CHAPTER XVI

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And at no great distance from the statue of Epaminondas is the temple of Ammon, the statue by Calamis and a votive offering from Pindar, who also sent a Hymn in honour of Ammon to the Ammonians in Libya, which Hymn is now inscribed on a triangular pillar near the altar which Ptolemy the son of Lagus dedicated to Ammon. Next to the temple of Ammon the Thebans have what is called Tiresias’ tower to observe the omens, and near it is a temple of Fortune carrying in her arms Wealth as a child. The Thebans say that Xenophon the Athenian made the hands and face of the statue, and Callistonicus a native of Thebes all the other parts. The idea is ingenious of putting Wealth in the hands of Fortune as her mother or nurse, as is also the idea of Cephisodotus who made for the Athenians a statue of Peace holding Wealth.

The Thebans have also some wooden statues of Aphrodite, so ancient that they are said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, made out of the wood of the gunwales of the ships of Cadmus. One they call the Celestial Aphrodite, the other the Pandemian, and the third the Heart-Turner. Harmonia meant by these titles of Aphrodite the following. The Celestial is a pure love and has no connection with bodily appetite, the Pandemian is the common vulgar sensual love, and thirdly the goddess is called Heart-Turner because she turns the heart of men away by lawless passion and unholy deeds. For Harmonia knew that many bold deeds had been done in lawless passion both among the Greeks and barbarians, such as were afterwards sung by poets, as the legends about the mother of Adonis, and Phædra the daughter of Minos, and the Thracian Tereus. And the temple of Law-giving Demeter was they say formerly the house of Cadmus and his descendants. And the statue of Demeter is only visible down to the chest. And there are some brazen shields hung up here, which they say belonged to some of the Lacedæmonian notables that fell at Leuctra.

At the gate called Prœtis is a theatre, and near it the temple of Lysian Dionysus. The god was so called because, when some Thebans were taken captive by the Thracians, and conducted to Haliartia, the god freed them, and gave them an opportunity to kill the Thracians in their sleep. One of the statues in the temple the Thebans say is Semele. Once every year the temple is open on stated days. There are also the ruins of the house of Lycus, and the sepulchre of Semele, it cannot be the sepulchre of Alcmene, for when she died she became a stone. But the Theban account about her differs from the Megarian: in fact the Greek traditions mostly vary. The Thebans have here also monuments of the sons and daughters of Amphion, the two sexes apart.

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