[13]
After this, Serapio put the question to the Historical Directors, why that same hall did not bear the name of Cypselus, who was both the founder and the consecrator, but was called the Corinthians’ Hall? When all the rest were silent, because perhaps they knew not what to say; How can we imagine, said I with a smile, that these people should either know or remember the reason, having been so amused and thunderstruck by your high-flown discourses of prodigies altogether supernatural? However we have heard it reported, when the monarchical government of Corinth was dissolved by the ruin of Cypselus, the Corinthians claimed the honor to own both the golden statue at Pisa, and the treasure that lay in that place; which was also by the Delphians decreed to be their just right. This glory being envied them by the Eleans, they were by a decree of the Corinthians utterly excluded from the solemnities of the Isthmian games. This is the true reason, that never since any person of the country of Elis was admitted to any trial of skill at those festivals. For as for that murder of the Molionidae, slain by Hercules near Cleonae, that was not the reason where fore Eleans were excluded, as some have vainly alleged; for on the contrary it had been more proper for the Eleans themselves to have excluded the Corinthians from the Olympic games, had they any animosity against them on this account. And this is all that I have to say in reference to this matter.
De Pythiae oraculis. Plutarch. ed. William W. Goodwin. Boston. 1874.
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