And among these votive offerings is Phormis himself contending with an enemy, and fighting with a second and even a third. And there is an inscription stating that the soldier fighting is Mænalian Phormis, and that it is a votive offering of the Syracusan Lycortas, who plainly offered it out of affection to Phormis. The Greeks however call these votive offerings of Lycortas the votive offerings of Phormis. And the Hermes with a ram under his arm, and a helmet on his head, and a tunic and cloak on, is not one of the votive offerings of Phormis, but was offered to the god by the Arcadians of Pheneos. And the inscription states that Onatas the Æginetan jointly designed it with Calliteles, who must I think have been the pupil or son of Onatas. And not far from the votive offering of the people of Pheneos is another statue of Hermes with his herald’s wand, and the inscription on it states that it was the votive offering of Glaucias of Rhegium, and the work of Callon of Elis. And there are two brazen bulls, one the votive offering of the people of Corcyra, the other of the Eretrienses, both by Philesius of Eretria. Why the Corcyræans offered one bull at Olympia and another at Delphi, I shall relate in my account of the Phocians. And about the votive offering at Olympia I have heard the following circumstance. A little boy sitting down under this bull had stooped down and was playing, and suddenly lifting up his head dashed it against the brass, and not many days afterwards died from the blow. The people of Elis wanted to remove the bull from Altis as being blood guilty, but the god at Delphi ordered the same expiatory sacrifices for the bull as the Greeks ordain for involuntary homicide.
There is under the plane-trees at Altis in the middle of the grove a brazen trophy, and an inscription on the shield of the trophy, stating that the people of Elis offered it out of spoils of the Lacedæmonians. This was the battle in which the man lost his life who was found in his armour in my day, when the roof of the temple of Hera was being repaired. The votive offering of the Mendæans in Thrace very nearly deceived me to think that it was the effigy of a competitor for the pentathlum. It is near Anauchidas of Elis, and has ancient dumb-bells. And the following elegiac couplet is written on the thigh,
“To Zeus, the king of the Gods, the Mendæans put me here as firstfruits, after taking Sipte by storm.”
It seems that Sipte is a Thracian fort and city, and the Mendæans are a Greek race from Ionia, and live a little inland from the sea, at the town of Ænus.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Reading ταύτῃ τῇ Σαμία, (altered into Σαμικῷ ductu literarum).
[68] Il. xxiii. 295.
[69] ἄλσος.
[70] Iliad, viii. 393-395.
[71] Iliad, xiii. 389. xvi. 482.