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 this they call Tutelary Dionysus, and another they call
Dionysus Dasyllius (_the Vine-ripener_), and this statue they say was
erected by Euchenor the son of Cœranus the son of Polyidus. And next to
the temple of Dionysus is the shrine of Aphrodite, and a statue of the
goddess in ivory, under the title Praxis (_Action_). This is the oldest
statue in the shrine. And _Persuasion_ and another goddess whom they
call _Consolation_ are by Praxiteles: and by Scopas _Love_ and _Desire_
and _Yearning_, each statue expressing the particular shade of meaning
marked by the words. And near the shrine of Aphrodite is the temple
of Chance: this too is by Praxiteles. And in the neighbouring temple
Lysippus has made the Muses and a brazen Zeus.
The Megarians also have the tomb of Corœbus: the verses about him I
shall relate here though they are also Argive intelligence. In the days
when Crotopus was king in Argos, his daughter Psamathe they say had
a child by Apollo, and being greatly afraid of her father knowing it
exposed the child. And some sheep dogs of Crotopus lit upon the child
and killed it, and Apollo sent upon the city _Punishment_, a monster
who took children away from their mothers (they say), till Corœbus
killed it to ingratiate himself with the Argives. And after killing it,
as a second plague came on them and vexed them sore, Corœbus of his own
accord went to Delphi, and offered to submit to the punishment of the
god for killing _Punishment_. The Pythian priestess forbade Corœbus
to return to Argos, but told him to carry a tripod from the temple,
and wherever the tripod should fall, there he was to build a temple to
Apollo and himself dwell. And the tripod slipt out of his hand and fell
(without his contrivance) on the mountain Gerania, and there he built
the village Tripodisci. And his tomb is in the market-place at Megara:
and there are some elegiac verses on it that relate to Psamathe and
Corœbus himself, and a representation on the tomb of Corœbus killing
Punishment. These statues are the oldest Greek ones in stone that I
have myself seen.
CHAPTER XLIV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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