Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

And now when Epaminondas had captured Ceressus, and taken captive the Thespians who had fled for refuge there, he forthwith turned his attention to affairs in the Peloponnese, as the Arcadians eagerly invited his co-operation. And when he went to the Peloponnese he made the Argives his voluntary allies, and restored the Mantineans, who had been dispersed in villages by Agesipolis, to Mantinea, and, as the small towns of the Arcadians were insecure, he persuaded the Arcadians to evacuate them, and established for them one large town still called Megalopolis. By this time Epaminondas’ period of office as Bœotarch had expired, and the penalty for continuing office longer was death. But Epaminondas, considering the law an illtimed one, disregarded it and continued Bœotarch: and marched with an army against Sparta and, as Agesilaus declined a combat, turned his attention towards colonizing Messene, as I have shewn in my account of Messenia. And meantime the Theban allies overran Laconia and plundered it, scouring over the whole country. This induced Epaminondas to take the Thebans back into Bœotia. And when he got with his army as far as Lechæum, and was about to pass through a narrow and difficult defile, Iphicrates the son of Timotheus with a force of Athenians and some targeteers attacked him. And Epaminondas routed them and pursued them as far as Athens, but as Iphicrates would not allow the Athenians to go out and fight, he returned to Thebes. And there he was acquitted for continuing Bœotarch beyond the proper time: for it is said that none of the judges would pass sentence upon him.

CHAPTER XV.

And after this when Alexander the ruler in Thessaly with a high hand treacherously imprisoned Pelopidas, (who had come to his court as to a ruler who was personally a friend of his and publicly a friend of the Theban people), the Thebans immediately marched against Alexander, putting at their head Cleomenes and Hypatus who were then Bœotarchs, and Epaminondas happened to be one of the force. And when they were near Pylæ, Alexander who lay in ambush attacked them in the pass. And when they saw their condition was desperate, then the soldiers gave the command to Epaminondas, and the Bœotarchs willingly conceded the command. And Alexander lost his confidence in victory, when he saw that Epaminondas had taken the command, and gave up Pelopidas. And during the absence of Epaminondas the Thebans drove the Orchomenians out of their country. Epaminondas looked on this as a misfortune, and said the Thebans would never have committed this outrage had he been at home. And as he was chosen Bœotarch again, he marched with an army to the Peloponnese again, and beat the Lacedæmonians in battle at Lechæum, and also the Achæans from Pellene and the Athenians who were under the command of Chabrias. And it was the rule with the Thebans to ransom all their prisoners, except Bœotian deserters, whom they put to death. But Epaminondas after capturing a small town of the Sicyonians called Phœbia, where were a good many Bœotian deserters, contented himself with leaving a stigma upon them by calling them each by the name of a different nationality. And when he got with his army as far as Mantinea, he was killed in the moment of victory by an Athenian. The Athenian who killed Epaminondas is represented in a painting at Athens of the cavalry-skirmish to have been Gryllus, the son of that Xenophon who took part in the expedition of Cyrus against king Artaxerxes, and who led the Greeks back again to the sea.

On the statue of Epaminondas are four elegiac lines about him, that tell how he restored Messene, and how the Greeks got their freedom through him. These are the lines.

“Sparta cut off the glory from our councils, but in time sacred Messene got back her children. Megalopolis was crowned by the arms of Thebes, and all Greece became autonomous and free.”

Such were the glorious deeds of Epaminondas.

CHAPTER XVI.

And at no great distance from the statue of Epaminondas is the temple of Ammon, the statue by Calamis and a votive offering from Pindar, who also sent a Hymn in honour of Ammon to the Ammonians in Libya, which Hymn is now inscribed on a triangular pillar near the altar which Ptolemy the son of Lagus dedicated to Ammon. Next to the temple of Ammon the Thebans have what is called Tiresias’ tower to observe the omens, and near it is a temple of Fortune carrying in her arms Wealth as a child. The Thebans say that Xenophon the Athenian made the hands and face of the statue, and Callistonicus a native of Thebes all the other parts. The idea is ingenious of putting Wealth in the hands of Fortune as her mother or nurse, as is also the idea of Cephisodotus who made for the Athenians a statue of Peace holding Wealth.

The Thebans have also some wooden statues of Aphrodite, so ancient that they are said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, made out of the wood of the gunwales of the ships of Cadmus. One they call the Celestial Aphrodite, the other the Pandemian, and the third the Heart-Turner. Harmonia meant by these titles of Aphrodite the following. The Celestial is a pure love and has no connection with bodily appetite, the Pandemian is the common vulgar sensual love, and thirdly the goddess is called Heart-Turner because she turns the heart of men away by lawless passion and unholy deeds. For Harmonia knew that many bold deeds had been done in lawless passion both among the Greeks and barbarians, such as were afterwards sung by poets, as the legends about the mother of Adonis, and Phædra the daughter of Minos, and the Thracian Tereus. And the temple of Law-giving Demeter was they say formerly the house of Cadmus and his descendants. And the statue of Demeter is only visible down to the chest. And there are some brazen shields hung up here, which they say belonged to some of the Lacedæmonian notables that fell at Leuctra.

At the gate called Prœtis is a theatre, and near it the temple of Lysian Dionysus. The god was so called because, when some Thebans were taken captive by the Thracians, and conducted to Haliartia, the god freed them, and gave them an opportunity to kill the Thracians in their sleep. One of the statues in the temple the Thebans say is Semele. Once every year the temple is open on stated days. There are also the ruins of the house of Lycus, and the sepulchre of Semele, it cannot be the sepulchre of Alcmene, for when she died she became a stone. But the Theban account about her differs from the Megarian: in fact the Greek traditions mostly vary. The Thebans have here also monuments of the sons and daughters of Amphion, the two sexes apart.