Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 3.15.1: the victories of Cynisca of Sparta

Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 3.15.1: the victories of Cynisca of Sparta

mid 2nd century CE

Travel Writing

Literary source

On Cynisca see also Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 3.8.1-2; 5.12.5; 6.1.6; Plutarchus, Moralia 212b; Plutarchus, Agesilaus 20.1; Xenophon, Agesilaus 9.6; IG V,1 1564a (cf. IvO 160; CEG 820; Anthologia Palatina 13.16).

The dates for Cynisca's two Olympian victories in the four-horse chariot race given by Moretti 1957, no. 373, (396 and 392 BCE) are widley accepted, but not certain.

At Plane-tree Grove there is also a hero-shrine of Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus king of the Spartans. She was the first woman to breed horses, and the first to win a chariot race at Olympia. Behind the portico built by the side of Plane-tree Grove are other hero-shrines, of Alcimus, of Enaraephorus, at a little distance away one of Dorceus, and close to it one of Sebrus. These are said to be sons of Hippocoon.

William H. S. Jones/Henry A. Ormerod, Pausanias, Description of Greece, vol. 2, Books 3-5 (= Loeb Classical Library; 188), London 1926.

πρὸς δὲ τῷ Πλατανιστᾷ καὶ Κυνίσκας ἐστὶν ἡρῷον, θυγατρὸς Ἀρχιδάμου βασιλεύοντος Σπαρτιατῶν: πρώτη δὲ ἱπποτρόφησε γυναικῶν καὶ Ὀλυμπίασι πρώτη νίκην ἀνείλετο ἅρματι. ἔστι δὲ τῆς στοᾶς, ἣ παρὰ τὸν Πλατανιστᾶν πεποίηται, ταύτης ὄπισθεν ἡρῷα, τὸ μὲν Ἀλκίμου, τὸ δὲ Ἐναρσφόρου καὶ ἀφεστηκὸς οὐ πολὺ Δορκέως, τὸ δὲ ἐπὶ τούτῳ Σεβροῦ: παῖδας δὲ Ἱπποκόωντος εἶναι λέγουσιν.

Frederick Spiro (ed.), Pausaniae Graeciae Descriptio, vol. 1, Leipzig 1903.

W. Dittenberger, K. Purgold (eds.), Die Inschriften von Olympia, Berlin 1896. (= IvO)

P.A. Hansen (ed.), Carmina epigraphica Graeca saeculi IV a.Chr.n. (CEG 2) (Texte und Kommentare 15), Berlin 1989. (= CEG)

W. Kolbe (ed.), Inscriptiones Graecae, V,1: Inscriptiones Laconiae et Messeniae, Berlin 1913. (= IG V,1)

L. Moretti, Olympionikai: i vincitori negli antichi agoni olimpici, Rome 1957.