Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

The land about Oropus between Attica and Tanagra, which originally belonged to Bœotia, is now Athenian. The Athenians fought for it continually, but got no firm hold of it till Philip gave it them after the capture of Thebes. The city is near the sea and has played no great part in history: about 12 stades from it is the temple of Amphiaraus. And it is said that, when Amphiaraus fled from Thebes, the earth opened and swallowed up him and his chariot: but it did not they say happen here but at a place called Harma (Chariot), on the way from Thebes to Chalcis. And the Oropians first made Amphiaraus a god, and since all the Greeks have so accounted him. I can mention others who were once men, who have honours paid to them as gods, and cities dedicated to them, as Eleus in the Chersonese to Protesilaus, and Lebadea in Bœotia to Trophonius: so Amphiaraus has a temple at Oropus, and a statue in white stone. And the altar has five divisions: one belongs to Hercules and Zeus and Pæonian Apollo, and another is dedicated to heroes and heroes’ wives. And the third belongs to Vesta and Hermes and Amphiaraus and the sons of Amphilochus: but Alcmæon, owing to the murder of Eriphyle, has no honour with Amphiaraus, nor with Amphilochus. And the fourth division of the altar belongs to Aphrodite and Panacea, and also to Jason and Hygiea and Pæonian Athene. And the fifth has been set apart for the Nymphs and Pan, and the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. And Amphilochus has also an altar at Athens, and at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle most veracious even in my day. And the Oropians have a fountain near the temple, which they call Amphiaraus’, but they neither sacrifice at it, nor use it for lustrations or washing their hands. But when any disease has been cured by means of the oracle, then it is customary to throw into the fountain some gold or silver coin: and here they say Amphiaraus became a god. And the Gnossian Iophon, one of the interpreters of Antiquities, has preserved some oracular responses of Amphiaraus in Hexameters, given he says to the Argives who were despatched to Thebes. These lines had irresistible attraction for the general public. Now besides those who are said of old to have been inspired by Apollo, there was no oracle-giving seer, but there were people good at explaining dreams, and inspecting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims. Amphiaraus was I think especially excellent in divination by dreams: and it is certain when he became a god that he instituted divination by dreams. And whoever comes to consult Amphiaraus has first (such is the custom) to purify himself, that is to sacrifice to the god. They sacrifice then to all the other gods whose names are on the altar. And after all these preliminary rites, they sacrifice a ram, and wrapping themselves up in its skin go to sleep, and expect divine direction through a dream.

CHAPTER XXXV.

And the Athenians have various islands not far from Attica, one called after Patroclus, about which I have already given an account, and another a little beyond Sunium, as you sail leaving Attica on the left: here they say Helen landed after the capture of Ilium, so the Island is called Helena. And Salamis lies over against Eleusis and extends towards Megaris. The name Salamis was they say originally given to this island from Salamis the mother of Asopus, and afterwards the Æginetans under Telamon inhabited the island: and Philæus, the son of Eurysaces and grandson of Ajax, became an Athenian and handed it over to Athens. And many years afterwards the Athenians expelled the people of Salamis, condemning them for having been slack of duty in the war with Cassander, and for having surrendered their city to the Macedonians more from choice than compulsion: and Ascetades (who had been chosen as Governor of Salamis) they condemned to death, and swore that for all time they would remember this treason of the people of Salamis. And there are yet ruins of the market, and a temple of Ajax, and his statue in ebony. And divine honours are to this day paid by the Athenians to Ajax and Eurysaces: the latter has also an altar at Athens. And a stone is shown at Salamis not far from the harbour: on which they say Telamon sate and gazed at the vessel in which his sons were sailing away to Aulis, to join the general expedition of the Greeks against Ilium. And the natives of Salamis say that after the death of Ajax a flower first appeared on their island: white and red, smaller than the lily especially in its petals, with the same letters on it as the hyacinth.[8] And I have heard the tradition of the Æolians (who afterwards inhabited Ilium) as to the controversy about the arms of Achilles, and they say that after the shipwreck of Odysseus these arms were washed ashore by the sea near the tomb of Ajax. And some particulars as to his great size were given me by a Mysian. He told me that the sea washed his tomb which was on the seashore, and made entrance to it easy, and he bade me conjecture the huge size of his body by the following detail. His kneepans, (which the doctors call mills,) were the size of the quoits used by any lad practising for the Pentathlum. I do not wonder at the size of those who are called Cabares, who, remotest of the Celts, live in a region thinly peopled from the extreme cold, for their corpses are not a bit bigger than Egyptian ones. I will now relate some remarkable cases of dead bodies. Among the Magnesians at Lethæus one of the citizens, called Protophanes, was victor on the same day at Olympia in the pancratium and in the wrestling: some robbers broke into his tomb, thinking to find something valuable there, and after them came others to see his corpse: his ribs were not separated as is usual, but he was all bone from his shoulders to the lowest ribs, which are called by the doctors false ribs. And the Milesians have in front of their city the island Lade, which breaks off into two little islands, one of which is called Asterius. And they say that Asterius was buried here, and that he was the son of Anax, and Anax was the son of Earth: his corpse is two cubits, no less. The following circumstance also appears to me wonderful. In Upper Lydia there is a small town called the Gates of Temenus. Some bones were discovered here, when a piece of cliff broke off in a storm, in shape like those of a man, but on account of their size no one would have thought them a man’s. And forthwith a rumour spread among the populace that it was the dead body of Geryon the son of Chrysaor, and that a man’s seat fashioned in stone on the hillside was his seat. And they called the mountain torrent Oceanus, and said that people ploughing often turned up horns of oxen, for the story goes that Geryon bred most excellent oxen. But when I opposed their theory, and proved to them that Geryon lived at Gades, and that he has no known tomb but a tree of various forms, hereupon the Lydian Antiquarians told the real truth, that it was the dead body of Hyllus, and that Hyllus was the son of Earth, and gave his name to the river Hyllus. They said also that Hercules on account of his former intercourse with Omphale called his son Hyllus after the same river.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

