Description of Greece

​Not far away is a temple of Ammon, and the image was dedicated by Pindar, being the work of Calamis. Pindar also sent a hymn to Ammon for the Ammonians of Libya; this hymn was, even to my day, on a triangular stele beside the altar which Ptolemy the son of Lagus dedicated to Ammon. For the Thebans, after the sanctuary of Ammon, there is what is called the bird-observatory of Tiresias, and near it is a sanctuary of Tyche.

​She carries the child Plutus; and as the Thebans say, the hands and face of the image were crafted by Xenophon the Athenian, and the rest by Callistonicus, a local artist. Clever indeed was the device of these artists to place Plutus in her hands as if Tyche were his mother or nurse; and no less clever was that of Cephisodotus, for he too made the statue of Eirene for the Athenians holding Plutus.

​The Thebans also have wooden images of Aphrodite so very ancient that they say they are even dedications of Harmonia, and that they were made from the figureheads which were of wood on the ships of Cadmus. They call one Urania, another of them Pandemos, and the third Apostrophia. Harmonia gave these surnames to Aphrodite: Urania for pure love and ​free from desire for bodies; Pandemos for sexual unions; and thirdly, Apostrophia, so that she might turn the human race away from lawless desire and unholy deeds. For Harmonia knew of many things among the barbarians, and some even already dared among the Greeks, of the sort that were later sung of in the case of the mother of Adonis, and concerning Phaedra the daughter of Minos, and Tereus the Thracian.

​The sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros is said to have been once the house of Cadmus and his descendants; a statue of Demeter, as far as the chest, is in the open. Also brass shields are dedicated here; they say they belonged to those Lacedaemonians of those in authority who died at Leuctra.

​Near the so-called Proitides gates a theater has been built, and closest to the theater is a temple of Dionysus surnamed Lysios. For when some Theban men held captive by Thracians were being led along Haliartia, the god released them and delivered to them the sleeping Thracians to kill. Here the Thebans say is the other of the statues is that of Semele; they say the sanctuary is opened once each year on fixed days.

​There are also ruins of the house of Lycus and a monument of Semele, but there is no monument of Alcmene; they say that when she died she became a stone instead of a human being, and they do not agree with the Megarians regarding her story; and indeed Greeks tell different stories from one another on most other matters too. For the Thebans here have also made the monuments of the children of Amphion, the males separately, and the maidens on their own.