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
Opposite the brazen head of this bison is the statue of a man with a
coat of mail on and a cloak over it: the Delphians say it is a votive
offering of the people of Andros, and that it is Andreus their founder.
And the statues of Apollo and Athene and Artemis are votive offerings
of the Phocians from spoil of the Thessalians, their constant enemies,
and neighbours except where the Epicnemidian Locrians come in. Votive
offerings have been also made by the Thessalians of Pharsalus, and by
the Macedonians who dwell at Dium under Pieria, and by the Greeks of
Cyrene in Libya. These last sent a chariot and statue of Ammon on the
chariot, and the Macedonians at Dium sent an Apollo who has hold of a
doe, and the Pharsalians sent an Achilles on horseback, and Patroclus
is running by the side of the horse. And the Dorians of Corinth built a
treasury also, and the gold from the Lydians was stored there. And the
statue of Hercules was the votive offering of the Thebans at the time
they fought with the Phocians what is called The Sacred War. Here also
are the brazen effigies erected by the Phocians, when in the second
encounter they routed the Thessalian cavalry. The people of Phlius also
sent to Delphi a brazen Zeus, and an effigy of Ægina with Zeus.[99] And
from Mantinea in Arcadia there is an offering of a brazen Apollo, not
far from the treasury of the Corinthians.
Hercules and Apollo are also to be seen close to a tripod for the
possession of which they are about to fight, but Leto and Artemis are
trying to appease the anger of Apollo, and Athene that of Hercules.
This was the votive offering of the Phocians when Tellias of Elis led
them against the Thessalians. The other figures in the group were made
jointly by Diyllus and Amyclæus, but Athene and Artemis were made
by Chionis, all 3 Corinthian statuaries. It is also recorded by the
Delphians that, when Hercules the son of Amphitryon came to consult the
oracle, the priestess Xenoclea would not give him any response because
of his murder of Iphitus: so he took the tripod and carried it out of
the temple, and the prophetess said,
“This is another Hercules, the one from Tiryns not from Canopus.”
For earlier still the Egyptian Hercules had come to Delphi. Then the
son of Amphitryon restored the tripod to Apollo, and got the desired
answer from Xenoclea. And poets have handed down the tradition, and
sung of the contest of Hercules and Apollo for the tripod.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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