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[1] Not far from the Orthia is a sanctuary of Eileithuia. They say that they built it, and came to worship Eileithuia as a goddess, because of an oracle from Delphi.
The Lacedaemonians have no citadel rising to a conspicuous height like the Kadmeia at Thebes and the Larisa at Argos. There are, however, hills in the city, and the highest of them they call the citadel.
[2] Here is built a sanctuary of Athena, who is called both City-protecting and Lady of the Bronze House. The building of the sanctuary was begun, they say, by Tyndareus. On his death his children were desirous of making a second attempt to complete the building, and the resources they intended to use were the spoils of Aphidna. They too left it unfinished, and it was many years afterwards that the Lacedaemonians made of bronze both the temple and the image of Athena. The builder was Gitiadas, a native of Sparta, who also composed Dorian lyrics, including a hymn to the goddess.
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[3] On the bronze are made-in-relief many of the labors of Hēraklēs and many of the voluntary exploits he successfully carried out, besides the abduction of the daughters of Leukippos and other achievements of the sons of Tyndareus. There is also Hephaistos releasing his mother from the fetters. The things that are said about this I have already shown in my write-up [
sungraphē] about Attica.
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There are also represented nymphs bestowing upon Perseus, who is starting on his enterprise against Medusa in Libya, a cap and the shoes by which he was to be carried through the air. Also crafted are the birth of Athena, Amphitrite, and Poseidon, the largest figures, and those which I thought the best worth seeing.
[4] There is here another sanctuary of Athena; her surname is the Worker. As you go to the south portico there is a temple of Zeus surnamed Kosmetas (Orderer), and before it is the tomb of Tyndareus. The west portico has two eagles, and upon them are two Victories. Lysander dedicated them to commemorate both his exploits; the one was off Ephesos, when he conquered Antiokhos, the captain of Alcibiades, and the Athenian warships and the second occurred later, when he destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi.
[5] On the left of the Lady of the Bronze House they have set up a sanctuary of the Muses, because the Lacedaemonians used to go out to fight, not to the sound of the trumpet, but to the music of the flute and the accompaniment of lyre and harp. Behind the Lady of the Bronze House is a temple of Aphrodite Areia (Warlike). The wooden images are as old as any in Greece.
[6] On the right of the Lady of the Bronze House has been set up an image of Zeus Most High, the oldest image that is made of bronze. It is not created in one piece. Each of the limbs has been hammered separately; these are fitted together, being prevented from coming apart by nails. They say that the artist was Klearkhos of Rhēgion, who is said by some to have been a pupil of Dipoinos
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and Skyllis, by others of Daidalos himself. By what is called the Scenoma (Tent) there is a statue of a woman, whom the Lacedaemonians say is Euryleonis. She won a victory at Olympia with a two-horse chariot.
[7] By the side of the altar of the Lady of the Bronze House stand two statues of Pausanias, the general at Plataea. His history, as it is known, I will not relate. The accurate accounts of my predecessors suffice; I shall content myself with adding to them what I heard from a man of Byzantium. Pausanias was detected in his treachery, and was the only suppliant of the Lady of the Bronze House who failed to win security, solely because he had been unable to wipe away a defilement of bloodshed.
[8] When he was cruising about the Hellespont with the Lacedaemonian and allied fleets, he fell in love with a Byzantine girl. And straightway at the beginning of night Kleonike —that was the girl’s name—was brought by those who had been ordered to do so. But Pausanias was asleep at the time and the noise awoke him. For as she came to him she unintentionally dropped her lighted lamp. And Pausanias, conscious of his treason to Greece, and therefore always nervous and fearful, jumped up then and struck the girl with his sword.
[9] From this defilement Pausanias could not escape, although he underwent all sorts of purifications and became a suppliant of Zeus Phyxios (God of Flight), and finally went to the wizards at Phigalia in Arcadia but he paid a fitting penalty to Kleonike and to the god. The Lacedaemonians, in fulfillment of a command from Delphi, had the bronze images made and honor the spirit Bountiful, saying that it was this Bountiful that turns aside the wrath that the God of Suppliants shows because of Pausanias.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .