Greek Texts & Translations

Hera is gazing at Io, the daughter of Inachus, who is already a cow, and Athena is running away from Hephaestus, who chases her. Next to these have been wrought two of the exploits of Heracles—his slaying the hydra, and his bringing up the Hound of Hell. Anaxias and Mnasinous are each seated on horseback, but there is one horse only carrying Megapenthes, the son of Menelaus, and Nicostratus. Bellerophontes is destroying the beast in Lycia, and Heracles is driving off the cows of Geryones.

At the upper edge of the throne are wrought, one on each side, the sons of Tyndareus on horses. There are sphinxes under the horses, and beasts running upwards, on the one side a leopard, by Polydeuces a lioness. On the very top of the throne has been wrought a band of dancers, the Magnesians who helped Bathycles to make the throne.

Underneath the throne, the inner part away from the Tritons contains the hunting of the Calydonian boar and Heracles killing the children of Actor. Calais and Zetes are driving the Harpies away from Phineus. Peirithous and Theseus have seized Helen, and Heracles is strangling the lion. Apollo and Artemis are shooting Tityus.

There is represented the fight between Heracles and Oreius the Centaur, and also that between Theseus and the Bull of Minos. There are also represented the wrestling of Heracles with Achelous, the fabled binding of Hera by Hephaestus, the games Acastus held in honor of his father, and the story of Menelaus and the Egyptian Proteus from the Odyssey. ^note Lastly there is Admetus yoking a boar and a lion to his chariot, and the Trojans are bringing libations to Hector.

I know of nobody who has measured the height of the image, but at a guess one would estimate it to be as much as thirty cubits. It is not the work of Bathycles, being old and uncouth; for though it has face, feet, and hands, the rest resembles a bronze pillar. On its head it has a helmet, in its hands a spear and a bow.

The pedestal of the statue is fashioned into the shape of an altar and they say that Hyacinthus is buried in it, and at the Hyacinthia, before the sacrifice to Apollo, they devote offerings to Hyacinthus as to a hero into this altar through a bronze door, which is on the left of the altar. On the altar are wrought in relief, here an image of Biris, there Amphitrite and Poseidon. Zeus and Hermes are conversing; near stand Dionysus and Semele, with Ino by her side.

On the altar are also Demeter, the Maid, Pluto, next to them Fates and Seasons, and with them Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis. They are carrying to heaven Hyacinthus and Polyboea, the sister, they say, of Hyacinthus, who died a maid. Now this statue of Hyacinthus represents him as bearded, but Nicias ^note, son of Nicomedes, has painted him in the very prime of youthful beauty, hinting at the love of Apollo for Hyacinthus of which legend tells.

Wrought on the altar is also Heracles; he too is being led to heaven by Athena and the other gods. On the altar are also the daughters of Thestius, Muses and Seasons. As for the West Wind, how Apollo unintentionally killed Hyacinthus, and the story of the flower, we must be content with the legends, although perhaps they are not true history.

Amyclae was laid waste by the Dorians, and since that time has remained a village; I found there a sanctuary and image of Alexandra worth seeing. Alexandra is said by the Amyclaeans to be Cassandra, the daughter of Priam. Here is also a statue of Clytaemnestra, together with what is supposed to be the tomb of Agamemnon. The natives worship the Amyclaean god and Dionysus, surnaming the latter, quite correctly I think, Psilax. For psila is Doric for wings, and wine uplifts men and lightens their spirit no less than wings do birds.

Such I found were the things worth mentioning about Amyclae. Another road from the city leads to Therapne,

and on this road is a wooden image of Athena Alea. Before the Eurotas is crossed, a little above the bank is shown a sanctuary of Zeus Wealthy. Across the river is a temple of Asclepius Cotyleus (of the Hip-joint); it was made by Heracles, who named Asclepius Cotyleus, because he was cured of the wound in the hip-joint that he received in the former fight with Hippocoon and his sons. Of all the objects along this road the oldest is a sanctuary of Ares. This is on the left of the road, and the image is said to have been brought from Colchis by the Dioscuri.

They surname him Theritas after Thero, who is said to have been the nurse of Ares. Perhaps it was from the Colchians that they heard the name Theritas, since the Greeks know of no Thero, nurse of Ares. My own belief is that the surname Theritas ^note was not given to Ares because of his nurse, but because when a man meets an enemy in battle he must cast aside all gentleness, as Homer says of Achilles: And he is fierce as a lion.
Hom. Il. 24.41