Greek Texts & Translations

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.

Next after Eupolus they say that Callippus of Athens, who had entered for the pentathlum, bought off his fellow-competitors by bribes, and that this offence occurred at tie hundred and twelfth Festival. ^note When the fine had been imposed by the Eleans on Callippus and his antagonists, the Athenians commissioned Hypereides to persuade the Eleans to remit them the fine. The Eleans refused this favour, and the Athenians were disdainful enough not to pay the money and to boycott the Olympic games, until finally the god at Delphi declared that he would deliver no oracle on any matter to the Athenians before they had paid the Eleans the fine.

So when it was paid, images, also six in number, were made in honor of Zeus; on them are inscribed elegiac verses not a whit more elegant than those relating the fine of Eupolus. The gist of the first inscription is that the images were dedicated because the god by an oracle expressed his approval of the Elean decision against the pentathletes; on the second image and likewise on the third are praises of the Eleans for their fining the competitors in the pentathlum.