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


10.11.1 Near the votive offering of the the people of Tarentum is a treasury of the Sikyonians, but there is no treasure to be seen either here or in any other of the treasuries. The people of Knidos brought the following images to Delphi: Triopas, founder of Knidos, standing by a horse, Leto, and Apollo and Artemis shooting arrows at Tityos, who has already been wounded in the body.

10.11.2 These stand by the treasury of the Sikyonians. The Siphnians too made a treasury, the reason being as follows. Their island contained gold mines, and the god ordered them to pay a tithe of the revenues to Delphi. So they built the treasury and continued to pay the tithe until greed made them omit the tribute, when the sea flooded their mines and hid them from sight.

10.11.3 The people of Lipara too dedicated statues to commemorate a naval victory over the Etruscans. These people were colonists from Knidos, and the leader of the colony is said to have been a man from Knidos, whose name was Pentathlus according to a statement made by the Syracusan Antiokhos, son of Xenophanes, in his history of Sicily. He says also that they built a city on Cape Pachynum in Sicily but were hard pressed in a war with the Elymi and Phoenicians and driven out, but occupied the islands, from which they expelled the inhabitants if they were not still uninhabited, still called, as they are called by Homer,* the Islands of Aeolus.

10.11.4 Of these islands, they dwell in Lipara, on which they built a city, but Hiera, Strongyle, and Didymae, they cultivate, crossing to them in ships. On Strongyle fire is to be seen rising out of the ground, while in Hiera, fire of its own accord bursts out on the summit of the island, and by the sea are baths, comfortable enough if the water receive you kindly,* but if not, painful to enter because of the heat.

10.11.5 The Thebans have a treasury built from the spoils of war, and so have the Athenians. Whether the people of Knidos built to commemorate a victory or to display their prosperity, I do not know, but the Theban treasury was made from the spoils taken at the battle of Leuktra, and the Athenian treasury, from those taken from the army that landed with Datis at Marathon. The inhabitants of Kleonai were, like the Athenians, afflicted with the plague, and obeying an oracle from Delphi, sacrificed a he-goat to the sun while it was still rising. This put an end to the trouble, and so they sent a bronze he-goat to Apollo. The Syracusans have a treasury built from the spoils taken in the great Athenian disaster; the Potidaeans in Thrace built one to show their piety to the god.

10.11.6 The Athenians also built a portico out of the spoils they took in their war against the Peloponnesians and their Greek allies. There are also dedicated the figure heads of ships and bronze shields. The inscription on them enumerates the cities from which the Athenians sent the first fruits: Elis, Lacedaemon, Sikyon, Megara, Pellene in Achaea, Ambracia, Leucas, and Corinth itself. It also says that from the spoils taken in these sea battles, a sacrifice was offered to Theseus and to Poseidon at the cape called Rhium. It seems to me that the inscription refers to Phormion, son of Asopikhos, and to his achievements.*

1 Odyssey 10.1.

2 ‘If you let yourself gently into the water’ (Frazer).

3 429 BCE.