Book 6
2.10
Beside this is the Messenian Damiscus, who won an Olympic victory at the age of twelve. I was exceedingly surprised to learn that while the Messenians were in exile from the Peloponnesus, their luck at the Olympic games failed. For with the exception of Leontiscus and Symmachus, who came from Messene on the Strait, we know of no Messenian, either from Sicily or from Naupactus, who won a victory at Olympia. Even these two are said by the Sicilians to have been not Messenians but of old Zanclean blood.
2.11
However, when the Messenians came back to the Peloponnesus their luck in the Olympic games came with them. For at the festival celebrated by the Eleans in the year after the settlement of Messene, the foot-race for boys was won by this Damiscus, who afterwards won in the pentathlum both at Nemea and at the Isthmus.
3.1
Nearest to Damiscus stands a statue of somebody; they do not give his name, but it was Ptolemy son of Lagus who set up the offering. In the inscription Ptolemy calls himself a Macedonian, though he was king of Egypt. On Chaereas of Sicyon, a boy boxer, is an inscription that he won a victory when a young man, and that his father was Chaeremon; the name of the artist who made the statue is also written, Asterion son of Aeschylus.
