At Messene there is also a temple and stone statue of Ilithyia. And hard by is a hall of the Curetes, where they sacrifice all kinds of living things alike. Beginning with bulls and goats, they even go as far as to cast birds into the flames. There is also a temple sacred to Demeter, and statues of Castor and Pollux represented as carrying off the daughters of Leucippus. I have already shown in a previous part of my work that the Messenians assert that Castor and Pollux are indigenous with them and not with the Lacedæmonians. And they have many statues well worth seeing in the temple of Æsculapius. For besides the statues of the god and his sons, and besides those of Apollo and the Muses and Hercules, there are statues of Thebes and Epaminondas the son of Cleommis, and of Fortune and of Lightbringing Artemis. Those in stone are the work of Damophon, the only Messenian statuary that I know of that has produced any remarkable statues. The effigy of Epaminondas in iron is by another hand. There is also at Messene a temple of Triopas and her statue in gold and Parian marble: and the paintings at the back of the temple are Aphareus and his sons, the kings of Messene before the expedition of the Dorians to the Peloponnese, and after the return of the Heraclidæ Cresphontes, the leader of the Dorians, and of those that dwelt at Pylos Nestor and Thrasymedes and Antilochus, who were preferred to the sons of Nestor partly because they were older, partly because they had taken part in the Trojan expedition. There are paintings also of Leucippus the brother of Aphareus, and of Hilaira, Phœbe, and Arsinoe. There are paintings also of Æsculapius, (the son of Arsinoe according to the tradition of the Messenians,) and Machaon and Podalirius, for they also had a share in the expedition to Ilium. These paintings were executed by Omphalion, the pupil of Nicias the son of Nicomedes: some say that he was also the slave of Nicias and his favourite. CHAPTER XXXII. The temple at Messene called the Sacrificial Chamber has statues of the gods generally worshipped among the Greeks, and also an effigy of Epaminondas in brass. There are also some ancient tripods, such as Homer describes as not having experienced fire.[60] And the statues in the gymnasium are the work of Egyptians, and are Hermes Hercules and Theseus, who are wont to be held in honour at gymnasiums and palæstras by all Greeks and by many barbarians. I also noticed a statue of Æthidas who was a contemporary of mine but older, and as he was very wealthy the Messenians paid him honours as a hero. None of the people of Messene deny that Æthidas was wealthy, but some say it is not that Æthidas who has a statue on the pillar, but a namesake and ancestor. And this earlier Æthidas was they say the General of the Messenians, when Demetrius the son of Philip and his army stole into the town by night when they little expected it.