Pausanias Analysis

In earliest times, the Thebans used to sacrifice bulls to Spodios Apollo. Once, on the occasion of their festival, when the hour appointed for the sacrifice was pressing close upon them and the messengers sent to fetch the bull had not arrived, it happened that a wagon passed by, and they offered up to the god one of the oxen drawing it. From that time forth, it has been their established custom to sacrifice work-oxen. The following tale is also told by the Thebans: when Cadmus departed from Delphi, a cow guided him on his journey toward the land of the Phocians. Cadmus had purchased this cow from the herdsmen of Pelagon, and on both of her flanks she bore a white marking resembling the circle of the full moon.

At this point Cadmus and the army with him were destined to settle according to the oracle of the god, at the spot where the cow was to sink down exhausted. So they identify this place also. There stands an open-air altar and an image of Athena, which they say Cadmus himself dedicated. Now for those who claim that Cadmus arrived in Egyptian Thebes and was not from Phoenicia, the name of this Athena gives clear contradiction to that argument; for she is called "Onga" in the Phoenician tongue, and not "Sais," as the Egyptians would name her.

The Thebans say that the place which in our day serves as their market-place, below the acropolis, was originally the dwelling of Cadmus. They still point out among the ruins certain chambers, one said to have belonged to Harmonia, and another claimed to be Semele's, the latter continuing even to our day to be guarded and kept inaccessible to human beings. Within the market-place itself there is also the spot where, according to those Greeks who hold that the Muses sang at the wedding of Harmonia, these goddesses performed their chants.

The following story is also told: that at the same time as the thunderbolt struck Semele's chamber, a piece of wood fell from heaven. They say that Polydoros adorned this piece of wood with bronze and called it "Dionysos Cadmos." Near it stands a statue of Dionysos created by Onasimedes, entirely composed of solid bronze; the altar was made by the sons of Praxiteles.

There is also a portrait statue of Pronomos, a man who played the flute in a manner exceptionally appealing to the public. Until his time, flute-players possessed three different types of flutes: on some flutes they performed the Dorian melody alone; for the Phrygian mode they employed flutes specifically tuned differently; and what is called the Lydian mode was again played upon another sort of flute. It was Pronomos who first invented flutes suitable entirely for every kind of harmony, and was also the first who performed compositions of such varied style upon these same flutes.

It is said that by the expression of his face and the entire movement of his body he especially delighted the audience in the theater. Moreover, he composed a processional-song for the Chalcidians who dwell by the Euripus, to be sung at their procession to Delos. Here indeed the Thebans dedicated statues both of him and of Epaminondas, the son of Polymnis.