Delphi Complete Works of Pausanias

by Pausanias

  [5.5.10] others that Pylenor, another Centaur, when shot by Heracles fled wounded to this river and washed his hurt in it, and that it was the hydra’s poison which gave the Anigrus its nasty smell. Others again attribute the quality of the river to Melampus the son of Amythaon, who threw into it the means he used to purify the daughters of Proetus.

  [5.5.11] There is in Samicum a cave not far from the river, and called the Cave of the Anigrid Nymphs. Whoever enters it suffering from alphos or leuke first has to pray to the nymphs and to promise some sacrifice or other, after which he wipes the unhealthy parts of his body. Then, swimming through the river, he leaves his old uncleanness in its water, coming up sound and of one color.

  SAMIA & ARENE

  [5.6.1] VI. Crossing the Anigrus and going to Olympia by the straight road, not far away on the right of the road you reach a high district with a city called Samia on it. This they say Polysperchon the Aetolian used as a fortified post against the Arcadians.

  [5.6.2] As to the ruins of Arene, no Messenian and no Elean could point them out to me with certainty. Those who care to do so may make all sorts of different guesses about it, but the most plausible account seemed to me that of those who held that in the heroic age and even earlier Samicum was called Arene. These quoted too the words of the Iliad:–

  There is a river Minyeius flowing into the sea near Arene. Hom. Il. 11.722-3

  [5.6.3] These ruins are very near to the Anigrus; and, although it might be questioned whether Samicum was called Arene, yet the Arcadians are agreed that of old the Anigrus was called the Minyeius. One might well hold that the Neda near the sea was made the boundary between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heracleidae to the Peloponnesus.

  SCILLUS & THE RIVER SELINUS

  [5.6.4] After the Anigrus, if you travel for a considerable distance through a district that is generally sandy and grows wild pines, you will see behind you on the left the ruins of Scillus. It was one of the cities of Triphylia but in the war between Pisa and Elis the citizens of Scillus openly helped Pisa against her enemy, and for this reason the Eleans utterly destroyed it.

  [5.6.5] The Lacedaemonians afterwards separated Scillus from Elis and gave it to Xenophon, the son of Grylus, when he had been exiled from Athens, The reason for his banishment was that he had taken part in an expedition which Cyrus, the greatest enemy of the Athenian people, had organized against their friend, the Persian king. Cyrus, in fact, with his seat at Sardis, had been providing Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedaemonians with money for their fleet. Xenophon, accordingly, was banished and having made Scillus his home he built in honor of Ephesian Artemis a temple with a sanctuary and a sacred enclosure.

  [5.6.6] Scillus is also a hunting-ground for wild boars and deer, and the land is crossed by a river called the Selinus. The guides of Elis said that the Eleans recovered Scillus again, and that Xenophon was tried by the Olympic Council for accepting the land from the Lacedaemonians, and, obtaining pardon from the Eleans, dwelt securely in Scillus. Moreover, at a little distance from the sanctuary was shown a tomb, and upon the grave is a statue of marble from the Pentelic quarry. The neighbors say that it is the tomb of Xenophon.

  MT TYPAEUM

  [5.6.7] As you go from Scillus along the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheius,there is a mountain with high, precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaeum. It is a law of Elis to cast down it any women who are caught present at the Olympic games, or even on the other side of the Alpheius, on the days prohibited to women. However, they say that no woman has been caught, except Callipateira only; some, however, give the lady the name of Pherenice and not Callipateira.

  [5.6.8] She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer, and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up, bared her person. So her sex was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that for the future trainers should strip before entering the arena.

  THE RIVER ALPHEIUS

  [5.7.1] VII. By the time you reach Olympia the Alpheius is a large and very pleasant river to see, being fed by several tributaries, including seven very important ones. The Helisson joins the Alpheius passing through Megalopolis; the Brentheates comes out of the territory of that city; past Gortyna, where is a sanctuary of Asclepius, flows the Gortynius; from Melaeneae, between the territories of Megalopolis and Heraea, comes the Buphagus; from the land of the Clitorians the Ladon; from Mount Erymanthus a stream with the same name as the mountain. These come down into the Alpheius from Arcadia; the Cladeus comes from Elis to join it. The source of the Alpheius itself is in Arcadia, and not in Elis.

  [5.7.2] There is another legend about the Alpheius. They say that there was a hunter called Alpheius, who fell in love with Arethusa, who was herself a huntress. Arethusa, unwilling to marry, crossed, they say, to the island opposite Syracuse called Ortygia, and there turned from a woman to a spring. Alpheius too was changed by his love into the river.

  [5.7.3] This account of Alpheius . . . to Ortygia. But that the Alpheius passes through the sea and mingles his waters with the spring at this place I cannot disbelieve, as I know that the god at Delphi confirms the story. For when he despatched Archias the Corinthian to found Syracuse he uttered this oracle:

  An isle, Ortygia, lies on the misty ocean

  Over against Trinacria, where the mouth of Alpheius bubbles

  Mingling with the springs of broad Arethusa.

  For this reason, therefore, because the water of the Alpheius mingles with the Arethusa, I am convinced that the legend arose of the river’s love-affair.

  [5.7.4] Those Greeks or Egyptians who have gone up into Ethiopia beyond Syene as far as the Ethiopian city of Meroe all say that the Nile enters a lake, and passes through it as though it were dry land, and that after this it flows through lower Aethiopia into Egypt before coming down into the sea at Pharos. And in the land of the Hebrews, as I can myself bear witness, the river Jordan passes through a lake called Tiberias, and then, entering another lake called the Dead Sea, it disappears in it.

  [5.7.5] The Dead Sea has the opposite qualities to those of any other water. Living creatures float in it naturally without swimming; dying creatures sink to the bottom. Hence the lake is barren of fish; their danger stares them in the face, and they flee back to the water which is their native element. The peculiarity of the Alpheius is shared by a river of Ionia. The source of it is on Mount Mycale, and having gone through the intervening sea the river rises again opposite Branchidae at the harbor called Panormus.

  THE OLYMPIC GAMES, MYTHICAL HISTORY

  [5.7.6] These things then are as I have described them. As for the Olympic games, the most learned antiquaries of Elis say that Cronus was the first king of heaven, and that in his honor a temple was built in Olympia by the men of that age, who were named the Golden Race. When Zeus was born, Rhea entrusted the guardianship of her son to the Dactyls of Ida, who are the same as those called Curetes. They came from Cretan Ida – Heracles, Paeonaeus, Epimedes, Iasius and Idas.

  [5.7.7] Heracles, being the eldest, matched his brothers, as a game, in a running-race, and crowned the winner with a branch of wild olive, of which they had such a copious supply that they slept on heaps of its leaves while still green. It is said to have been introduced into Greece by Heracles from the land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of the North Wind.

  [5.7.8] Olen the Lycian, in his hymn to Achaeia, was the first to say that from these Hyperboreans Achaeia came to Delos. When Melanopus of Cyme composed an ode to Opis and Hecaerge declaring that these, even before Achaeia, came to Delos from the Hyperboreans.

  [5.7.9] And Aristeas of Proconnesus – for he too made mention of the Hyperboreans – may perhaps have learnt even more about them from the Issedo
nes, to whom he says in his poem that he came. Heracles of Ida, therefore, has the reputation of being the first to have held, on the occasion I mentioned, the games, and to have called them Olympic. So he established the custom of holding them every fifth year, because he and his brothers were five in number.

  [5.7.10] Now some say that Zeus wrestled here with Cronus himself for the throne, while others say that he held the games in honor of his victory over Cronus. The record of victors include Apollo, who outran Hermes and beat Ares at boxing. It is for this reason, they say, that the Pythian flute-song is played while the competitors in the pentathlum are jumping; for the flute-song is sacred to Apollo, and Apollo won Olympic victories.

  [5.8.1] VIII. Later on there came (they say) from Crete Clymenus, the son of Cardys, about fifty years after the flood came upon the Greeks in the time of Deucalion. He was descended from Heracles of Ida; he held the games at Olympia and set up an altar in honor of Heracles, his ancestor, and the other Curetes, giving to Heracles the surname of Parastates (Assistant). And Endymion, the son of Aethlius, deposed Clymenus, and set his sons a race in Olympia with the kingdom as the prize.

