DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0218
202 WAR MONUMENTS IN DELPHI
they went over with their ships from the Persians to the
Athenians. Moreover, we find the name of the Aeginetans on
the column, though, according to Herodotus, they failed and
made off in the battle, and only after the victory had been
won, raised a mound on the battle-field, notwithstanding
that they had no casualties (ix. 85). A high place, first in
the third coil, is assigned to the Tegeans, and rightly so,
for they stood by the Spartans in the battle and distin-
guished themselves by storming the camp of the Persian
general Mardonius.1 What it meant to be named in this
list, which reminds one of the enumeration of Greek towns
in Aeschylus' description of the battle of Salamis/ may be
seen from the fact that the ambassadors of Plataea. when
in the Peloponnesian War their town had been taken by
the Spartans, and the latter threatened to hand them over
to their mortal foes the Thebans, to avert destruction from
themselves, appealed to the fact that their name was on the
snake-column at Delphi.3
Herodotus describes the monument as a three-headed snake.
This is incorrect, for in reality there are three snakes,
twisted round each other in twenty-five coils, and with
their heads turned each in a different direction. The pillar
was cast in one piece, but the surface is now covered by
sabre-cuts from mischievous soldiers, and both the tails
and heads of the snakes are wanting. A private letter
shows that the three heads were still there in 1718, but
soon afterwards they were broken off and disappeared,
and only by a pure accident the upper part of one snake-
head was recovered in 1848, and confirmed the tradition
that the heads had open jaws. This fragment is now in
the museum of Tchinili-Kiosk in Constantinople (fig. 96).
With respect to the appearance of the whole monument,
there still prevails some uncertainty. Shall we imagine a small
golden tripod, with a gold kettle resting with one leg on each
snake-head,4 or as most people think, following Furtwangler,
suppose that a tripod six metres in height, crowned by a
golden kettle, was put round the bronze snakes, so that
they supported the bottom of the kettle t5 Against the first
1 Herodotus, ix. 28 and 70. 2 Persae, 882 ff. 3 Thucydides, Hi. 57.
4 Luckenbach, Olympia und Delphi, 55, fig. 64.
5 Wolters-Springer, Kunslgeschichie, 231, fig. 433.
they went over with their ships from the Persians to the
Athenians. Moreover, we find the name of the Aeginetans on
the column, though, according to Herodotus, they failed and
made off in the battle, and only after the victory had been
won, raised a mound on the battle-field, notwithstanding
that they had no casualties (ix. 85). A high place, first in
the third coil, is assigned to the Tegeans, and rightly so,
for they stood by the Spartans in the battle and distin-
guished themselves by storming the camp of the Persian
general Mardonius.1 What it meant to be named in this
list, which reminds one of the enumeration of Greek towns
in Aeschylus' description of the battle of Salamis/ may be
seen from the fact that the ambassadors of Plataea. when
in the Peloponnesian War their town had been taken by
the Spartans, and the latter threatened to hand them over
to their mortal foes the Thebans, to avert destruction from
themselves, appealed to the fact that their name was on the
snake-column at Delphi.3
Herodotus describes the monument as a three-headed snake.
This is incorrect, for in reality there are three snakes,
twisted round each other in twenty-five coils, and with
their heads turned each in a different direction. The pillar
was cast in one piece, but the surface is now covered by
sabre-cuts from mischievous soldiers, and both the tails
and heads of the snakes are wanting. A private letter
shows that the three heads were still there in 1718, but
soon afterwards they were broken off and disappeared,
and only by a pure accident the upper part of one snake-
head was recovered in 1848, and confirmed the tradition
that the heads had open jaws. This fragment is now in
the museum of Tchinili-Kiosk in Constantinople (fig. 96).
With respect to the appearance of the whole monument,
there still prevails some uncertainty. Shall we imagine a small
golden tripod, with a gold kettle resting with one leg on each
snake-head,4 or as most people think, following Furtwangler,
suppose that a tripod six metres in height, crowned by a
golden kettle, was put round the bronze snakes, so that
they supported the bottom of the kettle t5 Against the first
1 Herodotus, ix. 28 and 70. 2 Persae, 882 ff. 3 Thucydides, Hi. 57.
4 Luckenbach, Olympia und Delphi, 55, fig. 64.
5 Wolters-Springer, Kunslgeschichie, 231, fig. 433.