View:
By Section
[1] Next to the statue of Lysander is an Ephesian boxer who beat the other boys, his competitors—his name was Athenaios,—and also a man of Sikyon who was a competitor in the pankration, Sostratos, surnamed Akrokhersites. He got that surname because he used to grip his antagonist by the fingers and bend them, and would not let go until he saw that his opponent had given in.
[2] He won at the Nemean and Isthmian Games combined twelve victories, three victories at Olympia, and two at Pythō. The hundred and fourth Festival, when Sostratos won his first victory, is not reckoned by the Eleians, because the Games were held by the Pisans and Arcadians and not by themselves.
[3] Beside Sostratos is a statue of Leontiskos, a man wrestler, a native of Sicily from Messene on the Strait. He was garlanded, they say, by the Amphiktyones and twice by the Eleians, and his mode of wrestling was similar to the pankration of Sostratos the Sikyonian. For they say that Leontiskos did not know how to throw his opponents, but won by bending their fingers.
[4] The statue was made by Pythagoras of Rhēgion, an excellent sculptor if ever there was one. They say that he studied under Klearkhos, who was likewise a native of Rhēgion and a pupil of Eukheiros. Eukheiros, it is said, was a Corinthian, and attended the school of Syadras and Khartas, men of Sparta.
[5] The boy who is binding his head with a fillet must be mentioned in my account because of Pheidias and his great skill as a sculptor, but we do not know whose portrait the statue is that Pheidias made. Satyros of Elis, son of Lysianax, of the clan of the Iamidai, won five victories at Nemeā for boxing, two at Pythō, and two at Olympia. The artist who made the statue was Silanion, an Athenian. Polykles, another sculptor of the Attic school, a pupil of Stadieus the Athenian, has made the statue of an Ephesian boy who competed in the pankration, Amyntas the son of Hellanikos.
[6] Khilon, an Achaean of Patrai, won two prizes for men wrestlers at Olympia, one at Delphi, four at the Isthmus, and three at the Nemean Games. He was buried at the public expense by the Achaeans, and his fate it was to lose his life on the field of battle. My statement is borne out by the inscription at Olympia:
“In wrestling only I alone conquered twice the men at Olympia and at Pythō,
Three times at Nemeā, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea;
Khilon of Patrai, son of Khilon, whom the Achaean folk
Buried for my valor when I died in battle.”
Three times at Nemeā, and four times at the Isthmus near the sea;
Khilon of Patrai, son of Khilon, whom the Achaean folk
Buried for my valor when I died in battle.”
[7] Thus much is plain from the inscription. But the date of Lysippos, who made the statue, leads me to infer about the war in which Khilon fell, that plainly either he marched to Khaironeia with the whole of the Achaeans,
373
or else his personal courage and daring led him alone of the Achaeans to fight against the Macedonians under Antipatros at the battle of Lamia in Thessaly.
374
[8] Next to Khilon two statues have been set up. One is that of a man named Molpion, who, says the inscription, was garlanded by the Eleians. The other statue bears no inscription, but tradition says that it represents Aristotle from Stageira in Thrace, and that it was set up either by a pupil or else by some soldier aware of Aristotle’s influence with Antipatros and at an earlier date with Alexander. Sodamas from Assos in the Troad,
[9] a city at the foot of Ida, was the first of the Aeolians in this district to win at Olympia the foot-race for boys. By the side of Sodamas stands Arkhidamos, son of Agesilaos, king of the Lacedaemonians. Before this Arkhidamos, no king, so far as I could learn, had his statue set up by the Lacedaemonians, at least outside the boundaries of the country. They sent the statue of Arkhidamos to Olympia chiefly, in my opinion, on account of his death, because he met his end in a barbarian land, and is the only king in Sparta who is known to have missed burial.
[10] I have spoken at greater length on this matter in my account of Sparta.
375
Euanthes of Kyzikos won prizes for boxing, one among the men at Olympia, and also among the boys at the Nemean and at the Isthmian Games. By the side of Euanthes is the statue of a horse-breeder and his chariot; mounted on the chariot is a young maid. The man’s name is Lampos, and his native city was the last to be founded in Macedonia, named after its founder Philip, son of Amyntas.
[11] The statue of Kyniskos, the boy boxer from Mantineia, was made by Polycleitus. Ergoteles, the son of Philanor, won two victories in the long foot-race at Olympia, and two at Pythō, the Isthmus, and Nemeā. The inscription on the statue states that he came originally from Himera, but it is said that this is incorrect, and that he was a Cretan from Knossos. Expelled from Knossos by a political party, he came to Himera, was given citizenship, and won many honors besides. It was accordingly natural for him to be proclaimed at the Games as a native of Himera.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .