Description of Greece

After Chaereas are statues of a Messenian boy Sophius and of Stomius, a man of Elis. Sophius outran his boy competitors, and Stomius won a victory in the pentathlum at Olympia and three at the Nemean games. The inscription on his statue adds that, when commander of the Elean cavalry, he set up trophies and killed in single combat the general of the enemy, who had challenged him.

The Eleans say that the dead general was a native of Sicyon in command of Sicyonian troops, and that they themselves with the force from Boeotia attacked Sicyon out of friendship to the Thebans. So the attack of the Eleans and Thebans against Sicyon apparently took place after the Lacedaemonian disaster at Leuctra.

Next stands the statue of a boxer from Lepreus in Elis, whose name was Labax son of Euphron, and also that of Aristodemus, son of Thrasis, a boxer from Elis itself, who also won two victories at Pytho. The statue of Aristodemus is the work of Daedalus of Sicyon, the pupil and son of Patrocles.

The statue of Hippus of Elis, who won the boys' boxing-match, was made by Damocritus of Sicyon, of the school of Attic Critias, being removed from him by four generations of teachers. For Gritias himself taught Ptolichus of Corcyra, Amphion was the pupil of Ptolichus, and taught Pison of Calaureia, who was the teacher of Damocritus.

Cratinus of Aegeira in Achaia was the most handsome man of his time and the most skilful wrestler, and when he won the wrestling-match for boys the Eleans allowed him to set up a statue of his trainer as well. The statue was made by Cantharus of Sicyon, whose father was Alexis, while his teacher was Eutychides.

The statue of Eupolemus of Elis was made by Daedalus of Sicyon. The inscription on it informs us that Eupolemus won the foot-race for men at Olympia, and that he also received two Pythian crowns for the pentathlum and another at the Nemean games. It is also said of Eupolemus that three umpires stood on the course, of whom two gave their verdict in favour of Eupolemus and one declared the winner to be Leon the Ambraciot. Leon, they say, got the Olympic Council to fine each of the umpires who had decided in favour of Eupolemus.

The statue of Oebotas was set up by the Achaeans by the command of the Delphic Apollo in the eightieth Olympiad, but Oebotas won his victory in the footrace at the sixth Festival. How, therefore, could Oebotas have taken part in the Greek victory at Plataea? For it was in the seventy-fifth Olympiad that the Persians under Mardonius suffered their disaster at Plataea. Now I am obliged to report the statements made by the Greeks, though I am not obliged to believe them all. The other incidents in the life of Oebotas I will add to my history of Achaia.

The statue of Antiochus was made by Nicodamus. A native of Lepreus, Antiochus won once at Olympia the pancratium for men, and the pentathlum twice at the Isthmian games and twice at the Nemean. For the Lepreans are not afraid of the Isthmian games as the Eleans themselves are. For example, Hysmon of Elis, whose statue stands near that of Antiochus, competed successfully in the pentathlum both at Olympia and at Nemea, but clearly kept away, just like other Eleans, from the Isthmian games.

It is said that when Hysmon was still a boy he was attacked by a flux in his muscles, and it was in order that by hard exercise he might be a healthy man free from disease that he practised the pentathlum. So his training was also to make him win famous victories in the games. His statue is the work of Cleon, and he holds jumping-weights of old pattern.

After Hysmon comes the statue of a boy wrestler from Heraea in Arcadia, Nicostratus the son of Xenocleides. Pantias was the artist, and if you count the teachers you will find five between him and Aristocles of Sicyon.Dicon, the son of Callibrotus, won five footraces at Pytho, three at the Isthmian games, four at Nemea, one at Olympia in the race for boys besides two in the men's race. Statues of him have been set up at Olympia equal in number to the races he won. When he was a boy he was proclaimed a native of Caulonia, as in fact he was. But afterwards he was bribed to proclaim himself a Syracusan.

Caulonia was a colony in Italy founded by Achaeans, and its founder was Typhon of Aegium. When Pyrrhus son of Aeacides and the Tarentines were at war with the Romans, several cities in Italy were destroyed, either by the Romans or by the Epeirots, and these included Caulonia, whose fate it was to be utterly laid waste, having been taken by the Campanians, who formed the largest contingent of allies on the Roman side.

Close to Dicon is a statue of Xenophon, the son of Menephylus, a pancratiast of Aegium in Achaia, and likewise one of Pyrilampes of Ephesus after winning the long foot-race. Olympus made the statue of Xenophon; that of Pyrilampes was made by a sculptor of the same name, a native, not of Sicyon, but of Messene beneath Ithome.

