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
[80] Iliad, ii. 100-108. Lest anybody should be surprised at a sceptre
being called _a spear_ let him remember the following words of Justin,
xliii. 5. “Per ea adhuc tempora reges hastas pro diademate
habebant, quas Græci sceptra dixere. Nam et ab origine rerum pro diis
immortalibus veteres hastas coluere, ob cujus religionis memoriam adhuc
deorum simulacris hastæ adduntur.”
CHAPTER XLI.
Of all the works indeed of Hephæstus, that poets sing of and that have
been famous among men, there is none but this sceptre of Agamemnon
certainly his. The Lycians indeed show at Patara in the temple of
Apollo a brazen bowl (which they say was by Hephæstus), the votive
offering of Telephus, but they are probably ignorant that the Samians
Theodorus and Rhœcus were the first brass-founders. And the Achæans
of Patræ say that the chest which Eurypylus brought from Troy was made
by Hephæstus, but they do not allow it to be seen. In Cyprus is the
city Amathus, where is an ancient temple of Adonis and Aphrodite, and
here they say is the necklace which was originally given to Harmonia,
but is called the necklace of Eriphyle, because she received it as a
gift from her husband, and the sons of Phegeus dedicated it at Delphi.
How they got it I have already related in my account of Arcadia. But
it was carried off by the Phocian tyrants. I do not however think that
the necklace in the temple of Adonis at Amathus is Eriphyle’s, for that
is emeralds set in gold, but the necklace given to Eriphyle is said by
Homer in the Odyssey to have been entirely gold, as in the line,
“Who sold for gold her husband dear.”[81]
And Homer knew very well that there are different kinds of necklaces,
for in the conversation between Eumæus and Odysseus, before Telemachus
returned from Pylos and visited the swineherd’s cottage, are the
following lines,
“Came to my father’s house a knowing man,
With golden necklace, which was set in amber.”[82]
And among the gifts which Penelope received from the suitors he has
represented Eurymachus giving her a necklace.
“Eurymachus brought her a splendid necklace,
Golden and set in amber, like a sun.”[83]
But he does not speak of Eriphyle’s necklace as adorned with gold and
precious stones. So it is probable that this sceptre is the only work
of Hephæstus still extant.
Above Chæronea is a crag called Petrachos. They say that it was here
that Cronos was deceived by Rhea with a stone instead of Zeus, and
there is a small statue of Zeus on the summit of the mountain. At
Chæronea they make unguents by boiling down together lilies and roses
narcissuses and irises. These unguents relieve pain. Indeed if you
anoint wooden statues with unguent made from roses, it preserves them
from rottenness. The iris grows in marshy, places, and is in size about
as big as the lily, but is not white, and not so strong-scented as the
lily.
[81] Odyssey, xi. 327.
[82] Odyssey, xv. 459, 460.
[83] Odyssey, xviii. 295, 296.
BOOK X.--PHOCIS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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