Pausanias, Description of Greece, ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy, 2.18

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[1] By the side of the road from Mycenae to Argos there is on the left hand a hero-shrine [ hērōion] of Perseus. He gets honors [ tīmai], as I discovered, from the local-population-nearby [ proskhōrioi] here as well [as inside the walls of Mycenae], but the greatest honors are paid to him in Seriphos and among the Athenians, who have a precinct [ temenos] sacred to Perseus and an altar [ bōmos] of Dictys and Klymene, who are called the saviors [ sōtēres] of Perseus. As one advancxes in the Argive territory from this hero-shrine [ hērōion], therfe is on the right the tomb [ taphos] of Thyestes. On it is a ram [ krios] made of stone, because Thyestes obtained a golden lamb [ arēn] after seducing his brother’s wife. Atreus was not restrained by prudence [ logismos] from retaliating, but contrived the slaughter of the children of Thyestes and the banquet that is sung about in songs.

[2] But as to what followed, I cannot say for certain whether Aigisthos began the injustice [ adikiā] or whether Agamemnon was first to commit injustice in killing Tantalos the son of Thyestes. It is said that Tantalos had lived-with [ sun-oikeîn]Clytaemnestra, having received her from Tyndareus when she was still a virgin. I myself do not wish to condemn them of having been wicked by nature [ phusis]; but if the pollution [ miasma] of Pelops and the avenging spirit of Myrtilos dogged their steps so long, it was after all only consistent that the Pythian priestess said to the Spartan Glaukos, the son of Epikydes, who consulted her about breaking his oath, that the punishment for this also comes upon the descendants.

[3] A short distance beyond the Rams [ krioi]—this is the name they give to the tomb of Thyestes—there is on the left a place [ khōrion] called Mysia and a sanctuary [ hieron] of Demeter Mysia, so named after a man Mysios who, say the Argives, was another one of those who acted as a host [ xenos] to Demeter. In any case, this sanctuary has no roof, but inside it is another shrine [ nāos], built of baked brick, in it are wooden-statues of the Maiden [ Korē], Pluto [ Ploutōn], and Demeter. Farther on is the river called Inakhos, and on the other side of it an altar [ bōmos] of Hēlios [the Sun]. After this you will come to a gate [ pulē] named after the sanctuary [ hieron] that is near it. This sanctuary belongs to Eileithuia.

[4] The Argives are the only Greeks that I know of who have been divided into three kingdoms. For in the reign of Anaxagoras, son of Argeus, son of Megapenthes, the women were smitten with madness, and straying from their homes they roamed about the country, until Melampos the son of Amythaon cured them of the plague on condition that he himself and his brother Bias had a share of the kingdom equal to that of Anaxagoras. Now descended from Bias five men, Neleids on their mother’s side, occupied the throne for four generations down to Kyanippos, son of Aigialeus, and descended from Melampos six men in six generations down to Amphilokhos, son of Amphiaraos.

[5] But the native house of the lineage of Anaxagoras ruled longer than the other two. For Iphis, son of Alector, son of Anaxagoras, left the throne to Sthenelus, son of Capaneus his brother. After the capture of Troy, Amphilokhos migrated to the people now called the Amphilochians, and, Kyanippos having died without issue, Cylarabes, son of Sthenelus, became sole king. However, he too left no offspring, and Argos was seized by Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who was a neighbor. Besides his ancestral dominion, he had extended his rule over the greater part of Arcadia and had succeeded to the throne of Sparta; he also had a contingent of allies from Phokis always ready to help him.

[6] When Orestes became king of the Lacedaemonians, they themselves consented to accept him for they considered that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a claim to the throne prior to that of Nikostratos and Megapenthes, who were sons of Menelaos by a slave woman. On the death of Orestes, there succeeded to the throne Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and of Hermione, the daughter of Menelaos. The mother of Penthilos, the bastard son of Orestes, was, according to the poet Cinaethon, Erigone, the daughter of Aigisthos.

