The Spartan flagellation rite that two ancient writers described differently

The diamastigosis was a ritual flagellation of young Spartans, called ephebes, in front of the goddess's wooden statue, the xoanon. Many scholars believe the goddess was originally known simply as Orthia—“the erect” or “upright”—and that Artemis was incorporated into the cult only in the second century BC.

Xenophon and Pausanias, writing more than five hundred years apart, left accounts of the rite that differ, and there is no authoritative explanation for the differences. Some scholars conjecture that each author described the ritual as it was performed in his own time, but that still leaves no decisive answer about what really happened, or when.