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


8.47.1 The statue [agalma] that is now in our times at Tegea was brought-to-safety [komizein] from the deme [dēmos] of Manthoureîs, and among the Manthoureîes it [= the statue] had as its name-for-invoking [epiklēsis] Hippiā [‘(controller of) horses’]. According to what-they-say [= their logos], when the battle of the gods and giants took place, she [= the goddess] drove her chariot [harma], drawn by her horses [hippoi] against [the giant] Enkelados. But she [this goddess] too is conventionally called by the name of Aléā by the Greeks [Hellēnes] in general and by the people of the Peloponnesus in particular. On one side of the statue [agalma] of Athena stands Asklepios, on the other Hygieia, works of Scopas of Paros in Pentelic marble.

8.47.2 Of the votive offerings in the temple these are the most notable. There is the hide of the Calydonian boar, rotted by age and by now altogether without bristles. Hanging up are the fetters, except such as have been destroyed by rust, worn by the Lacedaemonian prisoners when they dug the plain of Tegea. There have been dedicated a sacred couch of Athena, a portrait painting of Auge, and the shield of Marpessa, surnamed Choera, a woman of Tegea;

8.47.3 of Marpessa I shall make mention later.* The priest of Athena is a boy; I do not know how long his priesthood lasts, but it must be before, and not after, puberty. The altar for the goddess was made, they say, by Melampos, the son of Amythaon. Represented on the altar are Rhea and the nymph Oinoe holding the baby Zeus. On either side are four figures: on one, Glauke, Neda, Theisoa and Anthracia; on the other Ide, Hagno, Alcinoe and Phrixa. There are also images of the Muses and of Memory.

8.47.4 Not far from the temple is a stadium formed by a mound of earth, where they celebrate games, one festival called Aleaea after Athena, the other Halotia (Capture Festival) because they captured the greater part of the Lacedaemonians alive in the battle. To the north of the temple is a fountain, and at this fountain they say that Auge was outraged by Hēraklēs, therein differing from the account of Auge in Hecataeus. Some three stadium-lengths away from the fountain is a temple of Hermes Aipytos.

8.47.5 There is at Tegea another sanctuary of Athena, namely of Athena Poliatis (Keeper of the City) into which a priest enters once in each year. This sanctuary they name Eryma (Defence) saying that Cepheus, the son of Aleus, received from Athena a boon, that Tegea should never be captured while time shall endure, adding that the goddess cut off some of the hair of Medusa and gave it to him as a guard to the city.

8.47.6 Their story about Artemis, the same as is called Leader, is as follows. Aristomelidas, despot of Orkhomenos in Arcadia, fell in love with a Tegean girl, and, getting her somehow or other into his power, entrusted her to the keeping of Khronios. The girl, before she was delivered up to the despot, killed herself for fear and shame, and Artemis in a vision stirred up Khronios against Aristomelidas. He slew the despot, fled to Tegea, and made a sanctuary for Artemis.

1 Pausanias 8.48.5.