Pausanias, Description of Greece, W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator), 7.16

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[1]
Mummius, bringing with him Orestes, the commissioner sent earlier to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, reached the Roman army at early dawn, and sending Metellus and his forces to Macedonia , himself waited at the Isthmus for his whole force to assemble. There came three thousand five hundred cavalry, while the infantry amounted to twenty-three thousand. They were joined by a company of Cretan archers and by Philopoemen, at the head of some troops sent by Attalus from Pergamus on the Caicus .

[2] Certain of the Italian troops along with the auxiliaries were stationed by Mummius twelve stades away, to be an outpost for the whole army. The contempt of the Romans made them keep a careless look-out, and the Achaeans, attacking them in the first watch, killed some, drove yet more back to the camp, and took some five hundred shields. Puffed up with this success the Achaeans marched out to battle before the Romans began their attack.

[3] But when Mummius advanced to meet them, the Achaean horse at once took to flight, without waiting for even the first charge of the Roman cavalry. The infantry were depressed at the rout of their horse, but nevertheless received the onslaught of the Roman men-at-arms; overwhelmed by numbers and faint with their wounds they offered a spirited resistance, until a thousand picked Romans fell upon their flank and utterly routed them.

[4] If after the battle Diaeus had boldly thrown himself into Corinth and received the fugitives within the walls, the Achaeans might have been able to get favorable terms from Mummius, by putting him to the trouble of a protracted siege. As it was, when the Achaeans were but beginning to yield, Diaeus fled straight for Megalopolis , his conduct towards the Achaeans showing a marked contrast to that of Callistratus, the son of Empedus, towards the Athenians.

[5] This man commanded some cavalry in Sicily , and when the Athenians and their partners in the expedition were being massacred at the river Asinarus, he courageously cut a way through the enemy at the head of his horsemen. He brought most of them safe to Catana , and then returned by the same way back to Syracuse . Finding the enemy still plundering the Athenian camp, he cut down some five of them, and then both he and his horse received mortal wounds and died.

[6] So he won glory for the Athenians and for himself, by saving the men under his command and seeking his own death. But Diaeus having ruined the Achaeans came to tell the tidings of disaster to the people of Megalopolis , killed his wife with his own hand, just to save her from being taken prisoner, and then committed suicide by drinking poison. He may be compared to Menalcidas for his avarice, and proved equally like him in the cowardice of his death.

[7]
As soon as night fell, the Achaeans who had escaped to Corinth after the battle fled from the city, and there fled with them most of the Corinthians themselves. At first Mummius hesitated to enter Corinth , although the gates were open, as he suspected that an ambush had been laid within the walls. But on the third day after the battle he proceeded to storm Corinth and to set it on fire.

[8] The majority of those found in it were put to the sword by the Romans, but the women and children Mummius sold into slavery. He also sold all the slaves who had been set free, had fought on the side of the Achaeans, and had not fallen at once on the field of battle. The most admired votive offerings and works of art were carried off by Mummius; those of less account he gave to Philopoemen, the general sent by Attalus; even in my day there were Corinthian spoils at Pergamus .

[9] The walls of all the cities that had made war against Rome Mummius demolished, disarming the inhabitants, even before assistant commissioners were despatched from Rome, and when these did arrive, he proceeded to put down democracies and to establish governments based on a property qualification. Tribute was imposed on Greece , and those with property were forbidden to acquire possessions in a foreign country. Racial confederacies, whether of Achaeans, or Phocians, or Boeotians, or of any other Greek people, were one and all put down.

[10] A few years later the Romans took pity on Greece , restored the various old racial confederacies, with the right to acquire property in a foreign country, and remitted the fines imposed by Mummius. For he had ordered the Boeotians to pay a hundred talents to the people of Heracleia and Euboea , and the Achaeans to pay two hundred to the Lacedaemonians. Although the Romans granted the Greeks remission of these payments, yet down to my day a Roman governor has been sent to the country. The Romans call him the Governor, not of Greece , but of Achaia , because the cause of the subjection of Greece was the Achaeans, at that time at the head of the Greek nation.¹ This war came to an end when Antitheus was archon at Athens , in the hundred and sixtieth Olympiad², at which Diodorus of Sicyon was victorious.³

Description of Greece. Pausanias. W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918-1935.

