And Dicon the son of Callibrotus won five races in the Pythian games, and three in the Isthmian, and four at Nemea, and at Olympia one for boys, two for men. And he has as many statues as he won victories at Olympia. He was a native of Caulonia, and so proclaimed as a boy, though afterwards for money he proclaimed himself a Syracusan. Now Caulonia is a colony of Achæans in Italy, its founder was Typhon of Ægium. And when Pyrrhus the son of Æacus and the Tarentines were at war with the Romans, and several cities in Italy were destroyed, some by the Romans, some by the people of Epirus, Caulonia was laid waste, after being captured by the Campanians, who were the chief allies of the Romans.
Next to Dicon is a statue of Xenophon, the son of Menephylus, the pancratiast from Ægium in Achaia, also one of Pyrilampes the Ephesian, who obtained the victory in the long course. Xenophon’s statue is by Olympus, Pyrilampes’ by a sculptor of the same name, not a Sicyonian, but from Messene near Ithome.
The Samians also erected a statue at Olympia to the Spartan Lysander the son of Aristocritus. And the first of the inscriptions is,
“In the conspicuous precincts of almighty Zeus I stand, the votive offering of all the Samians.”
This informs us who erected the statue. And the second inscription is a panegyric on Lysander,
“Immortal fame, Lysander, on your country and Aristocritus did you confer by your splendid merit.”
Manifest is it therefore that the Samians and other Ionians, according to the Ionian proverb, whitewashed two walls.[76] For when Alcibiades had a strong Athenian fleet in the neighbourhood of Ionia, most of the Ionians paid their court to him, and there is a brazen bust of Alcibiades in the temple of Hera among the Samians. But when the Athenian fleet was taken at Ægos-potamoi, then the Samians erected this statue of Lysander at Olympia, and the Ephesians placed in the temple of Artemis statues of Lysander himself, and Eteonicus, and Pharax, and other Spartans of no great renown in Greece. And when fortune veered round again, and Conon won the sea-fight off Cnidus and Mount Dorium, then the Ionians changed sides again, and you may see a brazen statue of Conon and Timotheus at Samos in the temple of Hera, and likewise at Ephesus in the temple of Artemis. This has been the case in all ages, for all men, like these Ionians, pay court to the strongest.
CHAPTER IV.
And next to Lysander is the effigy of an Ephesian boxer, whose name was Athenæus, and who beat all the boys that contended with him, and next him is the Sicyonian pancratiast Sostratus, whose surname was Acrochersites, because he laid hold of his adversary’s fingers and tried to break them, and would not let go till he saw that he was going to give in. And he had 12 victories at Nemea and Isthmus both together, and in the Pythian games two, at Olympia three. The 104th Olympiad, in which this Sostratus was victor for the first time, the people of Elis do not record, because the games in that Olympiad were not instituted by them but by the Pisæans and Arcadians. And next to Sostratus is the wrestler Leontiscus, a Sicilian from Messene by the Strait. And he is said to have been crowned by the Amphictyonians, and twice by the people of Elis, and his wrestling is said to have been somewhat similar to that of Sostratus of Sicyon in the pancratium, for he was not an adept at wrestling his antagonists down, but he used to beat them by trying to break their fingers. And his statue was by Pythagoras of Rhegium, an excellent sculptor if ever there was one. And he learnt his art they say from Clearchus who was also a native of Rhegium, and a pupil of Euchirus. This Euchirus was a Corinthian, and pupil of Syadra and Charta, who were both Spartans.
And the boy with a fillet on his head must not be omitted by me, on Phidias’ account and his fame as a statuary, for otherwise we don’t know who it is a statue of. And there is a statue of Satyrus of Elis, the son of Lysianax, of the family of the Iamidæ, who five times won the prize for boxing at Nemea, and twice at Olympia, and twice at the Pythian games. This statue is by the Athenian Silanion. And another Athenian statuary Polycles, the pupil of the Athenian Stadieus, has made a statue of the Ephesian pancratiast, Amyntas the son of Hellanicus.