User:Cynwolfe/Chest of Cypselus

The Chest of Cypselus was a famous Corinthian piece of woodworking that was displayed at the Temple of Hera at Olympia. It was made of cedar, with FOUR OR FIVE? carved bands illustrating scenes from myths. The figures were highlighted with ivory and gold. In the 2nd century AD, Pausanias gave a detailed firsthand description. The chest is also mentioned by Dio Chrysostom, who says he saw it in the opisthodomos (a back room) of the temple.

The chest was named for the semi-legendary Cypselus, the first "tyrant" (tyrannos) of Corinth and the founder of the line of Cypselid rulers. According to a legend which resembles the birth myth of Perseus, the chest was the very one in which the infant Cypselus had been hidden by his mother, Labda, when she learned that the Delphic oracle had xxxxxxx.

Semele and Dionysus put in chest with Dionysus Pausanias 3.24.2 the mother of Cypselus to have hidden him as an infant in it becase of xxxxxxxxx. Pausanias says it was the actual chest in which Cypselus was hidden, and that his family dedicated it at the temple. Dio Chyrsostom says Cypselus himself made the dedication.

This tradition, if it has a historical basis, dates the chest to no later than 582 BC, after which time the dynasty of the Cypselids had ended. If its association with the childhood of Cypselus has any historicity, the chest could have been made any time before 657 BC, when Cypselus became tyrannos of Corinth. Pausanias thought, perhaps erroneously, that verses carved on the chest were composed by Eumelus of Corinth, which would place it as early as the 8th century.