Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [10.31.5] In the lower part of the picture, after the Thracian Thamyris, comes Hector, who is sitting with both hands clasped about his left knee, in an attitude of deep grief. After him is Memnon, sitting on a rock, and Sarpedon next to Memnon. Sarpedon has his face buried in both hands, and one of Memnon’s hands lies on Sarpedon’s shoulder.

  [10.31.6] All are bearded; and on the cloak of Memnon are embroidered birds. Their name is Memnonides, and the people of the Hellespont say that on stated days every year they go to the grave of Memnon, and sweep all that part of the tomb that is bare of trees or grass, and sprinkle it with the water of the Aesepus from their wet wings.

  [10.31.7] Beside Memnon is depicted a naked Ethiopian boy, because Memnon was king of the Ethiopian nation. He came to Troy, however, not from Ethiopia, but from Susa in Persia and from the river Choaspes, having subdued all the peoples that lived between these and Troy. The Phrygians still point out the road through which he led his army, picking out the shortest routes. The road is divided up by halting-places.

  [10.31.8] Beyond Sarpedon and Memnon is Paris, as yet beardless. He is clapping his hands like a boor, and you will say that it is as though Paris were calling Penthesileia to him by the noise of his hands. Penthesileia too is there, looking at Paris, but by the toss of her head she seems to show her disdain and contempt. In appearance Penthesileia is a maiden, carrying a bow like Scythian bows, and wearing a leopard’s skin on her shoulders.

  [10.31.9] The women beyond Penthesileia are carrying water in broken pitchers; one is depicted as in the bloom of youth, the other is already advanced in years. There is no separate inscription on either woman, but there is one common to the pair, which states that they are of the number of the uninitiated.

  [10.31.10] Higher up than these is Callisto, daughter of Lycaon, Nomia, and Pero, daughter of Neleus. As her bride-price Neleus asked for the oxen of Iphiclus. Instead of a mattress, Callisto has a bearskin, and her feet are lying on Nomia’s knees. I have already mentioned that the Arcadians say that Nomia is a nymph native to their country. The poets say that the nymphs live for a great number of years, but are not altogether exempt from death.

  After Callisto and the women with her is the form of a cliff, and Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, is trying his hardest to push the rock up it.

  [10.31.11] There is also in the painting a jar, and an old man, with a boy and two women. One of these, who is young, is under the rock; the other is beside the old man and of a like age to his. The others are carrying water, but you will guess that the old woman’s water-jar is broken. All that remains of the water in the sherd she is pouring out again into the jar. We inferred that these people too were of those who had held of no account the rites at Eleusis. For the Greeks of an earlier period looked upon the Eleusinian mysteries as being as much higher than all other religious acts as gods are higher than heroes.

  [10.31.12] Under this jar is Tantalus, enduring all the pains that Homer speaks of, and in addition the terror of the stone that hangs over him. Polygnotus has plainly followed the account of Archilochus, but I do not know whether Archilochus borrowed from others the story of the stone or whether it was an invention of his that he introduced into his poem.

  So great is the number of the figures and so many are their beauties, in this painting of the Thasian artist.

  THEATRE AT DELPHI

  [10.32.1] XXXII. Adjoining the sacred enclosure is a theater worth seeing, and on coming up from the enclosure...and here is an image of Dionysus, dedicated by the Cnidians. The Delphian race-course is on the highest part of their city. It was made of the stone that is most common about Parnassus, until Herodes the Athenian rebuilt it of Pentelic marble. Such in my day the objects remaining in Delphi that are worth recording.

  THE CORYCIAN CAVE

  [10.32.2] On the way from Delphi to the summit of Parnassus, about sixty stades distant from Delphi, there is a bronze image. The ascent to the Corycian cave is easier for an active walker than it is for mules or horses. I mentioned a little earlier in my narrative that this cave was named after a nymph called Corycia, and of all the caves I have ever seen this seemed to me the best worth seeing.

  [10.32.3] It would be impossible to discover even the mere number of caves whose entrances face the beach or the deep sea, but the most famous ones in Greek or in foreign lands are the following. The Phrygians on the river Pencelas, and those who came to this land originally from the Azanians in Arcadia, show visitors a cave called Steunos, which is round, and handsome in its loftiness. It is sacred to the Mother, and there is an image of her.

