DION
Sanctuary of the Gods. An large number of cults have been uncovered in this area
that sits
below Mt. Olympos and serves as a sanctuary to many gods, including Demeter, Isis, and
others.
After the Macedonian period, it became a Roman city.
Today flooding often prohibits one from seeing the entire site, including the Isis sanctuary
and the Villa of Dionysus. Even in the winter, the site stays open til 5 p.m. The museum is not to be
missed.
Links
Bibliography
Harrington, S., "Sanctuary of the Gods," Archaeology 49.2 (1996), 28-35
Ancient Sources
XXX.[1] The first images of the Muses are of them all, from the hand of
Cephisodotus, while a little farther on are three, also from the hand of
Cephisodotus, and three more by Strongylion, an excellent artist of oxen and
horses. The remaining three were made by Olympiosthenes. There is also on
Helicon a bronze Apollo fighting with Hermes for the lyre. There is also a
Dionysus by Lysippus; the standing image, however, of Dionysus, that Sulla
dedicated, is the most noteworthy of the works of Myron after the Erectheus at
Athens. What he dedicated was not his own; he took it away from the Minyae of
Orchomenus. This is an illustration of the Greek proverb, "to worship the gods
with other people's incense."
[2] Of poets or famous musicians they have set up likenesses of the following.
There is Thamyris himself, when already blind, with a broken lyre in his hand,
and Arion of Methymna upon a dolphin. The sculptor who made the statue of
Sacadas of Argos, not understanding the prelude of Pindar about him, has made
the flute-player with a body no bigger than his flute. [3] Hesiod too sits holding a
harp upon his knees, a thing not at all appropriate for Hesiod to carry, for his
own verses1 make it clear that he sang holding a laurel wand. As to the age of
Hesiod and Homer, I have conducted very careful researches into this matter,
but I do not like to write on the subject, as I know the quarrelsome nature of
those especially who constitute the modern school of epic criticism. [4] By the
side of Orpheus the Thracian stands a statue of Telete, and around him are
beasts of stone and bronze listening to his singing. There are many untruths
believed by the Greeks, one of which is that Orpheus was a son of the Muse
Calliope, and not of the daughter of Pierus, that the beasts followed him
fascinated by his songs, and that he went down alive to Hades to ask for his wife
from the gods below. In my opinion Orpheus excelled his predecessors in the
beauty of his verse, and reached a high degree of power because he was
believed to have discovered mysteries, purification from sins, cures of diseases
and means of averting divine wrath. [5] But they say that the women of the
Thracians plotted his death, because he had persuaded their husbands to
accompany him in his wanderings, but dared not carry out their intention
through fear of their husbands. Flushed with wine, however, they dared the
deed, and hereafter the custom of their men has been to march to battle drunk.
Some say that Orpheus came to his end by being struck by a thunderbolt, hurled
at him by the god because he revealed sayings in the mysteries to men who had
not heard them before. [6] Others have said that his wife died before him, and
that for her sake he came to Aornum in Thesprotis, where of old was an oracle
of the dead. He thought, they say, that the soul of Eurydice followed him, but
turning round he lost her, and committed suicide for grief. The Thracians say
that such nightingales as nest on the grave of Orpheus sing more sweetly and
louder than others. [7] The Macedonians who dwell in the district below Mount
Pieria and the city of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his end at the
hands of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and
advancing twenty stades, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a
stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus.
[8] There is also a river called Helicon. After a course of seventy-five stades the
stream hereupon disappears under the earth. After a gap of about twenty-two
stades the water rises again, and under the name of Baphyra instead of Helicon
flows into the sea as a navigable river. The people of Dium say that at first this
river flowed on land throughout its course. But, they go on to say, the women
who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in it the blood-stains, and thereat the
river sank underground, so as not to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter.
[9] In Larisa I heard another story, how that on Olympus is a city Libethra,
where the mountain faces, Macedonia, not far from which city is the tomb of
Orpheus. The Libethrians, it is said, received out of Thrace an oracle
from Dionysus, stating that when the sun should see the bones of
Orpheus, then the city of Libethra would be destroyed by a boar. The
citizens paid little regard to the oracle, thinking that no other beast
was big or mighty enough to take their city, while a boar was bold
rather than powerful. [10] But when it seemed good to the god the
following events befell the citizens. About midday a shepherd was
asleep leaning against the grave of Orpheus, and even as he slept he
began to sing poetry of Orpheus in a loud and sweet voice. Those who
were pasturing or tilling nearest to him left their several tasks and
gathered together to hear the shepherd sing in his sleep. And jostling
one another and striving who could get nearest the shepherd they
overturned the pillar, the urn fell from it and broke, and the sun saw
whatever was left of the bones of Orpheus. [11] Immediately when
night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of
the torrents about Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of
Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and
drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the city. When Libethra
was now a city of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, according to my
friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country.
[12] Whoever has devoted himself to the study of poetry knows that
the hymns of Orpheus are all very short, and that the total number of
them is not great. The Lycomidae know them and chant them over the ritual
of the mysteries. For poetic beauty they may be said to come next to the hymns
of Homer, while they have been even more honored by the gods.
XIII.[1] A bronze head of the Paeonian bull called the bison was sent to Delphi
by the Paeonian king Dropion, son of Leon. These bisons are the most difficult
beasts to capture alive, and no nets could be made strong enough to hold out
against their rush. They are hunted in the following manner. When the hunters
have found a place sinking to a hollow, they first strengthen it all round with a
stout fence, and then they cover the slope and the level part at the end with
fresh skins, or, if they should chance to be without skins, they make dry hides
slippery with olive oil. [2] Next their best riders drive the bisons together into the
place I have described. These at once slip on the first skins and roll down the
slope until they reach the level ground, where at the first they are left to lie. On
about the fourth or fifth day, when the beasts have lost most of their spirit
through hunger and distress, [3] those of the hunters who are professional
tamers bring to them as they lie fruit of the cultivated pine, first peeling off the
inner husk; for the moment the beasts would touch no other food. Finally they
tie ropes round them and lead them off. [4] This is the way in which the bisons
are caught. Opposite the bronze head of the bison is a statue of a man wearing
a breastplate, on which is a cloak. The Delphians say that it is an offering of the
Andrians, and a portrait of Andreus, their founder. The images of Apollo, Athena,
and Artemis were dedicated by the Phocians from the spoils taken from the
Thessalians, their enemies always, who are their neighbors except where the
Epicnemidian Locrians come between. [5] The Thessalians too of Pharsalus
dedicated an Achilles on horseback, with Patroclus running beside his horse: the
Macedonians living in Dium, a city at the foot of Mount Pieria, the
Apollo who has taken hold of the deer; the people of Cyrene, a Greek city in
Libya, the chariot with an image of Ammon in it. The Dorians of Corinth too built
a treasury, where used to be stored the gold from Lydia.1 [6] The image of
Heracles is a votive offering of the Thebans, sent when they had fought what is
called the Sacred War against the Phocians. There are also bronze statues, which
the Phocians dedicated when they had put to flight the Thessalian cavalry in the
second engagement.2 The Phliasians brought to Delphi a bronze Zeus, and with
the Zeus an image of Aegina. The Mantineans of Arcadia dedicated a bronze
Apollo, which stands near the treasury of the Corinthians.
[7] Heracles and Apollo are holding on to the tripod, and are preparing to fight
about it. Leto and Artemis are calming Apollo, and Athena is calming Heracles.
This too is an offering of the Phocians, dedicated when Tellias of Elis led them
against the Thessalians. Athena and Artemis were made by Chionis, the other
images are works shared by Diyllus and Amyclaeus. They are said to be
Corinthians. [8] The Delphians say that when Heracles the son of Amphitryon
came to the oracle, the prophetess Xenocleia refused to give a response on the
ground that he was guilty of the death of Iphitus. Whereupon Heracles took up
the tripod and carried it out of the temple. Then the prophetess said:--
Then there was another Heracles, of Tiryns, not the Canopian.
For before this the Egyptian Heracles had visited Delphi. On the occasion to which I refer
the son
of Amphitryon restored the tripod to Apollo, and was told by Xenocleia all he wished to
know. The
poets adopted the story, and sing about a fight between Heracles and Apollo for a tripod.
[9] The Greeks in common dedicated from the spoils taken at the battle of
Plataea a gold tripod set on a bronze serpent. The bronze part of the offering is
still preserved, but the Phocian leaders did not leave the gold as they did the
bronze. [10] The Tarentines sent yet another tithe to Delphi from spoils taken
from the Peucetii, a non-Greek people. The offerings are the work of Onatas the
Aeginetan, and Ageladas the Argive, and consist of statues of footmen and
horsemen--Opis, king of the Iapygians, come to be an ally to the Peucetii. Opis is
represented as killed in the fighting, and on his prostrate body stand the hero
Taras and Phalanthus of Lacedaemon, near whom is a dolphin. For they say that
before Phalanthus reached Italy, he suffered shipwreck in the Crisaean sea, and
was brought ashore by a dolphin. (10.13.5)
From Pausanias, the traveler of the second century CE who traveled the Greek world
and recorded its monuments. Much of what we know today comes from him.
