CHAPTER XX

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The name of the god inside the chest is Æsymnetes. Nine men, who are chosen by the people for their worth, look after his worship, and the same number of women. And one night during the festival the priest takes the chest outside the temple. That night has special rites. All the lads in the district go down to the Milichus with crowns on their heads made of ears of corn: for so used they in old time to dress up those whom they were leading to sacrifice to Artemis. But in our day they lay these crowns of ears of corn near the statue of the goddess, and after bathing in the river, and again putting on crowns this time of ivy, they go to the temple of Æsymnetes. Such are their rites on this night. And inside the grove of Laphrian Artemis is the temple of Athene called Pan-Achæis, the statue of the goddess is of ivory and gold.

And as you go to the lower part of the city you come to the temple of the Dindymene Mother, where Attes is honoured. They do not show his statue, but there is one of the Mother wrought in stone. And in the market-place there is a temple of Olympian Zeus, he is on his throne and Athene is standing by it. And next Olympian Zeus is a statue of Hera, and a temple of Apollo, and a naked Apollo in brass, and sandals are on his feet, and one foot is on the skull of an ox. Alcæus has shown that Apollo rejoices especially in oxen in the Hymn that he wrote about Hermes, how Hermes filched the oxen of Apollo, and Homer still earlier than Alcæus has described how Apollo tended the oxen of Laomedon for hire. He has put the following lines in the Iliad into Poseidon’s mouth.

“I was drawing a spacious and handsome wall round the city of the Trojans, that it might be impregnable, while you, Phœbus, were tending the slow-paced cows with the crumpled horns.”[10]

That is therefore one would infer the reason why the god is represented with his foot on the skull of an ox. And in the market-place in the open air is a statue of Athene, and in front of it is the tomb of Patreus.

And next to the market-place is the Odeum, and there is a statue of Apollo there well worth seeing, it was made from the spoil that the people of Patræ got, when they alone of the Achæans helped the Ætolians against the Galati. And this Odeum is beautified in other respects more than any in Greece except the one at Athens: that excels this both in size and in all its fittings, it was built by the Athenian Herodes in memory of his dead wife. In my account of Attica I passed that Odeum over, because that part of my work was written before Herodes began building it. And at Patræ, as you go from the market-place where the temple of Apollo is, there is a gate, and the device on the gate consists of golden effigies of Patreus and Preugenes and Atherion, all three companions and contemporaries. And right opposite the market-place at this outlet is the grove and temple of Artemis Limnatis. While the Dorians were already in possession of Lacedæmon and Argos, they say that Preugenes in obedience to a dream took the statue of Artemis Limnatis from Sparta, and that the trustiest of his slaves shared with him in the enterprize. And that statue from Lacedæmon they keep generally at Mesoa, because originally it was taken by Preugenes there, but when they celebrate the festival of Artemis Limnatis, one of the servants of the goddess takes the old statue from Mesoa to the sacred precincts at Patræ: in which are several temples, not built in the open air, but approached by porticoes. The statue of Æsculapius except the dress is entirely of stone, that of Athene is in ivory and gold. And in front of the temple of Athene is the tomb of Preugenes, to whom they offer funereal rites as to Patreus annually, at the time of the celebration of the feast to Artemis Limnatis. And not far from the theatre are temples of Nemesis and Aphrodite: their statues are large and of white marble.

[10] Iliad, xxi. 446-448.

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