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

8.46.1 The ancient image of Athena Aléā, and with it the tusks of the Calydonian boar, were carried away by the Roman emperor Augustus after his defeat of Antonius and his allies, among whom were all the Arcadians except the Mantineians.

8.46.2 It is clear that Augustus was not the first to carry away from the vanquished votive offerings and images of gods, but was only following an old precedent. For when Troy was taken and the Greeks were dividing up the spoils, Sthenelus the son of Capaneus was given the wooden image of Zeus Herkeios (Of the Courtyard); and many years later, when Dorians were migrating to Sicily, Antiphemus the founder of Gela, after the sack of Omphace, a town of the Sicanians, removed to Gela an image made by Daidalos.

8.46.3 Xerxes, too, the son of Dareios, the king of Persias [Persai], apart from the spoil he carried away from the city of Athens, took besides, as we know, from Brauron the image of Brauronian Artemis, and furthermore, accusing the Milesians of cowardice in a naval engagement against the Athenians in Greek waters, carried away from them the bronze Apollo at Brankhidai. This it was to be the lot of Seleukos afterwards to restore to the Milesians, but the Argives down to the present still retain the images they took from Tiryns; one, a wooden image, is by the Hērā, the other is kept in the sanctuary of Lycian Apollo.

8.46.4 Again, the people of Kyzikos, compelling the people of Prokonnesos by war to live at Kyzikos, took away from Prokonnesos an image of Mother Dindymene. The image is of gold, and its face is made of hippopotamus teeth instead of ivory. So the emperor Augustus only followed a custom in vogue among the Greeks and barbarians from of old. The image of Athena Aléā at Rome is as you enter the Forum made by Augustus.

8.46.5 Here then it has been set up, made throughout of ivory, the work of Endoeus. Those in charge of the curiosities say that one of the boar’s tusks has broken off; the remaining one is kept in the gardens of the emperor, in a sanctuary of Dionysus, and is about half a fathom long.