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Current edition Perseus

Description of Greece (English) (Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece, Volumes 1-4. Jones, W.H.S. (William Henry Samuel), translator; Ormerod, Henry Arderne, translator. London, New York: W. Heinemann, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918-1935.)

Editions (1)

Ἑλλάδος Περιηγήσεως Perseus (Pausanias. Pausaniae Graeciae descriptio, Volumes 1-3. Spiro, Friedrich, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1903.) — 7.16 focus

[1] Μόμμιος δὲ Ὀρέστην ἅμα ἀγόμενος, τὸν πρότερον ἐπὶ τῇ Λακεδαιμονίων διαφορᾷ καὶ Ἀχαιῶν ἐλθόντα, ἀφίκετο μὲν περὶ ὄρθρον ἐς τὸ τῶν Ῥωμαίων στράτευμα, ἀποπέμψας δὲ ἐς Μακεδονίαν Μέτελλον καὶ ὅσον εἵπετο ἐκείνῳ, ἀνέμενεν αὐτὸς ἐν τῷ ἰσθμῷ τὴν πᾶσαν ἀθροισθῆναι παρασκευήν. ἀφίκετο δὲ ἱππικὸν μὲν πεντακόσιοί τε καὶ τρισχίλιοι, τοῦ πεζοῦ δὲ ἀριθμὸς ἐγένετο ἐς μυριάδας δύο προσόντων καὶ τούτοις τρισχιλίων· ἐπῆλθον δὲ καὶ τοξόται Κρῆτες καὶ ἐκ Περγάμου τῆς ὑπὲρ Καΐκου Φιλοποίμην στρατιώτας ἄγων παρὰ Ἀττάλου.

[2] Μόμμιος μὲν δὴ τῶν τε ἐξ Ἰταλίας τινὰς καὶ τὰ ἐπικουρικὰ ἀπωτέρω δύο τε καὶ δέκα ἔταξε σταδίοις, πρὸ τοῦ παντὸς εἶναι στρατεύματος φυλακήν· Ἀχαιοὶ δέ, ἐχόντων ἀφυλακτότερον ὑπὸ φρονήματος τῶν Ῥωμαίων, ἐπιτίθενται τοῖς ἐπὶ φυλακῆς αὐτοῖς τῆς πρώτης, καὶ τοὺς μὲν φονεύουσι, πλείονας δὲ ἔτι ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον κατεῖρξαν, καὶ ἀσπίδας ὅσον τε πεντακοσίας εἷλον. ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ τοῦ ἔργου καὶ ἐπήρθησαν οἱ Ἀχαιοὶ ποιήσασθαι τὴν ἔξοδον πρότερον πρὶν ἢ Ῥωμαίους ἄρχειν μάχης·

[3] ὡς δὲ ἀντεπῆγε καὶ ὁ Μόμμιος, οἱ μὲν ἐς τὸ ἱππικὸν τῶν Ἀχαιῶν 0 ταχθέντες αὐτίκα ᾤχοντο φεύγοντες, τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἵππου μηδὲ τὴν πρώτην ἔφοδον ὑπομείναντες· ὁ δὲ πεζὸς στρατὸς ἀθύμως μὲν εἶχεν ἐπὶ τῶν ἱππέων τῇ τροπῇ, δεξάμενοι δὲ τὴν ἐμβολὴν τοῦ ὁπλιτικοῦ τοῦ Ῥωμαίων βιαζόμενοί τε τῷ πλήθει καὶ ἀπαγορεύοντες τοῖς τραύμασιν ὅμως ἀντεῖχον ὑπὸ τοῦ θυμοῦ, πρίν γε δὴ Ῥωμαίων λογάδες χίλιοι προσπεσόντες κατὰ τὰ πλάγια ἐς τελέαν τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς φυγὴν κατέστησαν.

