Moline took 

2 great pains to find out the assassin of her sons. When she had 
discovered him, the Eleans demanded satisfaction for the murder 
from the Argives ; for at that time Hercules dwelt in Tiryns. As 
the Argives refused satisfaction, the Eleans next besought the 
Corinthians to exclude the whole of the Argives from the Isthmian 
games. 3. When they failed in this also, Moline is said to have 
called down curses on her countrymen if they did not hold aloof 
from the Isthmian games. The curse of Moline is remembered 
and respected to this day, and no athlete from Elis will enter for 

3 the Isthmian games. 4. But there are two other stories different 
from the one I have just told. One is that Cypselus, tyrant of 
Corinth, dedicated a golden image to Zeus at Olympia ; but dying 
before he had carved his own name on the image, the Corinthians 
begged leave of the Eleans to grave on it the name of their city ; 
and not obtaining their request they were angry with the Eleans, and 
warned them to keep away from the Isthmian games. But if the 
Eleans were debarred in spite of themselves from the Isthmian 
games by the Corinthians, why were the Corinthians allowed to 

4 share in the Olympic games ? The other story is that a worthy 
man of Elis named Prolaus and his wife Lysippe had two sons, 
Philanthus and Lampus, who went to the Isthmian games, intending 
to compete, the one in the pancratium for boys and the other in the 
wrestling-match ; but that before they entered the arena they were 
strangled or otherwise put out of the way by their antagonists ; and 
that so Lysippe cursed the Eleans if they did not voluntarily hold 
aloof from the Isthmian games. This story can also be shown to be 

5 absurd. For Timon, an Elean, won victories in the pentathlum at 
the Greek games, and there is a statue of him at Olympia with an 
inscription in elegiacs setting forth all the crowns he won and the 
reason why he did not gain a prize at the Isthmus. The latter 
passage runs thus : 

But he was hindered from going to the Sisyphian land by the quarrel 
About the doleful death of the Molionids. 



, 



chs. i-iii HERCULES TAKES ELIS 239 



III 

1. But enough of this disquisition. Hercules afterwards took 
and sacked Elis with an army which he had drawn together from 
Argos, Thebes, and Arcadia. The Eleans were assisted by the men 
of Pylus in Elis and by the men of Pisa. Hercules took vengeance 
on the people of Pylus ; but he was prevented from marching 
against the men of Pisa by the following oracle from Delphi : 

Dear to my sire is Pisa ; but into my hands he gave Pytho. 

This oracle saved the people of Pisa. 2. Hercules gave up the 
land of Elis and everything else to Phyleus, more out of respect 
for him than from a voluntary impulse ; he also left the prisoners in 
his hands, and allowed Augeas to go unpunished. 3. As the land 2 
was bereft of men of military age, the women of Elis, it is said, 
prayed to Athena that they might conceive so soon as they met 
their husbands. Their prayer was heard, and they founded a 
sanctuary of Athena surnamed Mother. And as both wives and 
husbands were overjoyed at the meeting, they named the spot where 
they first met Bady ('sweet'); and the river which flows by it they 
called the Bady Water in their native tongue. 

4. After Phyleus had settled the affairs of Elis he returned to 3 
Dulichium. Augeas died in old age, and the kingdom of Elis 
devolved on his son Agasthenes, and on Amphimachus and Thalpius. 
For the sons of Actor had married twin sisters, daughters of Dexa- 
menus, king of Olenus : one of the sons (Cteatus) married Theronice, 
and had by her a son Amphimachus ; the other, Eurytus, married 
Theraephone, and had by her a son Thalpius. But neither did 4 
Amarynceus nor his son Diores remain a mere commoner. This is 
signified by Homer in his list of the Eleans ; for he makes their 
whole fleet to consist of forty ships, and says that half of them were 
under i\.mphimachus and Thalpius, and that, of the other twenty, ten 
were commanded by Diores, son of Amarynceus, and ten by Polyxenus, 
son of Agasthenes. After Polyxenus had returned safe from Troy, a 
son Amphimachus was born to him. He gave the child this name, it 
seems to me, out of friendship for Amphimachus, son of Cteatus, 
who fell at Ilium. Amphimachus had a son Eleus. 5. It was when 5 
Eleus was king of Elis that the host of the Dorians assembled under 
the sons of Aristomachus to make good their return to Peloponnese. 
An oracle was given to the kings of the Dorians that they should 
take the three-eyed one to guide them on their return. While they 
were at a loss to know what the oracle might mean, there met them 
a man driving a mule, and the mule was blind of one eye. Cres- 6 
phontes bethought him that the oracle referred to this man, so the 
Dorians made friends with him. He bade them return to Peloponnese 



240 AETOLIANS SETTLE IN ELIS bk. v. elis i 

in ships, and not to try to make their way across the Isthmus with a 
land force. This was his advice, and he also guided them on the 
voyage from Naupactus to Molycrium. In return for this service 
they covenanted to give him, at his request, the land of Elis. The 
man was Oxylus, son of Haemon, son of Thoas. It was this Thoas 
who helped the sons of Atreus to conquer the realm of Priam. 
From Thoas up to Aetolus, son of Endymion, there are six genera- 
7 tions. The Heraclids were kinsmen of the kings of Aetolia : in 
particular the mothers of Thoas, son of Andraemon, and of Hyllus, 
son of Hercules, were sisters. But an accident had forced Oxylus to 
flee from Aetolia ; for they say that in throwing a quoit he had 
missed his aim and unwittingly taken a life. Some say that the man 
killed by the quoit was Oxylus' brother Thermius ; others that he 
was Alcidocus, son of Scopius. 

IV 

i. Another story told of Oxylus is this : he suspected that 
when the sons of Aristomachus saw that the land of Elis was good 
and cultivated throughout, they would not give it to him, and there- 
fore he led the Dorians through Arcadia, and not through Elis. 
Oxylus would fain have got the kingdom of Elis without striking a 
blow. Dius, however, would not yield, but proposed that, instead 
of a pitched battle between the two armies, one soldier should be 
chosen from each side to do battle. This proposal was accepted by 

2 both sides. The Elean champion was Degmenus, an archer, and the 
champion on the Aetolian side was Pyraechmes, a trained slinger. 
Pyraechmes was victorious, so the kingdom fell to Oxylus. He 
suffered the old Epean inhabitants to abide in possession of their 
own, but he introduced colonies of his Aetolians among them, and 
gave them a share of the land. He assigned certain privileges 
to Dius, and he kept up the ancient worship of the heroes, 
especially the sacrifice to Augeas, which is still regularly offered in our 

3 time. It is said that he also persuaded the people who dwelt in the 
villages not far from the walls to migrate to the city, and thus he 
made Elis more populous and in every way more prosperous. 2. 
An oracle came to him also from Delphi bidding him invite 
the descendant of Pelops to settle in the country. Oxylus made 
diligent search, and found Agorius, son of Damasias, son of Penthilus, 
son of Orestes. Him he fetched from Helice in Achaia, and with 

4 him a small section of the Achaeans. They say that the name of 
Oxylus' wife was Pieria, but they remember nothing more about her. 
Oxylus is said to have had two sons, Aetolus and Laias. Aetolus 
died before his father and mother ; so his parents buried him in a 
tomb which they caused to be made exactly in the gate which leads 
to Olympia and the sanctuary of Zeus. They buried him thus in 



chs. ni-v WARS OF ELIS 241 



obedience to an oracle which commanded that the corpse should be 
neither within nor without the city. And to this day the master of 
the gymnasium still sacrifices annually to Aetolus as to a hero. 

3. Oxylus was succeeded on the throne by his son Laias. 5 
I did not find, however, that the descendants of Laias sat on the 
throne ; therefore, though I know who they were, I pass them over, 
for I do not wish my narrative to stoop to mere commoners. 4. 
Afterwards Iphitus, of the race of Oxylus, and a contemporary of 
Lycurgus, the Lacedaemonian lawgiver, arranged the games at 
Olympia, and revived the Olympic festival and truce, which had 
been discontinued for a time, how long I cannot say. The cause 
of the discontinuance of the Olympic festival I will explain when 
I treat of Olympia. As Greece just at that time was sorely wasted 6 
by pestilence and civil strife, it struck Iphitus that he would pray 
to the god at Delphi for deliverance from these evils ; and they say 
that the Pythian priestess enjoined him and the Eleans to renew the 
Olympic games. Iphitus persuaded the Eleans to sacrifice also to 
Hercules, whom hitherto they had regarded as their foe. The 
inscription at Olympia states that Iphitus was a son of Haemon ; but 
most of the Greeks say he was a son of Praxonides, and not of 
Haemon. The ancient writings of the Eleans traced him to a father 
of the same name as himself, namely Iphitus. 

5. The Eleans bore their share in the Trojan war, and in 7 
the battles fought during the Persian invasion of Greece. Passing 
over their contests with the Pisans and Arcadians for the manage- 
ment of the Olympic games, we note that they reluctantly joined 
the Lacedaemonians in invading Attica. Not long afterwards 
they banded themselves with the Mantineans and Argives against 
the Lacedaemonians, and prevailed upon the Athenians to join the 
alliance. At the time of the invasion of Agis and the treachery of S 
Xenias, the Eleans won 3 battle at Olympia, routed the Lacedae- 
monians, and chased them out of the sacred enclosure ; but after- 
wards the war was concluded by the treaty which I mentioned above 
in my book on Lacedaemon. When Philip, son of Amyntas, would 9 
not keep his hands off Greece, the Eleans, crippled by domestic 
broils, joined the Macedonian alliance, but they would not fight 
against the Greeks at Chaeronea. However, they indulged their 
old hatred of the Lacedaemonians by joining Philip in attacking 
them. But after the death of Alexander they sided with the Greeks 
in the war with the Macedonians under Antipater. 



1. Afterwards Aristotimus, son of Damaretus, son of Etymon, 
aided and abetted by Antigonus, son of Demetrius, king of 
Macedonia, made himself tyrant of Elis. His tyranny lasted six 
vol. 1 R 



242 LEPREUS SAM1CUM BK. v. elis i 

months, and was then put an end to by the revolt of Chilon, 
Hellanicus, Lampis, and Cylon. Cylon with his own hand slew 
the tyrant who had taken refuge at the altar of Saviour Zeus. Such 
is a short enumeration of the wars of the Eleans. 

2 2. There are two marvels in the land of Elis : one is that fine 
flax grows here and nowhere else in Greece ; the other is that the 
mares cannot be impregnated by asses within the borders of Elis, 
though they can be impregnated outside them. The cause of this 
last phenomenon is said to have been a curse. The fine flax of 
Elis is not inferior in fineness of texture to the fine flax of the 
Hebrews, but it is not so yellow. 

3 3. Going from <the Neda> you come to a place" in Elis named 
Samicum, which extends to the sea. Above it to the right is the 
district of Triphylia with a city Lepreus. The people of Lepreus claim 
to belong to Arcadia, but it is notorious that they have been subject 
to Elis from the earliest times. Whenever any of them won prizes 
at Olympia, the herald proclaimed them Eleans from Lepreus. The 
poet Aristophanes also says that Lepreus is a town of Elis. There 
are three roads to Lepreus : one from Samicum, leaving the river 
Anigrus on the left ; another from Olympia ; and a third from Elis. 

