Tag: Pausanias

Athēnaion

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Ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίοις μάντευμα ἐκ Δελφῶν τὸν Ἀθηναῖον ἐπάγεσθαι σύμβουλον. ἀποστέλλουσιν οὖν παρὰ τοὺς Ἀθηναίους τόν τε χρησμὸν ἀπαγγελοῦντας καὶ ἄνδρα αἰτοῦντας παραινέσοντα ἃ χρή σφισιν. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ οὐδέτερα θέλοντες, οὔτε Λακεδαιμονίους ἄνευ μεγάλων κινδύνων προσλαβεῖν μοῖραν τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ τὴν ἀρίστην οὔτε αὐτοὶ παρακοῦσαι τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς ταῦτα ἐξευρίσκουσι καὶ—ἦν γὰρ Τυρταῖος διδάσκαλος γραμμάτων νοῦν τε ἥκιστα ἔχειν δοκῶν καὶ τὸν ἕτερον τῶν ποδῶν χωλός—τοῦτον ἀποστέλλουσιν ἐς Σπάρτην. ὁ δὲ ἀφικόμενος ἰδίᾳ τε τοῖς ἐν τέλει καὶ συνάγων ὁπόσους τύχοι καὶ τὰ ἐλεγεῖα καὶ τὰ ἔπη σφίσι τὰ ἀνάπαιστα ᾖδεν.
(Pausanias 4.15.6)
The Lacedaemonians received an oracle from Delphi to procure the Athenian as counsellor. They therefore despatched messengers to the Athenians to announce the oracle and asked for a man to advise them what they should do. The Athenians, unwilling either that the Lacedaemonians should annex the best part of the Peloponnese without great risk or that they themselves should take no heed of the god, devised accordingly. There was a schoolmaster, Tyrtaeus, who seemed to have little sense and who was lame in one foot, and they sent him to Sparta. Upon his arrival he sang his elegiac and anapaestic verses, both privately to those in office and to as many as he could gather together. (tr. Douglas E. Gerber)

Axioktēta

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Θραϊκῶν δὲ τῶν πάντων οὐδένες πλείους εἰσὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὅτι μὴ Κελτοὶ πρὸς ἄλλο ἔθνος ἓν ἀντεξετάζοντι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐδεὶς πω πρότερος Θρᾶϊκας Ῥωμαίων κατεστρέψατο ἀθρόους· Ῥωμαίοις δὲ Θράϊκη τε πᾶσά ἐστιν ὑποχείριος, καὶ Κελτῶν ὅσον μὲν ἀχρεῖον νομίζουσι διά τε ὑπερβάλλον ψῦχος καὶ γῆς φαυλότητα, ἑκουσίως παρῶπταί σφισι, τὰ δὲ ἀξιόκτητα ἔχουσι καὶ τούτων.
(Pausanias 1.9.5)

If you measure one nation against another no people among mankind are as numerous as all the Thracians, except for the Celts; this is why no one before the Romans ever subdued the whole of Thrace. But all Thrace is in the hands of Rome. Part of the Celtic country Rome considers useless because of extreme cold and poverty of soil, and deliberately overlooks it, but what the Celts had worth having belongs to Rome. (tr. Peter Levi)

Kuniska

Sophie de Renneville, Cynisca, voor 1823

Σπάρτας μὲν [βασιλῆες ἐμοὶ] πατέρες καὶ ἀδελφοί,
ἅ[ρματι δ’ ὠκυπόδων ἵππων] νικῶσα Κυνίσκα
εἰκόνα τάνδ’ ἔστασε. μόν[αν] δ’ ἐμέ φαμι γυναικῶν
Ἑλλάδος ἐκ πάσας τό[ν-]δε λαβν στέφανον.
Ἀπελλέας Καλλικλέος ἐπόησε.
(IG V.1.1564a)

[Kings] of Sparta were [my] fathers and brothers.
Having been victorious with a c[hariot of swift-footed horses,] I,
Cynisca, set up this statue. I declare that alone amongst the women
of all Greece, I took this crown.
Apelles the son of Callicles made this.
(tr. Sarah Brown Ferrario)

