Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.].
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1.1.3

The most noteworthy sight in the Peiraeus is a precinct of Athena and Zeus. Both their images are of bronze; Zeus holds a staff and a Victory, Athena a spear. Here is a portrait of Leosthenes and of his sons, painted by Arcesilaus. This Leosthenes at the head of the Athenians and the united Greeks defeated the Macedonians in Boeotia and again outside Thermopylae forced them into Lamia over against Oeta, and shut them up there. note The portrait is in the long portico, where stands a market-place for those living near the sea—those farther away from the harbor have another—but behind the portico near the sea stand a Zeus and a Demos, the work of Leochares. And by the sea Conon note built a sanctuary of Aphrodite, after he had crushed the Lacedaemonian warships off Cnidus in the Carian peninsula. note For the Cnidians hold Aphrodite in very great honor, and they have sanctuaries of the goddess; the oldest is to her as Doritis (Bountiful), the next in age as Acraea (Of the Height), while the newest is to the Aphrodite called Cnidian by men generally, but Euploia (Fair Voyage) by the Cnidians themselves.

1.1.4

The Athenians have also another harbor, at Munychia, with a temple of Artemis of Munychia, and yet another at Phalerum, as I have already stated, and near it is a sanctuary of Demeter. Here there is also a temple of Athena Sciras, and one of Zeus some distance away, and altars of the gods named Unknown, and of heroes, and of the children of Theseus and Phalerus; for this Phalerus is said by the Athenians to have sailed with Jason to Colchis. There is also an altar of Androgeos, son of Minos, though it is called that of Heros; those, however, who pay special attention to the study of their country's antiquities know that it belongs to Androgeos.

1.1.5

Twenty stades away is the Coliad promontory; on to it, when the Persian fleet was destroyed, the wrecks were carried down by the waves. There is here an image of the Coliad Aphrodite, with the goddesses Genetyllides (Goddesses of Birth), as they are called. And I am of opinion that the goddesses of the Phocaeans in Ionia, whom they call Gennaides, are the same as those at Colias. On the way from Phalerum to Athens there is a temple of Hera with neither doors nor roof. Men say that Mardonius, son of Gobryas, burnt it. But the image there to-day is, as report goes, the work of Alcamenes note So that this, at any rate, cannot have been damaged by the Persians.

ch. 2 1.2.1

On entering the city there is a monument to Antiope the Amazon. This Antiope, Pindar says, was carried of by Peirithous and Theseus, but Hegias of Troezen gives the following account of her. Heracles was besieging Themiscyra on the Thermodon, but could not take it, but Antiope, falling in love with Theseus, who was aiding Heracles in his campaign, surrendered the stronghold. Such is the account of Hegias. But the Athenians assert that when the Amazons came, Antiope was shot by Molpadia, while Molpadia was killed by Theseus. To Molpadia also there is a monument among the Athenians.

1.2.2

As you go up from the Peiraeus you see the ruins of the walls which Conon restored after the naval battle off Cnidus. For those built by Themistocles after the retreat of the Persians were destroyed during the rule of those named the Thirty. note Along the road are very famous graves, that of Menander, son of Diopeithes, and a cenotaph of Euripides. He him self went to King Archelaus and lies buried in Macedonia; as to the manner of his death (many have described it), let it be as they say.

1.2.3

So even in his time poets lived at the courts of kings, as earlier still Anacreon consorted with Polycrates, despot of Samos, and Aeschylus and Simonides journeyed to Hiero at Syracuse. Dionysius, afterwards despot in Sicily had Philoxenus at his court, and Antigonus, note ruler of Macedonia, had Antagoras of Rhodes and Aratus of Soli. But Hesiod and Homer either failed to win the society of kings or else purposely despised it, Hesiod through boorishness and reluctance to travel, while Homer, having gone very far abroad, depreciated the help afforded by despots in the acquisition of wealth in comparison with his reputation among ordinary men. And yet Homer, too, in his poem makes Demodocus live at the court of Alcinous, and Agamemnon leave a poet with his wife. Not far from the gates is a grave, on which is mounted a soldier standing by a horse. Who it is I do not know, but both horse and soldier were carved by Praxiteles.



Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.].
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