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
Polygnotus has accordingly represented Charon as old. The persons
on board are not very easy to trace. But there is Tellis, looking
like a youth, and Cleobœa still a virgin, with a cist on her knees
such as they use in the worship of Demeter. Of Tellis I know nothing
more than that Archilochus was his greatgrandson. And Cleobœa they
say first introduced the mysteries of Demeter from Paros to Thasos.
And on the bank of the Acheron near Charon’s boat a son, who had not
treated his father well, is being strangled by his father. For the
ancients reverenced fathers exceedingly,[128] as one may infer among
other things from the conduct of those called _Pious_ at Catana, who,
when Catana was consumed by fire from Mount Ætna, took no account of
silver or gold, but the one took up his mother, the other his father,
and fled for their lives. And as they advanced with great difficulty
for the flame gathered on them, (but they would not for all that set
their parents down), the flames they say divided so as to let them
pass without hurt. These young men are still honoured at Catana. And
in Polygnotus’ painting near the man who ill-treated his father, and
has consequently a bad time of it in Hades, is a sacrilegious wretch
suffering punishment. The woman[129] who is punishing him seems well
acquainted with poison, and other things that can do man harm. Men were
also in those days remarkable for piety to the gods, as the Athenians
shewed when they captured the temple of Olympian Zeus at Syracuse, for
they removed none of the votive offerings, and left the former priest
still in charge. Datis the Mede also showed the same piety both in
word and in deed, in word to the Delians, and in deed when, finding a
statue of Apollo on a Phœnician ship, he gave it back to the people of
Tanagra to take to Delium. In those days all men honoured the deity,
and so Polygnotus introduced into his painting the sacrilegious wretch
suffering punishment. Above those I have described is Eurynomus, who
according to the Antiquarians at Delphi is a demon in Hades, and eats
the flesh of the dead clean to the bones. No such person however is
mentioned in the Odyssey, or in the Minyad, or in _The Return from
Ilium_, though these poems contain accounts of Hades and its horrors.
I shall therefore describe Eurynomus’ appearance in this painting.
His colour is a blueish-black, like that of the flies that infest
meat,[130] and he shows his fangs, and sits on a vulture’s skin. And
next him are Auge and Iphimedea from Arcadia. Auge came to Teuthras in
Mysia, and, of all the women who consorted with Hercules, bare a son
most like him. And Iphimedea is treated with very great honour by the
Carians who dwell at Mylasa.
[128] See for example Hesiod, _Works and Days_, 331, 332, with context.
[129] _Boettiger_ takes this woman to be _Punishment_ personified.
[130] Our “bluebottles.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
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