[1.1.1] On the Greek mainland facing the Cyclades Islands and the Aegean Sea the Sunium
promontory stands out from the Attic land. When you have rounded the promontory you see a
harbor and a temple to Athena of Sunium on the peak of the promontory. Farther on is
Laurium, where once the Athenians had silver mines, and a small uninhabited island called
the Island of Patroclus. For a fortification was built on it and a palisade constructed by
Patroclus, who was admiral in command of the Egyptian men-of-war sent by Ptolemy, son of
Ptolemy, son of Lagus, to help the Athenians, when Antigonus, son of Demetrius, was
ravaging their country, which he had invaded with an army, and at the same time was
blockading them by sea with a fleet.1
[1.1.2] The Peiraeus was a parish from early times, though it was not a port before
Themistocles became an archon of the Athenians.1 Their port was Phalerum, for
at this place the sea comes nearest to Athens, and from here men say that Menestheus set
sail with his fleet for Troy, and before him Theseus, when he went to give satisfaction to
Minos for the death of Androgeos. But when Themistocles became archon, since he thought
that the Peiraeus was more conveniently situated for mariners, and had three harbors as
against one at Phalerum, he made it the Athenian port. Even up to my time there were docks
there, and near the largest harbor is the grave of Themistocles. For it is said that the
Athenians repented of their treatment of Themistocles, and that his relations took up his
bones and brought them from Magnesia. And the children of Themistocles certainly returned
and set up in the Parthenon a painting, on which is a portrait of Themistocles. [1.1.3]
The most noteworthy sight in the Peiraeus is a precinct of Athena and Zeus. Both their
images are of bronze; Zeus holds a staff and a Victory, Athena a spear. Here is a portrait
of Leosthenes and of his sons, painted by Arcesilaus. This Leosthenes at the head of the
Athenians and the united Greeks defeated the Macedonians in Boeotia and again outside
Thermopylae forced them into Lamia over against Oeta, and shut them up there.1
The portrait is in the long portico, where stands a market-place for those living near the
sea--those farther away from the harbor have another--but behind the portico near the sea
stand a Zeus and a Demos, the work of Leochares. And by the sea Conon2 built a
sanctuary of Aphrodite, after he had crushed the Lacedaemonian warships off Cnidus in the
Carian peninsula.3 For the Cnidians hold Aphrodite in very great honor, and
they have sanctuaries of the goddess; the oldest is to her as Doritis (Bountiful), the
next in age as Acraea (Of the Height), while the newest is to the Aphrodite called Cnidian
by men generally, but Euploia (Fair Voyage) by the Cnidians themselves.
[1.1.4] The Athenians have also another harbor, at Munychia, with a temple of Artemis
of Munychia, and yet another at Phalerum, as I have already stated, and near it is a
sanctuary of Demeter. Here there is also a temple of Athena Sciras, and one of Zeus some
distance away, and altars of the gods named Unknown, and of heroes, and of the children of
Theseus and Phalerus; for this Phalerus is said by the Athenians to have sailed with Jason
to Colchis. There is also an altar of Androgeos, son of Minos, though it is called that of
Heros; those, however, who pay special attention to the study of their country's
antiquities know that it belongs to Androgeos.[1.1.5] Twenty stades away is the Coliad
promontory; on to it, when the Persian fleet was destroyed, the wrecks were carried down
by the waves. There is here an image of the Coliad Aphrodite, with the goddesses
Genetyllides (Goddesses of Birth), as they are called. And I am of opinion that the
goddesses of the Phocaeans in Ionia, whom they call Gennaides, are the same as those at
Colias. On the way from Phalerum to Athens there is a temple of Hera with neither doors
nor roof. Men say that Mardonius, son of Gobryas, burnt it. But the image there to-day is,
as report goes, the work of Alcamenes1 So that this, at any rate, cannot have
been damaged by the Persians.
1,1,1,n1. c. 267-263 B.C.
1,1,2,n1. 493 B.C.
1,1,3,n1. 323 B.C.
1,1,3,n2. fl. c. 350 B.C.
1,1,3,n3. 394 B.C.
1,1,5,n1. fl. 440-400 B.C.
[1.2.1] On entering the city there is a monument to Antiope the Amazon. This Antiope,
Pindar says, was carried of by Peirithous and Theseus, but Hegias of Troezen gives the
following account of her. Heracles was besieging Themiscyra on the Thermodon, but could
not take it, but Antiope, falling in love with Theseus, who was aiding Heracles in his
campaign, surrendered the stronghold. Such is the account of Hegias. But the Athenians
assert that when the Amazons came, Antiope was shot by Molpadia, while Molpadia was killed
by Theseus. To Molpadia also there is a monument among the Athenians.
[1.2.2] As you go up from the Peiraeus you see the ruins of the walls which Conon
restored after the naval battle off Cnidus. For those built by Themistocles after the
retreat of the Persians were destroyed during the rule of those named the Thirty.1
Along the road are very famous graves, that of Menander, son of Diopeithes, and a cenotaph
of Euripides. He him self went to King Archelaus and lies buried in Macedonia; as to the
manner of his death (many have described it), let it be as they say.[1.2.3] So even in his
time poets lived at the courts of kings, as earlier still Anacreon consorted with
Polycrates, despot of Samos, and Aeschylus and Simonides journeyed to Hiero at Syracuse.
Dionysius, afterwards despot in Sicily had Philoxenus at his court, and Antigonus,1
ruler of Macedonia, had Antagoras of Rhodes and Aratus of Soli. But Hesiod and Homer
either failed to win the society of kings or else purposely despised it, Hesiod through
boorishness and reluctance to travel, while Homer, having gone very far abroad,
depreciated the help afforded by despots in the acquisition of wealth in comparison with
his reputation among ordinary men. And yet Homer, too, in his poem makes Demodocus live at
the court of Alcinous, and Agamemnon leave a poet with his wife. Not far from the gates is
a grave, on which is mounted a soldier standing by a horse. Who it is I do not know, but
both horse and soldier were carved by Praxiteles.
[1.2.4] On entering the city there is a building for the preparation of the
processions, which are held in some cases every year, in others at longer intervals. Hard
by is a temple of Demeter, with images of the goddess herself and of her daughter, and of
Iacchus holding a torch. On the wall, in Attic characters, is written that they are works
of Praxiteles. Not far from the temple is Poseidon on horseback, hurling a spear against
the giant Polybotes, concerning whom is prevalent among the Coans the story about the
promontory of Chelone. But the inscription of our time assigns the statue to another, and
not to Poseidon. From the gate to the Cerameicus there are porticoes, and in front of them
brazen statues of such as had some title to fame, both men and women.[1.2.5] One of the
porticoes contains shrines of gods, and a gymnasium called that of Hermes. In it is the
house of Pulytion, at which it is said that a mystic rite was performed by the most
notable Athenians, parodying the Eleusinian mysteries. But in my time it was devoted to
the worship of Dionysus. This Dionysus they call Melpomenus (Minstrel), on the same
principle as they call Apollo Musegetes (Leader of the Muses). Here there are images of
Athena Paeonia (Healer), of Zeus, of Mnemosyne (Memory) and of the Muses, an Apollo, the
votive offering and work of Eubulides, and Acratus, a daemon attendant upon Apollo; it is
only a face of him worked into the wall. After the precinct of Apollo is a building that
contains earthen ware images, Amphictyon, king of Athens, feasting Dionysus and other
gods. Here also is Pegasus of Eleutherae, who introduced the god to the Athenians. Herein
he was helped by the oracle at Delphi, which called to mind that the god once dwelt in
Athens in the days of Icarius. [1.2.6] Amphictyon won the kingdom thus. It is said that
Actaeus was the first king of what is now Attica. When he died, Cecrops, the son-in-law of
Actaeus, received the kingdom, and there were born to him daughters, Herse, Aglaurus and
Pandrosus, and a son Erysichthon. This son did not become king of the Athenians, but
happened to die while his father lived, and the kingdom of Cecrops fell to Cranaus, the
most powerful of the Athenians. They say that Cranaus had daughters, and among them
Atthis; and from her they call the country Attica, which before was named Actaea. And
Amphictyon, rising up against Cranaus, although he had his daughter to wife, deposed him
from power. Afterwards he himself was banished by Erichthonius and his fellow rebels. Men
say that Erichthonius had no human father, but that his parents were Hephaestus and Earth.
1,2,2,n1. 404-403 B.C.
1,2,3,n1. Antigonus surnamed Gonatas became king of Macedonia in 283 B.C.
[1.3.1] The district of the Cerameicus has its name from the hero Ceramus, he too being
the reputed son of Dionysus and Ariadne. First on the right is what is called the Royal
Portico, where sits the king when holding the yearly office called the kingship. On the
tiling of this portico are images of baked earthenware, Theseus throwing Sciron into the
sea and Day carrying away Cephalus, who they say was very beautiful and was ravished by
Day, who was in love with him. His son was Phaethon,<afterwards ravished by
Aphrodite>. . . and made a guardian of her temple. Such is the tale told by Hesiod,
among others, in his poem on women. [1.3.2] Near the portico stand Conon, Timotheus his
son and Evagoras 1 King of Cyprus, who caused the Phoenician men-of-war to be
given to Conon by King Artaxerxes. This he did as an Athenian whose ancestry connected him
with Salamis, for he traced his pedigree back to Teucer and the daughter of Cinyras. Here
stands Zeus, called Zeus of Freedom, and the Emperor Hadrian, a benefactor to all his
subjects and especially to the city of the Athenians. [1.3.3] A portico is built behind
with pictures of the gods called the Twelve. On the wall opposite are painted Theseus,
Democracy and Demos. The picture represents Theseus as the one who gave the Athenians
political equality. By other means also has the report spread among men that Theseus
bestowed sovereignty upon the people, and that from his time they continued under a
democratical government, until Peisistratus rose up and became despot.1 But
there are many false beliefs current among the mass of mankind, since they are ignorant of
historical science and consider trustworthy whatever they have heard from childhood in
choruses and tragedies; one of these is about Theseus, who in fact himself became king,
and afterwards, when Menestheus was dead, the descendants of Theseus remained rulers even
to the fourth generation. But if I cared about tracing the pedigree I should have included
in the list, besides these, the kings from Melanthus to Cleidicus the son of Aesimides.
[1.3.4] Here is a picture of the exploit, near Mantinea, of the Athenians who were sent
to help the Lacedaemonians.1 Xenophon among others has written a history of the
whole war--the taking of the Cadmea, the defeat of the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, how the
Boeotians invaded the Peloponnesus,and the contingent sent to the Lacedacmonians from the
Athenians. In the picture is a cavalry battle, in which the most famous men are, among the
Athenians, Grylus the son of Xenophon, and in the Boeotian cavalry, Epaminondas the
Theban. These pictures were painted for the Athenians by Euphranor, and he also wrought
the Apollo surnamed Patrous (Paternal) in the temple hard by. And in front of the temple
is one Apollo made by Leochares; the other Apollo, called Averter of evil, was made by
Calamis. They say that the god received this name because by an oracle from Delphi he
stayed the pestilence which afflicted the Athenians at the time of the Peloponnesian War.2
[1.3.5] Here is built also a sanctuary of the Mother of the gods; the image is by
Pheidias1. Hard by is the council chamber of those called the Five Hundred, who
are the Athenian councillors for a year. In it are a wooden figure of Zeus Counsellor and
an Apollo, the work of Peisias,2 and a Demos by Lyson. The thesmothetae
(lawgivers) were painted by Protogenes3 the Caunian, and Olbiades4
portrayed Callippus, who led the Athenians to Thermopylae to stop the incursion of the
Gauls into Greece.51,3,2,n1. Evagoras was a king of Salamis in Cyprus, who
reigned from about 410 to 374 B.C. He favoured the Athenians, and helped Conon to defeat
the Spartan fleet off Cnidus in 394 B.C.
1,3,3,n1. 560-527 B.C.
1,3,4,n1. 362 B.C.
1,3,4,n2. 430 B.C.
1,3,5,n1. 490-432 B.C.
1,3,5,n2. The dates of these artists are unknown.
1,3,5,n3. A contemporary of Alexander the Great.
1,3,5,n4. An unknown painter.
1,3,5,n5. 279 B.C.
[1.4.1] These Gauls inhabit the most remote portion of Europe, near a great sea that is
not navigable to its extremities, and possesses ebb and flow and creatures quite unlike
those of other seas. Through their country flows the river Eridanus, on the bank of which
the daughters of Helius (Sun) are supposed to lament the fate that befell their brother
Phaethon. It was late before the name "Gauls" came into vogue; for anciently
they were called Celts both amongst themselves and by others. An army of them mustered and
turned towards the Ionian Sea, dispossessed the Illyrian people, all who dwelt as far as
Macedonia with the Macedonians themselves, and overran Thessaly. And when they drew near
to Thermopylae, the Greeks in general made no move to prevent the inroad of the
barbarians, since previously they had been severely defeated by Alexander and Philip.
Further, Antipater and Cassander1 afterwards crushed the Greeks, so that
through weakness each state thought no shame of itself taking no part in the defence of
the country.[1.4.2] But the Athenians, although they were more exhausted than any of the
Greeks by the long Macedonian war, and had been generally unsuccessful in their battles,
nevertheless set forth to Thermopylae with such Greeks as joined them, having made the
Callippus I mentioned their general. Occupying the pass where it was narrowest, they tried
to keep the foreigners from entering Greece; but the Celts, having discovered the path by
which Ephialtes of Trachis once led the Persians, over whelmed the Phocians stationed
there and crossed Oeta unperceived by the Greeks.1 [1.4.3] Then it was that the
Athenians put the Greeks under the greatest obligation, and although outflanked offered
resistance to the foreigners on two sides. But the Athenians on the fleet suffered most,
for the Lamian gulf is a swamp near Thermopylae--the reason being, I think, the hot water
that here runs into the sea. These then were more distressed; for taking the Greeks on
board they were forced to sail through the mud weighted as they were by arms and men.
[1.4.4] So they tried to save Greece in the way described, but the Gauls, now south of the
Gates, cared not at all to capture the other towns, but were very eager to sack Delphi and
the treasures of the god. They were opposed by the Delphians themselves and the Phocians
of the cities around Parnassus; a force of Aetolians also joined the defenders, for the
Aetolians at this time were pre-eminent for their vigorous activity. When the forces
engaged, not only were thunderbolts and rocks broken off from Parnassus hurled against the
Gauls, but terrible shapes as armed warriors haunted the foreigners. They say that two of
them, Hyperochus and Amadocus, came from the Hyperboreans, and that the third was Pyrrhus
son of Achilles. Because of this help in battle the Delphians sacrifice to Pyrrhus as to a
hero, although formerly they held even his tomb in dishonor, as being that of an
enemy.[1.4.5] The greater number of the Gauls crossed over to Asia by ship and plundered
its coasts. Some time after, the inhabitants of Pergamus, that was called of old
Teuthrania, drove the Gauls into it from the sea. Now this people occupied the country on
the farther side of the river Sangarius capturing Ancyra, a city of the Phrygians, which
Midas son of Gordius had founded in former time. And the anchor, which Midas found,1
was even as late as my time in the sanctuary of Zeus, as well as a spring called the
Spring of Midas, water from which they say Midas mixed with wine to capture Silenus. Well
then, the Pergameni took Ancyra and Pessinus which lies under Mount Agdistis, where they
say that Attis lies buried.[1.4.6] They have spoils from the Gauls, and a painting which
portrays their deed against them. The land they dwell in was, they say, in ancient times
sacred to the Cabeiri, and they claim that they are themselves Arcadians, being of those
who crossed into Asia with Telephus. Of the wars that they have waged no account has been
published to the world, except that they have accomplished three most notable
achievements; the subjection of the coast region of Asia, the expulsion of the Gauls
therefrom, and the exploit of Telephus against the followers of Agamemnon, at a time when
the Greeks after missing Troy, were plundering the Meian plain thinking it Trojan
territory. Now I will return from my digression.
1,4,1,n1. Antipater and Cassander were successors of Alexander the Great.
1,4,2,n1. 480 B.C.
1,4,5,n1. A legend invented to explain the name "Ancyra," which means anchor.
[1.5.1] Near to the Council Chamber of the Five Hundred is what is called Tholos (Round
House); here the presidents sacrifice, and there are a few small statues made of silver.
Farther up stand statues of heroes, from whom afterwards the Athenian tribes received
their names. Who the man was who established ten tribes instead of four, and changed their
old names to new ones--all this is told by Herodotus.1 [1.5.2] The eponymoi1--this
is the name given to them--are Hippothoon son of Poseidon and Alope daughter of Cercyon,
Antiochus, one of the children of Heracles borne to him by Meda daughter of Phylas,
thirdly, Ajax son of Telamon, and to the Athenians belongs Leos, who is said to have given
up his daughters, at the command of the oracle, for the safety of the commonwealth. Among
the eponymoi is Erechtheus, who conquered the Eleusinians in battle, and killed their
general, Immaradus the son of Eumolpus. There is Aegeus also and Oeneus the bastard son of
Pandion, and Acamas, one of the children of Theseus.[1.5.3] I saw also among the eponymoi
statues of Cecrops and Pandion, but I do not know who of those names are thus honored. For
there was an earlier ruler Cecrops who took to wife the daughter of Actaeus, and a
later--he it was who migrated to Euboea--son of Erechtheus, son of Pandion, son of
Erichthonius. And there was a king Pandion who was son of Erichthonius, and another who
was son of Cecrops the second. This man was deposed from his kingdom by the Metionidae,
and when he fled to Megara--for he had to wife the daughter of Pylas king of Megara--his
children were banished with him. And Pandion is said to have fallen ill there and died,
and on the coast of the Megarid is his tomb, on the rock called the rock of Athena the
Gannet.[1.5.4] But his children expelled the Metionidae, and returned from banishment at
Megara, and Aegeus, as the eldest, became king of the Athenians. But in rearing daughters
Pandion was unlucky, nor did they leave any sons to avenge him. And yet it was for the
sake of power that he made the marriage alliance with the king of Thrace. But there is no
way for a mortal to overstep what the deity thinks fit to send. They say that Tereus,
though wedded to Procne, dishonored Philomela, thereby transgressing Greek custom, and
further, having mangled the body of the damsel, constrained the women to avenge her. There
is another statue, well worth seeing, of Pandion on the Acropolis.
[1.5.5] These are the Athenian eponymoi who belong to the ancients. And of later date
than these they have tribes named after the following, Attalus1 the Mysian and
Ptolemy the Egyptian,2 and within my own time the emperor Hadrian3,
who was extremely religious in the respect he paid to the deity and contributed very much
to the happiness of his various subjects. He never voluntarily entered upon a war, but he
reduced the Hebrews beyond Syria, who had rebelled.4 As for the sanctuaries of
the gods that in some cases he built from the beginning, in others adorned with offerings
and furniture, and the bounties he gave to Greek cities, and sometimes even to foreigners
who asked him, all these acts are inscribed in his honor in the sanctuary at Athens common
to all the gods.
1,5,1,n1. See v. 66 and 69. The reform took place in 508 B.C.
1,5,2,n1. That is, "those after whom others are named."
1,5,5,n1. This king of Pergamus visited Athens in 200 B.C. in the company of the Roman
ambassadors, and was treated with every mark of respect by the Athenians.
1,5,5,n2. It is uncertain to which of the many kings of Egypt called by this name
Pausanias refers.
1,5,5,n3. 117-138 A.D.
1,5,5,n4. 132 A.D.
[1.6.1] But as to the history of Attalus and Ptolemy, it is more ancient in point of
time, so that tradition no longer remains, and those who lived with these kings for the
purpose of chronicling their deeds fell into neglect even before tradition failed. Where
fore it occurred to me to narrate their deeds also, and how the sovereignty of Egypt, of
the Mysians and of the neighboring peoples fell into the hands of their fathers.
[1.6.2] 1 The Macedonians consider Ptolemy to be the son of Philip, the
son of Amyntas, though putatively the son of Lagus, asserting that his mother was with
child when she was married to Lagus by Philip. And among the distinguished acts of Ptolemy
in Asia they mention that it was he who, of Alexander's companions, was foremost in
succoring him when in danger among the Oxydracae. After the death of Alexander2,
by withstanding those who would have conferred all his empire upon Aridaeus, the son of
Philip, he became chiefly responsible for the division of the various nations into the
kingdoms.[1.6.3] He crossed over to Egypt in person, and killed Cleomenes, whom Alexander
had appointed satrap of that country, considering him a friend of Perdiccas, and therefore
not faithful to himself; and the Macedonians who had been entrusted with the task of
carrying the corpse of Alexander to Aegae, he persuaded to hand it over to him. And he
proceeded to bury it with Macedonian rites in Memphis, but, knowing that Perdiccas would
make war, he kept Egypt garrisoned. And Perdiccas took Aridaeus, son of Philip, and the
boy Alexander, whom Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, had borne to Alexander, to lend color to
the campaign, but really he was plotting to take from Ptolemy his kingdom in Egypt. But
being expelled from Egypt, and having lost his reputation as a soldier, and being in other
respects unpopular with the Macedonians, he was put to death by his body guard.[1.6.4] The
death of Perdiccas immediately raised Ptolemy to power, who both reduced the Syrians and
Phoenicia, and also welcomed Seleucus, son of Antiochus, who was in exile, having been
expelled by Antigonus; he further himself prepared to attack Antigonus. He prevailed on
Cassander, son of Anti pater, and Lysimachus, who was king in Thrace, to join in the war,
urging that Seleucus was in exile and that the growth of the power of Antigonus was
dangerous to them all.[1.6.5] For a time Antigonus pre pared for war, and was by no means
confident of the issue; but on learning that the revolt of Cyrene had called Ptolemy to
Libya, he immediately reduced the Syrians and Phoenicians by a sudden inroad, handed them
over to Demetrius, his son, a man who for all his youth had already a reputation for good
sense, and went down to the Hellespont. But he led his army back without crossing, on
hearing that Demetrius had been overcome by Ptolemy in battle. But Demetrius had not
altogether evacuated the country before Ptolemy, and having surprised a body of Egyptians,
killed a few of them. Then on the arrival of Antigonus Ptolemy did not wait for him but
returned to Egypt.[1.6.6] When the winter was over, Demetrius sailed to Cyprus and
overcame in a naval action Menelaus, the satrap of Ptolemy, and afterwards Ptolemy him
self, who had crossed to bring help. Ptolemy fled to Egypt, where he was besieged by
Antigonus on land and by Demetrius with a fleet. In spite of his extreme peril Ptolemy
saved his empire by making a stand with an army at Pelusium while offering resistance with
warships from the river. Antigonus now abandoned all hope of reducing Egypt in the
circumstances, and dispatched Demetrius against the Rhodians with a fleet and a large
army, hoping, if the island were won, to use it as a base against the Egyptians. But the
Rhodians displayed daring and ingenuity in the face of the besiegers, while Ptolemy helped
them with all the forces he could muster. [1.6.7] Antigonus thus failed to reduce Egypt
or, later, Rhodes, and shortly afterwards he offered battle to Lysimachus, and to
Cassander and the army of Seleucus, lost most of his forces, and was himself killed,
having suffered most by reason of the length of the war with Eumenes. Of the kings who put
down Antigonus I hold that the most wicked was Cassander, who although he had recovered
the throne of Macedonia with the aid of Antigonus, nevertheless came to fight against a
benefactor.[1.6.8] After the death of Antigonus, Ptolemy again reduced the Syrians and
Cyprus, and also restored Pyrrhus to Thesprotia on the mainland. Cyrene rebelled; but
Magas, the son of Berenice (who was at this time married to Ptolemy) captured Cyrene in
the fifth year of the rebellion. If this Ptolemy really was the son of Philip, son of
Amyntas, he must have inherited from his father his passion for women, for, while wedded
to Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater, although he had children he took a fancy to
Berenice, whom Antipater had sent to Egypt with Eurydice. He fell in love with this woman
and had children by her, and when his end drew near he left the kingdom of Egypt to
Ptolemy (from whom the Athenians name their tribe) being the son of Berenice and not of
the daughter of Antipater.
1,6,2,n1. The account which follows deals with the troubled period which came after the
death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The generals Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleucus,
Lysimachus and Cassander quarrelled over the division of the empire.
1,6,2,n2. 323 B.C.
[1.7.1] This Ptolemy fell in love with Arsinoe, his full sister, and married her,
violating herein Macedonian custom, but following that of his Egyptian subjects. Secondly
he put to death his brother Argaeus, who was, it is said, plotting against him; and he it
was who brought down from Memphis the corpse of Alexander. He put to death another brother
also, son of Eurydice, on discovering that he was creating disaffection among the
Cyprians. Then Magas, the half-brother of Ptolemy, who had been entrusted with the
governorship of Cyrene by his mother Berenice--she had borne him to Philip, a Macedonians
but of no note and of lowly origin--induced the people of Cyrene to revolt from Ptolemy
and marched against Egypt.[1.7.2] Ptolemy fortified the entrance into Egypt and awaited
the attack of the Cyrenians. But while on the march Magas was in formed that the
Marmaridae,a tribe of Libyan nomads, had revolted, and thereupon fell back upon Cyrene.
Ptolemy resolved to pursue, but was checked owing to the following circumstance. When he
was preparing to meet the attack of Magas, he engaged mercenaries, including some four
thousand Gauls. Discovering that they were plotting to seize Egypt, he led them through
the river to a deserted island. There they perished at one another's hands or by
famine.[1.7.3] Magas, who was married to Apame, daughter of Antiochus, son of Seleucus,
persuaded Antiochus to break the treaty which his father Seleucus had made with Ptolemy
and to attack Egypt. When Antiochus resolved to attack, Ptolemy dispatched forces against
all the subjects of Antiochus, freebooters to overrun the lands of the weaker, and an army
to hold back the stronger, so that Antiochus never had an opportunity of attacking Egypt.
I have already stated how this Ptolemy sent a fleet to help the Athenians against
Antigonus and the Macedonians, but it did very little to save Athens. His children were by
Arsinoe, not his sister, but the daughter of Lysimachus. His sister who had wedded him
happened to die before this, leaving no issue, and there is in Egypt a district called
Arsinoites after her.
[1.8.1] It is pertinent to add here an account of Attalus, because he too is one of the
Athenian eponymoi. A Macedonian of the name of Docimus, a general of Antigonus, who
afterwards surrendered both himself and his property to Lysimachus, had a Paphlagonian
eunuch called Philetaerus. All that Philetaerus did to further the revolt from Lysimachus,
and how he won over Seleucus, will form an episode in my account of Lysimachus. Attalus,
however, son of Attalus and nephew of Philetaerus, received the kingdom from his cousin
Eumenes, who handed it over. The greatest of his achievements was his forcing the Gauls to
retire from the sea into the country which they still hold.
[1.8.2] After the statues of the eponymoi come statues of gods, Amphiaraus, and Eirene
(Peace) carrying the boy Plutus (Wealth). Here stands a bronze figure of Lycurgus, 1
son of Lycophron, and of Callias, who, as most of the Athenians say, brought about the
peace between the Greeks and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes. 2 Here also is
Demosthenes, whom the Athenians forced to retire to Calauria, the island off Troezen, and
then, after receiving him back, banished again after the disaster at Lamia.[1.8.3] Exiled
for the second time 1 Demosthenes crossed once more to Calauria, and committed
suicide there by taking poison, being the only Greek exile whom Archias failed to bring
back to Antipater and the Macedonians. This Archias was a Thurian who undertook the
abominable task of bringing to Antipater for punishment those who had opposed the
Macedonians before the Greeks met with their defeat in Thessaly. Such was Demosthenes'
reward for his great devotion to Athens. I heartily agree with the remark that no man who
has unsparingly thrown himself into politics trusting in the loyalty of the democracy has
ever met with a happy death.
[1.8.4] Near the statue of Demosthenes is a sanctuary of Ares, where are placed two
images of Aphrodite, one of Ares made by Alcamenes, and one of Athena made by a Parian of
the name of Locrus. There is also an image of Enyo, made by the sons of Praxiteles. About
the temple stand images of Heracles, Theseus, Apollo binding his hair with a fillet, and
statues of Calades,1 who it is said framed laws 2 for the Athenians,
and of Pindar, the statue being one of the rewards the Athenians gave him for praising
them in an ode.[1.8.5] Hard by stand statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed
Hipparchus.1 The reason of this act and the method of its execution have been
related by others; of the figures some were made by Critius2, the old ones
being the work of Antenor. When Xerxes took Athens after the Athenians had abandoned the
city he took away these statues also among the spoils, but they were afterwards restored
to the Athenians by Antiochus.
[1.8.6] Before the entrance of the theater which they call the Odeum (Music Hall) are
statues of Egyptian kings. They are all alike called Ptolemy, but each has his own
surname. For they call one Philometor, and another Philadelphus, while the son of Lagus is
called Soter, a name given him by the Rhodians. Of these, Philadelphus is he whom I have
mentioned before among the eponymoi, and near him is a statue of his sister Arsinoe.
1,8,2,n1. An Athenian orator who did great service to Athens when Demosthenes was
trying to stir up his countrymen against Philip of Macedon.
1,8,2,n2. c. 448 B.C.
1,8,3,n1. 323 B.C.
1,8,4,n1. Nothing more is known of this person.
1,8,4,n2. Or "tunes."
1,8,5,n1. 514 B.C.
1,8,5,n2. fl. c. 445 B.C.
[1.9.1] The one called Philometor is eighth in descent from Ptolemy son of Lagus, and
his surname was given him in sarcastic mockery, for we know of none of the kings who was
so hated by his mother. Although he was the eldest of her children she would not allow him
to be called to the throne, but prevailed on his father before the call came to send him
to Cyprus. Among the reasons assigned for Cleopatra's enmity towards her son is her
expectation that Alexander the younger of her sons would prove more subservient, and this
consideration induced her to urge the Egyptians to choose Alexander as king.[1.9.2] When
the people offered opposition, she dispatched Alexander for the second time to Cyprus,
ostensibly as general, but really because she wished by his means to make Ptolemy more
afraid of her. Finally she covered with wounds those eunuchs she thought best disposed,
and presented them to the people, making out that she was the victim of Ptolemy's
machinations, and that he had treated the eunuchs in such a fashion. The people of
Alexandria rushed to kill Ptolemy, and when he escaped on board a ship, made Alexander,
who returned from Cyprus, their king. [1.9.3] Retribution for the exile of Ptolemy came
upon Cleopatra, for she was put to death by Alexander, whom she herself had made to be
king of the Egyptians. When the deed was discovered, and Alexander fled in fear of the
citizens, Ptolemy returned and for the second time assumed control of Egypt. He made war
against the Thebans, who had revolted, reduced them two years after the revolt, and
treated them so cruelly that they were left not even a memorial of their former
prosperity, which had so grown that they surpassed in wealth the richest of the Greeks,
the sanctuary of Delphi and the Orchomenians. Shortly after this Ptolemy met with his
appointed fate, and the Athenians, who had been benefited by him in many ways which I need
not stop to relate, set up a bronze likeness of him and of Berenice, his only legitimate
child.
[1.9.4] After the Egyptians come statues of Philip and of his son Alexander. The events
of their lives were too important to form a mere digression in another story. Now the
Egyptians had their honors bestowed upon them out of genuine respect and because they were
benefactors, but it was rather the sycophancy of the people that gave them to Philip and
Alexander, since they set up a statue to Lysimachus also not so much out of goodwill as
because they thought to serve their immediate ends.
[1.9.5] This Lysimachus was a Macedonian by birth and one of Alexander's body-guards,
whom Alexander once in anger shut up in a chamber with a lion, and afterwards found that
he had overpowered the brute. Henceforth he always treated him with respect, and honored
him as much as the noblest Macedonians. After the death of Alexander, Lysimachus ruled
such of the Thracians, who are neighbors of the Macedonians, as had been under the sway of
Alexander and before him of Philip. These would comprise but a small part of Thrace. If
race be compared with race no nation of men except the Celts are more numerous than the
Thracians taken all together, and for this reason no one before the Romans reduced the
whole Thracian population. But the Romans have subdued all Thrace, and they also hold such
Celtic territory as is worth possessing, but they have intentionally overlooked the parts
that they consider useless through excessive cold or barrenness.[1.9.6] Then Lysimachus
made war against his neighbours, first the Odrysae, secondly the Getae and Dromichaetes.
Engaging with men not unversed in warfare and far his superiors in number, he himself
escaped from a position of extreme danger, but his son Agathocles, who was serving with
him then for the first time, was taken prisoner by the Getae. Lysimachus met with other
reverses afterwards, and attaching great importance to the capture of his son made peace
with Dromicliaetes, yielding to the Getic king the parts of his empire beyond the Ister,
and, chiefly under compulsion, giving him his daughter in marriage. Others say that not
Agathocles but Lysimachus himself was taken prisoner, regaining his liberty when
Agathocles treated with the Getic king on his behalf. On his return he married to
Agathocles Lysandra, the daughter of Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and of Eurydice. [1.9.7] He
also crossed with a fleet to Asia and helped to overthrow the empire of Antigonus.1
He founded also the modern city of Ephesus as far as the coast, bringing to it as settlers
people of Lebedos and Colophon, after destroying their cities, so that the iambic poet
Phoenix com posed a lament for the capture of Colophon. Mermesianax, the elegiac writer,
was, I think, no longer living, otherwise he too would certainly have been moved by the
taking of Colophon to write a dirge. Lysimachus also went to war with Pyrrhus, son of
Aeacides. Waiting for his departure from Epeirus (Pyrrhus was of a very roving
disposition) he ravaged Epeirus until he reached the royal tombs.[1.9.8] The next part of
the story is incredible to me, but Hieronymus the Cardian1 relates that he
destroyed the tombs and cast out the bones of the dead. But this Hieronymus has a
reputation generally of being biased against all the kings except Antigonus, and of being
unfairly partial towards him. As to the treatment of the Epeirot graves, it is perfectly
plain that it was malice that made him record that a Macedonian desecrated the tombs of
the dead. Besides, Lysimachus was surely aware that they were the ancestors not of Pyrrhus
only but also of Alexander. In fact Alexander was an Epeirot and an Aeacid on his mother's
side, and the subsequent alliance between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus proves that even as
enemies they were not irreconcilable. Possibly Hieronymus had grievances against
Lysimachus, especially his destroying the city of the Cardians and founding Lysimachea in
its stead on the isthmus of the Thracian Chersonesus.
1,9,7,n1. 302 B.C.
1,9,8,n1. fl. 20-300 B.C.
[1.10.1] As long as Aridaeus reigned, and after him Cassander and his sons, friendly
relations continued between Lysimachus and Macedon. But when the kingdom devolved upon
Demetrius, son of Antigonus, Lysimachus, henceforth expecting that war would be declared
upon him by Demetrius, resolved to take aggressive action. He was aware that Demetrius
inherited a tendency to aggrandise, and he also knew that he visited Macedonia at the
summons of Alexander and Cassander, and on his arrival murdered Alexander himself 1
and ruled the Macedonians in his stead. [1.10.2] Therefore encountering Demetrius at
Amphipolis he came near to being expelled from Thrace1, but on Pyrrhus' coming
to his aid he mastered Thrace and afterwards extended his empire at the expense of the
Nestians and Macedonians. The greater part of Macedonia was under the control of Pyrrhus
himself, who came from Epeirus with an army and was at that time on friendly terms with
Lysimachus. When however Demetrius crossed over into Asia and made war on Seleucus, the
alliance between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus lasted only as long as Demetrius continued
hostilities; when Demetrius submitted to Seleucus, the friendship between Lysimachus and
Pyrrhus was broken, and when war broke out Lysimachus fought against Antigonus son of
Demetrius and against Pyrrhus himself, had much the better of the struggle, conquered
Macedonia and forced Pyrrhus to retreat to Epeirus.[1.10.3] Love is wont to bring many
calamities upon men. Lysimachus, although by this time of mature age and considered happy
in respect of his children, and although Agathocles had children by Lysandra, nevertheless
married Lysandra's sister Arsinoe. This Arsinoe, fearing for her children, lest on the
death of Lysimachus they should fall into the hands of Agathocles, is said for this reason
to have plotted against Agathocles. Historians have already related how Arsinoe fell in
love with Agathocles, and being unsuccessful they say that she plotted against his life.
They say also that Lysimachus discovered later his wife's machinations, but was by this
time powerless, having lost all his friends. [1.10.4] Since Lysimachus, then, overlooked
Arsinoe's murder of Agathocles, Lysandra fled to Seleucus, taking with her her children
and her brothers, who were taking refuge with Ptolemy and finally adopted this course.
They were accompanied on their flight to Seleucus by Alexander who was the son of
Lysimachus by an Odrysian woman. So they going up to Babylon entreated Seleucus to make
war on Lysimachus. And at the same time Philetaerus, to whom the property of Lysimachus
had been entrusted, aggrieved at the death of Agathocles and suspicious of the treatment
he would receive at the hands of Arsinoe, seized Pergamus on the Caicus, and sending a
herald offered both the property and himself to Seleucus.[1.10.5] Lysimachus hearing of
all these things lost no time in crossing into Asia1, and assuming the
initiative met Seleucus, suffered a severe defeat and was killed. Alexander, his son by
the Odrysian woman, after interceding long with Lysandra, won his body and afterwards
carried it to the Chersonesus and buried it, where his grave is still to be seen between
the village of Cardia and Pactye.
1,10,1,n1. 294 B.C.
1,10,2,n1. 288 B.C.
1,10,5,n1. 281 B.C.
[1.11.1] Such was the history of Lysimachus. The Athenians have also a statue of
Pyrrhus. This Pyrrhus was not related to Alexander, except by ancestry. Pyrrhus was son of
Aeacides, son of Arybbas, but Alexander was son of Olympias, daughter of Neoptolemus, and
the father of Neoptolemus and Aryblas was Alcetas, son of Tharypus. And from Tharypus to
Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, are fifteen generations. Now Pyrrhus was the first who after the
capture of Troy disdained to return to Thessaly, but sailing to Epeirus dwelt there
because of the oracles of Helenus. By Hermione Pyrrhus had no child, but by Andromache he
had Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamus, who was the youngest. Helenus also had a son,
Cestrinus, being married to Andromache after the murder of Pyrrhus at Delphi. [1.11.2]
Helenus on his death passed on the kingdom to Molossus, son of Pyrrhus, so that Cestrinus
with volunteers from the Epeirots took possession of the region beyond the river Thyamis,
while Pergamus crossed into Asia and killed Areius, despot in Teuthrania, who fought with
him in single combat for his kingdom, and gave his name to the city which is still called
after him. To Andromache, who accompanied him, there is still a shrine in the city. Pielus
remained behind in Epeirus, and to him as ancestor Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides, and his
fathers traced their descent, and not to Molossus.[1.11.3] Down to Alcetas, son of
Tharypus, Epeirus too was under one king. But the sons of Alcetas after a quarrel agreed
to rule with equal authority, remaining faithful to their compact; and afterwards, when
Alexander, son of Neoptolemus, died among the Leucani, and Olympias returned to Epeirus
through fear of Antipater, Aeacides, son of Arybbas, continued in allegiance to Olympias
and joined in her campaign against Aridaeus and the Macedonians, although the Epeirots
refused to accompany him.[1.11.4] Olympias on her victory behaved wickedly in the matter
of the death of Aridaeus, and much more wickedly to certain Macedonians, and for this
reason was considered to have deserved her subsequent treatment at the hands of Cassander;
so Aeacides at first was not received even by the Epeirots because of their hatred of
Olympias, and when after wards they forgave him, his return to Epeirus was next opposed by
Cassander. When a battle occurred at Oeneadae between Philip, brother of Cassander, and
Aeacides, Aeacides was wounded and shortly after met his fate.1 [1.11.5]
The Epeirots accepted Alcetas as their king, being the son of Arybbas and the elder
brother of Aeacides, but of an uncontrollable temper and on this account banished by his
father. Immediately on his arrival he began to vent his fury on the Epeirots, until they
rose up and put him and his children to death at night. After killing him they brought
back Pyrrhus, son of Aeacides. No sooner had he arrived than Cassander made war upon him,
while he was young in years and before he had consolidated his empire. When the
Macedonians attacked him, Pyrrhus went to Ptolemy, son of Lagus, in Egypt. Ptolemy gave
him to wife the half-sister of his children, and restored him by an Egyptian force.
[1.11.6] The first Greeks that Pyrrhus attacked on becoming king were the Corcyraeans.
He saw that the island lay off his own territory, and he did not wish others to have a
base from which to attack him. My account of Lysimachus has already related how he fared,
after taking Corcyra, in his war with Lysimachus, how he expelled Demetrius and ruled
Macedonia until he was in turn expelled by Lysimachus, the most important of his
achievements until he waged war against the Romans,[1.11.7] being the first Greek we know
of to do so. For no further battle, it is said, took place between Aeneas and Diomedes
with his Argives. One of the many ambitions of the Athenians was to reduce all Italy, but
the disaster at Syracuse1 prevented their trying conclusions with the Romans.
Alexander, son of Neoptolemus, of the same family as Pyrrhus but older, died among the
Leucani before he could meet the Romans in battle.
1,11,4,n1. 313 B.C.
1,11,7,n1. 413 B.C.
[1.12.1] So Pyrrhus was the first to cross the Ionian Sea from Greece to attack the
Romans.1 And even he crossed on the invitation of the Tarentines. For they were
already involved in a war with the Romans, but were no match for them unaided. Pyrrhus was
already in their debt, because they had sent a fleet to help him in his war with Corcyra,
but the most cogent arguments of the Tarentine envoys were their accounts of Italy, how
its prosperity was equal to that of the whole of Greece, and their plea that it was wicked
to dismiss them when they had come as friends and suppliants in their hour of need. When
the envoys urged these considerations, Pyrrhus remembered the capture of Troy, which he
took to be an omen of his success in the war, as he was a descendant of Achilles making
war upon a colony of Trojans.[1.12.2] Pleased with this proposal, and being a man who
never lost time when once he had made up his mind, he immediately proceeded to man war
ships and to prepare transports to carry horses and men-at-arms. There are books written
by men of no renown as historians, entitled "Memoirs." When I read these I
marvelled greatly both at the personal bravery of Pyrrhus in battle, and also at the
forethought he displayed whenever a contest was imminent. So on this occasion also when
crossing to Italy with a fleet he eluded the observation of the Romans, and for some time
after his arrival they were unaware of his presence; it was only when the Romans made an
attack upon the Tarentines that he appeared on the scene with his army, and his unexpected
assault naturally threw his enemies into confusion.[1.12.3] And being perfectly aware that
he was no match for the Romans, he prepared to let loose against them his elephants. The
first European to acquire elephants was Alexander, after subduing Porus and the power of
the Indians; after his death others of the kings got them but Antigonus more than any;
Pyrrhus captured his beasts in the battle with Demetrius. When on this occasion they came
in sight the Romans were seized with panic, and did not believe they were animals.[1.12.4]
For although the use of ivory in arts and crafts all men obviously have known from of old,
the actual beasts, before the Macedonians crossed into Asia, nobody had seen at all except
the Indians themselves, the Libyans, and their neighbours. This is proved by Homer, who
describes the couches and houses of the more prosperous kings as ornamented with ivory,
but never mentions the beast; but if he had seen or heard about it he would, in my opinion
have been much more likely to speak of it than of the battle between the Dwarf-men and
cranes.1 [1.12.5] Pyrrhus was brought over to Sicily by an embassy of the
Syracusans. The Carthaginians had crossed over and were destroying the Greek cities, and
had sat down to invest Syracuse, the only one now remaining. When Pyrrhus heard this from
the envoys he abandoned Tarentum and the Italiots on the coast, and crossing into Sicily
forced the Carthaginians to raise the siege of Syracuse. In his self-conceit, although the
Carthaginians, being Phoenicians of Tyre by ancient descent, were more experienced sea men
than any other non-Greek people of that day, Pyrrhus was nevertheless encouraged to meet
them in a naval battle, employing the Epeirots, the majority of whom, even after the
capture of Troy, knew no thing of the sea nor even as yet how to use salt. Witness the
words of Homer in the Odyssey:--
Nothing they know of ocean, and mix not salt
with their victuals.1
1,12,1,n1. 280 B.C.
