CHAPTER XII.
And at no great distance is a brazen chariot and a man in it, and some race-horses are on each side of it, and boys on the horses. They are memorials of the victories in the Olympian contests of Hiero the son of Dinomenes, the tyrant of Syracuse after his brother Gelon. They were not however sent by Hiero, but Dinomenes the son of Hiero offered them to the god. The chariot is by Onatas the Æginetan, and the horses on both sides and the boys on them are by Calamis.
And next to the chariot of Hiero is Hiero the son of Hierocles, of the same name as the son of Dinomenes, and also himself tyrant of Syracuse. This Hiero after the death of Agathocles, the former tyrant of Syracuse, rose to the same power in the second year of the 126th Olympiad, in which Idæus of Cyrene won in the stadium. This Hiero had friendly relations with Pyrrhus the son of Æacides and became his kinsman by marriage, Gelon his son marrying Nereis Pyrrhus’ daughter. And when the Romans fought with the Carthaginians for the possession of Sicily the Carthaginians had more than half the island, and on the commencement of the war Hiero resolved to throw in his lot with the Carthaginians, but in no long time thinking the Roman power stronger and likely to be more lasting he joined them. He was assassinated by Dinomenes, a Syracusan who had an especial hatred to tyranny, and who afterwards endeavoured to kill Hippocrates the brother of Epicydes, who had just come to Syracuse from Erbessus and was endeavouring to talk over the people. But he defended himself, and some of his guards came up and cut Dinomenes to pieces. And the statues of Hiero in Olympia, one on horseback and the other on foot, were erected by his sons, and made by the Syracusan Mico the son of Niceratus.
And next to the statues of Hiero are Areus, the son of Acrotatus, king of the Lacedæmonians, and Aratus the son of Clinias, and a second one of Areus on horseback: that of Aratus is the votive offering of the Corinthians, that of Areus of the men of Elis. Of both Aratus and Areus I have given an account earlier in this work. Aratus was also proclaimed victor at Olympia in the chariot-race. And Timon, the son of Ægyptus, who entered horses at Olympia, a native of Elis, has a brazen chariot, and on it a maiden who I think is Victory. And Callon the son of Harmodius and Hippomachus the son of Moschion, both of Elis and victors among boys in the boxing, have statues, Callon’s is by Daippus, we do not know who designed Hippomachus’, but they say he wrestled down three antagonists and received no blow or hurt. And the inscription on the chariot states that Theochrestus of Cyrene, (who trained horses according to the national custom of the Libyans), and his grandfather also of the same name, had victories with their horses at Olympia, and that the father of Theochrestus was victorious at the Isthmian games. And that Agesarchus of Tritæa the son of Hæmostratus beat men in boxing at the Olympian, Nemean, Pythian and Isthmian games is stated in an elegiac couplet, which also states untruly, as I have discovered, that the people of Tritæa are Arcadians. For of the towns that have attained celebrity in Arcadia all about their founders is well known, and those that were obscure from their origin, and lost their population through their weakness, were absorbed into Megalopolis by a decree from the commonalty of the Arcadians. Nor can we find any other Tritæa in Greece but the one in Achaia. One would infer therefore that the people of Tritæa were reckoned among the Arcadians, as now some of the Arcadians are reckoned in Argolis. And the statue of Agesarchus is by the sons of Polycles, of whom we shall make mention later on.