4 The longest of them is a day's journey. 4. They say that the city 
took its name from its founder, Lepreus, son of Pyrgeus. It is said 
that Lepreus bragged that he was as good a man as Hercules at 
eating : each of them killed an ox at the same time and cooked it, 
and Lepreus was as good as his word, for he turned out to be as 
powerful an eater as Hercules. After that he took heart of grace, 
and challenged Hercules to a duel. But they say that he got the 
worst of it, and being knocked on the head was buried in the land 
of Phigalia. However, the Phigalians could not point to his tomb. 

5 I have heard the foundation of the town of Lepreus attributed to 
Leprea, daughter of Pyrgeus. Others say that the people who first 
settled in the land were attacked by leprosy, and that thus the city 
got its name from the misfortune of its inhabitants. The Lepreans 
said that there used to be in their city a temple of Zeus Leucaeus 
('of the white poplar'), and the graves of Lycurgus, son of Aleus, 
and Caucon ; this latter grave, they said, was surmounted by the 

6 figure of a man holding a lyre. But in my time there was no 
remarkable tomb and no sanctuary at all of the gods, save one of 
Demeter, and even that was made of unburnt bricks and had no 
image. Not far from Lepreus is a spring called Arene, which they 
say got its name from the wife of Aphareus. 

7 5. We now return to Samicum, and in passing through that district 
we come to the mouth of the river Anigrus. The flow of this river 
is often checked by stormy winds, which, sweeping the sand from 
the deep sea against its mouth, stop the passage of the water. So 
when the sand has been soaked on both sides on the one side by 



chs. v-vi SAMICUMARENE 243 

the sea, and on the inside by the river beasts of burden, and still 
more foot-passengers, are in danger of sinking in it. The Anigrus 8 
comes down from Mount Lapithus in Arcadia, and from its very 
source the water of the river is not fragrant, but on the contrary 
stinks dreadfully. Before it is joined by the Acidas, even fish 
clearly cannot live in it. After its junction with the Acidas the 
fish brought down into it by the latter river are uneatable, though 
they are eatable if caught in the Acidas. That the old name of 9 
the Acidas was Jardanus I have myself no grounds for inferring ; 
but I was told so by a man of Ephesus, and I give his statement 
for what it is worth. I am persuaded that the odd smell of the 
Anigrus is caused by the soil through which the water rises, just as 
the same cause operates in the case of the waters inland from Ionia, 
the exhalation of which is poisonous to man. Some of the Greeks say 10 
that Chiron, others that another Centaur named Pylenor, was hit by 
Hercules with an arrow, and fled wounded and washed his hurt in 
this water, and so the Anigrus got its noisome smell from the venom 
of the hydra. Others again trace the peculiarity of the river to the 
fact that Melampus, son of Amythaon, caused to be flung into it 
the objects used by him in purifying the daughters of Proetus. 

6. In Samicum, not far from the river, there is a cave called the u 
cave of the Anigrian nymphs. When a leper enters the cave he 
first prays to the nymphs and promises them a sacrifice, whatever it 
may be. Then he wipes the diseased parts of his body, and swim- 
ming through the river leaves his old uncleanness in the water and 
comes out whole and of one colour. 



VI 

1. Crossing the Anigrus and following the straight road that 
leads to Olympia, you soon see on the right of the road a high place 
and a city Samia standing on it. This city is said to have been 
used by Polysperchon, an Aetolian, as a stronghold from which to 
annoy the Arcadians. 2. None of the Messenians or Eleans could 2 
point out to me with certainty the ruins of Arene. The subject is 
one on which those who choose to do so may indulge in a variety 
of conjectures. The most plausible account seemed to me to be 
that in ancient times and in the heroic age Samicum was called 
Arene. Those who gave this explanation quoted the verses in the 
Iliad : 

There is a river Minyeius falling into the sea 
Fast by Arene. 

These ruins are very near to the Anigrus. And though it may 3 
be questioned whether Samicum was once called Arene, the 
Arcadians are agreed that the ancient name of the river Anigrus 



244 SCILLUS TYPAEUM bk. v. elis i 

was Minyeius. We may suppose that the Neda, where it approaches 
the sea, became the boundary of Elis on the side of Messenia at 
the time when the Heraclids returned to Peloponnese. 

4 3. Leaving the Anigrus behind and journeying for some distance 
through a sandy district where wild pine-trees grow, you will see 
behind you on the left the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was another of 
the cities in Triphylia ; but in the war of the Pisans against the 
Eleans, the people of Scillus were allies of the Pisans and open 
enemies of the Eleans, and therefore the Eleans destroyed their city. 

5 4. The Lacedaemonians afterwards severed Scillus from Elis and 
gave it to Xenophon, son of Grylus, then an exile from Athens. 
Xenophon was banished by the Athenians for joining Cyrus, the 
deadly foe of the Athenian democracy, in a campaign against the 
Persian king, who was a friend of Athens. For while Cyrus resided 
at Sardes, he supplied Lysander, son of Aristocritus, and the Lace- 
daemonians with money to be spent on their fleet. Therefore 
Xenophon was banished. He settled in Scillus, and had a sacred 

6 precinct and a temple built in honour of Ephesian Artemis. Scillus 
contains game, to wit, wild boars and deer ; and the river Selinus 
flows through the district. The Elean guides said that the Eleans 
recovered Scillus, and that Xenophon was tried before the Olympic 
Council for receiving the land from the Lacedaemonians, but being 
pardoned by the Eleans he dwelt securely in Scillus. Moreover, a 
little way from the sanctuary a tomb was shown, with a statue of 
Pentelic marble on the grave. The neighbours say it is the tomb 
of Xenophon. 

7 5. On the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheus, 
there is a precipitous mountain with lofty cliffs as you come from 
Scillus. The mountain is named Typaeum. It is a law of Elis to 
cast down from this mountain any women who shall be found to 
have come to the Olympic games, or even to have crossed the 
Alpheus on the forbidden days. They say, however, that no 
woman was ever caught doing so save only Callipatira, or Pherenice, 

8 as she is called by others. Her husband being dead, she disguised 
herself completely as a trainer, and brought her son Pisirodus to 
Olympia to compete in the games. Pisirodus being victorious, 
Callipatira leaped over the barrier within which the trainers are 
enclosed, and in doing so exposed her person. Though her sex was 
thus discovered, they let her go free out of respect for her father, 
her brothers, and her son, all of whom had gained Olympic victories. 
But they made a law that for the future trainers must enter the lists 
naked. 

VII 

1. On reaching Olympia you see at last the waters of the 
Alpheus, a broad and noble stream, fed by seven important rivers, 






chs.vi-vii THE ALPHEUS 245 

not to speak of lesser tributaries. For the Helisson, which passes 
through Megalopolis, falls into it ; also the Brentheates, which 
comes from the district of Megalopolis ; the Gortynius, which 
flows past Gortyna, where is a sanctuary of Aesculapius ; the 
Buphagus from Melaeneae, between the territories of Megalopolis 
and Heraea ; the Ladon, from the land of the Clitorians ; and the 
Erymanthus, from the mountain of the same name. These rivers 
come down into the Alpheus from Arcadia ; but the Cladeus joins 
it from Elis. The springs of the Alpheus are in Arcadia, not in 
Elis. 2. The following tale is told of the Alpheus. He was 2 
a huntsman, and loved Arethusa, a huntress maid. But she, 
they say, not choosing to wed, crossed over to the isle that 
fronts Syracuse, by name Ortygia. And there she was changed 
from a woman into a spring of water ; and Alpheus, too, turned into 
a river, all for love. Such is the tale of Alpheus and Ortygia. But 3 
that the river flows through the sea and there mingles its water with 
the spring I cannot choose but believe, knowing as I do that the 
god at Delphi countenances the story for when he was sending 
Archias the Corinthian to found Syracuse, he uttered these verses 
also : 

There lies an isle, Ortygia, in the dim sea 

Off Trinacia, where Alpheus's mouth bubbles 

As it mingles with the springs of the fair-flowing Arethusa. 

I am persuaded, therefore, that the fable of the river's love arose 
from the mingling of the water of Alpheus with Arethusa. 3. 
Greeks and Egyptians, who have gone up to Ethiopia above 4 
Syene, and to Meroe in Ethiopia, say that the Nile enters a lake, 
and passes through it just as if it were dry land, before it flows 
through lower Ethiopia to Egypt and falls into the sea at Pharos. 
And in the land of the Hebrews I have myself seen a certain river 
Jordan passing through a lake named Tiberias, and entering another 
lake called the Dead Sea, in which it is swallowed up. The pro- 5 
perties of the Dead Sea are the opposite of those of every other 
water ; for living creatures float on its surface without swimming, 
and dead ones go to the bottom. Thus there are no fish in the 
lake, for the fish see their danger and flee back to the water that 
suits them. There is a water in Ionia that behaves in the same 
way as the Alpheus : its source is in Mount Mycale, and after 
passing through the intermediate sea it rises again opposite Bran- 
chidae at the harbour named Panormus. These things are so. 

4. With regard to the Olympic games, the Elean antiquaries 6 
say that Cronus first reigned in heaven, and that a temple was 
made for him at Olympia by the men of that age, who were named 
the Golden Race \ that when Zeus was born, Rhea committed the 
safekeeping of the child to the Idaean Dactyls or Curetes, as they 



! 



246 THE OL YMPIC GAMES bk. v. elis i 

are also called ; that the Dactyls came from Ida in Crete, and their 

7 names were Hercules, Paeonaeus, Epimedes, Iasius, and Idas ; and 
that in sport Hercules, as the eldest, set his brethren to run 
a race, and crowned the victor with a branch of wild olive, 
of which they had such an abundance that they slept on 
heaps of its fresh green leaves. They say that the wild 
olive was brought to Greece by Hercules from the land of 

8 the Hyperboreans. Olen the Lycian, in his hymn to Achaeia, 
was the first poet to affirm that there are men who dwell 
beyond the North Wind ; for in that hymn he says that Achaeia 
came to Delos from these Hyperboreans. Afterwards Melanopus of 
Cyme composed an ode on Opis and Hecaerge, in which he said 
that they also had come to Delos from the Hyperboreans before 

9 Achaeia did so. Aristaeus of Proconnesus, who also mentions the 
Hyperboreans, may perhaps have learned something more about 
them from the Issedonians, to whom he says in his epic that he came. 
The Idaean Hercules is therefore reputed to have been the first to 
arrange the games, and to have given them the name Olympic. 
Pie made the rule that they should be celebrated every fourth year, 1 

io because he and his brothers were five in number. Some say that 
Zeus here wrestled with Cronus himself for the kingdom ; others 
that he held the games in honour of his victory over Cronus. 
Amongst those who are said to have gained victories is Apollo, who 
is related to have outrun Hermes in a race, and to have vanquished 
Ares in boxing. They say that is why the flutes play the Pythian 
air, while the competitors in the pentathlum are leaping, because 
that air is sacred to Apollo, and the god himself had won Olympic 
crowns. 



