Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 5.6.7-8 and 6.7.2: Pherenike/ Callipateira breaking the Olympic ban

Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 5.6.7-8 and 6.7.2: Pherenike/ Callipateira breaking the Olympic ban

mid 2nd century CE

Travel writing

Literary source

The same anecdote is also transmitted, though with several minor and major differences, by Pseudo-Aeschines, Epistulae 4.5; Scholion to Pindar, Olympian 7.1; Flavius Philostratus, De Gymnastica 17; Claudius Aelianus, Varia Historia 10.1; Plinius Maior, Naturalis Historia 7.133; Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia 8.15.12 ext. 4.

Paus. 5.6.7-8: As you go from Scillus along the road to Olympia, before you cross the Alpheius,there is a mountain with high, precipitous cliffs. It is called Mount Typaeum. It is a law of Elis to cast down it any women who are caught present at the Olympic games, or even on the other side of the Alpheius, on the days prohibited to women. However, they say that no woman has been caught, except Callipateira only; some, however, give the lady the name of Pherenice and not Callipateira. She, being a widow, disguised herself exactly like a gymnastic trainer, and brought her son to compete at Olympia. Peisirodus, for so her son was called, was victorious, and Callipateira, as she was jumping over the enclosure in which they keep the trainers shut up, bared her person. So her sex was discovered, but they let her go unpunished out of respect for her father, her brothers and her son, all of whom had been victorious at Olympia. But a law was passed that for the future trainers should strip before entering the arena.

Paus. 6.7.2: These were brothers, being sons of Diagoras, and by them is set up also a statue of Diagoras himself, who won a victory for boxing in the men's class. The statue of Diagoras was made by the Megarian Callicles, the son of the Theocosmus who made the image of Zeus at Megara. The sons too of the daughters of Diagoras practised boxing and won Olympic victories: in the men's class Eucles, son of Callianax and Callipateira, daughter of Diagoras; in the boys' class Peisirodus, whose mother dressed herself as a man and a trainer, and took her son herself to the Olympic games.

William H. S. Jones/ Henry A. Ormerod, Pausanias, Description of Greece, vol. 2, Books 3–5 (= Loeb Classical Library; 188), London 1918.

William H. S. Jones, Pausanias, Description of Greece, vol. 3, Books 6-8.21 (= Loeb Classical Library; 272), London 1933.

5.6.7-8: κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν ὁδόν, πρὶν ἢ διαβῆναι τὸν Ἀλφειόν, ἔστιν ὄρος ἐκ Σκιλλοῦντος ἐρχομένῳ πέτραις ὑψηλαῖς ἀπότομον: ὀνομάζεται δὲ Τυπαῖον τὸ ὄρος. κατὰ τούτου τὰς γυναῖκας Ἠλείοις ἐστὶν ὠθεῖν νόμος, ἢν φωραθῶσιν ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐλθοῦσαι τὸν Ὀλυμπικὸν ἢ καὶ ὅλως ἐν ταῖς ἀπειρημέναις σφίσιν ἡμέραις διαβᾶσαι τὸν Ἀλφειόν. οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ ἁλῶναι λέγουσιν οὐδεμίαν, ὅτι μὴ Καλλιπάτειραν μόνην: εἰσὶ δὲ οἳ τὴν αὐτὴν ταύτην Φερενίκην καὶ οὐ Καλλιπάτειραν καλοῦσιν. αὕτη προαποθανόντος αὐτῇ τοῦ ἀνδρός, ἐξεικάσασα αὑτὴν τὰ πάντα ἀνδρὶ γυμναστῇ, ἤγαγεν ἐς Ὀλυμπίαν τὸν υἱὸν μαχούμενον: νικῶντος δὲ τοῦ Πεισιρόδου, τὸ ἔρυμα ἐν ᾧ τοὺς γυμναστὰς ἔχουσιν ἀπειλημμένους, τοῦτο ὑπερπηδῶσα ἡ Καλλιπάτειρα ἐγυμνώθη. φωραθείσης δὲ ὅτι εἴη γυνή, ταύτην ἀφιᾶσιν ἀζήμιον καὶ τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ἀδελφοῖς αὐτῆς καὶ τῷ παιδὶ αἰδῶ νέμοντες—ὑπῆρχον δὴ ἅπασιν αὐτοῖς Ὀλυμπικαὶ νῖκαι—, ἐποίησαν δὲ νόμον ἐς τὸ ἔπειτα ἐπὶ τοῖς γυμνασταῖς γυμνοὺς σφᾶς ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐσέρχεσθαι.

6.7.2: οὗτοι μὲν ἀδελφοί τέ εἰσι καὶ Διαγόρου παῖδες, ἐπὶ δὲ αὐτοῖς κεῖται καὶ ὁ Διαγόρας, πυγμῆς ἐν ἀνδράσιν ἀνελόμενος νίκην: τοῦ Διαγόρου δὲ τὴν εἰκόνα Μεγαρεὺς εἰργάσατο Καλλικλῆς Θεοκόσμου τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὸ ἄγαλμα ἐν Μεγάροις τοῦ Διός. Διαγόρου δὲ καὶ οἱ τῶν θυγατέρων παῖδες πύξ τε ἤσκησαν καὶ ἔσχον Ὀλυμπικὰς νίκας, ἐν μὲν ἀνδράσιν Εὐκλῆς Καλλιάνακτός τε ὢν καὶ Καλλιπατείρας τῆς Διαγόρου, Πεισίροδος δὲ ἐν παισίν, ὃν ἡ μήτηρ ἀνδρὸς ἐπιθεμένη γυμναστοῦ σχῆμα ἐπὶ τῶν Ὀλυμπίων αὐτὴ τὸν ἀγῶνα ἤγαγεν.

Frederick Spiro (ed.), Pausaniae Graeciae Descriptio, vol. 2, Leipzig 1903.