[4] εἰ δὲ ἐτόλμησεν ἐσδραμεῖν μετὰ τὴν μάχην Δίαιος ἐς Κόρινθον καὶ ὑποδέξασθαι τῷ τείχει τοὺς διαπίπτοντας ἐκ τῆς φυγῆς, κἂν εὕρασθαί τι παρὰ Μομμίου οἱ Ἀχαιοὶ φιλάνθρωπον ἐδυνήθησαν, ἐς πολιορκίαν καὶ τριβὴν πολέμου καταστάντες· νῦν δὲ ἀρχομένων ἔτι ἐνδιδόναι τῶν Ἀχαιῶν εὐθὺ Μεγάλης πόλεως ἔφευγεν ὁ Δίαιος, οὐδέν τι γενόμενος ἐς Ἀχαιοὺς ὅμοιος ἢ καὶ Καλλίστρατος ὁ Ἐμπέδου πρὸς Ἀθηναίους.

[5] τούτῳ γὰρ τῷ ἀνδρὶ ἱππαρχήσαντι ἐν Σικελίᾳ, ὅτε Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ ὅσοι ἄλλοι τοῦ στόλου μετεσχήκεσαν ἀπώλλυντο πρὸς τῷ ποταμῷ τότε τῷ Ἀσινάρῳ, τούτῳ τότε τῷ Καλλιστράτῳ παρέστη τόλμα διεκπαῖσαι διὰ τῶν πολεμίων ἄγοντι τοὺς ἱππέας· ὡς δὲ τὸ πολὺ ἀπέσωσεν αὐτῶν ἐς Κατάνην, ἀνέστρεφεν ὀπίσω τὴν αὐτὴν αὖθις ὁδὸν ἐς Συρακούσας, διαρπάζοντας δὲ ἔτι εὑρὼν τὸ Ἀθηναίων στρατόπεδον καταβάλλει τε ὅσον πέντε ἐξ αὐτῶν, καὶ τραύματα ἐπίκαιρα αὐτὸς καὶ ὁ ἵππος λαβόντες ἀφιᾶσι τὴν ψυχήν.

[6] οὗτος μὲν δὴ ἀγαθὴν δόξαν
Ἀθηναίοις καὶ αὑτῷ κτώμενος περιεποίησέ τε ὧν ἦρχε καὶ ἐτελεύτησεν αὐτὸς ἑκουσίως· Δίαιος δὲ Ἀχαιοὺς ἀπολωλεκὼς Μεγαλοπολίταις κακῶν τῶν ἐφεστηκότων ἧκεν ἄγγελος, ἀποκτείνας δὲ αὐτοχειρὶ τὴν γυναῖκα, ἵνα δὴ μὴ γένοιτο αἰχμάλωτος, τελευτᾷ πιὼν φάρμακον, ἐοικυῖαν μὲν παρασχόμενος Μεναλκίδᾳ τὴν ἐς χρήματα πλεονεξίαν, ἐοικυῖαν δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐς τὸν θάνατον δειλίαν.

[7]
Ἀχαιῶν δὲ οἱ ἐς Κόρινθον ἀποσωθέντες μετὰ τὴν μάχην ἀπεδίδρασκον ὑπὸ νύκτα εὐθύς· ἀπεδίδρασκον δὲ καὶ αὐτῶν Κορινθίων οἱ πολλοί. Μόμμιος δὲ τὸ μὲν παραυτίκα, ἀναπεπταμένων ὅμως τῶν πυλῶν, ἐπεῖχεν ἐς τὴν Κόρινθον παρελθεῖν, ὑποκαθῆσθαί τινα ἐντὸς τοῦ τείχους ὑποπτεύων ἐνέδραν· τρίτῃ δὲ ἡμέρᾳ μετὰ τὴν μάχην ᾕρει τε κατὰ κράτος καὶ ἔκαιε Κόρινθον.