Ἀρχιδάμου δὲ ὡς ἐτελεύτα, καταλιπόντος παῖδας, Ἆγίς τε πρεσβύτερος ἦν ἡλικίᾳ, καὶ παρέλαβεν ἀντὶ Ἀγησιλάου τὴν ἀρχήν. ἐγένετο δὲ Ἀρχιδάμῳ καὶ θυγάτηρ, ὄνομα μὲν Κυνίσκα, φιλοτιμότατα δὲ ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἔσχε τὸν Ὀλυμπικὸν, καὶ πρώτη τε ἱπποτρόφησε γυναικῶν, καὶ νίκην ἀνείλετο Ὀλυμπικὴν πρώτη. Κυνίσκας δὲ ὕστερον γυναιξὶ καὶ ἄλλαις, καὶ μάλιστα ταῖς ἐκ Μακεδονίας, γεγόνασιν Ὀλυμπικαὶ νῖκαι, ὧν ἡ ἐπιφανεστέρα ἐς τὰς νίκας ἐστὶν αὐτῆς. δοκοῦσι δὲ οἱ Σπαρτιᾶταί μοι ποίησιν καὶ ἔπαινον τὸν ἀπ’ αὐτῆς ἥκιστα ἀνθρώπων θαυμάσαι. ὅτι γὰρ μὴ τῇ Κυνίσκᾳ τὸ ἐπίγραμμα ἐποίησεν ὅστις δή, καὶ ἔτι πρότερον Παυσανίᾳ τὸ ἐπὶ τῷ τρίποδι Σιμωνίδης τῷ ἀνατεθέντι ἐς Δελφούς, ἄλλο δή γε παρὰ ἀνδρὸς ποιητοῦ Λακεδαιμονίων τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν οὐδέν ἐστιν ἐς μνήμην.
(Pausanias 3.8.1-2)

Archidamus left sons when he died, of whom Agis was the elder and inherited the throne instead of Agesilaus. Archidamus had also a daughter, whose name was Cynisca; she was exceedingly ambitious to succeed at the Olympic games, and was the first woman to breed horses and the first to win an Olympic victory. After Cynisca other women, especially women of Lacedaemon, have won Olympic victories, but none of them was more distinguished for their victories than she. The Spartans seem to me to be of all men the least moved by poetry and the praise of poets. For with the exception of the epigram upon Cynisca, of uncertain authorship, and the still earlier one upon Pausanias that Simonides wrote on the tripod dedicated at Delphi, there is no poetic composition to commemorate the doings of the royal houses of the Lacedaemonians. (tr. Henry Arderne Ormerod)

Aision

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Ὁ δὲ ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ βωμὸς παρέχεται καὶ ἄλλο τοιόνδε ἐς θαῦμα· οἱ γὰρ ἰκτῖνες πεφυκότες ἁρπάζειν μάλιστα ὀρνίθων ἀδικοῦσιν οὐδὲν ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ τοὺς θύοντας· ἢν δὲ ἁρπάσῃ ποτὲ ἰκτῖνος ἤτοι σπλάγχνα ἢ τῶν κρεῶν, νενόμισται τῷ θύοντι οὐκ αἴσιον εἶναι τὸ σημεῖον. φασὶ δὲ Ἡρακλεῖ τῷ Ἀλκμήνης θύοντι ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ δι’ ὄχλου μάλιστα γενέσθαι τὰς μυίας· ἐξευρόντα οὖν αὐτὸν ἢ καὶ ὑπ’ ἄλλου διδαχθέντα Ἀπομυίῳ θῦσαι Διί, καὶ οὕτως ἀποτραπῆναι τὰς μυίας πέραν τοῦ Ἀλφειοῦ. λέγονται δὲ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ Ἠλεῖοι θύειν τῷ Ἀπομυίῳ Διί, ἐξελαύνοντες τῆς Ἠλείας Ὀλυμπίας τὰς μυίας.
(Pausanias 5.14.1)

The altar at Olympia shows another strange peculiarity, which is this. The kite, the bird of prey with the most rapacious nature, never harms those who are sacrificing at Olympia. Should ever a kite seize the entrails or some of the flesh, it is regarded as an unfavorable sign for the sacrificer. There is a story that when Heracles the son of Alcmena was sacrificing at Olympia he was much worried by the flies. So either on his own initiative or at somebody’s suggestion he sacrificed to Zeus Averter of Flies, and thus the flies were diverted to the other side of the Alpheius. It is said that in the same way the Eleans too sacrifice to Zeus Averter of Flies, to drive* the flies out of Olympia.

* I take ἐξελαύνοντεςto be a conative present participle; Frazer takes it as an ordinary temporal participle; “when they drive out.”

(tr. William Henry Samuel Jones, with his note)