[7] It was in the reign of this Tisamenus that the Herakleidai returned to the Peloponnesus; they were Temenus and Kresphontes, the sons of Aristomakhos, together with the sons of the third brother, Aristodemos, who had died. Their claim to Argos and to the throne of Argos was, in my opinion, most just, because Tisamenus was descended from Pelops, but the Herakleidai were descendants of Perseus. Tyndareus himself, they made out, had been expelled by Hippokoön, and they said that Hēraklēs, having killed Hippokoön and his sons, had given the land in trust to Tyndareus. They gave the same kind of account about Messenia also, that it had been given in trust to Nestor by Hēraklēs after he had taken Pylos.

[8] So they expelled Tisamenus from Lacedaemon and Argos, and the descendants of Nestor from Messenia, namely Alkmaion, son of Sillus, son of Thrasymedes, Peisistratos, son of Peisistratos, and the sons of Paion, son of Antilokhos, and with them Melanthos, son of Andropompus, son of Borus, son of Penthilos, son of Periclymenus. So Tisamenus and his sons went with his army to the land that is now Achaea.

[9] To what people Peisistratos retreated I do not know, but the rest of the Neleidai went to Athens, and the clans of the Painonidai and of the Alkmaionidai were named after them. Melanthos even came to the throne, having deposed Thymoetes the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoetes was the last Athenian king descended from Theseus.

Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .

Current edition Experimental

English (Jones and Ormerod; retranslated Gregory Nagy, CHS, 2018) (OCR draft) (English) (CHS Pausanias Reader retranslation by Gregory Nagy, based on Jones and Ormerod, with marked Greek terms, notes, quotations, and bibliographic attributions preserved.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (1)

Ἑλλάδος Περιηγήσεως Perseus (Pausanias. Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio, Volumes 1-3. Spiro, Friedrich, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903.) — 2.18 focus

[1]
ἐκ Μυκηνῶν δὲ ἐς Ἄργος ἐρχομένοις ἐν ἀριστερᾷ Περσέως παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν ἐστιν ἡρῷον. ἔχει μὲν δὴ καὶ ἐνταῦθα τιμὰς παρὰ τῶν προσχωρίων, μεγίστας δὲ ἔν τε Σερίφῳ καὶ παρʼ Ἀθηναίοις , οἷς Περσέως τέμενος καὶ Δίκτυος καὶ Κλυμένης βωμὸς σωτήρων καλουμένων Περσέως. ἐν δὲ τῇ Ἀργείᾳ προελθοῦσιν ὀλίγον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡρῴου τούτου Θυέστου τάφος ἐστὶν ἐν δεξιᾷ· λίθου δὲ ἔπεστιν αὐτῷ κριός, ὅτι τὴν ἄρνα 0 ὁ Θυέστης ἔσχε τὴν χρυσῆν, μοιχεύσας τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τὴν γυναῖκα. Ἀτρέα δὲ οὐκ ἐπέσχεν ὁ λογισμὸς μετρῆσαι τὴν ἴσην, ἀλλὰ τῶν Θυέστου παίδων σφαγὰς καὶ τὰ ᾀδόμενα δεῖπνα ἐξειργάσατο.

[2] ὕστερον δὲ οὐκ ἔχω σαφὲς εἰπεῖν πότερον ἀδικίας ἦρξεν Αἴγισθος ἢ προϋπῆρξεν Ἀγαμέμνονι φόνος Ταντάλου τοῦ Θυέστου· συνοικεῖν δέ φασιν αὐτὸν Κλυταιμνήστρᾳ παρθένῳ παρὰ Τυνδάρεω λαβόντα. ἐγὼ δὲ καταγνῶναι μὲν οὐκ ἐθέλω φύσει σφᾶς γενέσθαι κακούς· εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον αὐτοῖς τὸ μίασμα τὸ Πέλοπος καὶ ὁ Μυρτίλου προστρόπαιος ἠκολούθησε, τούτοις ἦν ἄρα ὁμολογοῦντα, ἡνίκα ἡ Πυθία Γλαύκῳ τῷ Ἐπικύδους Σπαρτιάτῃ, βουλεύσαντι ἐπίορκα ὀμόσαι, καὶ τοῦδε εἶπεν ἐς τοὺς ἀπογόνους κατιέναι τὴν δίκην.

