Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [6.11.3] The citizens were enraged at what he had done, but one of them, a respected man of advanced years, bade them not to kill the lad, and ordered him to carry the image from his home back again to the market-place. This he did, and at once became famous for his strength, his feat being noised abroad through-out Greece.

  [6.11.4] The achievements of Theagenes at the Olympian games have already – the most famous of them – been described in my story, how he beat Euthymus the boxer, and how he was fined by the Eleans. On this occasion the pancratium, it is said, was for the first time on record won without a contest, the victor being Dromeus of Mantineia. At the Festival following this, Theagenes was the winner in the pancratium.

  [6.11.5] He also won three victories at Pytho. These were for boxing, while nine prizes at Nemea and ten at the Isthmus were won in some cases for the pancratium and in others for boxing. At Phthia in Thessaly he gave up training for boxing and the pancratium. He devoted himself to winning fame among the Greeks for his running also, and beat those who entered for the long race. His ambition was, I think, to rival Achilles by winning a prize for running in the fatherland of the swiftest of those who are called heroes. The total number of crowns that he won was one thousand four hundred.

  [6.11.6] When he departed this life, one of those who were his enemies while he lived came every night to the statue of Theagenes and flogged the bronze as though he were ill-treating Theagenes himself. The statue put an end to the outrage by falling on him, but the sons of the dead man prosecuted the statue for murder. So the Thasians dropped the statue to the bottom of the sea, adopting the principle of Draco, who, when he framed for the Athenians laws to deal with homicide, inflicted banishment even on lifeless things, should one of them fall and kill a man.

  [6.11.7] But in course of time, when the earth yielded no crop to the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to receive back the exiles. At this command they received them back, but their restoration brought no remedy of the famine. So for the second time they went to the Pythian priestess, saying that although they had obeyed her instructions the wrath of the gods still abode with them.

  [6.11.8] Whereupon the Pythian priestess replied to them:–

  But you have forgotten your great Theagenes.

  And when they could not think of a contrivance to recover the statue of Theagenes, fishermen, they say, after putting out to sea for a catch of fish caught the statue in their net and brought it back to land. The Thasians set it up in its original position, and are wont to sacrifice to him as to a god.

  [6.11.9] There are many other places that I know of, both among Greeks and among barbarians, where images of Theagenes have been set up, who cures diseases and receives honors from the natives. The statue of Theagenes is in the Altis, being the work of Glaucias of Aegina.

  [6.12.1] XII. Hard by is a bronze chariot with a man mounted upon it; race-horses, one on each side, stand beside the chariot, and on the horses are seated boys. They are memorials of Olympic victories won by Hiero the son of Deinomenes, who was tyrant of Syracuse after his brother Gelo. But the offerings were not sent by Hiero; it was Hiero’s son Deinomenes who gave them to the god, Onatas the Aeginetan who made the chariot, and Calamis who made the horses on either side and the boys on them.

  [6.12.2] By the chariot of Hiero is a man of the same name as the son of Deinomenes. He too was tyrant of Syracuse, and was called Hiero the son of Hierocles. After the death of Agathocles, a former tyrant, tyranny again sprung up at Syracuse in the person of this Hiero, who came to power in the second year of the hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad, at which Festival Idaeus of Cyrene won the foot-race.

  [6.12.3] This Hiero made an alliance with Pyrrhus the son of Aeacides, sealing it by the marriage of Gelo his son and Nereis the daughter of Pyrrhus. When the Romans went to war with Carthage for the possession of Sicily, the Carthaginians held more than half the island, and Hiero sided with them at the beginning of the war. Shortly after, however, he changed over to the Romans, thinking that they were stronger, and firmer and more reliable friends.

  [6.12.4] He met his end at the hands of Deinomenes, a Syracusan by birth and an inveterate enemy of tyranny, who afterwards, when Hippocrates the brother of Epicydes had just come from Erbessus to Syracuse and was beginning to harangue the multitude, rushed at him with intent to kill him. But Hippocrates withstood him, and certain of the bodyguard over-powered and slew Deinomenes. The statues of Hiero at Olympia, one on horseback and the other on foot, were dedicated by the sons of Hiero, the artist being Micon, a Syracusan, the son of Niceratus.

