the fourth book of
the "Hellenica."
In the days of his banishment, when Xenophon was now established by
the Lacedaemonians as a colonist in Scillus (4), a place which lies on 7
the main road to Olympia, Megabyzus arrived on his way to Olympia as a
spectator to attend the games, and restored to him the deposit.
Xenophon took the money and bought for the goddess a plot of ground at
a point indicated to him by the oracle. The plot, it so happened, had
its own Selinus river flowing through it, just as at Ephesus the river
Selinus flows past the temple of Artemis, and in both streams fish and
mussels are to be found. On the estate at Scillus there is hunting and
shooting of all the beasts of the chase that are.
(4) Scillus, a town of Triphylia, a district of Elis. In B.C. 572 the
Eleians had razed Pisa and Scillus to the ground. But between B.C.
392 and 387 the Lacedaemonians, having previously (B.C. 400,
"Hell." III. ii. 30) compelled the Eleians to renounce their
supremacy over their dependent cities, colonised Scillus and
eventually gave it to Xenophon, then an exile from Athens.
Xenophon resided here from fifteen to twenty years, but was, it is
said, expelled from it by the Eleians soon after the battle of
Leuctra, in B.C. 371.--"Dict. Geog. (s.v.)" The site of the place,
and of Xenophon's temple, is supposed to be in the neighbourhood
of the modern village of Chrestena, or possibly nearer Mazi. To
reach Olympia, about 2 1/2 miles distant, one must cross the
Alpheus.
Here with the sacred money he built an altar and a temple, and ever
after, year by year, tithed the fruits of the land in their season and
did sacrifice to the goddess, while all the citizens and neighbours,
men and women, shared in the festival. The goddess herself provided
for the banqueters meat and loaves and wine and sweetmeats, with
portions of the victims sacrificed from the sacred pasture, as also of
those which were slain in the chase; for Xenophon's own lads, with the
lads of the other citizens, always made a hunting excursion against
the festival day, in which any grown men who liked might join. The
game was captured partly from the sacred district itself, partly from
Pholoe (5), pigs and gazelles and stags. The place lies on the direct
road from Lacedaemon to Olympia, about twenty furlongs from the temple
of Zeus in Olympia, and within the sacred enclosure there is
meadow-land and wood
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