Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [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.

  MEGARA

  [1.40.1] XL. There is in the city a fountain, which was built for the citizens by Theagenes, 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 Megaris, 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 Solon 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.

  [1.41.1] XLI. 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 Dioscuri, 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.

  [1.42.1] XLII. 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] XLIII. 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 te
mple. 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] XLIV. Near Coroebus is buried Orsippus who won the footrace at Olympia by running naked when all his competitors wore girdles according to ancient custom. 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.