[3]
ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν Κριῶν—οὕτω γὰρ τοῦ Θυέστου τὸ μνῆμα ὀνομάζουσι—προελθοῦσιν ὀλίγον ἐστὶν ἐν ἀριστερᾷ χωρίον Μυσία καὶ Δήμητρος Μυσίας ἱερὸν ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς Μυσίου τὸ ὄνομα, γενομένου καὶ τούτου, καθάπερ λέγουσιν Ἀργεῖοι, ξένου τῇ Δήμητρι. τούτῳ μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔπεστιν ὄροφος· ἐν δὲ αὐτῷ ναός ἐστιν ἄλλος ὀπτῆς πλίνθου, ξόανα δὲ Κόρης καὶ Πλούτωνος καὶ Δήμητρός ἐστι. προελθοῦσι δὲ ποταμός ἐστιν Ἴναχος, καὶ διαβᾶσιν Ἡλίου βωμός. ἐντεῦθεν δὲ ἐπὶ πύλην ἥξεις καλουμένην ἀπὸ τοῦ πλησίον ἱεροῦ· τὸ δὲ ἱερόν ἐστιν Εἰλειθυίας.

[4]
μόνους δὲ Ἑλλήνων οἶδα Ἀργείους ἐς τρεῖς βασιλείας νεμηθέντας. ἐπὶ γὰρ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς Ἀναξαγόρου τοῦ Ἀργείου τοῦ Μεγαπένθους μανία ταῖς γυναιξὶν 0 ἐνέπεσεν, ἐκφοιτῶσαι δὲ ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν ἐπλανῶντο ἀνὰ τὴν χώραν, ἐς ὃ Μελάμπους ὁ Ἀμυθάονος ἔπαυσε σφᾶς τῆς νόσου, ἐφʼ ᾧ τε αὐτὸς καὶ ὁ ἀδελφὸς Βίας Ἀναξαγόρᾳ τὸ ἴσον ἕξουσιν. ἀπὸ μὲν δὴ Βίαντος βασιλεύουσι πέντε ἄνδρες ἐπὶ γενεὰς τέσσαρας ἐς Κυάνιππον τὸν Αἰγιαλέως, ὄντες Νηλεῖδαι τὰ πρὸς μητρός, ἀπὸ δὲ Μελάμποδος γενεαί τε ἓξ καὶ ἄνδρες ἴσοι μέχρις Ἀμφιλόχου τοῦ Ἀμφιαράου·

[5] τὸ δὲ ἐγχώριον γένος οἱ Ἀναξαγορίδαι βασιλεύουσι πλέον. Ἶφις μὲν γὰρ ὁ Ἀλέκτορος τοῦ Ἀναξαγόρου Σθενέλῳ τῷ Καπανέως ἀδελφοῦ παιδὶ ἀπέλιπε τὴν ἀρχήν· Ἀμφιλόχου δὲ μετὰ ἅλωσιν Ἰλίου μετοικήσαντος ἐς τοὺς νῦν Ἀμφιλόχους, Κυανίππου δʼ ἄπαιδος τελευτήσαντος, οὕτω Κυλαράβης ὁ Σθενέλου μόνος τὴν βασιλείαν ἔσχεν. οὐ μέντοι παῖδας κατέλιπεν οὐδʼ οὗτος, ἀλλὰ Ὀρέστης ὁ Ἀγαμέμνονος τὸ Ἄργος κατέσχε παροικῶν τε ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ καὶ ἄνευ τῆς πατρῴας ἀρχῆς προσπεποιημένος μὲν Ἀρκάδων τοὺς πολλούς, παρειληφὼς δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐν Σπάρτῃ βασιλείαν, συμμαχικοῦ δὲ ἐκ Φωκέων ἀεί ποτε ἐπʼ ὠφελείᾳ ἑτοίμου παρόντος.

[6] Λακεδαιμονίων δὲ ἐβασίλευσεν Ὀρέστης Λακεδαιμονίων ἐφέντων αὐτῷ· τοὺς γὰρ Τυνδάρεω θυγατριδοῦς τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔχειν οὐκ ἠξίουν πρὸ Νικοστράτου καὶ Μεγαπένθους Μενελάῳ γεγενημένων ἐκ δούλης. Ὀρέστου δὲ ἀποθανόντος ἔσχε Τισαμενὸς τὴν ἀρχήν, Ἑρμιόνης τῆς Μενελάου καὶ Ὀρέστου παῖς. τὸν δὲ Ὀρέστου νόθον Πενθίλον Κιναίθων ἔγραψεν ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν Ἠριγόνην τὴν Αἰγίσθου τεκεῖν.

