Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
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That Pelops and Tantalus once dwelt in my country there have remained signs right down to the present day. There is a lake called after Tantalus and a famous grave, and on a peak of Mount Sipylus there is a throne of Pelops beyond the sanctuary of Plastene the Mother. If you cross the river Hermus you see an image of Aphrodite in Temnus made of a living myrtle-tree. It is a tradition among us that it was dedicated by Pelops when he was propitiating the goddess and asking for Hippodameia to be his bride.
5.13.8
The altar of Olympic Zeus is about equally distant from the Pelopium and the sanctuary of Hera, but it is in front of both. Some say that it was built by Idaean Heracles, others by the local heroes two generations later than Heracles. It has been made from the ash of the thighs of the victims sacrificed to Zeus, as is also the altar at
The first stage of the altar at
The steps that lead up to the prothysis from either side are made of stone, but those leading from the prothysis to the upper part of the altar are, like the altar itself, composed of ashes. The ascent to the prothysis may be made by maidens, and likewise by women, when they are not shut out from
Every year the soothsayers, keeping carefully to the nineteenth day of the month Elaphius, note bring the ash from the town-hall, and making it into a paste with the water of the Alpheius they daub the altar therewith. But never may the ash be made into paste with other water, and for this reason the Alpheius is thought to be of all rivers the dearest to Olympic Zeus. There is also an altar at
ch. 14
5.14.1
The altar at The Eleans are wont to use for the sacrifices to Zeus the wood of the white poplar and of no other tree, preferring the white poplar, I think, simply and solely because Heracles brought it into So from the first down to the present all rivers have not been equally suited for the growth of plants and trees. Tamarisks grow best and in the greatest numbers by the
Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
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