Pausanias, Phocis

CHAPTER XIII.

The brazen head of the Paeonian bison was sent to Delphi by Dropion, the son of Deon, king of the Paeonians. These bisons are most difficult of all beasts to capture alive, for no nets are strong enough to hold them. They are hunted in the following manner. When the hunters have found a slope terminating in a hollow, they first of all fence it all round with a palisade, they then cover the slope and level ground near the bottom with newly stripped hides, and if they chance to be short of hides, then they make old dry skins slippery with oil. The most skilful horsemen then drive these bisons to this place that I have described, and slipping on the first hides they roll down the slope till they get to the level ground at the bottom. There they leave them at first, but on the 4th or 5th day, when hunger and weakness has subdued their spirit somewhat, those who are skilled in taming them offer them, while they are still lying there, pinenuts after first removing the husks, for they will at first touch no other kind of food, and at last they bind them and lead them off. This is how they capture them.

Opposite the brazen head of this bison is the statue of a man with a coat of mail on and a cloak over it : the Delphians say it is a votive offering of the people of Andros, and that it is Andreus their founder. And the statues of Apollo and Athene and Artemis are votive offerings of the Phocians from spoil of the Thessalians, their constant enemies, and neighbours except where the Epicnemidian Locrians come in. Votive offerings have been also made by the Thessalians of Pharsalus, and by the Macedonians who dwell at Dium under Pieria, and by the Greeks of Cyrene in Libya. These last sent a chariot and statue of Ammon on the chariot, and the Macedonians at Dium sent an Apollo who has hold of a doe, and the Pharsalians sent an Achilles on horseback, and Patroclus is running by the side of the horse. And the Dorians of Corinth built a treasury also, and the gold from the Lydians was stored there. And the statue of Hercules was the votive offering of the Thebans at the time they fought with the Phocians what is called The Sacred War. Here also are the brazen effigies erected by the Phocians, when in, the second encounter they routed the Thessalian cavalry. The people of Phlius also sent to Delphi a brazen Zeus, and an effigy of Aegina with Zeus. 1

And from Mantinea in Arcadia there is an offering of a brazen Apollo, not far from the treasury of the Corinthians.

Hercules and Apollo are also to be seen close to a tripod for the possession of which they are about to fight, but

Leto and Artemis are trying- to appease tlie anger of Apollo, and Athene that of Hercules. This was tlie votive offering of the Phocians when Tellias of Blis led them against the Thessalians. The other figures in the gronp were made Jointly by Diyllus and Amyclaeus, but Athene and Artemis were made by Chionis, all 3 Corinthian statuaries. It is also recorded by the Delphians that, when Hercules the son of Amphitryon came to consult the oracle, the priestess Xenoclea would not give him any response because of his murder of Iphitus : so he took the tripod and carried it out of the temple, and the prophetess said,

" This is another Hercules, the one from Tiryns not from Canopus."

For earlier still the Egyptian Hercules had come to Delphi. Then the son of Amphitryon restored the tripod to Apollo, and got the desired answer from Xenoclea. And poets have handed down the tradition, and sung of the contest of Hercules and Apollo for the tripod.

After the battle of Plataea the Greeks in common made a votive offering of a gold tripod standing on a bronze dragon. The bronze part of the votive offering was there in my time, but the golden part had been abstracted by the Phocian leaders. 2 The Tarentines also sent to Delphi another tenth of spoil taken from the Peucetian barbarians.

These votive offerings were the works of art of Onatas the Aeginetan and Calynthus, and are effigies of footsoldiers and cavalry, Opis king of the lapyges come to the aid of the Peucetii. He is represented in the battle as a dying man, and as he lies on the ground there stand by him the hero Taras and the Lacedaemonian Phalanthus, and at no great distance a dolphin : for Phalanthus before he went to Italy suffered shipwreck in the Crisssean Gulf, and was they say brought safe to shore by a dolphin.