Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Of the temples in the city of the Argives the most notable is that
of Lycian (_Wolf-God_) Apollo. The statue in our day was the work of
an Athenian, Attalus, but originally the temple and wooden statue was
the offering of Danaus. I think all statues were wooden in those days,
and especially Egyptian ones. Now Danaus built a temple to Apollo
the Wolf-God for the following reason. When he came to Argos, he and
Gelanor the son of Sthenelas were rival competitors for the kingdom.
And many ingratiating words having been spoken by both of them to the
people, and Gelanor’s speech seeming rather the best, the people, they
say, put off the decision to the next day. And at break of day a wolf
attacked a herd of cattle that were feeding near the walls, and had a
fierce encounter with the bull, the leader of the herd. And it occurred
to the Argives that Gelanor was like the bull, Danaus like the wolf,
for just as this animal does not live with human beings so Danaus had
not up to that time lived with them. And as the wolf mastered the bull,
so Danaus got the kingdom. And he thinking that Apollo had sent that
wolf against the herd, built a temple to Apollo the Wolf-God. In it
is the throne of Danaus, and an image of Biton, the man who carried
a bull on his shoulders (as Lyceas has represented), for, when the
Argives were sacrificing to Zeus at Nemea, Biton took up a bull by
sheer strength and carried it to the altar. And they light the fire
close to this image, and they call it the fire of Phoroneus: for they
do not admit that Prometheus gave fire to men, but they attribute
the invention of fire to Phoroneus. Here also are wooden statues of
Aphrodite and Hermes, the latter the work of Epeus, and the former
the offering of Hypermnestra. For she, the only one of his daughters
who disobeyed his cruel order, was brought to trial by Danaus, partly
because he thought his own safety compromised by that of Lynceus, and
partly because her not joining with her sisters in their atrocious
deed augmented the disgrace of the contriver of the deed. And, being
acquitted by the Argives, she erected as a votive offering in this
temple a statue of Victorious Aphrodite. And there is inside the temple
a statue of Ladas, who excelled all his contemporaries in fleetness of
foot, and one of Hermes making a lyre out of a tortoise. And there is
in front of the temple an amphitheatre with a representation of the
fight between the bull and the wolf, and a maiden throwing a stone at
the bull. They think this maiden represents Artemis. Danaus had all
this constructed, and some pillars near, and wooden statues of Zeus and
Artemis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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