Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [8.53.7] There is also at Tegea a temple of Demeter and the Maid, whom they surname the Fruit-bringers, and hard by is one of Aphrodite called Paphian. The latter was built by Laodice, who was descended, as I have already said, from Agapenor, who led the Arcadians to Troy, and it was in Paphos that she dwelt. Not far from it are two sanctuaries of Dionysus, an altar of the Maid, and a temple of Apollo with a gilded image.

  [8.53.8] The artist was Cheirisophus; he was a Cretan by race, but his date and teacher we do not know. The residence of Daedalus with Minos at Cnossus secured for the Cretans a reputation for the making of wooden images also, which lasted for a long period. By the Apollo stands Cheirisophus in stone.

  [8.53.9] The Tegeans also have what they call a Common Hearth of the Arcadians. Here there is an image of Heracles, and on his thigh is represented a wound received in the first fight with the sons of Hippocoon. The lofty place, on which are most of the altars of the Tegeans, is called the place of Zeus Clarius (Of Lots), and it is plain that the god got his surname from the lots cast for the sons of Arcas. Here the Tegeans celebrate a feast every year.

  [8.53.10] It is said that once at the time of the feast they were invaded by the Lacedaemonians. As it was snowing, these were chilled, and thus distressed by their armour, but the Tegeans, without their enemies knowing it, lighted a fire. So untroubled by the cold they donned, they say, their armour, went out against the Lacedaemonians, and had the better of the engagement. I also saw in Tegea:– the house of Aleus, the tomb of Echemus, and the fight between Echemus and Hyllus carved in relief upon a slab.

  ROAD TO LACONIA

  [8.53.11] On the left of the road as you go from Tegea to Laconia there is an altar of Pan, and likewise one of Lycaean Zeus. The foundations, too, of sanctuaries are still there. These altars are two stades from the wall; and about seven stades farther on is a sanctuary of Artemis, surnamed Lady of the Lake, with an image of ebony. The fashion of the workmanship is what the Greeks call Aeginetan. Some ten stades farther on are the ruins of a temple of Artemis Cnaceatis.

  RIVER ALPHEIUS

  [8.54.1] LIV. The boundary between the territories of Lacedaemon and Tegea is the river Alpheius. Its water begins in Phylace, and not far from its source there flows down into it another water from springs that are not large, but many in number, whence the place has received the name Symbola (Meetings).

  [8.54.2] It is known that the Alpheius differs from other rivers in exhibiting this natural peculiarity; it often disappears beneath the earth to reappear again. So flowing on from Phylace and the place called Symbola it sinks into the Tegean plain; rising at Asea, and mingling its stream with the Eurotas, it sinks again into the earth.

  [8.54.3] Coming up at the place called by the Arcadians Pegae (Springs), and flowing past the land of Pisa and past Olympia, it falls into the sea above Cyllene, the port of Elis. Not even the Adriatic could check its flowing onwards, but passing through it, so large and stormy a sea, it shows in Ortygia, before Syracuse, that it is the Alpheius, and unites its water with Arethusa.

  RIVER GARATES

  [8.54.4] The straight road from Tegea to Thyrea and to the villages its territory contains can show a notable sight in the tomb of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon; from here, say the Tegeans, a Spartan stole his bones. In our time the grave is no longer within the gates. By the road flows also the river Garates. Crossing the Garates and advancing ten stades you come to a sanctuary of Pan, by which is an oak, like the sanctuary sacred to Pan.

  ROAD TO ARGOS

  [8.54.5] The road from Tegea to Argos is very well suited for carriages, in fact a first-rate highway. On the road come first a temple and image of Asclepius. Next, turning aside to the left for about a stade, you see a dilapidated sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Pythian which is utterly in ruins. Along the straight road there are many oaks, and in the grove of oaks is a temple of Demeter called “in Corythenses.” Hard by is another sanctuary, that of Mystic Dionysus.

  MT PARTHENIUS

  [8.54.6] At this point begins Mount Parthenius. On it is shown a sacred enclosure of Telephus, where it is said that he was exposed when a child and was suckled by a deer. A little farther on is a sanctuary of Pan, where Athenians and Tegeans agree that he appeared to Philippides and conversed with him.

