Description of Greece

Behind the offerings enumerated are statues of those who, whether Spartans or Spartan allies, assisted Lysander at Aegospotami.[*](405 B.C) They are these: —Aracus of Lacedaemon, Erianthes a Boeotian . . . above Mimas, whence came Astycrates, Cephisocles, Hermophantus and Hicesius of Chios; Timarchus and Diagoras of Rhodes; Theodamus of Cnidus; Cimmerius of Ephesus and Aeantides of Miletus.

These were made by Tisander, but the next were made by Alypus of Sicyon, namely:—Theopompus the Myndian, Cleomedes of Samos, the two Euboeans Aristocles of Carystus and Autonomus of Eretria, Aristophantus of Corinth, Apollodorus of Troezen, and Dion from Epidaurus in Argolis. Next to these come the Achaean Axionicus from Pellene, Theares of Hermion, Pyrrhias the Phocian, Comon of Megara, Agasimenes of Sicyon, Telycrates the Leucadian, Pythodotus of Corinth and Euantidas the Ambraciot; last come the Lacedaemonians Epicydidas and Eteonicus. These, they say, are works of Patrocles and Canachus.

The Athenians refuse to confess that their defeat at Aegospotami was fairly inflicted, maintaining that they were betrayed by Tydeus and Adeimantus, their generals, who had been bribed, they say, with money by Lysander. As a proof of this assertion they quote the following oracle of the Sibyl:—

1. And then on the Athenians will be laid grievous troubles
2. By Zeus the high-thunderer, whose might is the greatest,
3. On the war-ships battle and fighting,
4. As they are destroyed by treacherous tricks, through the baseness of the captains.

1. For on the Athenians comes a wild rain
2. Through the baseness of their leaders, but some consolation will there be
3. For the defeat; they shall not escape the notice of the city, but shall pay the penalty.

So much for this belief. The struggle for the district called Thyrea[*](Pausanias seems to refer to a battle in 548 B.C., but the date of the artist Antiphanes makes it more probable that the horse was dedicated to commemorate a later battle fought in 424 B.C.) between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives[*](548 or 424 B.C) was also foretold by the Sibyl, who said that the battle would be drawn. But the Argives claimed that they had the better of the engagement, and sent to Delphi a bronze horse, supposed to be the wooden horse of Troy. It is the work of Antiphanes of Argos.

On the base below the wooden horse is an inscription which says that the statues were dedicated from a tithe of the spoils taken in the engagement at Marathon. They represent Athena, Apollo, and Miltiades, one of the generals. Of those called heroes there are Erechtheus, Cecrops, Pandion, Leos, Antiochus, son of Heracles by Meda, daughter of Phylas, as well as Aegeus and Acamas, one of the sons of Theseus. These heroes gave names, in obedience to a Delphic oracle, to tribes at Athens. Codrus however, the son of Melanthus, Theseus, and Neleus, these are not givers of names to tribes.

The statues enumerated were made by Pheidias, and really are a tithe of the spoils of thebattle. But the statues of Antigonus, of his son Demetrius, and of Ptolemy the Egyptian, were sent to Delphi by the Athenians afterwards. The statue of the Egyptian they sent out of good-will; those of the Macedonians were sent because of the dread that they inspired.