Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XLIII.

They also lay claim to the possession of a mortuary-chapel of Iphigenia, for she too they say died at Megara. But I have heard a different account of Iphigenia from the Arcadians, and I know that Hesiod in his Catalogue of Women describes Iphigenia as not dying, but being changed into Hecate by the will of Artemis. And Herodotus[12] wrote not dissimilarly to this, that the Tauric people in Scythia after shipwreck sacrifice to a virgin, who is they say Iphigenia the daughter of Agamemnon. Adrastus also has divine honours among the Megarians: he too they say died among them (when he was leading the army back after the capture of Thebes), of old age and sorrow for the death of Ægialeus. And Agamemnon erected an altar to Artemis at Megara, when he went to Calchas, a native of the place, to persuade him to join the expedition to Ilium. And in the Prytaneum they say Euippus the son of Megareus was buried, and also Ischepolis the son of Alcathous. And there is a rock near the Prytaneum called The Calling Rock, because Demeter (if there is any truth in the tale), when she wandered about seeking her daughter, called out for her here. And the Megarian women still perform a kind of mimic representation of this. And the Megarians have tombs in the city: one they erected for those who fell fighting against the Medes, the other, called Æsymnian, is a monument to heroes. For when Hyperion, the last king of Megara, the son of Agamemnon, was killed by Sandion on account of his greed and haughtiness, they chose no longer to be under kingly government, but to have chief magistrates annually chosen, so as to be under one another’s authority by turn. Then it was that Æsymnus, second to none of the Megarians in fame and influence, went to Apollo at Delphi, and asked how they were to have prosperity. And the god among other things told them they would fare well if they deliberated on affairs with the majority. Thinking these words had reference to the dead, they built here a council chamber, that the tomb of the heroes might be inside their council chamber. As you go from thence to the hero-chapel of Alcathous, which the Megarians now use as a Record Office, there are two tombs, one they say of Pyrgo, the wife of Alcathous before he married Euæchma the daughter of Megareus, the other of Iphinoe the daughter of Alcathous, who they say died unmarried. At her tomb it is the custom of maidens before marriage to pour libations, and sacrifice some of their long hair, as the maidens of Delos used to do to Hecaerge and Opis. And near the entrance to the temple of Dionysus are the tombs of Astycratea and Manto, the daughters of Polyidus, (the son of Cœranus, the son of Abas, the son of Melampus,) who went to Megara, and purged Alcathous for the murder of his son Callipolis. And Polyidus also built the temple of Dionysus, and erected a statue of the god veiled in my day except the face: that is visible. And a Satyr is near Dionysus, the work of Praxiteles in Parian marble. And this they call Tutelary Dionysus, and another they call Dionysus Dasyllius (the Vine-ripener), and this statue they say was erected by Euchenor the son of Cœranus the son of Polyidus. And next to the temple of Dionysus is the shrine of Aphrodite, and a statue of the goddess in ivory, under the title Praxis (Action). This is the oldest statue in the shrine. And Persuasion and another goddess whom they call Consolation are by Praxiteles: and by Scopas Love and Desire and Yearning, each statue expressing the particular shade of meaning marked by the words. And near the shrine of Aphrodite is the temple of Chance: this too is by Praxiteles. And in the neighbouring temple Lysippus has made the Muses and a brazen Zeus.

The Megarians also have the tomb of Corœbus: the verses about him I shall relate here though they are also Argive intelligence. In the days when Crotopus was king in Argos, his daughter Psamathe they say had a child by Apollo, and being greatly afraid of her father knowing it exposed the child. And some sheep dogs of Crotopus lit upon the child and killed it, and Apollo sent upon the city Punishment, a monster who took children away from their mothers (they say), till Corœbus killed it to ingratiate himself with the Argives. And after killing it, as a second plague came on them and vexed them sore, Corœbus of his own accord went to Delphi, and offered to submit to the punishment of the god for killing Punishment. The Pythian priestess forbade Corœbus to return to Argos, but told him to carry a tripod from the temple, and wherever the tripod should fall, there he was to build a temple to Apollo and himself dwell. And the tripod slipt out of his hand and fell (without his contrivance) on the mountain Gerania, and there he built the village Tripodisci. And his tomb is in the market-place at Megara: and there are some elegiac verses on it that relate to Psamathe and Corœbus himself, and a representation on the tomb of Corœbus killing Punishment. These statues are the oldest Greek ones in stone that I have myself seen.