Description of Greece

​These are indeed the most noteworthy things for a man making the round in the Altis, according to what has been said by us. And if from the Leonidaeum you should wish to go to the great altar on the right, you have the following things that belong to memory. Democrates of Tenedos and Criannius the Elean, the latter having won a victory in the race in armor, and Democrates in the men’s wrestling. Their statues were made, the former by Dionysicles of Miletus, and that of Criannius by Lysus of Macedon.

​As for Herodotus of Clazomenae and Philinus the son of Hegepolis of Cos, their cities dedicated their statues: the Clazomenians because Herodotus was the first of the Clazomenians to be proclaimed victor at Olympia, and his victory was in the boys’ stade-race; while the Coans dedicated Philinus for the sake of his glory. Indeed, at Olympia he had five victories in the foot-race, four at Pytho, and the same number at Nemea, and eleven at the Isthmus.

​And Ptolemy, the son of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, was dedicated by Aristolaus, a Macedonian man. There is also dedicated a boxer who conquered among the boys, Butas, the son of Polyneices, a Milesian; and Callicrates, from Magnesia on the Lethaeus, who won two crowns in the race in armor. The statue of Callicrates is the work of Lysippus.

​To Enation and Alexibius, to the former came a victory in the boys’ stade-race, and to Alexibius in the pentathlon; and Heraea in Arcadia was his country, and Acestor was the one who made the statue. As for Enation, the inscription does not reveal of which city he was, but reveals that he belonged to the Arcadian people. And the Colophonians, Hermesianax the son of Agoneus, and Eicasius, who was the son of Lycinus and the daughter of Hermesianax, both wrestled down their opponents among the boys; and to Hermesianax it was also granted that his statue was dedicated by the common wealth of the Colophonians.

​Near these are Eleans who conquered the boys in boxing, on the one hand Choirilus, the work of Sthennis of Olynthus, and on the other Theotimus, the work of Daetondas of Sicyon. And Theotimus was the son of Moschion, who took part with Alexander, the son of Philip, in his campaign against Darius and the Persians. And again, there are two from Elis, Archidamus, who conquered with a four-horse chariot, and Eperastus, the son of Theogonus, who won a victory in the race in armor.

​And Eperastus says that he is also a seer of the race of the Clytiadae, at the end of the inscription: “I boast that I am of the race of the holy-tongued Clytiadae, a seer, drawing my blood from the godlike Melampodidae.” For Melampus was the son of Mantius, the son of Amythaon, and Oicles was the son of Mantius, while Clytius was the son of Alcmaeon, the son of Amphiaraus, the son of Oicles. And Clytius had been born to Alcmaeon by the daughter of Phegeus, and he migrated to Elis, fleeing from living together with his mother’s brothers, because he knew that they had committed the murder of Alcmaeon.

​And among statues mixed with not very conspicuous dedications, one can see Alexinicus the Elean, the art of Cantharus of Sicyon, who won a victory in the boys’ wrestling, and Gorgias of Leontini. And Eumolpus, the third descendant of Deicrates who had married the sister of Gorgias, says that he dedicated the statue at Olympia.

​This Gorgias was the son of Charmantides, and he is said to have been the first to revive the study of rhetoric, which had been entirely neglected and had come within a little of being forgotten by men. And they say that Gorgias won high reputation because of his speeches both at the Olympic festival and when he came on an embassy together with Tisias to the Athenians. And yet Tisias contributed other things to speeches, and wrote most persuasively of those of his time a defense in a dispute about money for a Syracusan woman.

​Yet Gorgias arrived at greater honor than he among the Athenians; and Jason, who was tyrant in Thessaly, preferred him to Polycrates, who had won no small reputation for his school at Athens. And they say that Gorgias lived for one hundred and five years. And the city of the Leontines, having once been laid waste by the Syracusans, happened to be inhabited again in my time.