Download Pausanias' Description of Greece Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... birth up. This festival is celebrated by the Plataeans every seventh year, according to what my Antiquarian guide informed me, but really at less interval: the exact time however between one festival and the next though I wished I could not ascertain. The festival is celebrated as follows. There is an oak-coppice not far from Alalcomense. Of all the oaks in Boeotia the roots of these are the finest. When the Plataeans come to this oak-coppice, they place there portions of boiled meat. And they do not much trouble themselves about other birds, but they watch crows very carefully, for they frequent the place, and if one of them seizes a piece of meat they watch what tree it sits upon. And on whatever tree it perches, they carve their wooden image, called dcedalum, from the wood of this tree. This is the way the Plataeans privately celebrate their little festival Dredala: but the great festival of Daedala is a festival for all Boeotia and celebrated every sixth year; for that was the interval during which the festival was discontinued when the Plataeans were in exile. And 14 wooden statues are provided by them every year for the little festival Daedala, which the following draw lots for, the Plateans, the Coronaeans, the Thespians, the Tanagrseans, the Chaeroneans, the Orchomenians, the Lebadeans, and the Thebans: for they thought fit to be reconciled with the Plataeans, and to join their gathering, and to send their sacrifice to the festival, when Cassander the son of Antipater restored Thebes. And all the small towns which are of lesser note contribute to the festival. They deck the statue and take it to the Asopus on a waggon, and place a bride on it, and draw lots for the order of the procession, and drive their waggons from the river...