VIII 

i. They relate that afterwards Clymenus, son of Cardys, a de- 
scendant of the Idaean Hercules, came from Crete about fifty years 
after the flood, which happened in Greece in the days of Deuca- 
lion. He, they say, held the games in Olympia, and set up an 
altar to Hercules, his ancestor, and to the other Curetes : to 
Hercules he gave the surname of Assistant. But Endymion, son of 
Aethlius, dethroned Clymenus, and offered his sons the kingdom 
2 as a prize to be won in the race at Olympia. About a generation 

1 Literally ' every fifth year. ' The celebration took place in one year out of 
every four ; but the Greeks, adding the two years in which successive celebrations 
took place to the three intermediate years, expressed this by saying that the games 
were celebrated ' every fifth year. ' This is one of the many cases in which the Greek 
use of the ordinal- numbers differs from our own. In all such cases, where a precise 
and not a round number is meant, I have, in translating, altered the numeral so as 
to adapt it to the English idiom. To translate literally in such cases would be to 
misinterpret the meaning of the Greek. 






chs. vii-viii THE OL YMPIC GAMES 247 

after Endymion, Pelops celebrated the games in honour of Olympian 
Zeus in a grander way than all who had gone before him. When 
the sons of Pelops were dispersed from Elis over all the rest of 
Peloponnese, Amythaon, son of Cretheus, and cousin to Endymion 
on the father's side (for they say that Aethlius also was a son of 
Aeolus, though reputed to be a son of Zeus), celebrated the 
Olympic festival ; and after him Pelias and Neleus celebrated it 
in common. It was also celebrated by Augeas and by Hercules, 3 
the son of Amphitryo, after his conquest of Elis. The victors whom 
Hercules crowned are these : Iolaus, who won the race with 
Hercules' mares. (It thus appears that of old a competitor was 
allowed to drive horses which were not his own. At all events, in 
the funeral games held in honour of Patroclus, Homer represents 
Menelaus as driving a pair, of which one was Agamemnon's mare 
Aetha, while the other horse was Menelaus' own. Besides, Iolaus 4 
regularly drove Hercules' chariot.) Iolaus, then, won the chariot- 
race : Iasius, an Arcadian, won the horse-race ; and of the sons of 
Tyndareus one (Castor) won the foot-race, and the other, Pollux, 
won the boxing-match. It is said that Hercules himself won the 
prizes for wrestling and the pancratium. 

2. After the reign of Oxylus, who also held the games, the 5 
Olympic festival was discontinued down to the time of Iphitus. 
When Iphitus renewed the games, as I have said before, people 
had forgotten the ancient customs, and they only gradually remem- 
bered them, and as they remembered them piece by piece, they 
added them to the games. 3. This is clear from the following con- 6 
siderations. At the point at which the unbroken tradition of the 
Olympiads begins, there were at first prizes for the foot - race, 
and Coroebus the Elean won the race. There is not a statue of 
Coroebus at Olympia, but his grave is at the confines of Elis. 
Afterwards, in the fourteenth Olympiad, the double foot - race 
was added ; and Hypenus, a Pisan, won the wild olive in it. And 
in the next . . . Acanthus. In the eighteenth Olympiad they 7 
remembered the pentathlum and the wrestling, and Lampis was 
victorious in the former and Eurybatus in the latter, both of them 
being likewise Lacedaemonians. In the twenty-third Olympiad they 
restored the prizes for boxing, and the victor was Onomastus of Smyrna, 
which was by that time included in Ionia. In the twenty-fifth 
Olympiad they admitted the race of full-grown horses (in four-horse 
chariots), and the Theban Pagondas was proclaimed victor in the 
race. Eight Olympiads afterwards they admitted the pancratium 8 
for men and the horse-race : the horse of Crauxidas of Crannon 
passed the rest, and Lygdamis of Syracuse vanquished the other 
competitors in the pancratium. The tomb of the latter is at the 1 " 
quarries in Syracuse. Whether Lygdamis was as big as the Theban 
Hercules I know not, but the Syracusans say he was. The origin 9 



248 THE OLYMPIC GAMES bk. v. elis i 

of the competitions for boys is not traced to any ancient tradition : 
they were instituted by a resolution of the Eleans. Prizes for 
boys in running and wrestling were instituted in the thirty-seventh 
Olympiad, and Hipposthenes, a Lacedaemonian, was victorious in 
wrestling, and Polynices an Elean in the race. In the forty-first 
Olympiad they introduced boxing for boys, and of the competitors 

10 the victor was Philetas of Sybara. The race between armed men 
was sanctioned in the sixty-fifth Olympiad, for the purpose, I sup- 
pose, of training men for war ; and the first victor in the race with 
shields was Damaretus of Heraea. The race called synoris, between 
(chariots drawn by) pairs of full-grown horses, was instituted in the 
ninety-third Olympiad, and the victor was Evagoras, an Elean. In 
the ninety-ninth Olympiad the race between chariots, each drawn by 
(four) foals, was instituted, and Sybariades, a Lacedaemonian, won 

ii the crown in the race. Afterwards they instituted races between 
chariots drawn by pairs of foals, and races ridden on foals : they 
say that a woman Belistiche, from the coast of Macedonia, was 
proclaimed victor in the former, and Tleptolemus, a Lycian, in the 
latter race. The victory of Tleptolemus, they say, occurred in the 
hundred and thirty-first Olympiad, and that of Belistiche occurred 
two Olympiads earlier. In the hundred and forty-fifth Olympiad 
prizes were offered for boys in the pancratium, and the victor was 
Phaedimus, an Aeolian, from the city of Troas. 

IX 

i. Some competitions, on the other hand, were abolished at 
Olympia, the Eleans resolving to hold them no longer. The 
pentathlum for boys was instituted in the thirty-eighth Olympiad, 
and after Eutelidas, a Lacedaemonian, had won the wild olive for it, 
the Eleans decided that boys should no longer compete in the pent- 
athlum. The race between mule - carts and the trotting - race, 
instituted respectively in the seventieth and seventy-first Olympiad, 
were both abolished by proclamation in the eighty-fourth Olympiad. 
At their first institution, Thersius, a Thessalian, won the cart-race ; 
and Pataecus, an Achaean from Dyme, won the trotting-race. 

2 2. The latter race was ridden on mares, and in the last part of 
the course the riders leaped down and ran beside their horses, 
holding on by the bridle just as the Mounters, as they are called, 
still do. The Mounters, however, differ from the riders in the 
trotting-race in wearing different badges, and riding horses instead 
of mares. As for the cart-race, it had neither antiquity nor dignity 
to recommend it. Besides, the carts were drawn by pairs of mules 
instead of horses, and an ancient curse rests on the people of Elis 
if ever the animal is born in their land. 

3 3. The present order of the games, according to which the 



chs. vni-x TEMPLE OF ZEUS 249 

sacrifices for the pentathlum and the chariot-race are offered to the god 
after <the other> contests, was first instituted in the seventy-seventh 
Olympiad. Previously the contests for men and chariots had both 
been held on the same day. On that occasion the pancratiasts 
had to prolong their contest into the night because they had not 
been called on early enough. The cause of the delay was the 
chariot-race, and still more the contest in the pentathlum. Callias 
of Athens was victorious in the pancratium ; but for the future 
neither the pentathlum nor the chariot-race was to interfere with the 
pancratium. 4. The present rules as to the presidents of the games 4 
are not what they were originally. Iphitus presided alone over the 
games, and after Iphitus the descendants of Oxylus did likewise. 
But in the fiftieth Olympiad two men, selected by lot from the 
whole body of the Eleans, were entrusted with the presidency of 
the festival, and for a long time afterwards the number of the 
presidents continued to be two. 5. But in the twenty-fifth Olympiad 5 
nine umpires were appointed, of whom three were entrusted with the 
chariot-race, three were to watch the pentathlum, and the rest were 
to take charge of the other contests. In the next Olympiad but 
one a tenth umpire was added. In the hundred and third Olympiad 
the Eleans were divided into twelve tribes, and one umpire was taken 
from each tribe. But being hard put to it by the Arcadians in war, 6 
they lost a piece of their territory, together with all the townships 
which were contained in the district thus severed from Elis, and so 
in the hundred and fourth Olympiad they were reduced to the 
number of eight tribes, and the number of the umpires chosen 
corresponded to the number of the tribes. But in the hundred and 
eighth Olympiad they reverted to the number of ten, which has 
remained unaltered from that day to this. 

X 

1. Many a wondrous sight may be seen, and not a few tales of 
wonder may be heard in Greece ; but there is nothing on which 
the blessing of God rests in so full a measure as the rites of Eleusis 
and the Olympic games. From of old the sacred grove (alsos) 
of Zeus has been called Altis, through a corruption of the word for 
grove. Pindar, too, in a song composed in honour of an Olympic 
victor, calls the place Altis. 2. The temple and image of Zeus 2 
were made from the booty at the time when the Eleans conquered 
Pisa and the vassal states that revolted with her. That the image 
was made by Phidias is attested by the inscription under the feet of 
Zeus : 

Phidias, Charmides' son, an Athenian, made me. 

The temple is built in the Doric style, and columns run all round 






250 TEMPLE OF ZEUS bk. v. elis i 

3 it on the outside. It is made of native conglomerate. The height 
of it up to the gable is sixty-eight feet, its breadth ninety-five, its 
length two hundred and thirty. The architect was Libon, a native. 
The tiles are not of baked earth, but of Pentelic marble, which is 
wrought into the shape of tiles. They say that this was a contri- 
vance of Byzes, a Naxian, who is said to have made the images in 
Naxos, which bear the following inscription : 

Euergus, a Naxian, dedicated me to the offspring of Latona, 
Euergus, son of Byzes, who first made tiles of stone. 

This Byzes lived in the time of Alyattes, the Lydian, and of Astyages, 

4 the son of Cyaxares, king of the Medes. A gilt kettle is set on 
each extremity of the roof of the temple at Olympia ; and a Victory, 
also gilt, stands just at the middle of the gable. Under the image 
of Victory is hung a golden shield with the Gorgon Medusa 
wrought in relief on it. The inscription on the shield sets forth 
the persons who dedicated it and their reason for doing so. It runs 
thus : 

The temple hath a golden shield : from Tanagra 

The Lacedaemonians and their allies brought it and dedicated it 

As a gift taken from the Argives, Athenians, and Ionians, 
The tithe offered in acknowledgment of victory in the war. 