A statue of Lysander, son of Aristocritus, a Spartan, was dedicated in Olympia by the Samians, and the first of their inscriptions runs:In the much-seen precinct of Zeus, ruler on high,I stand, dedicated at public expense by the Samians.So this inscription informs us who dedicated the statue; the next is in praise of Lysander himself:Deathless glory by thy achievements, for fatherland and for Aristocritus,Lysander, hast thou won, and art famed for valour.

So plainly “the Samians and the rest of the Ionians,” as the Ionians themselves phrase it, painted both the walls. For when Alcibiades had a strong fleet of Athenian triremes along the coast of Ionia, most of the Ionians paid court to him, and there is a bronze statue of Alcibiades dedicated by the Samians in the temple of Hera. But when the Attic ships were captured at Aegospotami, the Samians set up a statue of Lysander at Olympia, and the Ephesians set up in the sanctuary of Artemis not only a statue of Lysander himself but also statues of Eteonicus, Pharax and other Spartans quite unknown to the Greek world generally.

But when fortune changed again, and Conon had won the naval action off Cnidus and the mountain called Dorium, the Ionians likewise changed their views, and there are to be seen statues in bronze of Conon and of Timotheus both in the sanctuary of Hera in Samos and also in the sanctuary of the Ephesian goddess at Ephesus. It is always the same; the Ionians merely follow the example of all the world in paying court to strength.

Next to the statue of Lysander is an Ephesian boxer who beat the other boys, his competitors—his name was Athenaeus,—and also a man of Sicyon who was a pancratiast, Sostratus surnamed Acrochersites. For he used to grip his antagonist by the fingers and bend them, and would not let go until he saw that his opponent had given in.

He won at the Nemean and Isthmian games combined twelve victories, three victories at Olympia and two at Pytho. The hundred and fourth Festival, when Sostratus won his first victory, is not reckoned by the Eleans, because the games were held by the Pisans and Arcadians and not by themselves.

Beside Sostratus is a statue of Leontiscus, a man wrestler, a native of Sicily from Messene on the Strait. He was crowned, they say, by the Amphictyons and twice by the Eleans, and his mode of wrestling was similar to the pancratium of Sostratus the Sicyonian. For they say that Leontiscus did not know how to throw his opponents, but won by bending their fingers.

The statue was made by Pythagoras of Rhegium, an excellent sculptor if ever there was one. They say that he studied under Clearchus, who was likewise a native of Rhegium, and a pupil of Eucheirus. Eucheirus, it is said, was a Corinthian, and attended the school of Syadras and Chartas, men of Sparta.

The boy who is binding his head with a fillet must be mentioned in my account because of Pheidias and his great skill as a sculptor, but we do not know whose portrait the statue is that Pheidias made. Satyrus of Elis, son of Lysianax, of the clan of the Iamidae, won five victories at Nemea for boxing, two at Pytho, and two at Olympia. The artist who made the statue was Silanion, an Athenian. Polycles, another sculptor of the Attic school, a pupil of Stadieus the Athenian, has made the statue of an Ephesian boy pancratiast, Amyntas the son of Hellanicus.

Chilon, an Achaean of Patrae, won two prizes for men wrestlers at Olympia, one at Delphi, four at the Isthmus and three at the Nemean games. He was buried at the public expense by the Achaeans, and his fate it was to lose his life on the field of battle. My statement is borne out by the inscription at Olympia:In wrestling only I alone conquered twice the men at Olympia and at Pytho,Thrice at Nemea, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea;Chilon of Patrae, son of Chilon, whom the Achaean folkBuried for my valour when I died in battle.

Thus much is plain from the inscription. But the date of Lysippus, who made the statue, leads me to infer about the war in which Chilon fell, that plainly either he marched to Chaeroneia with the whole of the Achaeans, or else his personal courage and daring led him alone of the Achaeans to fight against the Macedonians under Antipater at the battle of Lamia in Thessaly.

Next to Chilon two statues have been set up. One is that of a man named Molpion, who, says the inscription, was crowned by the Eleans. The other statue bears no inscription, but tradition says that it represents Aristotle from Stageira in Thrace, and that it was set up either by a pupil or else by some soldier aware of Aristotle's influence with Antipater and at an earlier date with Alexander. Sodamas from Assos in the Troad,

a city at the foot of Ida, was the first of the Aeolians in this district to win at Olympia the foot-race for boys. By the side of Sodamas stands Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, king of the Lacedaemonians. Before this Archidamus no king, so far as I could learn, had his statue set up by the Lacedaemonians, at least outside the boundaries of the country. They sent the statue of Archidamus to Olympia chiefly, in my opinion, on account of his death, because he met his end in a foreign land, and is the only king in Sparta who is known to have missed burial.

