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
In the lower part of the painting next Thracian Thamyris sits Hector,
like a man oppressed with sorrow, with both his hands on his left knee.
And next him is Memnon seated on a stone, and close to Memnon Sarpedon,
who is leaning his head on both his hands, and one of Memnon’s hands
is on Sarpedon’s shoulder. All of these have beards, and some birds
are painted on Memnon’s cloak. These birds are called Memnonides, and
every year the people near the Hellespont say they come on certain
days to Memnon’s tomb, and sweep all the parts round the tomb that are
bare of trees or grass, and sprinkle them with their wings which they
wet in the river Æsepus. And near Memnon is a naked Ethiopian boy, for
Memnon was king of the Ethiopians. However he did not come to Ilium
from Ethiopia, but from Susa in Persia and the river Choaspes, after
vanquishing all the tribes in that neighbourhood. The Phrygians still
shew the road by which he marched his army, the shortest route over the
mountains.[138]
Above Sarpedon and Memnon is Paris, as yet a beardless youth. He is
clapping his hands like a rustic, apparently to attract the notice of
Penthesilea, who looks at him, but by the toss of her head seems to
despise him, and jeer at him as a boy. She is represented as a maiden
with a Scythian bow, and a leopard’s skin round her shoulders. Above
her are two women carrying water in broken pitchers, one still in her
prime, the other rather advanced in life. There is no inscription on
either of them, except a notification that they are both among the
uninitiated. Above this pair are Callisto the daughter of Lycaon, and
Nomia, and Pero the daughter of Neleus, from every suitor of whom her
father asked the kine of Iphiclus.[139] Callisto has a bear-skin for
her coverlet, and her feet are on the knees of Nomia. I have before
stated that the Arcadians consider Nomia one of their local Nymphs. The
poets say the Nymphs are long-lived but not immortal. Next to Callisto
and the other women with her is a hill, up which Sisyphus the son of
Æolus is laboriously rolling a stone. There is also a winejar in the
painting, and an old man, and a boy, and two women, a young woman
under a rock, and an old woman near the old man. Some men are bringing
water, and the old woman’s water-pot appears to be broken, and she is
pouring all the water in the pitcher into the winejar. One is inclined
to conjecture that they are people making a mock of the Eleusinian
mysteries. But the older Greeks considered the Eleusinian mysteries
as much above all other religious services, as the gods are superior
to heroes. And under the winejar is Tantalus, undergoing all those
punishments mentioned by Homer,[140] and also terrified lest a stone
overhanging his head should fall on him. It is plain that Polygnotus
followed the account of Archilochus: but I do not know whether
Archilochus invented the addition to the legend about the stone, or
merely related what he had heard from others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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