active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

“ A little further is a mound of earth, the tomb of Aristodemus, who though a tyrant was not robbed of the title of Good, and a temple of Athene called Inventive, because she is a goddess who invents various contrivances. And on the right of the road is an enclosure sacred to the North Wind, to whom the people of Megalopolis sacrifice annually, and they hold no god in higher honour than Boreas, as he was their preserver from Agis and the Lacedæmonians. ”

“ And there are some statues of Æsculapius in the temple in a standing position, and of Serapis and Isis apart in Pentelican marble. And they worship most of all Celestial Aphrodite: but men must not enter her temple. But into the temple of the Syrian goddess they may enter on stated days, but only after the accustomed rites and fasting. I have also seen another building in Ægira, in which there is a statue of Fortune with the horn of Amalthea, and next it a Cupid with wings: to symbolize to men that success in love is due to chance rather than beauty. ”

“ Those of the Ionians who dwelt at Aroe and Anthea and Mesatis had in common a grove and temple of Artemis Triclaria, and the Ionians kept her festival annually all night long. And the priestess of the goddess was a maiden, who was dismissed when she married. They have a tradition that once the priestess of the goddess was one Comætho, a most beautiful maiden, and that Melanippus was deeply in love with her, who in all other respects and in handsomeness of appearance outdid all of his own age. And as Melanippus won the maiden’s love as well, he asked her in marriage of her father. ”

“ And the people of Phlegyas in their folly and audacity stood aloof as time went on from the other Orchomenians, and attracted to themselves the neighbouring people: and eventually led an army against Delphi to plunder the temple, and when Philammon with some picked Argives came against them he and they were slain in the battle that ensued. That the people of Phlegyas more than the other Greeks delighted in war is shewn by the lines in the Iliad about Ares and Panic the son of Ares,
“They two armed themselves for battle with the Ephyri and the warriors of Phlegyas.” ”

“ On the right hand as you go out of the temple is a mirror fixed to the wall: if any one looks into this mirror, he will see himself very obscurely or not at all, but the statues of the goddesses and the throne he will see quite clearly. And by the temple of Despœna as you ascend a little to the right is the Hall, where the Arcadians perform her Mystic rites, and sacrifice to her victims in abundance. Each sacrifices what animal he has got: nor do they cut the throats of the victims as in other sacrifices, but each cuts off whatever limb of the victim he lights on. ”

“ There is also some purslane preserved in the temple of Hermes the Champion: for they fancy it was under this tree that Hermes was reared. And at no great distance is a theatre, and near it a portico. The people of Tanagra seem to honour their gods most of all the Greeks, for they keep their houses and temples apart, and their temples are in a pure place, and apart from men. And Corinna, the only Poetess of Tanagra, has a tomb in the town in a conspicuous place, and her painting is in the gymnasium, her head is adorned with a fillet because of her victory over Pindar at Thebes. ”

“ The deity has as it seems granted to things which are least esteemed the property of being masters of things held in the highest value. For pearls are melted by vinegar, and the adamant, which is the hardest of stones, is melted by goat’s blood. A horse’s hoof alone is proof against the water of the Styx, for if poured into a hoof the hoof is not broken. Whether Alexander the son of Philip really died of this poisonous water of the Styx I do not know, but there is a tradition to that effect. ”

“ No doubt one man will have less trouble than another, as one ship will suffer less from tempests than another ship: but that a man should always stand aloof from misfortune, or that a ship should never encounter a storm, is a thing which does not answer to human experience. Even Homer has represented one jar placed by Zeus full of blessings, and another full of woes, [31] instructed by the oracle at Delphi, which had informed him that he would be both unfortunate and fortunate, as born for both fortunes. ”

“ When any one desires to descend to the cave of Trophonius, he must first take up his residence for certain days in the temple of the Good Deity and Good Fortune. While he stays here he purifies himself in all other respects, and abstains from warm baths, and bathes in the river Hercyna, and has plenty of animal food from the various victims: for he must sacrifice to Trophonius and the sons of Trophonius, and also to Apollo and Cronos, and to Zeus the King, and to Hera the Chariot-driver, and to Demeter whom they call Europa, and who they say was the nurse of Trophonius. ”

