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
exiles, called Doryclei, mixed themselves among the inhabitants and
betrayed Salamis to the Athenians. And next to the enclosure of Zeus,
as you ascend the Acropolis still called the Carian from Car the son
of Phoroneus, is the temple of Nyctelian Dionysus, and the temple of
Aphrodite the Procuress, and the Oracle of Night, and a roofless
temple of dusty Zeus. And statues of Æsculapius and Hygiea, both the
work of Bryaxis. Here too is the sacred Hall of Demeter: which they say
was erected by Car when he was king.
CHAPTER XLI.
As you descend from the Acropolis in a Northerly direction, you come
to the sepulchre of Alcmene near the Olympieum. She died they say at
Megara on her journey from Argos to Thebes, and the sons of Hercules
had a dispute, some wishing to take her dead body to Argos, others to
Thebes: for the sons of Hercules by Megara were buried at Thebes, as
also Amphitryon’s sons. But Apollo at Delphi gave the oracular response
that it would be better for them to bury Alcmena at Megara. From this
place the interpreter of national Antiquities took me to a place called
Rhun (_Flow_), so called because some water flowed here from the hills
above the city, but Theagenes when he was king diverted the water
into another direction, and erected here an altar to Achelous. And at
no great distance is the monument of Hyllus the son of Hercules, who
fought in single combat with the Arcadian Echemus, the son of Aeropus.
Who this Echemus was that slew Hyllus I shall shew in another place,
but Hyllus is buried at Megara. The expedition to the Peloponnese, when
Orestes was king, might rightly be called an expedition of the sons
of Hercules. And not far from the monument of Hyllus is the temple of
Isis, and near it the temple of Apollo and Artemis. This last they say
was built by Alcathous, after he had slain the lion that was called
the lion of Mount Cithæron. This lion had they say devoured several
Megarians and among them the king’s son Euippus: whose elder brother
Timalcus had been killed by Theseus still earlier, when he went
with Castor and Pollux to the siege of Aphidna. Megareus therefore
promised his daughter in marriage, and the succession to the kingdom,
to whoever should kill the lion of Mount Cithæron. So Alcathous (the
son of Pelops) attacked the beast and slew him, and, when he became
king built this temple, dedicating it to Huntress Artemis and Hunter
Apollo. This at any rate is the local tradition. But though I don’t
want to contradict the Megarians, I cannot find myself in agreement
with them entirely, for though I quite admit that the lion of Mount
Cithæron was killed by Alcathous, yet who ever recorded that Timalcus
the son of Megareus went to Aphidna with Castor and Pollux? And how (if
he had gone there) could he have been thought to have been killed by
Theseus, seeing that Alcman in his Ode to Castor and Pollux, recording
how they took Athens, and carried away captive the mother of Theseus,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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