Book 5
10.8
The sculptures in the front pediment are by Paeonius, who came from Mende in Thracecirca 430 B.C.; those in the back pediment are by Alcamenes,There are good reasons, chronological and artistic, for thinking that neither Paeonius not Alcamenes carved the figures on the pediments. a contemporary of Pheidias, ranking next after him for skill as a sculptor. What he carved on the pediment is the fight between the Lapithae and the Centaurs at the marriage of Peirithous. In the center of the pediment is Peirithous.This is supposed to be a mistake. On one side of him is Eurytion, who has seized the wife of Peirithous, with Caeneus bringing help to Peirithous, and on the other side is Theseus defending himself against the Centaurs with an axe. One Centaur has seized a maid, another a boy in the prime of youth. Alcamenes, I think, carved this scene, because he had learned from Homer'sHom. Il. 14.318 poem that Peirithous was a son of Zeus, and because he knew that Theseus was a great grandson of Pelops.
10.9
Most of the labours of Heracles are represented at Olympia. Above the doors of the temple is carved the hunting of the Arcadian boar, his exploit against Diomedes the Thracian, and that against Geryones at Erytheia; he is also about to receive the burden of Atlas, and he cleanses the land from dung for the Eleans. Above the doors of the rear chamber he is taking the girdle from the Amazon; and there are the affairs of the deer, of the bull at Cnossus, of the Stymphalian birds, of the hydra, and of the Argive lion.
10.10
As you enter the bronze doors you see on the right, before the pillar, Iphitus being crowned by a woman, Ececheiria (Truce), as the elegiac couplet on the statue says. Within the temple stand pillars, and inside also are porticoes above, with an approach through them to the image. There has also been constructed a winding ascent to the roof.
