Pausanias Analysis

After the sanctuary of Poseidon, you will come upon a place full of oak trees, called Pelagos ("Sea"), and the road from Mantineia to Tegea passes through these oaks. On the boundaries between Mantineia and Tegea there is a round altar by the roadside. If, however, you wish to turn left from Poseidon's sanctuary, you will go about five stades and arrive at the tombs of the daughters of Pelias. The Mantineans say these women settled among them when fleeing from the reproaches connected to the death of their father.

For indeed, when Medea arrived in Iolcus, she immediately plotted against Pelias, practically assisting Jason but outwardly showing hostility toward him. She promised Pelias' daughters that, if they wished it, she would restore their father to youth, turning him young instead of being an old man. Having slaughtered a ram by some contrivance, she boiled its flesh together with magical herbs in a cauldron, through whose powers she then brought forth from that cauldron the ram—no longer a ram, but rather a living young lamb.

Indeed, after cutting Pelias into pieces, she persuaded his daughters to boil him, and thus they received their father's body, no longer fit even for burial. This compelled the women to migrate to Arcadia, and having died there, their tombs were built in that very place. No poet, at least among those whom I have examined, has named these women; but Micon the painter, in his inscriptions accompanying their portraits, identified them as Asteropeia and Antinoe.

About twenty stades further away from these tombs is a place called Phoizon. Phoizon is a grave surrounded by a stone base, rising only a little above the ground. At this point, the road becomes especially narrow, and they say the tomb is that of Areithoös, who was surnamed Korynetes ("Clubman") because of his weapon.

About thirty stadia along the road from Mantineia toward Pallantium, the grove called Pelagus extends to the highway. Here the cavalry forces of the Athenians and Mantineians fought against the Boeotian horsemen. The Mantineians say Epaminondas was killed by Machaerion, a Mantineian; likewise, the Lacedaemonians report that the slayer of Epaminondas was a Spartan, yet they, too, give this man the name Machaerion.

The Athenians have a tradition—which the Thebans also confirm—that Epaminondas was struck down by Grylus. Their account fits closely with the depiction in the painting that portrays the battle of Mantinea. The Mantineans themselves evidently buried Grylus at public expense and erected at the spot where he fell a statue set upon a pillar, honoring him as the bravest of their allies. As for Machairion, both they and the Lacedaemonians indeed praise him verbally, yet in fact there is no monument for Machairion, either in Sparta or among the Mantineans, that honors him as an outstanding man.

When Epaminondas had been wounded, they carried him, still alive, out of the battle. At first he suffered, holding his hand upon the wound and continuing to gaze at the combatants. The place from which he looked upon them was afterward named 'Scope' (Lookout). But after the fighting had reached an indecisive conclusion, he withdrew his hand from the wound, and, having released his life, they buried him on the very spot where their armies had clashed.

Upon his tomb is erected a pillar, and upon it stands a shield adorned with a sculpted serpent. Indeed, this serpent is meant to signify that Epaminondas belonged to the race of those called the Spartoi. There are two inscriptions at the tomb: the older contains an epitaph in the Boeotian dialect; the other was set up later by the Emperor Hadrian, who himself composed the verses inscribed upon it.

One might praise Epaminondas above all the Greeks who became famous for their generalship, or at least regard him as second to none who came after him. For the rulers of Sparta and Athens long possessed great prestige due to the importance of their cities, and their soldiers always had a certain pride in their spirit. Epaminondas, however, took the Thebans, who were faint-hearted and accustomed to obeying others, and in a short time made them foremost among the Greeks.

Epaminondas had previously received an oracle from Delphi that warned him to beware of "Pelagos." Consequently, he was afraid to embark upon a trireme or even sail aboard a merchant vessel; however, the god, it seems, foretold "Pelagos" as a wooded area rather than the sea. Such homonyms misled Hannibal the Carthaginian later, and even earlier deceived the Athenians.

For Hannibal received an oracle from Ammon, that he would die and be buried in Libyssa. He himself therefore expected that he would destroy the empire of the Romans, return home to Libya, and end his life there in old age. But when Flaminius the Roman was making eager effort to capture him alive, Hannibal fled as a suppliant to Prusias, and, having been rejected by him, he leapt upon his horse, and, as he drew his sword, wounded one of his fingers. After advancing only a short distance, he was seized on the third day by fever from the wound, and died. The place where he met his end is called Libyssa by the people of Nicomedia.

An oracle from Dodona came to the Athenians commanding them to found a settlement in "Sicily," and there is indeed, near their city, a hill called Sicily, though not a large one; but failing to understand the true meaning of this oracle, they were drawn into expeditions overseas and into the war against Syracuse. One could find many other instances similar to those I have mentioned.