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[1] The statue of Astylos of Kroton is the work of Pythagoras; this athlete won three successive victories at Olympia, in the short race and in the double race. But because on the two latter occasions he proclaimed himself a Syracusan, in order to please Hieron, the son of Deinomenes, the people of Kroton for this condemned his house to be a prison, and pulled down his statue set up by the temple of Lacinian Hērā.
[2] There is also set up in Olympia a slab recording the victories of Khionis the Lacedaemonian. They show simplicity who have supposed that Khionis himself dedicated the slab, and not the Lacedaemonian people. Let us assume that, as the slab says, the race in armor had not yet been introduced; how could Khionis know whether the Eleians would at some future time add it to the list of events? But those are simpler still who say that the statue standing by the slab is a portrait of Khionis, it being the work of the Athenian Myron.
[3] Similar in renown to Khionis was Hermogenes of Xanthos, a Lydian, who won the wild olive eight times at three Olympic festivals, and was surnamed Horse by the Greeks. Polites also you will consider a great marvel. This Polites was from Keramos in Caria, and showed at Olympia every excellence in running. For from the longest race, demanding the greatest stamina, he changed, after the shortest interval, to the shortest and quickest, and after winning a victory in the long race and immediately afterwards in the short race, he added on the same day a third victory in the double course.
[4] Polites then in the second […] and four, as they are grouped together by lot, and they do not start them all together for the race. The victors in each heat run again for the prize. So he who is garlanded in the foot race will be victorious twice. However, the most famous runner was Leonidas of Rhodes. He maintained his speed at its prime for four Olympiads, and won twelve victories for running.
[5] Not far from the slab of Khionis at Olympia stands Scaios, the son of Douris, a Samian, victor in the boys’ boxing match. The statue is the work of Hippias, the son of […] and the inscription on it states that Scaios won his victory at the time when the people of Samos were in exile from the island, but the occasion […] the people to their own.
[6] By the side of the tyrant is a statue of Diallos, the son of Pollis, a Smyrnean by descent, and this Diallos declares that he was the first Ionian to receive at Olympia a garland for the boys’ pankration. There are statues of Thersilokhos of Corcyra and of Aristion of Epidaurus, the son of Theophiles, made by Polycleitus the Argive; Aristion won a garland for the men’s boxing, Thersilokhos for the boys’.
[7] Bykelos, the first Sikyonian to win the boys’ boxing match, had his statue made by Kanakhos of Sikyon, a pupil of the Argive Polycleitus. By the side of Bykelos stands the statue of a man-at-arms, Mnaseas of Cyrene, surnamed the Libyan; Pythagoras of Rhēgion made the statue. To Agemakhos of Kyzikos from the mainland of Asia […] the inscription on it shows that he was born at Argos.
[8] Naxos was founded in Sicily by the people of Khalkis-on-the-Euripos. Of the city not even the ruins are now to be seen, and that the name of Naxos has survived to after ages must be attributed to Tisandros, the son of Kleokritos. He won the men’s boxing match at Olympia four times; he had the same number of victories at Pythō, but at this time, neither the Corinthians nor the Argives kept complete records of the victors at Nemeā and the Isthmus.
[9] The mare of the Corinthian Pheidolas was called, the Corinthians relate, Aura ‘breeze’, and at the beginning of the race, she chanced to throw her rider. But nevertheless, she went on running properly, turned round the post, and, when she heard the trumpet, quickened her pace, reached the umpires first, realized that she had won, and stopped running. The Eleians proclaimed Pheidolas the winner and allowed him to dedicate a statue of this mare.
[10] The sons also of Pheidolas were winners in the horse race, and the horse is represented on a slab with this inscription:
“The swift Lykos by one victory at the Isthmus and two here
Garlanded the house of the sons of Pheidolas.”
Garlanded the house of the sons of Pheidolas.”
But the inscription is at variance with the Eleian records of Olympic victors. These records give a victory to the sons of Pheidolas at the sixty-eighth Festival but at no other. You may take my statements as accurate.
[11] There are statues to Agathinos, son of Thrasyboulos, and to Telemakhos, both men of Elis. Telemakhos won the race for four-horse chariots; the statue of Agathinos was dedicated by the Achaeans of Pellene. The Athenian people dedicated a statue of Aristophon, the son of Lysinos, who won the men’s pankration at Olympia.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .