Greek Texts & Translations

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.

A Roman senator won an Olympic victory. Wishing to leave behind, as a memorial of his victory, a bronze statue with an inscription, he proceeded to dig, so as to make a foundation. When his excavation came very close to the pillar of Oenomaus, the diggers found there fragments of armour, bridles and curbs.

These I saw myself as they were being dug out. A temple of no great size in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Metroum, ^note keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Mother of the gods, but there stand in it statues of Roman emperors. The Metroum is within the Altis, and so is a round building called the Philippeum. On the roof of the Philippeum is a bronze poppy which binds the beams together.

This building is on the left of the exit over against the Town Hall. It is made of burnt brick and is surrounded by columns. It was built by Philip after the fall of Greece at Chaeroneia. Here are set statues of Philip and Alexander, and with them is Amyntas, Philip's father. These works too are by Leochares, and are of ivory and gold, as are the statues of Olympias and Eurydice.

As you go to the stadium along the road from the Metroum, there is on the left at the bottom of Mount Cronius a platform of stone, right by the very mountain, with steps through it. By the platform have been set up bronze images of Zeus. These have been made from the fines inflicted on athletes who have wantonly broken the rules of the contests, and they are called Zanes (figures of Zeus) by the natives.

The first, six in number, were set up in the ninety-eighth Olympiad. For Eupolus of Thessaly bribed the boxers who entered the competition, Agenor the Arcadian and Prytanis of Cyzicus, and with them also Phormio of Halicarnassus, who had won at the preceding Festival. This is said to have been the first time that an athlete violated the rules of the games, and the first to be fined by the Eleans were Eupolus and those who accepted bribes from Eupolus. Two of these images are the work of Cleon of Sicyon; who made the next four I do not know.

Except the third and the fourth these images have elegiac inscriptions on them. The first of the inscriptions is intended to make plain that an Olympic victory is to be won, not by money, but by swiftness of foot and strength of body. The inscription on the second image declares that the image stands to the glory of the deity, through the piety of the Eleans, and to be a terror to law-breaking athletes. The purport of the inscription on the fifth image is praise of the Eleans, especially for their fining the boxers; that of the sixth and last is that the images are a warning to all the Greeks not to give bribes to obtain an Olympic victory.