1. Herodotus, Histories, 1.14, 8.121-8.122, 9.81 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.14. Thus the Mermnadae robbed the Heraclidae of the sovereignty and took it for themselves. Having gotten it, Gyges sent many offerings to Delphi : there are very many silver offerings of his there; and besides the silver, he dedicated a hoard of gold, among which six golden bowls are the offerings especially worthy of mention. ,These weigh thirty talents and stand in the treasury of the Corinthians; although in truth it is not the treasury of the Corinthian people but of Cypselus son of Eetion. This Gyges then was the first foreigner whom we know who placed offerings at Delphi after the king of Phrygia, Midas son of Gordias. ,For Midas too made an offering: namely, the royal seat on which he sat to give judgment, and a marvellous seat it is. It is set in the same place as the bowls of Gyges. This gold and the silver offered by Gyges is called by the Delphians “Gygian” after its dedicator. 8.121. As for the Greeks, not being able to take Andros, they went to Carystus. When they had laid it waste, they returned to Salamis. First of all they set apart for the gods, among other first-fruits, three Phoenician triremes, one to be dedicated at the Isthmus, where it was till my lifetime, the second at Sunium, and the third for Ajax at Salamis where they were. ,After that, they divided the spoils and sent the first-fruits of it to Delphi; of this was made a man's image twelve cubits high, holding in his hand the figurehead of a ship. This stood in the same place as the golden statue of Alexander the Macedonian. 8.122. Having sent the first-fruits to Delphi, the Greeks, in the name of the country generally, made inquiry of the god whether the first-fruits which he had received were of full measure and whether he was content. To this he said that he was content with what he had received from all other Greeks, but not from the Aeginetans. From these he demanded the victor's prize for the sea-fight of Salamis. When the Aeginetans learned that, they dedicated three golden stars which are set on a bronze mast, in the angle, nearest to Croesus' bowl. 9.81. Having brought all the loot together, they set apart a tithe for the god of Delphi. From this was made and dedicated that tripod which rests upon the bronze three-headed serpent, nearest to the altar; another they set apart for the god of Olympia, from which was made and dedicated a bronze figure of Zeus, ten cubits high; and another for the god of the Isthmus, from which was fashioned a bronze Poseidon seven cubits high. When they had set all this apart, they divided what remained, and each received, according to his worth, concubines of the Persians and gold and silver, and all the rest of the stuff and the beasts of burden. ,How much was set apart and given to those who had fought best at Plataea, no man says. I think that they also received gifts, but tenfold of every kind, women, horses, talents, camels, and all other things also, was set apart and given to Pausanias. |
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4. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.14.5, 1.15.3, 5.25.5, 10.10.1-10.10.8, 10.15.1, 10.16.6, 10.19.4 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.14.5. Still farther of is a temple to Glory, this too being a thank-offering for the victory over the Persians, who had landed at Marathon. This is the victory of which I am of opinion the Athenians were proudest; while Aeschylus, who had won such renown for his poetry and for his share in the naval battles before Artemisium and at Salamis, recorded at the prospect of death nothing else, and merely wrote his name, his father's name, and the name of his city, and added that he had witnesses to his valor in the grove at Marathon and in the Persians who landed there. 1.15.3. At the end of the painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and the Attic contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has the better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of the hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. The Marathonians, according to their own account, were the first to regard Heracles as a god. of the fighters the most conspicuous figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus, of whom I shall make mention later. 5.25.5. 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. circa 500-460 B.C. Sicily is inhabited by the following races: 10.10.1. On the base below the wooden horse is an inscription which says that the statues were dedicated from a tithe of the spoils taken in the engagement at Marathon. They represent Athena, Apollo, and Miltiades, one of the generals. of those called heroes there are Erechtheus, Cecrops, Pandion, Leos, Antiochus, son of Heracles by Meda, daughter of Phylas, as well as Aegeus and Acamas, one of the sons of Theseus. These heroes gave names, in obedience to a Delphic oracle, to tribes at Athens . Codrus however, the son of Melanthus, Theseus, and Neleus, these are not givers of names to tribes. 10.10.2. The statues enumerated were made by Pheidias, and really are a tithe of the spoils of the battle. But the statues of Antigonus, of his son Demetrius, and of Ptolemy the Egyptian, were sent to Delphi by the Athenians afterwards. The statue of the Egyptian they sent out of good-will; those of the Macedonians were sent because of the dread that they inspired. 10.10.3. Near the horse are also other votive offerings of the Argives, likenesses of the captains of those who with Polyneices made war on Thebes : Adrastus, the son of Talaus, Tydeus, son of Oeneus, the descendants of Proetus, namely, Capaneus, son of Hipponous, and Eteoclus, son of Iphis, Polyneices, and Hippomedon, son of the sister of Adrastus. Near is represented the chariot of Amphiaraus, and in it stands Baton, a relative of Amphiaraus who served as his charioteer. The last of them is Alitherses. 10.10.4. These are works of Hypatodorus and Aristogeiton, who made them, as the Argives themselves say, from the spoils of the victory which they and their Athenian allies won over the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in Argive territory. 463-458 B.C From spoils of the same action, it seems to me, the Argives set up statues of those whom the Greeks call the Epigoni. For there stand statues of these also, Sthenelus, Alcmaeon, who I think was honored before Amphilochus on account of his age, Promachus also, Thersander, Aegialeus and Diomedes. Between Diomedes and Aegialeus is Euryalus. 10.10.5. Opposite them are other statues, dedicated by the Argives who helped the Thebans under Epaminondas to found Messene . The statues are of heroes: Danaus, the most powerful king of Argos, and Hypermnestra, for she alone of her sisters kept her hands undefiled. By her side is Lynceus also, and the whole family of them to Heracles, and further back still to Perseus. 10.10.6. The bronze horses and captive women dedicated by the Tarentines were made from spoils taken from the Messapians, a non-Greek people bordering on the territory of Tarentum, and are works of Ageladas the Argive . Tarentum is a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and its founder was Phalanthus, a Spartan. On setting out to found a colony Phalanthus received an oracle from Delphi, declaring that when he should feel rain under a cloudless sky (aethra), he would then win both a territory and a city. 10.10.7. At first he neither examined the oracle himself nor informed one of his interpreters, but came to Italy with his ships. But when, although he won victories over the barbarians, he succeeded neither in taking a city nor in making himself master of a territory, he called to mind the oracle, and thought that the god had foretold an impossibility. For never could rain fall from a clear and cloudless sky. When he was in despair, his wife, who had accompanied him from home, among other endearments placed her husband's head between her knees and began to pick out the lice. And it chanced that the wife, such was her affection, wept as she saw her husband's fortunes coming to nothing. 10.10.8. As her tears fell in showers, and she wetted the head of Phalanthus, he realized the meaning of the oracle, for his wife's name was Aethra. And so on that night he took from the barbarians Tarentum, the largest and most prosperous city on the coast. They say that Taras the hero was a son of Poseidon by a nymph of the country, and that after this hero were named both the city and the river. For the river, just like the city, is called Taras. 10.15.1. A gilt statue of Phryne was made by Praxiteles, one of her lovers, but it was Phryne herself who dedicated the statue. The offerings next to Phryne include two images of Apollo, one dedicated from Persian spoils by the Epidaurians of Argolis, the other dedicated by the Megarians to commemorate a victory over the Athenians at Nisaea . The Plataeans have dedicated an ox, an offering made at the time when, in their own territory, they took part, along with the other Greeks, in the defence against Mardonius, the son of Gobryas. Then there are another two images of Apollo, one dedicated by the citizens of Heracleia on the Euxine, the other by the Amphictyons when they fined the Phocians for tilling the territory of the god. 10.16.6. The Euboeans of Carystus too set up in the sanctuary of Apollo a bronze ox, from spoils taken in the Persian war. The Carystians and the Plataeans dedicated oxen, I believe, because, having repulsed the barbarian, they had won a secure prosperity, and especially a land free to plough. The Aetolian nation, having subdued their neighbors the Acarians, sent statues of generals and images of Apollo and Artemis. 10.19.4. The carvings in the pediments are: Artemis, Leto, Apollo, Muses, a setting Sun, and Dionysus together with the Thyiad women. The first of them are the work of Praxias, an Athenian and a pupil of Calamis, but the temple took some time to build, during which Praxias died. So the rest of the ornament in the pediments was carved by Androsthenes, like Praxias an Athenian by birth, but a pupil of Eucadmus. There are arms of gold on the architraves; the Athenians dedicated the shields from spoils taken at the battle of Marathon, and the Aetolians the arms, supposed to be Gallic, behind and on the left. Their shape is very like that of Persian wicker shields. |
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