1,12,4,n1. Hom. Il. 3.3f.
1,12,5,n1. Hom. Od. 11.122
[1.13.1] Worsted on this occasion Pyrrhus put back with the remainder of his vessels to
Tarentum. Here he met with a serious reverse, and his retirement, for he knew that the
Romans would not let him depart without striking a blow, he contrived in the following
manner. On his return from Sicily and his defeat, he first sent various dispatches to Asia
and to Antigonus, asking some of the kings for troops, some for money, and Antigonus for
both. When the envoys returned and their dispatches were delivered, he summoned those in
authority, whether Epeirot or Tarentine, and without reading any of the dispatches
declared that reinforcements would come. A report spread quickly even to the Romans that
Macedonians and Asiatic tribes also were crossing to the aid of Pyrrhus. The Romans, on
hearing this, made no move, but Pyrrhus on the approach of that very night crossed to the
headlands of the mountains called Ceraunian.
[1.13.2] After the defeat in Italy Pyrrhus gave his forces a rest and then declared war
on Antigonus, his chief ground of complaint being the failure to send reinforcements to
Italy. Overpowering the native troops of Antigonus an his Gallic mercenaries he pursued
them to the coast cities, and himself reduced upper Macedonia and the Thessalians. The
extent of the fighting and the decisive character of the victory of Pyrrhus are shown best
by the Celtic armour dedicated in the sanctuary of Itonian Athena between Pherae and
Larisa, with this inscription on them:--
Pyrrhus the Molossian hung these shields[1.13.3]
taken from the bold Gauls as a gift to Itonian
Athena, when he had destroyed all the host
of Antigonus. 'Tis no great marvel. The
Aeacidae are warriors now, even as they were
of old.
These shields then are here, but the bucklers of the Macedonians themselves he
dedicated to Dodonian Zeus. They too have an inscription:--
These once ravaged golden Asia, and brought
slavery upon the Greeks. Now ownerless
they lie by the pillars of the temple of Zeus,
spoils of boastful Macedonia.
Pyrrhus came very near to reducing Macedonia entirely, but,[1.13.4] being usually
readier to do what came first to hand, he was prevented by Cleonymus. This Cleonymus, who
persuaded Pyrrhus to abandon his Macedonian adventure and to go to the Peloponnesus, was a
Lacedaemonian who led an hostile army into the Lacedaemonian territory for a reason which
I will relate after giving the descent of Cleonymus. Pausanias, who was in command of the
Greeks at Plataea1, was the father of Pleistoanax, he of Pausanias, and he of
Cleombrotus, who was killed at Leuctra fighting against Epaminondas and the Thebans.
Cleombrotus was the father of Agesipolis and Cleomenes, and, Agesipolis dying without
issue, Cleomenes ascended the throne. [1.13.5] Cleomenes had two sons, the elder being
Acrotatus and the younger Cleonymus. Now Acrotatus died first; and when afterwards
Cleomenes died, a claim to the throne was put forward by Areus son of Acrotatus, and
Cleonymus took steps to induce Pyrrhus to enter the country. Before the battle of Leuctra1
the Lacedaemonians had suffered no disaster, so that they even refused to admit that they
had yet been worsted in a land battle. For Leonidas, they said, had won the victory 2,
but his followers were insufficient for the entire destruction of the Persians; the
achievement of Demosthenes and the Athenians on the island of Sphacteria3 was
no victory, but only a trick in war.[1.13.6] Their first reverse took place in Boeotia,
and they afterwards suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Antipater and the Macedonians1.
Thirdly the war with Demetrius2 came as an unexpected misfortune to their land.
Invaded by Pyrrhus and seeing a hostile army for the fourth time, they arrayed themselves
to meet it along with the Argives and Messenians who had come as their allies. Pyrrhus won
the day, and came near to capturing Sparta without further fighting, but desisted for a
while after ravaging the land and carrying off plunder.3 The citizens prepared
for a siege, and Sparta even before this in the war with Demetrius had been fortified with
deep trenches and strong stakes, and at the most vulnerable points with buildings as well.
[1.13.7] Just about this time, while the Laconian war was dragging on, Antigonus, having
recovered the Macedonian cities, hastened to the Peloponnesus being well aware that if
Pyrrhus were to reduce Lacedaemon and the greater part of the Peloponnesus, he would not
return to Epeirus but to Macedonia to make war there again. When Antigonus was about to
lead his army from Argos into Laconia, Pyrrhus himself reached Argos. Victorious once more
he dashed into the city along with the fugitives, and his formation not unnaturally was
broken up.[1.13.8] When the fighting was now taking place by sanctuaries and houses, and
in the narrow lanes, between detached bodies in different parts of the town, Pyrrhus left
by himself was wounded in the head. It is said that his death1 was caused by a
blow from a tile thrown by a woman. The Argives however declare that it was not a woman
who killed him but Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is what the Argives themselves
relate about his end, and Lyceas, the guide for the neighborhood, has written a poem which
confirms the story. They have a sanctuary of Demeter, built at the command of the oracle,
on the spot where Pyrrhus died, and in it Pyrrhus is buried.[1.13.9] I consider it
remarkable that of those styled Aeacidae three met their end by similar heaven-sent means;
if, as Homer says, Achilles was killed by Alexander, son of Priam, and by Apollo, if the
Delphians were bidden by the Pythia to slay Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, and if the end of
the son of Aeacides was such as the Argives say and Lyceas has described in his poem. The
account, how ever, given by Hieronymus the Cardian is different, for a man who associates
with royalty cannot help being a partial historian. If Philistus was justified in sup
pressing the most wicked deeds of Dionysius, because he expected his return to Syracuse,
surely Hieronymus may be fully forgiven for writing to please Antigonus.
1,13,4,n1. 479 B.C.
1,13,5,n1. 371 B.C.
1,13,5,n2. 480 B.C.
1,13,5,n3. 425 B.C.
1,13,6,n1. 330 B.C.
1,13,6,n2. 295 B.C.
1,13,6,n3. 272 B.C.
1,13,8,n1. 272 B.C.
[1.14.1] So ended the period of Epeirot ascendancy. When you have entered the Odeum at
Athens you meet, among other objects, a figure of Dionysus worth seeing. Hard by is a
spring called Enneacrunos (Nine Jets), embellished as you see it by Peisistratus. There
are cisterns all over the city, but this is the only fountain. Above the spring are two
temples, one to Demeter and the Maid, while in that of Triptolemus is a statue of him. The
accounts given of Triptolemus I shall write, omitting from the story as much as relates to
Deiope.[1.14.2] The Greeks who dispute most the Athenian claim to antiquity and the gifts
they say they have received from the gods are the Argives, just as among those who are not
Greeks the Egyptians compete with the Phrygians. It is said, then, that when Demeter came
to Argos she was received by Pelasgus into his home, and that Chrysanthis, knowing about
the rape of the Maid, related the story to her. Afterwards Trochilus, the priest of the
mysteries, fled, they say, from Argos because of the enmity of Agenor, came to Attica and
married a woman of Eleusis, by whom he had two children, Eubuleus and Triptolemus. That is
the account given by the Argives. But the Athenians and those who with them. . . know that
Triptolemus, son of Celeus, was the first to sow seed for cultivation.[1.14.3] Some extant
verses of Musaeus, if indeed they are to be included among his works, say that Triptolemus
was the son of Oceanus and Earth; while those ascribed to Orpheus (though in my opinion
the received authorship is again incorrect) say that Eubuleus and Triptolemus were sons of
Dysaules, and that because they gave Demeter information about her daughter the sowing of
seed was her reward to them. But Choerilus, an Athenian, who wrote a play called Alope,
says that Cercyon and Triptolemus were brothers, that their mother was the daughter of
Amphictyon, while the father of Triptolemus was Rarus, of Cercyon, Poseidon. After I had
intended to go further into this story, and to describe the contents of the sanctuary at
Athens, called the Eleusinium, I was stayed by a vision in a dream. I shall therefore turn
to those things it is lawful to write of to all men.[1.14.4] In front of this temple,
where is also the statue of Triptolemus, is a bronze bull being led as it were to
sacrifice, and there is a sitting figure of Epimenides of Cnossus1, who they
say entered a cave in the country and slept. And the sleep did not leave him before the
fortieth year, and afterwards he wrote verses and purified Athens and other cities. But
Thales who stayed the plague for the Lacedaemonians was not related to Epimenides in any
way, and belonged to a different city. The latter was from Cnossus, but Thales was from
Gortyn, according to Polymnastus of Colophon, who com posed a poem about him for the
Lacedaemonians.[1.14.5] Still farther of is a temple to Glory, this too being a
thank-offering for the victory over the Persians, who had landed at Marathon. This is the
victory of which I am of opinion the Athenians were proudest; while Aeschylus, who had won
such renown for his poetry and for his share in the naval battles before Artemisium and at
Salamis, recorded at the prospect of death nothing else, and merely wrote his name, his
father's name, and the name of his city, and added that he had witnesses to his valor in
the grove at Marathon and in the Persians who landed there.
[1.14.6] Above the Cerameicus and the portico called the King's Portico is a temple of
Hephaestus. I was not surprised that by it stands a statue of Athena, be cause I knew the
story about Erichthonius. But when I saw that the statue of Athena had blue eyes I found
out that the legend about them is Libyan. For the Libyans have a saying that the Goddess
is the daughter of Poseidon and Lake Tritonis, and for this reason has blue eyes like
Poseidon.[1.14.7] Hard by is a sanctuary of the Heavenly Aphrodite; the first men to
establish her cult were the Assyrians, after the Assyrians the Paphians of Cyprus and the
Phoenicians who live at Ascalon in Palestine; the Phoenicians taught her worship to the
people of Cythera. Among the Athenians the cult was established by Aegeus, who thought
that he was childless (he had, in fact, no children at the time) and that his sisters had
suffered their misfortune because of the wrath of Heavenly Aphrodite. The statue still
extant is of Parian marble and is the work of Pheidias. One of the Athenian parishes is
that of the Athmoneis, who say that Porphyrion, an earlier king than Actaeus, founded
their sanctuary of the Heavenly One. But the traditions current among the Parishes often
differ altogether from those of the city.
1,14,4,n1. fl. c. 600 B.C.
[1.15.1] As you go to the portico which they call painted, because of its pictures,
there is a bronze statue of Hermes of the Market-place, and near it a gate. On it is a
trophy erected by the Athenians, who in a cavalry action overcame Pleistarchus, to whose
command his brother Cassander had entrusted his cavalry and mercenaries. This portico
contains, first, the Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in the Argive
territory.1 What is depicted is not the crisis of the battle nor when the
action had advanced as far as the display of deeds of valor, but the beginning of the
fight when the combatants were about to close.[1.15.2] On the middle wall are the
Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. So, it seems, only the women did not lose
through their defeats their reckless courage in the face of danger; Themiscyra was taken
by Heracles, and afterwards the army which they dispatched to Athens was destroyed, but
nevertheless they came to Troy to fight all the Greeks as well as the Athenians them
selves. After the Amazons come the Greeks when they have taken Troy, and the kings
assembled on account of the outrage committed by Ajax against Cassandra. The picture
includes Ajax himself, Cassandra and other captive women.[1.15.3] At the end of the
painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and the Attic
contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has the
better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one
another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and
the Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of
the hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from
the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. The Marathonians, according to their own
account, were the first to regard Heracles as a god. Of the fighters the most conspicuous
figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the
Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall
make mention later.[1.15.4] Here are dedicated brazen shields, and some have an
inscription that they are taken from the Scioneans and their allies1, while
others, smeared with pitch lest they should be worn by age and rust, are said to be those
of the Lacedaemonians who were taken prisoners in the island of Sphacteria.2
1,15,1,n1. Date unknown.
1,15,4,n1. 421 B.C.
1,15,4,n2. 425 B.C.
[1.16.1] Here are placed bronze statues, one, in front of the portico, of Solon, who
composed the laws for the Athenians1, and, a little farther away, one of
Seleucus, whose future prosperity was foreshadowed by unmistakable signs. When he was
about to set forth from Macedonia with Alexander, and was sacrificing at Pella to Zeus,
the wood that lay on the altar advanced of its own accord to the image and caught fire
without the application of a light. On the death of Alexander, Seleucus, in fear of
Antigonus, who had arrived at Babylon, fled to Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and then returned
again to Babylon. On his return he overcame the army of Antigonus and killed Antigonus
himself, afterwards capturing Demetrius, son of Antigonus, who had advanced with an
army.[1.16.2] After these successes, which were shortly followed by the fall of
Lysimachus, he entrusted to his son Antiochus all his empire in Asia, and himself
proceeded rapidly towards Macedonia, having with him an army both of Greeks and of
foreigners. But Ptolemy, brother of Lysandra, had taken refuge with him from Lysimachus;
this man, an adventurous character named for this reason the Thunderbolt, when the army of
Seleucus had advanced as far as Lysimachea, assassinated Seleucus, allowed the kings to
seize his wealth1, and ruled over Macedonia until, being the first of the kings
to my knowledge to dare to meet the Gauls in battle, he was killed by the foreigners.2
The empire was recovered by Antigonus, son of Demetrius.[1.16.3] I am persuaded that
Seleucus was the most righteous, and in particular the most religious of the kings.
Firstly, it was Seleucus who sent back to Branchidae for the Milesians the bronze Apollo
that had been carried by Xerxes to Ecbatana in Persia. Secondly, when he founded Seleucea
on the river Tigris and brought to it Babylonian colonists he spared the wall of Babylon
as well as the sanctuary of Bel, near which he permitted the Chaldeans to live.
1,16,1,n1. 594 B.C.
1,16,2,n1. 281 B.C.
1,16,2,n2. 280 B.C.
[1.17.1] In the Athenian market-place among the objects not generally known is an altar
to Mercy, of all divinities the most useful in the life of mortals and in the vicissitudes
of fortune, but honored by the Athenians alone among the Greeks. And they are conspicuous
not only for their humanity but also for their devotion to religion. They have an altar to
Shamefastness, one to Rumour and one to Effort. It is quite obvious that those who excel
in piety are correspondingly rewarded by good fortune.[1.17.2] In the gymnasium not far
from the market-place, called Ptolemy's from the founder, are stone Hermae well worth
seeing and a likeness in bronze of Ptolemy. Here also is Juba the Libyan and Chrysippus1 of Soli.Hard by the gymnasium is a sanctuary of Theseus, where are pictures of Athenians
fighting Amazons. This war they have also represented on the shield of their Athena and
upon the pedestal of the Olympian Zeus. In the sanctuary of Theseus is also a painting of
the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithae. Theseus has already killed a Centaur,
but elsewhere the fighting is still undecided.[1.17.3] The painting on the third wall is
not intelligible to those unfamiliar with the traditions, partly through age and partly
because Micon has not represented in the picture the whole of the legend. When Minos was
taking Theseus and the rest of the company of young folk to Crete he fell in love with
Periboea, and on meeting with determined opposition from Theseus, hurled insults at him
and denied that he was a son of Poseidon, since he could not recover for him the
signet-ring, which he happened to be wearing, if he threw it into the sea. With these
words Minos is said to have thrown the ring, but they say that Theseus came up from the
sea with that ring and also with a gold crown that Amphitrite gave him.[1.17.4] The
accounts of the end of Theseus are many and inconsistent. They say he was kept a prisoner
until Heracles restored him to the light of day, but the most plausible account I have
heard is this. Theseus invaded Thesprotia to carry off the wife of the Thesprotian king,
and in this way lost the greater part of his army, and both he and Peirithous (he too was
taking part in the expedition, being eager for the marriage) were taken captive. The
Thesprotian king kept them prisoners at Cichyrus.[1.17.5] Among the sights of Thesprotia
are a sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona and an oak sacred to the god. Near Cichyrus is a lake
called Acherusia, and a river called Acheron. There is also Cocytus, a most unlovely
stream. I believe it was because Homer had seen these places that he made bold to describe
in his poems the regions of Hades, and gave to the rivers there the names of those in
Thesprotia. While Theseus was thus kept in bonds, the sons of Tyndareus marched against
Aphidna, captured it and restored Menestheus to the kingdom. [1.17.6] Now Menestheus took
no account of the children of Theseus, who had secretly withdrawn to Elephenor in Euboea,
but he was aware that Theseus, if ever he returned from Thesprotia, would be a doughty
antagonist, and so curried favour with his subjects that Theseus on re covering afterwards
his liberty was expelled. So Theseus set out to Deucalion in Crete. Being carried out of
his course by winds to the island of Scyros he was treated with marked honor by the
inhabitants, both for the fame of his family and for the reputation of his own
achievements. Accordingly Lycomedes contrived his death. His close was built at Athens
after the Persians landed at Marathon, when Cimon, son of Miltiades, ravaged Scyros, thus
avenging Theseus' death, and carried his bones to Athens.
1,17,2,n1. The Stoic philosopher, 280-207 B.C.
[1.18.1] The sanctuary of the Dioscuri is ancient. They them selves are represented as
standing, while their sons are seated on horses. Here Polygnotus 1 has painted
the marriage of the daughters of Leucippus, was a part of the gods' history, but Micon
those who sailed with Jason to the Colchians, and he has concentrated his attention upon
Acastus and his horses. [1.18.2] Above the sanctuary of the Dioscuri is a sacred enclosure
of Aglaurus. It was to Aglaurus and her sisters, Herse and Pandrosus, that they say Athena
gave Erichthonius, whom she had hidden in a chest, forbidding them to pry curiously into
what was entrusted to their charge. Pandrosus, they say, obeyed, but the other two (for
they opened the chest) went mad when they saw Erichthonius, and threw themselves down the
steepest part of the Acropolis. Here it was that the Persians climbed and killed the
Athenians who thought that they understood the oracle1 better than did
Themistocles, and fortified the Acropolis with logs and stakes. 2
[1.18.3] Hard by is the Prytaneum (Town-hall), in which the laws of Solon are inscribed,
and figures are placed of the goddesses Peace and Hestia (Hearth), while among the statues
is Autolycus the pancratiast.1 For the likenesses of Miltiades and Themistocles
have had their titles changed to a Roman and a Thracian.[1.18.4] As you descend from here
to the lower part of the city, is a sanctuary of Serapis, whose worship the Athenians
introduced from Ptolemy. Of the Egyptian sanctuaries of Serapis the most famous is at
Alexandria, the oldest at Memphis. Into this neither stranger nor priest may enter, until
they bury Apis. Not far from the sanctuary of Serapis is the place where they say that
Peirithous and Theseus made their pact before setting forth to Lacedaemon and afterwards
to Thesprotia.[1.18.5] Hard by is built a temple of Eileithyia, who they say came from the
Hyperboreans to Delos and helped Leto in her labour; and from Delos the name spread to
other peoples. The Delians sacrifice to Eileithyia and sing a hymn of Olen. But the
Cretans suppose that Eileithyia was born at Auunisus in the Cnossian territory, and that
Hera was her mother. Only among the Athenians are the wooden figures of Eileithyia draped
to the feet. The women told me that two are Cretan, being offerings of Phaedra, and that
the third, which is the oldest, Erysichthon brought from Delos.
[1.18.6] Before the entrance to the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus--Hadrian the Roman
emperor dedicated the temple and the statue, one worth seeing, which in size exceeds all
other statues save the colossi at Rhodes and Rome, and is made of ivory and gold with an
artistic skill which is remarkable when the size is taken into account--before the
entrance, I say, stand statues of Hadrian, two of Thasian stone, two of Egyptian. Before
the pillars stand bronze statues which the Athenians call "colonies." The whole
circumference of the precincts is about four stades, and they are full of statues; for
every city has dedicated a likeness of the emperor Hadrian, and the Athenians have
surpassed them in dedicating, behind the temple, the remarkable colossus. [1.18.7] Within
the precincts are antiquities: a bronze Zeus, a temple of Cronus and Rhea and an enclosure
of Earth surnamed Olympian. Here the floor opens to the width of a cubit, and they say
that along this bed flowed off the water after the deluge that occurred in the time of
Deucalion, and into it they cast every year wheat meal mixed with honey.[1.18.8] On a
pillar is a statue of Isocrates, whose memory is remarkable for three things: his
diligence in continuing to teach to the end of his ninety-eight years, his self-restraint
in keeping aloof from politics and from interfering with public affairs, and his love of
liberty in dying a voluntary death, distressed at the news of the battle at Chaeronea1.
There are also statues in Phrygian marble of Persians supporting a bronze tripod; both the
figures and the tripod are worth seeing. The ancient sanctuary of Olympian Zeus the
Athenians say was built by Deucalion, and they cite as evidence that Deucalion lived at
Athens a grave which is not far from the present temple.[1.18.9] Hadrian constructed other
buildings also for the Athenians: a temple of Hera and Zeus Panellenios (Common to all
Greeks), a sanctuary common to all the gods, and, most famous of all, a hundred pillars of
Phrygian marble. The walls too are constructed of the same material as the cloisters. And
there are rooms there adorned with a gilded roof and with alabaster stone, as well as with
statues and paintings. In them are kept books. There is also a gymnasium named after
Hadrian; of this too the pillars are a hundred in number from the Libyan quarries.
1,18,1,n1. fl. 465 B.C.
1,18,2,n1. That the Athenians were to trust their "wooden walls," i.e. their
ships.
1,18,2,n2. 480 B.C.
1,18,3,n1. See Paus. 1.35.6.
1,18,8,n1. 338 B.C.
[1.19.1] Close to the temple of Olympian Zeus is a statue of the Pythian Apollo. There
is further a sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Delphinius. The story has it that when the
temple was finished with the exception of the roof Theseus arrived in the city, a stranger
as yet to everybody. When he came to the temple of the Delphinian, wearing a tunic that
reached to his feet and with his hair neatly plaited, those who were building the roof
mockingly inquired what a marriageable virgin was doing wandering about by herself. The
only answer that Theseus made was to loose, it is said, the oxen from the cart hard by,
and to throw them higher than the roof of the temple they were building.[1.19.2]
Concerning the district called The Gardens, and the temple of Aphrodite, there is no story
that is told by them, nor yet about the Aphrodite which stands near the temple. Now the
shape of it is square, like that of the Hermae, and the inscription declares that the
Heavenly Aphrodite is the oldest of those called Fates. But the statue of Aphrodite in the
Gardens is the work of Alcamenes, and one of the most note worthy things in Athens.
[1.19.3] There is also the place called Cynosarges, sacred to Heracles; the story of the
white dog1 may be known by reading the oracle. There are altars of Heracles and
Hebe, who they think is the daughter of Zeus and wife to Heracles. An altar has been built
to Alcmena and to Iolaus, who shared with Heracles most of his labours. The Lyceum has its
name from Lycus, the son of Pandion, but it was considered sacred to Apollo from the be
ginning down to my time, and here was the god first named Lyceus. There is a legend that
the Termilae also, to whom Lycus came when he fled from Aegeus, were called Lycii after
him.[1.19.4] Behind the Lyceum is a monument of Nisus, who was killed while king of Megara
by Minos, and the Athenians carried him here and buried him. About this Nisus there is a
legend. His hair, they say, was red, and it was fated that he should die on its being cut
off. When the Cretans attacked the country, they captured the other cities of the Megarid
by assault, but Nisaea, in which Nisus had taken refuge, they beleaguered. The story says
how the daughter of Nisus, falling in love here with Minos, cut off her father's hair.
[1.19.5] Such is the legend.The rivers that flow through Athenian territory are the Ilisus
and its tributary the Eridanus, whose name is the same as that of the Celtic river. This
Ilisus is the river by which Oreithyia was playing when, according to the story, she was
carried off by the North Wind. With Oreithyia he lived in wedlock, and be cause of the tie
between him and the Athenians he helped them by destroying most of the foreigners'
warships. The Athenians hold that the Ilisus is sacred to other deities as well, and on
its bank is an altar of the Ilisian Muses. The place too is pointed out where the
Peloponnesians killed Codrus, son of Melanthus and king of Athens.[1.19.6] Across the
Ilisus is a district called Agrae and a temple of Artemis Agrotera (the Huntress). They
say that Artemis first hunted here when she came from Delos, and for this reason the
statue carries a bow. A marvel to the eyes, though not so impressive to hear of, is a
race-course of white marble, the size of which can best be estimated from the fact that
beginning in a crescent on the heights above the Ilisus it descends in two straight lines
to the river bank. This was built by Herodes, an Athenian, and the greater part of the
Pentelic quarry was exhausted in its construction.
1,19,3,n1. "Cynosarges" may mean white dog.
[1.20.1] Leading from the prytaneum is a road called Tripods. The place takes its name
from the shrines, large enough to hold the tripods which stand upon them, of bronze, but
containing very remarkable works of art, including a Satyr, of which Praxiteles is said to
have been very proud. Phryne once asked of him the most beautiful of his works, and the
story goes that lover-like he agreed to give it, but refused to say which he thought the
most beautiful. So a slave of Phryne rushed in saying that a fire had broken out in the
studio of Praxiteles, and the greater number of his works were lost, though not all were
destroyed.[1.20.2] Praxiteles at once started to rush through the door crying that his
labour was all wasted if indeed the flames had caught his Satyr and his Love. But Phryne
bade him stay and be of good courage, for he had suffered no grievous loss, but had been
trapped into confessing which were the most beautiful of his works. So Phryne chose the
statue of Love; while a Satyr is in the temple of Dionysus hard by, a boy holding out a
cup. The Love standing with him and the Dionysus were made by Thymilus. [1.20.3] The
oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is near the theater. Within the precincts are two temples and
two statues of Dionysus, the Eleuthereus (Deliverer) and the one Alcamenes made of ivory
and gold. There are paintings here--Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. One of the
Greek legends is that Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge he
sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hera sat down she was held
fast, and Hephaestus refused to listen to any other of the gods save Dionysus--in him he
reposed the fullest trust--and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to heaven.
Besides this picture there are also represented Pentheus and Lycurgus paying the penalty
of their insolence to Dionysus, Ariadne asleep, Theseus putting out to sea, and Dionysus
on his arrival to carry off Ariadne.
[1.20.4] Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theater is a structure, which is said
to be a copy of Xerxes' tent. It has been rebuilt, for the old building was burnt by the
Roman general Sulla when he took Athens1. The cause of the war was this.
Mithridates was king over the foreigners around the Euxine. Now the grounds on which he
made war against the Romans, how he crossed into Asia, and the cities he took by force of
arms or made his friends, I must leave for those to find out who wish to know the history
of Mithridates, and I shall confine my narrative to the capture of Athens.[1.20.5] There
was an Athenian, Aristion, whom Mithridates employed as his envoy to the Greek cities. He
induced the Athenians to join Mithridates rather than the Romans, although he did not
induce all, but only the lower orders, and only the turbulent among them. The respectable
Athenians fled to the Romans of their own accord. In the engagement that ensued the Romans
won a decisive victory; Aristion and the Athenians they drove in flight into the city,
Archelaus and the foreigners into the Peiraeus. This Archelaus was another general of
Mithridates, whom earlier than this the Magnetes, who inhabit Sipylus, wounded when he
raided their territory, killing most of the foreigners as well. So Athens was
invested.[1.20.6] Taxilus, a general of Mithridates, was at the time besieging Elatea in
Phocis, but on receiving the news he withdrew his troops towards Attica. Learning this,
the Roman general entrusted the siege of Athens to a portion of his army, and with the
greater part of his forces advanced in person to meet Taxilus in Boeotia. On the third day
from this, news came to both the Roman armies; Sulla heard that the Athenian
fortifications had been stormed, and the besieging force learnt that Taxilus had been
defeated in battle near Chaeronea. When Sulla returned to Attica he imprisoned in the
Cerameicus the Athenians who had opposed him, and one chosen by lot out of every ten he
ordered to be led to execution.[1.20.7] Sulla abated nothing of his wrath against the
Athenians, and so a few effected an escape to Delphi, and asked if the time were now come
when it was fated for Athens also to be made desolate, receiving from the Pythia the
response about the wine skin. Afterwards Sulla was smitten with the disease which I learn
attacked Pherecydes the Syrian. Although Sulla's treatment of the Athenian people was so
savage as to be unworthy of a Roman, I do not think that this was the cause of his
calamity, but rather the vengeance of the suppliants' Protector, for he had dragged
Aristion from the sanctuary of Athena, where he had taken refuge, and killed him.Such wise
was Athens sorely afflicted by the war with Rome, but she flourished again when Hadrian
was emperor.
1,20,4,n1. 86 B.C.
[1.21.1] In the theater the Athenians have portrait statues of poets, both tragic and
comic, but they are mostly of undistinguished persons. With the exception of Menander no
poet of comedy represented here won a reputation, but tragedy has two illustrious
representatives, Euripides and Sophocles. There is a legend that after the death of
Sophocles the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica, and their commander saw in a vision Dionysus,
who bade him honor, with all the customary honors of the dead, the new Siren. He
interpreted the dream as referring to Sophocles and his poetry, and down to the present
day men are wont to liken to a Siren whatever is charming in both poetry and prose.
[1.21.2] The likeness of Aeschylus is, I think, much later than his death and than the
painting which depicts the action at Marathon Aeschylus himself said that when a youth he
slept while watching grapes in a field, and that Dionysus appeared and bade him write
tragedy. When day came, in obedience to the vision, he made an attempt and hereafter found
composing quite easy.[1.21.3] Such were his words. On the South wall, as it is called, of
the Acropolis, which faces the theater, there is dedicated a gilded head of Medusa the
Gorgon, and round it is wrought an aegis. At the top of the theater is a cave in the rocks
under the Acropolis. This also has a tripod over it, wherein are Apollo and Artemis
slaying the children of Niobe. This Niobe I myself saw when I had gone up to Mount
Sipylus. When you are near it is a beetling crag, with not the slightest resemblance to a
woman, mourning or otherwise; but if you go further away you will think you see a woman in
tears, with head bowed down.
[1.21.4] On the way to the Athenian Acropolis from the theater is the tomb of Calos.
Daedalus murdered this Calos, who was his sister's son and a student of his craft, and
therefore he fled to Crete; afterwards he escaped to Cocalus in Sicily. The sanctuary of
Asclepius is worth seeing both for its paintings and for the statues of the god and his
children. In it there is a spring, by which they say that Poseidon's son Halirrhothius
deflowered Alcippe the daughter of Ares, who killed the ravisher and was the first to be
put on his trial for the shedding of blood.[1.21.5] Among the votive offerings there is a
Sauromatic breast plate. On seeing this a man will say that no less than Greeks are
foreigners skilled in the arts. For the Sauromatae have no iron, neither mined by them
selves nor yet imported. They have, in fact, no dealings at all with the foreigners around
them. To meet this deficiency they have contrived inventions. In place of iron they use
bone for their spear-blades, and cornel-wood for their bows and arrows, with bone points
for the arrows. They throw a lasso round any enemy they meet, and then turning round their
horses upset the enemy caught in the lasso.[1.21.6] Their breastplates they make in the
following fashion. Each man keeps many mares, since the land is not divided into private
allotments, nor does it bear any thing except wild trees, as the people are nomads. These
mares they not only use for war, but also sacrifice them to the local gods and eat them
for food. Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as it were python
scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have seen a pine-cone still green.
He will not be mistaken if he liken the product from the hoof to the segments that are
seen on the pine-cone. These pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of
horses and oxen, and then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as
those of the Greeks. For they can withstand blows of missiles and those struck in close
combat.[1.21.7] Linen breastplates are not so useful to fighters, for they let the iron
pass through, if the blow be a violent one. They aid hunters, how ever, for the teeth of
lions or leopards break off in them. You may see linen breastplates dedicated in other
sanctuaries, notably in that at Gryneum, where there is a most beautiful grove of Apollo,
with cultivated trees, and all those which, although they bear no fruit, are pleasing to
smell or look upon.
[1.22.1] After the sanctuary of Asclepius, as you go by this way towards the Acropolis,
there is a temple of Themis. Before it is raised a sepulchral mound to Hippolytus. The end
of his life, they say, came from curses. Everybody, even a foreigner who has learnt Greek,
knows about the love of Phaedra and the wickedness the nurse dared commit to serve her.
The Troezenians too have a grave of Hippolytus, and their legend about it is this.
[1.22.2] When Theseus was about to marry Phaedra, not wishing, should he have children,
Hippolytus either to be their subject or to be king in their stead, sent him to Pittheus
to be brought up and to be the future king of Troezen. Afterwards Pallas and his sons
rebelled against Theseus. After putting them to death he went to Troezen for purification,
and Phaedra first saw Hippolytus there. Falling in love with him she contrived the plot
for his death. The Troezenians have a myrtle with every one of its leaves pierced; they
say that it did not grow originally in this fashion, the holes being due to Phaedra's
disgust with love and to the pin which she wore in her hair. [1.22.3] When Theseus had
united into one state the many Athenian parishes, he established the cults of Aphrodite
Pandemos (Common) and of Persuasion. The old statues no longer existed in my time, but
those I saw were the work of no inferior artists. There is also a sanctuary of Earth,
Nurse of Youth, and of Demeter Chloe (Green). You can learn all about their names by
conversing with the priests.
[1.22.4] There is but one entry to the Acropolis. It affords no other, being
precipitous throughout and having a strong wall. The gateway has a roof of white marble,
and down to the present day it is unrivalled for the beauty and size of its stones. Now as
to the statues of the horsemen, I cannot tell for certain whether they are the sons of
Xenophon or whether they were made merely to beautify the place. On the right of the
gateway is a temple of Wingless Victory. From this point the sea is visible, and here it
was that, according to legend, Aegeus threw him self down to his death.[1.22.5] For the
ship that carried the young people to Crete began her voyage with black sails; but
Theseus, who was sailing on an adventure against the bull of Minos, as it is called, had
told his father beforehand that he would use white sails if he should sail back victorious
over the bull. But the loss of Ariadne made him forget the signal. Then Aegeus, when from
this eminence he saw the vessel borne by black sails, thinking that his son was dead,
threw himself down to destruction. There is at Athens a sanctuary dedicated to him, and
called the hero-shrine of Aegeus.[1.22.6] On the left of the gateway is a building with
pictures. Among those not effaced by time I found Diomedes taking the Athena from Troy,
and Odysseus in Lemnos taking away the bow of Philoctetes. There in the pictures is
Orestes killing Aegisthus, and Pylades killing the sons of Nauplius who had come to bring
Aegisthus succor. And there is Polyxena about to be sacrificed near the grave of Achilles.
Homer did well in passing by this barbarous act. I think too that he showed poetic insight
in making Achilles capture Scyros, differing entirely from those who say that Achilles
lived in Scyros with the maidens, as Polygnotus has re presented in his picture. He also
painted Odysseus coming upon the women washing clothes with Nausicaa at the river, just
like the description in Homer. There are other pictures, including a portrait of
Alcibiades,[1.22.7] and in the picture are emblems of the victory his horses won at Nemea.
There is also Perseus journeying to Seriphos, and carrying to Polydectes the head of
Medusa, the legend about whom I am unwilling to relate in my description of Attica.
Included among the paintings--I omit the boy carrying the water-jars and the wrestler of
Timaenetus1--is Musaeus. I have read verse in which Musaeus receives from the
North Wind the gift of flight, but, in my opinion, Onomacritus wrote them, and there are
no certainly genuine works of Musaeus except a hymn to Demeter written for the Lycomidae.
[1.22.8] Right at the very entrance to the Acropolis are a Hermes (called Hermes of the
Gateway) and figures of Graces, which tradition says were sculptured by Socrates, the son
of Sophroniscus, who the Pythia testified was the wisest of men, a title she refused to
Anacharsis, although he desired it and came to Delphi to win it.
1,22,7,n1. An unknown painter.
[1.23.1] Among the sayings of the Greeks is one that there were seven wise men. Two of
them were the despot of Lesbos and Periander the son of Cypselus. And yet Peisistratus and
his son Hippias were more humane than Periander, wiser too in war fare and in statecraft,
until, on account of the murder of Hipparchus, Hippias vented his passion against all and
sundry, including a woman named Leaena (Lioness). [1.23.2] What I am about to say has
never before been committed to writing, but is generally credited among the Athenians.
When Hipparchus died, Hippias tortured Leaena to death, because he knew she was the
mistress of Aristogeiton, and therefore could not possibly, he held, be in ignorance of
the plot. As a recompense, when the tyranny of the Peisistratidae was at an end, the
Athenians put up a bronze lioness in memory of the woman, which they say Callias dedicated
and Calamis made.
[1.23.3] Hard by is a bronze statue of Diitrephes shot through by arrows.1 Among the acts reported of this Diitrephes by the Athenians is his leading back home the
Thracian mercenaries who arrived too late to take part in the expedition of Demosthenes
against Syracuse. He also put into the Chalcidic Euripus, where the Boeotians had an
inland town Mycalessus, marched up to this town from the coast and took it. Of the
inhabitants the Thracians put to the sword not only the combatants but also the women and
children. I have evidence to bring. All the Boeotian towns which the Thebans sacked were
inhabited in my time, as the people escaped just before the capture; so if the foreigners
had not exterminated the Mycalessians the survivors would have afterwards reoccupied the
town.[1.23.4] I was greatly surprised to see the statue of Diitrephes pierced with arrows,
because the only Greeks whose custom it is to use that weapon are the Cretans. For the
Opuntian Locrians, whom Homer represents as coming to Troy with bows and slings, we know
were armed as heavy infantry by the time of the Persian wars. Neither indeed did the
Malians continue the practice of the bow; in fact, I believe that they did not know it
before the time of Philoctetes, and gave it up soon after. Near the statue of
Diitrephes--I do not wish to write of the less distinguished portraits--are figures of
gods; of Health, whom legend calls daughter of Asclepius, and of Athena, also surnamed
Health.[1.23.5] There is also a smallish stone, just large enough to serve as a seat to a
little man. On it legend says Silenus rested when Dionysus came to the land. The oldest of
the Satyrs they call Sileni. Wishing to know better than most people who the Satyrs are I
have inquired from many about this very point. Euphemus the Carian said that on a voyage
to Italy he was driven out of his course by winds and was carried into the outer sea,
beyond the course of seamen. He affirmed that there were many uninhabited islands, while
in others lived wild men. The sailors did not wish to put in at the latter,[1.23.6]
because, having put in before, they had some experience of the inhabitants, but on this
occasion they had no choice in the matter. The islands were called Satyrides by the
sailors, and the inhabitants were red haired, and had upon their flanks tails not much
smaller than those of horses. As soon as they caught sight of their visitors, they ran
down to the ship with out uttering a cry and assaulted the women in the ship. At last the
sailors in fear cast a foreign woman on to the island. Her the Satyrs outraged not only in
the usual way, but also in a most shocking manner.
[1.23.7] I remember looking at other things also on the Athenian Acropolis, a bronze
boy holding the sprinkler, by Lycius son of Myron, and Myron's Perseus after beheading
Medusa. There is also a sanctuary of Brauronian Artemis; the image is the work of
Praxiteles, but the goddess derives her name from the parish of Brauron. The old wooden
image is in Brauron, the Tauric Artemis as she is called.[1.23.8] There is the horse
called Wooden set up in bronze. That the work of Epeius was a contrivance to make a breach
in the Trojan wall is known to everybody who does not attribute utter silliness to the
Phrygians. But legend says of that horse that it contained the most valiant of the Greeks,
and the design of the bronze figure fits in well with this story. Menestheus and Teucer
are peeping out of it, and so are the sons of Theseus.[1.23.9] Of the statues that stand
after the horse, the likeness of Epicharinus who practised the race in armour was made by
Critius, while Oenobius performed a kind service for Thucydides the son of Olorus.1
He succeeded in getting a decree passed for the return of Thucydides to Athens, who was
treacherously murdered as he was returning, and there is a monument to him not far from
the Melitid gate.[1.23.10] The stories of Hermolycus the pancratiast and Phormio1
the son of Asopichus I omit, as others have told them. About Phormio, however, I have a
detail to add. Quite one of the best men at Athens and distinguished for the fame of his
ancestors he chanced to be heavily in debt. So he withdrew to the parish Paeania and lived
there until the Athenians elected him to command a naval expedition. But he refused the
office on the ground that before his debts were discharged he lacked the spirit to face
his troops. So the Athenians, who were absolutely determined to have Phormio as their
commander, paid all his creditors.
1,23,3,n1. 413 B.C.
1,23,9,n1. The great historian of the Peloponnesian war.
1,23,10,n1. A famous Athenian admiral who served during the first period of the
Peloponnesian war.
[1.24.1] In this place is a statue of Athena striking Marsyas the Silenus for taking up
the flutes that the goddess wished to be cast away for good. Opposite these I have
mentioned is represented the fight which legend says Theseus fought with the so-called
Bull of Minos, whether this was a man or a beast of the nature he is said to have been in
the accepted story. For even in our time women have given birth to far more extraordinary
monsters than this.[1.24.2] There is also a statue of Phrixus the son of Athamas carried
ashore to the Colchians by the ram. Having sacrificed the animal to some god or other,
presumably to the one called by the Orchomenians Laphystius, he has cut out the thighs in
accordance with Greek custom and is watching them as they burn. Next come other statues,
including one of Heracles strangling the serpents as the legend describes. There is Athena
too coming up out of the head of Zeus, and also a bull dedicated by the Council of the
Areopagus on some occasion or other, about which, if one cared, one could make many
conjectures.[1.24.3] I have already stated that the Athenians are far more devoted to
religion than other men. They were the first to surname Athena Ergane (Worker); they were
the first to set up limbless Hermae, and the temple of their goddess is shared by the
Spirit of Good men. Those who prefer artistic workmanship to mere antiquity may look at
the following: a man wearing a helmet, by Cleoetas, whose nails the artist has made of
silver, and an image of Earth beseeching Zeus to rain upon her; perhaps the Athenians them
selves needed showers, or may be all the Greeks had been plagued with a drought. There
also are set up Timotheus the son of Conon and Conon himself; Procne too, who has already
made up her mind about the boy, and Itys as well--a group dedicated by Alcamenes. Athena
is represented displaying the olive plant, and Poseidon the wave,[1.24.4] and there are
statues of Zeus, one made by Leochares1 and one called Polieus (Urban), the
customary mode of sacrificing to whom I will give without adding the traditional reason
thereof. Upon the altar of Zeus Polieus they place barley mixed with wheat and leave it
unguarded. The ox, which they keep already prepared for sacrifice, goes to the altar and
partakes of the grain. One of the priests they call the ox-slayer, who kills the ox and
then, casting aside the axe here according to the ritual runs away. The others bring the
axe to trial, as though they know not the man who did the deed.
[1.24.5] Their ritual, then, is such as I have described. As you enter the temple that
they name the Parthenon, all the sculptures you see on what is called the pediment refer
to the birth of Athena, those on the rear pediment represent the contest for the land
between Athena and Poseidon. The statue itself is made of ivory and gold. On the middle of
her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx--the tale of the Sphinx I will give when I
come to my description of Boeotia--and on either side of the helmet are griffins in
relief.[1.24.6] These griffins, Aristeas1 of Proconnesus says in his poem,
fight for the gold with the Arimaspi beyond the Issedones. The gold which the griffins
guard, he says, comes out of the earth; the Arimaspi are men all born with one eye;
griffins are beasts like lions, but with the beak and wings of an eagle. I will say no
more about the griffins.[1.24.7] The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to
the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of
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. This serpent would be Erichthonius. On the pedestal is
the birth of Pandora in relief. Hesiod and others have sung how this Pandora was the first
woman; before Pandora was born there was as yet no womankind. The only portrait statue I
remember seeing here is one of the emperor Hadrian, and at the entrance one of Iphicrates,1
who accomplished many remarkable achievements.
[1.24.8] Opposite the temple is a bronze Apollo, said to be the work of Pheidias. They
call it the Locust God, because once when locusts were devastating the land the god said
that he would drive them from Attica. That he did drive them away they know, but they do
not say how. I myself know that locusts have been destroyed three times in the past on
Mount Sipylus, and not in the same way. Once a gale arose and swept them away; on another
occasion violent heat came on after rain and destroyed them; the third time sudden cold
caught them and they died.
1,24,4,n1. See Paus. 1.1.3.
1,24,6,n1. An early Greek traveller and writer.
1,24,7,n1. A famous Athenian soldier.fl. 390 B.C.
[1.25.1] Such were the fates I saw befall the locusts. On the Athenian Acropolis is a
statue of Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, and one of Xanthippus him self, who fought
against the Persians at the naval battle of Mycale.1 But that of Pericles
stands apart, while near Xanthippus stands Anacreon of Teos, the first poet after Sappho
of Lesbos to devote himself to love songs, and his posture is as it were that of a man
singing when he is drunk. Deinomenes2 made the two female figures which stand
near, Io, the daughter of Inachus, and Callisto, the daughter of Lycaon, of both of whom
exactly the same story is told, to wit, love of Zeus, wrath of Hera, and metamorphosis, Io
becoming a cow and Callisto a bear.
[1.25.2] By the south wall are represented the legendary war with the giants, who once
dwelt about Thrace and on the isthmus of Pallene, the battle between the Athenians and the
Amazons, the engagement with the Persians at Marathon and the destruction of the Gauls in
Mysia.1 Each is about two cubits, and all were dedicated by Attalus. There
stands too Olympiodorus, who won fame for the greatness of his achievements, especially in
the crisis when he displayed a brave confidence among men who had met with continuous
reverses, and were therefore in despair of winning a single success in the days to
come.[1.25.3] For the disaster at Chaeronea1 was the beginning of misfortune
for all the Greeks, and especially did it enslave those who had been blind to thedanger
and such as had sided with Macedon. Most of their cities Philip captured; with Athens he
nominally came to terms, but really imposed the severest penalties upon her, taking away
the islands and putting an end to her maritime empire. For a time the Athenians remained
passive, during the reign of Philip and subsequently of Alexander. But when on the death
of Alexander the Macedonians chose Aridaeus to be their king, though the whole empire had
been entrusted to Antipater, the Athenians now thought it intolerable if Greece should be
for ever under the Macedonians, and themselves embarked on war besides inciting others to
join them. [1.25.4] The cities that took part were, of the Peloponnesians, Argos,
Epidaurus, Sicyon, Troezen, the Eleans, the Phliasians, Messene; on the other side of the
Corinthian isthmus the Locrians, the Phocians, the Thessalians, Carystus, the Acarnanians
belonging to the Aetolian League. The Boeotians, who occupied the Thebaid territory now
that there were no Thebans left to dwell there, in fear lest the Athenians should injure
them by founding a settlement on the site of Thebes, refused to join the alliance and lent
all their forces to furthering the Macedonian cause.[1.25.5] Each city ranged under the
alliance had its own general, but as commander-in-chief was chosen the Athenian
Leosthenes, both because of the fame of his city and also because he had the reputation of
being an experienced soldier. He had already proved himself a general benefactor of
Greece. All the Greeks that were serving as mercenaries in the armies of Darius and his
satraps Alexander had wished to deport to Persia, but Leosthenes was too quick for him,
and brought them by sea to Europe. On this occasion too his brilliant actions surpassed
expectation, and his death produced a general despair which was chiefly responsible for
the defeat. A Macedonian garrison was set over the Athenians, and occupied first Munychia
and afterwards Peiraeus also and the Long Walls.1 [1.25.6] On the death
of Antipater Olympias came over from Epeirus, killed Aridaeus, and for a time occupied the
throne; but shortly afterwards she was besieged by Cassander, taken and delivered up to
the people. Of the acts of Cassander when he came to the throne my narrative will deal
only with such as concern the Athenians. He seized the fort of Panactum in Attica and also
Salamis, and established as tyrant in Athens Demetrius the son of Phanostratus, a man who
had won a reputation for wisdom. This tyrant was put down by Demetrius the son of
Antigonus, a young man of strong Greek sympathies.[1.25.7] But Cassander, inspired by a
deep hatred of the Athenians, made a friend of Lachares, who up to now had been the
popular champion, and induced him also to arrange a tyranny. We know no tyrant who proved
so cruel to man and so impious to the gods. Although Demetrius the son of Antigonus was
now at variance with the Athenian people, he notwithstanding deposed Lachares too from his
tyranny, who, on the capture of the fortifications, escaped to Boeotia. Lachares took
golden shields from the Acropolis, and stripped even the statue of Athena of its removable
ornament; he was accordingly suspected of being a very wealthy man,[1.25.8] and was
murdered by some men of Coronea for the sake of this wealth. After freeing the Athenians
from tyrants Demetrius the son of Antigonus did not restore the Peiraeus to them
immediately after the flight of Lachares, but subsequently overcame them and brought a
garrison even into the upper city, fortifying the place called the Museum. This is a hill
right opposite the Acropolis within the old city boundaries, where legend says Musaeus
used to sing, and, dying of old age, was buried. Afterwards a monument also was erected
here to a Syrian. At the time to which I refer Demetrius fortified and held it.
1,25,1,n1. 479 B.C.
1,25,1,n2. fl. 400 B.C.
1,25,2,n1. See Paus. 1.4.5.
1,25,3,n1. 338 B.C.
1,25,5,n1. 322 B.C.
[1.26.1] But afterwards a few men called to mind their forefathers, and the contrast
between their present position and the ancient glory of Athens, and without more ado forth
with elected Olympiodorus to be their general. He led them against the Macedonians1,
both the old men and the youths, and trusted for military success more to enthusiasm than
to strength. The Macedonians came out to meet him, but he over came them, pursued them to
the Museum, and captured the position.[1.26.2] So Athens was delivered from the
Macedonians, and though all the Athenians fought memorably, Leocritus the son of
Protarchus is said to have displayed most daring in the engagement. For he was the first
to scale the fortification, and the first to rush into the Museum; and when he fell
fighting, the Athenians did him great honor, dedicating his shield to Zeus of Freedom and
in scribing on it the name of Leocritus and his exploit.[1.26.3] This is the greatest
achievement of Olympiodorus, not to mention his success in recovering Peiraeus and
Munychia; and again, when the Macedonians were raiding Eleusis he collected a force of
Eleusinians and defeated the invaders. Still earlier than this, when Cassander had invaded
Attica, Olympiodorus sailed to Aetolia and induced the Aetolians to help. This allied
force was the main reason why the Athenians escaped war with Cassander. Olympiodorus has
not only honors at Athens, both on the Acropolis and in the town hall but also a portrait
at Eleusis. The Phocians too of Elatea dedicated at Delphi a bronze statue of Olympiodorus
for help in their revolt from Cassander.
[1.26.4] Near the statue of Olympiodorus stands a bronze image of Artemis surnamed
Leucophryne, dedicated by the sons of Themistocles; for the Magnesians, whose city the
King had given him to rule, hold Artemis Leucophryne in honor.But my narrative must not
loiter, as my task is a general description of all Greece. Endoeus1 was an
Athenian by birth and a pupil of Daedalus, who also, when Daedalus was in exile because of
the death of Calos, followed him to Crete. Made by him is a statue of Athena seated, with
an inscription that Callias dedicated the image, but Endoeus made it. [1.26.5] There
is also a building called the Erechtheum. Before the entrance is an altar of Zeus the Most
High, on which they never sacrifice a living creature but offer cakes, not being wont to
use any wine either. Inside the entrance are altars, one to Poseidon, on which in
obedience to an oracle they sacrifice also to Erechtheus, the second to the hero Butes,
and the third to Hephaestus. On the walls are paintings representing members of the clan
Butadae; there is also inside--the building is double--sea-water in a cistern. This is no
great marvel, for other inland regions have similar wells, in particular Aphrodisias in
Caria. But this cistern is remarkable for the noise of waves it sends forth when a south
wind blows. On the rock is the outline of a trident. Legend says that these appeared as
evidence in support of Poseidon's claim to the land.
[1.26.6] Both the city and the whole of the land are alike sacred to Athena; for even
those who in their parishes have an established worship of other gods nevertheless hold
Athena in honor. But the most holy symbol, that was so considered by all many years before
the unification of the parishes, is the image of Athena which is on what is now called the
Acropolis, but in early days the Polis (City). A legend concerning it says that it fell
from heaven; whether this is true or not I shall not discuss. A golden lamp for the
goddess was made by Callimachus1 [1.26.7] Having filled the lamp with oil, they
wait until the same day next year, and the oil is sufficient for the lamp during the
interval, although it is alight both day and night. The wick in it is of Carpasian flax,1
the only kind of flax which is fire-proof, and a bronze palm above the lamp reaches to the
roof and draws off the smoke. The Callimachus who made the lamp, although not of the first
rank of artists, was yet of unparalleled cleverness, so that he was the first to drill
holes through stones, and gave himself the title of Refiner of Art, or perhaps others gave
the title and he adopted it as his.
1,26,1,n1. 288 B.C.
1,26,4,n1. fl. 540 B.C.
1,26,6,n1. fl. 400 B.C.?
1,26,7,n1. Probably asbestos.
[1.27.1] In the temple of Athena Polias (Of the City) is a wooden Hermes, said to have
been dedicated by Cecrops, but not visible because of myrtle boughs. The votive offerings
worth noting are, of the old ones, a folding chair made by Daedalus, Persian spoils,
namely the breastplate of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Plataea1, and
a scimitar said to have belonged to Mardonius. Now Masistius I know was killed by the
Athenian cavalry. But Mardonius was opposed by the Lacedaemonians and was killed by a
Spartan; so the Athenians could not have taken the scimitar to begin with, and furthermore
the Lacedaemonians would scarcely have suffered them to carry it off.[1.27.2] About the
olive they have nothing to say except that it was testimony the goddess produced when she
contended for their land. Legend also says that when the Persians fired Athens the olive
was burnt down, but on the very day it was burnt it grew again to the height of two
cubits.Adjoining the temple of Athena is the temple of Pandrosus, the only one of the
sisters to be faithful to the trust.[1.27.3] I was much amazed at something which is not
generally known, and so I will describe the circumstances. Two maidens dwell not far from
the temple of Athena Polias, called by the Athenians Bearers of the Sacred Offerings. For
a time they live with the goddess, but when the festival comes round they perform at night
the following rites. Having placed on their heads what the priestess of Athena gives them
to carry--neither she who gives nor they who carry have any knowledge what it is--the
maidens descend by the natural underground passage that goes across the adjacent
precincts, within the city, of Aphrodite in the Gardens. They leave down below what they
carry and receive something else which they bring back covered up. These maidens they
henceforth let go free, and take up to the Acropolis others in their place. [1.27.4] By
the temple of Athena is .... an old woman about a cubit high, the inscription calling her
a handmaid of Lysimache, and large bronze figures of men facing each other for a fight,
one of whom they call Erechtheus, the other Eumolpus; and yet those Athenians who are
acquainted with antiquity must surely know that this victim of Erechtheus was Immaradus,
the son of Eumolpus.[1.27.5] On the pedestal are also statues of Theaenetus, who was seer
to Tolmides, and of Tolmides himself, who when in command of the Athenian fleet inflicted
severe damage upon the enemy, especially upon the Peloponnesians who dwell along the
coast, burnt the dock-yards at Gythium and captured Boeae, belonging to the
"provincials," and the island of Cythera. He made a descent on Sicyonia, and,
attacked by the citizens as he was laying waste the country, he put them to flight and
chased them to the city. Returning afterwards to Athens, he conducted Athenian colonists
to Euboea and Naxos and invaded Boeotia with an army. Having ravaged the greater part of
the land and reduced Chaeronea by a siege, he advanced into the territory of
Haliartus,where he was killed in battle and all his army worsted.1 Such was the
history of Tolmides that I learnt.[1.27.6] There are also old figures of Athena, no limbs
of which indeed are missing, but they are rather black and too fragile to bear a blow. For
they too were caught by the flames when the Athenians had gone on board their ships and
the King captured the city emptied of its able-bodied inhabitants. There is also a
boar-hunt (I do not know for certain whether it is the Calydonian boar) and Cycnus
fighting with Heracles. This Cycnus is said to have killed, among others, Lycus a
Thracian, a prize having been proposed for the winner of the duel, but near the river
Peneius he was himself killed by Heracles.
[1.27.7] One of the Troezenian legends about Theseus is the following. When Heracles
visited Pittheus at Troezen, he laid aside his lion's skin to eat his dinner, and there
came in to see him some Troezenian children with Theseus, then about seven years of age.
The story goes that when they saw the skin the other children ran away, but Theseus
slipped out not much afraid, seized an axe from the servants and straightway attacked the
skin in earnest, thinking it to be a lion.[1.27.8] This is the first Troezenian legend
about Theseus. The next is that Aegeus placed boots and a sword under a rock as tokens for
the child, and then sailed away to Athens; Theseus, when sixteen years old, pushed the
rock away and departed, taking what Aegeus had deposited. There is a representation of
this legend on the Acropolis, everything in bronze except the rock.[1.27.9] Another deed
of Theseus they have represented in an offering, and the story about it is as
follows:--The land of the Cretans and especially that by the river Tethris was ravaged by
a bull. It would seem that in the days of old the beasts were much more formidable to men,
for example the Nemean lion, the lion of Parnassus, the serpents in many parts of Greece,
and the boars of Calydon, Eryrmanthus and Crommyon in the land of Corinth, so that it was
said that some were sent up by the earth, that others were sacred to the gods, while
others had been let loose to punish mankind. And so the Cretans say that this bull was
sent by Poseidon to their land because, although Minos was lord of the Greek Sea, he did
not worship Poseidon more than any other god. [1.27.10] They say that this bull crossed
from Crete to the Peloponnesus, and came to be one of what are called the Twelve Labours
of Heracles. When he was let loose on the Argive plain he fled through the isthmus of
Corinth, into the land of Attica as far as the Attic parish of Marathon, killing all he
met, including Androgeos, son of Minos. Minos sailed against Athens with a fleet, not
believing that the Athenians were innocent of the death of Androgeos, and sorely harassed
them until it was agreed that he should take seven maidens and seven boys for the Minotaur
that was said to dwell in the Labyrinth at Cnossus. But the bull at Marathon Theseus is
said to have driven afterwards to the Acropolis and to have sacrificed to the goddess; the
offering commemorating this deed was dedicated by the parish of Marathon.
1,27,1,n1. 479 B.C.
1,27,5,n1. 447 B.C.
[1.28.1] Why they set up a bronze statue of Cylon in spite of his plotting a tyranny
1, I cannot say for certain; but I infer that it was because he was very beautiful
to look upon, and of no undistinguished fame, having won an Olympian victory in the double
foot-race, while he had married the daughter of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara.[1.28.2] In
addition to the works I have mentioned, there are two tithes dedicated by the Athenians
after wars. There is first a bronze Athena, tithe from the Persians who landed at
Marathon. It is the work of Pheidias, but the reliefs upon the shield, including the fight
between Centaurs and Lapithae, are said to be from the chisel of Mys1, for whom
they say Parrhasius the son of Evenor, designed this and the rest of his works. The point
of the spear of this Athena and the crest of her helmet are visible to those sailing to
Athens, as soon as Sunium is passed. Then there is a bronze chariot, tithe from the
Boeotians and the Chalcidians in Euboea2. There are two other offerings, a
statue of Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, and the best worth seeing of the works of
Pheidias, the statue of Athena called Lemnian after those who dedicated it.[1.28.3] All
the Acropolis is surrounded by a wall; a part was constructed by Cimon, son of Miltiades,
but all the rest is said to have been built round it by the Pelasgians, who once lived
under the Acropolis. The builders, they say, were Agrolas and Hyperbius. On inquiring who
they were I could discover nothing except that they were Sicilians originally who
emigrated to Acarnania.
[1.28.4] On descending, not to the lower city, but to just beneath the Gateway, you see
a fountain and near it a sanctuary of Apollo in a cave. It is here that Apollo is believed
to have met Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus.... when the Persians had landed in Attica
Philippides was sent to carry the tidings to Lacedaemon. On his return he said that the
Lacedacmonians had postponed their departure, because it was their custom not to go out to
fight before the moon was full. Philippides went on to say that near Mount Parthenius he
had been met by Pan, who told him that he was friendly to the Athenians and would come to
Marathon to fight for them. This deity, then, has been honored for this announcement.
[1.28.5] There is also the Hill of Ares, so named because Ares was the first to be
tried here; my narrative has already told that he killed Halirrhothius, and what were his
grounds for this act. Afterwards, they say, Orestes was tried for killing his mother, and
there is an altar to Athena Areia (Warlike), which he dedicated on being acquitted. The
unhewn stones on which stand the defendants and the prosecutors, they call the stone of
Outrage and the stone of Ruthlessness.
[1.28.6] Hard by is a sanctuary of the goddesses which the Athenians call the August,
but Hesiod in the Theogony1 calls them Erinyes (Furies). It was Aeschylus who
first represented them with snakes in their hair. But on the images neither of these nor
of any of the under-world deities is there anything terrible. There are images of Pluto,
Hermes, and Earth, by which sacrifice those who have received an acquittal on the Hill of
Ares; sacrifices are also offered on other occasions by both citizens and aliens.[1.28.7]
Within the precincts is a monument to Oedipus, whose bones, after diligent inquiry, I
found were brought from Thebes. The account of the death of Oedipus in the drama of
Sophocles I am prevented from believing by Homer, who says that after the death of Oedipus
Mecisteus came to Thebes and took part in the funeral games.
[1.28.8] The Athenians have other law courts as well, which are not so famous. We have
the Parabystum (Thrust aside) and the Triangle; the former is in an obscure part of the
city, and in it the most trivial cases are tried; the latter is named from its shape. The
names of Green Court and Red Court, due to their colors, have lasted down to the present
day. The largest court, to which the greatest numbers come, is called Heliaea. One of the
other courts that deal with bloodshed is called "At Palladium," into which are
brought cases of involuntary homicide. All are agreed that Demophon was the first to be
tried there, but as to the nature of the charge accounts differ.[1.28.9] It is reported
that after the capture of Troy Diomedes was returning home with his fleet when night
overtook them as in their voyage they were off Phalerum. The Argives landed, under the
impression that it was hostile territory, the darkness preventing them from seeing that it
was Attica. Thereupon they say that Demophon, he too being unaware of the facts and
ignorant that those who had landed were Argives, attacked them and, having killed a number
of them, went off with the Palladium. An Athenian, however, not seeing before him in the
dark, was knocked over by the horse of Demophon, trampled upon and killed. Whereupon
Demophon was brought to trial, some say by the relatives of the man who was trampled upon,
others say by the Argive commonwealth.[1.28.10] At Delphinium are tried those who claim
that they have committed justifiable homicide, the plea put forward by Theseus when he was
acquitted, after having killed Pallas, who had risen in revolt against him, and his sons.
Before Theseus was acquitted it was the established custom among all men for the shedder
of blood to go into exile, or, if he remained, to be put to a similar death. The Court in
the Prytaneum, as it is called, where they try iron and all similar inanimate things, had
its origin, I believe, in the following incident. It was when Erechtheus was king of
Athens that the ox-slayer first killed an ox at the altar of Zeus Polieus. Leaving the axe
where it lay he went out of the land into exile, and the axe was forthwith tried and
acquitted, and the trial has been repeated year by year down to the present.[1.28.11]
Furthermore, it is also said that inanimate objects have on occasion of their own accord
inflicted righteous retribution upon men, of this the scimitar of Cambyses affords the
best and most famous instance.1 Near the sea at the Peiraeus is Phreattys. Here
it is that men in exile, when a further charge has been brought against them in their
absence, make their defense on a ship while the judges listen on land. The legend is that
Teucer first defended himself in this way before Telamon, urging that he was guiltless in
the matter of the death of Ajax. Let this account suffice for those who are interested to
learn about the law courts.