  [10.32.4] Themisonium above Laodiceia is also inhabited by Phrygians. When the army of the Gauls was laying waste Ionia and the borders of Ionia, the Themisonians say that they were helped by Heracles, Apollo and Hermes, who revealed to their magistrates in dreams a cave, and commanded that in it should be hidden the Themisonians with their wives and children.

  [10.32.5] This is the reason why in front of the cave they have set up small images, called Gods of the Cave, of Heracles, Hermes and Apollo. The cave is some thirty stades distant from the city, and in it are springs of water. There is no entrance to it, the sunlight does not reach very far, and the greater part of the roof lies quite close to the floor.

  [10.32.6] There is also near Magnesia on the river Lethaeus a place called Aulae (Halls), where there is a cave sacred to Apollo, not very remarkable for its size, but the image of Apollo is very old indeed, and bestows strength equal to any task. The men sacred to the god leap down from sheer precipices and high rocks, and uprooting trees of exceeding height walk with their burdens down the narrowest of paths.

  [10.32.7] But the Corycian cave exceeds in size those I have mentioned, and it is possible to make one’s way through the greater part of it even without lights. The roof stands at a sufficient height from the floor, and water, rising in part from springs but still more dripping from the roof, has made clearly visible the marks of drops on the floor throughout the cave. The dwellers around Parnassus believe it to be sacred to the Corycian nymphs, and especially to Pan. From the Corycian cave it is difficult even for an active walker to reach the heights of Parnassus. The heights are above the clouds, and the Thyiad women rave there in honor of Dionysus and Apollo.

  TITHOREA

  [10.32.8] Tithorea is, I should guess, about one hundred and eighty stades distant from Delphi on the road across Parnassus. This road is not mountainous throughout, being fit even for vehicles, but was said to be several stades longer. I am aware that Herodotus in his account of the Persian invasion gives the town a different name from that given to it in the oracles of Bacis.

  [10.32.9] For Bacis called the inhabitants Tithoreans, but the account of them in Herodotus states that during the advance of the barbarian the people dwelling here fled up to the summit, and that the city’s name was Neon, Tithorea being the name of the peak of Parnassus. It appears, then, that at first Tithorea was the name applied to the whole district; but in course of time, when the people migrated from the villages, the city too came to be called Tithorea, and not Neon any longer. The natives say that Tithorea was so called after a nymph of the same name, one of those who in days of old, according to the story of the poets, grew out of trees and especially out of oaks.

  [10.32.10] One generation before I was born heaven made the fortunes of Tithorea decay. There are the buildings of a theater, and the enclosure of a rather ancient market-place. The most noteworthy objects in the city are the grove, temple and image of Athena. There is also the tomb of Antiope and Phocus. I have already in my account of Thebes mentioned how Antiope went mad because of the wrath of Dionysus, and the reason why she brought on herself the anger of the god;

  [10.32.11] I have also told how Phocus, the son of Ornytion, fell in love with her, how she married him and is buried with him, and what Bacis the soothsayer says about this grave in common with that of Zethus and Amphion at Thebes. I found nothing else remarkable in the town except what I have already mentioned. Run
ning past the city of Tithorea is a river that gives the inhabitants drinking-water. They go down to the bank and draw the water up. The name of the river is Cachales.

  NEAR TITHOREA

  [10.32.12] Seventy stades distant from Tithorea is a temple of Asclepius, called Archagetas (Founder). He receives divine honors from the Tithoreans, and no less from the other Phocians. Within the precincts are dwellings for both the suppliants of the god and his servants. In the middle is the temple of the god and an image made of stone, having a beard more than two feet long. A couch is set on the right of the image. It is usual to sacrifice to the god any animal except the goat.

  [10.32.13] About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. For the Tithoreans think it wrong to dwell round about it, and no one may enter the shrine except those whom Isis herself has honored by inviting them in dreams. The same rule is observed in the cities above the Maeander by the gods of the lower world; for to all whom they wish to enter their shrines they send visions seen in dreams.

