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[1] Beside the statue of Poulydamas at Olympia stand two Arcadians and one Attic athlete. The statue of the Mantineian, Protolaos, the son of Dialkes, who won the boxing match for boys, was made by Pythagoras of Rhēgion; that of Narykidas, son of Damaretos, a wrestler from Phigalia, was made by Daidalos of Sikyon; that of the Athenian Kallias, a competitor in the pankration, is by the Athenian painter Mikon. Nikodamos the Maenalian made the statue of the Maenalian Androsthenes, the son of Lokhaios, a competitor in the pankration, who won two victories among the men.
[3] Nikodamos, the sculptor from Mainalos, made the statue of the boxer Damoxenidas of Mainalos. There stands also the statue of the Eleian boy Lastratidas, who won the garland for wrestling. He won a victory at Nemeā also among the boys, and another among the beardless youths. Paraballon, the father of Lastratidas, was first in the double foot-race, and he left to those coming after an object of ambition, by writing up in the gymnasium at Olympia the names of those who won Olympic victories.
[4] So much for these. But it would not be right for me to pass over the boxer Euthymos, his victories, and his other glories. Euthymos was by birth one of the people of Italian Lokris, who dwell in the region near the headland called the West Point, and he was called son of Astykles. According to what is said by the local people [
epikhōrioi], however, he is the son not of this man, but of the river Kaikinos, which divides Lokris from the land of Rhēgion and produces the marvel of the grasshoppers. For the grasshoppers within Lokris as far as the Kaikinos sing just like others, but across the Kaikinos in the territory of Rhēgion, they do not utter a sound.
[5] This river then, according to tradition, was the father of Euthymos, who, though he won the prize for boxing at the seventy-fourth Olympic Festival,
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was not to be so successful at the next. For Theagenes of Thasos, wishing to win the prizes for boxing and for the pankration at the same Festival, overcame Euthymos at boxing, though he had not the strength to gain the wild olive in the pankration, because he was already exhausted in his fight with Euthymos.
[6] Then, the umpires fined Theagenes a talent, to be sacred to the god, and a talent for the harm done to Euthymos, holding that it was merely to spite him that he entered for the boxing competition. For this reason, they condemned him to pay an extra fine privately to Euthymos. At the seventy-sixth Festival, Theagenes paid in full the money owed to the god, […] and as compensation to Euthymos did not enter for the boxing match. At this Festival, and also at the next following, Euthymos won the garland for boxing. His statue is the handiwork of Pythagoras, and is very well worth seeing.
[7] On his return to Italy, Euthymos fought against the Hero, the story about whom is as follows. Odysseus, so they say, in his wanderings after the capture of Troy was carried down by gales to various cities of Italy and Sicily, and among them he came with his ships to Temesa. Here one of his sailors got drunk and violated a girl, for which offense he was stoned to death by the natives.
[8] Now Odysseus, it is said, cared nothing about his loss and sailed away. But the ghost of the stoned man never ceased killing without distinction the people of Temesa, attacking both old and young, until, when the inhabitants had resolved to flee from Italy for good, the Pythian priestess forbade them to leave Temesa, and ordered them to propitiate the Hero, setting him a sanctuary apart and building a temple, and to give him every year as wife the fairest maiden in Temesa.
[9] So they performed the commands of the god and suffered no more terrors from the ghost. But Euthymos happened to come to Temesa just at the time when the ghost was being propitiated in the usual way; learning what was going on, he had a strong desire to enter the temple, and not only to enter it but also to look at the girl. When he saw her, he first felt pity and afterwards love for her. The girl swore to marry him if he saved her, and so Euthymos with his armor on awaited the onslaught of the ghost.
[10] He won the fight, and the Hero was driven out of the land and disappeared, sinking into the depth of the sea. Euthymos had a distinguished wedding, and the inhabitants were freed from the ghost forever. I heard another story also about Euthymos, how he reached extreme old age and escaping again from death, departed from among men in another way. Temesa is still inhabited, as I heard from a man who sailed there as a merchant.
[11] This I heard, and I also saw by chance a picture dealing with the subject. It was a copy of an ancient picture. There were a youth, Sybaris, a river, Kalabros, and a spring, Lyka. Besides, there were a hero-shrine and the city of Temesa, and in the midst was the ghost that Euthymos cast out. Horribly black in color, and exceedingly dreadful in all his appearance, he had a wolf’s skin thrown round him as a garment. The letters on the picture gave his name as Lycas.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .