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
And Hippolytus the son of Theseus has precincts and a temple in them
and ancient statue. Diomede they say erected all these, and was the
first to sacrifice to Hippolytus: and the people of Trœzen have
a priest of Hippolytus who serves for life, and they have yearly
sacrifices, and the following custom. Every maiden cuts off a lock of
her hair before marriage, and takes it and offers it at this temple.
And they don’t represent Hippolytus as having died through being torn
in pieces by his horses, nor do they point out his tomb if they know
it: but they try to make out that Hippolytus is called in heaven
the Charioteer, and has this honour from the gods. And within his
precincts is the temple of Apollo Epibaterius, the votive offering of
Diomede when he escaped the storm which fell on the Greeks as they were
returning from Ilium: they say also that Diomede first established
the Pythian games in honour of Apollo. And as to Lamia and Auxesia
(for they also have their share of honour) the people of Trœzen do
not give the same account as the Epidaurians and Æginetans, but say
that they were virgins who came from Crete, and in a general commotion
in the city were stoned by one of the rival factions, and they have
a festival to them called Stonethrowing. And in another part of the
precincts is what is called Hippolytus’ race-course, and overlooking
it a temple of Peeping Aphrodite: where, when Hippolytus was training,
Phædra would gaze at him in her love. Here too grows the myrtle with
the leaves pricked, as I described before: for when Phædra was in
despair and found no relief for her love-pains, she wreaked her agony
on the leaves of the myrtle. And Phædra’s tomb is here, not very far
from the monument of Hippolytus, or that myrtle tree. And there is a
statue of Æsculapius by Timotheus, but the people of Trœzen say it is
not Æsculapius but Hippolytus. I saw also the house of Hippolytus, and
in front of it is what is called the Well of Hercules, the water (as
the people of Trœzen say) which Hercules discovered. And in the citadel
there is a temple of Athene Sthenias, the wooden statue of the goddess
is by Callon of Ægina; who was the pupil of Tectæus and Angelion, who
designed the statue of Apollo at Delos; and they were pupils of Dipœnus
and Scyllis. And as you go down from thence you come to the temple of
Pan the Deliverer, for he shewed dreams to the chief people of the
Trœzenians which brought about deliverance from the plague, which
pressed so hard on the Athenians. And in the environs of Trœzen you
will see a temple of Isis, and above it one of Aphrodite of the Height:
the temple the Halicarnassians built for Trœzen their mother city; but
the statue of Isis was a votive offering of the people of Trœzen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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