[7] ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ Τισαμενοῦ τούτου κατίασιν 0 ἐς Πελοπόννησον Ἡρακλεῖδαι, Τήμενος μὲν καὶ Κρεσφόντης Ἀριστομάχου, τοῦ τρίτου δὲ Ἀριστοδήμου προτεθνεῶτος εἵποντο οἱ παῖδες. Ἄργους μὲν δὴ καὶ τῆς ἐν Ἄργει βασιλείας ὀρθότατα ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν ἠμφισβήτουν, ὅτι ἦν Πελοπίδης ὁ Τισαμενός, οἱ δὲ Ἡρακλεῖδαι τὸ ἀνέκαθέν εἰσι Περσεῖδαι· Τυνδάρεω δὲ καὶ αὐτὸν ἐκπεσόντα ἀπέφαινον ὑπὸ Ἱπποκόωντος, Ἡρακλέα δὲ ἔφασαν ἀποκτείναντα Ἱπποκόωντα καὶ τοὺς παῖδας παρακαταθέσθαι Τυνδάρεῳ τὴν χώραν· τοιαῦτα δὲ καὶ περὶ τῆς Μεσσηνίας ἕτερα ἔλεγον, παρακαταθήκην Νέστορι δοθῆναι καὶ ταύτην ὑπὸ Ἡρακλέους ἑλόντος Πύλον.

[8] ἐκβάλλουσιν οὖν ἐκ μὲν Λακεδαίμονος καὶ Ἄργους Τισαμενόν, ἐκ δὲ τῆς Μεσσηνίας τοὺς Νέστορος ἀπογόνους, Ἀλκμαίωνα Σίλλου τοῦ Θρασυμήδους καὶ Πεισίστρατον τὸν Πεισιστράτου καὶ τοὺς Παίονος τοῦ Ἀντιλόχου παῖδας, σὺν δὲ αὐτοῖς Μέλανθον τὸν Ἀνδροπόμπου τοῦ Βώρου τοῦ Πενθίλου τοῦ Περικλυμένου. Τισαμενὸς μὲν οὖν ἦλθε σὺν τῇ στρατιᾷ καὶ οἱ παῖδες ἐς τὴν νῦν Ἀχαΐαν·

[9] οἱ δὲ Νηλεῖδαι πλὴν Πεισιστράτου—τοῦτον γὰρ οὐκ οἶδα παρʼ οὕστινας ἀπεχώρησεν—ἐς Ἀθήνας ἀφίκοντο οἱ λοιποί, καὶ τὸ Παιονιδῶν γένος καὶ Ἀλκμαιωνιδῶν ἀπὸ τούτων ὠνομάσθησαν. Μέλανθος δὲ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν ἔσχεν ἀφελόμενος Θυμοίτην τὸν Ὀξύντου· Θυμοίτης γὰρ Θησειδῶν ἔσχατος ἐβασίλευσεν Ἀθηναίων.

Translations (1)

Description of Greece Perseus (Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece, Volumes 1-4. Jones, W.H.S. (William Henry Samuel), translator; Ormerod, Henry Arderne, translator. London, New York: W. Heinemann, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918-1935.) — 2.18 focus

[1]
By the side of the road from Mycenae to Argos there is on the left hand a hero-shrine of Perseus. The neighboring folk, then, pay him honors here, but the greatest honors are paid to him in Seriphus and among the Athenians, who have a precinct sacred to Perseus and an altar of Dictys and Clymene, who are called the saviours of Perseus. Advancing a little way in the Argive territory from this hero-shrine one sees on the right the grave of Thyestes. On it is a stone ram, because Thyestes obtained the golden lamb after debauching his brother's wife. But Atreus was not restrained by prudence from retaliating, but contrived the slaughter of the children of Thyestes and the banquet of which the poets tell us.