  [5.8.2] And about a generation later than Endymion, Pelops held the games in honor of Olympian Zeus in a more splendid manner than any of his predecessors. When the sons of Pelops were scattered from Elis over all the rest of Peloponnesus, Amythaon, the son of Cretheus, and cousin of Endymion on his father’s side (for they say that Aethlius too was the son of Aeolus, though supposed to be a son of Zeus), held the Olympian games, and after him Pelias and Neleus in common.

  [5.8.3] Augeas too held them, and likewise Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, after the conquest of Elis. The victors crowned by Heracles include Iolaus, who won with the mares of Heracles. So of old a competitor was permitted to compete with mares which were not his own. Homer, at any rate, in the games held in honor of Patroclus, has told how Menelaus drove a pair of which one was Aetha, a mare of Agamemnon, while the other was his own horse.

  [5.8.4] Moreover, Iolaus used to be charioteer to Heracles. So Iolaus won the chariot-race, and Iasius, an Arcadian, the horse-race; while of the sons of Tyndareus one won the foot-race and Polydeuces the boxing-match. Of Heracles himself it is said that he won victories at wrestling and the pancratium.

  THE OLYMPIC GAMES, HISTORY

  [5.8.5] After the reign of Oxylus, who also celebrated the games, the Olympic festival was discontinued until the reign of Iphitus. When Iphitus, as I have already related, renewed the games, men had by this time forgotten the ancient tradition, the memory of which revived bit by bit, and as it revived they made additions to the games.

  [5.8.6] This I can prove; for when the unbroken tradition of the Olympiads began there was first the foot-race, and Coroebus an Elean was victor. There is no statue of Coroebus at Olympia, but his grave is on the borders of Elis. Afterwards, at the fourteenth Festival, the double foot-race was added: Hypenus of Pisa won the prize of wild olive in the double race, and at the next Festival Acanthus of Lacedaemon won in the long course.

  [5.8.7] At the eighteenth Festival they remembered the pentathlum and wrestling. Lampis won the first and Eurybatus the second, these also being Lacedaemonians. At the twenty-third Festival they restored the prizes for boxing, and the victor was Onomastus of Smyrna, which already was a part of Ionia. At the twenty-fifth they recognized the race of full-grown horses, and Pagondas of Thebes was proclaimed “victor in the chariot-race.”

  [5.8.8] At the eighth Festival after this they admitted the pancratium for men and the horse-race. The horse-race was won by Crauxidas of Crannon, and Lygdamis of Syracuse overcame all who entered for the pancratium. Lygdamis has his tomb near the quarries at Syracuse, and according to the Syracusans he was as big as Heracles of Thebes, though I cannot vouch for the statement.

  [5.8.9] The contests for boys have no authority in old tradition, but were established by the Eleans themselves because they approved of them. The prizes for running and wrestling open to boys were instituted at the thirty-seventh Festival; Hipposthenes of Lacedaemon won the prize for wrestling, and that for running was won by Polyneices of Elis. At the forty-first Festival they introduced boxing for boys, and the winner out of those who entered for it was Philytas of Sybaris.

  [5.8.10] The race for men in armour was approved at the sixty-fifth Festival, to provide, I suppose, military training; the first winner of the race with shields was Damaretus of Heraea. The race for two full-grown horses, called synoris (chariot and pair), was instituted at the ninety-third Festival, and the winner was Evagoras of Elis. At the ninety-ninth Festival they resolved to hold contests for chariots drawn by foals, and Sybariades of Lacedaemon won the garland with his chariot and foals.

  [5.8.11] Afterwards they added races for chariots and pairs of foals, and for single foals with rider. It is said that the victors proclaimed were: for the chariot and pair, Belistiche, a woman from the seaboard of Macedonia; for the ridden race, Tlepolemus of Lycia. Tlepolemus, they say, won at the hundred and thirty-first Festival, and Belistiche at the third before this. At the hundred and forty-fifth Festival prizes were offered for boys in the pancratium, the victory falling to Phaedimus, an Aeolian from the city Troas.

