Pausanias's Description of Greece (Volume 1) (Abridged, Paperback, Abridged edition)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... back gable are by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias, and only second to him as a sculptor. His work in the gable represents the battle of the Lapiths with the Centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous. At the middle of the gable is Pirithous: beside him, on the one hand, are Eurytion, who has snatched up the wife of Pirithous, and Caeneus, who is succouring Pirithous; on the other hand is Theseus repelling the Centaurs with an axe; one Centaur has caught up a maiden, another a blooming youth. Alcamenes, it seems to me, represented this scene because he had learned from Homer that Pirithous was a son of Zeus, and because he knew that Theseus was a great grandson of Pelops. Most of the labours of Hercules 9 are also represented at Olympia. Above the doors of the temple is the hunting of the Arcadian boar, and the affair with Diomede the Thracian, and that with Geryon at Erythea, and Hercules about to take the burden of Atlas on himself, and Hercules cleansing the land of the Eleans from the dung. Above the doors of the back chamber is Hercules wresting from the Amazon her girdle, and the stories of the deer, and the bull in Cnosus, and the birds at Stymphalus, and the hydra, and the lion in the land of Argos. 3. As you enter the bronze doors you have on the right, in front 10 of the pillar, a statue of Iphitus being crowned by a woman Ecechiria (' truce'), as the distich inscribed on the statue declares. Within the temple also there are pillars, and there are galleries up above, through which there is an approach to the image. There is also a winding ascent to the roof. XI 1. The god is seated on a throne: he is made of gold and ivory: on his head is a wreath made in imitation of sprays of olive. In his right hand he carries a Victory, also of ivory and gold: she wears ...