Description of Greece

​Nicodamus made the statue of Antiochus, who was by race from Lepreum. He won the men’s pancratium once at Olympia, and the pentathlon twice at the Isthmus and twice at Nemea in each contest. For the Lepreans had no fear of the Isthmian games, such as the Eleans themselves have, since in the case of Hysmon the Elean—and this Hysmon stands near Antiochus—although this man won an Olympic victory in the pentathlon and one of the Nemean victories, it is clear that he, like the other Eleans, was excluded from the Isthmian games.

​It is said that when Hysmon was still a boy, a rheum settled in his muscles, and on this account he practiced the pentathlon, so that through his labors he might become a healthy man free from disease; and so the training was destined to procure for him such illustrious victories. His statue is the work of Cleon, and he holds ancient jumping-weights.

​After Hysmon is dedicated a boy wrestler from Heraea in Arcadia, Nicostratus, the son of Xenoclides. Pantias made his statue; Pantias was a pupil who, if one counts those taught starting from Aristocles of Sicyon, was the seventh from him. Dicon, the son of Callibrotus, won five victories in the foot-race at Pytho, three at the Isthmus, four at Nemea, and at Olympia one among the boys and two others among the men; and he has statues in Olympia equal in number to his victories. When he was a boy, he had the fortune to be proclaimed as a Caulonian, as indeed he was; but after this, he proclaimed himself a Syracusan for money.

​Caulonia was colonized in Italy by the Achaeans, and its founder was Typhon of Aegium. When Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides, and the Tarentines engaged in the war against the Romans, some of the cities in Italy were laid waste by the Romans and others by the Epirotes, and it befell Caulonia also to be completely desolated, being captured by the Campanians, who were the largest portion of the Roman allied force.

​Next to Dicon is dedicated Xenophon, son of Menephylus, a man pancratiast from Aegium in Achaea, and also dedicated is Pyrilampes of Ephesus, who won a victory in the long race. Olympus made the statue of the former, while for Pyrilampes, the sculptor was of the same name, by race not a Sicyonian, but from Messene under Mount Ithome.

​Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, a Spartan, was dedicated at Olympia by the Samians, and their first inscription is: “In the much-admired precinct of high-ruling Zeus, I stand, dedicated publicly by the Samians.” This indeed indicates those who set up the dedication, but the next is a praise of Lysander himself: “Having accomplished immortal glory for your fatherland and Aristocritus, Lysander, by your deeds, you possess the fame of virtue.” It is clear, then, that both the Samians and the other Ionians, ​according to the saying of the Ionians themselves, were painting both walls. For when Alcibiades, with the triremes of the Athenians, was powerful around Ionia, most of the Ionians courted him, and a bronze statue of Alcibiades stands as a dedication of the Samians in the temple of Hera; but when the Attic ships were captured at Aegospotami, the Samians dedicated Lysander at Olympia, and the Ephesians set up in the temple of Artemis statues of Lysander himself, Eteonicus, Pharax, and other Spartans who were very little known to the Greek world.

​When, however, affairs changed again and Conon won the sea-fight off Cnidus and the mountain called Dorium, the Ionians changed in like manner, and one can see a bronze statue of Conon and Timotheus dedicated both in Samos in the temple of Hera and likewise in Ephesus in the temple of the Ephesian goddess. These matters have always been so, and all men, like the Ionians, court those who are superior in power.