BOOK V — Elis

CHAPTER I.

Those Greeks, who say that the Peloponnese is divided into five parts and no more, are obliged to admit that the people of Elis as well as the Arcadians dwell in the division of the Arcadians, and that the second division is Achaia, and that the Dorians have the remaining three. The indigenous races that inhabit the Peloponnese are Arcadians and Achæans. And the Achæans were driven out of their own land by the Dorians, but did not however evacuate the Peloponnese, but dispossessed the Ionians that lived in what was then called Ægialus, but is now called after them Achaia. The Arcadians on the other hand have always up to this day remained in Arcadia. But the other parts of the Peloponnese are peopled by strangers. The latest importation were the present Corinthians, who were introduced into the Peloponnese some 217 years ago by the Roman Emperor. And the Dryopes came into the Peloponnese from Mount Parnassus, the Dorians from Mount Œta.

We know that the people of Elis originally came from Calydon and other parts of Ætolia. And the oldest information I have found about them is as follows. The first king in this land was they say Aethlius, the son of Zeus by Protogenea the daughter of Deucalion, and the father of Endymion. The Moon was they say enamoured of this Endymion, and had by him 50 daughters. But a more probable account is that Endymion married Asterodia, others say Chromia the daughter of Itonus the son of Amphictyon, others say Hyperippe the daughter of Arcas, and had three sons, Pæon and Epeus and Ætolus, and one daughter Eurycyde. Endymion also made his sons contend in running at Olympia for the kingdom, and Epeus won, so the people over whom he ruled were first called Epeans. And of his brothers Ætolus they say remained at home, but Pæon vexed at his loss went as far away as possible, and the region beyond the river Axius was called Pæonia after him. As to the death of Endymion different accounts are given by the Heracleotæ at Miletus and by the people of Elis, but the latter show the sepulchre of Endymion, while the former say that he retired to Mount Latmus, where is his shrine. And Epeus married Anaxiroe, the daughter of Coronus, by whom he had a daughter Hyrmina, but no male offspring. And these were the events of his reign. Œnomaus the son of Alxion, (or the son of Ares, as poets have sung, which is the prevalent tradition), being ruler of the country called Pisæa, was deposed from his rule by Pelops the Lydian, who had crossed over from Asia Minor. And after his death Pelops occupied Pisæa and Olympia, slicing off from the territory of Epeus what bordered upon Pisæa. And Pelops (so the people of Elis say) was the first in the Peloponnese to build a temple to Hermes and sacrifice to him, thus turning away the wrath of the god for the murder of Myrtilus.

And Ætolus, the king after Epeus, had to flee from the Peloponnese, because the sons of Apis indicted him for the involuntary murder of their father. For Apis the son of Jason, a native of Pallantium in Arcadia, was killed by Ætolus’ driving over him in his chariot at the funeral games in memory of Azan. So Ætolus the son of Endymion fled to the mainland, to the neighbourhood of the river Achelous, which was called Ætolia after him. And the kingdom of the Epeans was reigned over by Eleus, the son of Eurycyde, the daughter of Endymion and (if we may believe the tradition) Poseidon. And the people in his dominions now changed their names from Epeans to Eleans.

And Eleus had a son called Augeas. And those who want to exalt him change his father’s name, and say that he was the son of Helius (_the Sun-god_). The oxen and goats of this Augeas were so numerous that most of the country could not be cultivated for their dung. Hercules therefore, whether for a part of Elis or some other reward, was persuaded by him to clear the country of this dung. And he effected this by turning the river Menius on to it. But Augeas, because the work had been effected by ingenuity rather than toil, refused to give Hercules his reward, and turned out of doors the eldest of his sons Phyleus, because he told him he was not acting with justice to a benefactor. He also made several preparations to defend himself against Hercules, should he come into Elis with an army, and entered into an alliance with Amarynceus and the sons of Actor. Now Amarynceus had an especial acquaintance with military matters, and his father Pyttius was a Thessalian by extraction, and had come from thence to Elis. And to Amarynceus Augeas gave a share of his power at Elis; and Actor and his sons also, who were natives of Elis, shared in the administration of the kingdom. The father of Actor was Phorbas the son of Lapithus, and his mother was Hyrmina, the daughter of Epeus, and Actor built and called after her the town of Hyrmina in Elis.

CHAPTER II.

Now in the campaign against Augeas Hercules had no opportunity to win laurels, for as the sons of Actor were in their prime for daring and vigour of youth, the allied forces of Hercules were constantly routed by them, until the Corinthians announced a truce during the Isthmian games, and the sons of Actor went to see the games, and Hercules lay in ambush for them and slew them at Cleonæ. And the perpetrator of the deed being unknown, Moline the mother of the lads took the greatest pains to discover their murderer. And when she discovered who it was, then the people of Elis claimed compensation for the murder from the Argives, for Hercules dwelt in Argolis at Tiryns. And as the Argives refused to give up Hercules, they next begged hard of the Corinthians, that all Argolis should be scratched from the Isthmian games. But being unsuccessful in this also, they say Moline put a curse upon the citizens if they went to the Isthmian games. And these curses of Moline are observed up to this day, and all the athletes at Elis make a practice of never going to the Isthmian contest. And there are two different traditions about this. One of them states that Cypselus the tyrant at Corinth offered a golden statue to Zeus at Olympia, but, Cypselus dying before his name was inscribed on the votive offering, the Corinthians asked the people of Elis to allow them to inscribe publicly the name of Corinth on the votive offering, and the people of Elis refusing they were angry with them, and forbade them to contend at the Isthmian games. But how would the Corinthians have been admitted at the contests at Olympia, if they had excluded the people of Elis from the Isthmian games? But the other tradition states that Prolaus, a man of much repute among the people of Elis, and Lysippe his wife had two sons Philanthus and Lampus, and they went to the Isthmian games, the one intending to compete in the pancratium among the boys, the other in wrestling, and before the games came on they were strangled or killed in some way by their rivals: and that was why Lysippe imposed her curses on the people of Elis, if they would not of their own accord cease to attend the Isthmian games. This tradition too is easily shewn to be a silly one. For Timon a native of Elis had victories in the pentathlum in all the other Greek contests, and there is an effigy of him at Olympia, and some elegiac verses which enumerate the various crowns that he carried off as victor, and the reason why he did not participate in the Isthmian contest. This is one couplet. “Our hero was prevented coming to the land of Sisyphus by the strife that arose in consequence of the sad fate of the sons of Molione.”

CHAPTER III.

Let this suffice on the matter. To resume, Hercules afterwards captured and sacked Elis, having got together an army of Argives Thebans and Arcadians: and the people of Elis were assisted by the men of Pylos in Elis and by the men of Pisa. And the men of Pylos were punished by Hercules, and he intended marching against Pisa, but was stopped by the following oracle from Delphi,

“Dear to the Father is Pisa, Pytho has entrusted it to me.”

This oracle was the salvation of Pisa. And to Phyleus Hercules gave up Elis and other places, not so much willingly as standing in awe of Phyleus, to whom he also granted the captives and forgave Augeas. And the women of Elis, as their land was stripped of young men through the war, are said to have prayed to Athene that they might conceive directly they married, and their prayer was granted, and they erected a temple to Athene under the title of Mother. And both the women and men being excessively delighted with their union called the place where they first met Bady (_sweet_), and also gave the same name in their national dialect to the river flowing there.

And when Phyleus, after setting things in order in Elis, returned to Dulichium, Augeas died being already advanced in age, and was succeeded in the kingdom of Elis by his son Agasthenes, and by Amphimachus, and Thalpius. For the sons of Actor married two sisters, the daughters of Dexamenus who was king at Olenus, and the one had by Theronice Amphimachus, and the other Eurytus had by Theræphone Thalpius. Not that Amarynceus or Diores his son remained all their lives in a private capacity. As we know from Homer in his catalogue of the men of Elis, all their fleet was 40 sail, and half of them were under Amphimachus and Thalpius, and of the remaining half ten were under Diores the son of Amarynceus, and ten under Polyxenus the son of Agasthenes. And Polyxenus coming back safe from Troy had a son Amphimachus, (he gave his son this name I fancy from his friendship to Amphimachus the son of Cteatus who perished at Ilium), and he had a son Eleus, and it was when Eleus was king at Elis that the Dorian host mustered under the sons of Aristomachus with a view to return to the Peloponnese. This oracle came to the kings, that they must make a man with three eyes leader of the return. And as they were in great doubt what the oracle could mean, a muleteer chanced to pass by, whose mule was blind of one eye. And Cresphontes conjecturing that the oracle referred to this man, the Dorians invited him to be their leader. And he urged them to return to the Peloponnese in ships, and not force their way through the isthmus with a land force. This was his advice, and at the same time he piloted the fleet from Naupactus to Molycrium, and they in return for his services agreed to give him at his request the kingdom of Elis. And the man’s name was Oxylus, he was the son of Hæmon, the son of Thoas, who in conjunction with the sons of Atreus had overturned the kingdom of Priam; and between Thoas and Ætolus the son of Endymion there are six generations. And the Heraclidæ were in other respects kinsmen to the kings in Ætolia, besides the fact that the sisters of Thoas were mothers by Hercules of Andræmon and Hyllus. And Oxylus had to flee from Ætolia in consequence of an accident, in throwing a quoit (they say) he missed his aim and unintentionally killed his brother Thermius, or according to some accounts Alcidocus the son of Scopius.

CHAPTER IV.

There is also another tradition about Oxylus, that he suspected the sons of Aristomachus of an unwillingness to give him the kingdom of Elis, as it was fertile and well cultivated everywhere, and this was why he led the Dorians through Arcadia and not through Elis. And when Oxylus hastened to take the kingdom of Elis without contention Dius would not permit him, but challenged him not to a contention with all their forces, but to a single combat between two soldiers one from each side. And both agreed to this. And the men selected for this single combat were Degmenus a bowman of Elis, and Pyræchmes on the Ætolian side a famous slinger. And as Pyræchmes was victorious Oxylus got the kingdom, and he allowed the ancient Epeans to remain there, but introduced Ætolians as colonists with them, and gave them also a share in the land. And to Dius he gave various honours, and observed the rights of all the heroes according to old precedents, and introduced sacrificial offerings to Augeas which have continued to our day. It is said that he also persuaded the men in the villages, who were at no great distance from the walls, to come into the city, and thus increased the population of Elis and made it more powerful in other respects. And an oracle came to him from Delphi to associate with him as colonist a descendant of Pelops, and he made diligent search, and discovered Agorius the son of Damasius, the son of Penthilus, the son of Orestes, and invited him from Helice in Achaia and with him a few Achæans. And they say Oxylus had a wife called Pieria, but they record nothing further about her. And the sons of Oxylus were they say Ætolus and Laias. And Ætolus dying in his father’s lifetime, his parents buried him and erected a sepulchre to him by the gate, which leads to Olympia and the temple of Zeus. And they buried him there in accordance with the oracle, which said that his dead body was to be neither in nor out of the city. And annually still the master of the gymnasium offers victims to Ætolus.

Oxylus was succeeded in the kingdom by his son Laias. I could not find that his sons reigned, so I purposely pass them over, for it has not been my desire in this narrative to descend to private personages. But some time afterwards Iphitus, who was of the same family as Oxylus, and a contemporary of Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian legislator, revived the contest at Olympia, and renewed the public gathering there, and established a truce as long as the games lasted. Why the meetings at Olympia had been discontinued I shall narrate when I come to Olympia. And as Greece at this time was nearly ruined by civil wars and by the pestilence, Iphitus bethought him to ask of the god at Delphi a remission from these ills. And they say he was ordered by the Pythian Priestess to join the people of Elis in restoring the Olympian games. Iphitus also persuaded the people of Elis to sacrifice to Hercules, for before this they had an idea that Hercules was hostile to them. And the inscription at Olympia says that Iphitus was the son of Hæmon, but most of the Greeks say he was the son of Praxonides and not of Hæmon. But the ancient records of the people of Elis trace him up to a father of the same name as himself _viz._ Iphitus.

