Pausanias Analysis

There is also a bronze chariot of Cratisthenes the Cyrenaean; figures of Victory and Cratisthenes himself are standing upon the chariot. Clearly, his victory was won in a horse-race. It is said, moreover, that this Cratisthenes was the son of Mnaseas, the runner, whom the Greeks called "the Libyan." The votive offerings dedicated by Cratisthenes at Olympia are the work of Pythagoras of Rhegium.

Here too I know of a statue of Anaximenes, who composed a comprehensive history of ancient Greek affairs, and also of everything done by Philip, son of Amyntas, and later by Alexander. This honor was bestowed upon him at Olympia by the people of Lampsacus. Anaximenes is remembered especially for the following incident: when Alexander, son of Philip, who as a king was not always mild but often very quick-tempered, was enraged with him, Anaximenes overcame his anger by the following stratagem.

When the Lampsacenes took the Persian king's side, or at least were accused of sympathizing with him, Alexander, exceedingly enraged with them, threatened to inflict upon them the greatest calamities. In their fear for their women and children, and indeed for their very homeland, they sent Anaximenes to intercede for them, as he had been known previously both to Alexander himself and earlier to Philip. Anaximenes approached Alexander, and when Alexander asked him the cause of his coming, he is said to have sworn by the gods of the Greeks that he indeed had come to petition Alexander to do precisely the opposite of whatever he himself wished to request.

Then indeed Anaximenes spoke thus: "Grant me, O king, this favor—to enslave the women and children of the Lampsacenes, to raze their entire city to the ground, and even to burn their sanctuaries of the gods." Thus was he speaking; and Alexander, unable to contrive anything against his stratagem, and bound by the necessity of his oath, unwillingly granted pardon to the Lampsacenes.

Anaximenes also appears to have avenged himself upon a personal enemy in a way not only clever but exceedingly spiteful. He was naturally skilled as a sophist and adept at imitating the writings of other sophists. When he had become embroiled in a conflict with Theopompus, the son of Damasistratus, he composed a book defamatory of the Athenians, the Spartans, and the Thebans alike; and having imitated Theopompus' style with the utmost precision, he put Theopompus' name upon the work, distributing it among the various cities. Thus he both published his own composition and effectively spread ill-feeling toward Theopompus throughout all of Greece.

Nor could anyone else have plausibly claimed before Anaximenes to have composed extempore speeches. However, I do not believe that the verses about Alexander were actually composed by Anaximenes. Sotades, who won the long-distance race at the ninety-ninth Olympiad, was proclaimed as a Cretan, for he indeed was one; but afterward, having received money from the Ephesian community, he declared himself an Ephesian citizen. For this action, the Cretans punished him with exile.

The first statues of athletes set up at Olympia were those of Praxidamas of Aegina, who won the boxing match at the fifty-ninth Olympiad, and of Rexibius of Opus, who prevailed as a pancratiast at the sixty-first Olympiad. These statues stand not far from the pillar of Oenomaus, and they are made of wood; that of Rexibius is of fig-wood, and the statue of the Aeginetan is of cypress-wood, being less finely worked than the other.