I mentioned this battle also in my account of Attica, when I was 

5 describing the tombs at Athens. On the outside of the frieze, 
which runs round the temple at Olympia above the columns, are 
one -and -twenty gilded shields, dedicated by the Roman general 
Mummius after he had conquered the Achaeans, taken Corinth, and 

6 expelled its Dorian inhabitants. As to the sculptures in the gables : 
in the front gable there is represented the chariot-race between 
Pelops and Oenomaus about to begin; both are preparing for the race. 
An image of Zeus stands just at the middle of the gable : on the 
right of Zeus is Oenomaus with a helmet on his head, and beside him 
is his wife Sterope, one of the daughters of Atlas. Myrtilus, who 
drove the chariot of Oenomaus, is seated in front of the horses : 
his horses are four in number. After him there are two men : they 
have no names, but seemingly they also were ordered by Oenomaus 

7 to look after the horses. At the very extremity Cladeus is 
lying down : next to the Alpheus the Cladeus is the river most 
honoured by the Eleans. On the left of Zeus are Pelops and 
Hippodamia, and the charioteer of Pelops, and the horses, and two 
men, supposed to be grooms of Pelops. Where the gable again 
narrows down, Alpheus is represented. The name of Pelops' 
charioteer, according to the Troezenians, is Sphaerus ; but the 

8 guide at Olympia said it was Cillas. The figures in the front gable 
are by Paeonius, a native of Mende in Thrace : the figures in the 



chs. x-xi IMAGE OF ZEUS 251 

back gable are by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias, and only 
second to him as a sculptor. His work in the gable represents the 
battle of the Lapiths with the Centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous. 
At the middle of the gable is Pirithous : beside him, on the one 
hand, are Eurytion, who has snatched up the wife of Pirithous, and 
Caeneus, who is succouring Pirithous ; on the other hand is Theseus 
repelling the Centaurs with an axe ; one Centaur has caught up a 
maiden, another a blooming youth. Alcamenes, it seems to me, 
represented this scene because he had learned from Homer that 
Pirithous was a son of Zeus, and because he knew that Theseus was 
a great grandson of Pelops. Most of the labours of Hercules 9 
are also represented at Olympia. Above the doors of the temple 
is the hunting of the Arcadian boar, and the affair with 
Diomede the Thracian, and that with Geryon at Erythea, and 
Hercules about to take the burden of Atlas on himself, and Hercules 
cleansing the land of the Eleans from the dung. Above the doors of 
the back chamber is Hercules wresting from the Amazon her girdle, 
and the stories of the deer, and the bull in Cnosus, and the birds at 
Stymphalus, and the hydra, and the lion in the land of Argos. 
3. As you enter the bronze doors you have on the right, in front 10 
of the pillar, a statue of Iphitus being crowned by a woman 
Ecechiria (' truce '), as the distich inscribed on the statue declares. 
Within the temple also there are pillars, and there are galleries up 
above, through which there is an approach to the image. There is 
also a winding ascent to the roof. 

XI 

1. The god is seated on a throne : he is made of gold and 
ivory : on his head is a wreath made in imitation of sprays of olive. 
In his right hand he carries a Victory, also of ivory and gold : she 
wears a ribbon, and on her head a wreath. In the left hand of the 
god is a sceptre, curiously wrought in all the metals : the bird 
perched on the sceptre is the eagle. The sandals of the god are of 
gold, and so is his robe. On the robe are wrought figures of animals 
and the lily flowers. 2. The throne is adorned with gold and precious 2 
stones, also with ebony and ivory ; and there are figures painted and 
images wrought on it. There are four Victories, in the attitude of 
dancing, at each foot of the throne, and two others at the bottom of 
each foot. On each of the two front feet are Theban children carried 
off by sphinxes, and under the sphinxes Apollo and Artemis are 
shooting down the children of Niobe with arrows. Between the 3 
feet of the throne are four bars, each extending from foot to foot. 
On the bar which faces the entrance there are seven images : the 
eighth image has disappeared, they know not how. These may be 
representations of the ancient contests, for the contests for boys 
were not yet instituted in the time of Phidias. They say that the boy 



252 IMAGE OF ZEUS ek. v. elis i 

bindins: his head with a ribbon is a likeness of Pantarces. an Elean 

o * 

youth, said to have been a favourite of Phidias. Pantarces won a 
victory in the boys' wrestling-match in the eighty-sixth Olympiad. 

4 On the other bars is the troop that fought on the side of Hercules 
against the Amazons. The total number of figures is twenty-nine. 
Theseus is arrayed amongst the allies of Hercules. The throne is 
supported, not by the feet only, but also by an equal number of 
pillars which stand between the feet. But it is not possible to go 
under the throne in the way that we pass into the interior of the 
throne at Amyclae ; for in Olympia people are kept off by barriers 

5 made like walls. Of these barriers, the one facing the door is 
painted blue simply : the rest exhibit paintings by Panaenus. 
Amongst these paintings is seen Atlas upholding heaven and earth, 
and beside him stands Hercules wishing to take the burden of 
Atlas on himself; also Theseus and Pirithous, and Greece and Salamis 
holding in her hand the figure-head of a ship ; and there is the 

6 struggle of Hercules with the Nemean lion ; and the outrage offered 
by Ajax to Cassandra ; and Hippodamia, daughter of Oenomaus, 
with her mother ; and Prometheus still in fetters, and Hercules is 
borne up aloft to him ; for one of the stories about Hercules is that 
he killed the eagle that was torturing Prometheus on the Caucasus, 
and freed him from his fetters. The last paintings are Penthesilea 
giving up the ghost and Achilles supporting her, and two Hesperids 
bearing the apples, with the keeping of which they are said to have 
been entrusted. This Panaenus was a brother of Phidias, and the 
painting of the battle of Marathon in the Painted Colonnade at Athens 

7 is by him. On the uppermost parts of the throne, above the head 
of the image, Phidias has made, on one side, the Graces, and on 
the other side the Seasons, three of each ; for in poetry the Seasons 
also are described as daughters of Zeus, and in the Iliad Homer says that 
the Seasons had the charge of the sky, just like guards of a king's 
court. The footstool, or, as people in Attica call it, the thranion, 
under the feet of Zeus has golden lions, and the battle of Theseus 
with the Amazons is wrought in relief on it. This battle was the 
first deed of valour done by the Athenians against foreign foes. 

8 3. On the pedestal, which supports the throne and the whole 
gorgeous image of Zeus, there are figures of gold, the Sun 
mounted in a car, and Zeus and Hera, . . . and beside him one of 
the Graces, and next to her Hermes, and next to Hermes Hestia ; 
and after Hestia there is Love receiving Aphrodite as she rises from 
the sea, and Persuasion is crowning Aphrodite. Apollo, too, and 
Artemis are wrought in relief on it, and Athena and Hercules ; and 
at the end of the pedestal Amphitrite and Poseidon, and the Moon 
riding what seems to me a horse. Some say, however, that the 
goddess is riding a mule, and not a horse, and they tell a silly story 
about the mule. 



chs. xi-xii IMAGE OF ZEUS 253 

4. I know that the measurements of the height and breadth of 9 
Zeus at Olympia have been recorded, but I cannot commend the 
men who took the measurements. For even the measurements 
they mention fall far short of the impression made by the image on 
the spectator. Why, the god himself, they say, bore witness to the 
art of Phidias. For when the image was completed Phidias prayed 
that the god would give a sign if the work was to his mind, and 
straightway, they say, the god hurled a thunderbolt into the ground 
at the spot where the bronze urn stood down to my time. 

5. The ground in front of the image is flagged, not with white, 10 
but with black stone. Round about the black pavement runs a raised 
edge of Parian marble to keep in the olive oil which is poured out. 
For oil is good for the image at Olympia, and it is this that keeps 
the ivory from suffering through the marshy situation of the Altis. 
But on the Acropolis at Athens it is not oil, but water, that is good 
for the ivory in the image of the Virgin. For the Acropolis being 
dry, by reason of its great height, the ivory image needs water and 
moisture. At Epidaurus, when I asked why they poured neither 11 
water nor oil on the image of Aesculapius, the attendants of the 
sanctuary told me that the image and throne of the god were erected 
over a well. 



XII 

1. People who think that the things which project from an 
elephant's mouth are teeth, and not horns, may look at the elks 
(those wild animals in Celtic land) and at the Ethiopian bulls. For 
the male elks have horns on their eyebrows, but the females have 
none at all ; and the Ethiopian bulls have horns on their noses. 
Who then need regard it as very wonderful that horns should grow 
through an animal's mouth ? Again, they may see their error from 2 
the following considerations. Horns fall off annually and then grow 
again, and this happens to the elephant as well as to deer and 
roe. But no full-grown animal has a second tooth. So if the 
things that project through the mouth were teeth, and not horns, 
how could they grow again ? Again, teeth do not yield to the action 
of fire ; but the horns both of oxen and of elephants can be changed 
from round into flat, and into other shapes, under the influence 
of fire. [However, hippopotamuses and swine have tusks on the 
lower jaw, but we do not see horns growing out of jaws.] You 3 
may be sure, then, that an elephant's horns come down through its 
temples from above, and so curve outwards. I do not state this 
on mere hearsay, for I have myself seen an elephant's skull in a 
sanctuary of Artemis in Campania : the sanctuary is just about thirty 
furlongs from Capua, which is the capital of Campania. Thus the 
elephant's horns grow in a way different from the horns of all other 



254 OFFERINGS IN TEMPLE bk. v. elis i 

animals, just as his size and shape are like those of no other beast. It 
is a proof to my mind of the public spirit of the Greeks, and of their 
liberality in the service of the gods, that they imported ivory from 
India and Ethiopia to make images of. 

4 2. In Olympia there is a woollen curtain, a product of the gay 
Assyrian looms and dyed with Phoenician purple. It is an offering 
of Antiochus, who also dedicated the golden aegis with the Gorgon 
on it above the theatre at Athens. This curtain is not drawn up 
to the roof like the curtain in the temple of Ephesian Artemis, but 
is let down by cords to the floor. 

5 3. As to the offerings which stand either in the inner sanctuary 
or in the fore-temple, there is a throne, the offering of Arimnestus, 
king of Etruria, the first barbarian who presented an offering to Zeus 
at Olympia ; and there are the bronze horses of Cynisca, tokens of an 
Olympic victory. These horses are less than life-size : they stand in 
the fore-temple on the right as you enter. Also there is a bronze- 
plated tripod, on which the victors' crowns used to be set out before 

6 the table was made. 4. There are statues of the Emperors Had- 
rian and Trajan : the former is of Parian marble and was dedicated 
by the cities of the Achaean confederacy ; the latter was dedicated 
by the Greek nation. It was Trajan who conquered the Getae 
who dwell beyond Thrace, and he made war on Osroes (the 
descendant of Arsaces) and the Parthians. Of his buildings the 
most remarkable are the baths called after him, a great circular 
theatre, a building for horse-races, two furlongs long, and the 
Forum at Rome, the last of which is worth seeing for its splendour, 

7 and especially for its bronze roof. 5. Of the statues which stand in 
the round structures, the one made of amber is a portrait of 
Augustus, Emperor of Rome ; the one of ivory was said to be a 
portrait of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. From Nicomedes the 
greatest of the cities in Bithynia got its new name : its former name 
was Astacus, and its original founder was Zypoetes, a Thracian, to 
judge by his name. 6. Native amber (elect rum), of which the statue 
of Augustus is made, is found in the sands of the Eridanus, and is 
very rare and valuable for many purposes ; but the other electrum is 

8 an alloy of gold with silver. 7. In the temple at Olympia there 
are four crowns dedicated by Nero : three in the shape of wild olive 
leaves, and one in the shape of oak leaves. Here, too, are deposited 
five-and-twenty bronze shields, which are intended to be carried by 
the armed men in the race. Amongst the tablets is one inscribed 
with the oath of alliance for a hundred years which the Eleans swore 
to the Athenians, Argives, and Mantineans. 

