Book 2
29.7
Wrought in relief at the entrance are the envoys whom the Greeks once dispatched to Aeacus. The reason for the embassy given by the Aeginetans is the same as that which the other Greeks assign. A drought had for some time afflicted Greece, and no rain fell either beyond the Isthmus or in the Peloponnesus, until at last they sent envoys to Delphi to ask what was the cause and to beg for deliverance from the evil. The Pythian priestess bade them propitiate Zeus, saying that he would not listen to them unless the one to supplicate him were Aeacus.
29.8
And so envoys came with a request to Aeacus from each city. By sacrifice and prayer to Zeus, God of all the Greeks (Panellenios), he caused rain to fall upon the earth, and the Aeginetans made these likenesses of those who came to him. Within the enclosure are olive trees that have grown there from of old, and there is an altar which is raised but a little from the ground. That this altar is also the tomb of Aeacus is told as a holy secret.
