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
As you go from the market-place on the road which they call
Apheta (_starting-place_), you come to what is called Booneta,
(_Ox-purchased_). I must first explain the name of the road. They say
that Icarius proposed a race for the suitors of Penelope, and that
Odysseus won the prize is clear, and they started they say at the road
called Apheta. And I think Icarius imitated Danaus in proposing this
contest. For this was Danaus’ plan in regard to his daughters; as no
one would marry any of them because of their atrocious crime, Danaus
made it known that he would marry his daughters to any one who should
select them for their beauty without requiring wedding-presents, but
when only a few came to apply he established a race, and the winner
might take his pick of the girls, and the second the next, and so on to
the last in the race: and the girls still remaining had to wait for a
second batch of suitors and a second race. And what the Lacedæmonians
call Booneta on this road, was formerly the house of king Polydorus:
and after Polydorus’ death they bought it of his widow for some oxen.
For as yet there was no coinage either in silver or gold, but in
primitive fashion they gave in barter oxen and slaves, and silver or
gold in the lump. And mariners to India tell us the Indians give in
exchange for Greek commodities various wares, but do not understand
the use of money, and that though they have plenty of gold and silver.
And opposite the public Hall of the Bidiæi is the temple of Athene,
and Odysseus is said to have put there the statue of the goddess, and
called it Celeuthea, when he outran the suitors of Penelope. And he
built three temples of Celeuthea at some distance from one another.
And along the road called Apheta there are hero-chapels of Iops, who
is supposed to have been a contemporary of Lelex or Myles, and of
Amphiaraus the son of Œcles, (and this last they think the sons of
Tyndareus erected as Amphiaraus was their uncle), and also one of Lelex
himself. And not far from these is the shrine of Tænarian Apollo,
for that is his title, and at no great distance a statue of Athene,
which they say was a votive offering of those who migrated to Italy
and Tarentum. And the place which is called Hellenium is so called
because those of the Hellenes (_Greeks_), who strove to prevent Xerxes’
passing into Europe, deliberated in this place how they should resist
him. But another tradition says that it was here that those who went
to Ilium to oblige Menelaus deliberated on the best plan for sailing
to Troy, and exacting punishment of Paris for the rape of Helen. And
near Hellenium they exhibit the tomb of Talthybius: as do also the
people of Ægæ in Achaia in their market-place, who also claim the tomb
of Talthybius as being with them. And the wrath of this Talthybius for
the murder of the envoys, who were sent by King Darius to Greece to ask
for earth and water, was publicly manifested to the Lacedæmonians, but
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