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Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theater is a structure, which is said to be a copy of Xerxes' tent. It has been rebuilt, for the old building was burnt by the Roman general Sulla when he took
There was an Athenian, Aristion, whom Mithridates employed as his envoy to the Greek cities. He induced the Athenians to join Mithridates rather than the Romans, although he did not induce all, but only the lower orders, and only the turbulent among them. The respectable Athenians fled to the Romans of their own accord. In the engagement that ensued the Romans won a decisive victory; Aristion and the Athenians they drove in flight into the city, Archelaus and the foreigners into the Peiraeus. This Archelaus was another general of Mithridates, whom earlier than this the Magnetes, who inhabit Sipylus, wounded when he raided their territory, killing most of the foreigners as well. So
Taxilus, a general of Mithridates, was at the time besieging Elatea in
Sulla abated nothing of his wrath against the Athenians, and so a few effected an escape to
Such wise was
ch. 21
1.21.1
In the theater the Athenians have portrait statues of poets, both tragic and comic, but they are mostly of undistinguished persons. With the exception of Menander no poet of comedy represented here won a reputation, but tragedy has two illustrious representatives, Euripides and Sophocles. There is a legend that after the death of Sophocles the Lacedaemonians invaded The likeness of Aeschylus is, I think, much later than his death and than the painting which depicts the action at Marathon Aeschylus himself said that when a youth he slept while watching grapes in a field, and that Dionysus appeared and bade him write tragedy. When day came, in obedience to the vision, he made an attempt and hereafter found composing quite easy. Such were his words. On the South wall, as it is called, of the Acropolis, which faces the theater, there is dedicated a gilded head of Medusa the Gorgon, and round it is wrought an aegis. At the top of the theater is a cave in the rocks under the Acropolis. This also has a tripod over it, wherein are Apollo and Artemis slaying the children of Niobe. This Niobe I myself saw when I had gone up to Mount Sipylus. When you are near it is a beetling crag, with not the slightest resemblance to a woman, mourning or otherwise; but if you go further away you will think you see a woman in tears, with head bowed down.
On the way to the Athenian Acropolis from the theater is the tomb of Calos. Daedalus murdered this Calos, who was his sister's son and a student of his craft, and therefore he fled to
Pausanias, Description of Greece (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Paus.]. | ||
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