Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

[72] See Book vi. ch. 22.

[73] Hiatus hic deflendus.

[74] Iliad, xix. 266-268.

[75] On this curious story see Bayle on Hippomanes.

BOOK VI.—ELIS. PART II.

CHAPTER I.

Next to my account of the votive offerings comes naturally mention of the horses that contended, and of the athletes, and of amateurs also. There are not statues of all the conquerors at Olympia, for even some who displayed great prowess in the contests, or elsewhere, have yet not obtained statues. These my subject bids me to pass over, for it is not a catalogue of all the athletes that were victors at Olympia, but an account of the statues and other votive offerings. Neither shall I mention all the statues, as I well know some who won the crown of wild olive from unexpected good fortune rather than their own exertions. I shall therefore merely mention those who had more renown or finer statues than others.

On the right of the temple of Hera is a statue of the wrestler Symmachus, the son of Æschylus, a native of Elis. And near him, from Pheneos in Arcadia, is Neolaidas the son of Proxenus, who carried off the prize for boxing among the boys, and next Archedamus the son of Xenius, also a native of Elis, who beat all the boys in wrestling. These statues were made by Alypus the Sicyonian, the pupil of Naucydes the Argive. And the inscription on the statue of Cleogenes, the son of Silenus, says that he was of the district, he won the prize with a fast horse from his own stud. And next Cleogenes are Dinolochus, the son of Pyrrhus, and Troilus, the son of Alcinous. They too were natives of Elis, but their victories were not won in the same manner, for Troilus owed his victory to his perfect pair of horses and team of colts: partly also to his being umpire: and he was victor in the 102nd Olympiad. And from thenceforth there was a law among the people of Elis that the umpires’ horses should not be admitted to the races. His statue was by Lysippus. But the mother of Dinolochus dreamed that she embraced her son after being crowned, and moved by this dream he trained, and outran the other lads: and his statue is by Cleon of Sicyon. As to Cynisca the wife of Archidamus, I have spoken previously of her family and victories at Olympia, in my account of the kings of the Lacedæmonians. And near the statue of Troilus is a basement of stone, and a chariot and charioteer, and the effigy of Cynisca herself, by Apelles. There are inscriptions also in reference to her. And next her are some Lacedæmonians, who were victors in the horse-races. Anaxander was the first victor proclaimed in the chariot-race. And the inscription over him states that his grandfather was crowned earlier in the pentathlum. He is represented as praying to the god. And Polycles, surnamed Polychalcus, was victor in the chariot-race with 4 horses abreast, and his effigy has in its right hand a riband. And by him are two boys, one holding the wheel, the other asking for the riband. And Polycles was victor with his horses, as the inscription over him states, in the Pythian Isthmian and Nemean games.

CHAPTER II.

And the statue of the pancratiast next is by Lysippus. He carried off the victory as pancratiast from the rest of the Acarnanians, and was the first of his own countrymen. Xenarches was his name and he was the son of Philandridas. And the Lacedæmonians, after the invasion of the Medes, turned their attention more than any other Greeks to breeding horses. For besides those that I have already mentioned, there are statues of several other Spartan horse-breeders, next to the effigy of the Acarnanian athlete, as Xenarches, and Lycinus, and Arcesilaus, and Lichas his son. Xenarches also had further victories at Delphi and Argos and Corinth. And Lycinus brought colts to Olympia, and as one of them was rejected, he used his colts in the race of full-grown horses and won the prize. And he set up two statues at Olympia, by the Athenian Myro. And Arcesilaus and his son Lichas had two victories at Olympia, and Lichas, as the Lacedæmonians were at that time excluded from the games, entered himself for the chariot-race as a Theban, and bound the victorious charioteer with a riband. For this the Umpires scourged him. And it was on account of this Lichas that the Lacedæmonians under Agis invaded Elis, when the fight took place at Altis. And at the end of the war Lichas erected his statue here, but the records of the people of Elis about the victors at Olympia say that the Theban people, not Lichas, won the victory.