Description of Greece

​On the second band of the chest, the beginning of the circuit would be from the left: there is depicted a woman holding up in her right hand a white child sleeping, and in her other hand she has a black child, resembling one that sleeps, both of them having their feet distorted. The inscriptions indeed make this plain, but even without the inscriptions one can understand that they are Death and Sleep, and that Night is the nurse to them both.

​A beautiful woman is punishing an ugly woman, choking her with one hand and beating her with a staff with the other; this is Justice doing this to Injustice. As for two other women who are striking into mortars with pestles, people think that they know magic drugs, since otherwise there is no inscription concerning them. The hexameter verses make plain the scene of the man and the woman following him; for they run thus: “Idas leads back again, not against her will, Marpessa of the fair ankles, whom Apollo once snatched from him, the daughter of Evenus.”

​A man wearing a tunic has a cup in his right hand and a necklace in the other, and Alcmene is taking them; this is depicted in accordance with the legend of the Greeks, how Zeus associated with Alcmene having likeness to Amphitryon. Menelaus, wearing a breastplate and having a sword, is coming on to kill Helen, clearly at the taking of Ilium. While Medea is seated on a throne, Jason is on her right, and Aphrodite stands by her; and there is also written an inscription over them: “Jason marries Medea, as Aphrodite bids.”

​There are also depicted the Muses singing, and Apollo leading the song, and an inscription is written for them: “This is Latoidas, perhaps the lord, far-shooting Apollo; and the Muses are around him, a graceful chorus, whom he leads.” Atlas, according to what is said, supports both heaven and earth on his shoulders, and he also carries the apples of the Hesperides. As for who the man is who has the sword and is coming toward Atlas, there is nothing written individually upon him, but it is clear to all that he is Heracles. There is also written over these: “This is Atlas who holds up heaven, but he will let go the apples.”

​There is also Ares clad in armor, leading Aphrodite; the inscription for him is Enyalius. There is also depicted the virgin Thetis, and Peleus is seizing her, and from the hand of Thetis a snake is darting at Peleus. The sisters of Medusa, having wings, are pursuing Perseus who is flying; his name is written on Perseus alone.

​There are military scenes on the third band of the chest; for the most part they are infantry, but there are also horsemen depicted on pairs of horses. As for the soldiers, one may conjecture that they are coming together for battle, or else that they are coming together to greet and recognize one another. Both stories are told by the guides; by some it is said that they are the Aetolians with Oxylus and the ancient Eleans, and that they are meeting in memory of their original kinship and showing goodwill to one another; but others say that the military forces are coming together for battle, and that they are Pylians and Arcadians who are about to fight near the city of Pheia and the river Iardanus.

​These explanations indeed no one would accept at all, on the ground that the ancestor of Cypselus, being a Corinthian and making the chest a possession for himself, would voluntarily have passed over all that was local to Corinthians, and have had worked on the chest foreign scenes which besides had not otherwise attained to fame; however, the following conjecture occurred to myself. Cypselus and his ancestors had their family originally from Gonussa above Sicyon, and their ancestor was Melas the son of Antas.

​As I have already related in my Corinthian history, Aletes was unwilling to receive Melas and the army with him as fellow-settlers, being suspicious of an oracle given him from Delphi; until Melas, using every kind of entreaty, and, whenever he was driven away, returning again with supplication, was at last received by Aletes even against his will. One might conjecture that this is the military force represented on the chest.