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[1] So much for the story of Euthymos. After his statue stands a runner in the foot-race, Pytharkhos of Mantineia, and a boxer, Kharmides of Elis, both of whom won prizes in the contests for boys. When you have looked at these also, you will reach the statues of the Rhodian athletes, Diagoras and his family. These were dedicated one after the other in the following order. Acusilaus [Akousilaos], who received a garland for boxing in the men’s class; Dorieus, the youngest, who won the pankration at Olympia on three successive occasions. Even before Dorieus, Damagetos beat all those who had entered for the pankration.
[2] These were brothers, being sons of Diagoras, and by them is set up also a statue of Diagoras himself, who won a victory for boxing in the men’s class. The statue of Diagoras was made by the Megarian Kallikles, the son of the Theokosmos who made the image of Zeus at Megara. The sons too of the daughters of Diagoras practiced boxing and won Olympic victories: in the men’s class, Eukles, son of Kallianax and Kallipateira, daughter of Diagoras; in the boys’ class, Peisirodos, whose mother dressed herself as a man and a trainer, and took her son herself to the Olympic Games.
[3] This Peisirodos is one of the statues in the Altis, and stands by the father of his mother. The story goes that Diagoras came to Olympia in the company of his sons Acusilaus [Akousilaos] and Damagetos. The youths, on defeating their father, proceeded to carry him through the crowd, while the Greeks pelted him with flowers and congratulated him on his sons. The lineage of Diagoras was originally, through the female line, Messenian, as he was descended from the daughter of Aristomenes.
[4] Dorieus, son of Diagoras, besides his Olympian victories, won eight at the Isthmian and seven at the Nemean Games. He is also said to have won a Pythian victory without a contest. He and Peisirodos were proclaimed by the herald as of Thourioi, for they had been pursued by their political enemies from Rhodes to Thourioi in Italy. Dorieus subsequently returned to Rhodes. Of all men, he most obviously showed his friendship with Sparta, for he actually fought against the Athenians with his own ships, until he was taken prisoner by Attic men-of-war and brought alive to Athens.
[5] Before he was brought to them, the Athenians were angry with Dorieus and used threats against him; but when they met in the assembly and beheld a man so great and famous in the guise of a prisoner, their feeling towards him changed, and they let him go away without doing him any hurt, even though they might with justice have punished him severely.
[6] The death of Dorieus is told by Androtion in his Attic history. He says that the great King’s fleet was then at Kaunos, with Konon in command, who persuaded the Rhodian people to leave the Lacedaemonian alliance and to join the great King and the Athenians. Dorieus, he goes on to say, was at the time away from home in the interior of the Peloponnesus, and having been caught by some Lacedaemonians, he was brought to Sparta, convicted of treachery by the Lacedaemonians, and sentenced to death.
[7] If Androtion tells the truth, he appears to me to wish to put the Lacedaemonians on a level with the Athenians, because they too are open to the charge of precipitous action in their treatment of Thrasyllos and his fellow admirals at the battle of Arginoussai.
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Such was the fame won by Diagoras and his family.
[8] Alkainetos too, son of Theantos, a Leprean, himself and his sons won Olympian victories. Alkainetos was successful in the boxing contest for men, as at an earlier date, he had been in the contest for boys. His sons, Helianikos and Theantos, were proclaimed winners of the boys’ boxing match, Hellanikos at the eighty-ninth Festival
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and Theantos at the next. All have their statues set up at Olympia.
[9] Next to the sons of Alkainetos stand Gnathon, a Maenalian of Dipaia, and Lukinos of Elis. They too succeeded in beating the boys at boxing at Olympia. The inscription on his statue says that Gnathon was very young indeed when he won his victory. The artist who made the statue was Kallikles of Megara.
[10] A man from Stymphalos, by name Dromeus [Runner], proved true to it in the long race, for he won two victories at Olympia, two at Pythō, three at the Isthmus, and five at Nemeā. He is said to have also conceived the idea of a flesh diet; up to this time, athletes had fed on cheese from the basket. The statue of this athlete is by Pythagoras; the one next to it, representing Pythokles, a pentathlete of Elis, was made by Polycleitus.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .