Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
The Bœotians say that Eteocles was the first who sacrificed to the
Graces. And they are sure that he established the worship of three
Graces, though they do not remember the names he gave them. For the
Lacedæmonians say that only two Graces were appointed by Lacedæmon
the son of Taygete, and that their names were Cleta and Phaenna.
These names suit the Graces, and they have suitable names also among
the Athenians, for the Athenians honour of old the Graces Auxo and
Hegemone. As to Carpo it is not the name of a Grace but a Season.
And another Season the Athenians honour equally with Pandrosus, the
Goddess they call Thallo. But having learnt so to do from Eteocles of
Orchomenus we are accustomed now to pray to three Graces: and Angelion
and Tectæus who made a statue of Apollo at Delos have placed three
Graces in his hand; and at Athens at the entrance to the Acropolis
there are also three Graces, and near them they celebrate the mysteries
which are kept secret from the multitude. Pamphus is the first we know
of that sang the praises of the Graces, but he has neither mentioned
their number nor their names. And Homer, who has also mentioned the
Graces, says that one of them whom he calls Charis was the wife of
Hephæstus.[72] And he says that Sleep was the lover of the Grace
Pasithea. For in his account of Sleep he has written the lines,
“That he would give me one of the younger Graces,
Pasithea, whom I long for day and night.”[73]
Hence has arisen the idea that Homer knew of other older Graces. And
Hesiod in the Theogony (if indeed Hesiod wrote the Theogony) says that
these Graces are the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, and that their
names are Euphrosyne and Aglaia and Thalia. Onomacritus gives the same
account of them in his verses. But Antimachus neither gives the number
of the Graces nor their names, but says they were the daughters of
Ægle and the Sun. And Hermesianax in his Elegies has written something
rather different from the opinion of those before him, _viz._ that
Peitho was one of the Graces. But whoever first represented the Graces
naked (whether in a statue or painting) I could not ascertain, for
in more ancient times the statuaries and painters represented them
dressed, as at Smyrna in the temple of the Nemeses, where above the
other statues are some golden Graces by Bupalus. In the Odeum also is
a figure of a Grace painted by Apelles. The people of Pergamus have
also, in the bed-chamber of Attalus, the Graces by Bupalus. And in
what is called the Pythium there are Graces painted by the Parian
Pythagoras. And Socrates the son of Sophroniscus at the entrance to
the Acropolis made statues of the Graces for the Athenians. And all
these are draped: but artists afterwards, I know not why, changed this
presentation of them: and in my day both sculptured them and painted
them as naked.
[72] Iliad, xviii. 382, 383.
[73] Iliad, xiv. 275, 276.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
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