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 these ruins of Arene are very near the Aniger. One might have
doubted about Samicum having been called Arene, only the Arcadians
admit that the ancient name of the river Aniger was Minyeïus. And one
would feel sure that the river Neda near the sea was the boundary
between Elis and Messenia at the time of the return of the Heraclidæ to
the Peloponnese.
And leaving the Aniger, and passing through a district generally
sandy and full of wild pine-trees, somewhat back to the left you will
see the ruins of Scillus. Scillus was one of the towns of Triphylia:
and in the war between the people of Elis and Pisa the people of
Scillus openly allied themselves to the people of Pisa, and in return
the men of Elis dispossessed them from Scillus. But the Lacedæmonians
afterwards sliced Scillus from Elis, and gave it to Xenophon (the son
of Gryllus), who was at that time exiled from Athens. He was banished
by the Athenians for joining Cyrus (who hated their democracy) against
the king of the Persians (who was their friend): for when Cyrus was at
Sardis he gave Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and the Lacedæmonians
some money for their fleet. This is why Xenophon was banished, and he
lived at Scillus and built a temple and grove to Ephesian Artemis. And
Scillus affords good hunting of wild animals, as wild boars and deer.
And the river Selinus flows through the district. And the antiquarians
of Elis say that the people of Elis recovered Scillus, and that
Xenophon was tried in the Olympian council for receiving Scillus from
the Lacedæmonians, but was acquitted and allowed to continue there scot
free. And at some little distance from the temple they show a tomb, and
there is an effigy on the tomb in Pentelican marble, which the people
of the place say is Xenophon.
On the road to Olympia from Scillus, before crossing the Alpheus,
is a mountain lofty and precipitous which is called Typæum. From this
mountain it is the custom to hurl all women of Elis who are detected as
competitors in the Olympian contests, or who merely cross the Alpheus
on forbidden days. Not that any one ever yet was so detected except
Callipatira, whose name according to some traditions was Pherenice. She
after the death of her husband dressed herself up like an athlete, and
brought her son as a combatant to Olympia. And Pisirodus her son having
been victorious, Callipatira in leaping over the fence which parted
the athletes from the spectators, exposed her person, and though her
sex was detected they let her go without punishment out of respect to
her father and brothers and son, who had all been victors at Olympia,
but they passed a law that henceforth all athletes should come to the
contests naked.
CHAPTER VII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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