Description of Greece

​We have enumerated with the greatest accuracy that there are so many statues of Zeus within the Altis . For the dedication near the great temple, which was dedicated by a Corinthian man—not indeed one of the ancient Corinthians, but of those who hold the city having received it from the king—this dedication is Alexander the son of Philip, supposedly made to resemble Zeus. As for all the other offerings which are of a different kind and not an imitation of Zeus, we shall mention these too; but as for statues dedicated not in honor toward the divine, but out of gratitude to the men themselves, we shall mix them in our account concerning the athletes.

​As for the Messenians on the strait, who according to some ancient custom were sending to Rhegium a chorus of boys, thirty-five in number, and together with the chorus a teacher and a flute-player, for a certain local festival of the Rhegians, a disaster once befell them, so that not one of those sent returned safe to them; but the ship carrying the boys vanished with them down into the deep. For indeed, the sea along this strait is the most tempestuous of all seas;

​for both the winds disturb it from both sides, bringing the wave from the Adriatic and from the other sea which is called Tyrrhenian, and even if the blasts of the winds are absent, even then the strait itself of itself presents the most violent agitation and strong undercurrents; and so many are the beasts that gather in it, that even the air above this sea is filled with the smell of the beasts, so that indeed not even any hope of safety from the strait is left for a shipwrecked person. And if it happened that Odysseus’ ship was destroyed here , in any other way one would not believe that he swam out alive to Italy; but the goodwill from the gods makes everything easy.

​And at that time, because of the loss of the boys, the Messenians went into mourning, and other things were devised by them for their honor, and they dedicated bronze statues in Olympia, and along with them the teacher of the chorus and the flute-player. The ancient inscription indeed showed that they were dedications of the Messenians on the strait; but at a later time, Hippias, the one who is said by the Greeks to have been wise, composed the elegiac verses upon them. And the statues are works of Callon of Elis.

​Near the promontory in Sicily which is turned toward Libya and the South wind, and is called Pachynus, there is a city Motya; and Libyans and Phoenicians inhabit it. Against these barbarians in Motya the Agrigentines engaged in war, and having taken booty and spoils from them, they dedicated the bronze boys at Olympia, stretching out their right hands and made to resemble people praying to the god. These stand on the wall of the Altis; and I myself conjectured that they were the works of Calamis, and the tradition concerning them held to the same effect.

​The following nations inhabit Sicily: Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians—the Sicels having crossed into it from Italy, and the Phrygians from the river Scamander and the region of the Troad; and the Phoenicians and Libyans arrived in the island in a joint expedition, and they are colonists of the Carthaginians. So many are the barbarian nations in Sicily; and of the Greeks, Dorians hold it, and Ionians, and of the Phocian and the Attic race a small portion of each.