  [10.32.14] In the country of the Tithoreans a festival in honor of Isis is held twice each year, one in spring and the other in autumn. On the third day before each of the feasts those who have permission to enter cleanse the shrine in a certain secret way, and also take and bury, always in the same spot, whatever remnants they may find of the victims thrown in at the previous festival. We estimated that the distance from the shrine to this place was two stades.

  [10.32.15] So on this day they perform these acts about the sanctuary, and on the next day the small traders make themselves booths of reeds or other improvised material. On the last of the three days they hold a fair, selling slaves, cattle of all kinds, clothes, silver and gold.

  [10.32.16] After mid-day they turn to sacrificing. The more wealthy sacrifice oxen and deer, the poorer people geese and guinea fowl. But it is not the custom to use for the sacrifice sheep, pigs or goats. Those whose business it is to burn the victims and send them into the shrine . . . having made a beginning must wrap the victims in bandages of coarse or fine linen; the mode of preparing is the Egyptian.

  [10.32.17] All that they have devoted to sacrifice are led in procession; some send the victims into the shrine,while others burn the booths before the shrine and themselves go away in haste. They say that once a profane man, who was not one of those descending into the shrine, when the pyre began to burn, entered the shrine to satisfy his rash inquisitiveness. It is said that everywhere he saw ghosts, and on returning to Tithorea and telling what he had seen he departed this life.

  [10.32.18] I have heard a similar story from a man of Phoenicia, that the Egyptians hold the feast for Isis at a time when they say she is mourning for Osiris. At this time the Nile begins to rise, and it is a saying among many of the natives that what makes the river rise and water their fields is the tears of Isis. At that time then, so said my Phoenician, the Roman governor of Egypt bribed a man to go down into the shrine of Isis in Coptus. The man despatched into the shrine returned indeed out of it, but after relating what he had seen, he too, so I was told, died immediately. So it appears that Homer’s verse speaks the truth when it says that it bodes no good to man to see godhead face to face.

  [10.32.19] The olive oil of Tithorea is less abundant than Attic or Sicyonian oil, but in color and pleasantness it surpasses Iberian oil and that from the island of Istria. They distil all manner of unguents from the oil, and also send it to the Emperor.

  LEDON

  [10.33.1] XXXIII. Another road from Tithorea is the one that leads to Ledon. Once Ledon also was considered a city, but in my day the Ledontians owing to their weakness had abandoned the city, and the dwellers on the Cephisus were about seventy people. Still the name of Ledon is given to their dwellings, and the citizens, like the Panopeans, have the right to be represented at the general assembly of the Phocians. The ruins of the ancient Ledon are forty stades farther up from these dwellers on the Cephisus. They say that the city took its name from an aboriginal.

  [10.33.2] Other cities have incurred incurable harm through the sin of their own citizens, hut Troy’s ruin was complete when it fell through the outrage that Alexander committed against Menelaus, and Miletus through the lack of control shown by Histiaeus, and his passionate desire, now to possess the city in the land of the Edonians, now to be admitted to the councils of Dareius, and now to go back to Ionia. Again, Philomelus brought on the community of Ledon the punishment to be paid for the crime of his own impiety.

  LILAEA

  [10.33.3] Lilaea is a winter day’s journey distant from Delphi; we estimated the length of the road, which goes across and down Parnassus, to be one hundred and eighty stades. Even after their city had been restored, its inhabitants were fated to suffer a second disaster at the hands of the Macedonians. Besieged by Philip, the son of Demetrius, they made terms and surrendered, and a garrison was brought into the city, until a native of the city, whose name was Patron, united against the garrison those of the citizens who were of military age, conquered the Macedonians in battle, and forced them to withdraw under a truce. In return for this good deed the Lilaeans dedicated his statue at Delphi.

  [10.33.4] In Lilaea are also a theater, a market-place and baths. There is also a sanctuary of Apollo, and one of Artemis. the images are standing, of Attic workmanship, and of marble from the Pentelic quarries. They say that Lilaea was one of the Naids, as they are called, a daughter of the Cephisus, and that after this nymph the city was named. Here the river has its source.