  [8.54.7] Mount Parthenius rears also tortoises most suitable for the making of harps; but the men on the mountain are always afraid to capture them, and will not allow strangers to do so either, thinking them to be sacred to Pan. Crossing the peak of the mountain you are within the cultivated area, and reach the boundary between Tegea and Argos; it is near Hysiae in Argolis.

  These are the divisions of the Peloponnesus, the cities in the divisions, and the most noteworthy things in each city.

  BOOK IX.

  PLATAEA, MYTHICAL HISTORY

  [9.1.1] I. Boeotia borders on Attica at several places, one of which is where Plataea touches Eleutherae. The Boeotians as a race got their name from Boeotus, who, legend says, was the son of Itonus and the nymph Melanippe, and Itonus was the son of Amphictyon. The cities are called in some cases after men, but in most after women. The Plataeans were originally, in my opinion, sprung from the soil; their name comes from Plataea, whom they consider to be a daughter of the river Asopus.

  [9.1.2] It is clear that the Plataeans too were of old ruled by kings; for everywhere in Greece in ancient times, kingship and not democracy was the established form of government. But the Plataeans know of no king except Asopus and Cithaeron before him, holding that the latter gave his name to the mountain, the former to the river. I think that Plataea also, after whom the city is named, was a daughter of King Asopus, and not of the river.

  PLATAEA, HISTORY

  [9.1.3] Before the battle that the Athenians fought at Marathon, the Plataeans had no claim to renown. But they were present at the battle of Marathon, and later, when Xerxes came down to the sea, they bravely manned the fleet with the Athenians, and defended themselves in their own country against the general of Xerxes, Mardonius, the son of Gobryas. Twice it was their fate to be driven from their homes and to be taken back to Boeotia.

  [9.1.4] For in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athens, the Lacedaemonians reduced Plataea by siege, but it was restored during the peace made by the Spartan Antalcidas between the Persians and the Greeks, and the Plataeans returned from Athens. But a second disaster was destined to befall them. There was no open war between Plataea and Thebes; in fact the Plataeans declared that the peace with them still held, because when the Lacedaemonians seized the Cadmeia they had no part either in the plan or in the performance.

  [9.1.5] But the Thebans maintained that as the Lacedaemonians had themselves made the peace and then broken it, all alike, in their view, were freed from its terms. The Plataeans, therefore, looked upon the attitude of the Thebans with suspicion, and maintained strict watch over their city. They did not go either daily to the fields at some distance from the city, but, knowing that the Thebans were wont to conduct their assemblies with every voter present, and at the same time to prolong their discussions, they waited for their assemblies to be called, and then, even those whose farms lay farthest away, looked after their lands at their leisure.

  [9.1.6] But Neocles, who was at the time Boeotarch at Thebes, not being unaware of the Plataean trick, proclaimed that every Theban should attend the assembly armed, and at once proceeded to lead them, not by the direct way from Thebes across the plain, but along the road to Hysiae in the direction of Eleutherae and Attica, where not even a scout had been placed by the Plataeans, being due to reach the walls about noon.

  [9.1.7] The Plataeans, thinking that the Thebans were holding an assembly, were afield and cut off from their gates. With those caught within the city the Thebans came to terms, allowing them to depart before sundown, the men with one garment each, the women with two. What happened to the Plataeans on this occasion was the reverse of what happened to them formerly when they were taken by the Lacedaemonians under Archidamus. For
the Lacedaemonians reduced them by preventing them from getting out of the city, building a double line of circumvallation; the Thebans on this occasion by preventing them from getting within their walls.

  [9.1.8] The second capture of Plataea occurred two years before the battle of Leuctra, when Asteius was Archon at Athens. The Thebans destroyed all the city except the sanctuaries, but the method of its capture saved the lives of all the Plataeans alike, and on their expulsion they were again received by the Athenians. When Philip after his victory at Chaeroneia introduced a garrison into Thebes, one of the means he employed to bring the Thebans low was to restore the Plataeans to their homes.

