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
[1] George Scharf, Esq., F.S.A. 1859. _Wordsworth’s Greece_, p. 1.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
BOOK I. ATTICA 1
II. CORINTH 90
III. LACONIA 168
IV. MESSENIA 228
V. ELIS 302
VI. ELIS. Part ii. 360
INDEX 414
PAUSANIAS.
BOOK I.--ATTICA.
CHAPTER I.
On the mainland of Greece, facing the islands called the Cyclades and
the Ægean sea, the promontory of Sunium stands out on Attic soil:
and there is a harbour for any one coasting along the headland, and
a temple of Athene of Sunium on the summit of the height. And as one
sails on is Laurium, where the Athenians formerly had silver mines, and
a desert island of no great size called after Patroclus; for he had
built a wall in it and laid a palisade, when he sailed as admiral in
the Egyptian triremes, which Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, sent to punish
the Athenians, Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, in person making a raid
into their territory with a land force and ravaging it, and the fleet
simultaneously hemming them in by sea. Now the Piræus was a township
in ancient times, but was not a port until Themistocles ruled the
Athenians; but their port was Phalerum, (for here the sea is nearest to
Athens), and they say that it was from thence that Menestheus sailed
with the ships to Troy, and before him Theseus to exact vengeance
from Minos for the death of Androgeos. But when Themistocles was in
power, because the Piræus appeared to him to be more convenient as a
harbour, and it was certainly better to have three harbours than one
as at Phalerum, he made this the port. And even up to my time there
were stations for ships, and at the largest of the three harbours the
tomb of Themistocles; for they say that the Athenians repented of their
conduct to him, and that his relatives exhumed his remains and brought
them home from Magnesia. Certain it is that the sons of Themistocles
returned from exile, and hung up a painting of Themistocles in the
Parthenon. Now of all the things in the Piræus best worth seeing is the
temple of Athene and Zeus; both their statues are of gold, and Zeus has
a sceptre and Victory, while Athene is armed with a spear. Here, too,
is a painting by Arcesilaus of Leosthenes and his sons, that famous
hero who at the head of the Athenians and all the Greeks defeated the
Macedonians in battle in Bœotia, and again beyond Thermopylæ, and drove
them into Lamia over against Mount Œta and shut them up there. And it
is in the long portico, where those near the sea have their market,
(for there is another market for those more inland), and in the back
of the portico near the sea are statues of Zeus and Demos, the design
of Leochares.
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