DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0089
THE METOPES OF THE SICYONIAN
TREASURY
ABOUT half-way in the first section of the Sacred Way,
beyond the two semicircular monuments of the
Argives, on the left-hand are the ruins of a little
temple in antis, i.e., a building with a portico supported by
columns, but without an encircling row of columns. On the
plan (fig. 7, p. 52) the ruin is marked by the number III.
The attribution is, like most at Delphi, based on the
text of Pausanias, in which, after enumeration of the first
monuments beyond the chief entrance, it is said (x. 11, 1):
“ Next to the dedication of the Tarentines is the Treasury
of the Sicyonians. But valuable articles will not be seen
in this or any of the following treasuries.” Of the original
treasures of the Sicyonian Treasury, before the ravages
of Imperial times, we know by description one, the gilded
book, with an Epic poem by Aristomache of Erythrae, a
poetess who won two victories at the Isthmian games ; the
book was seen at the beginning of the second century B.c.
by the traveller Polemon.1
By the sixth century b.c. Sicyon had come to be one of
the richest trading and industrial towns of Peloponnese.
Its treasury is 8’43 by 6*35 metres, and is entered from
the east.2 In the foundations can be seen blocks from
an earlier circular building of poros limestone which
1 Plut., Quaest. Conviv., v, probl. 2.
2 Homolle, Bull, de corr. hell., xx, 1896, 657 ff.; and Fouilles de Delphes, iv. 1 (text),
18 ff. Perrot-Chipiez, Histoire de I’Art, viii. 455. Basis blocks of the neighbour-
ing dedication of the Tarentines found and illustrated, Fouilles de Delphes, in. 1,
plate Hi. 3.
73
TREASURY
ABOUT half-way in the first section of the Sacred Way,
beyond the two semicircular monuments of the
Argives, on the left-hand are the ruins of a little
temple in antis, i.e., a building with a portico supported by
columns, but without an encircling row of columns. On the
plan (fig. 7, p. 52) the ruin is marked by the number III.
The attribution is, like most at Delphi, based on the
text of Pausanias, in which, after enumeration of the first
monuments beyond the chief entrance, it is said (x. 11, 1):
“ Next to the dedication of the Tarentines is the Treasury
of the Sicyonians. But valuable articles will not be seen
in this or any of the following treasuries.” Of the original
treasures of the Sicyonian Treasury, before the ravages
of Imperial times, we know by description one, the gilded
book, with an Epic poem by Aristomache of Erythrae, a
poetess who won two victories at the Isthmian games ; the
book was seen at the beginning of the second century B.c.
by the traveller Polemon.1
By the sixth century b.c. Sicyon had come to be one of
the richest trading and industrial towns of Peloponnese.
Its treasury is 8’43 by 6*35 metres, and is entered from
the east.2 In the foundations can be seen blocks from
an earlier circular building of poros limestone which
1 Plut., Quaest. Conviv., v, probl. 2.
2 Homolle, Bull, de corr. hell., xx, 1896, 657 ff.; and Fouilles de Delphes, iv. 1 (text),
18 ff. Perrot-Chipiez, Histoire de I’Art, viii. 455. Basis blocks of the neighbour-
ing dedication of the Tarentines found and illustrated, Fouilles de Delphes, in. 1,
plate Hi. 3.
73