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.

This fell upon the children, and Cleomedes, pelted with stones by the citizens, took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena. He entered a chest standing in the sanctuary and drew down the lid. The Astypalaeans toiled in vain in their attempts to open the chest. At last, however, they broke open the boards of the chest, but found no Cleomedes, either alive or dead. So they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what had happened to Cleomedes.

The response given by the Pythian priestess was, they say, as follows:—

  1. Last of heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea;
  2. Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal.
So from this time have the Astypalaeans paid honors to Cleomedes as to a hero.

By the side of the chariot of Gelon is dedicated a statue of Philon, the work of the Aeginetan Glaucias. About this Philon Simonides the son of Leoprepes composed a very neat elegiac couplet:

  1. My fatherland is Corcyra, and my name is Philon; I am
  2. The son of Glaucus, and I won two Olympic victories for boxing.
There is also a statue of Agametor of Mantineia, who beat the boys at boxing.

Next to those that I have enumerated stands Glaucus of Carystus. Legend has it that he was by birth from Anthedon in Boeotia, being descended from Glaucus the sea-deity. This Carystian was a son of Demylus, and they say that to begin with he worked as a farmer. The ploughshare one day fell out of the plough, and he fitted it into its place, using his hand as a hammer;

Demylus happened to be a spectator of his son's performance, and thereupon brought him to Olympia to box. There Glaucus, inexperienced in boxing, was wounded by his antagonists, and when he was boxing with the last of them he was thought to be fainting from the number of his wounds. Then they say that his father called out to him, “Son, the plough touch.” So he dealt his opponent a more violent blow which forthwith brought him the victory.

He is said to have won other crowns besides, two at Pytho, eight at the Nemean and eight at the Isthmian games. The statue of Glaucus was set up by his son, while Glaucias of Aegina made it. The statue represents a figure sparring, as Glaucus was the best exponent of the art of all his contemporaries. When he died the Carystians, they say, buried him in the island still called the island of Glaucus.