“ I think indeed that if anyone were to travel into the remote parts of Libya or India or Arabia, wishing to find the wild animals that are to be found in Greece, he would not find them at all, but he would find others different. For it is not only man that changes his appearance in different climates and lands, but also everything else is subject to the same conditions, for the Libyan asps have the same colour as the Egyptian ones, while in Ethiopia the earth produces them as black as the men. ”

“ And the Roman envoys, when they discovered they were being deceived, returned to Rome. And Critolaus collected an army of Achæans at Corinth, and persuaded them to war against Sparta, and also to wage war at once against the Romans. When king and nation undertake war and are unsuccessful, it seems rather the malignity of some divine power than the fault of the originators of the war. But audacity and weakness combined should rather be called madness than want of luck. ”

“ It is the only animal we know of that men cannot hunt or see at a distance, but when they are engaged in hunting other animals sometimes the deity drives the elk into their hands. But it scents men they say at a great distance, and hides among the rocks and in the recesses of caves. Hunters therefore, when they have drawn a large net completely round a large district or even a mountain, so that nothing in that area can escape, among other animals that they catch when they draw the net tight capture occasionally the elk. ”

“ On the left of Copæ about 12 stades further you come to Olmones, about seven stades distant from which is Hyettus, villages both of them now as always, and I think formerly they as well as the plain Athamantium belonged to Orchomenus. The traditions I have heard about Hyettus the Argive, and Olmus the son of Sisyphus, I shall relate when I come to Orchomenus. There is nothing remarkable to be seen at Olmones, but at Hyettus there is a temple of Hercules, where those who are sick can obtain healing from him. The statue of the god is not artistic, but made of rude stone as in old times. ”

“ Thus the god at Dodona plainly exhorted men to respect suppliants. For to the Athenians in the days of Aphidas came the following message from Zeus at Dodona.
“Think of the Areopagus and the smoking altars of the Eumenides, for you must treat as suppliants the Lacedæmonians conquered in battle. Slay them not with the sword, harm not suppliants. Suppliants are inviolable.”
This the Greeks remembered when the Peloponnesians came to Athens, in the reign of Codrus the son of Melanthus. ”

“ And of the cities which were excessively wealthy of old, as Thebes in Egypt, and Orchomenus belonging to the Minyæ, and Delos the emporium of all Greece, the two former are hardly as wealthy as a man moderately well off, while Delos is actually without a population at all, if you do not reckon the Athenians who come to guard the temple. And of Babylon nothing remains but the temple of Bel and the walls, though it was the greatest city once that the sun shone upon, as nothing but its walls remain to Tiryns in Argolis. All these the deity has reduced to nothing. ”

“ A priestess conducts the ritual, and with her the youngest of the three citizens who are called Sacrificing Priests. Round the cave is a grove of oak trees, and warm water bubbles up from a spring. The statue made by Onatas was not there in my time, nor did most people at Phigalia know that it had ever existed, but the oldest of those I met with informed me that 3 generations before his time some stones from the roof fell on to it, and that it was crushed by them and altogether smashed up, and we can see plainly even now traces in the roof where the stones fell in. ”

“ For as to the Lacedæmonians, their reverse at Leuctra, and the gathering of the Arcadians at Megalopolis, and the vicinity of the Messenians on their borders, prevented their recovering their former prosperity. And the city of the Thebans had been so laid waste by Alexander, that not many years afterwards when they were reduced by Cassander, they were unable to protect themselves at all. And the Athenians had indeed the good will of all Greece for their famous actions, but that was no security to them in their war with the Macedonians. ”

“ But when Mummius led out his army to battle in turn, then the Achæan cavalry, which was opposite the Roman cavalry, ran immediately, not venturing to make one stand against the attack of the enemy’s cavalry. And the infantry, though dejected at the rout of the cavalry, stood their ground against the wedge-like attack of the Roman infantry, and though outnumbered and fainting under their wounds, yet resisted bravely, till 1,000 picked men of the Romans took them in flank, and so turned the battle into a complete rout of the Achæans. ”

“ And in every age many curious things have happened, and some of them have been made to appear incredible to many, though they really happened, by those who have grafted falsehood on to truth. For they say that after Lycaon a person became a wolf from a man at the Festival of Lycæan Zeus, but not for all his life: for whenever he was a wolf if he abstained from meat ten months he became a man again, but if he tasted meat he remained a beast. ”

