Pausanias

“ At close quarters a grievous arrow shall Apollo shoot At the spoiler of Parnassus; and of his blood-guilt The Cretans shall cleanse his hands; but the renown shall never die. 10.7.1 It seems that from the beginning the sanctuary at Delphi has been plotted against by a vast number of men. Attacks were made against it by this Euboean pirate, and years afterwards by the Phlegyan nation; furthermore by Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, by a portion of the army of Xerxes, by the Phocian chieftains, whose attacks on the wealth of the god were the longest and fiercest, and by the Gallic invaders. ”

“ It is said that no sooner had this Phaylus come to rule over the Phocians when he saw the following vision in a dream. Among the votive offerings to Apollo was a representation in bronze of a man's body in an advanced stage of decay, with the flesh already fallen off, and nothing left but the bones. ”

“ Their horns do not stand out away from the head, but curl straight beside the ears. In speed they are the swiftest of all beasts.
10.17.13 Except for one plant the island is free from poisons. This deadly herb is like celery, and they say that those who eat it die laughing. Wherefore Homer, and men after him, call unwholesome laughter sardonic. The herb grows mostly around springs, but does not impart any of its poison to the water. I have introduced into my history of Phocis this account of Sardinia, because it is an island about which the Greeks are very ignorant. ”

“ The inhabitants of Cleonae were, like the Athenians, afflicted with the plague, and obeying an oracle from Delphi sacrificed a he-goat to the sun while it was still rising. This put an end to the trouble, and so they sent a bronze he-goat to Apollo. The Syracusans have a treasury built from the spoils taken in the great Attic disaster, the Potidaeans in Thrace built one to show their piety to the god. ”

“ For what reason could there be in giving the name of Naupactia to a poem about women composed by an author of Miletus?
10.38.12 Here there is on the coast a temple of Poseidon with a standing image made of bronze; there is also a sanctuary of Artemis with an image of white marble. She is in the attitude of one hurling a javelin, and is surnamed Aetole. In a cave Aphrodite is worshipped, to whom prayers are offered for various reasons, and especially by widows who ask the goddess to grant them marriage. ”

“ — Ionians, Dolopes, Thessalians, Aenianians, Magnesians, Malians, Phthiotians, Dorians, Phocians, Locrians who border on Phocis, living at the bottom of Mount Cnemis. But when the Phocians seized the sanctuary, and the war came to an end nine years afterwards, there came a change in the Amphictyonic League. The Macedonians managed to enter it, while the Phocian nation and a section of the Dorians, namely the Lacedemonians, lost their membership, the Phocians because of their rash crime, the Lacedemonians as a penalty for allying themselves with the Phocians. ”

“ A temple has been built to Asclepius, with a bearded image of the god. The names of the makers of the image are Timocles and Timarchides, artists of Attic birth. At the end of the city on the right is a theater, and an ancient bronze image of Athena. They say that this goddess helped them against the barbarians under Taxilus.
10.34.7 About twenty stades away from Elateia is a sanctuary of Athena surnamed Cranaea. The road to it slopes upwards, but so gentle is the ascent that it causes no fatigue — in fact one scarcely notices it. ”

“ He receives divine honors from the Tithoreans, and no less from the other Phocians. Within the precincts are dwellings for both the suppliants of the god and his servants. In the middle is the temple of the god and an image made of stone, having a beard more than two feet long. A couch is set on the right of the image. It is usual to sacrifice to the god any animal except the goat.
10.32.13 About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. ”

“ At Daulis is a sanctuary of Athena with an ancient image. The xoanon, of an even earlier date, the Daulians say was brought from Athens by Procne.
10.4.10 In the territory of Daulis is a place called Tronis. Here has been built a shrine of the Archegetes (Founder) hero. This founder is said by some to have been Xanthippus, a distinguished soldier; others say that he was Phocus, son of Ornytion, son of Sisyphus. At any rate, he is worshipped every day, and the Phocians bring victims and pour the blood into the grave through a hole, but the flesh they are wont to consume on the spot. ”

“ The chair is of iron, and on it they say Pindar sat whenever he came to Delphi, and there composed his songs to Apollo. Into the innermost part of the temple there pass but few, but there is dedicated in it another image of Apollo, made of gold.
10.24.6 Leaving the temple and turning to the left you will come to an enclosure in which is the grave of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. Every year the Delphians sacrifice to him as to a hero. Ascending from the tomb you come to a stone of no large size. Over it every day they pour olive oil, and at each feast they place on it unworked wool. ”

“ Many and different are the stories told about Delphi, and even more so about the oracle of Apollo. For they say that in the earliest times the oracular seat belonged to Earth, who appointed as prophetess at it Daphnis, one of the nymphs of the mountain.
10.5.6 There is extant among the Greeks an hexameter poem, the name of which is Eumolpia, and it is assigned to Musaeus, son of Antiophemus. In it the poet states that the oracle belonged to Poseidon and Earth in common; that Earth gave her oracles herself, but Poseidon used Pyrcon as his mouthpiece in giving responses. ”

“ For not more than nine thousand Athenians marched to Marathon, even if we include those who were too old for active service and slaves; so the number of Locrian fighting men who marched to Thermopylae cannot have exceeded six thousand. So the whole army would amount to eleven thousand two hundred. But it is well known that not even these remained all the time guarding the pass; for if we except the Lacedemonians, Thespians and Mycenaeans, the rest left the field before the conclusion of the fighting. ”

“ There are also bronze statues, which the Phocians dedicated when they had put to flight the Thessalian cavalry in the second engagement. The Phliasians brought to Delphi a bronze Zeus, and with the Zeus an image of Aegina. The Mantineans of Arcadia dedicated a bronze Apollo, which stands near the treasury of the Corinthians.
10.13.7 Heracles and Apollo are holding on to the tripod, and are preparing to fight about it. Leto and Artemis are calming Apollo, and Athena is calming Heracles. This too is an offering of the Phocians, dedicated when Tellias of Elis led them against the Thessalians. ”

“ The Aetolians have statues of most of their generals, and images of Artemis, Athena and two of Apollo, dedicated after their conclusion of the war against the Gauls. That the Celtic army would cross from Europe to Asia to destroy the cities there was prophesied by Phaennis in her oracles a generation before the invasion occurred:
10.15.3 “Then verily, having crossed the narrow strait of the Hellespont,
The devastating host of the Gauls shall pipe; and lawlessly They shall ravage Asia; and much worse shall God do To those who dwell by the shores of the sea For a short while. ”

“ Black hellebore sends those who take it to stool, and purges the bowels; the nature of the other, the white kind, is to purge by vomiting. It is the root of the hellebore which is used as a purging drug.
10.36.8 In the agora at Anticyra are bronze statues, and at the harbor is a small sanctuary of Poseidon, built of unhewn stones. The inside is covered with stucco. The image, which is made of bronze, is a standing figure, with one foot resting on a dolphin. On this side he has one hand upon his thigh; in his other hand is a trident. ”

“ To make images of iron is a very difficult task, involving great labour. So the work of Tisagoras, whoever he was, is marvellous. Very marvellous too are the heads of a lion and wild boar at Pergamus, also of iron, which were made as offerings to Dionysus.
10.18.7 The Phocians who live at Elateia, who held their city, with the help of Olympiodorus from Athens, when besieged by Cassander, sent to Apollo at Delphi a bronze lion. The Apollo, very near to the lion, was dedicated by the Massiliots as firstfruits of their naval victory over the Carthaginians. ”

“ Some thought that the god would have rejected alike all offerings from Persian spoils, if like Themistocles the others had inquired of Apollo before making their dedication. Others said that the god knew that Themistocles would become a suppliant of the Persian king, and refused to take the gifts so that Themistocles might not by a dedication render the Persian's enmity unappeasable. The expedition of the barbarian against Greece we find foretold in the oracles of Bacis, and Euclus wrote his verses about it at an even earlier date. ”

“ Brennus, without delaying any longer, began his march against Delphi without waiting for the army with Acichorius to join up. In terror the Delphians took refuge in the oracle. The god bade them not to be afraid, and promised that he would himself defend his own.
10.22.13 The Greeks who came in defence of the god were as follow: the Phocians, who came from all their cities; from Amphissa four hundred hoplites; from the Aetolians a few came at once on hearing of the advance of the barbarians, and later on Philomelus brought one thousand two hundred. ”

“ About twenty-seven stades distant from Panopeus is Daulis. The men there are few in number, but for size and strength no Phocians are more renowned even to this day. They say that the name of the city is derived from Daulis, a nymph, the daughter of the Cephisus. ”

“ In the fore-temple at Delphi are written maxims useful for the life of men, inscribed by those whom the Greeks say were sages. These were: from Ionia, Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene; of the Aeolians in Lesbos, Pittacus of Mitylene; of the Dorians in Asia, Cleobulus of Lindus; Solon of Athens and Chilon of Sparta; the seventh sage, according to the list of Plato, the son of Ariston, is not Periander, the son of Cypselus, but Myson of Chenae, a village on Mount Oeta. ”

“ The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans.
10.12.2 Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless she too was clearly born before the Trojan war, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe, and that for her sake the Greeks would capture Troy. The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. ”

“ At Boulis there is a spring called Saunium.
CIRRHA 10.37.4 The length of the road from Delphi to Cirrha, the port of Delphi, is sixty stades. Descending to the plain you come to a race-course, where at the Pythian games the horses compete. I have told in my account of Elis the story of the Taraxippus at Olympia, and it is likely that the race-course of Apollo too may possibly harm here and there a driver, for heaven in every activity of man bestows either better fortune or worse. ”

“ The more plump of these sucking babes the Gauls killed, drinking their blood and eating their flesh.
10.22.4 Women and adult maidens, if they had any spirit at all in them, anticipated their end when the city was captured. Those who survived suffered under imperious violence every form of outrage at the hands of men equally void of pity or of love. Every woman who chanced to find a Gallic sword committed suicide. The others were soon to die of hunger and want of sleep, the incontinent barbarians outraging them by turns, and sating their lust even on the dying and the dead. ”

“ The woman who is punishing him is skilled in poisonous and other drugs.
10.28.6 So it appears that in those days men laid the greatest stress on piety to the gods, as the Athenians showed when they took the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus at Syracuse; they moved none of the offerings, but left the Syracusan priest as their keeper. Datis the Persian too showed his piety in his address to the Delians, and in this act as well, when having found an image of Apollo in a Phoenician ship he restored it to the Tanagraeans at Delium. ”

“ The diseases of the Amphicleans themselves and of their neighbors are cured by means of dreams. The oracles of the god are given by the priest, who utters them when under the divine inspiration.
10.33.12 Fifteen stades away from Amphicleia is Tithronium, lying on a plain. It contains nothing remarkable. From Tithronium it is twenty stades to Drymaea. At the place where this road joins at the Cephisus the straight road from Amphicleia to Drymaea, the Tithronians have a grove and altars of Apollo. There has also been made a temple, but no image. ”