When Pausanias visited Olympia, towards the end of the second century
after Christ, he beheld, among other precious objects in the temple
of Here, a splendidly wrought treasure-chest of cedar-wood, in which,
according to a legend, quick as usual with the true human colouring,
the mother of Cypselus had hidden him, when a child, from the enmity
of her family, the Bacchiadae, then the nobility of Corinth. The
child, named Cypselus after this incident (Cypsele being a Corinthian
word for chest), became tyrant of Corinth, and his grateful
descendants, as it was said, offered the beautiful old chest to the
temple of Here, as a memorial of his preservation. That would have
been not long after the year 625 B.C. So much for the [226] story
which Pausanias heard--but inherent probability, and some points of
detail in his description, tend to fix the origin of the chest at a
date at least somewhat later; and as Herodotus, telling the story of
the concealment of Cypselus, does not mention the dedication of the
chest at Olympia at all, it may perhaps have been only one of many
later imitations of antique art. But, whatever its date, Pausanias
certainly saw the thing, and has left a long description of it, and
we may trust his judgment at least as to its archaic style.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266