[2] But as to what followed, I cannot say for certain whether Aegisthus began the sin or whether Agamemnon sinned first in murdering Tantalus, the son of Thyestes. It is said that Tantalus had received Clytaemnestra in marriage from Tyndareus when she was still a virgin. I myself do not wish to condemn them of having been wicked by nature; but if the pollution of Pelops and the avenging spirit of Myirtilus dogged their steps so long, it was after all only consistent that the Pythian priestess said to the Spartan Glaucus, the son of Epicydes, who consulted her about breaking his oath, that the punishment for this also comes upon the descendants of the sinner.

[3]
A little beyond the Rams—this is the name they give to the tomb of Thyestes—there is on the left a place called Mysia and a sanctuary of Mysian Demeter, so named from a man Mysius who, say the Argives, was one of those who entertained Demeter. Now this sanctuary has no roof, but in it is another temple, built of burnt brick, and wooden images of the Maid, Pluto and Demeter. Farther on is a river called Inachus, and on the other side of it an altar of Helius (the Sun). After this you will come to a gate named after the sanctuary near it. This sanctuary belongs to Eileithyia.

[4] The Argives are the only Greeks that I know of who have been divided into three kingdoms. For in the reign of Anaxagoras, son of Argeus, son of Megapenthes, the women were smitten with madness, and straying from their homes they roamed about the country, until Melampus the son of Amythaon cured them of the plague on condition that he himself and his brother Bias had a share of the kingdom equal to that of Anaxagoras. Now descended from Bias five men, Neleids on their mother's side, occupied the throne for four generations down to Cyanippus, son of Aegialeus, and descended from Melampus six men in six generations down to Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus.

[5] But the native house of the family of Anaxagoras ruled longer than the other two. For Iphis, son of Alector, son of Anaxagoras, left the throne to Sthenelus, son of Capaneus his brother. After the capture of Troy , Amphilochus migrated to the people now called the Amphilochians, and, Cyanippus having died without issue, Cylarabes, son of Sthenelus, became sole king. However, he too left no offspring, and Argos was seized by Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who was a neighbor. Besides his ancestral dominion, he had extended his rule over the greater part of Arcadia and had succeeded to the throne of Sparta ; he also had a contingent of Phocian allies always ready to help him.

[6] When Orestes became king of the Lacedaemonians, they themselves consented to accept him for they considered that the sons of the daughter of Tyndareus had a claim to the throne prior to that of Nicostratus and Megapenthes, who were sons of Menelaus by a slave woman. On the death of Orestes, there succeeded to the throne Tisamenus, the son of Orestes and of Hermione , the daughter of Menelaus. The mother of Penthilus, the bastard son of Orestes, was, according to the poet Cinaethon, Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus.

[7] It was in the reign of this Tisamenus that the Heracleidae returned to the Peloponnesus ; they were Temenus and Cresphontes, the sons of Aristomachus, together with the sons of the third brother, Aristodemus, who had died. Their claim to Argos and to the throne of Argos was, in my opinion, most just, because Tisamenus was descended from Pelops, but the Heracleidae were descendants of Perseus. Tyndareus himself, they made out, had been expelled by Hippocoon, and they said that Heracles, having killed Hippocoon and his sons, had given the land in trust to Tyndareus. They gave the same kind of account about Messenia also, that it had been given in trust to Nestor by Heracles after he had taken Pylus.

[8] So they expelled Tisamenus from Lacedaemon and Argos , and the descendants of Nestor from Messenia , namely Alcmaeon, son of Sillus, son of Thrasymedes, Peisistratus, son of Peisistratus, and the sons of Paeon, son of Antilochus, and with them Melanthus, son of Andropompus, son of Borus, son of Penthilus, son of Periclymenus. So Tisamenus and his sons went with his army to the land that is now Achaia .

[9]
To what people Peisistratus retreated I do not know, but the rest of the Neleidae went to Athens , and the clans of the Paeonidae and of the Alcmaeonidae were named after them. Melanthus even came to the throne, having deposed Thymoetes the son of Oxyntes; for Thymoetes was the last Athenian king descended from Theseus.

New Alexandria Commentaries

Gregory Nagy, Editors: Angelia Hanhardt and Keith DeStone, Web producer: Noel Spencer, Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins, \[\[Noel gives this a separate URN\]\]

Pausanias Description of Greece 2.18

ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy

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