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


1.29.1 Near the Peak of Ares [Areiopagos] is shown a ship built for the procession [pompē] of the Panathenaia. This ship, I suppose, has been surpassed in size by others, but I know of no builder who has outdone the vessel at Delos, with its nine banks of oars below the deck.

1.29.2 Outside the city [polis], too, in the demes [dēmoi] and on the roads [hodoi], the Athenians have sanctuaries [hiera] of the gods [theoi], and tombs [taphoi] of heroes [hērōes] and of men [andres]. Nearest is the Academy [Akadēmiā], a place [khōrion] that once belonged to a private-individual [idiōtēs], but in my time a gymnasium. As one goes down to it [=Akadēmiā], there is an enclosure [peribolos] of Artemis, and wooden-statues [xoana] of Ariste [‘Best’] and Kalliste [‘Most Beautiful’]. I think, and my thinking is in agreement with the poetry [epos plural] of Pamphos, that these are surnames [epiklēseis] of Artemis. I know another tale [logos] that is told [legesthai] about them, but I shall pass over that one. Then there is a small shrine [nåos], into which every year on fixed days they carry [komizein] the statue [agalma] of Dionysus Eleuthereus.

1.29.3 Such are their sanctuaries [hiera] here, and of the tombs [taphoi] the first is that of Thrasyboulos son of Lykos, in all respects the best [aristos] of all famous [logimoi] Athenians, whether they lived before him or after him. The greater number of the things to be said about him I shall pass over, but the following thing will suffice for verification [pistis] concerning what-is-said [logos]: he put down what is called the tyranny [turannis] of the Thirty,* setting out from Thebes with a force amounting at first to sixty men; he also persuaded the Athenians, who were divided-by-factionalism [stasiazein], to be reconciled and to abide by their reconciliation. His is the first tomb [taphos], and after it come those of Pericles, Khabrias,* and Phormion.*

1.29.4 There is also a tomb [mnēma] for all the Athenians who happened to die in war, whether in battles [makhai] at sea or on land, except for those who had their struggle [agōnizesthai] at Marathon. These, on account of their manly-valor [andragathiā], have their burial-places [taphoi] on the field-of-battle [khōrā], but the others lie along the road to the Academy [Akadēmiā], and over their burial-places [taphoi] stand slabs [stēlai] that say [by way of inscriptions] the name and the deme [dēmos] of each. First were buried those who in Thrace, after a victorious advance as far as Drabeskos,* were unexpectedly attacked by the Edonians and slaughtered. It is also said that strokes-of-lightning [keraunoi] fell upon them.

1.29.5 Among the generals were Leagros, to whom was entrusted chief command of the army, and Sophanes of Decelea, who killed—when he came to the help of the Aeginetans—Eurybates the Argive, who won the prize in the pentathlon* at the Nemean games. This was the third expedition that the Athenians dispatched to places outside of Greece [Hellas]. For against Priam and the Trojans war was made in common [apo koinou logou] by all the Greeks [Hellēnes]; but by themselves the Athenians sent armies, first with Iolaos to Sardinia, secondly to what is now Ionia, and thirdly on the mentioned occasion to Thrace.

1.29.6 In front of the monument is a slab [stēlē] on which are (represented) horsemen [hippeis] fighting. Their names are Melanopos and Makartatos, who met their death fighting against the Lacedaemonians [Spartans] and Boeotians on the borders of Eleon and Tanagra. There is also a tomb of Thessalian horsemen [hippeis] who, by reason of an old alliance, came when the Peloponnesians with Arkhidamos invaded Attica with an army for the first time,* and, close by, that of Cretan bowmen [toxotai]. Again there are tombs [mnēmata] of Athenians: of Cleisthenes, who invented the system of the subdivisions [phulai] at present existing,* and of horsemen [hippeis] who died when the Thessalians shared the fortune of war with the Athenians.

1.29.7 Here too lie the men of Kleōnai, who came with the Argives into Attica;* the occasion of which I will write [graphein] when in the course of my narrative [logos] I come to the Argives. There is also the tomb [taphos] of the Athenians who fought against the Aeginetans before the invasion of the Medes [Persians]. It was surely a just decree [bouleuma] even for a democracy when the Athenians actually allowed slaves a public funeral, and to have their names inscribed on a slab [stēlē], which declares that in the war they proved to be good men in relation to their masters [despotai]. There are also [written on tombs] names of other men, their fields-of-battle [agōnes] located in various different places [khōria]. Here lie the most renowned [logimoi] of those who went against Olynthus,* and Melesandros, who sailed with a fleet along the Maeander River into upper Caria;*

1.29.8 also those who died in the war with Kassandros, and the Argives who once fought as the allies of Athens. It is said that the alliance between the two sides came about in the following way. The city [polis] of the Lacedaemonians [Spartans] was once shaken by an earthquake sent by the god [theos], and the Helots seceded to Ithome.* After the secession the Spartans [Lacedaemonians] sent for help to various places, including Athens, and the Athenians dispatched specially-chosen troops under the command of Kimon, the son of Miltiades. These the Spartans [Lacedaemonians] dismissed, because they suspected them.