I have spoken at greater length on this matter in my account of Sparta. Euanthes of Cyzicus won prizes for boxing, one among the men at Olympia, and also among the boys at the Nemean and at the Isthmian games. By the side of Euanthes is the statue of a horse-breeder and his chariot; mounted on the chariot is a young maid. The man's name is Lampus, and his native city was the last to be founded in Macedonia, named after its founder Philip, son of Amyntas.

The statue of Cyniscus, the boy boxer from Mantinea, was made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles, the son of Philanor, won two victories in the long foot-race at Olympia, and two at Pytho, the Isthmus and Nemea. The inscription on the statue states that he came originally from Himera; but it is said that this is incorrect, and that be was a Cretan from Cnossus. Expelled from Cnossus by a political party he came to Himera, was given citizenship and won many honors besides. It was accordingly natural for him to be proclaimed at the games as a native of Himera.

The statue on the high pedestal is the work of Lysippus, and it represents the tallest of all men except those called heroes and any other mortal race that may have existed before the heroes. But this man, Pulydamas the son of Nicias, is the tallest of our own era.

Scotussa, the native city of Pulydamas, has now no inhabitants, for Alexander the tyrant of Pherae seized it in time of truce. It happened that an assembly of the citizens was being held, and those who were assembled in the theater the tyrant surrounded with targeteers and archers, and shot them all down; all the other grown men he massacred, selling the women and children as slaves in order to pay his mercenaries.

This disaster befell Scotussa when Phrasicleides was archon at Athens, in the hundred and second Olympiad, when Damon of Thurii was victor for the second time, and in the second year of this Olympiad. The people that escaped remained but for a while, for later they too were forced by their destitution to leave the city, when Heaven brought a second calamity in the war with Macedonia.

Others have won glorious victories in the pancratium, but Pulydamas, besides his prizes for the pancratium, has to his credit the following exploits of a different kind. The mountainous part of Thrace, on this side the river Nestus, which runs through the land of Abdera, breeds among other wild beasts lions, which once attacked the army of Xerxes, and mauled the camels carrying his supplies.

These lions often roam right into the land around Mount Olympus, one side of which is turned towards Macedonia, and the other towards Thessaly and the river Peneius. Here on Mount Olympus Pulydamas slew a lion, a huge and powerful beast, without the help of any weapon. To this exploit he was impelled by an ambition to rival the labours of Heracles, because Heracles also, legend says, overthrew the lion at Nemea.

In addition to this, Pulydamas is remembered for another wonderful performance. He went among a herd of cattle and seized the biggest and fiercest bull by one of its hind feet, holding fast the hoof in spite of the bull's leaps and struggles, until at last it put forth all its strength and escaped, leaving the hoof in the grasp of Pulydamas. It is also said of him that he stopped a charioteer who was driving his chariot onwards at a great speed. Seizing with one hand the back of the chariot he kept a tight hold on both horses and driver.

Dareius, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian common people put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Pulydamas, sent messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at Susa. There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals to fight him—one against three— and killed them. Of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription.

But after all, the prophecy of Homer respecting those who glory in their strength was to be fulfilled also in the case of Pulydamas, and he too was fated to perish through his own might. For Pulydamas entered a cave with the rest of his boon companions. It was summer-time, and, as ill-luck would have it, the roof of the cave began to crack. It was obvious that it would quickly fall in, and could not hold out much longer.

Realizing the disaster that was coming, the others turned and ran away; but Pulydamas resolved to remain, holding up his hands in the belief that he could prevent the falling in of the cave and would not be crushed by the mountain. Here Pulydamas met his end.

Beside the statue of Pulydamas at Olympia stand two Arcadians and one Attic athlete. The statue of the Mantinean, Protolaus the son of Dialces, who won the boxing-match for boys, was made by Pythagoras of Rhegium; that of Narycidas, son of Damaretus, a wrestler from Phigalia, was made by Daedalus of Sicyon; that of the Athenian Callias, a pancratiast, is by the Athenian painter Micon. Nicodamus the Maenalian made the statue of the Maenalian pancratiast Androsthenes, the son of Lochaeus, who won two victories among the men.

By these is set up a statue of Eucles, son of Callianax, a native of Rhodes and of the family of the Diagoridae. For he was the son of the daughter of Diagoras, and won an Olympic victory in the boxing-match for men. His statue is by Naucydes. Polycleitus of Argos, not the artist who made the image of Hera, but a pupil of Naucydes, made the statue of a boy wrestler, Agenor of Thebes. The statue was dedicated by the Phocian Commonwealth, for Theopompus, the father of Agenor, was a state friend of their nation.

