Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

There is also another citadel at Megara that gets its name from Alcathous. As one goes up to it, there is on the right hand a monument of Megareus, who started from Onchestus to aid the Megarians in the Cretan War. There is also shown an altar of the gods called Prodromi: and they say that Alcathous first sacrificed to them when he was commencing to build his wall. And near this altar is a stone, on which they say Apollo put his harp down, while he assisted Alcathous in building the wall. And the following fact proves that the Megarians were numbered among the Athenians: Peribœa the daughter of Alcathous was certainly sent by him to Crete with Theseus in connection with the tribute. And Apollo, as the Megarians say, assisted him in building the wall, and laid his harp down on the stone: and if one chances to hit it with a pebble, it sounds like a harp being played. This inspired great wonder in me, but not so much as the Colossus in Egypt. At Thebes in Egypt, when you cross the Nile, at a place called the Pipes (Syringes), there is a seated statue that has a musical sound, most people call it Memnon: for he they say went from Ethiopia to Egypt and even to Susa. But the Thebans say it was a statue not of Memnon, but Phamenophes a Theban, and I have heard people say it was Sesostris. This statue Cambyses cut in two: and now the head to the middle of the body lies on the ground, but the lower part remains in a sitting posture, and every morning at sunrise resounds with melody, and the sound it most resembles is that of a harp or lyre with a chord broken.

And the Megarians have a council chamber, which was once as they say the tomb of Timalcus, who, as I said a little time back, was killed by Theseus. And on the hill where the citadel stands is a temple of Athene, and a brazen statue of the goddess, except the hands and the toes, which as well as the face are of ivory. And there is another temple here of Athene called Victory, and another of her as Aiantis. As regards the latter, all mention of it is passed over by the interpreters of curiosities at Megara, but I will write my own ideas. Telamon the son of Æacus married Peribœa the daughter of Alcathous. I imagine then that Aias, having succeeded to the kingdom of Alcathous, made this statue of Athene Aiantis.

The old temple of Apollo was made of brick: but afterwards the Emperor Adrian built it of white stone. The statues called Apollo Pythius and Apollo Decataphorus are very like Egyptian statues, but the one they call Archegetes is like Æginetan handiwork. And all alike are made of ebony. I heard a Cyprian, a cunning herbalist, say that the ebony has neither leaves nor fruit, and that it is never seen exposed to the sun, but its roots are underground, and the Ethiopians dig them up, and there are men among them who know how to find it. There is also a temple of Law-giving Demeter. And as you go down from thence is the tomb of Callipolis the son of Alcathous. Alcathous had also an elder son called Ischepolis, whom his father sent to assist Meleager in Ætolia against the Calydonian boar. And when he was killed Callipolis heard the news first in this place: and he ran to the citadel, where his father was sacrificing to Apollo, and threw down the wood from the altar. And Alcathous, not having yet heard the news about Ischepolis, was vexed with Callipolis for his irreverence, and in his wrath killed him instantaneously by striking him on the head with one of the pieces of wood he had thrown down from the altar.

On the road to the Prytaneum there is a hero-chapel of Ino, and a cornice of stone round it. Some olive-trees also grow there. The Megarians are the only Greeks that say that the dead body of Ino was cast on the shore of Megaris, and that Cleso and Tauropolis, the daughters of Cleso and granddaughters of Lelex, found it and buried it. And they say that Ino was called by them first Leucothea, and they sacrifice to her every year.

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.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Next Corœbus is buried Orsippus, who, though the athletes according to olden custom had girdles round their loins, ran naked at Olympia in the race and won the prize. And they say that he afterwards as general cut off a slice of his neighbours’ territory. But I think at Olympia he dropped his girdle on purpose, knowing that it is easier for a man to run naked than with a girdle on. And as you descend from the market-place by the way called Straight, there is on the right hand a temple of Protecting Apollo: you can find it by turning a little out of the way. And there is in it a statue of Apollo well worth seeing, and an Artemis and Leto, and other statues, and Leto and her sons by Praxiteles. And there is in the ancient gymnasium, near the gates called Nymphades, a stone in shape like a small pyramid. This they call Apollo Carinus, and there is here a temple to Ilithyia also. Such are the notable things the city contains. And as you descend to the dockyard, which is still called Nisæa, is a temple of Demeter the Wool-bearer. Several explanations are given of this title, among them that those who first reared sheep in this country gave her that name. And one would conjecture that the roof had fallen from the temple by the lapse of time. There is here also a citadel called Nisæa. And as you descend from it there is near the sea a monument of Lelex the king, who is said to have come from Egypt, and to have been the son of Poseidon by Libye the daughter of Epaphus. There is an island too near Nisæa of no great size called Minoa. Here the navy of the Cretans was moored in the war with Nisus. And the mountainous part of Megaris is on the borders of Bœotia, and contains two towns, Pagæ and Ægosthena. As you go to Pagæ, if you turn a little off from the regular road, there is shewn the rock which has arrows fixed in it everywhere, into which the Medes once shot in the night. At Pagæ too well worth seeing is a brazen statue of Artemis under the title of Saviour, in size and shape like the statues of the goddess at Megara. There is also here a hero-chapel of Ægialeus the son of Adrastus. He, when the Argives marched against Thebes the second time, was killed in the first battle at Glisas, and his relations carried him to Pagæ in Megaris, and buried him there, and the hero-chapel is still called after his name. And at Ægosthena is a temple of Melampus the son of Amythaon, and a man of no great size is carved on a pillar. And they sacrifice to Melampus and have a festival to him every year. But they say that he has no prophetic powers either in dreams or in any other way. And I also heard at Erenea a village of Megaris, that Autonoe the daughter of Cadmus, excessively grieving at the death of Actæon, and the circumstances of it which tradition records, and the general misfortunes of her father’s house, migrated there from Thebes: and her tomb is in that village.

And as you go from Megara to Corinth there are several tombs, and among them that of the Samian flute-player Telephanes. And they say that this tomb was erected by Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip the son of Amyntas. And there is a monument of Car the son of Phoroneus, originally only a mound of earth, but afterwards in consequence of the oracle it was beautified with a shell-like stone. And the Megarians are the only Greeks who possess this peculiar kind of stone, and many things in their city are made of it. It is very white, and softer than other stone, and seashells are everywhere in it. Such is this kind of stone. And the road, called the Scironian road after Sciron, is so called because Sciron, when he was commander in chief of the Megarians, first made it a road for travellers according to tradition. And the Emperor Adrian made it so wide and convenient that two chariots could drive abreast.