Description of Greece

The place called Hierothesion by the Messenians contains statues of all the gods whom the Greeks worship, and also a bronze image of Epaminondas. Ancient tripods are dedicated there, which “have felt not the fire,” as Homer says.[*](Hom. Il. 10.122) The statues in the gymnasium are the work of Egyptian artists. They represent Hermes, Heracles and Theseus, who are honored in the gymnasium and wrestling-ground according to a practice universal among Greeks, and now common among barbarians...

I learnt by enquiry that Aethidas was a man older than myself, who gained influence through his wealth and is honored by the Messenians as a hero. There are certain Messenians, who, while admitting that Aethidas was a man of great wealth, maintain that it is not he who is represented on the relief but an ancestor and namesake. The elder Aethidas was their leader, when Demetrius the son of Philip and his force surprised them in the night and succeeded in penetrating into the town unnoticed.

There is also the tomb of Aristomenes here. They say that it is not a cenotaph, but when I asked whence and in what manner they recovered the bones of Aristomenes, they said that they sent to Rhodes for them, and that it was the god of Delphi who ordered it. They also instructed me in the nature of the rites carried out at the tomb. The bull which is to be offered to the dead man is brought to the tomb and bound to the pillar which stands upon the grave. Being fierce and unused to bonds he will not stand; and if the pillar is moved by his struggles and bounds, it is a good omen to the Messenians, but if the pillar is not moved the sign portends misfortune.

They have it that Aristomenes was present at the battle of Leuctra, though no longer among men, and say that he helped the Thebans and was the chief cause of the Lacedaemonian disaster. I know that the Chaldaeans and Indian sages were the first to say that the soul of man is immortal, and have been followed by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato the son of Ariston. If all are willing to accept this, this too cannot be denied, that his hatred for the Lacedaemonians was imparted to Aristomenes for all time.

What I myself heard in Thebes gives probability to the Messenian account, although it does not coincide in all respects. The Thebans say that when the battle of Leuctra was imminent, they sent to other oracles and to enquire of the god of Lebadeia. The replies of the Ismenian and Ptoan Apollo are recorded, also the responses given at Abae and at Delphi. Trophonius, they say, answered in hexameters:—

1. Or ever ye join battle with the foe, set up a trophy and deck it with my shield, which impetuous Aristomenes the Messenian placed in my temple. And I will destroy the host of foemen bearing shield.

When the oracle was brought, they say that Epaminondas urged Xenocrates, who sent for the shield of Aristomenes and used it to adorn a trophy in a spot where it could be seen by the Lacedaemonians. Those of them who had seen the shield at Lebadeia in peace-time knew it, and all knew it by repute. After their victory the Thebans restored the offering to Trophonius. There is also a bronze statue of Aristomenes in the Messenian running-ground. Not far from the theater is a sanctuary of Sarapis and Isis.

On the ascent to the summit of Ithome, which is the Messenian acropolis, is a spring Clepsydra. It is a hopeless task, however zealously undertaken, to enumerate all the peoples who claim that Zeus was born and brought up among them. The Messenians have their share in the story for they too say that the god was brought up among them and that his nurses were Ithome and Neda, the river having received its name from the latter, while the former, Ithome, gave her name to the mountain. These nymphs are said to have bathed Zeus here, after he was stolen by the Curetes owing to the danger that threatened from his father, and it is said that it has its name from the Curetes' theft. Water is carried every day from the spring to the sanctuary of Zeus of Ithome.

The statue of Zeus is the work of Ageladas[*](See also Paus. 6.8.6; Paus. 6.10.6; Paus. 6.14.11, where the athletes commemorated were victorious between the years 520 and 508 B.C. An inscription from Olympia (c. 500 B.C.; Inschr. v. Olymp., 631) mentions the slave or son of Hagelaidas the Argive. The Scholiast on Aristoph. Frogs 504, who calls Ageladas the master of Pheidias, states, however, that he was the artist who made the Heracles set up in Melite to commemorate the deliverance from the “great plague” (430-427 B.C. Cf. Pliny NH 34.49).) and was made originally for the Messenian settlers in Naupactus. The priest is chosen annually and keeps the image in his house.[*](Cf. Paus. 7.24.4) They keep an annual festival, the Ithomaea, and originally a musical contest was held. This can be gathered from the epic lines of Eumelus and other sources. Eumelus, in his processional hymn to Delos, says:

1. For dear to the God of Ithome was the Muse, whose [lute] is pure and free her sandals.

At the Arcadian gate leading to Megalopolis is a Herm of Attic style; for the square form of Herm is Athenian, and the rest adopted it thence. After a descent of thirty stades from the gate is the watercourse of Balyra. The river is said to have got its name from Thamyris throwing (ballein) his lyre away here after his blinding. He was the son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope, who once dwelt on Parnassus, but settled among the Odrysae when pregnant, for Philammon refused to take her into his house. Thamyris is called an Odrysian and Thracian on these grounds. The watercourses Leucasia and Amphitos unite to form one stream.

When these are crossed, there is a plain called the plain of Stenyclerus. Stenyclerus was a hero, it is said. Facing the plain is a site anciently called Oechalia, in our time the Carnasian grove, thickly grown with cypresses. There are statues of the gods Apollo Carneius [and Hagne], also Hermes carrying a ram. Hagne (the holy one) is a title of Kore the daughter of Demeter. Water rises from a spring close to the statue.

I may not reveal the rites of the Great Goddesses, for it is their mysteries which they celebrate in the Carnasian grove, and I regard them as second only to the Eleusinian in sanctity. But my dream did not prevent me from making known to all that the brazen urn, discovered by the Argive general, and the bones of Eurytus the son of Melaneus were kept here. A river Charadrus flows past the grove;

about eight stades along the road to the left are the ruins of Andania. The guides agree that the city got its name from a woman Andania, but I can say nothing as to her parents or her husband. On the road from Andania towards Cyparissiae is Polichne, as it is called, and the streams of Electra and Coeus. The names perhaps are to be connected with Electra the daughter of Atlas and Coeus the father of Leto, or Electra and Coeus may be two local heroes.