Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
<<Paus. 6.24.5 | Paus. 6.25.4 (Greek) | >>Paus. 6.26.9 |
Behind the portico built from the spoils of
The sacred enclosure of Hades and its temple (for the Eleans have these among their possessions) are opened once every year, but not even on this occasion is anybody permitted to enter except the priest. The following is the reason why the Eleans worship Hades; they are the only men we know of so to do. It is said that, when Heracles was leading an expedition against Pylus in
Homer is quoted in support of the story, who says in the Iliad:
And among them huge Hades suffered a wound from a swift arrow,
Hom. Il. 5.395-397If in the expedition of Agamemnon and Menelaus against Troy Poseidon was according to Homer an ally of the Greeks, it cannot be unnatural for the same poet to hold that Hades helped the Pylians. At any rate it was in the belief that the god was their friend but the enemy of Heracles that the Eleans made the sanctuary for him. The reason why they are wont to open it only once each year is, I suppose, because men too go down only once to Hades.
When the same man, the son of aegis-bearing Zeus,
Hit him in Pylus among the dead, and gave him over to pains.
The Eleans have also a sanctuary of Fortune. In a portico of the sanctuary has been dedicated a colossal image, made of gilded wood except the face, hands and feet, which are of white marble. Here Sosipolis too is worshipped in a small shrine on the left of the sanctuary of Fortune. The god is painted according to his appearance in a dream: in age a boy, wrapped in a star-spangled robe, and in one hand holding the horn of Amaltheia.
6.25.5
In the most thickly-populated part of
This image was said to be of Poseidon, and to have been worshipped in ancient times at Samicum in Triphylia. Transferred to
ch. 26
6.26.1
Between the market-place and the Menius is an old theater and a shrine of Dionysus. The image is the work of Praxiteles. Of the gods the Eleans worship Dionysus with the greatest reverence, and they assert that the god attends their festival, the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival they name the Thyia is about eight stades from the city. Three pots are brought into the building by the priests and set down empty in the presence of the citizens and of any strangers who may chance to be in the country. The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may be so inclined. On the morrow they are allowed to examine the seals, and on going into the building they find the pots filled with wine. I did not myself arrive at the time of the festival, but the most respected Elean citizens, and with them strangers also, swore that what I have said is the truth. The Andrians too assert that every other year at their feast of Dionysus wine flows of its own accord from the sanctuary. If the Greeks are to be believed in these matters, one might with equal reason accept what the Ethiopians above
On the Acropolis of the Eleans is a sanctuary of Athena. The image is of ivory and gold. They say that the goddess is the work of Pheidias. On her helmet is an image of a cock, this bird being very ready to fight. The bird might also be considered as sacred to Athena the worker.
Cyllene is one hundred and twenty stades distant from
Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
<<Paus. 6.24.5 | Paus. 6.25.4 (Greek) | >>Paus. 6.26.9 |