Dio Chrysotom ("Golden-Mouthed"), a philosophic and orator from Bitlunina of the first century C.E., addresses an imaginary Pheidias in his Olympian Oration (12.50-2), and extols the powers of his statue:

O best and noblest of,artists, that you have created a sweet and engaging sight an inescapable dekught for the vision, for all those Greeks and non-Greeks who have come here on many different occasions—this nobody will deny. For it would even overwhelm those beings in creation that have an irrational nature, the animals,if they could see this work. . . . And among men whoever might be burdened with pain in his soul, having borne many misfortunes and pains in his life, and-never being able to attain sweet sleep, even that man, I believe, standing before this image would forget all the terrible and harsh things which one must suffer...