Pausanias Analysis

Next to these are offerings of the Eleans—Philip son of Amyntas, Alexander son of Philip, Seleucus, and Antigonus. The statues of Philip, Alexander, and Seleucus depict them on horseback, whereas the statue of Antigonus portrays him on foot.

Not far from the mentioned kings stands a statue of Theagenes, son of Timosthenes, a Thasian. But the Thasians say that Theagenes was not actually the son of Timosthenes. Rather, Timosthenes, they assert, was a priest of Heracles Thasius, and a divine apparition resembling Heracles appeared to the mother of Theagenes in the likeness of Timosthenes. They also report that when the boy was nine years old, as he was returning home from school, he took a liking to a bronze statue of one of the gods set up in the marketplace—indeed, he was particularly fond of the statue—lifted it up, placed it upon one of his shoulders, and carried it home.

Since the citizens were angry at him for the deed he had done, one of them, a man of distinction and advanced in age, prevented them from killing the youth; instead, he commanded the youth to take the statue back from the house to the agora again. When he carried it back, immediately the lad gained great fame for his strength, and his deed became renowned throughout all Greece.

Regarding the many athletic exploits of Theagenes at the Olympian games, my account has already mentioned the most noteworthy among them, such as his victory over the boxer Euthymos and the penalty imposed on Theagenes by the Eleans. At that time, however, a man from Mantineia named Dromeus is said to have been the first athlete known to us who gained the victory in the pancratium without competition. In the next Olympiad after this, Theagenes himself prevailed in the pancratium.

He also won three victories in boxing at Pytho, and at Nemea nine victories, as well as ten at the Isthmus, divided between pankration and boxing. In Phthia among the Thessalians, he ceased competing earnestly in boxing or pankration, focusing instead on securing fame throughout Greece as a runner, and there he defeated all entrants in the dolichos race. It seems to me he aspired particularly to compete with Achilles, desiring to win a race victory in the homeland of that hero, who was the swiftest of all those called heroes. His crowns altogether numbered one thousand four hundred.

After Theagenes departed from among men, a certain man, who had hated him while he was alive, approached his statue every night and whipped the bronze, as if harming Theagenes himself. But the statue fell upon him and ended his outrage. Then the deceased man's sons prosecuted the image for murder, and the Thasians, recalling the principle of Draco—who, when writing homicide laws for the Athenians, prescribed exile even for lifeless objects that fell upon someone and caused death—threw the statue into the sea.

In course of time, as the land produced no crops for the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to welcome the exiles. Yet, though these were accordingly accepted, the barren condition yielded no relief. Thus, for a second time, they visited the Pythia, explaining that even though they had acted according to the oracle’s instructions, the wrath sent by the gods persisted.

Thereupon the Pythia answered them, "You have left your great Theagenes in obscurity, unremembered by you." While they were uncertain by what means they might recover the statue of Theagenes, it is said that some fishermen, having sailed out to sea to catch fish, hauled the statue up in their nets and brought it back again to land. And the Thasians, after setting it up once more where it originally stood, thereafter offered sacrifices to him as to a god.

I know that statues of Theagenes have been erected in many other places both among Greeks and barbarians, and that he heals diseases and receives honors from the local inhabitants. The statue of Theagenes at Olympia is the work of Glaukias of Aegina.