A Pausanias Reader in Progress

An ongoing retranslation of the Greek text of Pausanias, with ongoing annotations, primarily by Gregory Nagy from 2014 to 2022, and continued since 2022 by Nagy together with an intergenerational team. Based on an original translation by W. H. S. Jones, 1918 (Scroll 2 with H. A. Ormerod), containing some of the footnotes added by Jones. Editors: Keith DeStone, Elizabeth Gipson, Charles Pletcher Editor Emerita: Angelia Hanhardt Web Producer: Noel Spencer Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins To cite this work, use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.prim-src:A_Pausanias_Reader_in_Progress.2018-.

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.aprip-en


5.23.1 As you pass by the entrance to the Council Chamber, you see an image of Zeus standing with no inscription on it, and then on turning to the north, another image of Zeus. This is turned towards the rising sun, and was dedicated by those Greeks who at Plataea fought against the Persians under Mardonios.* On the right of the pedestal are inscribed the cities which took part in the engagement: first the Lacedaemonians, after them the Athenians, third the Corinthians, fourth the Sikyonians,

5.23.2 fifth the Aeginetans; after the Aeginetans, the Megarians and Epidaurians, of the Arcadians the people of Tegea and Orkhomenos, after them the dwellers in Phleious, Troizen and Hermion, the Tirynthians from the Argolid, the Plataeans alone of the Boeotians, the Argives of Mycenae, the islanders of Ceos and Mēlos, Ambraciots of the Thesprotian mainland, the Tenians and the Lepreans, who were the only people from Triphylia, but from the Aegean and the Cyclades there came not only the Tenians but also the Naxians and Cythnians, Styrians too from Euboea, after them Eleians, Potidaeans, Anaktorioi, and lastly the people of Khalkis-on-the-Euripos.

5.23.3 Of these cities the following are at the present day uninhabited: Mycenae and Tiryns were destroyed by the Argives after the Persian wars. The Ambraciots and Anaktorioi, colonists of Corinth, were taken away by the Roman emperor* to help to found Nikopolis near Actium. The Potidaeans twice suffered removal from their city, once at the hands of Philip, the son of Amyntas*, and once before this at the hands of the Athenians.*Afterwards, however, Kassandros restored the Potidaeans to their homes, but the name of the city was changed from Potidaea to Kassandreia after the name of its founder.* The image at Olympia dedicated by the Greeks was made by Anaxagoras of Aegina. The name of this artist is omitted by the historians of Plataea.

5.23.4 In front of this Zeus, there is a bronze slab, on which are the terms of the Thirty-years Peace between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. The Athenians made this peace after they had reduced Euboea for the second time, in the third year of the eighty-third Olympiad, when Crison of Himera won the foot-race*. One of the articles of the treaty is to the effect that although Argos has no part in the treaty between Athens and Sparta, yet the Athenians and the Argives may privately, if they wish, be at peace with each other. Such are the terms of this treaty.

5.23.5 There is yet another image of Zeus dedicated beside the chariot of Kleosthenes. This chariot I will describe later; the image of Zeus was dedicated by the Megarians, and made by the brothers Psylakos and Onaithos with the help of their sons. About their date, their nation and their master, I can tell you nothing.

5.23.6 By the chariot of Gelon stands an ancient Zeus holding a scepter which is said to be an offering of the Hyblaeans. There were two cities in Sicily called Hybla, one surnamed Gereatis and the other Greater, it being in fact the greater of the two. They still retain their old names, and are in the district of Catana. Greater Hybla is entirely uninhabited, but Gereatis is a village of Catana, with a sanctuary of the goddess Hyblaea which is held in honor by the Sicilians. The people of Gereatis, I think, brought the image to Olympia. For Philistos, the son of Arkhomenides, says that they were interpreters of portents and dreams, and more given to devotions than any other barbarians in Sicily.

5.23.7 Near the offering of the Hyblaeans has been made a pedestal of bronze with a Zeus upon it, which I conjecture to be about eighteen feet high. The donors and sculptors are set forth in elegiac verse: The Clitorians [people of Kleitor] dedicated this image to the god, a tithe from many cities that they had reduced by force. The sculptors were Ariston and Telestas, Own brothers and Laconians. I do not think that these Laconians were famous all over Greece, for had they been so the Eleians would have had something to say about them, and the Lacedaemonians more still, seeing that they were their fellow citizens.

1 479 BCE.

2 Augustus.

3 356 BCE.

4 430–429 BCE.

5 316 BCE.

6 446–445 BCE.