A Pausanias Reader in Progress

An ongoing retranslation of the Greek text of Pausanias, with ongoing annotations, primarily by Gregory Nagy from 2014 to 2022, and continued since 2022 by Nagy together with an intergenerational team. Based on an original translation by W. H. S. Jones, 1918 (Scroll 2 with H. A. Ormerod), containing some of the footnotes added by Jones. Editors: Keith DeStone, Elizabeth Gipson, Charles Pletcher Editor Emerita: Angelia Hanhardt Web Producer: Noel Spencer Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins To cite this work, use the following persistent identifier: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.prim-src:A_Pausanias_Reader_in_Progress.2018-.

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.aprip-en

4.30.1 There is in our time a city Abia in Messenia on the coast, some twenty stadium-lengths distant from the Choerius valley. They say that this was formerly called Ire and was one of the seven cities which Homer says that Agamemnon promised to Achilles.* When Hyllos and the Dorians were defeated by the Achaeans, it is said that Abia, nurse of Glenus the son of Hēraklēs, withdrew to Ire, and settling there built a temple to Hēraklēs, and that afterwards for this reason Kresphontes, amongst other honors assigned to her, renamed the city after Abia. There was a notable temple of Hēraklēs here, and also of Asklepios.

4.30.2 Pharai is seventy stadium-lengths distant from Abia. On the road is a salt spring. The Emperor Augustus caused the Messenians of Pharai to be incorporated in Laconia. The founder Pharis is said to have been the son of Hermes and Phylodameia the daughter of Danaos. He had no male children, but a daughter Telegone. Homer, tracing her descendants in the Iliad,* says that twins, Crethon and Ortilokhos, were born to Diokles, Diokles himself being the son of Ortilokhos son of Alpheios. He makes no reference to Telegone, who in the Messenian account bore Ortilokhos to Alpheios.

4.30.3 I heard also at Pharai that besides the twins a daughter Anticleia was born to Diokles, and that her children were Nikomakhos and Gorgasus, by Makhaon the son of Asklepios. They remained at Pharai and succeeded to the kingdom on the death of Diokles. The power of healing diseases and curing the maimed has remained with them to this day, and in return for this, sacrifices and votive offerings are brought to their sanctuary. The people of Pharai possess also a temple of Fortune (Tyche) and an ancient image.

4.30.4 Homer is the first whom I know to have mentioned Fortune in his poems. He did so in the Hymn to Demeter, where he enumerates the daughters of Okeanos, telling how they played with Kore the daughter of Demeter, and making Fortune one of them. The lines are:

4.30.5 He said nothing further about this goddess being the mightiest of gods in human affairs and displaying greatest strength, as in the Iliad he represented Athena and Enyo as supreme in war, and Artemis feared in childbirth, and Aphrodite heeding the affairs of marriage.* But he makes no other mention of Fortune.

4.30.6 Boupalos* a skillful temple-architect and carver of images, who made the statue of Fortune at Smyrna, was the first whom we know to have represented her with the celestial sphere [polos] upon her head and carrying in one hand the horn of Amaltheia, as the Greeks call it, representing her functions to this extent. The poems of Pindar later contained references to Fortune, and it is he who called her Supporter of the City.

1 Iliad 9.150.

2 Iliad 5.541.

3 Iliad 5.333; 21.483; 5.429.

4 A sixth-century artist of Chios, the son of Arkhermos. With his brother Athenis he is said to have caricatured the poet Hipponax (Pliny NH 36.11). Other works of his at Smyrna and at Ephesos are mentioned in Pausanias 9.35.6.