1,28,1,n1. 632 B.C.
1,28,2,n1. fl. 430 B.C.
1,28,2,n2. c. 507 B.C.
1,28,6,n1. l. 185.
1,28,11,n1. See Hdt. 3.64.
[1.30.1] Before the entrance to the Academy is an altar to Love, with an inscription
that Charmus was the first Athenian to dedicate an altar to that god. The altar within the
city called the altar of Anteros (Love Avenged) they say was dedicated by resident aliens,
because the Athenian Meles, spurning the love of Timagoras, a resident alien, bade him
ascend to the highest point of the rock and cast himself down. Now Timagoras took no
account of his life, and was ready to gratify the youth in any of his requests, so he went
and cast himself down. When Meles saw that Timagoras was dead, he suffered such pangs of
remorse that he threw himself from the same rock and so died. From this time the resident
aliens worshipped as Anteros the avenging spirit of Timagoras.[1.30.2] In the Academy is
an altar to Prometheus, and from it they run to the city carrying burning torches. The
contest is while running to keep the torch still alight; if the torch of the first runner
goes out, he has no longer any claim to victory, but the second runner has. If his torch
also goes out, then the third man is the victor. If all the torches go out, no one is left
to be winner. There is an altar to the Muses, and another to Hermes, and one within to
Athena, and they have built one to Heracles. There is also an olive tree, accounted to be
the second that appeared.
[1.30.3] Not far from the Academy is the monument of Plato, to whom heaven foretold
that he would be the prince of philosophers. The manner of the foretelling was this. On
the night before Plato was to become his pupil Socrates in a dream saw a swan fly into his
bosom. Now the swan is a bird with a reputation for music, because, they say, a musician
of the name of Swan became king of the Ligyes on the other side of the Eridanus beyond the
Celtic territory, and after his death by the will of Apollo he was changed into the bird.
I am ready to believe that a musician became king of the Ligyes, but I cannot believe that
a bird grew out of a man.[1.30.4] In this part of the country is seen the tower of Timon,
the only man to see that there is no way to be happy except to shun other men. There is
also pointed out a place called the Hill of Horses, the first point in Attica, they say,
that Oedipus reached--this account too differs from that given by Homer, but it is
nevertheless current tradition--and an altar to Poseidon, Horse God, and to Athena, Horse
Goddess, and a chapel to the heroes Peirithous and Theseus, Oedipus and Adrastus. The
grove and temple of Poseidon were burnt by Antigonus1 when he invaded Attica,
who at other times also ravaged the land of the Athenians.
1,30,4,n1. See Paus. 1.1.1.
[1.31.1] The small parishes of Attica, which were founded severally as chance would
have it, presented the following noteworthy features. At Alimus is a sanctuary of Demeter
Lawgiver and of the Maid, and at Zoster (Girdle) on the coast is an altar to Athena, as
well as to Apollo, to Artemis and to Leto. The story is that Leto did not give birth to
her children here, but loosened her girdle with a view to her delivery, and the place
received its name from this incident. Prospalta has also a sanctuary of the Maid and
Demeter, and Anagyrus a sanctuary of the Mother of the gods. At Cephale the chief cult is
that of the Dioscuri, for the in habitants call them the Great gods.[1.31.2] At Prasiae is
a temple of Apollo. Hither they say are sent the first-fruits of the Hyperboreans, and the
Hyperboreans are said to hand them over to the Arimaspi, the Arimaspi to the Issedones,
from these the Scythians bring them to Sinope, thence they are carried by Greeks to
Prasiae, and the Athenians take them to Delos. The first-fruits are hidden in wheat straw,
and they are known of none. There is at Prasiae a monument to Erysichthon, who died on the
voyage home from Delos, after the sacred mission thither. [1.31.3] How Amphictyon
banished Cranaus, his kinsman by marriage and king of Athens, I have already related. They
say that fleeing with his supporters to the parish of Lamptrae he died and was buried
there, and at the present day there is a monument to Cranaus at Lamptrae. At Potami in
Attica is also the grave of Ion the son of Xuthus--for he too dwelt among the Athenians
and was their commander-in-chief in the war with Eleusis.[1.31.4] Such is the legend.
Phlya and Myrrhinus have altars of Apollo Dionysodotus, Artemis Light-bearer, Dionysus
Flower-god, the Ismenian nymphs and Earth, whom they name the Great goddess; a second
temple contains altars of Demeter Anesidora (Sender-up of Gifts), Zeus Ctesius (God of
Gain), Tithrone Athena, the Maid First-born and the goddesses styled August. The wooden
image at Myrrhinus is of Colaenis.[1.31.5] Athmonia worships Artemis Amarysia. On inquiry
I discovered that the guides knew nothing about these deities, so I give my own
conjecture. Amarynthus is a town in Euboea, the inhabitants of which worship Amarysia,
while the festival of Amarysia which the Athenians celebrate is no less splendid than the
Euboean. The name of the goddess, I think, came to Athmonia in this fashion and the
Colaenis in Myrrhinus is called after Colaenus. I have already written that many of the
inhabitants of the parishes say that they were ruled by kings even before the reign of
Cecrops. Now Colaenus, say the Myrrhinusians, is the name of a man who ruled before
Cecrops became king.[1.31.6] There is a parish called Acharnae, where they worship Apollo
Agyieus (God of Streets) and Heracles, and there is an altar of Athena Health. And they
call upon the name of Athena Horse-goddess and Dionysus Singer and Dionysus Ivy, saying
that the plant ivy first appeared there.
[1.32.1] The Attic mountains are Pentelicus, where there are quarries, Parnes, where
there is hunting of wild boars and of bears, and Hymettus, which grows the most suitable
pasture for bees, except that of the Alazones.1 For these people have actually
bees ranging free, tamely following the other creatures when they go to pasture. These
bees are not kept shut up in hives, and they work in any part of the land they happen to
visit. They produce a solid mass from which you cannot separate either wax or honey. Such
then is its nature.[1.32.2] The Athenians have also statues of gods on their mountains. On
Pentelicus is a statue of Athena, on Hymettus one of Zeus Hymettius. There are altars both
of Zeus Rain-god and of Apollo Foreseer. On Parnes is a bronze Zeus Parnethius, and an
altar to Zeus Semaleus (Sign-giving). There is on Parnes another altar, and on it they
make sacrifice, calling Zeus sometimes Rain-god, sometimes Averter of Ills. Anchesmus is a
mountain of no great size, with an image of Zeus Anchesmius.
[1.32.3] Before turning to a description of the islands, I must again proceed with my
account of the parishes. There is a parish called Marathon, equally distant from Athens
and Carystus in Euboea. It was at this pointin Attica that the foreigners landed, were
defeated in battle, and lost some of their vessels as they were putting off from the land.1 On the plain is the grave of the Athenians, and upon it are slabs giving the names of the
killed according to their tribes; and there is another grave for the Boeotian Plataeans
and for the slaves, for slaves fought then for the first time by the side of their
masters.[1.32.4] here is also a separate monument to one man, Miltiades, the son of Cimon,
although his end came later, after he had failed to take Paros and for this reason had
been brought to trial by the Athenians. At Marathon every night you can hear horses
neighing and men fighting. No one who has expressly set himself to behold this vision has
ever got any good from it, but the spirits are not wroth with such as in ignorance chance
to be spectators. The Marathonians worship both those who died in the fighting, calling
them heroes, and secondly Marathon, from whom the parish derives its name, and then
Heracles, saying that they were the first among the Greeks to acknowledge him as a
god.[1.32.5] They say too that there chanced to be present in the battle a man of rustic
appearance and dress. Having slaughtered many of the foreigners with a plough he was seen
no more after the engagement. When the Athenians made enquiries at the oracle the god
merely ordered them to honor Echetlaeus (He of the Plough-tail) as a hero. A trophy too of
white marble has been erected. Although the Athenians assert that they buried the
Persians, because in every case the divine law applies that a corpse should be laid under
the earth, yet I could find no grave. There was neither mound nor other trace to be seen,
as the dead were carried to a trench and thrown in anyhow.[1.32.6] In Marathon is a spring
called Macaria with the following legend. When Heracles left Tiryns, fleeing from
Eurystheus, he went to live with his friend Ceyx, who was king of Trachis. But when
Heracles departed this life Eurystheus demanded his children; whereupon the king of
Trachis sent them to Athens, saying that he was weak but Theseus had power enough to
succor them. The arrival of the children as suppliants caused for the first time war
between Peloponnesians and Athenians, Theseus refusing to give up the refugees at the
demand of Eurystheus. The story says that an oracle was given the Athenians that one of
the children of Heracles must die a voluntary death, or else victory could not be theirs.
Thereupon Macaria, daughter of Deianeira and Heracles, slew herself and gave to the
Athenians victory in the war and to the spring her own name.[1.32.7] There is at Marathon
a lake which for the most part is marshy. Into this ignorance of the roads made the
foreigners fall in their flight, and it is said that this accident was the cause of their
great losses. Above the lake are the stone stables of Artaphernes' horses, and marks of
his tent on the rocks. Out of the lake flows a river, affording near the lake itself water
suitable for cattle, but near its mouth it becomes salt and full of sea fish. A little
beyond the plain is the Hill of Pan and a remarkable Cave of Pan. The entrance to it is
narrow, but farther in are chambers and baths and the so-called "Pan's herd of
goats," which are rocks shaped in most respects like to goats.
1,32,1,n1. A people of S. Russia.
1,32,3,n1. 490 B.C.
[1.29.1] Near the Hill of Ares is shown a ship built for the procession of the
Panathenaea. This ship, I suppose, has been surpassed in size by others, but I know of no
builder who has beaten the vessel at Delos, with its nine banks of oars below the deck.
[1.29.2] Outside the city, too, in the parishes and on the roads, the Athenians have
sanctuaries of the gods, and graves of heroes and of men. The nearest is the Academy, once
the property of a private individual, but in my time a gymnasium. As you go down to it you
come to a precinct of Artemis, and wooden images of Ariste (Best) and Calliste (Fairest).
In my opinion, which is supported by the poems of Pamphos, these are surnames of Artemis.
There is another account of them, which I know but shall omit. Then there is a small
temple, into which every year on fixed days they carry the image of Dionysus
Eleuthereus.[1.29.3] Such are their sanctuaries here, and of the graves the first is that
of Thrasybulus son of Lycus, in all respects the greatest of all famous Athenians, whether
they lived before him or after him. The greater number of his achievements I shall pass
by, but the following facts will suffice to bear out my assertion. He put down what is
known as the tyranny of the Thirty1, setting out from Thebes with a force
amounting at first to sixty men; he also persuaded the Athenians, who were torn by
factions, to be reconciled, and to abide by their compact. His is the first grave, and
after it come those of Pericles, Chabrias 2 and Phormio.3 [1.29.4]
There is also a monument for all the Athenians whose fate it has been to fall in battle,
whether at sea or on land, except such of them as fought at Marathon. These, for their
valor, have their graves on the field of battle, but the others lie along the road to the
Academy, and on their graves stand slabs bearing the name and parish of each. First were
buried those who in Thrace, after a victorious advance as far as Drabescus1,
were unexpectedly attacked by the Edonians and slaughtered. There is also a legend that
they were struck by lightning. [1.29.5] Among the generals were Leagrus, to whom was
entrusted chief command of the army, and Sophanes of Decelea, who killed when he came to
the help of the Aeginetans Eurybates the Argive, who won the prize in the pentathlon1
at the Nemean games. This was the third expedition which the Athenians dispatched out of
Greece. For against Priam and the Trojans war was made with one accord by all the Greeks;
but by them selves the Athenians sent armies, first with Iolaus to Sardinia, secondly to
what is now Ionia, and thirdly on the present occasion to Thrace.[1.29.6] Before the
monument is a slab on which are horsemen fighting. Their names are Melanopus and
Macartatus, who met their death fighting against the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians on the
borders of Eleon and Tanagra. There is also a grave of Thessalian horsemen who, by reason
of an old alliance, came when the Peloponnesians with Archidamus invaded Attica with an
army for the first time1, and hard by that of Cretan bowmen. Again there are
monuments to Athenians: to Cleisthenes, who invented the system of the tribes at present
existing2, and to horsemen who died when the Thessalians shared the fortune of
war with the Athenians. [1.29.7] Here too lie the men of Cleone, who came with the Argives
into Attica1; the occasion whereof I shall set forth when in the course of my
narrative I come to the Argives. There is also the grave of the Athenians who fought
against the Aeginetans before the Persian invasion. It was surely a just decree even for a
democracy when the Athenians actually allowed slaves a public funeral, and to have their
names inscribed on a slab, which declares that in the war they proved good men and true to
their masters. There are also monuments of other men, their fields of battle lying in
various regions. Here lie the most renowned of those who went against Olynthus2,
and Melesander who sailed with a fleet along the Maeander into upper Caria3;
[1.29.8] also those who died in the war with Cassander, and the Argives who once fought as
the allies of Athens. It is said that the alliance between the two peoples was brought
about thus. Sparta was once shaken by an earthquake, and the Helots seceded to Ithome.1
After the secession the Lacedaemonians sent for help to various places, including Athens,
which dispatched picked troops under the command of Cimon, the son of Miltiades. These the
Lacedaemonians dismissed, because they suspected them.[1.29.9] The Athenians regarded the
insult as intolerable, and on their way back made an alliance with the Argives, the
immemorial enemies of the Lacedaemonians. Afterwards, when a battle was imminent at
Tanagra1, the Athenians opposing the Boeotians and Lacedaemonians, the Argives
reinforced the Athenians. For a time the Argives had the better, but night came on and
took from them the assurance of their victory, and on the next day the Lacedaemonians had
the better, as the Thessalians betrayed the Athenians.[1.29.10] It occurred to me to tell
of the following men also, firstly Apollodorus, commander of the mercenaries, who was an
Athenian dispatched by Arsites, satrap of Phrygia by the Hellespont, and saved their city
for the Perinthians when Philip had invaded their territory with an army.1 He,
then, is buried here, and also Eubulus 2 the son of Spintharus, along with men
who though brave were not attended by good fortune; some attacked Lachares when he was
tyrant, others planned the capture of the Peiraeus when in the hands of a Macedonian
garrison, but before the deed could be accomplished were betrayed by their accomplices and
put to death.[1.29.11] Here also lie those who fell near Corinth. 1 Heaven
showed most distinctly here and again at Leuctra2 that those whom the Greeks
call brave are as nothing if Good Fortune be not with them, seeing that the
Lacedaemonians, who had on this occasion overcome Corinthians and Athenians, and
furthermore Argives and Boeotians, were afterwards at Leuctra so utterly overthrown by the
Boeotians alone. After those who were killed at Corinth, we come across elegiac verses
declaring that one and the same slab has been erected to those who died in Euboea and
Chios 3, and to those who perished in the remote parts of the continent of
Asia, or in Sicily.[1.29.12] The names of the generals are inscribed with the exception of
Nicias, and among the private soldiers are included the Plataeans along with the
Athenians. This is the reason why Nicias was passed over, and my account is identical with
that of Philistus, who says that while Demosthenes made a truce for the others and
excluded himself, attempting to commit suicide when taken prisoner, Nicias voluntarily
submitted to the surrender.1 For this reason Nicias had not his name inscribed
on the slab, being condemned as a voluntary prisoner and an unworthy soldier.[1.29.13] On
another slab are the names of those who fought in the region of Thrace and at Megara1,
and when Alcibiades persuaded the Arcadians in Mantinea and the Eleans to revolt from the
Lacedaemonians2, and of those who were victorious over the Syracusans before
Demosthenes arrived in Sicily. Here were buried also those who fought in the sea-fights
near the Hellespont3, those who opposed the Macedonians at Charonea 4,
those who were killed at Delium in the territory of Tanagra5, the men
Leosthenes led into Thessaly, those who sailed with Cimon to Cyprus6, and of
those who with Olympiodorus 7 expelled the garrison not more than thirteen
men.[1.29.14] The Athenians declare that when the Romans were waging a border war they
sent a small force to help them, and later on five Attic warships assisted the Romans in a
naval action against the Carthaginians. Accordingly these men also have their grave here.
The achievements of Tolmides and his men, and the manner of their death, I have already
set forth, and any who are interested may take note that they are buried along this road.
Here lie too those who with Cimon achieved the great feat of winning a land and naval
victory on one and the same day. 1 [1.29.15] Here also are buried Conon and
Timotheus, father and son, the second pair thus related to accomplish illustrious deeds,
Miltiades and Cimon being the first; Zeno too, the son of Mnaseas and Chrysippus1
of Soli, Nicias the son of Nicomedes, the best painter from life of all his
contemporaries, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who killed Hipparchus, the son of
Peisistratus; there are also two orators, Ephialtes, who was chiefly responsible for the
abolition of the privileges of the Areopagus2, and Lycurgus,3 the
son of Lycophron;[1.29.16] Lycurgus provided for the state-treasury six thousand five
hundred talents more than Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, collected, and furnished for
the procession of the Goddess golden figures of Victory and ornaments for a hundred
maidens; for war he provided arms and missiles, besides increasing the fleet to four
hundred warships. As for buildings, he completed the theater that others had begun, while
during his political life he built dockyards in the Peiraeus and the gymnasium near what
is called the Lyceum. Everything made of silver or gold became part of the plunder
Lachares made away with when he became tyrant, but the buildings remained to my time.
1,29,3,n1. 403 B.C.
1,29,3,n2. Died 357 B.C.
1,29,3,n3. A famous Athenian admiral who fought well in the early part of the
Peloponnesian War.
1,29,4,n1. c. 465 B.C.
1,29,5,n1. A group of five contests: leaping, foot-racing, throwing the quoit, throwing
the spear, wrestling.
1,29,6,n1. 431 B.C.
1,29,6,n2. 508 B.C.
1,29,7,n1. 457 B.C.
1,29,7,n2. 349 B.C.
1,29,7,n3. 430 B.C.
1,29,8,n1. 461 B.C.
1,29,9,n1. 457 B.C.
1,29,10,n1. 340 B.C.
1,29,10,n2. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
1,29,11,n1. 394 B.C.
1,29,11,n2. 371 B.C.
1,29,11,n3. 445 B.C.
1,29,12,n1. 413 B.C.
1,29,13,n1. 445 B.C.
1,29,13,n2. 420 B.C.
1,29,13,n3. 409 B.C.
1,29,13,n4. 338 B.C.>, those who marched with Cleon to Amphipolis<422 B.C.
1,29,13,n5. 424 B.C.
1,29,13,n6. 449 B.C.
1,29,13,n7. See Paus. 1.26.3.
1,29,14,n1. 466 B.C.
1,29,15,n1. Stoic philosophers.
1,29,15,n2. 463-1 B.C.
1,29,15,n3. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
[1.33.1] At some distance from Marathon is Brauron, where, according to the legend,
Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, landed with the image of Artemis when she fled from
the Tauri; leaving the image there she came to Athens also and afterwards to Argos. There
is indeed an old wooden image of Artemis here, but who in my opinion have the one taken
from the foreigners I will set forth in another place.[1.33.2] About sixty stades from
Marathon as you go along the road by the sea to Oropus stands Rhamnus. The dwelling houses
are on the coast, but a little way inland is a sanctuary of Nemesis, the most implacable
deity to men of violence. It is thought that the wrath of this goddess fell also upon the
foreigners who landed at Marathon. For thinking in their pride that nothing stood in the
way of their taking Athens, they were bringing a piece of Parian marble to make a trophy,
convinced that their task was already finished.[1.33.3] Of this marble Pheidias made a
statue of Nemesis, and on the head of the goddess is a crown with deer and small images of
Victory. In her left hand she holds an apple branch, in her right hand a cup on which are
wrought Aethiopians. As to the Aethiopians, I could hazard no guess myself, nor could I
accept the statement of those who are convinced that the Aethiopians have been carved upon
the cup be cause of the river Ocean. For the Aethiopians, they say, dwell near it, and
Ocean is the father of Nemesis.[1.33.4] It is not the river Ocean, but the farthest part
of the sea navigated by man, near which dwell the Iberians and the Celts, and Ocean
surrounds the island of Britain. But of the Aethiopians beyond Syene, those who live
farthest in the direction of the Red Sea are the Ichthyophagi (Fish-eaters), and the gulf
round which they live is called after them. The most righteous of them inhabit the city
Meroe and what is called the Aethiopian plain. These are they who show the Table of the
Sun,1 and they have neither sea nor river except the Nile.[1.33.5] There are
other Aethiopians who are neighbours of the Mauri and extend as far as the Nasamones. For
the Nasamones, whom Herodotus calls the Atlantes, and those who profess to know the
measurements of the earth name the Lixitae, are the Libyans who live the farthest close to
Mount Atlas, and they do not till the ground at all, but live on wild vines. But neither
these Aethiopians nor yet the Nasamones have any river. For the water near Atlas, which
provides a beginning to three streams, does not make any of the streams a river, as the
sand swallows it all up at once. So the Aethiopians dwell near no river Ocean.[1.33.6] The
water from Atlas is muddy,and near the source were crocodiles of not less than two cubits,
which when the men approached dashed down into the spring. The thought has occurred to
many that it is the reappearance of this water out of the sand which gives the Nile to
Egypt. Mount Atlas is so high that its peaks are said to touch heaven, but is inaccessible
because of the water and the presence everywhere of trees. Its region indeed near the
Nasamones is known, but we know of nobody yet who has sailed along the parts facing the
sea. I must now resume.[1.33.7] Neither this nor any other ancient statue of Nemesis has
wings, for not even the holiest wooden images of the Smyrnaeans have them, but later
artists, convinced that the goddess manifests herself most as a consequence of love, give
wings to Nemesis as they do to Love. I will now go onto describe what is figured on the
pedestal of the statue, having made this preface for the sake of clearness. The Greeks say
that Nemesis was the mother of Helen, while Leda suckled and nursed her. The father of
Helen the Greeks like everybody else hold to be not Tyndareus but Zeus.[1.33.8] Having
heard this legend Pheidias has represented Helen as being led to Nemesis by Leda, and he
has represented Tyndareus and his children with a man Hippeus by name standing by with a
horse. There are Agamemnon and Menelaus and Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles and first husband
of Hermione, the daughter of Helen. Orestes was passed over because of his crime against
his mother, yet Hermione stayed by his side in everything and bore him a child. Next upon
the pedestal is one called Epochus and another youth; the only thing I heard about them
was that they were brothers of Oenoe, from whom the parish has its name.
1,33,4,n1. A meadow near the city of the Aethiopians, in which they dined.
[1.34.1] The land of Oropus, between Attica and the land of Tanagra, which originally
belonged to Boeotia, in our time belongs to the Athenians, who always fought for it but
never won secure pos session until Philip gave it to them after taking Thebes. The city is
on the coast and affords nothing remarkable to record. About twelve stades from the city
is a sanctuary of Amphiaraus.[1.34.2] Legend says that when Amphiaraus was exiled from
Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot. Only they say that the
incident did not happen here, the place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes
to Chalcis. The divinity of Amphiaraus was first established among the Oropians, from whom
afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this
time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them,
such as Eleus in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaus, and Lebadea of the Boeotians
dedicated to Trophonius. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue of
Amphiaraus.[1.34.3] The altar shows parts. One part is to Heracles, Zeus, and Apollo
Healer, another is given up to heroes and to wives of heroes, the third is to Hestia and
Hermes and Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus. But Alcmaeon, because of his
treatment of Eriphyle, is honored neither in the temple of Amphiaraus nor yet with
Amphilochus. The fourth portion of the altar is to Aphrodite and Panacea, and further to
Iaso, Health and Athena Healer. The fifth is dedicated to the nymphs and to Pan, and to
the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. The Athenians too have an altar to Amphilochus in the
city, and there is at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle of his which is the most trustworthy of
my day.[1.34.4] The Oropians have near the temple a spring, which they call the Spring of
Amphiaraus; they neither sacrifice into it nor are wont to use it for purifications or for
lustral water. But when a man has been cured of a disease through a response the custom is
to throw silver and coined gold into the spring, for by this way they say that Amphiaraus
rose up after he had become a god. Iophon the Cnossian, a guide, produced responses in
hexameter verse, saying that Amphiaraus gave them to the Argives who were sent against
Thebes. These verses unrestrainedly appealed to popular taste. Except those whom they say
Apollo inspired of old none of the seers uttered oracles, but they were good at explaining
dreams and interpreting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims.[1.34.5] My
opinion is that Amphiaraus devoted him self most to the exposition of dreams. It is
manifest that, when his divinity was established, it was a dream oracle that he set up.
One who has come to consult Amphiaraus is wont first to purify himself. The mode of
purification is to sacrifice to the god, and they sacrifice not only to him but also to
all those whose names are on the altar. And when all these things have been first done,
they sacrifice a ram, and, spreading the skin under them, go to sleep and await
enlightenment in a dream.
[1.35.1] There are islands not far from Attica. Of the one called the Island of
Patroclus I have already given an account.1 There is another when you have
sailed past Sunium with Attica on the left. On this they say that Helen landed after the
capture of Troy,[1.35.2] and for this reason the name of the island is Helene. Salamis
lies over against Eleusis, and stretches as far as the territory of Megara. It is said
that the first to give this name to the island was Cychreus, who called it after his
mother Salamis, the daughter of Asopus, and afterwards it was colonized by the Aeginetans
with Telamon. Philaeus, the son of Eurysaces, the son of Ajax, is said to have handed the
island over to the Athenians, having been made an Athenian by them. Many years afterwards
the Athenians drove out all the Salaminians, having discovered that they had been guilty
of treachery in the war with Cassander1, and mainly of set purpose had
surrendered to the Macedonians. They sentenced to death Aeschetades, who on this occasion
had been elected general for Salamis, and they swore never to forget the treachery of the
Salaminians. [1.35.3] There are still the remains of a market-place, a temple of Ajax and
his statue in ebony. Even at the present day the Athenians pay honors to Ajax himself and
to Eurysaces, for there is an altar of Eurysaces also at Athens. In Salamis is shown a
stone not far from the harbor, on which they say that Telamon sat when he gazed at the
ship in which his children were sailing away to Aulis to take part in the joint expedition
of the Greeks.[1.35.4] Those who dwell about Salamis say that it was when Ajax died that
the flower first appeared in their country. It is white and tinged with red, both flower
and leaves being smaller than those of the lily; there are letters on it like to those on
the iris. About the judgment concerning the armour I heard a story of the Aeolians who
afterwards settled at Ilium, to the effect that when Odysseus suffered shipwreck the
armour was cast ashore near the grave of Ajax. As to the hero's size, a Mysian was my
informant.[1.35.5] He said that the sea flooded the side of the grave facing the beach and
made it easy a enter the tomb, and he bade me form an estimate of the size of the corpse
in the following way. The bones on his knees, called by doctors the knee-pan, were in the
case of Ajax as big as the quoit of a boy in the pentathlon. I saw nothing to wonder at in
the stature of those Celts who live farthest of on the borders of the land which is
uninhabited because of the cold; these people, the Cabares, are no bigger than Egyptian
corpses. But I will relate all that appeared to me worth seeing.[1.35.6] For the
Magnesians on the Lethaeus, Protophanes, one of the citizens, won at Olympia in one day
victories in the pancration1 and in wrestling. Into the grave of this man
robbers entered, thinking to gain some advantage, and after the robbers people came in to
see the corpse, which had ribs not separated but joined together from the shoulders to the
smallest ribs, those called by doctors bastard. Before the city of the Milesians is an
island called Lade, and from it certain islets are detached. One of these they call the
islet of Asterius, and say that Asterius was buried in it, and that Asterius was the son
of Anax, and Anax the son of Earth. Now the corpse is not less than ten cubits. [1.35.7]
But what really caused me surprise is this. There is a small city of upper Lydia called
The Doors of Temenus. There a crest broke away in a storm, and there appeared bones the
shape of which led one to sup pose that they were human, but from their size one would
never have thought it. At once the story spread among the multitude that it was the corpse
of Geryon, the son of Chrysaor, and that the seat also was his. For there is a man's seat
carved on a rocky spur of the mountain. And a torrent they called the river Ocean, and
they said that men ploughing met with the horns of cattle, for the story is that Geryon
reared excellent cows.[1.35.8] And when I criticized the account and pointed out to them
that Geryon is at Gadeira, where there is, not his tomb, but a tree showing different
shapes, the guides of the Lydians related the true story, that the corpse is that of
Hyllus, a son of Earth, from whom the river is named. They also said that Heracles from
his sojourning with Omphale called his son Hyllus after the river.
1,35,1,n1. See Paus. 1.1.1.
1,35,2,n1. 318 B.C.
1,35,6,n1. Boxing and wrestling combined.
[1.36.1] But I will return to my subject. In Salamis is a sanctuary of Artemis, and
also a trophy erected in honor of the victory which Themistocles the son of Neocles won
for the Greeks.1 There is also a sanctuary of Cychreus. When the Athenians were
fighting the Persians at sea, a serpent is said to have appeared in the fleet, and the god
in an oracle told the Athenians that it was Cychreus the hero.[1.36.2] Before Salamis
there is an island called Psyttalea. Here they say that about four hundred of the Persians
landed, and when the fleet of Xerxes was defeated, these also were killed after the Greeks
had crossed over to Psyttalea. The island has no artistic statue, only some roughly carved
wooden images of Pan.
[1.36.3] As you go to Eleusis from Athens along what the Athenians call the Sacred Way
you see the tomb of Anthemocritus.1 The Megarians committed against him a most
wicked deed, for when he had come as a herald to forbid them to encroach upon the land in
future they put him to death. For this act the wrath of the Two Goddesses lies upon them
even to this day, for they are the only Greeks that not even the emperor Hadrian could
make more prosperous.[1.36.4] After the tombstone of Anthemocritus comes the grave of
Molottus, who was deemed worthy of commanding the Athenians when they crossed into Euboea1
to reinforce Plutarch,2 and also a place called Scirum, which received its name
for the following reason. The Eleusinians were making war against Erechtheus when there
came from Dodona a seer called Scirus, who also set up at Phalerum the ancient sanctuary
of Athena Sciras. When he fell in the fighting the Elusinians buried him near a torrent,
and the hero has given his name to both place and torrent.[1.36.5] Hard by is the tomb of
Cephisodorus, who was champion of the people and opposed to the utmost Philip, the son of
Demetrius, king of Macedon. Cephisodorus induced to become allies of Athens two kings,
Attalus the Mysian and Ptolemy the Egyptian, and, of the self-governing peoples, the
Aetolians with the Rhodians and the Cretans among the islanders.[1.36.6] As the
reinforcements from Egypt, Mysia, and Crete were for the most part too late, and the
Rhodians, whose strength lay only in their fleet, were of little help against the
Macedonian men-at-arms, Cephisodorus sailed with other Athenians to Italy and begged aid
of the Romans.1 They sent a force and a general, who so reduced Philip and the
Macedonians that afterwards Perseus, the son of Philip, lost his throne and was himself
taken prisoner to Italy. This Philip was the son of Demetrius. Demetrius was the first of
this house to hold the throne of Macedon, having put to death Alexander, son of Cassander,
as I have related in a former part of my account.
1,36,1,n1. 480 B.C.
1,36,3,n1. Just before the Peloponnesian War.
1,36,4,n1. 350 B.C.
1,36,4,n2. Tyrant of Eretria in Euboea.
1,36,6,n1. 198 B.C.
[1.37.1] After the tomb of Cephisodorus is the grave of Heliodorus Halis.1 A
portrait of this man is also to be seen in the great temple of Athena. Here too is the
grave of Themistocles, son of Poliarchus, and grandson of the Themistocles who fought the
sea fight against Xerxes and the Persians. Of the later descendants I shall mention none
except Acestium. She, her father Xenocles, his father Sophocles, and his father Leon, all
of them up to her great-grandfather Leon won the honor of being torch-bearer, and in her
own lifetime she saw as torch-bearers, first her brother Sophocles, after him her husband
Themistocles, and after his death her son Theophrastus. Such was the fortune, they say,
that happened to her.[1.37.2] A little way past the grave of Themistocles is a precinct
sacred to Lacius, a hero, a parish called after him Laciadae, and the tomb of Nicocles of
Tarentum, who won a unique reputation as a harpist. There is also an altar of Zephyrus and
a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter. With them Athena and Poseidon are worshipped.
There is a legend that in this place Phytalus welcomed Demeter in his home, for which act
the goddess gave him the fig tree. This story is borne out by the inscription on the grave
of Phytalus:--
Hero and king, Phytalus here welcome gave to Demeter,
August goddess, when first she created fruit of the harvest;
Sacred fig is the name which mortal men have assigned it.
Whence Phytalus and his race have gotten honours immortal.
[1.37.3] Before you cross the Cephisus you come to the tomb of Theodorus, the best
tragic actor of his day.1 By the river is a statue of Mnesimache, and a votive
statue of her son cutting his hair as a gift for Cephisus. That this habit has existed
from ancient times among all the Greeks may be inferred from the poetry of Homer,2
who makes Peleus vow that on the safe return of Achilles from Troy he will cut off the
young man's hair as a gift for the Spercheus.
[1.37.4] Across the Cephisus is an ancient altar of Zeus Meilichius (Gracious). At this
altar Theseus obtained purification at the hands of the descendants of Phytalus after
killing brigands, including Sinis who was related to him through Pittheus. Here is the
grave of Theodectes1 of Phaselis, and also that of Mnesitheus. They say that he
was a skilful physician and dedicated statues, among which is a representation of Iacchus.
On the road stands a small temple called that of Cyamites.2 I cannot state for
certain whether he was the first to sow beans, or whether they gave this name to a hero
because they may not attribute to Demeter the discovery of beans. Whoever has been
initiated at Eleusis or has read what are called the Orphica3 knows what I
mean. [1.37.5] Of the tombs, the largest and most beautiful are that of a Rhodian who
settled at Athens, and the one made by the Macedonian Harpalus, who ran away from
Alexander and crossed with a fleet from Asia to Europe. On his arrival at Athens he was
arrested by the citizens, but ran away after bribing among others the friends of
Alexander. But before this he married Pythonice, whose family I do not know, but she was a
courtesan at Athens and at Corinth. His love for her was so great that when she died he
made her a tomb which is the most noteworthy of all the old Greek tombs.
[1.37.6] There is a sanctuary in which are set statues of Demeter, her daughter,
Athena, and Apollo. At the first it was built in honor of Apollo only. For legend says
that Cephalus, the son of Deion, having helped Amphitryon to destroy the Teleboans, was
the first to dwell in that island which now is called after him Cephallenia, and that he
resided till that time at Thebes, exiled from Athens because he had killed his wife
Procris. In the tenth generation afterwards Chalcinus and Daetus, descendants of Cephalus,
sailed to Delphi and asked the god for permission to return to Athens.[1.37.7] He ordered
them first to sacrifice to Apollo in that spot in Attica where they should see a
man-of-war running on the land. When they reached the mountain called the Many-colored
Mountain a snake was seen hurrying into its hole. In this place they sacrificed to Apollo;
afterwards they came to Athens and the Athenians made them citizens. After this is a
temple of Aphrodite, before which is a note worthy wall of unwrought stone.
1,37,1,n1. Nothing more is known of this man.
1,37,3,n1. fl. c. 370 B.C.
1,37,3,n2. Hom. Il. 23.141 f.
1,37,4,n1. A pupil of Isocrates
1,37,4,n2. Cyamos means "bean."
1,37,4,n3. A poem describing certain aspects of the Orphic religion.
[1.38.1] The streams called Rheiti are rivers only in so far as they are currents, for
their water is sea water. It is a reasonable belief that they flow beneath the ground from
the Euripus of the Chalcidians, and fall into a sea of a lower level. They are said to be
sacred to the Maid and to Demeter, and only the priests of these goddesses are permitted
to catch the fish in them. Anciently, I learn, these streams were the boundaries between
the land of the Eleusinians and that of the other Athenians, [1.38.2] and the first to
dwell on the other side of the Rheiti was Crocon, where at the present day is what is
called the palace of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Saesara, daughter of
Celeus. Not all of them say this, but only those who belong to the parish of Scambonidae.
I could not find the grave of Crocon, but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in identifying
the tomb of Eumolpus. This Eumolpus they say came from Thrace, being the son of Poseidon
and Chione. Chione they say was the daughter of the wind Boreas and of Oreithyia. Homer
says nothing about the family of Eumolpus, but in his poems styles him
"manly."[1.38.3] When the Eleusinians fought with the Athenians, Erechtheus,
king of the Athenians, was killed, as was also Immaradus, son of Eumolpus. These were the
terms on which they concluded the war: the Eleusinians were to have in dependent control
of the mysteries, but in all things else were to be subject to the Athenians. The
ministers of the Two Goddesses were Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus, whom Pamphos and
Homer agree in naming Diogenia, Pammerope, and the third Saesara. Eumolpus was survived by
Ceryx, the younger of his sons whom the Ceryces themselves say was a son of Aglaurus,
daughter of Cecrops, and of Hermes, not of Eumolpus.
[1.38.4] There is also a shrine of the hero Hippothoon, after whom the tribe is named,
and hard by one of Zarex. The latter they say learned music from Apollo, but my opinion is
that he was a Lacedaemonian who came as a stranger to the land, and that after him is
named Zarax, a town in the Laconian territory near the sea. If there is a native Athenian
hero called Zarex, I have nothing to say concerning him.[1.38.5] At Eleusis flows a
Cephisus which is more violent than the Cephisus I mentioned above, and by the side of it
is the place they call Erineus, saying that Pluto descended there to the lower world after
carrying off the Maid. Near this Cephisus Theseus killed a brigand named Polypemon and
surnamed Procrustes.[1.38.6] The Eleusinians have a temple of Triptolemus, of Artemis of
the Portal, and of Poseidon Father, and a well called Callichorum (Lovely dance), where
first the women of the Eleusinians danced and sang in praise of the goddess. They say that
the plain called Rharium was the first to be sown and the first to grow crops, and for
this reason it is the custom to use sacrificial barley and to make cakes for the
sacrifices from its produce. Here there is shown a threshing-floor called that of
Triptolemus and an altar.[1.38.7] My dream forbade the description of the things within
the wall of the sanctuary, and the uninitiated are of course not permitted to learn that
which they are prevented from seeing. The hero Eleusis, after whom the city is named, some
assert to be a son of Hermes and of Daeira, daughter of Ocean; there are poets, however,
who have made Ogygus father of Eleusis. Ancient legends, deprived of the help of poetry,
have given rise to many fictions, especially concerning the pedigrees of heroes.
[1.38.8] When you have turned from Eleusis to Boeotia you come to the Plataean land,
which borders on Attica. Formerly Eleutherae formed the boundary on the side towards
Attica, but when it came over to the Athenians henceforth the boundary of Boeotia was
Cithaeron. The reason why the people of Eleutherae came over was not because they were
reduced by war, but because they desired to share Athenian citizenship and hated the
Thebans. In this plain is a temple of Dionysus, from which the old wooden image was
carried off to Athens. The image at Eleutherae at the present day is a copy of the old
one.[1.38.9] A little farther on is a small cave, and beside it is a spring of cold water.
The legend about the cave is that Antiope after her labour placed her babies into it; as
to the spring, it is said that the shepherd who found the babies washed them there for the
first time, taking off their swaddling clothes. Of Eleutherae there were still left the
ruins of the wall and of the houses. From these it is clear that the city was built a
little above the plain close to Cithaeron.
[1.39.1] There is another road from Eleusis, which leads to Megara. As you go along
this road you come to a well called Anthium (Flowery Well). Pamphos in his poems describes
how Demeter in the likeness of an old woman sat at this well after the rape of her
daughter, how the daughters of Celeus thence took her as an Argive woman to their mother,
and how Metaneira thereupon entrusted to her the rearing of her son.[1.39.2] A little
farther on from the well is a sanctuary of Metaneira, and after it are graves of those who
went against Thebes. For Creon, who at that time ruled in Thebes as guardian of Laodamas
the son of Eteocles, refused to allow the relatives to take up and bury their dead. But
Adrastus having supplicated Theseus, the Athenians fought with the Boeotians, and Theseus
being victorious in the fight carried the dead to the Eleusinian territory and buried them
here. The Thebans, however, say that they voluntarily gave up the dead for burial and deny
that they engaged in battle.[1.39.3] After the graves of the Argives is the tomb of Alope,
who, legend says, being mother of Hippothoon by Poseidon was on this spot put to death by
her father Cercyon. He is said to have treated strangers wickedly, especially in wrestling
with them against their will. So even to my day this place is called the Wrestling Ground
of Cercyon, being a little way from the grave of Alope. Cercyon is said to have killed all
those who tried a bout with him except Theseus, who out matched him mainly by his skill.
For Theseus was the first to discover the art of wrestling, and through him afterwards was
established the teaching of the art. Before him men used in wrestling only size and
strength of body.Such in my opinion are the most famous legends and sights among the
Athenians, and from the beginning my narrative has picked out of much material the things
that deserve to be recorded. [1.39.4] Next to Eleusis is the district called Megaris. This
too belonged to Athens in ancient times, Pylas the king having left it to Pandion. My
evidence is this; in the land is the grave of Pandion, and Nisus, while giving up the rule
over the Athenians to Aegeus, the eldest of all the family, was himself made king of
Megara and of the territory as far as Corinth. Even at the present day the port of the
Megarians is called Nisaea after him. Subsequently in the reign of Codrus the
Peloponnesians made an expedition against Athens. Having accomplished nothing brilliant,
on their way home they took Megara from the Athenians, and gave it as a dwelling-place to
such of the Corinthians and of their other allies as wished to go there.[1.39.5] In this
way the Megarians changed their customs and dialect and became Dorians, and they say that
the city received its name when Car the son of Phoroneus was king in this land. It was
then they say that sanctuaries of Demeter were first made by them, and then that men used
the name Megara (Chambers). This is their history according to the Megarians themselves.
But the Boeotians declare that Megareus, son of Poseidon, who dwelt in Onchestus, came
with an army of Boeotians to help Nisus wage the war against Minos; that falling in the
battle he was buried on the spot, and the city was named Megara from him, having
previously been called Nisa.[1.39.6] In the twelfth generation after Car the son of
Phoroneus the Megarians say that Lelex arrived from Egypt and became king, and that in his
reign the tribe Leleges received its name. Lelex they say begat Cleson, Cleson Pylas and
Pylas Sciron, who married the daughter of Pandion and afterwards disputed with Nisus, the
son of Pandion, about the throne, the dispute being settled by Aeacus, who gave the
kingship to Nisus and his descendants, and to Sciron the leadership in war. They say
further that Nisus was succeeded by Megareus, the son of Poseidon, who married Iphinoe,
the daughter of Nisus, but they ignore altogether the Cretan war and the capture of the
city in the reign of Nisus.
