M/M: My Love Will Protect You...from a Dragon! Pausanias, Desc. Graec. 9.26.7-8

The Thespian Dragon

Name:  Pausanias Date:        110 – 180 CE Region:    Lydia [modern Turkey] Citation:      Description of Greece   9.26.7-8

In the town of Thespiae, there is a bronze statue of Zeus Soter (the Savior). They say that when a dragon was ravaging the town, the god ordered for a youth to be selected each year to be sacrificed to it. The names of the other youths chosen have been blotted out forever, but one of them was Cleostratus. His boyfriend Menestratus invented a way to save him. He made a bronze breastplate equipped with spiked scales that were barbed. Menestratus put on the armor and offered himself to the dragon; he may have died doing so, but then again, so did the beast.  And so Zeus earned the nickname “Savior.”

Θεσπιεῦσι δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει Σαώτου Διός ἐστι χαλκοῦν ἄγαλμα: ἐπιλέγουσι δὲ ὡς λυμαινομένου τὴν πόλιν ποτὲ αὐτοῖς δράκοντος προστάξειεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κλήρῳ sτῶν ἐφήβων κατὰ ἔτος ἕκαστον λαχόντα δίδοσθαι τῷ θηρίῳ. τῶν μὲν δὴ διαφθαρέντων μνημονεύειν τὰ ὀνόματα οὔ φασιν: ἐπὶ δὲ Κλεοστράτῳ λαχόντι τὸν ἐραστὴν αὐτοῦ Μενέστρατον λέγουσιν ἐπιτεχνήσασθαι. χαλκοῦν θώρακα ἐποιήσατο ἔχοντα ἐπὶ ἑκάστῃ τῶν φολίδων ἄγκιστρον ἐς τὸ ἄνω νεῦον: τοῦτον τὸν θώρακα ἐνδὺς παρέδωκε τῷ δράκοντι ἑκουσίως αὑτόν, παραδοὺς δὲ ἀπολεῖσθαί τε καὶ αὐτὸς ἀπολεῖν ἔμελλε τὸ θηρίον. ἀντὶ τούτου μὲν τῷ Διὶ γέγονεν ἐπίκλησις Σαώτης

Est adhuc in oppido aeneum Saotae (id est, Servatoris) Jovis signum. Inde ortum habuit religio, quod quum in cives insigni feritate draco saeviret, deus imperaverit ephebos quotannis singulos sorte ductos ferae exponi: et ceterorum quidem qui periere nomina exoleverunt: eorum uni Cleostrato amatorem Menestratum loricam aeneam faciundam curasse, resupinatis extrorsum hamis consertam: eam loricam puer indutus, quum ultro draconi occurrisset, mortem quidem oppetiit, sed ipsam etiam feram exanimavit. Ex eo rei inventu Jovi Servatori cognomen extitit. Translated into Latin by Romulus Amaseus

Pausanias [110 -180 CE, modern Turkey] was a Greek writer from Lydia who lived during the era of the “Five Good Emperors.” His work, the Description of Greece, is an important source for geographical, historical, archaeological, and cultural information about ancient Greece.