The people of Elis took part in the Trojan war, and also in the battles against the Persians when they invaded Greece. And to pass over their frequent disputes with the people of Pisa and the Arcadians in respect to the re-establishment of the games at Olympia, they joined the Lacedæmonians not without reluctance in invading Attica, and not long after they fought against the Lacedæmonians, having formed an alliance with the Mantineans the Argives and the Athenians. And on the occasion of Agis making an incursion into Elis, when Xenias played the traitor, the people of Elis were victorious at Olympia, and routed the Lacedæmonians, and drove them from the precincts of the temple: and some time afterwards the war came to an end on the conditions which I have mentioned before in my account of the Lacedæmonians. And when Philip, the son of Amyntas, could not keep his hands off Greece, the people of Elis, worn out with intestine factions, joined the Macedonians, but not to the point of fighting against the Greeks at Chæronea. But they participated in the attack of Philip upon the Lacedæmonians by reason of their ancient hatred to them. But after the death of Alexander they joined the Greeks in fighting against Antipater and the Macedonians.

CHAPTER V.

And in process of time Aristotimus, the son of Damaretus, the son of Etymon, obtained the sovereignty at Elis, partly through the assistance of Antigonus the son of Demetrius, who was king of the Macedonians. But when he had reigned only six months, Chilon and Hellanicus and Lampis and Cylon rose up against him and deposed him; and Cylon slew him with his own hand when he had fled as suppliant to the altar of Zeus Soter. These are the chief wars the people of Elis took part in, just to glance at them briefly in the present portion of my work.

Among the wonders of Elis are the flax, which grows here alone and in no other part of Greece, and also the fact that, though over the borders mares bear foals to he-asses, it is never so in Elis. And this phenomenon is they say the result of a curse. The flax in Elis in respect of thinness is not inferior to the flax of the Hebrews, but is not as yellow.

And as you go from the district of Elis there is a place by the sea called Samicum, and beyond it on the right is the district called Triphylia, and the city Lepreus in it. The people of Lepreus think they belong properly to Arcadia, but it is manifest they were from time immemorial subject to Elis. For the victors at Olympia that came from Lepreus were pronounced by the herald men of Elis. And Aristophanes has described Lepreus as a city in Elis. One way to Lepreus from Samicum is by leaving the river Aniger on the left, and a second is from Olympia, and a third from Elis, and the longest of them is only a day’s journey. The city got its name they say from Lepreus the son of Pyrgeus its founder. There is a tradition that Lepreus had an eating contest with Hercules, each killed an ox at the same time and cooked it for dinner, and (as he had betted) he was quite a match for Hercules in eating. But he had the hardihood afterwards to challenge Hercules to a contest in arms. And they say he was killed in that contest and buried at Phigalia, however his sepulchre there is not shewn. And I have heard some who claim that their city was founded by Leprea the daughter of Pyrgeus. Others say that the inhabitants of this region were the first lepers, and that the city got its name from this misfortune of its inhabitants. And the people of Lepreus say that in their city they once had a temple of Leucæan Zeus, and the tomb of Lycurgus the son of Aleus, and also the tomb of Caucon. The last had they say as a design over it a man with a lyre. But in my time there is no remarkable tomb there, nor any temple of the gods except one of Demeter: built of unbaked brick, and containing no statue. And not far from the city Lepreus is a spring called Arene: it got this name according to tradition from the wife of Aphareus.

And as you return to Samicum, and go through it, the river Aniger has its outlet to the sea. The flow of this river is often impeded by violent winds: for they blow the sand from the shore into it and dam up the flow of the river. Whenever then this sand becomes soaked with water, (outside by the sea inside by the river), it becomes a very dangerous place for carts and carriages and even for an active man to ford. This river Aniger rises in the Arcadian mountain Lapithus, and the water has an unpleasant smell from its source. Before receiving its tributary the Acidas it is too fetid to have any fish whatever, and after its confluence with the Acidas, though it has fish that come into its waters from that tributary, they are no longer eatable, which they are when caught in the Acidas. That the ancient name of the river Acidas was Iardanus I should not myself have conjectured, but I was so informed by an Ephesian. The unpleasant smell of the Aniger comes I believe from the soil through which the river flows, as is certainly the case with those rivers beyond Ionia, whose exhalations are deadly to man. Some of the Greeks say that Chiron, others that Pylenor the Centaur, was wounded by Hercules, and fled and washed his sore in this river, and that it was from the Hydra’s poison (_in which Hercules’ arrow had been dipped_) that the Aniger got its unpleasant smell. Others refer this condition of the river to Melampus the son of Amythaon, and to the fact that the purifications of the daughters of Prœtus were thrown into it.

There is at Samicum a cave, not far from the river, called the cave of the Nymphs of the Aniger. Whoever goes into it suffering from either black or white leprosy, must first of all pray to these Nymphs and promise sacrifice to them, and afterwards wipe clean the diseased parts of his body. If he next swims across the river he leaves in the water his foul disease, and comes out of the river sound and with his skin uniformly clear.

CHAPTER VI.

On the high road, after crossing the Aniger in the direction of Olympia, there is at no great distance on the right an eminence, and on it a town called Samia above Samicum. This town they say was made into a sort of offensive fortress against the Arcadians by Polysperchon, an Ætolian.

As to the ruins of Arene, none either of the Messenians or people of Elis could give me a clear account. As their explanations are different those who like to conjecture are at liberty to do so. The most credible account seems to me that of those who think that the ancient name of Samicum earlier than the time of the heroes was Arene. And these quote the lines in the Iliad.

“There is a river Minyeïus, That flows into the sea near to Arene.” Iliad, xi 722, 723.

And these ruins of Arene are very near the Aniger. One might have doubted about Samicum having been called Arene, only the Arcadians admit that the ancient name of the river Aniger was Minyeïus. And one would feel sure that the river Neda near the sea was the boundary between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heraclidæ to the Peloponnese.

And leaving the Aniger, and passing through a district generally sandy and full of wild pine-trees, somewhat back to the left you will see the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was one of the towns of Triphylia: and in the war between the people of Elis and Pisa the people of Scillus openly allied themselves to the people of Pisa, and in return the men of Elis dispossessed them from Scillus. But the Lacedæmonians afterwards sliced Scillus from Elis, and gave it to Xenophon (the son of Gryllus), who was at that time exiled from Athens. He was banished by the Athenians for joining Cyrus (who hated their democracy) against the king of the Persians (who was their friend): for when Cyrus was at Sardis he gave Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedæmonians some money for their fleet. This is why Xenophon was banished, and he lived at Scillus and built a temple and grove to Ephesian Artemis. And Scillus affords good hunting of wild animals, as wild boars and deer. And the river Selinus flows through the district. And the antiquarians of Elis say that the people of Elis recovered Scillus, and that Xenophon was tried in the Olympian council for receiving Scillus from the Lacedæmonians, but was acquitted and allowed to continue there scot free. And at some little distance from the temple they show a tomb, and there is an effigy on the tomb in Pentelican marble, which the people of the place say is Xenophon.

On the road to Olympia from Scillus, before crossing the Alpheus, is a mountain lofty and precipitous which is called Typæum. From this mountain it is the custom to hurl all women of Elis who are detected as competitors in the Olympian contests, or who merely cross the Alpheus on forbidden days. Not that any one ever yet was so detected except Callipatira, whose name according to some traditions was Pherenice. She after the death of her husband dressed herself up like an athlete, and brought her son as a combatant to Olympia. And Pisirodus her son having been victorious, Callipatira in leaping over the fence which parted the athletes from the spectators, exposed her person, and though her sex was detected they let her go without punishment out of respect to her father and brothers and son, who had all been victors at Olympia, but they passed a law that henceforth all athletes should come to the contests naked.

CHAPTER VII.

And when you have got to Olympia immediately you see the river Alpheus, a full and very pleasant river, and no less than seven notable rivers are tributaries to it. For through Megalopolis the Helisson flows into it, and the Brentheates from the district of Megalopolis, and the Gortynius near Gortyna where is a temple of Æsculapius, and from Melæneæ between the districts of Megalopolis and Heræa the Buphagus, and the Ladon from the district of the Clitorians, and the river Erymanthus from the mountain of the same name. All these flow into the Alpheus from Arcadia, and the Cladeus from Elis also contributes its stream. And the source of the Alpheus is in Arcadia and not in Elis. And there are several traditions about the Alpheus, as that he was a hunter and enamoured of Arethusa, and that she hunted with him. And as Arethusa was unwilling to marry him, she crossed over they say to an island near Syracuse, called Ortygia, and there became a spring: just as Alpheus in consequence of his love was changed into a river. This is the tradition about the Alpheus and the Ortygia. As to the river going under the sea and coming up in another place, there is no reason why I should discredit that, as I know that the god at Delphi admitted it, seeing that when he sent Archias the Corinthian to establish a colony at Syracuse, these were some of the words he used, “Ortygia lies in the cloudy sea above Trinacria, where the mouth of the Alpheus mixes and flows with the springs of the broad Arethusa.” From this circumstance of their union, and not any love passages, I imagine the traditions about the two rivers originated. And all the Greeks or Egyptians, that have penetrated into Ethiopia beyond Syene, and as far as the Ethiopian city of Meroe, say that the Nile enters into a marsh, and flows through it as if it were earth, and eventually through lower Ethiopia into Egypt to Pharos, where it has its outlet at the sea. And in the land of the Hebrews I know that the river Jordan flows through the lake of Tiberias, and into what is called the Dead Sea, by which it is absorbed. The Dead Sea has properties unlike any other water: living bodies can float in it without swimming, whereas dead bodies go to the bottom. And it has no fish, for from their evident danger they take refuge in water more congenial to them. And there is a river in Ionia similar to the Alpheus, its source is in the mountain Mycale, and it flows under the sea, and comes up again at Branchidæ at the harbour called Panormus. All this is correctly stated.

In regard to the Olympian Games those who are in possession of the most ancient archives of the people of Elis say that Cronos was the first king of Heaven, and that he had a temple built to him at Olympia by the mortals who then lived, who were called the golden age: and that, when Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the charge of the boy to the Idæan Dactyli, who were otherwise called the Curetes: who afterwards came to Elis from Ida in Crete, and their names were Hercules, and Epimedes, and Pæonæus, and Iasius, and Idas. And Hercules the eldest of them challenged his brothers in play to run a race together, and they would crown the victor with a branch of the wild olive: and there was such abundance of wild olive trees that they strewed under them the leaves while they were still green as beds to sleep on. And they say that the wild olive was introduced to the Greeks by Hercules from the country of the Hyperboreans, who dwelt north of the wind Boreas. Olen the Lycian first mentioned in a hymn to Achæia, that she came to Delos from these Hyperboreans, and when Melanopus of Cumæ composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerges, he mentioned that they too came from the Hyperboreans to Delos before Achæia. And Aristæus of Proconnesus, who has also mentioned the Hyperboreans, may perhaps have heard more of them from the Issedones, to whom in his poems he says they went. At any rate to Idæan Hercules belongs the glory that he first instituted and gave their name to the Olympian contests. He appointed them to be held every fifth year because he and his brothers were five in number. And some say that it was there that Zeus contended with Cronos about the sovereignty of Heaven, others say he appointed these games after his success over Cronos. Other gods are said to have been victorious, as Apollo who outran Hermes, who challenged him to the contest, and outboxed Ares. And this is the reason they say why the Pythian flute-playing was introduced in the leaping contest at the pentathlum, because the flute was sacred to Apollo, and Apollo was on several occasions the victor at Olympia.

CHAPTER VIII.

And after this they say Clymenus the son of Cardys, (in the 50th year after Deucalion’s flood), a descendant of Idæan Hercules, came from Crete and established games at Olympia, and erected an altar to his ancestor Hercules and to the other Curetes, giving Hercules the title of Assistant. But Endymion the son of Aethlius deposed Clymenus from the kingdom, and gave it to his sons as a prize for the best runner of them at Olympia. And a generation after Endymion, Pelops made the contest to Olympian Zeus more famous than any of his predecessors. And when the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis all over the Peloponnese, Amythaon the son of Cretheus, uncle of Endymion on the father’s side, (for they say Aethlius was the son of Æolus surnamed Zeus), appointed games at Olympia, and after him Pelias and Neleus in common. So also did Augeas and Hercules, the son of Amphitryon, after the capture of Elis. And all that he crowned as victors were Iolaus, who had borrowed the mares of Hercules for the race. It was an old custom to be a competitor with borrowed horses. Homer at least in the funeral games in honour of Patroclus has represented Menelaus as yoking together Agamemnon’s horse Æthe with one of his own. Iolaus was also Hercules’ charioteer. He was the victor in the chariot race, and Iasius an Arcadian in the riding race, and Castor was successful in running, Pollux in boxing. It is also recorded of Hercules that he was victorious in wrestling and in the pancratium.

And after the reign of Oxylus, who also established games, the Olympian games were suspended till Iphitus. And when he renewed the games as I have before stated, there was a general forgetfulness about the ancient games, but in a short while they got remembered again, and whenever they remembered any little feature of the games, they added it to the programme. And this proves my statement. From the time that the Olympian games were revived continuously, prizes were first instituted for running, and Corœbus of Elis was the victor. His statue is at Olympia, and his grave is on the borders of Elis. And in the 14th Olympiad afterwards the double course was introduced: when Hypenus a native of Pisa won the wild olive crown, and Acanthus was second. And in the 18th Olympiad they remembered the pentathlum and the wrestling, in the former Lampis was victor, in the latter Eurybatus, both Lacedæmonians. And in the 23rd Olympiad they ordained prizes for boxing, and Onomastus was victor from Smyrna (which was at that day reckoned as Ionia). And in the 25th Olympiad they had a race of full-grown horses, and the Theban Pagondas was proclaimed victor in this race. And in the eighth Olympiad later they introduced the pancratium and the riding race. The horse of Crannonian Crauxidas got in first, and the competitors for the pancratium were beaten by the Syracusan Lygdamis, who has his sepulchre at the stonequarries of Syracuse. And I don’t know whether Lygdamis was really as big as the Theban Hercules, but that is the tradition at Syracuse. And the contest of the boys was not a revival of ancient usage, but the people of Elis instituted it because the idea pleased them. So prizes were instituted for running and wrestling among boys in the 307th Olympiad, and Hipposthenes the Lacedæmonian won the wrestling prize, and Polynices from Elis the running prize. And in the 41st Olympiad afterwards they invited boxing boys, and the one who won the prize from all the competitors was Philetas from Sybaris. And the race in heavy armour was tried in the 65th Olympiad, as an exercise for war I think: and of those who ran with their shields Damaretus of Heræum was the victor. And the race of two full-grown horses called a pair was established in the 93rd Olympiad, and Evagoras of Elis was the victor. And in the 99th Olympiad they had a fancy to contend with chariots drawn by colts, and the Lacedæmonian Sybariades had the prize for this contest. And they afterwards established races of a pair of colts and for riding a colt, and the victor in the former was Belistiche, a woman who lived in Macedonia near the sea, and in the latter Tlepolemus the Lycian in the 131st Olympiad, Belistiche’s victory was in the 3rd Olympiad before. And in the 145th Olympiad prizes were instituted for a pancratium-contest for boys, and Phædimus an Æolian from the Troad was victor.

CHAPTER IX.

And some of the contests at Olympia were put an end to, the people of Elis having resolved to discontinue them. For the pentathlum for boys was established in the 38th Olympiad, but when the Lacedæmonian Eutelidas had won the crown of wild olive, the people of Elis did not care that their lads should train for the pentathlum. So it dropped. And the chariot race and the trotting race, the former established in the 70th Olympiad and the latter in the 71st Olympiad, were both stopped by proclamation in the 84th Olympiad. When they were first instituted Thersius the Thessalian won the prize in the former, and Patæcus an Achæan from Dyme in the latter. In the trotting race the riders used to jump off towards the end of the course and run with the horses still holding the reins, as what are called professional riders do to this day, only the latter employ stallions and have their own colours. But the chariot race is not an ancient invention nor a graceful exhibition, and the people of Elis (who have always disliked the horse) yoke two mules together instead of horses.

The order of the games in our day is to sacrifice victims to the god, and then to contend in the pentathlum and horse-race, according to the programme established in the 77th Olympiad, for before this horses and men contended on the same day. And at that period the pancratiasts did not appear till night for they could not compete sooner, so much time being taken up by the horse-races and pentathlum. And the Athenian Callias was the victor of the pancratiasts. But for the future they took care that neither the pentathlum nor horse-races should stand in the way of the pancratium. And as regards the umpires of the games, the original rules and those in vogue in our day are quite different, for Iphitus was the only umpire, and after Iphitus the posterity of Oxylus, but in the 50th Olympiad two men picked by lot out of all Elis were entrusted with the stewardship of the contests, and this practice of two umpires continued for a very long time. But in the 25th Olympiad afterwards 9 general Umpires were appointed: three for the horse-race, three to watch the pentathlum, and three to preside over the remaining games. And in the 2nd Olympiad after this a tenth Umpire was appointed. And in the 103rd Olympiad, as the people of Elis had 12 tribes, a general Umpire was appointed by each. And when they were hard pressed by the Arcadians in war, they lost a portion of their territory and all the villages in this portion, and so they were only 8 tribes in number in the 104th Olympiad, and had only 8 general Umpires accordingly. And in the 108th Olympiad they returned to the number of 10 general Umpires, and that has continued the number to our day.

CHAPTER X.

Many various wonders may one see, or hear of, in Greece: but the Eleusinian mysteries and Olympian games seem to exhibit more than anything else the divine purpose. And the sacred grove of Zeus they have from old time called Altis, slightly changing the Greek word for grove: it is indeed called Altis also by Pindar, in the Ode he composed for a victor at Olympia. And the temple and statue of Zeus were built out of the spoils of Pisa, which the people of Elis razed to the ground, after quelling the revolt of Pisa and some of the neighbouring towns that revolted with Pisa. And that the statue of Zeus was the work of Phidias is shown by the inscription written at the base of it,

“Phidias the Athenian, the son of Charmides, made me.”

The temple is a Doric building, and outside it is a colonnade. And the temple is built of stone of the district. Its height up to the gable is 68 feet, its breadth 95 feet, and its length 230 feet. And its architect was Libon a native of Elis. And the tiles on the roof are not of baked earth, but Pentelican marble to imitate tiles. They say such roofs are the invention of a man of Naxos called Byzes, who made statues at Naxos with the inscription,

“Euergus of Naxos made me, the son of Byzes, and descended from Leto, the first who made tiles of stone.”

This Byzes was a contemporary of Alyattes the Lydian and Astyages (the son of Cyaxaras) the king of Persia. And there is a golden vase at each end of the roof, and a golden Victory in the middle of the gable. And underneath the Victory is a golden shield hung up as a votive offering, with the Gorgon Medusa worked on it. The inscription on the shield states who hung it up, and the reason why they did so. For this is what it says.

“This temple’s golden shield is a votive offering from the Lacedæmonians at Tanagra and their allies, a gift from the Argives the Athenians and the Ionians, a tithe offering for success in war.”

The battle I mentioned in my account of Attica, when I described the tombs at Athens. And in the same temple at Olympia, above the zone that runs round the pillars on the outside, are 21 golden shields, the offering of Mummius the Roman General, after he had beaten the Achæans and taken Corinth, and expelled the Dorians from Corinth. And on the gables in bas relief is the chariot race between Pelops and Œnomaus, and both chariots in motion. And in the middle of the gable is a statue of Zeus, and on the right hand of Zeus is Œnomaus with a helmet on his head, and beside him his wife Sterope, one of the daughters of Atlas. And Myrtilus, who was the charioteer of Œnomaus, is seated behind the four horses. And next to him are two men whose names are not recorded, but they are doubtless Œnomaus’ grooms, whose duty was to take care of the horses. And at the end of the gable is a delineation of the river Cladeus, next to the Alpheus held most in honour of all the rivers of Elis. And on the left of the statue of Zeus are Pelops and Hippodamia and the charioteer of Pelops and the horses, and two men who were Pelops’ grooms. And where the gable tapers fine there is the Alpheus delineated. And Pelop’s charioteer was according to the tradition of the Trœzenians Sphærus, but the custodian at Olympia said that his name was Cilla. The carvings on the gables in front are by Pæonius of Mende in Thracia, those behind by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias and second only to him as statuary. And on the gables is a representation of the fight between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous. Pirithous is in the centre, and on one side of him is Eurytion trying to carry off Pirithous’ wife and Cæneus coming to the rescue, and on the other side Theseus laying about among the Centaurs with his battle-axe: and one Centaur is carrying off a maiden, another a blooming boy. Alcamenes has engraved this story, I imagine, because he learnt from the lines of Homer that Pirithous was the son of Zeus, and knew that Theseus was fourth in descent from Pelops. There are also in bas relief at Olympia most of the Labours of Hercules. Above the doors of the temple is the hunting of the Erymanthian boar, and Hercules taking the mares of Diomede the Thracian, and robbing the oxen of Geryon in the island of Erythea, and supporting the load of Atlas, and clearing the land of Elis of its dung. And above the chamber behind the doors he is robbing the Amazon of her belt, and there is the stag, and the Cretan Minotaur, and the Stymphalian birds, and the hydra, and the Nemean lion. And as you enter the brazen doors on the right in front of the pillar is Iphitus being crowned by his wife Ecechiria, as the inscription in verse states. And there are pillars inside the temple, and porticoes above, and an approach by them to the image of Zeus. There is also a winding staircase to the roof.

CHAPTER XI.

The image of the god is in gold and ivory, seated on a throne. And a crown is on his head imitating the foliage of the olive tree. In his right hand he holds a Victory in ivory and gold, with a tiara and crown on his head: and in his left hand a sceptre adorned with all manner of precious stones, and the bird seated on the sceptre is an eagle. The robes and sandals of the god are also of gold: and on his robes are imitations of flowers, especially of lilies. And the throne is richly adorned with gold and precious stones, and with ebony and ivory. And there are imitations of animals painted on it, and models worked on it. There are four Victories like dancers one at each foot of the throne, and two also at the instep of each foot: and at each of the front feet are Theban boys carried off by Sphinxes, and below the Sphinxes Apollo and Artemis shooting down the children of Niobe. And between the feet of the throne are four divisions formed by straight lines drawn from each of the four feet. In the division nearest the entrance there are seven models, the eighth has vanished no one knows where or how. And they are imitations of ancient contests, for in the days of Phidias the contests for boys were not yet established. And the figure with its head muffled up in a scarf is they say Pantarces, who was a native of Elis and the darling of Phidias. This Pantarces won the wrestling prize for boys in the 86th Olympiad. And in the remaining divisions is the band of Hercules fighting against the Amazons. The number on each side is 29, and Theseus is on the side of Hercules. And the throne is supported not only by the four feet, but also by 4 pillars between the feet. But one cannot get under the throne, as one can at Amyclæ, and pass inside, for at Olympia there are panels like walls that keep one off. Of these panels the one opposite the doors of the temple is painted sky blue only, but the others contain paintings by Panænus. Among them is Atlas bearing up Earth and Heaven, and Hercules standing by willing to relieve him of his load, and Theseus and Pirithous, and Greece, and Salamis with the figurehead of a ship in her hand, and the contest of Hercules with the Nemean lion, and Ajax’s unknightly violation of Cassandra, and Hippodamia the daughter of Œnomaus with her mother, and Prometheus still chained to the rock and Hercules gazing at him. For the tradition is that Hercules slew the eagle that was ever tormenting Prometheus on Mount Caucasus, and released Prometheus from his chains. The last paintings are Penthesilea dying and Achilles supporting her, and two Hesperides carrying the apples of which they are fabled to have been the keepers. This Panænus was the brother of Phidias, and at Athens in the Painted Stoa he has painted the action at Marathon. At the top of the throne Phidias has represented above the head of Zeus the three Graces and three Seasons. For these too, as we learn from the poets, were daughters of Zeus. Homer in the Iliad has represented the Seasons as having the care of Heaven, as a kind of guards of a royal palace. And the base under the feet of Zeus, (what is called in Attic θρανίον), has golden lions engraved on it, and the battle between Theseus and the Amazons, the first famous exploit of the Athenians beyond their own borders. And on the platform that supports the throne there are various ornaments round Zeus and gilt carving, the Sun seated in his chariot, and Zeus and Hera, and near is Grace. Hermes is close to her, and Vesta close to Hermes. And next to Vesta is Eros receiving Aphrodite just rising from the sea, who is being crowned by Persuasion. And Apollo and Artemis Athene and Hercules are standing by, and at the end of the platform Amphitrite and Poseidon, and Selene apparently urging on her horse. And some say it is a mule and not a horse that the goddess is riding upon, and there is a silly tale about this mule.

I know that the size of the Olympian Zeus both in height and breadth has been stated, but I cannot bestow praise on the measurers, for their recorded measurement comes far short of what anyone would infer looking at the statue. They make the god also to have testified to the art of Phidias. For they say when the statue was finished, Phidias prayed him to signify if the work was to his mind, and immediately Zeus struck with lightning that part of the pavement, where in our day there is a brazen urn with a lid.

And all the pavement in front of the statue is not of white but of black stone. And a border of Parian marble runs round this black stone, as a preservative against spilled oil. For oil is good for the statue at Olympia, as it prevents the ivory being harmed by the dampness of the grove. But in the Acropolis at Athens, in regard to the statue of Athene called the Maiden, it is not oil but water that is advantageously employed to the ivory: for as the citadel is dry by reason of its great height, the statue being made of ivory needs to be sprinkled with water freely. And when I was at Epidaurus, and enquired why they use neither water nor oil to the statue of Æsculapius, the sacristans of the temple informed me that the statue of the god and its throne are over a well.

CHAPTER XII.

Those who think that the parts of the elephant that project from the mouth are teeth and not horns, should consider the case of Celtic elks and Ethiopian bulls. For male elks have horns on their foreheads, but the female elk has none whatever. And Ethiopian bulls have horns growing in their nostrils. Who would therefore think it very wonderful after these examples that a beast should have horns growing out of its mouth? One may also get further light from the following particulars. Horns in animals take a certain definite period to grow and grow more than once: and this is the case with stags and antelopes as well as elephants. But no animal after full growth has second sets of teeth. If they are teeth therefore and not horns that project from elephants’ mouths, how could they grow a second time? Moreover teeth are not acted upon by fire, but horns both of oxen and elephants can by the action of fire be made straight from round, and can in fact be turned into any shape. [But in hippopotamuses and boars the lower jaw has projecting teeth: and we do not see horns growing out of their jaws.] Let anybody be certain therefore that they are horns in the elephant that project and grow out from the temples. I don’t make this assertion as mere hearsay, for I have seen the skull of an elephant in the temple of Artemis in Campania. The temple I refer to is about 30 stades from Capua, which is the chief town of Campania. And the elephant is not only different from other animals in the growth of its horns, but also in its size and appearance. And the Greeks seem to me to have shewn great munificence and an absence of parsimoniousness in respect to their worship of the gods, seeing that they procured ivory both from India and Ethiopia for their statues.

At Olympia also in the temple of Zeus is a woollen veil, adorned with Assyrian tapestry and dyed with the Phœnician purple, the votive offering of Antiochus, who also gave to the theatre at Athens a golden ægis with the Gorgon’s head on it. This veil is not drawn up to the roof as in the temple of Ephesian Artemis, but let down to the pavement by ropes. And among the votive offerings in the temple or ante-chapel is the throne of Arimnestus king of the Tyrrhenians, (who was the first foreigner that offered a votive offering to Olympian Zeus,) and the horses of Cynisca in brass, the memorials of her victory at Olympia. These horses are rather smaller than life, and are on the right as you enter the ante-chapel. And there is a tripod covered with brass, on which before the table was made the crowns for the victors were laid. And of the statues of the Emperors, Adrian’s in Parian marble was a gift of all the cities that joined the Achæan league, and Trajan’s a gift of all the Greeks. This last Emperor added the Getæ beyond Thrace to the Roman Empire, and waged war against Osroes (the descendant of Arsaces) and the Parthians. The most famous of all his works are the Baths which are known as Trajan’s Baths, and a large theatre perfectly round, and a building for horse-races two stades in length, and the forum at Rome well worth seeing for various beauties and especially its brazen roof. And there are two statues in the round parts of the building, one of the Emperor Augustus in amber, the other in ivory is said to be Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia: from whom the largest town in Bithynia, that had been previously called Astacus, got called Nicomedia. It was originally founded by Zypœtes, a Thracian as one would infer from his name. And the amber of which they made Augustus’ statue, the native amber which is found in the sands of the Eridanus, is most rare and precious to man for many purposes. But the other kind of amber is gold mixed with silver. And in the temple at Olympia there are several of Nero’s votive offerings, 3 are crowns to imitate the wild olive, the fourth is an imitation of oak. And there are 25 brazen shields to be worn by the competitors in the race in armour. And there are several pillars, and among them one which has the covenant of the people of Elis and the Athenians Argives and Mantineans for an alliance for 100 years.

CHAPTER XIII.

And within Altis there is a separate grove to Pelops: who of the heroes at Olympia is as much held in the highest honour as Zeus is among the gods. This grove is on the right of the temple of Zeus towards the North, just at such a distance from the temple as to admit of statues and votive offerings between, and it extends from the middle of the temple to the back, and is surrounded by a stone wall, and has trees planted in it, and statues. And the entrance to it is from the west. And it is said to have been dedicated to Pelops by Hercules the son of Amphitryon, who was fourth in descent from Pelops. And he is said to have sacrificed in the trench to Pelops. And the magistrates for the year sacrifice to him even now a black ram. The seer has no portion of this sacrifice, the neck of the ram only is usually given to the person called the wood-cutter. He is one of the temple servants, and his function is to furnish wood for the sacrifices at a fixed price, both to cities and to any private individual. And the wood is always of the white poplar tree. And whatever stranger or native of Elis eats the flesh of the victim sacrificed to Pelops may not enter the temple of Zeus. Those who sacrifice to Telephus at Pergamum north of the river Caicus are in a similar predicament: they may not enter the temple of Æsculapius till they have had a bath. And the following tradition is still told about Pelops. During the protracted siege of Ilium the seers are said to have prophesied that they would never capture the town till they procured the bows of Hercules and a bone of Pelops. So they sent it is said for Philoctetes to the camp, and the shoulder-blade of Pelops was brought from Pisa. And on the return home of the Greeks, the ship that had the shoulder-blade of Pelops was wrecked near Eubœa. And many years after the capture of Ilium Damarmenus, a fisherman of Eretria, cast his net into the sea and fished up this bone, and marvelling at the size of it hid it in the sand. And eventually he went to Delphi, desiring to know who the bone belonged to, and what he should do with it. And it chanced providentially that some persons of Elis, seeking a cure for the pestilence, were at Delphi at this period. And the Pythian Priestess told them to preserve the bones of Pelops, and told Damarmenus to give what he had found to the people of Elis. And when he had done so the people of Elis gave him several presents, and made Damarmenus and his descendants custodians of this bone. But this shoulder-blade of Pelops has not survived to our day, because in my opinion it was buried too deep, partly also from time and the action of the sea. And there are still traces even to our day of Pelops and Tantalus having brought colonies to Greece, as the marsh called after Tantalus, and his well-known grave. And the throne of Pelops is at Sipylus on the top of the mountain above the temple of the Placianian mother, and after you have crossed the river Hermus there is a statue of Aphrodite at Temnus still in existence made of myrtle: and the tradition is that it was a votive offering of Pelops to propitiate the goddess, before begging her help towards marrying Hippodamia.

And the altar of Olympian Zeus is about equidistant from the grove of Pelops and the temple of Hera, and is situated in front of both. Some say it was erected by Idæan Hercules, others say by some heroes of the district two generations after him. It was they say made of the _débris_ of the thigh bones of the victims sacrificed to Zeus, as the altar at Pergamum. The Samian Hera has also an altar made of similar material, an altar not a whit more handsome than those which in Attica they call extemporary altars. And the first base of the altar of Olympia, called the pro-altar, has a circumference of 125 feet, and above the pro-altar is a circumference of 32 feet. And the whole height of the altar is 22 feet. It is customary to sacrifice the victims at the lower part, at the pro-altar: but the thigh-bones they bring to the highest part of the altar and burn them there. And stone steps lead up to the pro-altar on both sides, but up to the high altar there are merely steps of _débris_. Maidens may ascend as far as the pro-altar, and likewise women at the seasons when they are allowed to be at Olympia, but men alone may ascend to the high altar. And private individuals, and the people of Elis daily, offer sacrifices to Zeus besides at the general Festival. And annually the seers observe the 19th day of the month Elaphius by carrying the _débris_ from the Town Hall, and kneading it with the water of the River Alpheus, and thus construct their altar. No other water is ever used for this purpose, and that is why the Alpheus is considered more friendly to Olympian Zeus than any other river. There is also at Didymi (a town of the Milesians) an altar made by Hercules the Theban of victims’ blood. So at least the Milesians say. But the blood of the victims has never raised it to any great height even in these latter days.

CHAPTER XIV.

But the altar at Olympia has another wonder. Kites, which are by nature especially birds of prey, never harm the sacrifices at Olympia. And if on any chance occasion a kite touch the entrails or flesh of a victim, it is not considered a good omen for the sacrificer. And they say when Hercules, the son of Alcmena, was sacrificing at Olympia there was a great plague of flies: when, either of his own idea or at another’s suggestion, he sacrificed to Zeus the Averter of flies, and so they were driven to the other side of the Alpheus. On similar grounds the natives of Elis are said to sacrifice to Zeus the Averter of flies, because he drove them from Olympia.

The wood of the white poplar tree is the only wood that the people of Elis employ in the sacrifices of Zeus, giving that tree this especial honour, I imagine, because Hercules introduced it from Thesprotia into Greece. And I think there can be little doubt that Hercules himself, when he sacrificed to Zeus at Olympia, burnt the thighs of the victims on white poplar wood. Hercules found this tree growing near the Acheron a river in Thesprotia, and that is why they say it is called Acherois by Homer. In all ages rivers have been celebrated for the growth of various grasses and trees on their banks. Thus the Mæander is most famous for tamarisks, and the Asopus in Bœotia for immense reeds, and the Persea is found only on the banks of the Nile. Thus there is no wonder that by the Acheron first grew the white poplar, and that the wild olive grows near the Alpheus, and that the black poplar grows on Celtic soil by the river Eridanus.

Let us now, as we have made mention of the greatest altar, enumerate all the altars at Olympia. I will take them in the order the people of Elis are accustomed to sacrifice at them. They first sacrifice to Vesta, and next to Olympian Zeus in the altar inside the temple, thirdly to Hermes, fourthly to Artemis, fifthly to Athene the Goddess of Booty, sixthly to Athene Ergane. To this Athene the descendants of Phidias, (called the cleansers because they received from the people of Elis the honour of cleansing the statue of Zeus from anything clinging to it), sacrifice before they commence polishing up the statue. And there is also another altar of Athene near the temple, and near it a square altar of Artemis tapering up gradually at the top. And next to those we have mentioned they sacrifice to Alpheus and Artemis at one altar: the reason for this I learnt from one of Pindar’s Odes, and I have recorded it in my account of the Letrinæans. And at no great distance from this is another altar to Alpheus, and near it an altar to Hephæstus, which some of the people of Elis say is the altar of Martial Zeus, at which Œnomaus sacrificed when he proposed the horse-race for the suitors of his daughter Hippodamia. Next is an altar of Hercules under the title of Aider, and altars to Hercules’ brothers, Epimedes and Idas and Pæonæus and Iasus. I know that the altar of Idas is called the altar of Acesidas by some. And at the ruins of the house of Œnomaus are two altars, one of Household Zeus, built apparently by Œnomaus, the other built afterwards I think to Zeus of the Lightning, when lightning had struck the house. With reference to the great altar, called the altar of Olympian Zeus, I have already spoken a little above. And near it is the altar to Unknown Gods, and next that of Zeus the Cleanser, and Victory, and next that of Zeus Chthonius. There are also altars of all the gods, and one of Olympian Hera also made of _débris_, the votive offering they say of Clymenus. And next to it is a joint altar to Apollo and Hermes, because the tradition in Elis is that Hermes was the inventor of the lyre, and Apollo the inventor of the lute. And next are altars of Harmony, and Athene, and the Mother of the Gods. And there are two altars very near the entrance to the race-course, one they say of Hermes the Athlete, and the other of Opportunity. Ion the Chian has I know written an Hymn to Opportunity, in which he traces his genealogy, and makes him the youngest son of Zeus. And near the treasure of the Sicyonians is an altar of Hercules, either one of the Curetes, or the son of Alcmena, for both traditions are current. And at what is called Gæum there is an altar to Earth, this too made of _débris_: and they say there was an oracle of Earth earlier still. And at the place called Stomium there is an altar to Themis. And before the altar of Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning, is a fence on all sides, and this altar too is not far from the great altar formed of _débris_. Let my reader remember that I have not enumerated these altars according to the position of their site, but taken them in a rambling order, according to the order in which the people of Elis sacrifice at them. And in the grove of Pelops there is a joint altar to Dionysus and the Graces, and next one to the Muses, and one to the Nymphs.

CHAPTER XV.

Outside Altis there is a building called the workshop of Phidias, who used to work here at his statues, and there is an altar here to all the gods in common. As you turn back again to Altis you see straight before you the Hall of Leonidas. It is outside the temple precincts, and of the various approaches to Altis is the only one used for processions. It was built by Leonidas, a native of Elis, and now the Roman governors of Elis make it their headquarters. It is separated by an alley from the approach used for processions: the people of Elis call alleys what the Athenians call bylanes. And there is in Altis to the left of the Hall of Leonidas, an altar of Aphrodite, and an altar of the Seasons next to it. And in the rear of the temple there is a wild olive tree growing on the right: it is called the olive beautiful for its crowns, and the victors at Olympia receive crowns of it. Near this wild olive tree is a temple of the Nymphs, these too they call beautiful for their crowns. And inside Altis there is an altar of Artemis of the Market-Place, and on the right of the Hall of Leonidas is an altar to the goddesses called Mistresses. Of the goddess whom they call Mistress the portion of my work about Arcadia will give complete information. And next is an altar of Zeus of the Market-Place, and, in front of what is called the Seat of Honour, altars of Pythian Apollo, and Dionysus. This last they say was erected by private people not so long ago. And as you go to where the horses start is an altar, with the inscription The Decider of Fate. This is plainly a title of Zeus who fore-knows all human events, both what the Fates send, and others. And near this is an oblong altar of the Fates, and next one of Hermes, and next two of Zeus Supreme. And at the middle of the place where the horses start are altars in the open air to Poseidon the Patron of Horses, and Hera the Patroness of Horses, and near the pillar an altar of Castor and Pollux. And at the entrance, near what is called the Rostrum, is an altar of Ares the Patron of Horses, and an altar of Athene the Patroness of Horses. And as you enter the Rostrum there are altars of Good Fortune, and of Pan, and of Aphrodite. And in the interior of the Rostrum the Nymphs called Acmenæ have an altar. And as you return from the Portico which the people of Elis call Agnaptus’ from the name of the Architect, there is on the right an altar of Artemis. And as you enter Altis again by the road used for processions there are altars behind the chapel of Hera of the river Cladeus and of Artemis, and next to them one of Apollo, and a fourth of Artemis Coccoca, and a fifth of Apollo Thermius. Thermius I conjecture at Elis will be the same word as Thesmius (_Law-loving_) in Attic. But why Artemis was called Coccoca I could not ascertain. There is a building in front of what they call the Priest’s dwelling, and in the corner of it is an altar of Pan. And the Town Hall of the people of Elis is within Altis, near the outlet beyond the gymnasium, where the athletes have their races and wrestling-matches. And in front of the doors of the Town Hall is an altar of Artemis of the Market-Place. And in the Town Hall itself as you pass into a room where there is a hearth, there is an altar of Pan on the right of the entrance. And the hearth itself is made of _débris_, and there is a fire on it burning continually day and night. From this hearth as I have already stated they remove the _débris_ to the altar of Olympian Zeus, and the height of that altar is largely due to contributions from this hearth.

And once in every month the people of Elis sacrifice at the altars which I have mentioned. And they sacrifice in a certain primitive fashion; for they burn frankincense on the altars and cakes kneaded with honey. And they decorate the altars with olive branches, and pour out libations of wine. But they do not offer libations of wine to the Nymphs, or the Mistresses, or at the joint altar of all the gods. And the sacrifices are conducted by the priest, who has office for one month, and by the seers, the libation-offerers, the Interpreter of Antiquities, the flute-player, and the wood-cutter. But the words that they use in the Town Hall, and the Hymns which they sing, I am not allowed to introduce into my account. And they pour libations not only to Greek gods, but to the god of Libya, and to Hera of Ammon, and to Parammon (a title of Hermes). It is manifest also that from time immemorial they have consulted the oracle at Libya, and there are altars in the temple of Ammon, votive offerings of the people of Elis: and there are inscribed on them the questions of the people of Elis, and the answers returned by the god, and the names of those who went to Ammon from Elis. All this is in the temple of Ammon. The people of Elis also pour libations to heroes, and the wives of heroes, who are honoured in Elis or Ætolia. And the Hymns sung in the Town Hall are in the Doric dialect, but by whom composed they do not tell us. The people of Elis also have a banqueting-hall, (inside the Town-Hall, opposite the room where the hearth is,) where they entertain the victors at Olympia.

CHAPTER XVI.

Next ought I to describe the temple of Hera, and all that is worth narrating in it. The people of Elis have a tradition that the people of Scillus in Triphylia built it about 8 years after Oxylus became king at Elis. Its architecture is Doric, there are pillars all round it, one pillar in a chamber at the back of the temple is of oak. And the length of the temple is 63 feet. The architect’s name is not recorded. And every fifth year 16 matrons weave a shawl for Hera, and the same number preside over her games. And the contest is a race for maidens of various ages: in the first race are the youngest, and next those slightly older, and last of all the eldest. And they all run with their hair down their back, a short tunic below the knee, and their right shoulder bare to the breast. They use in this contest the regular race-course at Olympia, but make it a sixth part of a stade shorter. And the victors receive crowns of olive, and part of the heifer sacrificed to Hera: and paintings of them are made for Hera. And the 16 matrons who preside over the games have as many handmaids. They trace this contest of the maidens back to ancient times, saying that Hippodamia in gratitude to Hera for her marriage with Pelops selected 16 matrons, and in concert with them inaugurated these games to Hera. And they record that Chloris (with the exception of one brother the only surviving child of Amphion) was the victor. And what I learnt about the children of Niobe I have narrated in my account about Argos. About these 16 matrons they have also the following tradition. They say that Damophon, the tyrant at Pisa, did many grievous injuries to the people of Elis, and on his death, as the people of Pisa had not publicly sanctioned his ill deeds, the people of Elis were willing to annul their charges against them, so 16 of the principal cities in Elis at that day selected each one matron of age and merit and good name to arbitrate on any claims. And the cities from which they selected matrons were Elis and 15 others, and thus their differences with the people of Pisa were arranged. And afterwards the same 16 were told off to make all the arrangements about the Hera Festival, and to weave the shawl for Hera. These 16 matrons also have two dances, one they call Physcoa’s dance, and the other’s Hippodamia’s. Physcoa the tradition goes was from hollow Elis, and lived in the parish they call Orthia, and was mother by Dionysus of a boy called Narcæus, who, when he grew up, warred with the neighbouring tribes and came to great power, and built a temple of Athene Narcæa: and Dionysus was they say first worshipped by Narcæus and Physcoa. Physcoa had other honours besides the dance called after her name. The number of matrons is still kept up by the people of Elis, but they are somewhat differently chosen. For as they are divided into 8 tribes they select two matrons from each. And the functions of these 16 matrons and the Umpires of Elis are never commenced till after the sacrifice of a pig and lustration with water. And the lustration takes place at the fountain Piera, which is situated in the plain between Olympia and Elis. All these things are as I have described them.

CHAPTER XVII.

And in Hera’s temple there is a statue of Zeus, and also one of Hera seated on a throne, and standing by is a person with a beard and helmet on his head. And the workmanship is very simple. And next them the Æginetan Smilis has delineated the Seasons sitting on thrones. And near them is a statue of Themis as the mother of the Seasons, the design of Doryclidas, a Lacedæmonian by race, and the pupil of Dipœnus and Scyllis. And there are five Hesperides by Theocles, a Lacedæmonian also, the son of Hegylus, who is also said to have been a pupil of Scyllis and Dipœnus. And Athene with a helmet and spear and shield is they say by the Lacedæmonian Medon, who was the brother of Doryclidas, and learnt his art also from Scyllis and Dipœnus. And Proserpine and Demeter sit, Apollo and Artemis stand, opposite one another. And there are statues also of Leto and Fortune and Dionysus, and a winged Victory, who designed them I cannot tell, but they appear to me very antique. What I have enumerated are in ivory and gold: but in later times there were other statues placed in the temple of Hera, as a stone Hermes carrying Dionysus as a babe, by Praxiteles; and Aphrodite in brass, by Cleon of Sicyon, whose master was Antiphanes, of the school of Periclytus the pupil of the Argive Polycletus. And before Aphrodite there is a little golden boy seated, by the Carthaginian Boethus, which was brought here from what is called Philip’s house, as well as some statues in gold and ivory, as Eurydice the wife of Philip, and Olympias.

* * The chest is of cedar and has figures on it, some in ivory, some in gold, some carved on the cedar. In this chest Cypselus, the tyrant of Corinth, was hid by his mother at his birth, as the Bacchidæ were eager to find him. On account of his safety his descendants, called the Cypselidæ, made the chest a votive offering at Olympia, and the Corinthians of that day called chests _cypselæ_: that is the origin of the name Cypselus given to the boy, so they say. And on the chest there are inscriptions in large letters in an old handwriting: some of this writing is straight, other parts are written in what the Greeks call ox-fashion. That is, when one line is finished the next begins where that left off and runs backward, and so on like the double course on the race ground. There are also inscriptions on the chest that are very puzzling and difficult to make out. And if you begin to examine the chest all over, beginning at the lower part, you will see first Œnomaus pursuing Pelops and Hippodamia. Each of them have a pair of horses but those of Pelops have wings. And next is the house of Amphiaraus, and some old woman is carrying Amphilochus the baby, and in front of the house is Eriphyle with a necklace, and near her her daughters Eurydice and Demonassa, and the little boy Alcmæon naked. Asius in his poems has also represented Alcmena as the daughter of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. And Baton, the charioteer of Amphiaraus, has the reins in one hand and a lance in the other. And one of Amphiarus’ feet is in the chariot, and his sword is drawn, and he is turned towards Eriphyle, and in his rage can scarce refrain from rushing at her. And next to Amphiaraus’ house are the games in memory of Pelias, and the spectators are looking on the contests. There is Hercules sitting on a seat, and his wife behind him, but her name is not given, she is piping with Phrygian and not Greek pipes. And there are Pisus the son of Perieres and Asterion the son of Cometes driving a pair of horses, the latter is said to have sailed in the Argo, and Pollux and Admetus, and Euphemus the son of Poseidon (according to the tale of the poets), and the companion of Jason on his voyage to Colchi, he also was victorious in the pair-horse-race. And there are Admetus and Mopsus, the son of Ampyx, both famous boxers. And in the midst is a man playing on the flute, as in our day they are still wont to do in the leaping contest in the pentathlum. And Jason and Peleus are wrestling, they are very evenly matched. And there is Eurybotas throwing his quoit, a man famous as a quoit-player whoever he was. And there are Melanion and Neotheus and Phalareus and Argeus and Iphiclus ready for the race: and Acastus is holding out the crown to the victor, who was Iphiclus, the father of Protesilaus who fought at Ilium. There are also some tripods as prizes for the winners, and there are the daughters of Pelias, of whom the name of Alcestis only is inscribed. Iolaus too, who voluntarily shared in Hercules’ Labours, is there, just having come in first in the chariot-race. And this is the last of the games in memory of Pelias. And there is Athene standing by Hercules who is shooting the hydra, the monster that infested the river Amymone. And because Hercules was well-known, from his great size as well as the nature of the contest, his name is not written underneath. And there is Phineus the Thracian, and the sons of Boreas driving away the Harpies from him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

On the second side of the chest, on the left, to take them in their order, is a woman supporting with her right hand a white child sleeping, and with her left a black child like the sleeping child, but with both its feet twisted. The inscriptions shew, what one would have inferred without any inscriptions, that they are Death and Sleep with their nurse Night. And there is a comely woman dragging along an ugly one, with one hand holding her fast, and with the other beating her with a rod, this is Justice punishing Injustice. And there are two women pounding with pestles into mortars, apparently compounding drugs, but there is no inscription in reference to them. But about the man and woman following him there are two hexameter lines as follows, “Idas is leading away from the temple by no means against her will Marpessa of the beautiful ancles, whom Apollo snatched away for himself.”

And there is a man clad in a tunic, with a cup in his right hand and in his left a necklace, and Alcmena is seizing them. According to the Greek tradition, Zeus assumed the appearance of Amphitryon, and so made Alcmena welcome him as her husband. And there is Menelaus with a breastplate and sword pursuing Helen to kill her, plainly during the sack of Ilium. And there is Jason on the right hand of Medea, who is sitting on a throne, and Aphrodite is standing by her. And the inscription relative to them is,

“Jason is wooing Medea, Aphrodite is encouraging them.”