XIII 

1. Within the Altis there is also a precinct set apart for Pelops, 



chs. xii-xiii THE PELOPIUM 255 



for the Eleans honour Pelops as much above all the heroes of 
Olympia as they honour Zeus above the rest of the gods. The 
Pelopium is to the right of the entrance to the temple of Zeus, on 
the north side. It is at a sufficient distance from the temple to 
allow of statues and other votive offerings standing between. Be- 
ginning just opposite the middle of the temple it extends along as 
far as the back chamber. It is surrounded by a stone wall, 
and in it are trees growing and statues set up. The entrance to it 2 
is on the west. It is said to have been assigned to Pelops by 
Hercules, the son of Amphitryo ; for Hercules also was a great- 
grandson of Pelops. It is said, too, that he sacrificed into the 
pit in honour of Pelops. 2. The annual magistrates still sacrifice 
to him : the victim is a black ram. Of this sacrifice the sooth- 
sayer gets no share ; but it is the custom to give the neck only of 
the ram to the woodman, as he is called. The woodman is one of 3 
the servants of Zeus : his duty is to supply states and private persons 
with wood for the sacrifices at a fixed price. The wood is the wood 
of the white poplar, and no other. Whoever eats of the flesh of the 
victim sacrificed to Pelops, be he an Elean or a stranger, he may 
not enter the temple of Zeus. At Pergamus, on the river Caicus, 
persons who sacrifice to Telephus are in the same predicament ; for 
they may not go up to the sanctuary of Aesculapius till they have 
bathed. 3. The following story is also told. When the Trojan war was 4 
dragging on, the soothsayers foretold the Greeks that they would not 
take the city till they had fetched the bow and arrows of Hercules, 
and a bone of Pelops. So they sent for Philoctetes, it is said, to the 
camp, and a shoulder-blade of Pelops was brought them from Pisa. 
When they were on their way home the ship that carried the bone 
of Pelops was lost off Euboea in the storm. But many years after 5 
the taking of Ilium, Damarmenus, a fisherman of Eretria, casting 
his net into the sea, drew up the bone, and being amazed at 
its size he kept it hidden in the sand. At last, however, he went to 
Delphi to learn whose the bone was and what he should do with it. 
By the providence of the god it happened that at the same time 6 
<there were present at Delphi envoys> from the Eleans, who desired 
a remedy for a plague. So the Pythian priestess bade them recover 
the bones of Pelops, and told Damarmenus to restore to the Eleans 
what he had found. The Eleans rewarded him for doing so, and 
made him and his descendants keepers of the bone. The shoulder- 
blade of Pelops had disappeared by my time : I suppose it 
mouldered away through age and the action of the salt water in 
which it had been sunk so long. 4. In my country there are still 7 
left signs that Pelops and Tantalus once dwelt in it. For there is 
a notable grave of Tantalus, and there is a lake called after him. 
Further, there is a throne of Pelops, on a peak of Mount Sipylus, 
above the sanctuary of Mother Plastene ; and across the river 



256 ALTAR OF ZEUS BK. V. elis i 



Hermus there is an image of Aphrodite in Temnus, made of a 
growing myrtle-tree. Tradition says that Pelops dedicated the 
image to propitiate the goddess when he prayed that he might wed 
Hippodamia. 

8 5. The altar of Olympian Zeus is situated at an equal distance 
from the Pelopium and the sanctuary of Hera, but in front of both. 
Some say it was built by the Idaean Hercules, others say by the 
local heroes two generations later than Hercules. It is made of 
the ashes of the thighs of the victims sacrificed to Zeus, just like 
the altar at Pergamus. The altar of the Samian Hera is also made 
of ashes, and is not a whit finer than the altars in Attica which the 

9 Athenians call extemporary sacrificial hearths. Of the altar at 
Olympia the circumference of the first stage (which is called the 
prothusis) amounts to one hundred and twenty-five feet, and the cir- 
cumference of the next stage above the prothusis is thirty-two feet. 
The whole height of the altar is twenty-two feet. The custom is to 
sacrifice the victims on the lower part, the prothusis ; but they carry 
the thighs up to the highest part of the altar and burn them there. 

10 Stone steps lead up to the prothusis from each side, but from the 
prothusis the steps that lead to the upper part of the altar are, like 
the altar itself, of ashes. Even maidens may ascend as far as the 
prothusis, and women too, when they are not excluded from Olympia. 
But from this to the uppermost part of the altar men alone may ascend. 
Even when the festival is not going on, sacrifices are offered to Zeus 

1 1 by private persons, and daily by the Eleans. Every year, punctually 
on the nineteenth day of the month Elaphius, the soothsayers bring the 
ashes from the Prytaneum, and after kneading them with the water 
of the Alpheus, they plaster the altar with them. .Never may the 
ashes be made into mud by any other water ; and that is why the 
Alpheus is thought to be of all rivers the dearest to Zeus. 6. At 
Didyma, in the territory of Miletus, there is an altar which, accord- 
ing to the Milesians, was made by the Theban Hercules out of the 
blood of the victims. However, in after ages the blood of the 
sacrifices has not swelled the altar to an excessive size. 



XIV 

1. There is another wonder about the altar at Olympia, and it 
is this : The kites, the most rapacious of birds, do not molest 
people when they are sacrificing at Olympia. But if ever a kite 
should snatch away the inwards or a piece of the flesh, the omen is 
deemed unfavourable for the person sacrificing. 2. They say that 
when Hercules, the son of Alcmena, was sacrificing in Olympia, he 
was greatly plagued by the flies ; so either out of his own head or 
by the advice of some one else, he sacrificed to Zeus Averter of Flies, 
and thus the flies were sent packing across the Alpheus. In the 



chs. xm-xiv ALTARS AT OLYMPIA 257 

same way the Eleans are said to sacrifice to Zeus Averter of Flies 
at the time when they drive the flies out of Olympia. 

3. The only ground, in my opinion, of the preference which the 2 
Eleans show for the white poplar by using its wood, and its wood 
only, for the sacrifices of Zeus, is that Hercules brought it to Greece 
from the Thesprotian land. And I believe that when he sacrificed 
to Zeus at Olympia, Hercules himself burned the thigh bones of the 
victims on wood of the white poplar. The white poplar was found 
by him growing beside the Acheron, the river in Thesprotis, and 
that, they say, is why the tree is called acherois by Homer. 4. We 3 
see, then, that of old, as at the present day, rivers were not equally 
suited for the production of plants and trees. Thus no tamarisks 
sprout so thick and high as those on the banks of the Maeander : 
no reeds grow so tall as those in the Boeotian Asopus ; and the 
persea tree loves no water but the water of the Nile. No wonder, 
then, that the white poplar should first have sprouted on the banks 
of Acheron, and the wild olive on the banks of the Alpheus, and 
that the black poplar should be a nursling of the Celtic land and 
the Celtic river Eridanus. 

5. Having mentioned the greatest altar, I may run over all the 4 
altars in Olympia. I will notice them in the order in which the 
Eleans are accustomed to offer sacrifice upon them. They sacrifice, 
first, to Hestia ; second, to Olympian Zeus on the altar inside the 
temple ; third, on one altar .... this sacrifice also is cus- 
tomary ; fourth and fifth, they sacrifice to Artemis and Athena, 5 
Goddess of Booty ; sixth, to the Worker Goddess. The descend- 
ants of Phidias, called Burnishers, to whom the Eleans have granted 
the privilege of cleansing the image of Zeus from the dirt that 
settles on it, offer sacrifice to this Worker Goddess before they 
begin to polish the image. There is another altar of Athena near 
the temple, and a square altar of Artemis beside it, which rises 
gradually to a height. After the altars I have mentioned they 6 
sacrifice to Alpheus and Artemis on one altar, the reason for which 
is indicated by Pindar in an ode, and will be mentioned by me in 
speaking of Letrini. Not far from this altar there is another altar 
of Alpheus, and beside it is an altar of Hephaestus. Some of the 
Eleans name this altar of Hephaestus the altar of Warlike Zeus, 
and say that Oenomaus used to sacrifice on this altar to Warlike 
Zeus whenever he was about to engage in a chariot-race with any 
of the suitors of Hippodamia. After it there is an altar to Hercules, 7 
surnamed Assistant, and altars to his brethren Epimedes, Idas, 
Paeonaeus, and Iasus. I know that the altar of Idas is by others 
called the altar of Acesidas. At the place where are the foundations 
of the house of Oenomaus there are two altars ; one is that of Zeus 
of the Courtyard, which Oenomaus appears to have had built him- 
self; the other altar is that of Thunderbolt Zeus, which I suppose 
vol. 1 s 



258 ALTARS AT OLYMPLA bk. v. elis i 

they made afterwards when the thunderbolt had fallen on the house 

8 of Oenomaus. The great altar, about which I spoke a little ago, is 
called the altar of Olympian Zeus. 6. Beside it is an altar of Un- 
known Gods, after which is an altar of Purifying Zeus and Victory, 
and another of Subterranean Zeus. There are also altars of all 
gods and one of Olympian Hera, which is also made of ashes : 
they say it was dedicated by Clymenus. After it there is an altar 
of Apollo and Hermes in common, because there is a Greek tale 
about them that Hermes was the inventor of the lyre and Apollo of 

9 the lute. Next there is an altar of Unanimity, and another of 
Athena, and one of the Mother of the Gods. 7. Hard by the 
entrance into the stadium there are two altars : one of them is called 
the altar of Hermes of the Games, the other the altar of Opportunity. 
I know that Ion of Chios has a hymn on Opportunity, in which he 
represents Opportunity as the youngest son of Zeus. Near the 
treasury of the Sicyonians is an altar of Hercules, either Hercules 
the Curete or Hercules the son of Alcmena ; for some say the one, 

10 some the other. 8. At what is called the Gaeum (sanctuary of 
Earth) there is an altar of Earth, which is also made of ashes : 
in former days they say that there was also an oracle of Earth here. 
On what is called the Stomium (' mouth,' ' opening ') there is an 
altar to Themis. The altar of Zeus the Descender is protected by 
a fence on all sides : it is near the great altar of ashes. The 
reader will remember that the altars are not enumerated in the order 
in which they stand, but that I have passed from one to the other 
according to the order observed by the Eleans in their sacrifices. 
Beside the precinct of Pelops there is an altar of Dionysus and 
the Graces in common ; and between the precinct and the altar there 
is an altar of the Muses, and next to these an altar of the Nymphs. 