At Salamis, to return to my subject, there is a temple of Artemis, and a trophy erected for the victory which Themistocles the son of Neocles won for the Greeks. There is also a temple to Cychreus. For when the Athenians were fighting the naval engagement with the Persians it is said that a dragon was seen in the Athenian fleet, and the oracle informed the Athenians that it was the hero Cychreus. And there is an island facing Salamis called Psyttalea, on which they say as many as 400 Persians landed: who after the defeat of Xerxes’ fleet were they say slain by the Greeks who passed over into Psyttalea. There is not one statue in the island which is a work of art, but there are some rude images of Pan made anyhow.

And as you go to Eleusis from Athens, by the way which the Athenians call the Sacred Way, is the tomb of Anthemocritus, to whom the Megarians acted most unscrupulously, inasmuch as they killed him though he came as a herald, to announce to them that henceforth they were not to cultivate the sacred land. And for this act of theirs the wrath of the two goddesses[9] still abides, since they are the only Greeks that the Emperor Adrian was not able to aggrandise. And next to the column of Anthemocritus is the tomb of Molottus, who was chosen as General of the Athenians when they crossed over into Eubœa to the aid of Plutarch. And near this is a village called Scirus for the following reason. When the people of Eleusis were at war with Erechtheus, a prophet came from Dodona Scirus by name, who also built at Phalerum the old temple of Sciradian Athene. And as he fell in battle the Eleusinians buried him near a mountain torrent, and both the village and torrent get their name from the hero. And near is the tomb of Cephisodorus, who was the leader of the people, and especially opposed Philip the son of Demetrius, the king of the Macedonians. And Cephisodorus got as allies for the Athenians the Mysian king Attalus, and the Egyptian king Ptolemy, and independent nations as the Ætolians, and islanders as the Rhodians and Cretans. And as the succours from Egypt and Mysia and Crete came for the most part too late, and as the Rhodians (fighting by sea only) could do little harm to heavy-armed soldiers like the Macedonians, Cephisodorus sailed for Italy with some of the Athenians, and begged the Romans to aid them. And they sent them a force and a general, who so reduced Philip and the Macedonians that eventually Perseus, the son of Philip, lost his kingdom, and was carried to Italy as a captive. This Philip was the son of Demetrius: who was the first of the family who was king of Macedonia, after slaying Alexander the son of Cassander, as I have before related.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

And next to the tomb of Cephisodorus are buried Heliodorus the Aliensian, (you may see a painting of him in the large temple of Athene): and Themistocles the son of Poliarchus, the great grandson of the Themistocles that fought the great sea-fight against Xerxes and the Medes. All his other descendants except Acestius I shall pass by. But she the daughter of Xenocles, the son of Sophocles, the son of Leo, had the good fortune to have all her ancestors torchbearers even up to her great grandfather Leo, and in her life she saw first her brother Sophocles a torchbearer, and after him her husband Themistocles, and after his death her son Theophrastus. Such was the good fortune she is said to have had.

And as you go a little further is the grove of the hero Lacius, who gives his name to a township. There too is the tomb of Nicocles of Tarentum, who won the greatest fame of all harpers. There is also an altar to Zephyrus, and a temple of Demeter and Proserpine: Athene and Poseidon have joint honours with them. Here they say Phytalus received Demeter into his house, and the goddess gave him in return a fig tree. My account is confirmed by the inscription on Phytalus’ tomb.

“Here Phytalus king-hero once received