Listed 6 sub titles with search on: Monuments reported by ancient authors for destination: "THESPIES Ancient city VIOTIA".
Lysippus made a bronze Love for the Thespians, and previously Praxiteles one of Pentelic marble. The first to remove the image of Love, it is said, was Gaius the Roman Emperor; Claudius, they say, sent it back to Thespiae, but Nero carried it away a second time.At Rome the image perished by fire. Of the pair who sinned against the god, Gaius was killed by a private soldier, just as he was giving the password; he had made the soldier very angry by always giving the same password with a covert sneer. The other, Nero, in addition to his violence to his mother, committed accursed and hateful crimes against his wedded wives. The modern Love at Thespiae was made by the Athenian Menodorus, who copied the work of Praxiteles.
Statue made by Praxiteles himself.
Statue made by Praxiteles himself.
In Thespiae there is a bronze image of Zeus Saviour. They say about it that when a dragon once was devastating their city, the god commanded that every year one of their youths, upon whom the lot fell, should be offered to the monster.
The priestess there is a virgin, who acts as such until she dies. Heracles, they say, had intercourse with the fifty daughters of Thestius, except one, in a single night. She was the only one who refused to have connection with him. Heracles,thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest. But I cannot think it credible that Heracles would rise to such a pitch of wrath against a daughter of a friend. Moreover, while he was still among men, punishing them for insolence, and especially such as were impious towards the gods, he would not himself have set up a temple and appointed a priestess to himself, just as though he were a god.
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites
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