Greek Texts & Translations

The sanctuary built in common for the Muses, Apollo and Hermes had for me to record only a few foundations, but there was still one of the Muses, with an image of Apollo after the style of the square Hermae. The sanctuary of Aphrodite too was in ruins, save that there were left the fore-temple mid three images, one surnamed Heavenly, the second Common, and the third without a surname.

At no great distance is an altar of Ares, and it was said that originally a sanctuary too was built for the god. Beyond the Aphrodite is built also a race-course, extending on one side to the theater (and here they have a spring, held sacred to Dionysus), while at the other end of the race-course a temple of Dionysus was said to have been struck by lightning two generations before my time, and a few ruins of it were still there when I saw it. The temple near the race-course shared by Heracles and Hermes was no longer there, only their altar was left.

There is also in this district a hill to the east, and on it a temple of Artemis Huntress this too was dedicated by Aristodemus. To the right of the Huntress is a precinct. Here there is a sanctuary of Asclepius, with images of the god and of Health, and a little lower down there are gods, also of square shape, surnamed Workers, Athena Worker and Apollo, God of Streets. To Hermes, Heracles and Eileithyia are attached traditions from the poems of Homer: that Hermes is the minister of Zeus and leads the souls of the departed down to Hades, ^note and that Heracles accomplished many difficult tasks; ^note Eileithyia, he says in the Iliad
, cares for the pangs of women. ^note

Under this hill there is another sanctuary of Boy Asclepius. His image is upright and about a cubit in height, that of Apollo is seated on a throne and is not less than six feet high. Here are also kept bones, too big for those of a human being, about which the story ran that they were those of one of the giants mustered by Hopladamus to fight for Rhea, as my story will relate hereafter. Near this sanctuary is a spring, the water flowing down from which is received by the Helisson.

For Mycenae, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan war, and Nineveh, where was the royal palace of the Assyrians, are utterly ruined and desolate; while Boeotian Thebes, once deemed worthy to be the head of the Greek people, why, its name includes only the acropolis and its few inhabitants. Of the opulent places in the ancient world, Egyptian Thebes and Minyan Orchomenus are now less prosperous than a private individual of moderate means, while Delos, once the common market of Greece, has no Delian inhabitant, but only the men sent by the Athenians to guard the sanctuary.

At Babylon the sanctuary of Belus still is left, but of the Babylon that was the greatest city of its time under the sun nothing remains but the wall. The case of Tiryns in the Argolid is the same. These places have been reduced by heaven to nothing. But the city of Alexander in Egypt, and that of Seleucus on the Orontes, that were founded but yesterday, have reached their present size and prosperity because fortune favours them.

The following incident proves the might of fortune to be greater and more marvellous than is shown by the disasters and prosperity of cities. No long sail from Lemnos was once an island Chryse, where, it is said, Philoctetes met with his accident from the water-snake. But the waves utterly overwhelmed it, and Chryse sank and disappeared in the depths. Another island called Hiera (Sacred) . . . was not during this time. So temporary and utterly weak are the fortunes of men.