Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

[68] So Tibullus calls Priapus “Bacchi rustica proles,” i. 4. 7.

[69] viz., at line 11.

[70] See Homer’s Hymn to Demeter, lines 8-10.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The inhabitants of Creusis, a haven of the Thespians, have no public monuments, but in the house of a private individual is a statue of Dionysus made of plaster and adorned by a painting. The sea-voyage from the Peloponnese to Creusis is circuitous and rough, the promontories so jut out into the sea that one cannot sail straight across, and at the same time strong winds blow down from the mountains.

And as you sail from Creusis, not well out to sea but coasting along Bœotia, you will see on the right the city Thisbe. First there is a mountain near the sea, and when you have passed that there is a plain and then another mountain, and at the bottom of this mountain is Thisbe. And there is a temple of Hercules and stone statue there in a standing posture, and they keep a festival to him. And nothing would prevent the plain between the mountains being a lake, (so much water is there), but that they have a strong embankment in the middle of the plain, and annually divert the water beyond the embankment and cultivate the dry parts of the plain. And Thisbe, from whom the city got its name, was they say a local Nymph.

As you sail on thence you will come to a small town called Tipha near the sea. There is a temple of Hercules there, and they have a festival to him annually. The inhabitants say that from of old they were the most clever mariners of all the Bœotians, and they record that Tiphys, who was chosen the pilot of the Argo, was a townsman of theirs: they also shew a place before their town where they say the Argo was moored on its return from Colchi.

As you go inland from Thespia towards the mainland you will arrive at Haliartus. But I must not separate the founder of Haliartus and Coronea from my account of Orchomenus. On the invasion of the Medes, as the people of Haliartus espoused the side of the Greeks, part of the army of Xerxes set out to burn the town and district. At Haliartus is the tomb of Lysander the Lacedæmonian, for when he attacked the city, the forces from Thebes and Athens inside the city sallied forth, and in the battle that ensued he fell. In some respects one may praise Lysander very much, in others one must bitterly censure him. He exhibited great sagacity when he was in command of the Peloponnesian fleet. Watching when Alcibiades was absent from the fleet, he enticed his pilot Antiochus to think he could cope with the Lacedæmonian fleet, and when he sailed out against them boldly and confidently, defeated him not far from the city of the Colophonians. And when Lysander joined the fleet from Sparta the second time, he so conciliated Cyrus, that whatever money he asked for the fleet Cyrus gave him freely at once. And when 100 Athenian ships were anchored at Ægos-potamoi he captured them, watching when the crews had gone on shore for fresh water and provisions. He also exhibited his justice in the following circumstance. Autolycus the pancratiast (whose effigy I have seen in the Pyrtaneum at Athens) had a dispute with Eteonicus a Spartan about some property. And when Eteonicus was convicted of pleading unfairly, (it was when the Thirty Tyrants were in power at Athens, and Lysander was present), he was moved to strike Autolycus, and when he struck back he brought him to Lysander, expecting that he would decide the affair in his favour. But Lysander condemned Eteonicus of injustice, and sent him away with reproaches. This was creditable to Lysander, but the following were discreditable. He put to death Philocles, the Athenian Admiral at Ægos-potamoi, and 4000 Athenian captives, and would not allow them burial, though the Athenians granted burial to the Medes at Marathon, and King Xerxes to the Lacedæmonians that fell at Thermopylæ. And Lysander brought still greater disgrace upon the Lacedæmonians by establishing Decemvirates in the cities besides the Laconian Harmosts. And when the Lacedæmonians did not think of making money because of the oracle, which said that love of money alone would ruin Sparta, he inspired in them a strong desire for money. I therefore, following the opinion of the Persians and judging according to their law, think that Lysander did more harm than good to the Lacedæmonians.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

At Haliartus is Lysander’s tomb, and a hero-chapel to Cecrops the son of Pandion. And the mountain Tilphusium and the fountain Tilphusa are about 50 stades from Haliartus. It is a tradition of the Greeks that the Argives, who in conjunction with the sons of Polynices captured Thebes, were taking Tiresias and the spoil to Apollo at Delphi, when Tiresias who was thirsty drank of the fountain Tilphusa and gave up the ghost, and was buried on the spot. They say also that Manto the daughter of Tiresias was offered to Apollo by the Argives, but that, in consequence of the orders of the god, she sailed to what is now Ionia, and to that part of it called Colophonia. And there she married the Cretan Rhacius. All the other legends about Tiresias, as the number of years which he is recorded to have lived, and how he was changed from a woman into a man, and how Homer in his Odyssey has represented him as the only person of understanding in Hades,[71] all this everyone has heard and knows. Near Haliartus too there is in the open air a temple of the goddesses that they call Praxidicæ. In this temple they swear no hasty oaths. This temple is near the mountain Tilphusium. There are also temples at Haliartus, with no statues in them for there is no roof: to whom they were erected I could not ascertain.