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
made, nor do they know who made it, though some say Alexanor himself.
The only parts of the statue that are visible are the face and fingers
and toes, for a white woollen tunic and cloak are thrown round it. And
there is a statue of Hygiea somewhat similar. You can not see it either
easily, so hidden is it by the hair of the women which they shear to
the goddess, and by the folds of a Babylonish garment. And whichever of
these any one wishes to propitiate, he is instructed to worship Hygiea.
Alexanor and Euamerion have also statues, to the former they offer
sacrifices after sunset as to a hero, but to the latter they sacrifice
as to a god. And (if my conjecture is correct) this Euamerion is called
Telesphorus (according to some oracle) by the people of Pergamum, but
by the people of Epidaurus Acesis. There is also a wooden statue of
Coronis, but not anywhere in the temple: but when bull or lamb or pig
are sacrificed to the goddess, then they take Coronis to the temple of
Athene and honour her there. Nor are they contented merely with cutting
off the thighs of the victims, but they burn all the victims whole
on the ground except birds, and these they burn on the altar. On the
gable ends are figures of Hercules, and several Victories. And in the
porch are statues of Dionysus and Hecate and Aphrodite and The Mother
of the Gods and Fortune: these are all in wood, and one of Gortynian
Æsculapius in stone. And people are afraid to approach the sacred
dragons: but if their food is put at the entrance they give no further
trouble. There is also within the precincts a statue of Granianus, a
native of Sicyon, in brass. He won two victories at Olympia in the
pentathlum, and a third in the stadium, and two in the double course,
which he ran both in armour and out of armour.
CHAPTER XII.
And at Titane there is also a temple of Athene, into which they carry
the statue of Coronis. And in it is an old wooden statue of Athene.
This too is said to have been struck by lightning. As you descend from
the hill, for the temple is built on the hill, is the altar of the
winds, on which the priest sacrifices to them one night in every year.
And he performs mysterious rites at four pits, to tame their violence,
chanting, so they say, the incantations of Medea.
And as you go from Titane to Sicyon, and descend towards the sea,
there is on the left a temple of Hera, with neither statue nor roof.
They say Prœtus the son of Abas built it. And as you go down to what
is called the harbour of the Sicyonians, and turn to Aristonautæ, the
port of the people of Pellene, there is, a little above the road, on
the left a temple of Poseidon. And as you go on along the high road
you come to the river Helisson, and next the river Sythas, both rivers
flowing into the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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