“ CHAPTER XVII. Not far from the tomb of Æpytus is Cyllene the highest of the mountains in Arcadia, and the ruins of a temple of Cyllenian Hermes on the top of the mountain. It is clear that both the mountain and god got their title from Cyllen the son of Elatus. And men of old, as far as we can ascertain, had various kinds of wood out of which they made statues, as ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, yew, lotus. But the statue of Cyllenian Hermes is made of none of these but of the wood of the juniper tree. ”

“ Next to the temple of Ammon the Thebans have what is called Tiresias’ tower to observe the omens, and near it is a temple of Fortune carrying in her arms Wealth as a child. The Thebans say that Xenophon the Athenian made the hands and face of the statue, and Callistonicus a native of Thebes all the other parts. The idea is ingenious of putting Wealth in the hands of Fortune as her mother or nurse, as is also the idea of Cephisodotus who made for the Athenians a statue of Peace holding Wealth. ”

“ But the Romans and Persians did not equally honour the god, for the Romans in their piety to Apollo granted autonomy to the people of Abæ, but Xerxes’ army burnt the temple there. And though the Greeks resisted the barbarians, they did not think good to rebuild the temples that were burnt down, but to leave them for all time as records of national hatred: [149] and so the temples at Haliartia, and the temple of Hera at Athens on the way to Phalerum, and the temple of Demeter at Phalerum remain to this day half-burnt. ”

“ About 40 stades from the temple of Æsculapius are the precincts and shrine of Isis, and of all the Greek shrines to the Egyptian goddess this is the holiest: for neither do the people of Tithorea live near it, nor may any approach the shrine whom Isis herself has not previously honoured by inviting them in dreams. The gods of the lower world have the same practice in the towns near the Mæander, [Pg 282] they send visions in dreams to whoever they allow to approach their shrines. And twice every year, in Spring and Autumn, the people of Tithorea celebrate the Festival of Isis. ”

“ For the men who lived in those days were guests at the tables of the gods in consequence of their righteousness and piety, and those who were good clearly met with honour from the gods, and similarly those who were wicked with wrath, for the gods in those days were sometimes mortals who are still worshipped, as Aristæus, and Britomartis of Crete, and Hercules the son of Alcmena, and Amphiaraus the son of Œcles, and besides them Castor and Pollux. So one might well believe that Lycaon became a wolf, and Niobe the daughter of Tantalus a stone. ”

“ There are no steps to the bottom: but when any one descends to Trophonius, they furnish him with a narrow and light ladder. On the descent between top and bottom is an opening two spans broad and one high. He that descends lies flat at the bottom of the cavity, and, having in his hands cakes kneaded with honey, introduces into the opening first his feet and then his knees: and then all his body is sucked in, like a rapid and large river swallows up anyone who is sucked into its vortex. ”

“ And it was during the reign of Æchmis that the war broke out between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians. The Arcadians had always had a kindly feeling towards the Messenians, and now they openly fought against the Lacedæmonians in conjunction with Aristodemus king of Messenia. And Aristocrates, the son of Æchmis, acted insolently to his fellow-countrymen in various ways, but his great impiety to the gods I cannot pass over. ”

“ From Megalopolis, through what are called the gates to the marsh, is a way to Mænalus by the river Helisson. And on the left of the road is a temple of the Good God. And if the gods are the givers of good things to mortals, and Zeus is the chief of the gods, one would follow the tradition and conjecture that this is a title of Zeus. ”

“ The straight road, leading to Thyrea and the villages in the Thyreatic district, is memorable for containing the tomb of Orestes the son of Agamemnon, the people of Tegea say that a Spartan removed his remains from thence, but in our day there is no tomb within the walls. The river Garates also flows by the road, when you have crossed it and gone on ten stades you come to a temple of Pan, and near it an oak also sacred to Pan. ”

“ For its size and prosperity Sardinia is equal to the most celebrated islands. What its ancient name was among its original inhabitants I do not know, but the Greeks who sailed there for commerce called it Ichnusa, because its shape was like that of a man’s foot-print. Its length is about 1,120 stades and its breadth 470. The first that crossed over into the island were they say Libyans, their leader was Sardus, the son of that Maceris who was called Hercules by the Egyptians and Libyans. ”