There are two trophies erected at Chæronea by Sulla and the Romans, for the victories over Taxilus and the army of Mithridates. Philip the son of Amyntas erected no trophy either here or elsewhere for victories whether over Greeks or barbarians, for it was not the custom of the Macedonians to erect trophies. They have a tradition that the Macedonian King Caranus defeated in battle Cisseus who was a neighbouring king, and erected a trophy for his victory in imitation of the Argives, and they say a lion came from Olympus and overturned the trophy. Then Caranus was conscious that he had not acted wisely in erecting a trophy, which had only a tendency to bring about an irreconcilable enmity with his neighbours, and that neither he nor any of his successors in the kingdom of Macedonia ought to erect trophies after victories, if they wished to earn the goodwill of their neighbours. I am confirmed in what I say by the fact that Alexander erected no trophies either over Darius or for his Indian victories.
As you approach Chæronea is a common sepulchre of the Thebans that fell in the battle against Philip. There is no inscription over them but there is a device of a lion, which may indicate their bravery. I think there is no inscription because, owing to the deity, their courage was followed by no adequate success. Of all their objects of worship the people of Chæronea venerate most the sceptre which Homer says Hephæstus made for Zeus, which Hermes received from Zeus and gave to Pelops, and Pelops left to Atreus, and Atreus to Thyestes, from whom Agamemnon had it.[80] This sceptre they worship and call the spear. And that it has some divine properties is shown not least by the brightness that emanates from it. They say it was found on the borders of the Panopeans in Phocis, and that the Phocians found gold with it; but preferred this sceptre to the gold. I think it was taken to Phocis by Electra the daughter of Agamemnon. It has no public temple erected for it, but every year the priest puts it in a certain building, and there are sacrifices to it daily, and a table is spread for it furnished with all kinds of meats and pastry.
[78] Iliad, xviii. 590 sq.
[79] e.g. Odyssey, iv. 581, xiv. 257.
[80] Iliad, ii. 100-108. Lest anybody should be surprised at a sceptre being called a spear let him remember the following words of Justin, xliii. 5. “Per ea adhuc tempora reges hastas pro diademate habebant, quas Græci sceptra dixere. Nam et ab origine rerum pro diis immortalibus veteres hastas coluere, ob cujus religionis memoriam adhuc deorum simulacris hastæ adduntur.”
CHAPTER XLI.
Of all the works indeed of Hephæstus, that poets sing of and that have been famous among men, there is none but this sceptre of Agamemnon certainly his. The Lycians indeed show at Patara in the temple of Apollo a brazen bowl (which they say was by Hephæstus), the votive offering of Telephus, but they are probably ignorant that the Samians Theodorus and Rhœcus were the first brass-founders. And the Achæans of Patræ say that the chest which Eurypylus brought from Troy was made by Hephæstus, but they do not allow it to be seen. In Cyprus is the city Amathus, where is an ancient temple of Adonis and Aphrodite, and here they say is the necklace which was originally given to Harmonia, but is called the necklace of Eriphyle, because she received it as a gift from her husband, and the sons of Phegeus dedicated it at Delphi. How they got it I have already related in my account of Arcadia. But it was carried off by the Phocian tyrants. I do not however think that the necklace in the temple of Adonis at Amathus is Eriphyle’s, for that is emeralds set in gold, but the necklace given to Eriphyle is said by Homer in the Odyssey to have been entirely gold, as in the line,
“Who sold for gold her husband dear.”[81]
And Homer knew very well that there are different kinds of necklaces, for in the conversation between Eumæus and Odysseus, before Telemachus returned from Pylos and visited the swineherd’s cottage, are the following lines,
“Came to my father’s house a knowing man,