Description of Greece

As you pass by the entrance to the Council Chamber you see an image of Zeus standing with no inscription on it, and then on turning to the north another image of Zeus. This is turned towards the rising sun, and was dedicated by those Greeks who at Plataea fought against the Persians under Mardonius.[*](479 B.C.) On the right of the pedestal are inscribed the cities which took part in the engagement: first the Lacedaemonians, after them the Athenians, third the Corinthians, fourth the Sicyonians,

fifth the Aeginetans; after the Aeginetans, the Megarians and Epidaurians, of the Arcadians the people of Tegea and Orchomenus, after them the dwellers in Phlius, Troezen and Hermion, the Tirynthians from the Argolid, the Plataeans alone of the Boeotians, the Argives of Mycenae, the islanders of Ceos and Melos, Ambraciots of the Thesprotian mainland, the Tenians and the Lepreans, who were the only people from Triphylia, but from the Aegean and the Cyclades there came not only the Tenians but also the Naxians and Cythnians, Styrians too from Euboea, after them Eleans, Potidaeans, Anactorians, and lastly the Chalcidians on the Euripus.

Of these cities the following are at the present day uninhabited: Mycenae and Tiryns were destroyed by the Argives after the Persian wars. The Ambraciots and Anactorians, colonists of Corinth, were taken away by the Roman emperor[*](Augustus) to help to found Nicopolis near Actium. The Potidaeans twice suffered removal from their city, once at the hands of Philip, the son of Amyntas[*](356 B.C.), and once before this at the hands of the Athenians[*](430-429 B.C.). Afterwards, however, Cassander restored the Potidaeans to their homes, but the name of the city was changed from Potidaea to Cassandreia after the name of its founder[*](316 B.C.). The image at Olympia dedicated by the Greeks was made by Anaxagoras of Aegina. The name of this artist is omitted by the historians of Plataea.

In front of this Zeus there is a bronze slab, on which are the terms of the Thirty-years Peace between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. The Athenians made this peace after they had reduced Euboea for the second time, in the third year of the eighty-third Olympiad, when Crison of Himera won the foot-race[*](446-445 B.C.). One of the articles of the treaty is to the effect that although Argos has no part in the treaty between Athens and Sparta, yet the Athenians and the Argives may privately, if they wish, be at peace with each other. Such are the terms of this treaty.

There is yet another image of Zeus dedicated beside the chariot of Cleosthenes. This chariot I will describe later; the image of Zeus was dedicated by the Megarians, and made by the brothers Psylacus and Onaethus with the help of their sons. About their date, their nation and their master, I can tell you nothing.

By the chariot of Gelon stands an ancient Zeus holding a scepter which is said to be an offering of the Hyblaeans. There were two cities in Sicily called Hybla, one surnamed Gereatis and the other Greater, it being in fact the greater of the two. They still retain their old names, and are in the district of Catana. Greater Hybla is entirely uninhabited, but Gereatis is a village of Catana, with a sanctuary of the goddess Hyblaea which is held in honor by the Sicilians. The people of Gereatis, I think, brought the image to Olympia. For Philistus, the son of Archomenides, says that they were interpreters of portents and dreams, and more given to devotions than any other foreigners in Sicily.

Near the offering of the Hyblaeans has been made a pedestal of bronze with a Zeus upon it, which I conjecture to be about eighteen feet high. The donors and sculptors are set forth in elegiac verse:—

1. The Cleitorians dedicated this image to the god, a tithe
2. From many cities that they had reduced by force.
3. The sculptors were Aristo and Telestas,
4. Own brothers and Laconians.[*](The last two verses are corrupt in all our MSS. No emendation has been proposed which can be considered satisfactory, and I will not venture on one of my own. But the general sense must be such as I have indicated.)

By the side of the altar of Zeus Laoetas and Poseidon Laoetas is a Zeus on a bronze pedestal. The people of Corinth gave it and Musus made it, whoever this Musus may have been. As you go from the Council Chamber to the great temple there stands on the left an image of Zeus, crowned as it were with flowers, and with a thunderbolt set in his right hand. It is the work of Ascarus of Thebes, a pupil of Canachus of Sicyon. The inscription on it says that it is a tithe from the war between Phocis and Thessaly.

If the Thessalians went to war with Phocis and dedicated the offering from Phocian plunder, this could not have been the so-called “Sacred War,”[*](355-346 B.C.) but must have been a war between the two States previous to the invasion of Greece by the Persians under their king. Not far from this is a Zeus, which, as is declared by the verse inscribed on it, was dedicated by the Psophidians for a success in war.

On the right of the great temple is a Zeus facing the rising of the sun, twelve feet high and dedicated, they say, by the Lacedaemonians, when they entered on a war with the Messenians after their second revolt. On it is an elegiac couplet:

1. Accept, king, son of Cronus, Olympian Zeus, a lovely image,
2. And have a heart propitious to the Lacedaemonians.

We know of no Roman, either commoner or senator, who gave a votive offering to a Greek sanctuary before Mummius, and he dedicated at Olympia a bronze Zeus from the spoils of Achaia[*](146 B.C.). It stands on the left of the offering of the Lacedaemonians by the side of the first pillar on this side of the temple. The largest of the bronze images of Zeus in the Altis is twenty-seven feet high, and was dedicated by the Eleans themselves from the plunder of the war with the Arcadians.

Beside the Pelopium is a pillar of no great height with a small image of Zeus on it; one hand is outstretched. Opposite this are other offerings in a row, and likewise images of Zeus and Ganymedes. Homer's poem[*](Hom. Il. 5.265 foll. and Hom. Il. 20.231 foll.) tells how Ganymedes was carried off by the gods to be wine-bearer to Zeus, and how horses were given to Tros in exchange for him. This offering was dedicated by the Thessalian Gnathis and made by Aristocles, pupil and son of Cleoetas.[*](Cleoetas probably flourished in the early part of the fifth century B.C.)