  [6.12.5] After the likenesses of Hiero stand Areus the Lacedaemonian king, the son of Acrotatus, and Aratus the son of Cleinias, with another statue of Areus on horseback. The statue of Aratus was dedicated by the Corinthians, that of Areus by the people of Elis.

  [6.12.6] I have already given some account of both Aratus and Areus, and Aratus was also proclaimed at Olympia as victor in the chariot-race. Timon, an Elean, the son of Aesypus, entered a four-horse chariot for the Olympic races . . . this is of bronze, and on it is mounted a maiden, who, in my opinion, is Victory. Callon the son of Harmodius and Hippomachus the son of Moschion, Elean by race, were victors in the boys’ boxing-match. The statue of Callon was made by Daippus; who made that of Hippomachus I do not know, but it is said that he overcame three antagonists without receiving a blow or any physical injury.

  [6.12.7] Theochrestus of Cyrene bred horses after the traditional Libyan manner; he himself and before him his paternal grandfather of the same name won victories at Olympia with the four-horse chariot, while the father of Theochrestus won a victory at the Isthmus. So declares the inscription on the chariot.

  [6.12.8] The elegiac verses bear witness that Agesarchus of Triteia, the son of Haemostratus, won the boxing-match for men at Olympia, Nemea, Pytho and the Isthmus; they also declare that the Tritaeans are Arcadians, but I found this statement to be untrue. For the founders of the Arcadian cities that attained to fame have well-known histories; while those that had all along been obscure because of their weakness were surely absorbed for this very reason into Megalopolis, being included in the decree then made by the Arcadian confederacy;

  [6.12.9] no other city Triteia, except the one in Achaia, is to be found in Greece. However, one may assume that at the time of the inscription the Tritaeans were reckoned as Arcadians, just as nowadays too certain of the Arcadians themselves are reckoned as Argives. The statue of Agesarchus is the work of the sons of Polycles, of whom we shall give some account later on.

  [6.13.1] XIII. The statue of Astylus of Crotona is the work of Pythagoras; this athlete won three successive victories at Olympia, in the short race and in the double race. But because on the two latter occasions he proclaimed himself a Syracusan, in order to please Hiero the son of Deinomenes, the people of Crotona for this condemned his house to be a prison, and pulled down his statue set up by the temple of Lacinian Hera.

  [6.13.2] There is also set up in Olympia a slab recording the victories of Chionis the Lacedaemonian. They show simplicity who have supposed that Chionis himself dedicated the slab, and not the Lacedaemonian people. Let us assume that, as the slab says, the race in armour had not yet been introduced; how could Chionis know whether the Eleans would at some future time add it to the list of events? But those are simpler still who say that the statue standing by the slab is a portrait of Chionis, it being the work of the Athenian Myron.

  [6.13.3] Similar in renown to Chionis was Hermogenes of Xanthus, a Lydian, who won the wild olive eight times at three Olympic festivals, and was surnamed Horse by the Greeks. Polites also you will consider a great marvel. This Polites was from Ceramus in Caria, and showed at Olympia every excellence in running. For from the longest race, demanding the greatest stamina, he changed, after the shortest interval, to the shortest and quickest, and after winning a victory in the long race and immediately afterwards in the short race, he added on the same day a third victory in the double cou
rse.

  [6.13.4] Polites then in the second . . . and four, as they are grouped together by lot, and they do not start them all together for the race. The victors in each heat run again for the prize. So he who is crowned in the foot-race will be victorious twice. However, the most famous runner was Leonidas of Rhodes. He maintained his speed at its prime for four Olympiads, and won twelve victories for running.

  [6.13.5] Not far from the slab of Chionis at Olympia stands Scaeus, the son of Duris, a Samian, victor in the boys’ boxing-match. The statue is the work of Hippias, the son of . . . and the inscription on it states that Scaeus won his victory at the time when the people of Samos were in exile from the island, but the occasion . . . the people to their own.

  [6.13.6] By the side of the tyrant is a statue of Diallus the son of Pollis, a Smyrnean by descent, and this Diallus declares that he was the first Ionian to receive at Olympia a crown for the boys’ pancratium. There are statues of Thersilochus of Corcyra and of Aristion of Epidaurus, the son of Theophiles, made by Polycleitus the Argive; Aristion won a crown for the men’s boxing, Thersilochus for the boys’.