1.29.9 It was intolerable, the Athenians thought, that they had been insulted [peri-hubrizesthai] this way, and on their way back they made an alliance with the Argives, the immemorial enemies of the Spartans [Lacedaemonians]. Afterwards, when a battle was imminent at Tanagra,* the Athenians opposing the Boeotians and Spartans [Lacedaemonians], the Argives reinforced the Athenians. For a time the Argives had the better, but night came on and took from them the assurance of their victory, and on the next day the Spartans [Lacedaemonians] had the better, as the Thessalians betrayed the Athenians.

1.29.10 It occurred to me to account for [katalegein] the following men also. First, there is Apollodoros, commander of the mercenaries, who was an Athenian dispatched by Arsites, satrap of Phrygia-by-the-Hellespont, and who saved their city for the Perinthians when Philip had invaded their territory with an army.* He, then, is buried here, and also Euboulos* the son of Spintharos, along with men who though brave were not attended by good fortune; some attacked Lakhares when he was tyrant, others planned the capture of the Peiraieus when in the hands of a Macedonian garrison, but before the deed could be accomplished were betrayed by their accomplices and put to death.

1.29.11 Here also lie those who fell near Corinth.* The god [theos] showed most distinctly here and again at Leuktra* that those whom the Greeks [Hellēnes] call brave are as nothing if Good Fortune be not with them, seeing that the Spartans [Lacedaemonians], who had on this occasion overcome Corinthians and Athenians, and furthermore Argives and Boeotians, were afterwards at Leuktra so utterly defeated by the Boeotians alone. After those who were killed in Corinth, we come across elegiac verses declaring that one and the same slab has been erected to those who died in Euboea and Chios,* and to those who perished in the remote parts of the continent of Asia [Minor], or in Sicily.

1.29.12 The names of the generals are inscribed with the exception of Nikias, and among the private soldiers are included the Plataeans along with the Athenians. This is the reason why Nikias was passed over, and my account is identical with that of Philistos, who says that while Demosthenes made a truce for the others and excluded himself, attempting to commit suicide when taken prisoner, Nikias voluntarily submitted to the surrender.* For this reason Nikias did not have his name inscribed on the slab, being condemned as a voluntary prisoner and an unworthy soldier.

1.29.13 On another slab are the names of those who fought in the region of Thrace and at Megara,* and when Alcibiades persuaded the Arcadians in Mantineia and the people of Elis to revolt from the Spartans [Lacedaemonians],* and of those who were victorious over the Syracusans before Demosthenes arrived in Sicily. Here were buried also those who fought in the sea-fights near the Hellespont,* those who opposed the Macedonians at Khairōneia,* those who were killed at Delium in the territory of Tanagra,* the men whom Leosthenes led into Thessaly, those who sailed with Kimon to Cyprus,* and of those who with Olympiodoros* expelled the garrison not more than thirteen men.

1.29.14 The Athenians declare that when the Romans were waging a border war they sent a small force to help them, and later on five Attic warships assisted the Romans in a naval action against the Carthaginians. Accordingly, these men also have their tomb here. The achievements of Tolmides and his men, and the manner of their death, I have already set forth, and any who are interested may take note that they are buried along this road. Here lie too those who with Kimon achieved the great feat of winning a land and naval victory on one and the same day.*

1.29.15 Here also are buried Konon and Timotheus, father and son, the second pair thus related to accomplish illustrious deeds, Miltiades and Kimon being the first; Zeno too, the son of Mnaseas and Khrysippos* of Soloi, Nikias the son of Nikomedes, the best in painting [zōia graphein = zōigraphos] of all his contemporaries, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who killed Hipparkhos, the son of Peisistratos; there are also two orators, Ephialtes, who was chiefly responsible for the abolition of the privileges of the Areiopagos*, and Lycurgus [Lykourgos],* the son of Lykophron;

1.29.16 Lycurgus [Lykourgos] provided for the state-treasury six thousand five hundred talents more than Pericles, the son of Xanthippos, collected, and he furnished for the procession of the goddess [theos (feminine)] golden figures of Nike and ornaments for a hundred girls [parthénoi]; for war he provided armor and projectiles, besides increasing the fleet to four hundred warships. As for buildings, he completed the theater that others had begun, while during his political life he built ship-sheds [neōs oikoi] at the dockyards in Peiraieus. He built also the gymnasium near what is called the Lyceum. Everything made of silver or gold became part of the plunder that Laoites made away with when he became tyrant, but the buildings remained to my time.

1 403 BCE.

2 Died 357 BCE.

3 A famous Athenian admiral who fought well in the early part of the Peloponnesian War.

4 circa 465 BCE.

5 A group of five contests: leaping, foot-racing, throwing the discus, throwing the spear, wrestling.

6 431 BCE.

7 508/7 BCE.

8 457 BCE.

9 349 BCE.

10 430 BCE.

11 461 BCE.

12 457 BCE.

13 340 BCE.

14 A contemporary of Demosthenes.

15 394 BCE.

16 371 BCE.

17 445 BCE.

18 413 BCE.

19 445 BCE.

20 420 BCE.

21 409 BCE.

22 338 BCE, those who marched with Cleon to Amphipolis, 422 BCE.

23 424 BCE.

24 449 BCE.

25 Pausanias 1.26.3.

26 466 BCE.

27 Stoic philosophers.

28 463–461 BCE.

29 A contemporary of Demosthenes.