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


6.12.1 Hard by is a bronze chariot with a man mounted upon it; race-horses, one on each side, stand beside the chariot, and on the horses are seated boys. They are memorials of Olympic victories won by Hieron, the son of Deinomenes, who was tyrant of Syracuse after his brother Gelo. But the offerings were not sent by Hieron; it was Hieron’s son Deinomenes who gave them to the god, Onatas the Aeginetan who made the chariot, and Kalamis who made the horses on either side and the boys on them.

6.12.2 By the chariot of Hieron is a man of the same name as the son of Deinomenes. He too was tyrant of Syracuse, and was called Hieron, the son of Hierokles. After the death of Agathokles, a former tyrant, tyranny again sprung up at Syracuse in the person of this Hieron, who came to power in the second year of the hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad,* at which Festival Idaios of Cyrene won the foot race.

6.12.3 This Hieron made an alliance with Pyrrhos the son of Aiakidēs, sealing it by the marriage of Gelo, his son, and Nereis, the daughter of Pyrrhos. When the Romans went to war with Carthage for the possession of Sicily, the Carthaginians held more than half the island, and Hieron sided with them at the beginning of the war. Shortly after, however, he changed over to the Romans, thinking that they were stronger, and firmer and more reliable friends.

6.12.4 He met his end at the hands of Deinomenes, a Syracusan by birth and an inveterate enemy of tyranny, who afterwards, when Hippokrates the brother of Epikydes had just come from Erbessus to Syracuse and was beginning to harangue the multitude, rushed at him with intent to kill him. But Hippokrates withstood him, and certain of the bodyguard overpowered and slew Deinomenes. The statues of Hieron at Olympia, one on horseback and the other on foot, were dedicated by the sons of Hieron, the artist being Mikon, a Syracusan, the son of Nikeratos.

6.12.5 After the likenesses of Hieron stand Areus the Lacedaemonian king, the son of Akrotatos, and Aratos, the son of Kleinias with another statue of Areus on horseback. The statue of Aratos was dedicated by the Corinthians, that of Areus by the people of Elis.

6.12.6 I have already given some account of both Aratos and Areus,* and Aratos was also proclaimed at Olympia as victor in the chariot race. Timon, an Eleian, the son of Aisypos, entered a four-horse chariot for the Olympic races […] this is of bronze, and on it is mounted a maiden, who, in my opinion, is Victory. Kallon, the son of Harmodios, and Hippomakhos, the son of Moschion, Eleian by lineage, were victors in the boys’ boxing match. The statue of Kallon was made by Daippos; who made that of Hippomakhos I do not know, but it is said that he overcame three antagonists without receiving a blow or any physical injury.

6.12.7 Theokhrestos of Cyrene bred horses after the traditional Libyan manner; he himself and before him his paternal grandfather of the same name won victories at Olympia with the four-horse chariot, while the father of Theokhrestos won a victory at the Isthmus. So declares the inscription on the chariot.

6.12.8 The elegiac verses bear witness that Agesarkhos of Triteia, the son of Haimostratos, won the boxing match for men at Olympia, Nemeā, Pythō, and the Isthmus; they also declare that the Tritaeans are Arcadians, but I found this statement to be untrue. For the founders of the Arcadian cities that attained to fame have well-known histories; while those that had all along been obscure because of their weakness were surely absorbed for this very reason into Megalopolis, being included in the decree then made by the Arcadian confederacy;

6.12.9 no other city Triteia, except the one in Achaea, is to be found in Greece. However, one may assume that at the time of the inscription, the Tritaeans were reckoned as Arcadians, just as nowadays too certain of the Arcadians themselves are reckoned as Argives. The statue of Agesarkhos is the work of the sons of Polykles, of whom we shall give some account later on.*

1 275 BCE.

2 Pausanias 2.8.2 and following, and Pausanias 3.6.2 and following.

3 Pausanias 10.34.8.