5.25.1 I have enumerated the images of Zeus within the Altis with the greatest accuracy. For the offering near the great temple, though supposed to be a likeness of Zeus, is really Alexander, the son of Philip. It was set up by a Corinthian, not one of the old Corinthians, but one of those settlers whom the Emperor planted in the city. I shall also mention those offerings which are of a different kind, and not representations of Zeus. The statues which have been set up, not to honor a deity, but to reward mere men, I shall include in my account of the athletes.

5.25.2 The Messenians on the Strait in accordance with an old custom used to send to Rhēgion a chorus of thirty-five boys, and with it a trainer and an aulos-player, to a local festival of Rhēgion. 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.

5.25.3 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.

5.25.4 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 aulos-player. The old inscription declared that the offerings were those of the Messenians at the strait; but afterwards Hippias, called “a sage” by the Greeks,^* composed the elegiac verses on them. The artist of the statues was Kallon of Elis.

5.25.5 At the headland of Sicily that looks towards Libya and the south, called Pakhynon, there stands the city Motye, inhabited by Libyans and Phoenicians. Against these barbarians of Motye war was waged by the men of Akragas, 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 Kalamis, a conjecture in accordance with the tradition about them.^* Sicily is inhabited by the following ethnic-groupings [ethnē]:

5.25.6 Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed into it from Italy, while the Phrygians came from the river Skamandros 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 barbarian ethnic-groupings [ethnē] in Sicily. The Greeks settled there include Dorians and Ionians, with a small proportion of people from Phokis and from Attica.

5.25.7 On the same wall as the offerings of the People of Akragas are two nude statues of Hēraklēs as a boy. One represents him shooting the lion at Nemeā. This Hēraklēs and the lion with him were dedicated by Hippotion of Tarentum, the artist being Nikodamos of Mainalos. The other image was dedicated by Anaxippos of Mende, and was transferred to this place by the Eleians. Previously it stood at the end of the road that leads from Elis to Olympia, called the Sacred Road.

5.25.8 There are also offerings dedicated by all the Achaean people in common; they represent those who, when Hector challenged any Greek to meet him in single combat, dared to cast lots to choose the champion. They stand, armed with spears and shields, near the great temple. Right opposite, on a second pedestal, is a figure of Nestor, who has thrown the lot of each into the helmet. The number of those casting lots to meet Hector is now only eight, for the ninth, the statue of Odysseus, they say that Nero carried to Rome,

5.25.9 but Agamemnon’s statue is the only one of the eight to have his name inscribed upon it; the writing is from right to left. The figure with the rooster emblazoned on the shield is Idomeneus the descendant of Minos. The story goes that Idomeneus was descended from the Sun, the father of Pasiphae, and that the rooster is sacred to the Sun and proclaims when he is about to rise.

5.25.10 An inscription too is written on the pedestal:

5.25.11 Not far from the offering of the Achaeans, there is also a Hēraklēs fighting with the Amazon, a woman on horseback, for her waistband. It was dedicated by Euagoras, a Zanclaean by descent, and made by Aristokles of Kydonia. Aristokles should be included amongst the most ancient sculptors, and though his date is uncertain, he was clearly born before Zancle took its present name of Messene.

5.25.12 The Thasians, who are Phoenicians by descent and sailed from Tyre, and from Phoenicia generally, together with Thasos, the son of Agenor, in search of Europa, dedicated at Olympia a Hēraklēs, the pedestal as well as the image being of bronze. The height of the image is ten cubits, and he holds a club in his right hand and a bow in his left. They told me in Thasos that they used to worship the same Hēraklēs as the Tyrians, but that afterwards, when they were included among the Greeks, they adopted the worship of Hēraklēs the son of Amphitryon.

5.25.13 On the offering of the Thasians at Olympia there is an elegiac couplet: