CHAPTER XXXV

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The Bœotians say that Eteocles was the first who sacrificed to the Graces. And they are sure that he established the worship of three Graces, though they do not remember the names he gave them. For the Lacedæmonians say that only two Graces were appointed by Lacedæmon the son of Taygete, and that their names were Cleta and Phaenna. These names suit the Graces, and they have suitable names also among the Athenians, for the Athenians honour of old the Graces Auxo and Hegemone. As to Carpo it is not the name of a Grace but a Season. And another Season the Athenians honour equally with Pandrosus, the Goddess they call Thallo. But having learnt so to do from Eteocles of Orchomenus we are accustomed now to pray to three Graces: and Angelion and Tectæus who made a statue of Apollo at Delos have placed three Graces in his hand; and at Athens at the entrance to the Acropolis there are also three Graces, and near them they celebrate the mysteries which are kept secret from the multitude. Pamphus is the first we know of that sang the praises of the Graces, but he has neither mentioned their number nor their names. And Homer, who has also mentioned the Graces, says that one of them whom he calls Charis was the wife of Hephæstus.[72] And he says that Sleep was the lover of the Grace Pasithea. For in his account of Sleep he has written the lines,

“That he would give me one of the younger Graces, Pasithea, whom I long for day and night.”[73]

Hence has arisen the idea that Homer knew of other older Graces. And Hesiod in the Theogony (if indeed Hesiod wrote the Theogony) says that these Graces are the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, and that their names are Euphrosyne and Aglaia and Thalia. Onomacritus gives the same account of them in his verses. But Antimachus neither gives the number of the Graces nor their names, but says they were the daughters of Ægle and the Sun. And Hermesianax in his Elegies has written something rather different from the opinion of those before him, _viz._ that Peitho was one of the Graces. But whoever first represented the Graces naked (whether in a statue or painting) I could not ascertain, for in more ancient times the statuaries and painters represented them dressed, as at Smyrna in the temple of the Nemeses, where above the other statues are some golden Graces by Bupalus. In the Odeum also is a figure of a Grace painted by Apelles. The people of Pergamus have also, in the bed-chamber of Attalus, the Graces by Bupalus. And in what is called the Pythium there are Graces painted by the Parian Pythagoras. And Socrates the son of Sophroniscus at the entrance to the Acropolis made statues of the Graces for the Athenians. And all these are draped: but artists afterwards, I know not why, changed this presentation of them: and in my day both sculptured them and painted them as naked.

[72] Iliad, xviii. 382, 383.

[73] Iliad, xiv. 275, 276.

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