[8] τῶν δὲ ἐγκαταληφθέντων τὸ μὲν πολὺ οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι φονεύουσι, γυναῖκας δὲ καὶ παῖδας ἀπέδοτο Μόμμιος· ἀπέδοτο δὲ καὶ οἰκέτας, ὅσοι τῶν ἐς ἐλευθερίαν ἀφεθέντων καὶ μαχεσαμένων μετὰ Ἀχαιῶν μὴ εὐθὺς ὑπὸ τοῦ πολέμου τὸ ἔργον ἐτεθνήκεσαν. ἀναθημάτων δὲ καὶ τοῦ ἄλλου κόσμου τὰ μὲν μάλιστα ἀνήκοντα ἐς θαῦμα ἀνήγετο, τὰ δὲ ἐκείνοις οὐχ ὁμοίου λόγου Φιλοποίμενι ὁ Μόμμιος τῷ παρʼ Ἀττάλου στρατηγῷ δίδωσι· καὶ ἦν Περγαμηνοῖς καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἔτι λάφυρα Κορίνθια.

[9] πόλεων δέ, ὅσαι Ῥωμαίων ἐναντία ἐπολέμησαν, τείχη μὲν ὁ Μόμμιος κατέλυε καὶ ὅπλα ἀφῃρεῖτο πρὶν ἢ καὶ συμβούλους ἀποσταλῆναι παρὰ Ῥωμαίων· ὡς δὲ ἀφίκοντο οἱ σὺν αὐτῷ βουλευσόμενοι, 0 ἐνταῦθα δημοκρατίας μὲν κατέπαυε, καθίστα δὲ ἀπὸ τιμημάτων τὰς ἀρχάς· καὶ φόρος τε ἐτάχθη τῇ Ἑλλάδι καὶ οἱ τὰ χρήματα ἔχοντες ἐκωλύοντο ἐν τῇ ὑπερορίᾳ κτᾶσθαι· συνέδριά τε κατὰ ἔθνος τὰ ἑκάστων, Ἀχαιῶν καὶ τὸ ἐν Φωκεῦσιν ἢ Βοιωτοῖς ἢ ἑτέρωθί που τῆς Ἑλλάδος, κατελέλυτο ὁμοίως πάντα.

[10] ἔτεσι δὲ οὐ πολλοῖς ὕστερον ἐτράποντο ἐς ἔλεον Ῥωμαῖοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος, καὶ συνέδριά τε κατὰ ἔθνος ἀποδιδόασιν ἑκάστοις τὰ ἀρχαῖα καὶ τὸ ἐν τῇ ὑπερορίᾳ κτᾶσθαι, ἀφῆκαν δὲ καὶ ὅσοις ἐπιβεβλήκει Μόμμιος ζημίαν· Βοιωτούς τε γὰρ Ἡρακλεώταις καὶ Εὐβοεῦσι τάλαντα ἑκατὸν καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς Λακεδαιμονίοις διακόσια ἐκέλευσεν ἐκτῖσαι. τούτων μὲν δὴ ἄφεσιν παρὰ Ῥωμαίων εὕροντο Ἕλληνες, ἡγεμὼν δὲ ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἀπεστέλλετο· καλοῦσι δὲ οὐχ Ἑλλάδος, ἀλλὰ Ἀχαΐας ἡγεμόνα οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι, διότι ἐχειρώσαντο Ἕλληνας διʼ Ἀχαιῶν τότε τοῦ Ἑλληνικοῦ προεστηκότων. ὁ δὲ πόλεμος ἔσχεν οὗτος τέλος Ἀντιθέου μὲν Ἀθήνῃσιν ἄρχοντος, Ὀλυμπιάδι δὲ ἑξηκοστῇ πρὸς ταῖς ἑκατόν, ἣν ἐνίκα Διόδωρος Σικυώνιος.

Translations (1)

English (Jones and Ormerod; retranslated Gregory Nagy, CHS, 2018) (OCR draft) Experimental (CHS Pausanias Reader retranslation by Gregory Nagy, based on Jones and Ormerod, with marked Greek terms, notes, quotations, and bibliographic attributions preserved.) — 7.16 focus

[1] Mummius, bringing with him Orestes, the commissioner sent earlier to deal with the dispute between the Lacedaemonians and the Achaeans, reached the Roman army at early dawn, and sending Metellus and his forces to Macedonia, himself waited at the Isthmus for his whole force to assemble. There came three thousand five hundred cavalry, while the infantry amounted to twenty-three thousand. They were joined by a company of Cretan archers and by Philopoimen, at the head of some troops sent by Attalus from Pergamon on the Kaïkos.