  MT CITHAERON

  [9.2.1] II. On Mount Cithaeron, within the territory of Plataea, if you turn off to the right for a little way from the straight road, you reach the ruins of Hysiae and Erythrae. Once they were cities of Boeotia, and even at the present day among the ruins of Hysiae are a half-finished temple of Apollo and a sacred well. According to the Boeotian story oracles were obtained of old from the well by drinking of it.

  [9.2.2] Returning to the highway you again see on the right a tomb, said to be that of Mardonius. It is agreed that the body of Mardonius was not seen again after the battle, but there is not a similar agreement as to the person who gave it burial. It is admitted that Artontes, son of Mardonius, gave many gifts to Dionysophanes the Ephesian, but also that he gave them to others of the Ionians, in recognition that they too had spent some pains on the burial of Mardonius.

  [9.2.3] This road leads to Plataea from Eleutherae. On the road from Megara there is a spring on the right, and a little farther on a rock. It is called the bed of Actaeon, for it is said that he slept thereon when weary with hunting, and that into this spring he looked while Artemis was bathing in it. Stesichorus of Himera says that the goddess cast a deer-skin round Actaeon to make sure that his hounds would kill him, so as to prevent his taking Semele to wife.

  [9.2.4] My own view is that without divine interference the hounds of Actaeon were smitten with madness, and so they were sure to tear to pieces without distinction everybody they chanced to meet. Whereabouts on Cithaeron the disaster befell Pentheus, the son of Echion, or where Oedipus was exposed at birth, nobody knows with the assurance with which we know the Cleft Road to Phocis, where Oedipus killed his father (Mount Cithaeron is sacred to Cithaeronian Zeus), as I shall tell of at greater length when this place in my story has been reached.

  PLATAEA

  [9.2.5] Roughly at the entrance into Plataea are the graves of those who fought against the Persians. Of the Greeks generally there is a common tomb, but the Lacedaemonians and Athenians who fell have separate graves, on which are written elegiac verses by Simonides. Not far from the common tomb of the Greeks is an altar of Zeus, God of Freedom. This then is of bronze, but the altar and the image he made of white marble.

  [9.2.6] Even at the present day they hold every four years games called Eleutheria (Of Freedom), in which great prizes are offered for running. The competitors run in armour before the altar. The trophy which the Greeks set up for the battle at Plataea stands about fifteen stades from the city.

  [9.2.7] Advancing in the city itself from the altar and the image which have been made to Zeus of Freedom, you come to a hero-shrine of Plataea. The legends about her, and my own conjectures, I have already stated.

  CULT OF HERA DAEDALA

  There is at Plataea a temple of Hera, worth seeing for its size and for the beauty of its images. On entering you see Rhea carrying to Cronus the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, as though it were the babe to which she had given birth. The Hera they call Full-grown; it is an upright image of huge size. Both figures are of Pentelic marble, and the artist was Praxiteles.

  Here too is another image of Hera; it is seated, and was made by Callimachus. The goddess they call the Bride for the following reason.

  [9.3.1] III. Hera, they say, was for some reason or other angry with Zeus, and had retreated to Euboea. Zeus, failing to make her change her mind, visited Cithaeron, at that time despot in Plataea, who surpassed all men for his cleverness. So he ordered Zeus to make an image of wood, and to carry it, wrapped up, in a bullock wagon, and to say that he was celebrating his marriage with Plataea, the daughter of Asopus.

  [9.3.2] So Zeus followed the advice of Cithaeron. Hera heard the news at once, and at once appeared on the scene. But when she came near the wagon and tore away the dress from the image, she was pleased at the deceit, on finding it a wooden image and not a bride, and was reconciled to Zeus. To commemorate this reconciliation they celebrate a festival called Daedala, because the men of old time gave the name of daedala to wooden images. My own view is that this name was given to wooden images before Daedalus, the son of Palamaon, was born at Athens, and that he did not receive this name at birth, but that it was a surname afterwards given him from the daedala.

  [9.3.3] So the Plataeans hold the festival of the Daedala every six years, according to the local guide, but really at a shorter interval. I wanted very much to calculate exactly the interval between one Daedala and the next, but I was unable to do so. In this way they celebrate the feast.

  [9.3.4] Not far from Alalcomenae is a grove of oaks. Here the trunks of the oaks are the largest in Boeotia. To this grove come the Plataeans, and lay out portions of boiled flesh. They keep a strict watch on the crows which flock to them, but they are not troubled at all about the other birds. They mark carefully the tree on which a crow settles with the meat he has seized. They cut down the trunk of the tree on which the crow has settled, and make of it the daedalum; for this is the name that they give to the wooden image also.

  [9.3.5] This feast the Plataeans celebrate by themselves, calling it the Little Daedala, but the Great Daedala, which is shared with them by the Boeotians, is a festival held at intervals of fifty-nine years, for that is the period during which, they say, the festival could not be held, as the Plataeans were in exile. There are fourteen wooden images ready, having been provided each year at the Little Daedala.

  [9.3.6] Lots are cast for them by the Plataeans, Coronaeans, Thespians, Tanagraeans, Chaeroneans, Orchomenians, Lebadeans, and Thebans; for at the time when Cassander, the son of Antipater, rebuilt Thebes, the Thebans wished to be reconciled with the Plataeans, to share in the common assembly, and to send a sacrifice to the Daedala. The towns of less account pool their funds for images.

  [9.3.7] Bringing the image to the Asopus, and setting it upon a wagon, they place a bridesmaid also on the wagon. They again cast lots for the position they are to hold in the procession. After this they drive the wagons from the river to the summit of Cithaeron. On the peak of the mountain an altar has been prepared, which they make after the following way. They fit together quadrangular pieces of wood, putting them together just as if they were making a stone building, and having raised it to a height they place brushwood upon the altar.

  [9.3.8] The cities with their magistrates sacrifice severally a cow to Hera and a bull to Zeus, burning on the altar the victims, full of wine and incense, along with the daedala. Rich people, as individuals, sacrifice what they wish; but the less wealthy sacrifice the smaller cattle; all the victims alike are burned. The fire seizes the altar and the victims as well, and consumes them all together. I know of no blaze that is so high, or seen so far as this.

  PLATAEA CONT.

  [9.3.9] About fifteen stades below the peak, on which they make the altar, is a cave of the Cithaeronian nymphs. It is named Sphragidium, and the story is that of old the nymphs gave oracles in this place.

  [9.4.1] IV. The Plataeans have also a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Warlike; it was built from the spoils given them by the Athenians as their share from the battle of Marathon. It is a wooden image gilded, but the face, hands and feet are of Pentelic marble. In size it is but little smaller than the bronze Athena on the Acropolis, the one which the Athenians also erected as first-fruits of the battle at Marathon; the Plataeans too had Pheidias for the maker of their image of Athena. />
  [9.4.2] In the temple are paintings: one of them, by Polygnotus, represents Odysseus after he has killed the wooers; the other, painted by Onasias, is the former expedition of the Argives, under Adrastus, against Thebes. These paintings are on the walls of the fore-temple, while at the feet of the image is a portrait of Arimnestus, who commanded the Plataeans at the battle against Mardonius, and yet before that at Marathon.

  [9.4.3] There is also at Plataea a sanctuary of Demeter, surnamed Eleusinian, and a tomb of Leitus, who was the only one to return home of the chiefs who led Boeotians to Troy. The spring Gargaphia was filled in by the Persian cavalry under Mardonius, because the Greek army encamped against them got therefrom their drinking-water. Afterwards, however, the Plataeans recovered the water.

  SCOLUS & THE RIVER ASOPUS

  [9.4.4] On the road from Plataea to Thebes is the river Oeroe, said to have been a daughter of the Asopus. Before crossing the Asopus, if you turn aside to lower ground in a direction parallel to the river, after about forty stades you come to the ruins of Scolus. The temple of Demeter and the Maid among the ruins is not finished, and only half-finished are the images of the goddesses. Even to-day the Asopus is the boundary between Thebes and Plataea.

  THEBES, MYTHICAL HISTORY

  [9.5.1] V. The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners.

  [9.5.2] When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.