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
The order of the games in our day is to sacrifice victims to the god,
and then to contend in the pentathlum and horse-race, according to the
programme established in the 77th Olympiad, for before this horses and
men contended on the same day. And at that period the pancratiasts did
not appear till night for they could not compete sooner, so much time
being taken up by the horse-races and pentathlum. And the Athenian
Callias was the victor of the pancratiasts. But for the future they
took care that neither the pentathlum nor horse-races should stand in
the way of the pancratium. And as regards the umpires of the games, the
original rules and those in vogue in our day are quite different, for
Iphitus was the only umpire, and after Iphitus the posterity of Oxylus,
but in the 50th Olympiad two men picked by lot out of all Elis were
entrusted with the stewardship of the contests, and this practice of
two umpires continued for a very long time. But in the 25th Olympiad
afterwards 9 general Umpires were appointed: three for the horse-race,
three to watch the pentathlum, and three to preside over the remaining
games. And in the 2nd Olympiad after this a tenth Umpire was appointed.
And in the 103rd Olympiad, as the people of Elis had 12 tribes, a
general Umpire was appointed by each. And when they were hard pressed
by the Arcadians in war, they lost a portion of their territory and all
the villages in this portion, and so they were only 8 tribes in number
in the 104th Olympiad, and had only 8 general Umpires accordingly.
And in the 108th Olympiad they returned to the number of 10 general
Umpires, and that has continued the number to our day.
CHAPTER X.
Many various wonders may one see, or hear of, in Greece: but the
Eleusinian mysteries and Olympian games seem to exhibit more than
anything else the divine purpose. And the sacred grove of Zeus they
have from old time called Altis, slightly changing the Greek word for
grove[69]: it is indeed called Altis also by Pindar, in the Ode he
composed for a victor at Olympia. And the temple and statue of Zeus
were built out of the spoils of Pisa, which the people of Elis razed
to the ground, after quelling the revolt of Pisa and some of the
neighbouring towns that revolted with Pisa. And that the statue of Zeus
was the work of Phidias is shown by the inscription written at the base
of it,
“Phidias the Athenian, the son of Charmides, made me.”
The temple is a Doric building, and outside it is a colonnade. And
the temple is built of stone of the district. Its height up to the
gable is 68 feet, its breadth 95 feet, and its length 230 feet. And its
architect was Libon a native of Elis. And the tiles on the roof are
not of baked earth, but Pentelican marble to imitate tiles. They say
such roofs are the invention of a man of Naxos called Byzes, who made
statues at Naxos with the inscription,
“Euergus of Naxos made me, the son of Byzes, and descended from Leto,
the first who made tiles of stone.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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