Book 9
16.1
Such were the claims to fame of Epaminondas. Not far away is a temple of Ammon; the image, a work of Calamis, was dedicated by Pindar, who also sent to the Ammonians of Libya a hymn to Ammon. This hymn I found still carved on a triangular slab by the side of the altar dedicated to Ammon by Ptolemy the son of Lagus. After the sanctuary of Ammon at Thebes comes what is called the bird-observatory of Teiresias, and near it is a sanctuary of Fortune, who carries the child Wealth.
16.2
According to the Thebans, the hands and face of the image were made by Xenophon the Athenian, the rest of it by Callistonicus, a native. It was a clever idea of these artists to place Wealth in the arms of Fortune, and so to suggest that she is his mother or nurse. Equally clever was the conception of Cephisodotus, who made the image of Peace for the Athenians with Wealth in her arms.
16.3
At Thebes are three wooden images of Aphrodite, so very ancient that they are actually said to be votive offerings of Harmonia, and the story is that they were made out of the wooden figure-heads on the ships of Cadmus. They call the first Heavenly, the second Common, and the third Rejecter. Harmoina gave to Aphrodite the surname of Heavenly
16.4
to signify a love pure and free from bodily lust; that of Common, to denote sexual intercourse; the third, that of Rejecter, that mankind might reject unlawful passion and sinful acts. For Harmonia knew of many crimes already perpetrated not only among foreigners but even by Greeks, similar to those attributed later by legend to the mother of Adonis, to Phaedra, the daughter of Minos, and to the Thracian Tereus.
16.5
The sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver is said to have been at one time the house of Cadmus and his descendants. The image of Demeter is visible down to the chest. Here have been dedicated bronze shields, said to be those of Lacedaemonian officers who fell at Leuctra.
