Kitap 5
12.4
In Olympia there is a woollen curtain, adorned with Assyrian weaving and Phoenician purple, which was dedicated by Antiochus,Probably Antiochus Epiphanes, who was king of Syria 175-164 B.C. who also gave as offerings the golden aegis with the Gorgon on it above the theater at Athens. This curtain is not drawn upwards to the roof as is that in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, but it is let down to the ground by cords.
12.5
The offerings inside, or in the fore-temple include: a throne of Arimnestus, king of Etruria, who was the first foreigner to present an offering to the Olympic Zeus, and bronze horses of Cynisca, tokens of an Olympic victory. These are not as large as real horses, and stand in the fore-temple on the right as you enter. There is also a tripod, plated with bronze, upon which, before the table was made, were displayed the crowns for the victors.
12.6
There are statues of emperors: Hadrian, of Parian marble dedicated by the cities of the Achaean confederacy, and Trajan, dedicated by all the Greeks. This emperor subdued the Getae beyond Thrace, and made war on Osroes the descendant of Arsaces and on the Parthians. Of his architectural achievements the most remarkable are baths called after him, a large circular theater, a building for horse-races which is actually two stades long, and the Forum at Rome, worth seeing not only for its general beauty but especially for its roof made of bronze.
12.7
Of the statues set up in the round buildings, the amber one represents Augustus the Roman emperor, the ivory one they told me was a portrait of Nicomedes, king of Bithynia. After him the greatest city in Bithynia was renamed Nicomedeia264 B.C.; before him it was called Astacus, and its first founder was Zypoetes, a Thracian by birth to judge from his name. This amber of which the statue of Augustus is made, when found native in the sand of the Eridanus, is very rare and precious to men for many reasons; the other “amber” is an alloy of gold and silver.
