Greek Texts & Translations

But the Zeus in the Council Chamber is of all the images of Zeus the one most likely to strike terror into the hearts of sinners. He is surnamed Oath-god, and in each hand he holds a thunderbolt. Beside this image it is the custom for athletes, their fathers and their brothers, as well as their trainers, to swear an oath upon slices of boar's flesh that in nothing will they sin against the Olympic games. The athletes take this further oath also, that for ten successive months they have strictly followed the regulations for training.

An oath is also taken by those who examine the boys, or the foals entering for races, that they will decide fairly and without taking bribes, and that they will keep secret what they learn about a candidate, whether accepted or not. I forgot to inquire what it is customary to do with the boar after the oath of the athletes, though the ancient custom about victims was that no human being might eat of that on which an oath had been sworn.

Homer proves this point clearly. For the boar, on the slices of which Agamemnon swore that verily Briseis had not lain with him, Homer says was thrown by the herald into the sea. He spake, and cut the boar's throat with ruthless bronze;
And the boar Talthybius swung and cast into the great depth
Of the grey sea, to feed the fishes.
Hom. Il. 19.266-268Such was the ancient custom. Before the feet of the Oath-god is a bronze plate, with elegiac verses inscribed upon it, the object of which is to strike fear into those who forswear themselves.

The Messenians on the Strait in accordance with an old custom used to send to Rhegium a chorus of thirty-five boys, and with it a trainer and a flautist, to a local festival of Rhegium. On one occasion a disaster befell them for not one of those sent out returned home alive, but the ship with the boys on board went to the bottom.

The sea in fact at this strait is the stormiest of seas; it is made rough by winds bringing waves from both sides, from the Adriatic and the other sea, which is called the Tyrrhenian, and even if there be no gale blowing, even then the strait of itself produces a very violent swell and strong currents. So many monsters swarm in the water that even the air over the sea is infected with their stench. Accordingly a shipwrecked man has not even a hope left of getting out of the strait alive. If it was here that disaster overtook the ship of Odysseus, nobody could believe that he swam out alive to Italy, were it not that the benevolence of the gods makes all things easy.

On this occasion the Messenians mourned for the loss of the boys, and one of the honors bestowed upon them was the dedication of bronze statues at Olympia, the group including the trainer of the chorus and the flautist. The old inscription declared that the offerings were those of the Messenians at the strait; but afterwards Hippias, called “a sage” by the Greeks, ^note composed the elegiac verses on them. The artist of the statues was Callon ^note of Elis.

At the headland of Sicily that looks towards Libya and the south, called Pachynum, there stands the city Motye, inhabited by Libyans and Phoenicians. Against these foreigners of Motye war was waged by the Agrigentines, who, having taken from them plunder and spoils, dedicated at Olympia the bronze boys, who are stretching out their right hands in an attitude of prayer to the god. They are placed on the wall of the Altis, and I conjectured that the artist was Calamis, a conjecture in accordance with the tradition about them. ^note Sicily is inhabited by the following races:

Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed into it from Italy, while the Phrygians came from the river Scamander and the land of the Troad. The Phoenicians and Libyans came to the island on a joint expedition, and are settlers from Carthage. Such are the foreign races in Sicily. The Greeks settled there include Dorians and Ionians, with a small proportion of Phocians and of Attics.