Description of Greece

Pausanias

Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece, Volumes 1-4. Jones, W.H.S. (William Henry Samuel), translator; Ormerod, Henry Arderne, translator. London, New York: W. Heinemann, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918-1935.

The rules for the presidents of the games are not the same now as they were at the first institution of the festival. Iphitus acted as sole president, as likewise did the descendants of Oxylus after Iphitus. But at the fiftieth Festival two men, appointed by lot from all the Eleans, were entrusted with the management of the Olympic games, and for a long time after this the number of the presidents continued to be two.

But at the ninety-fifth Festival nine umpires were appointed. To three of them were entrusted the chariot-races, another three were to supervise the pentathlum, the rest superintended the remaining contests. At the second Festival after this the tenth umpire was added. At the hundred and third Festival, the Eleans having twelve tribes, one umpire was chosen from each.

But they were hard pressed in a war with the Arcadians and lost a portion of their territory, along with all the parishes included in the surrendered district, and so the number of tribes was reduced to eight in the hundred and fourth Olympiad. Thereupon were chosen umpires equal in number to the tribes. At the hundred and eighth Festival they returned again to the number of ten umpires, which has continued unchanged down to the present day.

Many are the sights to be seen in Greece, and many are the wonders to be heard; but on nothing does Heaven bestow more care than on the Eleusinian rites and the Olympic games.The sacred grove of Zeus has been called from of old Altis, a corruption of the word “alsos,” which means a grove. Pindar[*](Pind. O. 10.55) too calls the place Altis in an ode composed for an Olympic victor.

The temple and the image were made for Zeus from spoils, when Pisa was crushed in war by the Eleans[*](circa 570 B.C.), and with Pisa such of the subject peoples as conspired together with her. The image itself was wrought by Pheidias, as is testified by an inscription written under the feet of Zeus:

  1. Pheidias, son of Charmides, an Athenian, made me.
The temple is in the Doric style, and the outside has columns all around it. It is built of native stone.

Its height up to the pediment is sixty-eight feet, its breadth is ninety-five, its length two hundred and thirty. The architect was Libon, a native. The tiles are not of baked earth, but of Pentelic marble cut into the shape of tiles. The invention is said to be that of Byzes of Naxos, who they say made the images in Naxos on which is the inscription:—

  1. To the offspring of Leto was I dedicated by Euergus,
  2. A Naxian, son of Byzes, who first made tiles of stone.
This Byzes lived about the time of Alyattes the Lydian[*](609-560 B.C.), when Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, reigned over the Medes.

At Olympia a gilt caldron stands on each end of the roof, and a Victory, also gilt, is set in about the middle of the pediment. Under the image of Victory has been dedicated a golden shield, with Medusa the Gorgon in relief. The inscription on the shield declares who dedicated it and the reason why they did so. It runs thus:—

  1. The temple has a golden shield; from Tanagra
  2. The Lacedaemonians and their allies dedicated it,
  3. A gift taken from the Argives, Athenians and Ionians,
  4. The tithe offered for victory in war.
This battle I also mentioned in my history of Attica,[*](See Paus. 1.29.) Then I described the tombs that are at Athens.

On the outside of the frieze that runs round the temple at Olympia, above the columns, are gilt shields one and twenty in number, an offering made by the Roman general Mummius when he had conquered the Achaeans in war, captured Corinth, and driven out its Dorian inhabitants.