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[1] Such were the claims to fame of Epameinondas. Not far away is a temple of Ammon; the image, a work of Kalamis, was dedicated by Pindar, who also sent to the Ammonians of Libya a hymn to Ammon. This hymn I found still carved on a triangular slab by the side of the altar dedicated to Ammon by Ptolemy the son of Lagos. After the sanctuary of Ammon at Thebes comes what is called the bird-observatory of Teiresias, and near it is a sanctuary of Fortune, who carries the child Wealth.
[2] According to the Thebans, the hands and face of the image were made by Xenophon the Athenian, the rest of it by Kallistonikos, a native. It was a clever idea of these artists to place Wealth in the arms of Fortune, and so to suggest that she is his mother or nurse. Equally clever was the conception of Kephisodotos, who made the image of Peace for the Athenians with Wealth in her arms.
[3] At Thebes are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figureheads on the ships of Kadmos. They call the first the celestial one [
Ourania], the second the one who is common to the district [
Pan-dēmos], and the third the Averter [
Apo-strophia]. Harmonia gave to Aphrodite the surname of the celestial one [
Ourania]
[4] to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of the one who common to the district [
Pan-dēmos], to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Averter [
Apo-strophia], who would turn humankind away from unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among barbarians but even by Greeks, similar to what later became subjects of songs sung [
āidesthai] about the mother of Adonis, about Phaedra the daughter of Minos, and about the Thracian Tereus.
[5] The sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver is said to have been at one time the house of Kadmos and his descendants. The image of Demeter is visible down to the chest. Here have been dedicated bronze shields, said to be those of Lacedaemonian officers who fell at Leuktra.
[6] Near the Proetidian gate is built a theater, and quite close to the theater is a temple of Dionysus surnamed Deliverer. For when some Theban prisoners in the hands of Thracians had reached Haliartia on their march, they were delivered by the god, who gave up the sleeping Thracians to be put to death. One of the two images here the Thebans say is Semele. Once in each year, they say, they open the sanctuary on stated days.
[7] There are also ruins of the house of Lykos, and the tomb of Semele, but Alkmene has no tomb. It is said that on her death she was turned from human form to a stone, but the Theban account does not agree with the Megarian. What things the Greeks say about them are generally different from each other. Here too at Thebes are the tombs of the children of Amphion. The boys lie apart; the girls are buried separately.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .