(the
son of Cyaxares), the king of Persia. And there is a golden vase at each
end of the roof, and a golden Victory in the middle of the gable. And
underneath the Victory is a golden shield hung up as a votive offering,
with the Gorgon Medusa worked on it. The inscription on the shield
states who hung it up, and the reason why they did so. For this is what
it says: "This temple's golden shield is a votive offering from the
Lacedaemonians at Tanagra and their allies, a gift from the Argives, the
Athenians, and the Ionians, a tithe offering for success in war."

The battle I mentioned in my account of Attica, when I described the
tombs at Athens. And in the same temple at Olympia, above the zone that
runs round the pillars on the outside, are twenty-one golden shields,
the offering of Mummius the Roman general, after he had beaten the
Achaeans and taken Corinth, and expelled the Dorians from Corinth. And on
the gables in bas-relief is the chariot race between Pelops and
OEnomaus; and both chariots in motion. And in the middle of the gable
is a statue of Zeus; and on the right hand of Zeus is OEnomaus with a
helmet on his head; and beside him his wife Sterope, one of the
daughters of Atlas. And Myrtilus, who was the charioteer of OEnomaus,
is seated behind the four horses. And next to him are two men whose
names are not recorded, but they are doubtless OEnomaus's grooms,
whose duty was to take care of the horses....

The carvings on the gables in front are by Paeonius of Mende in Thracia;
those behind by Alcamenes, a contemporary of Phidias and second only to
him as statuary. And on the gables is a representation of the fight
between the Lapithae and the Centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous.
Pirithous is in the center, and on one side of him is Eurytion trying to
carry off Pirithous's wife, and Caeneus coming to the rescue, and on the
other side Theseus laying about among the Centaurs with his battle-ax;
and one Centaur is carrying off a maiden, another a blooming boy.
Alcamenes has engraved this story, I imagine, because he learned from
the lines of Homer that Pirithous was the son of Zeus, and knew that
Theseus was fourth in descent from Pelops. There are also in bas-relief
at Olympia most of the Labors of Hercules. Above the doors of the temple
is the hunting of the Erymanthian boar, and Hercules taking the mares
of Diomede the Thracian, and robbing Geryon of his oxen in the island of
Erytheia, and supporting the load