Description of Greece

Nearest to Damiscus stands a statue of somebody; they do not give his name, but it was Ptolemy son of Lagus who set up the offering. In the inscription Ptolemy calls himself a Macedonian, though he was king of Egypt. On Chaereas of Sicyon, a boy boxer, is an inscription that he won a victory when a young man, and that his father was Chaeremon; the name of the artist who made the statue is also written, Asterion son of Aeschylus.

After Chaereas are statues of a Messenian boy Sophius and of Stomius, a man of Elis. Sophius outran his boy competitors, and Stomius won a victory in the pentathlum at Olympia and three at the Nemean games. The inscription on his statue adds that, when commander of the Elean cavalry, he set up trophies and killed in single combat the general of the enemy, who had challenged him.

The Eleans say that the dead general was a native of Sicyon in command of Sicyonian troops, and that they themselves with the force from Boeotia attacked Sicyon out of friendship to the Thebans. So the attack of the Eleans and Thebans against Sicyon apparently took place after the Lacedaemonian disaster at Leuctra.

Next stands the statue of a boxer from Lepreus in Elis, whose name was Labax son of Euphron, and also that of Aristodemus, son of Thrasis, a boxer from Elis itself, who also won two victories at Pytho. The statue of Aristodemus is the work of Daedalus of Sicyon, the pupil and son of Patrocles.

The statue of Hippus of Elis, who won the boys' boxing-match, was made by Damocritus of Sicyon, of the school of Attic Critias, being removed from him by four generations of teachers. For Gritias himself taught Ptolichus of Corcyra, Amphion was the pupil of Ptolichus, and taught Pison of Calaureia, who was the teacher of Damocritus.

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 Olympiad[*](460 B.C.), but Oebotas won his victory in the footrace at the sixth Festival[*](756 B.C.). How, therefore, could Oebotas have taken part in the Greek victory at Plataea? For it was in the seventy-fifth Olympiad[*](479B.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.