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There are other acts performed by the youths, which I will now describe. Before the fighting they sacrifice in the Phoebaeum, which is outside the city, not far distant from Therapne. Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalius, holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except the people of
At the sacrifice the youths set trained boars to fight; the company whose boar happens to win generally gains the victory in Plane-tree Grove. Such are the performances in the Phoebaeum. A little before the middle of the next day they enter by the bridges into the place I have mentioned. They cast lots during the night to decide by which entrance each band is to go in. In fighting they use their hands, kick with their feet, bite, and gouge out the eyes of their opponents. Man to man they fight in the way I have described, but in the melee they charge violently and push one another into the water.
ch. 15
3.15.1
At Plane-tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot race at These are said to be sons of Hippocoon. The fountain near the hero-shrine of Dorceus they call Dorcean after him; the place Sebrium is named after Sebrus. On the right of Sebrium is the tomb of Alcman, the lyric poet, the charm of whose works was not in the least spoilt by the Laconian dialect, which is the least musical of them all. There are sanctuaries of Helen and of Heracles; the former is near the grave of Alcman, the latter is quite close to the wall and contains an armed image of Heracles. The attitude of the image is due, they say, to the fight with Hippocoon and his sons. The enmity of Heracles towards the family of Hippocoon is said to have sprung out of their refusing to cleanse him when he came to The following incident, too, helped to begin the feud. Oeonus, a stripling cousin of Heracles—he was the son of Licymnius the brother of Alcmene—came to This made Heracles most bitterly wroth with Hippocoon and his sons, and straightway, angry as he was, he set out to give them battle. On this occasion he was wounded, and made good his retreat by stealth but afterwards he made an expedition against
As you go from the Course towards the east, there is a path on the right, with a sanctuary of Athena called Axiopoinos (Just Requital or Tit for Tat). For when Heracles, in avenging himself on Hippocoon and his sons, had inflicted upon them a just requital for their treatment of his relative, he founded a sanctuary of Athena, and surnamed her Axiopoinos because the ancients used to call vengeance Near is a temple of Hipposthenes, who won so many victories in wrestling. They worship Hipposthenes in accordance with an oracle, paying him honors as to Poseidon. Opposite this temple is an old image of Enyalius in fetters. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Victory; the former think that Enyalius will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, while the Athenians think that Victory, having no wings, will always remain where she is.
In this fashion, and with such a belief have these cities set up the wooden images. In
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