Nicodamus, the sculptor from Maenalus, made the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas of Maenalus. There stands also the statue of the Elean boy Lastratidas, who won the crown for wrestling. He won a victory at Nemea also among the boys, and another among the beardless striplings. Paraballon, the father of Lastratidas, was first in the double foot-race, and he left to those coming after an object of ambition, by writing up in the gymnasium at Olympia the names of those who won Olympic victories.

So much for these. But it would not be right for me to pass over the boxer Euthymus, his victories and his other glories. Euthymus was by birth one of the Italian Locrians, who dwell in the region near the headland called the West Point, and he was called son of Astycles. Local legend, however, makes him the son, not of this man, but of the river Caecinus, which divides Locris from the land of Rhegium and produces the marvel of the grasshoppers. For the grasshoppers within Locris as far as the Caecinus sing just like others, but across the Caecinus in the territory of Rhegium they do not utter a sound.

This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymus, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival, was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pancratium at the same Festival, overcame Euthymus at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pancratium, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymus.

Thereupon the umpires fined Theagenes a talent, to be sacred to the god, and a talent for the harm done to Euthymus, holding that it was merely to spite him that he entered for the boxing competition. For this reason they condemned him to pay an extra fine privately to Euthymus. At the seventy-sixth Festival Theagenes paid in full the money owed to the god, . . . and as compensation to Euthymus did not enter for the boxing-match. At this Festival, and also at the next following, Euthymus won the crown for boxing. His statue is the handiwork of Pythagoras, and is very well worth seeing.

On his return to Italy Euthymus fought against the Hero, the story about whom is as follows. Odysseus, so they say, in his wanderings after the capture of Troy was carried down by gales to various cities of Italy and Sicily, and among them he came with his ships to Temesa. Here one of his sailors got drunk and violated a maiden, for which offence he was stoned to death by the natives.

Now Odysseus, it is said, cared nothing about his loss and sailed away. But the ghost of the stoned man never ceased killing without distinction the people of Temesa, attacking both old and young, until, when the inhabitants had resolved to flee from Italy for good, the Pythian priestess forbad them to leave Temesa, and ordered them to propitiate the Hero, setting him a sanctuary apart and building a temple, and to give him every year as wife the fairest maiden in Temesa.

So they performed the commands of the god and suffered no more terrors from the ghost. But Euthymus happened to come to Temesa just at the time when the ghost was being propitiated in the usual way; learning what was going on he had a strong desire to enter the temple, and not only to enter it but also to look at the maiden. When he saw her he first felt pity and afterwards love for her. The girl swore to marry him if he saved her, and so Euthymus with his armour on awaited the onslaught of the ghost.

He won the fight, and the Hero was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea. Euthymus had a distinguished wedding, and the inhabitants were freed from the ghost for ever. I heard another story also about Euthymus, how that he reached extreme old age, and escaping again from death departed from among men in another way. Temesa is still inhabited, as I heard from a man who sailed there as a merchant.

This I heard, and I also saw by chance a picture dealing with the subject. It was a copy of an ancient picture. There were a stripling, Sybaris, a river, Calabrus, and a spring, Lyca. Besides, there were a hero-shrine and the city of Temesa, and in the midst was the ghost that Euthymus cast out. Horribly black in color, and exceedingly dreadful in all his appearance, he had a wolf's skin thrown round him as a garment. The letters on the picture gave his name as Lycas.

So much for the story of Euthymus. After his statue stands a runner in the foot-race, Pytharchus of Mantinea, and a boxer, Charmides of Elis, both of whom won prizes in the contests for boys. When you have looked at these also you will reach the statues of the Rhodian athletes, Diagoras and his family. These were dedicated one after the other in the following order. Acusilaus, who received a crown for boxing in the men's class; Dorieus, the youngest, who won the pancratium at Olympia on three successive occasions. Even before Dorieus, Damagetus beat all those who had entered for the pancratium.

These were brothers, being sons of Diagoras, and by them is set up also a statue of Diagoras himself, who won a victory for boxing in the men's class. The statue of Diagoras was made by the Megarian Callicles, the son of the Theocosmus who made the image of Zeus at Megara. The sons too of the daughters of Diagoras practised boxing and won Olympic victories: in the men's class Eucles, son of Callianax and Callipateira, daughter of Diagoras; in the boys' class Peisirodus, whose mother dressed herself as a man and a trainer, and took her son herself to the Olympic games.

This Peisirodus is one of the statues in the Altis, and stands by the father of his mother. The story goes that Diagoras came to Olympia in the company of his sons Acusilaus and Damagetus. The youths on defeating their father proceeded to carry him through the crowd, while the Greeks pelted him with flowers and congratulated him on his sons. The family of Diagoras was originally, through the female line, Messenian, as he was descended from the daughter of Aristomenes.