XV 

1. There is a building outside the Altis called the workshop of 
Phidias, and here Phidias wrought the image piece by piece. In the 
building there is an altar to all gods in common. Having returned 

2 into the Altis, opposite to the Leonidaeum (2. the Leonidaeum, 
though outside the sacred close, is at the processional entrance 
into the Altis, which is the only way that processions are allowed to 
take : the Leonidaeum was dedicated by Leonidas, a native, but in 
my time the Roman governors of Greece lodged in it : it is sepa- 
rated from the processional entrance by a street ; for what the 

3 Athenians call lanes the Eleans name streets) 3. in the Altis, 
then, as you are about to pass to the left of the Leonidaeum, there 
is an altar of Aphrodite, and after it an altar of the Seasons. Just 
opposite the back chamber (of the temple of Zeus) there is on the 
right a wild olive-tree : it is called the Olive of the Fair Crown, and 



CHS. xiv-xv ALTARS AT OLYMPIA 259 

it is the custom to make from it the crowns which are given to the 
victors in the Olympic games. Near this wild olive there is an altar 
to the Nymphs, who are also named the Nymphs of the Fair Crowns. 
Outside the Altis, but to the right of the Leonidaeum, is an altar of 4 
Artemis of the Market, also an altar to the Mistresses. I will tell 
about the goddess, whom they name the Mistress, when I come to 
describe Arcadia. After it there is an altar of Zeus of the Market, 
and in front of what is called the Grand Stand is an altar of Pythian 
Apollo, and after it an altar of Dionysus. This last altar, they say, 
was dedicated by private persons not long ago. 4. As you go to the 5 
place where the chariots start, you pass an altar, the inscription on 
which declares that it belongs to the Guide of Fate. This is 
clearly a surname of Zeus, who knows the affairs of men, all 
that the Fates grant them, and all that they refuse. Near it is an 
oblong altar of the Fates, after it an altar of Hermes, and next two 
altars of Highest Zeus. At the place where the chariots start there 
are altars of Horse Poseidon and Horse Hera in the open 
air, just about the middle of the starting - place ; and at the 
pillar is an altar of the Dioscuri. At the entrance to the 6 
so - called Wedge there is an altar of Horse Ares on the 
one hand, and an altar of Horse Athena on the other. When 
we have entered the Wedge we come to an altar of Good Fortune, 
Pan, and Aphrodite. At the inmost point of the Wedge is an 
altar of the Nymphs whom they call Buxom. Returning from the 
colonnade, which the Eleans call the Colonnade of Agnaptus, after 
the name of the architect, you have on the right an altar of Artemis. 
Having entered again through the processional entrance into the Altis, 7 
we see behind the Heraeum altars of the river Cladeus and of 
Artemis : the altar after these is Apollo's : the fourth altar is that of 
Artemis surnamed Coccoca ; the fifth that of Apollo Thermius. 
With regard to this Elean name Thermius, it occurred to me that it 
may be the same as thesmios (' concerning laws ') in Attic ; but why 
they give the surname of Coccoca to Artemis I was not able to learn. 
In front of the Theecoleon (priest's house), as it is called, there is a 8 
building, and in a corner of this building there is an altar of Pan. 5. 
The Prytaneum of the Eleans is inside the Altis beside the exit which 
is over against the gymnasium. In this gymnasium are the running- 
paths and the wrestling-schools for the athletes. Before the door 
of the Prytaneum is an altar of Huntress Artemis. In the Prytaneum 9 
itself, on the right of the entrance into the chamber where is the 
hearth, there stands an altar of Pan. This hearth also is made 
of ashes, and on it a fire burns every day and every night. From 
this hearth, as I have said, they bring the ashes to the altar of the 
Olympian god, and the ashes so brought from the hearth contribute 
not a little to the size of the altar. 

6. Once every month the Eleans sacrifice on all the altars IO 



2 6o TEMPLE OF HERA bk. v. elis i 

I have mentioned. They sacrifice after an ancient fashion ; for they 
burn on the altars frankincense together with wheat which has been 
kneaded with honey. They place sprays of olive also on the altars, 
and pour a libation of wine. Only to the Nymphs and the Mis- 
tresses do they not pour libations of wine, nor do they pour them 
on the common altar of all the gods. The sacrifices are under the 
charge of the Priest, who holds office for a month, and of the 
Soothsayers and Libation-bearers, also of the Guide, the Flute- 

ii player, and the Woodman. The words which it is customary to 
utter at the libations in the Prytaneum, or the hymns which they 
sing, it would not be right for me to insert here. 7. But they 
pour libations not only to the Greek gods, but also to the god 
who is in Libya, and to Ammonian Hera and to Parammon. 
Parammon is a surname of Hermes. It is known that they 
have consulted the oracle in Libya from the most ancient times, 
and in the sanctuary of Amnion there are altars dedicated by 
Eleans : on them are inscribed the questions which the Eleans 
asked, the answers given by the god, and the names of the men 

12 who came to the shrine of Ammon from Elis. The Eleans also 
pour libations to all the heroes and wives of heroes who are 
honoured in the land of Elis and among the Aetolians. 8. All 
that they sing in the Prytaneum is in the Doric dialect, but they 
do not say who composed the songs. The Eleans have also a 
banqueting room : it is within the Prytaneum, opposite the chamber 
in which is the hearth. In this room they feast the Olympic 
victors. 

XVI 

1. It remains to describe the temple of Hera and the note- 
worthy things which it contains. It is said by the Eleans that the 
temple was founded by the people of Scillus, one of the cities in 
Triphylia, about eight years after Oxylus acquired the kingdom of 
Elis. The style of the temple is Doric, and pillars run all round 
it : in the back chamber one of the two pillars is of oak. The length 
of the temple is <a hundred and> sixty-three feet : <its breadth> is 
not less than <sixty-one>. Who the architect was they do not 
remember. 

2 2. Every fourth year the Sixteen Women weave a robe for Hera : 
and the same women also hold games called the Heraea. The 
games consist of a race between virgins. The virgins are not all of 
the same age ; but the youngest run first, the next in age run next, and 

3 the eldest virgins run last of all. They run thus : their hair hangs 
down, they wear a shirt that reaches to a little above the knee, 
the right shoulder is bare to the breast. The course assigned to 
them for the contest is the Olympic stadium ; but the course is 
shortened by about a sixth of the stadium. The winners receive 



chs. xv-xvn THE SIXTEEN WOMEN 261 

crowns of olive and a share of the cow which is sacrificed to Hera ; 
moreover, they are allowed to dedicate statues of themselves with 
their names engraved on them. The handmaids of the Sixteen 
Women who preside at the games are also, like them, matrons. 
3. They trace the origin of the games of the virgins, like those 4 
of the men, to antiquity, saying that Hippodamia, out of gratitude 
to Hera for her marriage with Pelops, assembled the Sixteen 
Women, and along with them arranged the Heraean games for the 
first time. They relate, too, that Chloris, daughter of Amphion, was 
victorious : she was the only woman left of her family, but they say 
that there was also one male survivor. I have stated my views as to 
the children of Niobe in the section on Argos. 4. They tell another 5 
story about the Sixteen Women as follows. They say that when 
Damophon was tyrant of Pisa he did much grievous mischief to the 
Eleans ; but on his death the Pisans disclaimed, as a state, any 
share in his wrongdoings, and the Eleans also were content to 
forgive and forget. So from each of the sixteen cities which still 
existed at that time in Elis the Eleans chose one woman, the 
eldest and most distinguished in rank and reputation, to settle the 
differences. The cities from which they chose the women were 6 
Elis .... The women from these cities made peace between the 
Pisans and Eleans. Afterwards they were also entrusted with the 
celebration of the Heraean games and with the weaving of the robe 
for Hera. 5. The Sixteen Women also get up two choruses : one 
they call the chorus of Physcoa, and the other the chorus of Hippo- 
damia. They say that this Physcoa was a native of the Vale of Elis, 7 
and that the name of the township where she dwelt was Orthia. 
They relate that Dionysus loved her, and that she bore him a son 
Narcaeus, who when he grew up made war on the neighbouring 
peoples, and rose to a great pitch of power, and moreover founded 
a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Narcaea. They say that Narcaeus 
and Physcoa were the first to pay reverence to Dionysus. So 
amongst the honours which Physcoa receives is a chorus named after 
her and arranged by the Sixteen Women. The Eleans still keep up 
<the old number of the women>, though some of the cities <have 
ceased to exist> ; and as they are divided into eight tribes they 
choose two women from each tribe. Neither the Sixteen Women 8 
nor the umpires discharge their functions before they have purified 
themselves with a pig suited for purification and with water. The 
purification takes place at the fountain Piera. This spring lies on 
the level road between Olympia and Elis. 

XVII 

1. In the temple of Hera there is an image of Zeus. The 
image of Hera is seated on a throne, and he is standing beside her 



262 HERMES OF PRAXITELES bk. v. elis i 

wearing a beard and with a helmet on his head. The workmanship 
of these images is rude. Next to them are the Seasons seated on 
thrones, a work of Smilis of Aegina. Beside them stands an image 
of Themis, as mother of the Seasons : it is a work of Doryclidas, 
a Lacedaemonian by birth, but a pupil of Dipoenus and Scyllis. 

2 The Hesperides, five in number, are by Theocles, also a Lace- 
daemonian, son of Hegylus ; he, too, is said to have studied under 
Scyllis and Dipoenus. The image of Athena, with a helmet on her 
head, and carrying a spear and shield, is said to be a work of 
Medon, a Lacedaemonian : they say that Medon was a brother of 

3 Doryclidas, and was taught by the same masters. There are also 
images of the Maid and Demeter and Apollo and Artemis : the 
two former are seated opposite each other, and the two latter are 
standing opposite each other. Here, too, are Latona and Fortune 
and Dionysus and a winged Victory : I cannot tell who made 
these images, but they seem to me to be also extremely ancient. 
The images I have enumerated are of ivory and gold. But after- 
wards they dedicated other images in the Heraeum : Hermes bearing 
the babe Dionysus, a work of Praxiteles in stone ; and a bronze 

4 Aphrodite by Cleon, a Sicyonian. Cleon's master, Antiphanes by 
name, was of the school of Periclytus, and Periclytus was a pupil of 
Polyclitus the Argive. A gilded child, naked, is seated before the 
image of Aphrodite : the artist who fashioned it was Boethus of 
Chalcedon. Hither were brought from the so-called Philippeum 
other statues of gold and ivory : Eurydice, Philip's . . . 

5 2. . . . There is a chest made of cedar- wood, and on it are 
wrought figures, some of ivory, some of gold, and some of the cedar- 
wood itself. In this chest Cypselus, who became tyrant of Corinth, 
was hidden by his mother when at his birth the Bacchids made 
diligent search for him. As a thankoffering for his escape his 
descendants, the Cypselids, dedicated the chest in Olympia. Chests 
were called kupselai by the Corinthians of that time, and it was from 

6 this circumstance, they say, that the child got the name of Cypselus. 
3. Most of the figures on the chest have inscriptions attached to 
them in the ancient letters : some of the inscriptions run straight 
on, but others are in the form which the Greeks call boustrophedon. 
It is this : the second line turns round from the end of the first as 
in the double race-course. Moreover, the inscriptions on the chest 
are written in winding lines which it is hard to make out. 