The Muses are also represented singing and Apollo leading off, and the inscription is as follows,

“Here is the king, the son of Leto, far-darting Apollo, And round him the Muses, a graceful band, whom he leads in the songs.”

And Atlas is bearing up Heaven and Earth (according to the legend) on his shoulders, and in his hands are the apples of the Hesperides. And who the man is with a sword advancing to Atlas is nowhere written, but it is evident to all that it is Hercules. This is all the inscription,

“Atlas here is bearing up Heaven, he will neglect the apples.”

There is also Ares in full armour leading off Aphrodite. The inscription under him is Enyalius. There too is the maiden Thetis, and Peleus is laying hold of her, and from Thetis’ hand a serpent is about to dart at Peleus. And there are the sisters of Medusa with wings pursuing the fleeing Perseus. His name only is given.

The third side of the chest is devoted to military views. Most of the soldiers to be seen are infantry, but there are also some cavalry in two-horse war-chariots. And some of the soldiers are you can see engaging, while others are recognizing and greeting one another. The antiquarians have two explanations of this, the one party say that it is the Ætolians with Oxylus and the ancient people of Elis, and that they are fraternizing and exhibiting friendliness to one another in remembrance of their ancient consanguinity, the other party say that it is the people of Pylos and the Arcadians fighting near the town of Pheia and the river Iardanus. No one would have _prima facie_ expected that the ancestor of Cypselus, being a Corinthian and in possession of the chest, would have purposely passed over Corinthian history, and artistically portrayed on the chest foreign and even immaterial events. So the following is the view I am inclined to form. Cypselus and his ancestors came originally from Gonussa beyond Sicyon, and were descended from Melas the son of Antasus. And Aletes would not receive Melas and his army into the city, as I have stated before in my account of Corinth, thus disobeying the oracle at Delphi, until at last, as Melas paid every attention to him, and whenever he was rejected returned again with entreaty, Aletes admitted him but not with a good grace. One would conjecture therefore that the forces of Melas are here portrayed.

CHAPTER XIX.

And on the 4th side of the chest on the left Boreas is carrying off Orithyia, and he has serpents’ tails instead of feet. And there is the fight between Hercules and Geryon, who was three men in one. And there is Theseus with a lyre, and near him Ariadne with a garland. And Achilles and Memnon are fighting and their mothers are standing by. And there is Melanion, and Atalanta by him with a fawn. And Strife, looking most hateful, stands by the duel (after challenge) between Ajax and Hector. A very similar Strife has been depicted in the temple of Ephesian Artemis by the Samian Calliphon, who painted the battle at the ships of the Greeks. There are also on the chest figures of Castor and Pollux, one of them without a beard, and Helen between them. And Æthra, the daughter of Pittheus, in a dark dress is prostrate on the ground at the feet of Helen. And the inscription is an Hexameter line and one word more.

“Castor and Pollux ran off with Helen, and dragged Æthra from Athens.”

These are the very words. And Iphidamas the son of Agenor is lying on the ground, and Coon is fighting with Agamemnon over his dead body. And Fear with the head of a lion is on Agamemnon’s shield. And this is the inscription over the corpse of Iphidamas,

“This is Iphidamas, Coon bestrides him in the fight.”

And on Agamemnon’s shield,

“Here is what mortals call Fear, Agamemnon has got him.”

And Hermes is bringing to Paris, the son of Priam, the goddesses to the choice of beauty, and the inscription here is,

“Here is Hermes showing to Paris the dainty sight of Hera and Athene and Aphrodite in all their beauty.”

And Artemis--I know not why--has wings on her shoulders, and in her right hand she has a leopard, in her left a lion. And there is Ajax dragging Cassandra from the statue of Athene, and the inscription is,

“Locrian Ajax is dragging Cassandra from Athene.”

And there are the sons of Œdipus, Polynices has fallen on his knees, and Eteocles is pressing him hard. And behind Polynices stands a monster with teeth as sharp as a wild beast’s, and with crooked claws. And the inscription says that it is Doom, and that Polynices was carried off by Fate, and that Eteocles’ end was just. And there too is bearded Dionysus lying down in a cave, clad in a long garment, with a golden bowl in his hand: and there are clusters of vine round him, and apples, and pomegranates.

The topmost side of the chest, for there are five in all, has no inscription, but one can easily conjecture what the representations are. In a cave there is a woman sleeping with a man upon a bed, and we infer that they are Odysseus and Circe from the number of handmaids in front of the cave, and from their tasks. For the women are four in number, and they are engaged just as Homer has represented. And there is a Centaur, not with all his feet horses’ feet, for his forefeet are those of a man. And there are pair-horse chariots and women seated on the chariots: and the horses have gold wings, and a man is giving arms to one of the women. This is conjectured to refer to the death of Patroclus. For it is the Nereids on the chariots, and Thetis who is receiving arms from Hephæstus. For he who is giving the arms is lame, and behind is a servant with smith’s tongs. And the tradition about Chiron the Centaur is that, though he had left this world and been received into heaven, he returned to earth to comfort Achilles. And there are two maidens in a carriage drawn by mules, one is driving and the other has a veil on her head, they are thought to be Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, and her attendant driving to the wash. And the man shooting at the Centaurs and killing some of them is manifestly Hercules, for this was one of his great feats.

Who it was that constructed this chest it is quite impossible to conjecture: the inscriptions on it might have been composed by anybody, but suspicion points to Eumelus the Corinthian, both on other grounds, and because of the Processional Hymn which he composed in reference to Delos.

CHAPTER XX.

There are also here besides the chest several votive offerings, as a bed of no great size adorned with much ivory, and the quoit of Iphitus, and the table on which the crowns for the victors are deposited. The bed was they say a plaything of Hippodamia: and the quoit of Iphitus has written on it the armistice between the people of Elis and the Olympians not straight down it, but all round the quoit: and the table is of ivory and gold, the design of Colotes, who was they say a native of Heraclea. And those who take interest in artificers say that he was a Parian and the pupil of Pasiteles, who was himself the pupil of.... There too are statues of Hera, and Zeus, and the Mother of the Gods, and Hermes, and Apollo, and Artemis. And behind is a representation of the games. On one side is Æsculapius and Hygiea, one of the daughters of Æsculapius, and Ares and Contest by him, and on another is Pluto and Dionysus and Proserpine and some Nymphs, one of them with a ball. And Pluto has his key, with which (they say) what is called Hades is locked, and then no one can return from it.

An account which I received from Aristarchus, the Interpreter of Antiquities at Olympia, I must not omit. He said that in his youth, when the people of Elis restored the roof of the temple of Hera, the body of a dead man in heavy armour, who had been badly wounded, was found between the sham roof and the roof on which the tiles lay. This man was a combatant in the battle fought inside Altis between the Lacedæmonians and the people of Elis. For the people of Elis climbed up to the temples of the gods, and all high buildings alike, for the purpose of defence. This man therefore probably got up into that place, in a fainting condition from his wounds, and, on his death, neither the heat of summer nor the chills of winter would be likely to injure his dead body, as he lay stowed away and covered up. And Aristarchus added, that they carried the corpse outside Altis and buried it armour and all.

And the pillar, which the people of Elis call the pillar of Œnomaus, is as you go from the great altar to the temple of Zeus, and there are 4 pillars on the left and a roof over them. These pillars support a wooden one worn out by age, and only held together by iron clamps. This pillar was once according to tradition in the house of Œnomaus: and when the god struck the house with lightning, the fire consumed all the house but this one pillar. And a brazen tablet contains some Elegiac lines referring to this.

“I am the only vestige, stranger, of a famous house, I once was a pillar in Œnomaus’ house, but now near Zeus I am in iron clamps in honour: the destructive fire has not consumed me.”

Another curious thing happened on the spot in my time. A senator of Rome won the prize at Olympia, and wishing some record of his victory to survive in the shape of a brazen statue with an inscription, dug for a foundation, close to this pillar of Œnomaus, and the diggers found fragments of arms and bridles and bits. These I myself saw dug up.

The temple, which is large in size and of Doric architecture, they call to this day the Temple of the Mother, preserving its ancient name, though there is no statue in it of the Mother of the Gods, but only some statues of Roman Emperors. It is inside Altis, and there is a round building called Philip’s House, on the top of which is a brazen poppy as a clamp for the beams. This building is on the left hand as you go to the Town Hall, and is built of baked brick, and there are some pillars round it. It was built for Philip after the fatal defeat of the Greeks at Chæronea. And there are statues there of Philip, and Alexander, and Amyntas the father of Philip. They are by Leochares in ivory and gold, like the statues of Olympias and Eurydice.

CHAPTER XXI.

And now I shall proceed to the account of the statues and votive offerings, which I do not care to mix up together. In the Acropolis at Athens all the statues and everything else equally are votive offerings: but at Altis the votive offerings are in honour of the deity, but the statues of the prizemen are merely a memorial of the contests. Of them I shall speak hereafter: I shall now take the most remarkable votive offerings in order.

As you go to the race-course from the Temple of the Mother there is on the left at the end of the mountain Cronius a basement of stone, near the mountain, and some steps to it. On this basement there are some brazen statues of Zeus, made with the money from a fine imposed on some athletes who had behaved shamefully at the games. These statues are called in the national dialect _Zanes_. They were six in number at first and were put up in the 98th Olympiad. For Eupolus the Thessalian bribed his rivals in boxing to let him win the prize, Agenor from Arcadia, and Prytanis from Cyzicus, and Phormio from Halicarnassus, who was the champion in the preceding Olympiad. This was the first foul play they say at the boxing matches, and Eupolus and those who had been bribed by him were fined by the people of Elis. Two of the statues are by Cleon of Sicyon, the modeller of the remaining four we do not know. And all these statues, but the third and fourth, have elegiac lines on them. The first says that not with money, but swiftness of foot and bodily vigour, ought one to win prizes at Olympia. And the second says that that statue is raised in honour to the deity, and from piety on the part of the people of Elis, and to inspire fear in such athletes as do not play fair. As to the fifth and sixth, the gist of the inscription on one is a panegyric of the people of Elis, and not least for their punishment of the cheating boxers, and on the other a didactic precept to all the Greeks that nobody is to bribe to win the prize at Olympia.

And subsequently to Eupolus they say that the Athenian Callippus, when contending for the pentathlum, bribed his antagonists in the 112th Olympiad. And when he and his antagonists were fined by the people of Elis, the Athenians sent Hyperides to beg the people of Elis to remit the fine. And when the people of Elis refused this favour, the Athenians treated them with much hauteur, not paying the money and keeping away from Olympia, till the god at Delphi told them he would no longer give them any oracular responses, till they paid the fine to the people of Elis. And when they paid, six more statues were made for Zeus, with elegiac verses on them no less severe than those about the fine of Eupolus. And the purport of these verses on the first statue is that the statues are erected in accordance with the oracular direction of the god, who honoured the decision the people of Elis had come to about the competitors for the pentathlum. And the second and third likewise praise the people of Elis for their conduct in the same matter. And the fourth desires to point out that the contest at Olympia is one of merit and not of money. And the inscriptions on the fifth and sixth shew, one why the statues were made, and the other that the oracle came to the Athenians from Delphi.

And next to those I have enumerated are two statues, made from a fine imposed on some wrestlers, whose names are unknown both to me and the Antiquarians of Elis. There are some inscriptions also on these statues, the first is that the Rhodians paid a fine to Olympian Zeus for the cheating of their wrestler. And the second is that the statue was made out of fines imposed on those who wrestled for bribes. And the Antiquarians of Elis say that the other statues in connection with athletes were erected in the 178th Olympiad, when Eudelus was bribed by the Rhodian Philostratus. I find a discrepancy between this account and the public records of the people of Elis as respects the victors at Olympia. For in these records they say that Straton of Alexandria in the 178th Olympiad won on the same day the prize both in the pancratium and in the wrestling. Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile near Canopus, was built by Alexander, the son of Philip, on the site of a former town of no great size called Rhacotis. In the generation before Straton 3, and 3 after his day, are famous for having received the crown of wild olive both for the pancratium and the wrestling. The first was Caprus a native of Elis, and next of the Greeks beyond the Ægean the Rhodian Aristomenes, and next Protophanes of the Magnetes at Lethæus. And after Straton Marion, also from Alexandria, and Aristeas from Stratonice (both the region and city were anciently called Chrysaoris), and last Nicostratus from the Cilicians by the sea, though he had little in common with the Cilicians but nominally. For, when he was quite a child, he was kidnapped from Prymnessus a town in Phrygia by robbers, who took him to Ægeæ and sold him to the highest bidder. He was of no obscure family, and some time afterwards his purchaser dreamed that a lion’s whelp lay under the truckle bed on which he used to sleep. When Nicostratus grew to man’s estate he had several other victories at Olympia in the pancratium and in wrestling.

