Description of Greece

​For the Muses, the first statues, representing them all, are the work of Cephisodotus. For one who has gone forward a little, there are again three by Cephisodotus, and another such number by Strongylion, a man who worked cattle and horses excellently; and the remaining three Olympiosthenes made. There is also a bronze Apollo on Helicon and a Hermes fighting for the lyre, and a Dionysus , one indeed by Lysippus, but the other, a standing statue of Dionysus, Sulla dedicated. This statue is a work of Myron, most worthy of being seen, at least after the Erechtheus in Athens; and he dedicated it not from his own home, but having taken it away from the Minyans of Orchomenus. This is what is said by the Greeks, ‘to worship the divine with others’ incense’.

​And of poets, or those otherwise illustrious for music, they dedicated statues of the following: Thamyris himself, already blind and touching a broken lyre, and Arion of Methymna is on a dolphin. The one who fashioned the statue of Sacadas the Argive, not understanding Pindar’s prelude to him, made the flute-player in no way larger than the flutes with respect to the length of his body.

​And Hesiod also sits, having a cithara on his knees, an attribute in no way suitable for Hesiod; for indeed it is clear even from his verses themselves that he sang holding a laurel branch. But concerning the age of Hesiod and Homer, for one who has investigated with the greatest accuracy, it was not pleasant for me to write, knowing the fault-finding disposition of others, and not least of those who in my time had established themselves in the composition of epic poetry.

​For Orpheus the Thracian, there is made Telete standing beside him, and there are made around him beasts of stone and bronze listening to him singing. Indeed the Greeks believe many other things that are not true, and indeed also that Orpheus was the son of the Muse Calliope and not of the daughter of Pierus, and that the beasts came to his song, being charmed, and that he went even to Hades alive, asking for his wife from the gods below. But Orpheus, in my opinion, surpassed those before him in the adornment of verses, and came to great power inasmuch as he was believed to have discovered initiations of gods, purifications from unholy deeds, remedies for diseases, and turning-away of divine wraths.

​And they say that the women of the Thracians plotted death against him, because he persuaded their husbands to follow him in his wandering, but from fear of their husbands they did not dare; but when they had filled themselves with wine, they accomplished the daring deed, and for the husbands, from this, it became a custom to go into battles drunk. And there are those who say that his death happened to Orpheus having been struck by lightning by the god; and that he was struck by lightning on account of the teachings which he taught in the mysteries to men who had not heard them before.

​And by others it has been said that, his wife having died before him, on her account he arrived at Aornum in Thesprotia; for there was of old an oracle of the dead there; and thinking that the soul of Eurydice was following him, and having erred when he turned around, he became his own killer from grief. And the Thracians say that, as many of the nightingales as have nests on the tomb of Orpheus, these sing sweeter and louder.