7 4. If we begin our survey from below, the first field on the 
chest exhibits the following scenes. Oenomaus is pursuing Pelops, 
who has Hippodamia : each of them has two horses, but the horses 
of Pelops are winged. Next is represented the house of Amphi- 
araus, and some old woman or other carrying the babe Amphilochus : 
before the house stands Eriphyle with the necklace ; and beside 
her are her daughters Eurydice and Demonassa, and a naked boy, 



chs. xvii-xviii CHEST OF CYPSELUS 263 

Alcmaeon. But Asius in his epic represents Alcmena also as a 8 
daughter of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. Baton, who is driving the 
chariot of Amphiaraus, holds the reins in one hand and a spear 
in the other. Amphiaraus has one foot already on the chariot and 
his sword drawn, and is turning round to Eriphyle in a transport of 
rage <as if he could hardly> keep his hands off her. After the 9 
house of Amphiaraus there are the funeral games of Pelias, and the 
spectators watching the competitors. Hercules is represented seated 
on a chair, and behind him is a woman : an inscription is wanting 
to tell who this woman is, but she is playing on a Phrygian, not a 
Greek flute. Chariots drawn by pairs of horses are being driven by 
Pisus, son of Perieres, by Asterion, son of Cometes (Asterion is said 
to have been one of those who sailed in the Argo), by Pollux, by 
Admetus, and also by Euphemus. Euphemus is said by the poets 
to have been a son of Poseidon, and he sailed with Jason to Colchis. 
He it is who is winning in the two-horse chariot-race. The bold 10 
boxers are Admetus and Mopsus, son of Ampyx : between them a 
man stands fluting, just as it is now the custom to play the flute when 
the competitors in the pentathlum are leaping. Jason and Peleus are 
wrestling on even terms. Eurybotas, too, is represented throwing 
the quoit : no doubt he was some famous quoit-thrower. A foot-race 
is being run between Melanion, Neotheus, Phalareus, Argeus, and 
Iphiclus. The last is victorious, and Acastus is handing him the 
crown. He may be the father of the Protesilaus who went with the 
army to Ilium. There are also tripods, no doubt prizes for the " 
victors ; and there are the daughters of Pelias, though Alcestis 
alone has her name written beside her. Iolaus, who voluntarily 
shared in the labours of Hercules, is represented victorious in the 
four-horse chariot-race. Here the funeral games of Pelias stop. 
Next we see Hercules shooting the hydra (the beast in the river 
Amymone), and Athena is standing beside him as he shoots. As 
Hercules is easily recognised both by the subject and his figure, his 
name is not written beside him. Phineus, the Thracian, is repre- 
sented, and the sons of Boreas are chasing the harpies from him. 

XVIII 

1. In the second field on the chest we will begin to go round 
from the left. A woman is represented carrying a white boy asleep 
on her right arm : on her other arm she has a black boy who is like 
one that sleeps : the feet of both boys are turned different ways. The 
inscriptions show, what it is easy to see without them, that the boys 
are Death and Sleep, and that Night is nurse to both. A comely 2 
woman is punishing an ill-favoured one, throttling her with one hand 
and with the other smiting her with a rod. It is Justice who thus 
treats Injustice. Two other women are pounding with pestles in 



264 CHEST OF CYPSELUS bk. v. elis r 

mortars : they are thought to be skilled in drugs, but there is no 
inscription at them. The man followed by the woman is explained 
by the hexameters, which run thus : 

Idas is leading back the daughter of Evenus, fair-ankled Marpessa, 
Whom Apollo snatched from him, and she follows nothing loath. 

3 There is a man clad in a tunic : in his right hand he holds a 
cup, and in the left a necklace, and Alcmena is taking hold of 
them. This is to illustrate the Greek tale that Zeus in the likeness 
of Amphitryo lay with Alcmena. Menelaus, clad in a breastplate, 
and with a sword in his hand, is advancing to slay Helen : the scene 
is clearly laid at the taking of Ilium. Medea is seated on a chair : 
Jason stands on her right and Aphrodite on her left ; and beside 
them is an inscription : 

Jason weds Medea, for Aphrodite bids him do so. 

4 The Muses, too, are represented singing, and Apollo is leading the 
song ; and there is an inscription at them : 

This is the son of Latona, the prince, far-shooting Apollo ; 

And round him the Muses, a lovely choir, and them he is leading. 

Atlas is upholding on his shoulders, as the story has it, heaven 
and earth ; and he bears also the apples of the Hesperides. Who 
the man with the sword is that is coming towards Atlas there is no 
writing beside him to show, but every one will recognise Hercules. 
There is an inscription at this group also : 

This is Atlas bearing the heaven, but the apples he will let go. 

5 There is also Ares clad in armour, leading Aphrodite : the inscription 
at him is Enyalius. Thetis, too, is represented as a maid : 
Peleus is taking hold of her, and from the hand of Thetis a snake is 
darting at him. The sisters of Medusa are represented with wings 
pursuing Perseus, who is flying through the air. The name of 
Perseus alone is inscribed. 

6 2. Armies fill the third field of the chest : most of the men are 
on foot, but some are riding in two-horse chariots. By the attitudes 
of the soldiers you can guess that though they are advancing to 
battle, they will recognise and greet each other as friends. Two 
explanations are given by the guides. Some of them say that they 
are the Aetolians under Oxylus, and the ancient Eleans, and that 
they are meeting in recollection of their old kinship, and with mutual 
signs of good-will. Others say the armies are advancing to the 
encounter, and that they are the Pylians and Arcadians about to fight 

7 beside the city of Phea and the river Jardanus. But it is incredible 
that Cypselus' ancestor, who was a Corinthian, and had the 



chs. xviii-xix CHEST OF CYPSELUS 265 

chest made for himself, should have voluntarily passed over all 
Corinthian history, and should have caused to be wrought on the 
chest only foreign scenes, and scenes, too, which were not famous. 
The following conjecture suggested itself to me. Cypselus and his 
forefathers came originally from Gonussa, the town above Sicyon, 
and Melas, son of Antasus, was an ancestor of theirs. But, as I have 8 
said in my account of Corinth, Aletes refused to allow Melas and 
his host to enter and dwell in the land, for he was alarmed by an 
oracle which he had received from Delphi, till at last by coaxing and 
wheedling, and returning with prayers and entreaties as often as he 
was driven away, Melas extracted a permission from the reluctant 
Aletes. We may surmise that it is this army which is represented 
by the figures wrought on the chest. 

XIX 

1. On the fourth field of the chest as you go round from the 
left there is Boreas with Orithyia, whom he has snatched away : 
instead of feet he has the tails of snakes. There is also the combat 
of Hercules with Geryon : Geryon is three men joined together. 
There is Theseus with a lyre, and beside him Ariadne grasping a 
crown. Achilles and Memnon are fighting, and their mothers are 
standing beside them. There is Melanion, too, and beside him 2 
Atalanta with a fawn. Hector is fighting Ajax according to chal- 
lenge, and between them stands Strife, a most hideous hag. In his 
picture of the battle at the Greek ships, which may be seen in the 
sanctuary of Ephesian Artemis, Calliphon of Samos represented 
Strife in a similar way. On the chest are the Dioscuri, one of them 3 
beardless still, and between them is Helen. Aethra, the daughter 
of Pittheus, clad in black raiment, is cast on the ground under the 
feet of Helen. Attached to the group is an inscription consisting 
of a single hexameter verse with the addition of one word : 

The two sons of Tyndareus are carrying Helen away, 

and are dragging Aethra 
From Athens. 

Iphidamas, son of Antenor, is lying on the ground, and Coon 4 
is defending him against Agamemnon. Terror, a male figure with 
a lion's head, is depicted on Agamemnon's shield. Above the corpse 
of Iphidamas is an inscription : 

This is Iphidamas, Coon is fighting for him ; 

and on the shield of Agamemnon : 

This is the Terror of mortals : he who holds him is Agamemnon. 

Hermes is leading to Alexander, son of Priam, the goddesses to be 5 



266 CHEST OF CYPSELUS ek. v. elis i 



judged by him touching their beauty. This group also has an 
inscription : 

This is Hermes : he is showing Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite 
To Alexander, to judge of their beauty. 

I do not know for what reason Artemis is represented with wings on 
her shoulders : in her right hand she grasps a leopard, and in the 
other hand a lion. Ajax is represented dragging Cassandra from 
the image of Athena ; and there is an inscription at him : 

Ajax the Locrian is dragging Cassandra from Athena. 

6 There are also the sons of Oedipus : Polynices has fallen on his 
knee, and Eteocles is rushing at him. Behind Polynices stands a 
female figure with teeth as cruel as a wild beast's, and the nails of her 
fingers are hooked : an inscription beside her declares that she is 
Doom, implying that Polynices is carried off by fate, and that 
Eteocles has justly met his end. Dionysus is reclining in a cave: 
he has a beard and a golden cup, and is clad in a tunic that 
reaches to his feet : round about him are vines and apple-trees and 
pomegranate-trees. 

7 2. The uppermost field, for the fields are five in number, presents 
no inscription, and we are left to conjecture the meaning of the 
reliefs. There is a woman in a grotto sleeping with a man upon a 
bed : we supposed them to be Ulysses and Circe, judging both from 
the number of the handmaids in front of the grotto, and from the 
work they were doing ; for the women are four in number, and are 
doing the works which Homer has described. There is a Centaur 
not with all his legs those of a horse, but with his forelegs those of 

8 a man. Next are chariots drawn by pairs of horses, with women 
standing in them : the horses have golden wings, and a man is 
giving arms to one of the women. This scene is conjecturally 
referred to the death of Patroclus, it being supposed that the 
women in the chariots are Nereids, and that Thetis is receiving 
the arms from Hephaestus. Besides, the man who is giving the 
arms is not strong on his feet, and behind follows a servant with a 

9 pair of fire-tongs. As to the Centaur, it is said that he is Chiron 
who, having quitted this mortal world, and having been found 
worthy to dwell with gods, has yet come to soothe the grief of 
Achilles. As to the maidens in the mule-car, one holding the 
reins, the other with a veil on her head, they believe them to be 
Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, and the handmaid driving to the 
washing-troughs. The man shooting at Centaurs, some of whom 
he has already slain, is clearly Hercules, and the scene is one of his 
exploits. 

io Who the craftsman was that made the chest we were quite un- 
able to conjecture. As to the inscriptions on it, though they may 



chs. xix-xx PILLAR OF OENOMAUS 267 

perhaps be by a different poet, yet on the whole I inclined to guess 
that they are by Eumelus the Corinthian, chiefly on the ground of 
the processional hymn which he composed for Delos. 

XX 

1. There are here other offerings also : a small couch mostly 
adorned with ivory ; the quoit of Iphitus ; and the table on which 
the victors' crowns are displayed. The couch is said to have been 
a plaything of Hippodamia. On the quoit of Iphitus is inscribed 
the truce which the Eleans proclaim at the Olympic festival : the 
inscription is not in a straight line, but the letters run round the 
quoit in a circle. The table is made of ivory and gold : it is a work 2 
of Colotes, who is said to have been a native of Heraclea. But those 
who have made a special study of the history of the sculptors declare 
that he was a Parian, a pupil of Pasiteles, and that Pasiteles was 
himself taught . . . And there are Hera and Zeus, and the Mother 
of the Gods, and Hermes, and Apollo with Artemis. Behind 
these is represented the celebration of the games. On the 3 
one side there are Aesculapius and Health, one of his daughters, 
also Ares, and beside him Contest ; and on the other side there 
are Pluto and Dionysus, Proserpine and nymphs, one of them 
carrying a ball : as to the key which Pluto holds, they say that what 
is called hell is locked up by Pluto, and that no one will come up 
out of it again. 