And among others that were fined by the people of Elis afterwards was a boxer from Alexandria in the 218th Olympiad. His name was Apollonius, his surname Rhantes, for it is customary among the people of Alexandria to have surnames. He was the first Egyptian condemned by the people of Elis for neither giving nor receiving money, but for the impropriety of coming too late, for which he was not allowed to take part in the games. As to his excuse that he was detained by contrary winds in the Cyclades, Heraclides, also an Alexandrian, proved it to be a falsehood: and said he was really too late because he had been collecting money from the games in Ionia. Accordingly Apollonius and all others not present at the appointed time for the boxing matches were not allowed by the people of Elis to take part in the games, but to Heraclides they gave a crown without a contest. Thereupon Apollonius, who had on his boxer’s cæstus, rushed at Heraclides, and attacked him fiercely, just as he had received his crown of wild olive, and he fled for refuge to the Umpires. This hotheadedness was severely punished. There are also two statues made in our own times. For in the 226th Olympiad they detected some boxers bribing to get the prize. The money of their fine went to make two statues of Zeus, one on the left of the entrance to the course, and the other on the right. Didas was the name of one of these boxers, and the other, who gave the bribe, was Sarapammon, both were from the same district, the latest one formed in Egypt, called Arsinoites. It is wonderful indeed that from any quarter people should have been found to despise the god at Olympia, and to receive or give bribes in connection with the games, but still more wonderful that any of the people of Elis should have ventured to act in that manner. But it is said that Damonicus, a native of Elis, acted so in the 192nd Olympiad. For when Polyctor (the son of Damonicus) and Sosander (the son of Sosander) a native of Smyrna had descended to the arena for the wrestling match, Damonicus, being very anxious that his son should have the victory, bribed the younger Sosander. And when the circumstances got known, the Umpires fined the parents, turning their vengeance on them because they were really the guilty parties. Statues were made with this money too: one in the gymnasium at Elis, the other in Altis, in front of what is called the Painted Portico, because there were in ancient times paintings on the walls. This Portico is called by some the Portico of Echo, because in it a word is re-echoed 7 times, sometimes even more frequently.

And they record that the pancratiast Serapion, a native of Alexandria, in the 201st Olympiad was so afraid of those who were to compete with him, that the day before the contest he absconded. He is the only Egyptian, or indeed member of any nationality, that was ever fined for cowardice in the games.

CHAPTER XXII.

Such are the statues made out of fines as far as I could ascertain. There are also other statues of Zeus, some erected publicly, some privately. There is also an altar in Altis near the entrance to the course. On this altar the people of Elis do not sacrifice to any of the gods, but the trumpeters and heralds stand here when they proclaim the games. On the brazen base of this altar is a statue to Zeus, six cubits in height, with a thunderbolt in each hand, the votive offering of the people of Cynætha. And the young Zeus with a necklace round his neck is the votive offering of Cleolas of Phlius.

And near what is called the Hippodamium there is a semicircular basement of stone, and statues on it of Zeus and Thetis and Aurora supplicating Zeus for their children. These are in the midst of the basement. And at each extremity of the basement stand Achilles and Memnon in the attitude of antagonists. Similarly opposite to one another stand a Greek and barbarian, Odysseus opposite Helenus, for these are selected as most remarkable for wisdom in either army, and Paris is opposite Menelaus from their old hostility, and Æneas opposite Diomede, and Deiphobus opposite Ajax the son of Telamon. These are all by Lycius the son of Myron, and are votive offerings of the people of Apollonia near the Ionian sea. And there are some elegiac lines in ancient characters under the feet of Zeus.

“We are votive offerings from Apollonia, which long-haired Phœbus built near the Ionian sea. Those who seized the borders of Abantis offered this spoil from Thronium.”

Now the region called Abantis and the town in it called Thronium were in Thesprotia near the mountains Ceraunia. For when the Greek ships were dispersed on their return from Ilium, the Locrians from Thronium near the river Boagrius and the Abantes from Eubœa in 8 ships put in to shore near the mountains Ceraunia. And there they dwelt and built the town of Thronium, and by common consent called all the district they lived in Abantis, and were afterwards beaten in war and expelled by their neighbours of Apollonia. And Apollonia was a colony from Corcyra, and the Corinthians had a share in the spoil.

And as you go on a little further there is a Zeus looking east, with an eagle in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other. And he has a crown on his head composed of lilies. This statue is the votive offering of the people of Metapontum, and the design of the Æginetan Aristonous. But who Aristonous learnt his craft from we do not know, nor the period in which he flourished. The Phliasians also erected as votive offerings statues of Zeus and Asopus’ daughters and Asopus himself. And this is the arrangement of the statues. Nemea comes first of the sisters, and next her is Zeus laying hold of Ægina. And next Ægina is Harpina, who according to the tradition of the Phliasians and the people of Elis had an amour with Ares, and bare to him Œnomaus, the king of the district of Pisa. And next to her are Corcyra and Thebe, and Asopus comes last. The tradition about Corcyra is that she had an amour with Poseidon, and a similar legend about Thebe and Zeus is sung by Pindar.

The men of Leontini erected a statue to Zeus privately and not publicly. The height of it is 7 cubits, and Zeus has in his hands an eagle and javelin according to the descriptions of the poets. And it was erected by Hippagoras and Phrynon and Ænesidemus, not I think the Ænesidemus who was tyrant at Leontini.

CHAPTER XXIII.

And as you pass on to the entrance to the council chamber there is a statue of Zeus without an inscription, (and another as you turn to the North). This is towards the East, and was erected by the Greeks who fought at Platæa against Mardonius and the Medes. On the right of the basement are inscribed the states that took part in the action, the Lacedæmonians first, and next the Athenians, third the Corinthians, fourth the Sicyonians, fifth the Æginetans, then the Megarians and Epidaurians, of the Arcadians the men of Tegea and Orchomenus, and in addition to these the inhabitants of Phlius Trœzen and Hermion, and in Argolis the men of Tiryns, and of the Bœotians only the people of Platæa, and of the Argives the inhabitants of Mycenæ, and the islanders from Ceos and Melos, and the Ambraciotes from Thesprotia, and the Tenii and people of Lepreum, the latter only from Triphylia, but the Tenii not only from the Ægean and the Cyclades but also from Naxos and Cythnus, and the men of Styra from Eubœa, and next to them the people of Elis and Potidæa and Anactorium, and lastly the people of Chalcis near the Euripus. Of these cities the following were unpeopled in my day. Mycenæ and Tiryns were razed to the ground by the Argives after the Persian war. And the Ambraciotes and men of Anactorium, who were colonists from Corinth, were induced by the Roman Emperor Augustus to form the colony of Nicopolis near Actium. And the people of Potidæa were twice ejected from their country, by Philip, the son of Amyntas, and earlier still by the Athenians, and though subsequently they were restored by Cassander, yet the name of their city was changed to Cassandrea in honour of their new founder. And the statue at Olympia, that was a votive offering of the Greeks, was by Anaxagoras the Æginetan, though those who have compiled a history of sculptors have omitted to mention him.

There is also in front of this statue of Zeus a brazen pillar, on which are inscribed the conditions of peace for 30 years between the Lacedæmonians and the Athenians, which was made by the Athenians after their second reduction of Eubœa, in the 3rd year of that Olympiad in which Crison of Himera won the prize. And this was one of the conditions specified, that the city of the Argives should have no share in this peace between the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, but that privately the Athenians and Argives if they chose might be friendly to one another. This is plainly stated in the conditions. And there is another statue of Zeus near the chariot of Cleosthenes, (about which I shall speak later), the votive offering of the Megarians, and the design of the brothers Phylacus and Onæthus and their sons: I cannot tell their period or country, or from whom they learned their craft. And near the chariot of Gelon there is an old statue of Zeus with a sceptre, the votive offering they say of the people of Hybla. There are two Hyblas in Sicily, one called Gereatis, and the other to this day called Hybla Major. Both are in the neighbourhood of Catana, Hybla Major is quite deserted, but Gereatis is still inhabited, and has a temple to the Hyblæan goddess who is worshipped in Sicily. And I think it was from there that the statue of Zeus came to Olympia. For Philistus the son of Archomenides records that they were the best interpreters of portents and dreams, and the most noted for piety of all the barbarians in Sicily. And near the votive offering of the people of Hybla is a brazen pedestal and a Zeus upon it, eighteen feet high I conjecture. And who offered it to the god, and whose design it is, is stated in the following elegiac lines:

“The people of Cleitor erected this votive offering to the god, with the tithe collected from many cities taken by storm by them. And the artificers were the Laconian brothers Aristo and Telestas.”

I do not think these Laconians could have been men well known in Greece, for else the people of Elis would have had something to say about them, and still more the Lacedæmonians as they were their citizens.

CHAPTER XXIV.

And near the altar of Zeus Laœtas and Poseidon Laœtas there is a Zeus on a brazen basement, the gift of the Corinthian people, and the design of Musus, whoever Musus was. And as you go from the council chamber to the great temple there is on the left a statue of Zeus, crowned with flowers, and in his right hand a thunderbolt. This was the design of Ascarus a Theban, who was the pupil of the Sicyonian, * * and it was a votive offering of the people of Thessaly. But if the people of Thessaly offered it as a votive offering from spoil taken in a war with the Phocians, it could not be what is called the Sacred War, for that was fought before the Medes and the great king came to Greece. And not far from this is a Zeus, which (as the inscription on it shews) was a votive offering of Psophidius after success in war. And on the right of the temple of great Zeus towards the east is a statue of Zeus 12 feet high, the votive offering it is said of the Lacedæmonians, after they had fought the second time with the Messenians who had revolted. And there is an elegiac couplet inscribed on it.

“Receive Olympian Zeus, Cronus’ great son, this noble statue from the Lacedæmonians with propitious mind.”

Of the Romans we know of none, either plebeian or patrician, earlier than Mummius who put up a votive offering in any Greek temple, but he out of the spoils of Achaia erected a brazen Zeus at Olympia. It stands on the left of the votive offering of the Lacedæmonians, on the first pillar of the temple. But the largest of the brazen statues of Zeus is in Altis, and was a votive offering of the people of Elis after the war with the Arcadians, it is 27 feet high. And near the temple of Pelops there is a small statue of Zeus upon a not very lofty pillar, with one of his hands extended. And opposite it are some votive offerings in a row, statues of Zeus and Ganymede. The account of Homer is that Ganymede was carried off by the gods to be cupbearer to Zeus, and that Tros his father had some horses given him for his son. And this was a votive offering of Gnathis the Thessalian, and the work of Aristocles the pupil and son of Cleœtas. And there is another Zeus without a beard, among the votive offerings of Micythus. Who this Micythus was, whence he came, and why he offered these votive offerings at Olympia, will be described by me hereafter. And if you go on a little from the statue I have mentioned, there is straight before you another statue of Zeus without a beard, the votive offering of the Elaitæ, who came down from the plain of Caicus to the sea, and were the first settlers in Æolis. Near this is another statue of Zeus, and the inscription on it is that the people of the Chersonese in Cnidus erected it as a votive offering after a triumph over their enemies. They erected also on one side of Zeus Pelops, and on the other the river Alpheus. And most of the city of the Cnidians is built on the continent of Caria, where they performed most of their most memorable deeds, and the Chersonese is an island lying near the continent, and connected with it by a bridge: and the votive offerings to Olympian Zeus were dedicated by the dwellers there, just as the Ephesians dwelling at Coressus could say that their votive offering was a gift of the Ephesians generally. There is also near the wall of Altis a statue of Zeus facing west without an inscription: but tradition says it was erected by Mummius from the spoils of his war with Achaia. But the statue of Zeus in the Council Chamber is of all the statues of Zeus most calculated to frighten wicked men, his Title is Zeus the God of Oaths, and he has a thunderbolt in each hand. At this statue it is customary for the athletes, their fathers and brothers, and also their trainers, to swear over the entrails of a boar that they will not cheat at the Olympian games. And the athletes make this further oath that they have carefully trained for the space of 10 months. And the umpires also, either of boys or the colts that compete in the races, swear to give their decisions honestly and without bribes, and not to reveal the reasons for their selection of the winners. What they do with the boar afterwards I forgot to ask, but it was the custom among all the more ancient sacrificers, that the victim over whom oaths were taken should not be eaten by anybody: as Homer’s evidence very plainly shews, for the boar on whose entrails Agamemnon swore solemnly that Briseis was a maid as far as he was concerned, was thrown into the sea by the herald. Witness the following lines:

“He spoke, and cut the crackling off the boar With ruthless knife. And quick Talthybius Whirled it away into the surging sea, As food for fishes.”