  [5.9.1] IX. Certain contests, too, have been dropped at Olympia, the Eleans resolving to discontinue them. The pentathlum for boys was instituted at the thirty-eighth Festival; but after Eutelidas of Lace-daemon had received the wild olive for it, the Eleans disapproved of boys entering for this competition. The races for mule-carts, and the trotting-race, were instituted respectively at the seventieth Festival and the seventy-first, but were both abolished by proclamation at the eighty-fourth. When they were first instituted, Thersius of Thessaly won the race for mule-carts, while Pataecus, an Achaean from Dyme, won the trotting-race.

  [5.9.2] The trotting-race was for mares, and in the last part of the course the riders jumped off and ran beside the mares, holding on to the bridle, just as at the present day those do who are called “mounters.” The mounters, however, differ from the riders in the trotting-race by having different badges, and by riding horses instead of mares. The cart-race was neither of venerable antiquity nor yet a graceful performance. Moreover, each cart was drawn by a pair of mules, not horses, and there is an ancient curse on the Eleans if this animal is even born in Elis.

  [5.9.3] The order of the games in our own day, which places the sacrifices to the god for the pentathlum and chariot-races second, and those for the other competitions first, was fixed at the seventy-seventh Festival. Previously the contests for men and for horses were held on the same day. But at the Festival I mentioned the pancratiasts prolonged their contests till night-fall, because they were not summoned to the arena soon enough. The cause of the delay was partly the chariot-race, but still more the pentathlum. Callias of Athens was champion of the pancratiasts on this occasion, but never afterwards was the pancratium to be interfered with by the pentathlum or the chariots.

  [5.9.4] The rules for the presidents of the games are not the same now as they were at the first institution of the festival. Iphitus acted as sole president, as likewise did the descendants of Oxylus after Iphitus. But at the fiftieth Festival two men, appointed by lot from all the Eleans, were entrusted with the management of the Olympic games, and for a long time after this the number of the presidents continued to be two.

  [5.9.5] But at the ninety-fifth Festival nine umpires were appointed. To three of them were entrusted the chariot-races, another three were to supervise the pentathlum, the rest superintended the remaining contests. At the second Festival after this the tenth umpire was added. At the hundred and third Festival, the Eleans having twelve tribes, one umpire was chosen from each.

  [5.9.6] But they were hard pressed in a war with the Arcadians and lost a portion of their territory, along with all the parishes included in the surrendered district, and so the number of tribes was reduced to eight in the hundred and fourth Olympiad. Thereupon were chosen umpires equal in number to the tribes.
At the hundred and eighth Festival they returned again to the number of ten umpires, which has continued unchanged down to the present day.

  THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS

  [5.10.1] X. Many are the sights to be seen in Greece, and many are the wonders to be heard; but on nothing does Heaven bestow more care than on the Eleusinian rites and the Olympic games.

  The sacred grove of Zeus has been called from of old Altis, a corruption of the word “alsos,” which means a grove. Pindar too calls the place Altis in an ode composed for an Olympic victor.

  [5.10.2] The temple and the image were made for Zeus from spoils, when Pisa was crushed in war by the Eleans, and with Pisa such of the subject peoples as conspired together with her. The image itself was wrought by Pheidias, as is testified by an inscription written under the feet of Zeus:–

  Pheidias, son of Charmides, an Athenian, made me.

  The temple is in the Doric style, and the outside has columns all around it. It is built of native stone.

  [5.10.3] Its height up to the pediment is sixty-eight feet, its breadth is ninety-five, its length two hundred and thirty. The architect was Libon, a native. The tiles are not of baked earth, but of Pentelic marble cut into the shape of tiles. The invention is said to be that of Byzes of Naxos, who they say made the images in Naxos on which is the inscription:–

  To the offspring of Leto was I dedicated by Euergus,

  A Naxian, son of Byzes, who first made tiles of stone.

  This Byzes lived about the time of Alyattes the Lydian, when Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, reigned over the Medes.

  [5.10.4] At Olympia a gilt caldron stands on each end of the roof, and a Victory, also gilt, is set in about the middle of the pediment. Under the image of Victory has been dedicated a golden shield, with Medusa the Gorgon in relief. The inscription on the shield declares who dedicated it and the reason why they did so. It runs thus:–