[1.40.1] There is in the city a fountain, which was built for the citizens by
Theagenes,1 whom I have mentioned previously as having given his daughter in
marriage to Cylon the Athenian. This Theagenes upon becoming tyrant built the fountain,
which is noteworthy for its size, beauty and the number of its pillars. Water flows into
it called the water of the Sithnid nymphs. The Megarians say that the Sithnid nymphs are
native, and that one of them mated with Zeus; that Megarus, a son of Zeus and of this
nymph, escaped the flood in the time of Deucalion, and made his escape to the heights of
Gerania. The mountain had not yet received this name, but was then named Gerania (Crane
Hill) because cranes were flying and Megarus swam towards the cry of the birds.[1.40.2]
Not far from this fountain is an ancient sanctuary, and in our day likenesses stand in it
of Roman emperors, and a bronze image is there of Artemis surnamed Saviour. There is a
story that a detachment of the army of Mardonius, having over run Megaris1,
wished to return to Mardonius at Thebes, but that by the will of Artemis night came on
them as they marched, and missing their way they turned into the hilly region. Trying to
find out whether there was a hostile force near they shot some missiles. The rock near
groaned when struck, and they shot again with greater eagerness,[1.40.3] until at last
they used up all their arrows thinking that they were shooting at the enemy. When the day
broke, the Megarians attacked, and being men in armour fighting against men without armour
who no longer had even a supply of missiles, they killed the greater number of their
opponents. For this reason they had an image made of Artemis Saviour. Here are also images
of the gods named the Twelve, said to be the work of Praxiteles. But the image of Artemis
herself was made by Strongylion.
[1.40.4] After this when you have entered the precinct of Zeus called the Olympieum you
see a note worthy temple. But the image of Zeus was not finished, for the work was
interrupted by the war of the Peloponnesians against the Athenians, in which the Athenians
every year ravaged the land of the Megarians with a fleet and an army, damaging public
revenues and bringing private families to dire distress. The face of the image of Zeus is
of ivory and gold, the other parts are of clay and gypsum. The artist is said to have been
Theocosmus, a native, helped by Pheidias. Above the head of Zeus are the Seasons and
Fates, and all may see that he is the only god obeyed by Destiny, and that he apportions
the seasons as is due. Behind the temple lie half-worked pieces of wood, which Theocosmus
intended to overlay with ivory and gold in order a complete the image of Zeus. [1.40.5] In
the temple itself is dedicated a bronze ram of a galley. This ship they say that they
captured off Salamis in a naval action with the Athenians. The Athenians too admit that
for a time they evacuated the island before the Megarians, saying that after wards Solon1
wrote elegiac poems and encouraged them, and that thereupon the Athenians challenged their
enemies, won the war and recovered Salamis. But the Megarians say that exiles from
themselves, whom they call Dorycleans, reached the colonists in Salamis and betrayed the
island to the Athenians.
[1.40.6] After the precinct of Zeus, when you have ascended the citadel, which even at
the present day is called Caria from Car, son of Phoroneus, you see a temple of Dionysus
Nyctelius (Nocturnal), a sanctuary built to Aphrodite Epistrophia (She who turns men to
love), an oracle called that of Night and a temple of Zeus Conius (Dusty) without a roof.
The image of Asclepius and also that of Health were made by Bryaxis. Here too is what is
called the Chamber of Demeter, built, they say, by Car when he was king.
1,40,1,n1. See Paus. 1.28.1.
1,40,2,n1. 479 B.C.
1,40,5,n1. The great legislator, who flourished early in the sixth century B.C.
[1.41.1] On coming down from the citadel, where the ground turns northwards, is the
tomb of Alcmena, near the Olympieum. They say that as she was walking from Argos to Thebes
she died on the way at Megara, and that the Heracleidae fell to disputing, some wishing to
carry the corpse of Alcmena back to Argos, others wishing to take it to Thebes, as in
Thebes were buried Amphitryon and the children of Heracles by Megara. But the god in
Delphi gave them an oracle that it was better for them to bury Alcmena in Megara. [1.41.2]
From this place the local guide took us to a place which he said was named Rhus (Stream),
for that water once flowed here from the mountains above the city. But Theagenes, who was
tyrant at that time, turned the water into another direction and made here an altar to
Achelous. Hard by is the tomb of Hyllus, son of Heracles, who fought a duel with an
Arcadian, Echemus the son of Aeropus. Who the Echemus was who killed Hyllus I will tell in
another part of my narrative, but Hyllus also is buried at Megara. These events might
correctly be called an expedition of the Heracleidae into the Peloponnesus in the reign of
Orestes.[1.41.3] Not far from the tomb of Hyllus is a temple of Isis, and beside it one of
Apollo and of Artemis. They say that Alcathous made it after killing the lion called
Cithaeronian. By this lion they say many were slain, including Euippus, the son of
Megareus their king, whose elder son Timalcus had before this been killed by Theseus while
on a campaign with the Dioscuri against Aphidna. Megareus they say promised that he who
killed the Cithaeronian lion should marry his daughter and succeed him in the kingdom.
Alcathous therefore, son of Pelops, attacked the beast and overcame it, and when he came
to the throne he built this sanctuary, surnaming Artemis Agrotera (Huntress) and Apollo
Agraeus (Hunter).[1.41.4] Such is the account of the Megarians; but although I wish my
account to agree with theirs, yet I cannot accept everything they say. I am ready to
believe that a lion was killed by Alcathous on Cithaeron, but what historian has re corded
that Timalcus the son of Megareus came with the Dioscuri to Aphidna? And supposing he had
gone there, how could one hold that he had been killed by Theseus, when Alcman wrote a
poem on the Dioscuri1, in which he says that they captured Athens and carried
into captivity the mother of Theseus, but Theseus himself was absent? [1.41.5] Pindar in
his poems agrees with this account, saying that Theseus, wishing to be related to the
Dioscuri, carried off Helen and kept her until he departed to carry out with Peirithous
the marriage that they tell of. Whoever has studied genealogy finds the Megarians guilty
of great silliness, since Theseus was a descendant of Pelops. The fact is that the
Megarians know the true story but conceal it, not wishing it to be thought that their city
was captured in the reign of Nisus, but that both Megareus, the son-in-law of Nisus, and
Alcathous, the son-in-law of Megareus, succeeded their respective fathers-in-law as
king.[1.41.6] It is evident that Alcathous arrived from Elis just at the time when Nisus
had died and the Megarians had lost everything. Witness to the truth of my statements the
fact that he built the wall afresh from the beginning, the old one round the city having
been destroyed by the Cretans.Let so much suffice for Alcathous and for the lion, whether
it was on Cithaeron or elsewhere that the killing took place that caused him to make a
temple to Artemis Agrotera and Apollo Agraeus. On going down from this sanctuary you see
the shrine of the hero Pandion. My narrative has already told how Pandion was buried on
what is called the Rock of Athena Aethyia (Gannet). He receives honors from the Megarians
in the city as well.
[1.41.7] Near the shrine of the hero Pandion is the tomb of Hippolyte. I will record
the account the Megarians give of her. When the Amazons, having marched against the
Athenians because of Antiope, were over come by Theseus, most of them met their death in
the fight, but Hippolyte, the sister of Antiope and on this occasion the leader of the
women, escaped with a few others to Megara. Having suffered such a military disaster,
being in despair at her present situation and even more hopeless of reaching her home in
Themiscyra, she died of a broken heart, and the Megarians gave her burial. The shape of
her tomb is like an Amazonian shield.[1.41.8] Not far from this is the grave of Tereus,
who married Procne the daughter of Pandion. The Megarians say that Tereus was king of the
region around what is called Pagae (Springs) of Megaris, but my opinion, which is
confirmed by extant evidence, is that he ruled over Daulis beyond Chaeronea, for in
ancient times the greater part of what is now called Greece was inhabited by foreigners.
When Tereus did what he did to Philomela and Itys suffered at the hands of the women,
Tereus found himself unable to seize them.[1.41.9] He committed suicide in Megara, and the
Megarians forthwith raised him a barrow, and every year sacrifice to him, using in the
sacrifice gravel instead of barley meal; they say that the bird called the hoopoe appeared
here for the first time. The women came to Athens, and while lamenting their sufferings
and their revenge, perished through their tears; their reported metamorphosis into a
nightingale and a swallow is due, I think, to the fact that the note of these birds is
plaintive and like a lamentation.
1,41,4,n1. 640-600 B.C.
[1.42.1] The Megarians have another citadel, which is named after Alcathous. As you
ascend this citadel you see on the right the tomb of Megareus, who at the time of the
Cretan invasion came as an ally from Onchestus. There is also shown a hearth of the gods
called Prodomeis (Builders before). They say that Alcathous was the first to sacrifice to
them, at the time when he was about to begin the building of the wall.[1.42.2] Near this
hearth is a stone, on which they say Apollo laid his lyre when he was helping Alcathous in
the building. I am confirmed in my view that the Megarians used to be tributary to the
Athenians by the fact that Alcathous appears to have sent his daughter Periboea with
Theseus to Crete in payment of the tribute. On the occasion of his building the wall, the
Megarians say, Apollo helped him and placed his lyre on the stone; and if you happen to
hit it with a pebble it sounds just as a lyre does when struck. [1.42.3] This made me
marvel, but the colossus in Egypt made me marvel far more than anything else. In Egyptian
Thebes, on crossing the Nile to the so called Pipes, I saw a statue, still sitting, which
gave out a sound. The many call it Memnon, who they say from Aethiopia overran Egypt and
as far as Susa. The Thebans, however, say that it is a statue, not of Memnon, but of a
native named Phamenoph, and I have heard some say that it is Sesostris. This statue was
broken in two by Cambyses, and at the present day from head to middle it is thrown down;
but the rest is seated, and every day at the rising of the sun it makes a noise, and the
sound one could best liken to that of a harp or lyre when a string has been broken.
[1.42.4] The Megarians have a council chamber which once, they say, was the grave of
Timalcus, who just now I said was not killed by Theseus. On the top of the citadel is
built a temple of Athena, with an image gilt except the hands and feet; these and the face
are of ivory. There is another sanctuary built here, of Athena Victory, and yet a third of
Athena Aeantis (Ajacian). About the last the Megarian guides have omitted to record
anything, but I will write what I take to be the facts. Telamon the son of Aeacus married
Periboea the daughter of Alcathous; so my opinion is that Ajax, who succeeded to the
throne of Alcathous, made the statue of Athena.
[1.42.5] The ancient temple of Apollo was of brick, but the emperor Hadrian afterwards
built it of white marble. The Apollo called Pythian and the one called Decatephorus
(Bringer of Tithes) are very like the Egyptian wooden images, but the one surnamed
Archegetes (Founder) resembles Aeginetan works. They are all alike made of ebony. I have
heard a man of Cyprus, who was skilled at sorting herbs for medicinal purposes, say that
the ebony does not grow leaves or bear fruit, or even appear in the sunlight at all, but
consists of underground roots which are dug up by the Aethiopians, who have men skilled at
finding ebony.[1.42.6] There is also a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophorus (Lawgiver). On
going down from it you see the tomb of Callipolis, son of Alcathous. Alcathous had also an
elder son, Ischepolis, whom his father sent to help Meleager to destroy the wild beast in
Aetolia. There he died, and Callipolis was the first to hear of his death. Running up to
the citadel, at the moment when his father was preparing a fire to sacrifice to Apollo, he
flung the logs from the altar. Alcathous, who had not yet heard of the fate of Ischepolis,
judged that Callipolis was guilty of impiety, and forthwith, angry as he was, killed him
by striking his head with one of the logs that had been flung from the altar.
[1.42.7] On the road to the Town-hall is the shrine of the heroine Ino, about which is
a fencing of stones, and beside it grow olives. The Megarians are the only Greeks who say
that the corpse of Ino was cast up on their coast, that Cleso and Tauropolis, the
daughters of Cleson, son of Lelex, found and buried it, and they say that among them first
was she named Leucothea, and that every year they offer her sacrifice.
[1.43.1] They say that there is also a shrine of the heroine Iphigenia; for she too
according to them died in Megara. Now I have heard another account of Iphigenia that is
given by Arcadians and I know that Hesiod, in his poem A Catalogue of Women, says that
Iphigenia did not die, but by the will of Artemis is Hecate. With this agrees the account
of Herodotus, that the Tauri near Scythia sacrifice castaways to a maiden who they say is
Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. Adrastus also is honored among the Megarians, who
say that he too died among them when he was leading back his army after taking Thebes, and
that his death was caused by old age and the fate of Aegialeus. A sanctuary of Artemis was
made by Agamemnon when he came to persuade Calchas, who dwelt in Megara, to accompany him
to Troy.[1.43.2] In the Town-hall are buried, they say, Euippus the son of Megareus and
Ischepolis the son of Alcathous. Near the Town-hall is a rock. They name it Anaclethris
(Recall), because Demeter (if the story be credible) here too called her daughter back
when she was wandering in search of her. Even in our day the Megarian women hold a
performance that is a mimic representation of the legend.
[1.43.3] In the city are graves of Megarians. They made one for those who died in the
Persian invasion, and what is called the Aesymnium (Shrine of Aesymnus) was also a tomb of
heroes. When Agamemnon's son Hyperion, the last king of Megara, was killed by Sandion for
his greed and violence, they resolved no longer to be ruled by one king, but to have
elected magistrates and to obey one another in turn. Then Aesymnus, who had a reputation
second to none among the Megarians, came to the god in Delphi and asked in what way they
could be prosperous. The oracle in its reply said that they would fare well if they took
counsel with the majority. This utterance they took to refer to the dead, and built a
council chamber in this place in order that the grave of their heroes might be within it.
[1.43.4] Between this and the hero-shrine of Alcathous, which in my day the Megarians
used as a record office, was the tomb, they said, of Pyrgo, the wife of Alcathous before
he married Euaechme, the daughter of Megareus, and the tomb of Iphinoe, the daughter of
Alcathous; she died, they say, a maid. It is customary for the girls to bring libations to
the tomb of Iphiaoe and to offer a lock of their hair before their wedding, just as the
daughters of the Delians once cut their hair for Hecaerge and Opis.[1.43.5] 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 when he had killed his son Callipolis. Polyidus also built the
sanctuary of Dionysus, and dedicated a wooden image that in our day is covered up except
the face, which alone is exposed. By the side of it is a Satyr of Parian marble made by
Praxiteles. This Dionysus they call Patrous (Paternal); but the image of another, that
they surname Dasyllius, they say was dedicated by Euchenor, son of Coeranus, son of
Polyidus.[1.43.6] After the sanctuary of Dionysus is a temple of Aphrodite, with an ivory
image of Aphrodite surnamed Praxis (Action). This is the oldest object in the temple.
There is also Persuasion and another goddess, whom they name Consoler, works of
Praxiteles. By Scopas are Love and Desire and Yearning, if indeed their functions are as
different as their names. Near the temple of Aphrodite is a sanctuary of Fortune, the
image being one of the works of Praxiteles. In the temple hard by are Muses and a bronze
Zeus by Lysippus.
[1.43.7] The Megarians have also the grave of Coroebus. The poetical story of him,
although it equally concerns Argos, I will relate here. They say that in the reign of
Crotopus at Argos, Psamathe, the daughter of Crotopus, bore a son to Apollo, and being in
dire terror of her father, exposed the child. He was found and destroyed by sheepdogs of
Crotopus, and Apollo sent Vengeance to the city to punish the Argives. They say that she
used to snatch the children from their mothers, until Coroebus to please the Argives slew
Vengeance. Whereat as a second punishment plague fell upon them and stayed not. So
Coroebus of his own accord went to Delphi to submit to the punishment of the god for
having slain Vengeance.[1.43.8] The Pythia would not allow Coroebus to return to Argos,
but ordered him to take up a tripod and carry it out of the sanctuary, and where the
tripod should fall from his hands, there he was to build a temple of Apollo and to dwell
himself. At Mount Gerania the tripod slipped and fell unawares. Here he dwelt in the
village called the Little Tripods. The grave of Coroebus is in the market-place of the
Megarians. The story of Psamathe and of Coroebus himself is carved on it in elegiac verses
and further, upon the top of the grave is represented Coroebus slaying Vengeance. These
are the oldest stone images I am aware of having seen among the Greeks.
[1.44.1] Near Coroebus is buried Orsippus who won the footrace at Olympia by running
naked when all his competitors wore girdles according to ancient custom.1 They
say also that Orsippus when general afterwards annexed some of the neighboring territory.
My own opinion is that at Olympia he intentionally let the girdle slip off him, realizing
that a naked man can run more easily than one girt.[1.44.2] As you go down from the
market-place you see on the right of the street called Straight a sanctuary of Apollo
Prostaterius (Protecting). You must turn a little aside from the road to discover it. In
it is a noteworthy Apollo, Artemis also, and Leto, and other statues, made by Praxiteles.
In the old gymnasium near the gate called the Gate of the Nymphs is a stone of the shape
of a small pyramid. This they name Apollo Carinus, and here there is a sanctuary of the
Eileithyiae.Such are the sights that the city had to show.[1.44.3] When you have gone down
to the port, which to the present day is called Nisaea, you see a sanctuary of Demeter
Malophorus (Sheep-bearer or Apple-bearer). One of the accounts given of the surname is
that those who first reared sheep in the land named Demeter Malophorus. The roof of the
temple one might conclude has fallen in through age. There is a citadel here, which also
is called Nisaea. Below the citadel near the sea is the tomb of Lelex, who they say
arrived from Egypt and became king, being the son of Poseidon and of Libya, daughter of
Epphus. Parallel to Nisaea lies the small island of Minoa, where in the war against Nisus
anchored the fleet of the Cretans.[1.44.4] The hilly part of Megaris borders upon Boeotia,
and in it the Megarians have built the city Pagae and another one called Aegosthena. As
you go to Pagae, on turning a little aside from the highway, you are shown a rock with
arrows stuck all over it, into which the Persians once shot in the night. In Pagae a
noteworthy relic is a bronze image of Artemis surnamed Saviour, in size equal to that at
Megara and exactly like it in shape. There is also a hero-shrine of Aegialeus, son of
Adrastus. When the Argives made their second attack on Thebes he died at Glisas early in
the first battle, and his relatives carried him to Pagae in Megaris and buried him, the
shrine being still called the Aegialeum.[1.44.5] In Aegosthena is a sanctuary of Melampus,
son of Amythaon, and a small figure of a man carved upon a slab. To Melampus they
sacrifice and hold a festival every year. They say that he divines neither by dreams nor
in any other way. Here is something else that I heard in Erenea, a village of the
Megarians. Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus, left Thebes to live here owing to her great grief
at the death of Actaeon, the manner of which is told in legend, and at the general
misfortune of her father's house. The tomb of Autonoe is in this village.
[1.44.6] On the road from Megara to Corinth are graves, including that of the Samian
flute-player Telephanes,1 said to have been made by Cleopatra, daughter of
Philip, son of Amyntas. There is also the tomb of Car, son of Phoroneus, which was
originally a mound of earth, but afterwards, at the command of the oracle, it was adorned
with mussel stone. The Megarians are the only Greeks to possess this stone, and in the
city also they have made many things out of it. It is very white, and softer than other
stone; in it throughout are sea mussels. Such is the nature of the stone. The road called
Scironian to this day and named after Sciron, was made by him when he was war minister of
the Megarians, and originally they say was constructed for the use of active men. But the
emperor Hadrian broadened it, and made it suitable even for chariots to pass each other in
opposite directions.
[1.44.7] There are legends about the rocks, which rise especially at the narrow part of
the road. As to the Molurian, it is said that from it Ino flung her self into the sea with
Melicertes, the younger of her children. Learchus, the elder of them, had been killed by
his father. One account is that Athamas did this in a fit of madness; another is that he
vented on Ino and her children unbridled rage when he learned that the famine which befell
the Orchomenians and the supposed death of Phrixus were not accidents from heaven, but
that Ino, the step-mother, had intrigued for all these things.[1.44.8] Then it was that
she fled to the sea and cast herself and her son from the Molurian Rock. The son, they
say, was landed on the Corinthian Isthmus by a dolphin, and honors were offered to
Melicertes, then renamed Palaemon, including the celebration of the Isthmian games. The
Molurian dock they thought sacred to Leucothea and Palaemon; but those after it they
consider accursed, in that Sciron, who dwelt by them, used to cast into the sea all the
strangers he met. A tortoise used to swim under the rocks to seize those that fell in. Sea
tortoises are like land tortoises except in size and for their feet, which are like those
of seals. Retribution for these deeds overtook Sciron, for he was cast into the same sea
by Theseus.[1.44.9] On the top of the mountain is a temple of Zeus surnamed Aphesius
(Releaser). It is said that on the occasion of the drought that once afflicted the Greeks
Aeacus in obedience to an oracular utterance sacrificed in Aegina to Zeus God of all the
Greeks, and Zeus rained and ended the drought, gaining thus the name Aphesius. Here there
are also images of Aphrodite, Apollo, and Pan. [1.44.10] Farther on is the tomb of
Eurystheus. The story is that he fled from Attica after the battle with the Heracleidae
and was killed here by Iolaus. When you have gone down from this road you see a sanctuary
of Apollo Latous, after which is the boundary between Megara and Corinth, where legend
says that Hyllus, son of Heracles, fought a duel with the Arcadian Echemus.
1,44,1,n1. 720 B.C.
1,44,6,n1. A contemporary of Demosthenes.
