According to Herodotus the Bacchiadae heard two prophecies from the Delphic oracle that the son of Eëtion would overthrow their dynasty, and they planned to kill the baby once it was born; however, Herodotus says that the newborn smiled at each of the men sent to kill it, and none of them could go through with the plan. An etiological myth-element, to account for the name Cypselus (cf. κυψέλη, kypsele, "chest") accounted how Labda then hid the baby in a chest, and when the men had composed themselves and returned to kill it, they could not find it. (Compare the infancy of Perseus.) The cedar chest of Cypselus, richly worked with mythological narratives and adorned with ivory and gold, was a votive offering at Olympia, where Pausanias gave it a detailed description in his 2nd century AD travel guide.Pausanias, 5.18.7.