  [6.13.7] Bycelus, the first Sicyonian to win the boys’ boxing-match, had his statue made by Canachus of Sicyon, a pupil of the Argive Polycleitus. By the side of Bycelus stands the statue of a man-at-arms, Mnaseas of Cyrene, surnamed the Libyan; Pythagoras of Rhegium made the statue. To Agemachus of Cyzicus from the mainland of Asia . . . the inscription on it shows that he was born at Argos.

  [6.13.8] Naxos was founded in Sicily by the Chalcidians on the Euripus. Of the city not even the ruins are now to be seen, and that the name of Naxos has survived to after ages must be attributed to Tisander, the son of Cleocritus. He won the men’s boxing-match at Olympia four times; he had the same number of victories at Pytho, but at this time neither the Corinthians nor the Argives kept complete records of the victors at Nemea and the Isthmus.

  [6.13.9] The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called, the Corinthians relate, Aura (breeze), and at the beginning of the race she chanced to throw her rider. But nevertheless she went on running properly, turned round the post, and, when she heard the trumpet, quickened her pace, reached the umpires first, realized that she had won and stopped running. The Eleans proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him to dedicate a statue of this mare.

  [6.13.10] The sons also of Pheidolas were winners in the horse-race, and the horse is represented on a slab with this inscription:–

  The swift Lycus by one victory at the Isthmus and two here

  Crowned the house of the sons of Pheidolas.

  But the inscription is at variance with the Elean records of Olympic victors. These records give a victory to the sons of Pheidolas at the sixty-eighth Festival but at no other. You may take my statements as accurate.

  [6.13.11] There are statues to Agathinus, son of Thrasybulus, and to Telemachus, both men of Elis. Telemachus won the race for four-horse chariots; the statue of Agathinus was dedicated by the Achaeans of Pellene. The Athenian people dedicated a statue of Aristophon, the son of Lysinus, who won the men’s pancratium at Olympia.

  [6.14.1] XIV. Pherias of Aegina, whose statue stands by the side of Aristophon the Athenian, at the seventy-eighth Festival was considered very young, and, being judged to be as yet unfit to wrestle, was debarred from the contest. Out at the next Festival he was admitted to the boys’ wrestling-match and won it. What happened to this Pherias was different, in fact the exact opposite of what happened at Olympia to Nicasylus of Rhodes.

  [6.14.2] Being eighteen years of age he was not allowed by the Eleans to compete in the boys’ wrestling-match, but won the men’s match and was proclaimed victor. He was afterwards proclaimed victor at Nemea also and at the Isthmus. But when he was twenty years old he met his death before he returned home to Rhodes. The feat of the Rhodian wrestler at Olympia was in my opinion surpassed by Artemidorus of Tralles. He failed in the boys’ pancratium at Olympia, the reason of his failure being his extreme youth.

  [6.14.3] When, however, the time arrived for the contest held by the Ionians of Smyrna, his strength had so increased that he beat in the pancratium on the same day those who had competed with him at Olympia, after the boys the beardless youths as they are called, and thirdly the pick of the men. His match with the beardless youths was the outcome, they say, of a trainer’s encouragement; he fought the men because of the insult of a man pancratiast. Artemidorus won an Olympic victory among the men at the two hundred and twelfth Festival.

  [6.14.4] Next to the statue of Nicasylus is a small bronze horse, which Crocon of Eretria dedicated when he won a crown with a racehorse. Near the horse is Telestas of Messene, who won the boys’ boxing-match. The artist who represented Telestas was Silanion.

  [6.14.5] The statue of Milo the son of Diotimus was made by Dameas, also a native of Crotona. Milo won six victories for wrestling at Olympia, one of them among the boys; at Pytho he won six among the men and one among the boys. He came to Olympia to wrestle for the seventh time, but did not succeed in mastering Timasitheus, a fellow-citizen who was also a young man, and who refused, moreover, to come to close quarters with him.

  [6.14.6] It is further stated that Milo carried his own statue into the Altis. His feats with the pomegranate and the quoit are also remembered by tradition. He would grasp a pomegranate so firmly that nobody could wrest it from him by force, and yet he did not damage it by pressure. He would stand upon a greased quoit, and make fools of those who charged him and tried to push him from the quoit. He used to perform also the following exhibition feats.

