Demosthenes, Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera, Augustus Taber Murray (Translator), 97

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[97] Pausanias, the king of the Lacedaemonians, puffed up by this, inscribed a distich upon the tripod at Delphi, which the Greeks who had jointly fought in the battle at Plataea and in the sea-fight at Salamis had made in common from the spoils taken from the barbarians, and had set up in honor of Apollo as a memorial of their valor. The distich¹ was as follows:

Pausanias, supreme commander of the Greeks, when he had destroyed the host of the Medes,

dedicated to Phoebus this memorial.

He wrote thus, as if the achievement and the offering had been his own and not the common work of the allies;

Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera. Demosthenes. Augustus Taber Murray (Translator). London. 1939.

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Current edition Perseus

Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera (English) (Demosthenes, Vol. IV: Private Orations, Vol 3. Murray, A. T., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939 (printing).)

Editions (1)

κατὰ Νεαίρας Perseus (Demosthenes. Orationes, Vol. III. Rennie, W., editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.) — 97 focus

[97] ἵνα μὴ φθονηθῶσιν ὑπὸ τῶν συμμάχων—ἐφʼ οἷς φυσηθεὶς Παυσανίας ὁ τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλεὺς ἐπέγραψεν ἐπὶ τὸν τρίποδα τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς, ὃν οἱ Ἕλληνες οἱ συμμαχεσάμενοι τὴν Πλαταιᾶσι μάχην καὶ τὴν ἐν Σαλαμῖνι ναυμαχίαν ναυμαχήσαντες κοινῇ ποιησάμενοι ἀνέθηκαν ἀριστεῖον τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι ἀπὸ τῶν βαρβάρων,

Ἑλλήνων ἀρχηγός, ἐπεὶ στρατὸν ὤλεσε Μήδων,

Παυσανίας Φοίβῳ μνῆμʼ ἀνέθηκε τόδε,

Thuc. 1.132.2 ὡς αὑτοῦ τοῦ ἔργου ὄντος καὶ τοῦ ἀναθήματος, ἀλλʼ οὐ κοινοῦ τῶν συμμάχων·

Notes on the current edition

Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera

1. This distich, said by Paus. 3.8.1 , to be the work of Simonides, is quoted also in Thuc. 1.132 . According to Hdt. 9.81.4 the monument in question was a golden tripod, set upon a three-headed serpent of bronze. The gold tripod was carried off by the Phocians in the Sacred War ( Paus. 10.13.6 ), and the supporting pillar, three intertwined serpents of bronze, was taken away by Constantine and set up in the Hippodrome of his new capital at Byzantium ( Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Chap. 17, note 48 ), where it was rediscovered in 1856. The names of the Greek states which took part in the war are inscribed on the coils of the serpents (see Hicks, Greek Historical Inscriptions, pp. 11-13 and Dittenberger, Syllogê, 1 p. 31 ).

Demosthenes Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera 97

Augustus Taber Murray (Translator)

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