Near to the council-chamber [bouleutērion] of the Five Hundred is what is called Tholos [‘Round House’]; here the presidents [prutaneis] sacrifice [thuein], and there are a few small statues [agalmata] made of silver. Farther up stand statues [andriantes] of heroes [hērōes], from whom afterwards the Athenian subdivisions [phūlai] received their names. Who the man was who established ten phūlai instead of four, and changed their old names to new ones—all this is told by Herodotus [5.69].1
Footnotes
-
↩
The reform of Kleisthenes took place in 508 BCE.
The heroes known as the eponymous ones [epōnumoi] are [1] Hippothoön son of Poseidon and of Alope daughter of Kerkyon, [2] Antiokhos, whose father was Hēraklēs and whose mother was Meda daughter of Phylas, thirdly, [3] Ajax son of Telamon, and, among the Athenians, [4] Leōs, who is said to have given up [as human sacrifice] his daughters in accordance with what was-said-in-an-oracular-pronouncement [khrē-] by the god [Apollo] in order to achieve a salvation [sōtēriā] that was to be communal [koinē] for all; also among the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] is [5] Erekhtheus, who conquered the Eleusinians in battle, and killed their general, Immarados the son of Eumolpos; there is also [6] Aigeus, and [7] Oineus the bastard son of Pandion, and [8] Akamas, one of the children of Theseus.
I saw also among the eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] the likenesses [eikones] of [9] Kekrops and [10] Pandion, but I do not know who among those who have these names are given the honor [tīmē] [of being venerated as an eponymous hero. I say this because there was an earlier Kekrops who was-ruler [arkhein]—his wife was the daughter of Aktaios—and there was also a later Kekrops—the one who led-a-colonizing-expedition [met-oikeîn] to Euboea. This one was son of Erekhtheus son of Pandion son of Erikhthonios. And there was a king Pandion who was son of Erikhthonios, and another who was son of Kekrops the second. This man [Pandion] was deposed from his rule [arkhē] by the Mētionidai, and when he fled to Megara—for he had as wife the daughter of Pylas king of Megara—his children were banished with him. And Pandion is said to have fallen ill there [in Megara] and died, and on the coast of the region of Megara is his tomb [mnēma],1 situated on the cliff called the rock of Athena the Aithuia.
Footnotes
-
↩
On mnēma as ‘tomb’, see the relevant note at Pausanias 1.22.1. [[GN 2018.08.03.]]
But his sons [= the sons of Pandion] expelled the Mētionidai, and returned from their exile at Megara. Then Aigeus, as the eldest, became king of the Athenians. As for his daughters [by contrast with his sons], on the other hand, there was no benevolent [agathos] superhuman-force [daimōn] to help him raise them, nor did they [= these daughters] leave him with any sons who could avenge him [the same way that his sons avenged him against the Mētionidai]. And yet it was for the sake of [his own] power [dunamis] that he [Pandion] had made a marriage-alliance [kēdos] with the man from Thrace [= Tereus, king of Thrace]. Well, there is no way [poros] for a mortal to evade what is sent by a god as a thing that the god deems to be fitting to send. They say that Tereus, though he was married to Procne, violated Philomela. Thus, [Thracian that he was,] he transgressed the custom [nomos] of the Greeks [Hellēnes]. And, on top of that, he mutilated the body [sōma] of the daughter [of Pandion,] [cutting out her tongue]. By doing so, his action led the women [= the daughters of Pandion] to resort to [what was for them] the necessity of retribution [dikē]. There is also another statue [andrias] of Pandion on the Acropolis, and it is worthy of viewing [théā].
These are the Athenian eponymous-heroes [epōnumoi] who belong to the ancients [arkhaioi].1 And of later date than these they have subdivisions [phūlai] named after the following: Attalos2 the Mysian3 and Ptolemy the Egyptian,4 and within my own time*5 ‘King’ [basileus]Hadrian ,6 who was most observant in giving honor [tīmē] to divinity [tò theion] and who contributed very much to the happiness [eudaimoniā] of those whom he ruled [arkhein]. He never voluntarily entered upon a war, but he reduced the Hebrews [Hebraioi] who lived beyond Syria; they had rebelled.7 As for the sanctuaries [hiera] of the gods that in some cases he built from the beginning, in others adorned [epi-kosmeîn] them with offerings [anathēmata] and furnishings, and the gifts [dōreai] he gave to cities that are Greek [Hellēnides], and sometimes even to barbarians who asked him, all these acts are inscribed in his honor in the sanctuary [hieron] at Athens that is common [koinon] to all the gods.
Footnotes
-
↩
At this point Pausanias proceeds to consider some latter-day additions to the ancient list of eponymous heroes.
-
↩
This king of Pergamon visited Athens in 200 BCE. in the company of the Roman ambassadors, and was treated with every mark of respect by the Athenians.
-
↩
This king of Pergamon visited Athens in 200 BCE.
-
↩
It is uncertain to which of the many kings of Egypt called by this name Pausanias refers.
-
↩
Here and elsewhere, the ostentatious wording suggests a special relationship with Hadrian.
-
↩
117–138 CE.
-
↩
132 CE.
subject heading(s): *phūlē *(plural phūlai) ‘subdivision’
Here and elsewhere, I avoid translating *phūlē *as ‘tribe’, which is a misleading rendition. See Nagy 1990b:277–293.
subject headings: Procne (Proknē), Philomela (Philomēlā), Tereus (Tēreus).
On the form Philomēlā: grammarians in the ancient world (for example, Herodian 3.1 p. 255 line 14 ed. A. Lentz 1867) called attention to the exceptional ending ā instead of the expected ē. The catastrophic story of Procne, Philomela, and Tereus is best known today from the celebrated retelling by Ovid, Metaphorphoses 6.401–674. A briefer retelling of the myth can be found in “Apollodorus” Bibliotheca 3.193–195. These retellings seem to originate from a version of the myth that was anchored in the region of Athens. Another version, anchored in the region of Ephesus, is analyzed at §23 in Nagy 2016.01.07. As for the version anchored in Athens, it is linked to still another version that is anchored in the region of Megara, as we see later when we read Pausanias 1.41.8–9, where I offer further comments. Pausanias refers to the myth of Procne, Philomela, and Tereus also at 9.16.4 and at 10.4.8–9, where I offer still further comments. For now, I simply introduce the myth, epitomizing from §§19–23 in Nagy 2016.01.07:
As we read in Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.401–674, Procne and Philomela are women who become transformed respectively into the prototypical Nightingale and the prototypical Swallow in the course of their tragic interaction with the king of Thrace, a man named Tereus. In some versions of the myth, the names of the two women are more overt: *Aēdōn *and Khelidōn, that is, Nightingale and Swallow (for more such versions, I cite Levaniouk 2011:215n6). As for the man, King Tereus, he becomes transformed into a bird known in Greek as epops. To say it in English, Tereus becomes the prototypical Hoopoe. The myth about these three doomed humans who are turned into birds is a story of an Eternal Triangle. Tereus marries Procne and then violates her sister Philomela, only to be punished for his crime when Procne takes revenge on her husband by killing their own son and then serving up the child’s cooked body to an unsuspecting Tereus, who thinks he is eating the meat of an animal. That is the *dikē *or ‘retribution’ to which the narrative of Pausanias is referring here. Once Tereus discovers that his stomach has become the tomb of his own son, Tereus experiences a grief that matches the grief of the two sisters. The combined grief becomes too much for all three to bear, and the gods take pity by transforming them all into birds. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses 6.576–578, we read that Philomela the would-be Swallow weaves into a web the story of her violation by Tereus. She cannot express the sad story in words, since Tereus had cut out her tongue and now keeps her imprisoned in a fortress, hidden away from her sister. For Philomela, the act of weaving a web becomes a substitute for the act of singing a lament in expressing her grief.