Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XIX.

As to Cresphontes and the sons of Aristodemus there is nothing pressing to narrate about them. But Temenus openly made use of Deiphontes (the son of Antimachus, the son of Thrasyanor, the son of Ctesippus, the son of Hercules) as general for his battles instead of his sons, and made him his associate in all things, and gave him as wife his daughter Hyrnetho whom he loved more than all his children, and was suspected of intending to make her and Deiphontes his heirs in the kingdom. And for these reasons he was slain by his sons, and Cisus the eldest of them became king. But the Argives, who had from the most ancient times loved equality and home rule, reduced the kingly power so low, that Medon, the son of Cisus, and his descendants were left the royal title only. And Meltas the son of Lacedas, the 10th descendant of Medon, the people sentenced to deprivation of his kingdom altogether.

Of the temples in the city of the Argives the most notable is that of Lycian (Wolf-God) Apollo. The statue in our day was the work of an Athenian, Attalus, but originally the temple and wooden statue was the offering of Danaus. I think all statues were wooden in those days, and especially Egyptian ones. Now Danaus built a temple to Apollo the Wolf-God for the following reason. When he came to Argos, he and Gelanor the son of Sthenelas were rival competitors for the kingdom. And many ingratiating words having been spoken by both of them to the people, and Gelanor’s speech seeming rather the best, the people, they say, put off the decision to the next day. And at break of day a wolf attacked a herd of cattle that were feeding near the walls, and had a fierce encounter with the bull, the leader of the herd. And it occurred to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull, Danaus like the wolf, for just as this animal does not live with human beings so Danaus had not up to that time lived with them. And as the wolf mastered the bull, so Danaus got the kingdom. And he thinking that Apollo had sent that wolf against the herd, built a temple to Apollo the Wolf-God. In it is the throne of Danaus, and an image of Biton, the man who carried a bull on his shoulders (as Lyceas has represented), for, when the Argives were sacrificing to Zeus at Nemea, Biton took up a bull by sheer strength and carried it to the altar. And they light the fire close to this image, and they call it the fire of Phoroneus: for they do not admit that Prometheus gave fire to men, but they attribute the invention of fire to Phoroneus. Here also are wooden statues of Aphrodite and Hermes, the latter the work of Epeus, and the former the offering of Hypermnestra. For she, the only one of his daughters who disobeyed his cruel order, was brought to trial by Danaus, partly because he thought his own safety compromised by that of Lynceus, and partly because her not joining with her sisters in their atrocious deed augmented the disgrace of the contriver of the deed. And, being acquitted by the Argives, she erected as a votive offering in this temple a statue of Victorious Aphrodite. And there is inside the temple a statue of Ladas, who excelled all his contemporaries in fleetness of foot, and one of Hermes making a lyre out of a tortoise. And there is in front of the temple an amphitheatre with a representation of the fight between the bull and the wolf, and a maiden throwing a stone at the bull. They think this maiden represents Artemis. Danaus had all this constructed, and some pillars near, and wooden statues of Zeus and Artemis.

Here also are the tombs of Linus the son of Apollo, and of Psamathe the daughter of Crotopus, and this is that Linus they say who wrote poetry. I pass him by now as more meet to be discussed in another place, and as regards Psamathe I have already given a full account of her in what I have written about Megara. Next is a statue of Apollo the Guardian of the Streets, and the altar of Rainy Zeus, where those who conspired the return of Polynices to Thebes swore that they would die if unsuccessful in taking Thebes. As to the sepulchre of Prometheus, the Argives seem to me to give a less credible account than the Opuntians, but they stick to their account all the same.