[2] Certain of the Italian troops along with the auxiliaries were stationed by Mummius twelve stadium-lengths away, to be an outpost for the whole army. The contempt of the Romans made them keep a careless look-out, and the Achaeans, attacking them in the first watch, killed some, drove yet more back to the camp, and took some five hundred shields. Puffed up with this success the Achaeans marched out to battle before the Romans began their attack.

[4] If after the battle Diaios had boldly thrown himself into Corinth and received the fugitives within the walls, the Achaeans might have been able to get favorable terms from Mummius, by putting him to the trouble of a protracted siege. As it was, when the Achaeans were but beginning to yield, Diaios fled straight for Megalopolis, his conduct towards the Achaeans showing a marked contrast to that of Kallistratos, the son of Empedus, towards the Athenians.

[5] This man commanded some cavalry in Sicily, and when the Athenians and their partners in the expedition were being massacred at the river Asinarus, he courageously cut a way through the enemy at the head of his horsemen. He brought most of them safe to Catana, and then returned by the same way back to Syracuse. Finding the enemy still plundering the Athenian camp, he cut down some five of them, and then both he and his horse received mortal wounds and died.

[6] So he won glory for the Athenians and for himself, by saving the men under his command and seeking his own death. But Diaios having ruined the Achaeans came to tell the tidings of disaster to the people of Megalopolis, killed his wife with his own hand, just to save her from being taken prisoner, and then committed suicide by drinking poison. He may be compared to Menalkidas for his avarice, and proved equally like him in the cowardice of his death.

[7] As soon as night fell, the Achaeans who had escaped to Corinth after the battle fled from the city, and there fled with them most of the Corinthians themselves. At first Mummius hesitated to enter Corinth, although the gates were open, as he suspected that an ambush had been laid within the walls. But on the third day after the battle he proceeded to storm Corinth and to set it on fire.

[8] The majority of those found in it were put to the sword by the Romans, but the women and children Mummius sold into slavery. He also sold all the slaves who had been set free, had fought on the side of the Achaeans, and had not fallen at once on the field of battle. The most admired votive offerings and works of art were carried off by Mummius; those of less account he gave to Philopoimen, the general sent by Attalus; even in my day there were Corinthian spoils at Pergamon.

[9] The walls of all the cities that had made war against Rome Mummius demolished, disarming the inhabitants, even before assistant commissioners were despatched from Rome, and when these did arrive, he proceeded to put down democracies and to establish governments based on a property qualification. Tribute was imposed on Greece, and those with property were forbidden to acquire possessions in a foreign country. Racial confederacies, whether of Achaeans, or of the people of Phokis, or of Boeotians, or of any other Greek people, were one and all put down.

[10] A few years later the Romans took pity on Greece, restored the various old racial confederacies, with the right to acquire property in a foreign country, and remitted the fines imposed by Mummius. For he had ordered the Boeotians to pay a hundred talents to the people of Herakleia and Euboea, and the Achaeans to pay two hundred to the Lacedaemonians. Although the Romans granted the Greeks remission of these payments, yet down to my day a Roman governor has been sent to the country. The Romans call him the Governor, not of Greece, but of Achaea, because the cause of the subjection of Greece was the Achaeans, at that time at the head of the Greek nation. This war came to an end when Antitheus was archon [ arkhōn] in Athens, in the hundred and sixtieth Olympiad, at which Diodoros of Sikyon was victorious.

Notes on the current edition

Description of Greece

1. With Frazer's reading: “when the Romans subdued Greece , Achaia was at the head, etc.”

2. 140 B.C.

3. Pausanias seems to have made a mistake, as Corinth was taken in 146 B.C.

New Alexandria Commentaries

Gregory Nagy, Editors: Angelia Hanhardt and Keith DeStone, Web producer: Noel Spencer, Consultant for images: Jill Curry Robbins, \[\[Noel gives this a separate URN\]\]

Pausanias Description of Greece 7.16

W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator)

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