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


6.18.1 There is also a bronze statue of Cratisthenes of Cyrene, and on the chariot stand Victory and Cratisthenes himself. It is thus plain that his victory was in the chariot race. The story goes that Cratisthenes was the son of Mnaseas the runner, surnamed the Libyan by the Greeks. His offerings at Olympia are the work of Pythagoras of Rhēgion.

6.18.2 Here too I remember discovering the statue of Anaximenes, who wrote a universal history of ancient Greece, including the exploits of Philip the son of Amyntas and the subsequent deeds of Alexander. His honor at Olympia was due to the people of Lampsacus. Anaximenes bequeathed to posterity the following anecdotes about himself. Alexander, the son of Philip, no meek and mild person but a most passionate monarch, he circumvented by the following artifice.

6.18.3 The people of Lampsacus favored the cause of the king [basileus] of the Persians [Persai], or were suspected of doing so, and Alexander, boiling over with rage against them, threatened to treat them with utmost rigor. As their wives, their children, and their country itself were in great danger, they sent Anaximenes to intercede for them, because he was known to Alexander himself and had been known to Philip before him. Anaximenes approached, and when Alexander learned for what cause he had come, they say that he swore by the gods of Greece, whom he named, that he would do the opposite of what Anaximenes asked.

6.18.4 Then Anaximenes said,

6.18.5 Anaximenes is also known to have retaliated on a personal enemy in a very clever but very ill-natured way. He had a natural aptitude for rhetoric and for imitating the style of rhetoricians. Having a quarrel with Theopompos, the son of Damasistratos, he wrote a treatise abusing Athenians, Lacedaemonians and Thebans alike. He imitated the style of Theopompos with perfect accuracy, inscribed his name upon the book and sent it round to the cities. Though Anaximenes was the author of the treatise, hatred of Theopompos grew throughout the length of Greece.

6.18.6 Moreover, Anaximenes was the first to compose extemporary speeches, though I cannot believe that he was the author of the epic on Alexander. Sotades at the ninety-ninth Festival* was victorious in the long race and proclaimed a Cretan, as in fact he was. But at the next Festival, he made himself an Ephesian, being bribed to do so by the Ephesian people. For this act, he was banished by the Cretans.

6.18.7 The first athletes to have their statues dedicated at Olympia were Praxidamas of Aegina, victorious at boxing at the fifty-ninth Festival,* and Rexibios the Opuntian, a competitor at the pankration of the sixty-first Festival.* These statues stand near the pillar of Oinomaos and are made of wood, Rexibios of figwood and the Aeginetan of cypress, and his statue is less decayed than the other.

1 384 BCE.

2 544 BCE.

3 536 BCE.