Such was the ancient use. And before the feet of Zeus the God of Oaths there is a brazen tablet, on which some elegiac lines are inscribed, that are meant to inspire fear in perjurers.

CHAPTER XXV.

Such are the statues of Zeus inside Altis, all of which I have enumerated. For the statue near the great temple offered by a Corinthian, is not an offering of the old Corinthians but of those who rebuilt the city in Cæsar’s time, and is Alexander the son of Philip to imitate Zeus. I shall also enumerate all the other statues which are not representations of Zeus. And the effigies not erected in honour of the deity, but in honour of men, I shall describe in my account of the athletes.

The Messenians at the Sicilian Strait, who used to send to Rhegium, according to old custom, a chorus of 35 boys and a choir-master and a piper to the national feast, had on one occasion a terrible disaster, none of those that were sent were saved, but the vessel that had the boys on board perished boys and all in the depths of the sea. For the sea at this strait is a most stormy one: for winds lash it to fury, and two seas meet, the Sicilian and the Tyrrhenian: and even when the winds are calm, there is a tremendous swell in the Strait from the strong ebb and flow. And so many sea-monsters are there, that the air is tainted with their scent, so that the shipwrecked mariner has no chance of getting safe to shore. And if Odysseus had chanced to be wrecked here, one can never believe that he could have swum off safe to Italy. But a kind Providence in every conjuncture brings about some alleviation. And the Messenians sorrowing at the loss of the boys, besides other things to honour their memory, placed at Olympia brazen effigies of them and their choir-master and piper. The old inscription shewed that these effigies were votive offerings of the Messenians at the Sicilian Strait: and subsequently Hippias, who was called by the Greeks the Wise, wrote some elegiac lines on them. The effigies were by Callon of Elis.

And there is near the Promontory Pachynus, that faces towards Libya and the South, the town of Motye, peopled by Libyans and Phœnicians. And the people of Agrigentum were at war with the people of Motye, and out of the spoil and booty they took from them erected as votive offerings at Olympia some boys in brass, extending their right hands like people praying to the deity. They are on the wall at Altis. I conjectured they were by Calamis, and tradition states the same. The races that inhabit Sicily are the Sicani and the Siceli and the Phrygians, some of whom crossed over from Italy, and others came from the river Scamander and the Troad. And the Phœnicians and Libyans sailed to the island with a joint fleet, as a colony of the Carthaginians. Such are the barbarous races in Sicily. And of Greeks the Dorians and Ionians dwell in it, and a few Phocians and Athenians.

And on the same wall are votive offerings from Agrigentum, two statues of boyish Hercules naked. The Hercules shooting at the Nemean lion is the votive offering of the Tarentine Hippotion, and the design of the Mænalian Nicodamus. The other is the votive offering of the Mendæan Anaxippus, and was brought here by the people of Elis: it used to be at the end of the road leading from Elis to Olympia, called the Sacred Road. There are also statues, from the Achæan race in common, of those who, when Hector challenged a single Greek to single combat, drew lots who it should be. They are near the great temple armed with spears and shields. And right opposite on another basement is Nestor throwing the lots into his helmet. And the number of those that drew lots for the single combat with Hector are 8, for the 9th, which was Odysseus, they say Nero carried to Rome, and of the 8 Agamemnon only has his name inscribed, and it is written from right to left. And the one with the device of a cock on the shield is Idomeneus, the descendant of Minos and Pasiphae the daughter of the Sun. And the cock they say is sacred to the Sun and heralds his approach. The inscription on the basement is,

“To Zeus the Achæans, descendants of the divine Pelops the son of Tantalus, erected these votive offerings.”

And the name of the artificer is inscribed on the shield of Idomeneus,

“This and many besides are the work of the skilful Onatas, the son of Micon of Ægina.”

And not far from the votive offering of the Achæans is Hercules fighting with an Amazon on horseback for her belt. This is the votive offering of Evagoras of Zancle, and the design of Aristocles of Cydonia. Aristocles may be reckoned amongst the very ancient sculptors, for though one cannot state his period exactly, it is manifest that he lived before the change from the old name Zancle to its present one of Messene.

The Thasians also (who were Phœnicians originally, and sailed from Tyre and other parts of Phœnice to Europe with Thasus the son of Agenor), made a votive offering of Hercules at Olympia, the base as well as the statue of brass. The height of the statue is 10 cubits, in the right hand he holds his club, and in the left his bow. And I heard in Thasos that they worshipped the same Hercules as the Tyrians worship, but afterwards, when they became naturalized as Greeks, they worshipped Hercules the son of Amphitryon. And the votive offering of the Thasians at Olympia has the following elegiac couplet attached to it,

“Onatas the son of Micon made me, a dweller at Ægina.”

This Æginetan Onatas we should regard in the statuary art as second to none since Dædalus and the Attic school.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The Dorian Messenians also, who received Naupactus from the Athenians, erected at Olympia a Victory on a pillar, the design of the Mendæan Pæonius, and made from spoils taken from the enemy, I imagine, when they fought with the Acarnanians and Œniadæ. But the Messenians themselves say that this Victory was erected for their share with the Athenians in the action at Sphacteria, and that they did not insert the name of the enemy from fear of the Lacedæmonians, and they could have had no fear of the Œniadæ and Acarnanians.

I found also many votive offerings of Micythus scattered about, and three of them together, next to the statue of Iphitus of Elis and Truce crowning him, _viz._ Amphitrite and Poseidon and Vesta, by the Argive Glaucus. And near the left side of the great temple he placed Proserpine the daughter of Demeter, and Aphrodite, and Ganymede, and Artemis, and of the poets Homer and Hesiod, and of the gods again Æsculapius and Hygiea. And among the votive offerings of Micythus is Agon with the dumb bells. These dumb bells are fashioned as follows. They are semicircular in shape though not a perfect semi-circle, and are so constructed that the fingers can pass through, as they do through the handles of a shield. And next the statue of Agon is Dionysus, and the Thracian Orpheus, and the statue of Zeus which I mentioned a little above. These are works of art of the Argive Dionysius. Others besides they say were given by Micythus, but were removed by Nero. And the Argives Dionysius and Glaucus had no master in their craft that we know of, but the period when they flourished is shewn by the fact that Micythus placed their works of art at Olympia. For Herodotus informs us in his history that this Micythus was the slave of Anaxilas the king at Rhegium, and was afterwards his treasurer, and after his death went to Tegea. And the inscriptions on these votive offerings make Micythus the son of Chœrus, and the Greek colony of Rhegium, or Messene near the Strait, his native place. But they do not mention his ever living at Tegea, and these votive offerings at Olympia were the fulfilment of a vow for the recovery of his son, who was wasting away in a consumption.

And near the larger votive offerings of Micythus, the work of the Argive Glaucus, is a statue of Athene with a helmet on her head and her Ægis. This was made by Nicodamus the Mænalian, and is a votive offering of the people of Elis. And next to Athene is a statue of Victory, an offering of the Mantineans, for what war is not specified in the inscription. And it is said to be an imitation by Calamis of the wooden statue at Athens of Wingless Victory. And near the smaller votive offerings of Micythus made by Dionysius are the Labours of Hercules with the Nemean lion, and the hydra, and Cerberus, and the Erymanthian boar. They were brought to Olympia by the men of Heraclea, who overran the territory of the neighbouring barbarians the Mariandyni. Heraclea is a town near the Euxine, and was colonized by the Megarians. The Bœotians of Tanagra also had a share in the colony.

CHAPTER XXVII.

And opposite those I have mentioned are other votive offerings in a row, facing the South, and very near the enclosure sacred to Pelops. Among them are the votive offerings of Mænalian Phormis, who crossed over from Mænalus to Sicily to Gelon the son of Dinomenes, and in the army of Gelon, and afterwards in the army of Gelon’s brother Hiero, displayed great valour, and advanced to such a pitch of fortune that he offered these votive offerings at Olympia, and also some others to Apollo at Delphi. His offerings at Olympia are two horses and two charioteers, a charioteer by each horse. The first horse and groom is by Dionysius the Argive, the second by the Æginetan Simo. And the first has the following inscription on the side, the first line not in metre,

“Phormis the Arcadian from Mænalus, now a Syracusan, offered me.”

This is the horse about which the people of Elis have a tradition on the power of lust in horses. It is evident that several remarkable properties of this horse come from the cunning of a magician. In size and beauty it is inferior to many to be seen in Altis: it has also the tail knocked off, which makes it more unsightly still. Nevertheless stallions not only in spring but all the year round are madly in lust after it. For they rush into Altis, breaking their reins or escaping from their drivers, and endeavour to mount this horse, with far greater impetuosity than they exhibit to the handsomest mare alive whom they had been accustomed to mount. And though their hoofs slip on the polished basement they do not cease to neigh fiercely, and try to mount this horse with frantic energy, till by whips or sheer strength they get pulled off. There is no other way of getting them away from this brazen horse. I have seen in Lydia a different kind of marvel to this horse of Phormis, but equally the cunning work of a magician. Among the Lydians called Persici there are temples at Hierocæsarea and Hypæpa, and in each of these temples there is a chamber in which are ashes on an altar, not like other ashes in appearance. And a magician enters into this chamber, and, after placing dry wood upon the altar, first of all places a tiara on his head, and then calls on the gods in a foreign tongue not understood by the Greeks. And this he chants from a book, and the wood gets lighted evidently without fire and a bright blaze shines forth from it. Let this digression suffice.

And among these votive offerings is Phormis himself contending with an enemy, and fighting with a second and even a third. And there is an inscription stating that the soldier fighting is Mænalian Phormis, and that it is a votive offering of the Syracusan Lycortas, who plainly offered it out of affection to Phormis. The Greeks however call these votive offerings of Lycortas the votive offerings of Phormis. And the Hermes with a ram under his arm, and a helmet on his head, and a tunic and cloak on, is not one of the votive offerings of Phormis, but was offered to the god by the Arcadians of Pheneos. And the inscription states that Onatas the Æginetan jointly designed it with Calliteles, who must I think have been the pupil or son of Onatas. And not far from the votive offering of the people of Pheneos is another statue of Hermes with his herald’s wand, and the inscription on it states that it was the votive offering of Glaucias of Rhegium, and the work of Callon of Elis. And there are two brazen bulls, one the votive offering of the people of Corcyra, the other of the Eretrienses, both by Philesius of Eretria. Why the Corcyræans offered one bull at Olympia and another at Delphi, I shall relate in my account of the Phocians. And about the votive offering at Olympia I have heard the following circumstance. A little boy sitting down under this bull had stooped down and was playing, and suddenly lifting up his head dashed it against the brass, and not many days afterwards died from the blow. The people of Elis wanted to remove the bull from Altis as being blood guilty, but the god at Delphi ordered the same expiatory sacrifices for the bull as the Greeks ordain for involuntary homicide.

There is under the plane-trees at Altis in the middle of the grove a brazen trophy, and an inscription on the shield of the trophy, stating that the people of Elis offered it out of spoils of the Lacedæmonians. This was the battle in which the man lost his life who was found in his armour in my day, when the roof of the temple of Hera was being repaired. The votive offering of the Mendæans in Thrace very nearly deceived me to think that it was the effigy of a competitor for the pentathlum. It is near Anauchidas of Elis, and has ancient dumb-bells. And the following elegiac couplet is written on the thigh,

“To Zeus, the king of the Gods, the Mendæans put me here as firstfruits, after taking Sipte by storm.”

It seems that Sipte is a Thracian fort and city, and the Mendæans are a Greek race from Ionia, and live a little inland from the sea, at the town of Ænus.

FOOTNOTES:

Reading ταύτῃ τῇ Σαμία, (altered into Σαμικῷ ductu literarum).

Il. xxiii. 295.

ἄλσος.

Iliad, viii. 393-395.

Iliad, xiii. 389. xvi. 482.

See Book vi. ch. 22.

Hiatus hic deflendus.

Iliad, xix. 266-268.

On this curious story see Bayle on _Hippomanes_.