Greek Texts & Translations

Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteocles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneices stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and her fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom, implying that Polyneices has been carried off by fate, and that Eteocles fully deserved his end. Dionysus is lying down in a cave, a bearded figure holding a golden cup, and clad in a tunic reaching to the feet. Around him are vines, apple-trees and pomegranate-trees.

The highest space—the spaces are five in number—shows no inscription, so that we can only conjecture what the reliefs mean. Well, there is a grotto and in it a woman sleeping with a man upon a couch. I was of opinion that they were Odysseus and Circe, basing my view upon the number of the handmaidens in front of the grotto and upon what they are doing. For the women are four, and they are engaged on the tasks which Homer mentions in his poetry. ^note There is a Centaur with only two of his legs those of a horse; his forelegs are human.

Next come two-horse chariots with women standing in them. The horses have golden wings, and a man is giving armour to one of the women. I conjecture that this scene refers to the death of Patroclus; the women in the chariots, I take it, are Nereids, and Thetis is receiving the armour from Hephaestus. And moreover, he who is giving the armour is not strong upon his feet, and a slave follows him behind, holding a pair of fire-tongs.

An account also is given of the Centaur, that he is Chiron, freed by this time from human affairs and held worthy to share the home of the gods, who has come to assuage the grief of Achilles. Two maidens in a mule-cart, one holding the reins and the other wearing a veil upon her head, are thought to be Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinous, and her handmaiden, driving to the washing-pits. The man shooting at Centaurs, some of which he has killed, is plainly Heracles, and the exploit is one of his.

As to the maker of the chest, I found it impossible to form any conjecture. But the inscriptions upon it, though possibly composed by some other poet, are, as I was on the whole inclined to hold, the work of Eumelus of Corinth. ^note My main reason for this view is the processional hymn he wrote for Delos.

The table is made of ivory and gold, and is the work of Colotes. ^note Colotes is said to have been a native of Heracleia, but specialists in the history of sculpture maintain that he was a Parian, a pupil of Pasiteles, who himself was a pupil of.... There are figures of Hera, Zeus, the Mother of the gods, Hermes, and Apollo with Artemis. Behind is the disposition of the games.

On one side are Asclepius and Health, one of his daughters; Ares too and Contest by his side; on the other are Pluto, Dionysus, Persephone and nymphs, one of them carrying a ball. As to the key (Pluto holds a key) they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom.

I must not omit the story told by Aristarchus, the guide to the sights at Olympia. He said that in his day the roof of the Heraeum had fallen into decay. When the Eleans were repairing it, the corpse of a foot-soldier with wounds was discovered between the roof supporting the tiles and the ornamented ceiling. This soldier took part in the battle in the Altis between the Eleans and the Lacedaemonians. ^note

The Eleans in fact climbed to defend themselves on to all high places alike, including the sanctuaries of the gods. At any rate this soldier seemed to us to have crept under here after growing faint with his wounds, and so died. Lying in a completely sheltered spot the corpse would suffer harm neither from the heat of summer nor from the frost of winter. Aristarchus said further that they carried the corpse outside the Altis and buried him in the earth along with his armour.

What the Eleans call the pillar of Oenomaus is in the direction of the sanctuary of Zeus as you go from the great altar. On the left are four pillars with a roof on them, the whole constructed to protect a wooden pillar which has decayed through age, being for the most part held together by bands. This pillar, so runs the tale, stood in the house of Oenomaus. Struck by lightning the rest of the house was destroyed by the fire; of all the building only this pillar was left.

A bronze tablet in front of it has the following elegiac inscription:— Stranger, I am a remnant of a famous house,
I, who once was a pillar in the house of Oenomaus;
Now by Cronus' son I lie with these bands upon me,
A precious thing, and the baleful flame of fire consumed me not.
In my time another incident took place, which I will relate.