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 Olympiad460 B.C., but Oebotas won his victory in the footrace at the sixth Festival756 B.C.. How, therefore, could Oebotas have taken part in the Greek victory at Plataea? For it was in the seventy-fifth Olympiad479B.C. 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.See Paus. 7.17.6.
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 Aegospotami405 B.C., 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 Dorium394 B.C., 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.