Near the entrance to Platæa is the tomb of those who fell fighting against the Medes. The other Greeks have one common tomb. But the Lacedæmonians and Athenians who fell have separate burial-grounds, and some elegiac lines of Simonides as their epitaph. And not far from the common tomb of the Greeks is the altar of Zeus Eleutherius. The tombs are of brass, but the altar and statue of Zeus are of white stone. And they celebrate still every fifth year the festival called Eleutheria, in which the chief prizes are for running: they run in heavy armour in front of the altar. And the Greeks set up a trophy about 15 stades from the town for the battle at Platæa.
In the town of Platæa, as you go on from the altar and statue erected to Zeus Eleutherius, is a hero-chapel to Platæa, I have already stated the traditions about her and my own views. There is also a temple of Hera, well worth seeing for its size and the beauty of the statues. As you enter it Rhea is before you carrying to Cronos the stone wrapt up in swaddling-clothes, pretending it was the child she had just given birth to. And the Hera here they call Full-Grown, her statue is a large one in a standing position. Both these statues are in Pentelican marble by Praxiteles. There is also another statue of Hera in a sitting position by Callimachus, they call this statue The Bride for the following reason.
CHAPTER III.
They say Hera for some reason or other was displeased with Zeus and went to Eubœa, and Zeus when he could not appease her went to Cithæron (who ruled at Platæa), who was inferior to no one in ingenuity. He recommended Zeus to make a wooden statue and dress it up and draw it in a waggon with a yoke of oxen, and give out that he intended to marry Platæa the daughter of Asopus. And he did as Cithæron instructed him. And directly Hera heard of it she returned at once, and approached the waggon and tore the clothes of the statue, and was delighted with the trick when she found a wooden image instead of a young bride, and was reconciled to Zeus. In memory of this reconciliation they have a festival called Dædala, because statues were of old called dædala. And they called them so I think before the times of Dædalus the Athenian, the son of Palamaon, for he was called Dædalus I take it from his statues, and not from his birth up. This festival is celebrated by the Platæans every seventh year, according to what my Antiquarian guide informed me, but really at less interval: the exact time however between one festival and the next though I wished I could not ascertain. The festival is celebrated as follows. There is an oak-coppice not far from Alalcomenæ. Of all the oaks in Bœotia the roots of these are the finest. When the Platæans come to this oak-coppice, they place there portions of boiled meat. And they do not much trouble themselves about other birds, but they watch crows very carefully, for they frequent the place, and if one of them seizes a piece of meat they watch what tree it sits upon. And on whatever tree it perches, they carve their wooden image, called dædalum, from the wood of this tree. This is the way the Platæans privately celebrate their little festival Dædala: but the great festival of Dædala is a festival for all Bœotia and celebrated every sixth year; for that was the interval during which the festival was discontinued when the Platæans were in exile. And 14 wooden statues are provided by them every year for the little festival Dædala, which the following draw lots for, the Platæans, the Coronæans, the Thespians, the Tanagræans, the Chæroneans, the Orchomenians, the Lebadeans, and the Thebans: for they thought fit to be reconciled with the Platæans, and to join their gathering, and to send their sacrifice to the festival, when Cassander the son of Antipater restored Thebes. And all the small towns which are of lesser note contribute to the festival. They deck the statue and take it to the Asopus on a waggon, and place a bride on it, and draw lots for the order of the procession, and drive their waggons from the river to the top of Cithæron, where an altar is prepared for them constructed in the following manner. They get square pieces of wood about the same size, and pile them up one upon one another as if they were making a stone building, and raise it to a good height by adding firewood. The chief magistrates of each town sacrifice a cow to Hera and a bull to Zeus, and they burn on the altar all together the victims (full of wine and incense) and the wooden images, and private people offer their sacrifices as well as the rich, only they sacrifice smaller animals as sheep, and all the sacrifices are burnt together. And the fire consumes the altar as well as the sacrifices, the flame is prodigious and visible for an immense distance. And about 15 stades lower than the top of the mountain where they build this altar is a cave of the Nymphs of Mount Cithæron, called Sphragidion, where tradition says those Nymphs prophesied in ancient times.
CHAPTER IV.
The Platæans have also a temple to Arean Athene, which was built from the spoil given to them by the Athenians after the battle of Marathon. The statue of the goddess is wooden but gilt over: the head and fingers and toes are of Pentelican marble. In size it is nearly as large as the brazen one in the Acropolis, (which the Athenians dedicated as the firstfruits of the battle at Marathon,) and is also the work of Phidias. And there are paintings in the temple by Polygnotus, Odysseus having just slain the suitors, and by Onatas the first expedition of Adrastus and the Argives against Thebes. These paintings are on the walls in the vestibule of the temple, and at the base of the statue of the goddess is an effigy of Arimnestus, who commanded the Platæans in the fight against Mardonius and still earlier at Marathon.
There is also at Platæa a temple of Eleusinian Demeter, and the tomb of Leitus, the only leader of the Bœotians that returned home after the Trojan war. And the fountain Gargaphia was fouled by Mardonius and the Persian cavalry, because the Greek army opposed to them drank of it, but the Platæans afterwards made the water pure again.
As you go from Platæa to Thebes you come to the river Oeroe, Oeroe was they say the daughter of Asopus. And before crossing the Asopus, if you turn aside and follow the stream of the Oeroe for about 40 stades, you come to the ruins of Scolus, among which are a temple of Demeter and Proserpine not complete, and half the statues of the goddesses. The Asopus is still the boundary between the districts of Platæa and Thebes.
CHAPTER V.
The district of Thebes was they say first inhabited by the Ectenes, whose king was the Autochthon Ogygus, hence many of the poets have called Thebes Ogygiæ. And the Ectenes they say died off with some pestilence, and Thebes was repeopled by the Hyantes and Aones, Bœotian races I imagine and not foreigners. And when Cadmus and his Phœnician army invaded the land the Hyantes were defeated in battle and fled the following night, but the Aones were submissive and were allowed by Cadmus to remain in the land and mix with the Phœnicians. They continued to live in their villages, but Cadmus built the town called to this day Cadmea. And afterwards when the town grew, Cadmea was the citadel for lower Thebes. Cadmus made a splendid marriage if, according to the Greek tradition, he married the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, and his daughters were famous, Semele as the mother of a son by Zeus, and Ino as one of the sea goddesses. Amongst the greatest contemporaries of Cadmus were the Sparti, Chthonius and Hyperenor and Pelorus and Udæus: and Echion was chosen by Cadmus as his son-in-law for his conspicuous valour. About these men I could obtain no further knowledge, so I follow the general tradition about the origin of the name Sparti.[48] And when Cadmus migrated to the Illyrians and to those of them who were called Enchelians, he was succeeded by his son Polydorus. And Pentheus the son of Echion had great power both from the lustre of his race and the friendship of the king, though he was haughty and impious and justly punished by Dionysus. The son of Polydorus was Labdacus. He on his death left a son quite a boy, whom as well as the kingdom he entrusted to Nycteus. The sequel I have already set forth in my account about Sicyonia, as the circumstances attending the death of Nycteus, and how the guardianship of the boy and care of the realm devolved upon Lycus the brother of Nycteus: and the boy dying also not long after Lycus became guardian for Laius the son of Labdacus.