2. I ought not to pass over a story which Aristarchus, the guide 4 
at Olympia, told. He said that in his time, when the Eleans were 
repairing the dilapidated roof of the Heraeum, the wounded corpse 
of a foot-soldier was found between the ceiling and the roof, and 
that this soldier had taken part in the battle which the Eleans 
fought against the Lacedaemonians in the Altis. For the Eleans 5 
defended themselves from the roofs of the sanctuaries and from 
every high place. At all events this man, it seemed to us, must 
have crept in here faint with his wounds ; and after he expired, his 
body being under complete cover would suffer neither from summer 
heat nor winter frost. Aristarchus added that they carried the dead 
man out of the Altis and buried him with his arms. 

3. What the Eleans call the pillar of Oenomaus is as you go 
from the great altar to the sanctuary of Zeus : on the left there are 
four pillars with a roof on them. The structure has been erected 
in order to protect a wooden pillar which is decayed by time and 
is kept together chiefly by bands. This pillar stood, they say, in 
the house of Oenomaus, and when the house was struck by lightning 
the fire which destroyed all the rest of the house spared this pillar 
alone. A bronze tablet in front of it contains the following inscrip- 7 
tion in elegiacs : 



2 68 METROUM PHILIPPEUM bk. v. elis i 



Stranger, a remnant am I of a famous house, for a pillar 

Ages ago was I in the mansion of Oenomaus. 
But now by the temple of Zeus I lie in these bands as you see me. 

Honoured am I ; and the deadly flame of fire did not devour me. 

8 4. The following incident occurred in my time. A Roman 
senator had won an Olympic victory, and desiring to bequeath as 
a memorial of his victory a bronze statue with an inscription, he 
dug to make a foundation ; and when the excavation was carried 
very near to the pillar of Oenomaus, the diggers found there fragments 
of arms and bridles and curb-chains. I saw them excavated myself. 

9 5. A small temple in the Doric style still preserves its ancient 
name of Metroum (' sanctuary of the Mother '). It contains, not an 
image of the Mother of the Gods, but statues of Roman emperors. 
It is within the Altis. Also there is a round building named the 
Philippeum, on the top of which is a bronze poppy to hold together 

10 the beams. This building is on the left of the exit which is at 
the Prytaneum. It is made of burnt bricks and surrounded by 
pillars. It was built for Philip after the fall of Greece at Chaeronea. 
Here are statues of Philip and Alexander, also of i\myntas, the 
father of Philip. These are also by Leochares, and are made of 
ivory and gold, like the statues of Olympias and Eurydice. 

XXI 

1. I will now proceed to describe the statues and the dedicatory 
offerings, but I think it best not to mix up the descriptions of them 
together. For although on the Acropolis at Athens the statues and 
everything else are all alike dedicatory offerings, it is not so in the 
Altis, where, while some of the objects are dedicated to the honour 
of the gods, the statues of the victors are merely one of the prizes 
assigned to the successful competitors. The statues I will mention 
afterwards, but first I will turn to the dedicatory offerings and go 
over the most remarkable of them. 

2 2. On the way from the Metroum to the stadium there is on 
the left, at the foot of Mount Cronius, a terrace of stone close to 
the mountain, and steps lead up through the terrace. At the 
terrace stand bronze images of Zeus. These images were made 
from the fines imposed on athletes who wantonly violated the rules 

3 of the games : they are called Zanes (Zeuses) by the natives. At 
first six were set up in the ninety-eighth Olympiad ; for Eupolus, a 
Thessalian, bribed the boxers who presented themselves, to wit, 
Agetor, an Arcadian, Prytanis of Cyzicus, and Phormio of Halicar- 
nassus, the last of whom had been victorious in the preceding 
Olympiad. They say that this was the first offence committed by 
athletes against the rules of the games, and Eupolus and the men 
he bribed were the first who were fined by the Eleans. Two of the 



chs. xx-xxi THE ZANES 269 

images are by Cleon of Sicyon : I do not know who made the next 
four. These images, with the exception of the third and fourth, 4 
bear inscriptions in elegiac verse. The purport of the verses on 
the first is that an Olympic victory is to be gained, not by money, 
but by fleetness of foot and strength of body. The verses on the 
second declare that the image has been set up in honour of the 
deity and by the piety of the Eleans, and to be a terror to athletes 
who transgress. The sense of the inscription on the fifth image is 
a general praise of the Eleans, with a particular reference to the 
punishment of the boxers ; and on the sixth and last it is stated 
that the images are a warning to all the Greeks not to give money 
for the purpose of gaining an Olympic victory. 

3. After Eupolus they say that Callippus, an Athenian, a com- 5 
petitor in the pentathlum, bribed his antagonists, and that this hap- 
pened in the hundred and twelfth Olympiad. A fine being imposed 
on Callippus and his antagonists by the Eleans, the Athenians sent 
Hyperides to persuade them to remit the fine. As the Eleans 
refused this favour, the Athenians treated them with great disdain, 
neither paying the money nor attending the games, till the god at 
Delphi declared that he would give them no oracle about anything 
till they paid the fine to the Eleans. So they paid it, and six more 6 
images were made for Zeus, inscribed with verses not a whit better 
than those about the punishment of Eupolus. The purport of the 
first inscription is that the images were set up in consequence of an 
oracle of the god who respected the decision of the Eleans touching 
the pentathletes. The inscriptions on the second and third images 
are in praise of the Eleans for punishing the pentathletes. The fourth 7 
declares that the Olympic games are a contest of manliness and not 
of money : the inscription on the fifth explains for what cause the 
images were set up ; and the sixth recalls the oracle which was sent 
to the Athenians from Delphi. 

4. The images next to those I have enumerated are two in 8 
number, and were dedicated from the proceeds of a fine imposed on 
wrestlers. [The names of the wrestlers neither I nor the Elean 
guides knew.] These images also have inscriptions : the first of 
them states that the Rhodians paid money to Olympian Zeus on 
account of the knavery of a wrestler; and the other declares that 
the image was made from the fines imposed on men who had wrestled 
for bribes. 5. Furthermore, as to these particular athletes, the Elean 9 
guides say that it was in the hundred and seventy-eighth Olympiad 
that Eudelus accepted a bribe from Philostratus, and that this Philo- 
stratus was a Rhodian. I found that the Elean register of the Olym- 
pic victors was at variance with this statement. For in that register 
it is said that Strato, an Alexandrian, in the hundred and seventy- 
eighth Olympiad, was victorious on the same day in the pancratium 
and in wrestling. Alexandria, on the Canopic mouth of the Nile, 



z"jo THE ZANES bk. v. elis i 

was founded by Alexander, son of Philip ; but it is said that there 

10 was a small Egyptian town, Rhacotis, on the spot before. Three men 
before Strato and three after him are known to have won the crown 
of wild olive both for the pancratium and for wrestling. The first of 
them was Caprus of Elis, and twowere Greeks from beyond the Aegean, 
namely, Aristomenes, a Rhodian, and Protophanes of Magnesia on 
the Lethaeus. The three after Strato were Marion, of the same 
city as Strato, Aristeas of Stratonicea (anciently both the district 
and the city of Stratonicea were called Chrysaoris), and seventhly, 
Nicostratus, from Cilicia on the sea, but he was only a Cilician in 

1 1 name. This Nicostratus was a native of Prymnessus in Phrygia : 
his family was respectable, but in his infancy he was kidnapped 
by robbers, who took him to Aegeae and sold him to some one. 
Afterwards his master had a dream : he thought that a lion's cub lay 
under the pallet on which Nicostratus was asleep. So when he 
came to manhood Nicostratus gained victories at Olympia in the 
pancratium and in wrestling, and he gained other victories else- 
where. 

12 Amongst others who were afterwards fined by the Eleans was 
a boxer of Alexandria in the two hundred and eighteenth Olympiad. 
The name of the man thus fined was Apollonius, and his surname 
was Rhantes : the use of surnames is apparently an Alexandrian 

13 custom. He was the first Egyptian condemned by the Eleans for 
misconduct, and he was convicted, not of having given or taken a 
bribe, but of the following misdemeanour in respect to the games. 
He did not appear at the appointed time, and therefore the Eleans, 
in accordance with the law, had no choice but to exclude him from 
the games. For the excuse he offered, that he had been detained 
by contrary winds amongst the Cyclades, was proved to be a lie by 
Heraclides, himself an Alexandrian, who showed that the delay was 

14 caused by his stopping to make money at the games in Ionia. So 
Apollonius and any other of the boxers who did not come at the 
appointed time were excluded from the games by the Eleans, who 
allowed the crown to go to Heraclides without a contest. Then 
Apollonius put on the gloves as if for a fight, and running at 
Heraclides began to maul him, though Heraclides already had the 
wild olive on his head, and had taken refuge amongst the umpires. 

15 His levity was to cost him dear. 6. There are also two other 
images, works of the present age. For in the two hundred and 
twenty-sixth Olympiad thay found that boxers who were contending 
for victory had made a private monetary agreement. For this a fine was 
inflicted; and of the images of Zeus which were made, the one stands 
on the left of the entrance into the stadium, and the other on the 
right. The name of one of these boxers was Didas, and the name 
of the one who gave the money was Sarapammon. They both 
hailed from the same county, Arsinoites, the newest county in 



chs. xxi-xxn THE ZANES 271 



Egypt. 7. It is strange in any case that a man should have no 16 
respect for the god of Olympia, and should give or take a bribe for 
the contest ; but it is stranger still that one of the Eleans themselves 
should have dared to do so. It is said, however, that Damonicus, 
an Elean, did so dare in the hundred and ninety-second Olympiad. 
For Polyctor, son of Damonicus, was pitted against Sosander of Smyrna 
(whose father's name was also Sosander), in the wrestling-match, 
and Damonicus was so exceedingly anxious for his son to be 
victorious that he bribed Sosander's father. When this leaked 17 
out the umpires imposed a fine. They did not, however, impose it 
on the sons, but visited their displeasure on the fathers, for it was they 
who were the wrong-doers. Images were made from the fine thus 
levied : one of them is set up in the gymnasium at Elis, the other in 
the Altis in front of the Painted Colonnade, as it is called, because 
anciently there were paintings on the walls. Some name it the 
Colonnade of Echo, for the echo repeats a word seven times or even 
oftener. 

They say that in the two hundred and first Olympiad a 18 
pancratiast of Alexandria, called Sarapion, was so much afraid of his 
antagonists that the day before the pancratium was to come on he 
took to his heels. He is the only man, not to say the only 
Egyptian, who is known to have been fined for cowardice. 

XXII 

1. Such I found to be the causes for which the images enum- 
erated above were erected. There are also images of Zeus 
dedicated by states and by individuals. There is an altar in the 
Altis near the entrance to the stadium. On this altar the Eleans 
do not sacrifice to any of the gods, but it is the custom for the 
trumpeters and heralds to stand on it when they compete. Beside 
this altar is a bronze pedestal