  [10.33.5] It is not always quiet when it rises from the ground, but it usually happens that at about mid-day it makes a noise as it wells up. You could compare the roar of the water to the bellowing of a bull. Lilaea has a temperate climate in autumn, in summer, and in spring; but Mount Parnassus prevents the winter from being correspondingly mild.

  CHARADRA & PARAPOTAMII

  [10.33.6] Charadra is twenty stades distant, situated on the top of a lofty crag. The inhabitants are badly off for water; their drinking water is the river Charadrus, and they have to go down about three stades to reach it. This river is a tributary of the Cephisus, and it seems to me that the town was named after the Charadrus. In the market-place at Charadra are altars of Heroes, as they are called, said by some to be the Dioscuri, by others to be local heroes.

  [10.33.7] The land beside the Cephisus is distinctly the best in Phocis for planting, sowing and pasture. This part of the district, too, is the one most under cultivation, so that there is a saying that the verse,

  And they who dwelt beside the divine river Cephisus, Hom. Il. 2.522

  alludes, not to a city Parapotamii (Riverside), but to the farmers beside the Cephisus.

  [10.33.8] The saying, however, is at variance with the history of Herodotus as well as with the records of victories at the Pythian games. For the Pythian games were first held by the Amphictyons, and at this first meeting a Parapotamian of the name of Aechmeas won the prize in the boxing match for boys. Similarly Herodotus, enumerating the cities that King Xerxes burnt in Phocis, includes among them the city of Parapotamii. However, Parapotamii was not restored by the Athenians and Boeotians, but the inhabitants, being poverty stricken and few in number, were distributed among the other cities. I found no ruins of Parapotamii left, nor is the site of the city remembered.

  AMPHICLEIA

  [10.33.9] The road from Lilaea to Amphicleia is sixty stades. The name of this Amphicleia has been corrupted by the native inhabitants. Herodotus, following the most ancient account, called it Amphicaea; but the Amphictyons, when they published their decree for the destruction of the cities in Phocis, gave it the name of Amphicleia. The natives tell about it the following story. A certain chief, suspecting that enemies were plotting against his baby son, put the child in a vessel, and hid him in that part of the land where he knew there would be most security. Now a wolf attacked the child, but a serpent coiled itself round the vessel, and kept up a s
trict watch.

  [10.33.10] When the child’s father came, supposing that the serpent had purposed to attack the child, he threw his javelin, which killed the serpent and his son as well. But being informed by the shepherds that he had killed the benefactor and protector of his child, he made one common pyre for both the serpent and his son. Now they say that even to-day the place resembles a burning pyre, maintaining that after this serpent the city was called Ophiteia.

  [10.33.11] They celebrate orgies, well worth seeing, in honor of Dionysus, but there is no entrance to the shrine, nor have they any image that can be seen. The people of Amphicleia say that this god is their prophet and their helper in disease. The diseases of the Amphicleans themselves and of their neighbors are cured by means of dreams. The oracles of the god are given by the priest, who utters them when under the divine inspiration.

  DRYMAEA

  [10.33.12] Fifteen stades away from Amphicleia is Tithronium, lying on a plain. It contains nothing remarkable. From Tithronium it is twenty stades to Drymaea. At the place where this road joins at the Cephisus the straight road from Amphicleia to Drymaea, the Tithronians have a grove and altars of Apollo. There has also been made a temple, but no image.

  Drymaea is eighty stades distant from Amphicleia, on the left . . . according to the account in Herodotus, but in earlier days Naubolenses. The inhabitants say that their founder was Naubolus, son of Phocus, son of Aeacus. At Drymaea is an ancient sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver, with a standing image made of stone. Every year they hold a feast in her honor, the Thesmophoria.

  ELATEIA

  [10.34.1] XXXIV. Elateia is, with the exception of Delphi, the largest city in Phocis. It lies over against Amphicleia, and the road to it from Amphicleia is one hundred and eighty stades long, level for the most part, but with an upward gradient for a short distance quite close to the town of Elateia. In the plain flows the Cephisus, and the most common bird to live along its banks is the bustard.