Cockerell, Charles Robert: The temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at Aegina and of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae near Phigaleia in Arcadia: to which is add a memoir of the systems of proportion employed in the original design of these structures (London, 1860)

8 TEMPLE OF JUPITEB PANHELLENIUS AT /KGINA.

especially at Lacedsemon. Thus we are told that Agis was fined 100,000 drachmas of j33gina ; * that the Spartan

ransom for a prisoner was 200 JLginetan drachmas ; and that the tribute of the allies to the Spartans, as a
substitute for the service of each soldier, was half an TEginetan drachma per diem.f

Knavcry and luxury, the two vices which usually attend on commercial prosperity, were freely attributed
to the ^Eginetans. The latter were reputed to be as keen in trade as the Cretans themselves ; so that " M)s »/>&
klyivfirav" was a proverb, according to Mitford, " nearly equivalent to our own expression, ' set a thief to catch
a thief.'" The residence of Lais at iEgina, and the preference given to it as a residence by Aristippus,;): the
philosopher of the passing hour, are significant facts, and bear ample testimony to the luxury and wealth of its
inhabitants. Her wealth and her luxury were in fact as proverbial as that of Corinth; "there they played
astragali with buns, and cakes ready baked fell from off the trees," says the jolly Cratinus in a fragment^'
preserved to us by Athemeus.

But it was in far nobler objects of pursuit that TKgina was most remarkable. In the public games her
sons were the best athletes of Greece, and by the cultivation of manly exercises they fitted themselves for the
service and defence of their country. We have, indeed, the conclusive evidence of facts to prove that the
institutions of JEgina were wonderfully calculated to call forth sentiments of emulation and honour ; for whereas
Pindar, in the forty-five odes which have reached us, records only four victors in the games, who were natives of
his paternal city of Thebes, only four from Agrigentum, and two only from Athens, and still fewer from the other
cities whose praises he was invited to celebrate, we find that he sings of eleven who belonged to iEgina. Such,
indeed, was their excellence in these contests, that the first victor ever honoured by a commemorative statue in
the Altis of Olympia was an iEginetan,|| and they constantly carried off the prizes from the Isthmian and Nemcan
games as well. It should be added that games, termed Hersea, in honour of Hera (Juno) and Phoebus, were held
in their own island in the month of Delphinium, as also were others in honour of their ancestor, iEacus : a feast,
too, in honour of Poseidon, was celebrated annually; it is said to have lasted sixteen days, and to have concluded
with a sacrifice to Venus.1T

The effects of the gymnastic contests upon the liberal arts, so remarkable in all the other states of Greece,
were no less conspicuous in JEgina, though many of them, doubtless, are lost to our times by their remote
antiquity. Pindar, who, as has been already stated, derived from thence his chief source of inspiration, mentions
the names of three native iEginetan poets, Theandridas, Timocritus, and Euphanes, though none of their writings
have come down to us. Plutarch also celebrates Polus, of iEgina, as the greatest tragedian of his day, in proof
of the taste for dramatic exhibitions which prevailed among the inhabitants of that island. Moreover, if it were
not foreign to our purpose, we could easily show that iEgina was equally celebrated for her skill in medicine and
in other branches of science.

But the most important feature in the character of JEgina was her extraordinary pre-eminence in the fine
arts, which made her school the most admired in Greece during nearly 300 years,*'* and secured to her artists
precedence over those of all other countries during that period, the most important commissions in statuary, both
for religious purposes and for those of a dedicatory or commemorative character, being confided almost exclusively

* Thucyd. v. G3 (according to the translation of Mullor, Dorians, iii. 10).

f The coins of other Hellenic states, and especially those of Athens, were current together with the coinage of iEgina, hut were
generally of inferior value and weight. Athenseus (vi. 225-6) has preserved to us a passage from a comedy of Diphctus, named
[lokvTrp&yimp, " The Busy-Body," which amusingly illustrates the ingenuity of the lower order of chapmen. " If you ask him the price of a
pike," says one of the characters, " he will tell you ten ohols, not specifying in what coinage; and when you are ahout to pay the price, he
will tell you that he sold it for jEginetan obols ; but if he has to give you the change, he pays it in the coin of Attica : thus securing
the advantage both ways." "The strongest proof," observes Muller (Dor. ii. 12), "of the ancient commerce of the Peloponncsc, and of
its great extent, is the iEginetan money ; the standard of which was, in early times, prevalent in the Peloponncsc, in Crete, and even in tlie
north of Greece, since the early Boeotian, Thcssalian, and Macedonian coins were adapted to it before the time of Philip."

j His character is exhibited in the caustic reproach of Plato, " When Socrates suffered, Aristippus was at iEgina."

§ Styled ITAoCroi. Sec Athenajus, vi. 19 :—

Bacnkeiis KpoVos ro iraXauw
otttols aprois fi<TTf)aya\i,(ov
ixd^ai 8 ev Talni 7raAatrn-pais
Aiyivaiai, KarefiifirjVTo
hpvtitti'j, /3roAois re KOjxSiiTai.

|| Praxidamas of yEgina, B.C. 540 ; Pausanias, vi. IS : the statue was of cypress-wood.
'i Plutarch, Quajst. Grsecae, vii. 204, cd. Rusk.
** Viz., from about 720 to 440 B.C.