  [6.14.7] He would tie a cord round his forehead as though it were a ribbon or a crown. Holding his breath and filling with blood the veins on his head, he would break the cord by the strength of these veins. It is said that he would let down by his side his right arm from the shoulder to the elbow, and stretch out straight the arm below the elbow, turning the thumb upwards, while the other fingers lay in a row. In this position, then, the little finger was lowest, but nobody could bend it back by pressure.

  [6.14.8] They say that he was killed by wild beasts. The story has it that he came across in the land of Crotona a tree-trunk that was drying up; wedges were inserted to keep the trunk apart. Milo in his pride thrust his hands into the trunk, the wedges slipped, and Milo was held fast by the trunk until the wolves – a beast that roves in vast packs in the land of Crotona – made him their prey.

  [6.14.9] Such was the fate that overtook Milo. Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides, who was king on the Thesprotian mainland and performed many remarkable deeds, as I have related in my account of the Athenians, had his statue dedicated by Thrasybulus of Elis. Beside Pyrrhus is a little man holding flutes, carved in relief upon a slab. This man won Pythian victories next after Sacadas of Argos.

  [6.14.10] For Sacadas won in the games introduced by the Amphictyons before a crown was awarded for success, and after this victory two others for which crowns were given; but at the next six Pythian Festivals Pythocritus of Sicyon was victor, being the only flute-player so to distinguish himself. It is also clear that at the Olympic Festival he fluted six times for the pentathlum. For these reasons the slab at Olympia was erected in honor of Pythocritus, with the inscription on it:–

  This is the monument of the flute-player Pythocritus, the son of Callinicus.

  [6.14.11] The Aetolian League dedicated a statue of Cylon, who delivered the Eleans from the tyranny of Aristotimus. The statue of Gorgus, the son of Eucletus, a Messenian who won a victory in the pentathlum, was made by the Boeotian Theron; that of Damaretus, another Messenian, who won the boys’ boxing-match, was made by the Athenian Silanion. Anauchidas, the son of Philys, an Elean, won a crown in the boys’ wrestling-match and afterwards in the match for men. Who made his statue is not known, but Ageladas of Argos made the statue of Anochus of Tarentum, the son of Adamatas, who won victories in the short and double foot-race.

  [6.14.12] A boy seated on a horse and a man standing by the horse the inscription declares to be
Xenombrotus of Meropian Cos, who was proclaimed victor in the horse-race, and Xenodicus, who was announced a winner in the boys’ boxing-match. The statue of the latter is by Pantias, that of the former is by Philotimus the Aeginetan. The two statues of Pythes, the son of Andromachus, a native of Abdera, were made by Lysippus, and were dedicated by his soldiers. Pythes seems to have been a captain of mercenaries or some sort of distinguished soldier.

  [6.14.13] There are statues of winners of the boys’ race, namely, Meneptolemus of Apollonia on the Ionian Gulf and Philo of Corcyra; also Hieronymus of Andros, who defeated in the pentathlum at Olympia Tisamenus of Elis, who afterwards served as soothsayer in the Greek army that fought against Mardonius and the Persians at Plataea. By the side of this Hieronymus is a statue of a boy wrestler, also of Andros, Procles, the son of Lycastidas. The sculptor who made the statue of Lycastidas was named Stomius, while Somis made the statue of Procles. Aeschines of Elis won two victories in the pentathlum, and his statues are also two in number.

  [6.15.1] XV. Archippus of Mitylene overcame his competitors in the men’s boxing-match, and his fellow-townsmen hold that he added to his fame by winning the crown, when he was not more than twenty years old, at Olympia, at Pytho, at Nemea and at the Isthmus. The statue of the boy runner Xenon, son of Calliteles from Lepreus in Triphylia, was made by Pyrilampes the Messenan; who made the statue of Cleinomachus of Elis I do not know, but Cleinomachus was proclaimed victor in the pentathlum.

  [6.15.2] The inscription on the statue of Pantarces of Elis states that it was dedicated by Achaeans, because he made peace between them and the Eleans, and procured the release of those who had been made prisoners by both sides during the war. This Pantarces also won a victory with a race-horse, and there is a memorial of his victory also at Olympia. The statue of Olidas, of Elis, was dedicated by the Aetolian nation, and Charinus of Elis is represented in a statue dedicated for a victory in the double race and in the race in armour. By his side is Ageles of Chios, victorious in the boys’ boxing-match, the artist being Theomnestus of Sardes.