And as one goes into the portico, which they call _The Painted
Chamber_ from the paintings, there is a brazen statue of Hermes of the
Market-Place, and a gate near, and by it is a trophy of the Athenians
who overcame Plistarchus in a cavalry engagement, who, being the
brother of Cassander, had brought his cavalry and a foreign force
against them. Now, this portico has first the Athenians drawn up in
battle array, at Œnoe in Argive territory, against the Lacedæmonians:
and it is painted not in the height of the action, nor when the time
had come for the display of reckless valour in the heady fight, but
at the commencement of the engagement, and when they were just coming
to blows. And in the middle of the walls are painted the Athenians
and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. Now these are the only women
as it seems from whom reverses in war did not take away a relish for
danger; for after the capture of Themiscyra by Hercules, and later on
after the destruction of the army which they sent against Athens, they
yet went to Ilium and fought with the Athenians and other Greeks. And
next to the Amazons you may see painted the Greeks at the capture of
Ilium, and the kings gathered together on account of Ajax’s violence to
Cassandra: and the painting has Ajax himself, and Cassandra among the
other captive women. And at the end of the painting are the Greeks that
fought at Marathon, of the Bœotians the Platæans, and all the Attic
contingent are marching against the barbarians. And in this part of
the painting the valour is equal on both sides, but in the middle of
the battle the barbarians are fleeing and pushing one another into the
marsh. And at the end of this painting are the Phœnician ships, and the
Greeks slaying the barbarians who are trying to get on board. Here too
is a painting of the hero Marathon from whom the plain is named, and
Theseus in the guise of putting out to sea, and Athene and Hercules:
for by the people of Marathon first, as they themselves allege, was
Hercules considered a god. And of the combatants there stand out most
plainly in the painting Callimachus, who was chosen by the Athenians
as Polemarch, and Miltiades, one of the generals, and the hero who
was called Echetlus, of whom I shall make mention hereafter. Here
also are fixed up brazen shields, and these have an inscription that
they are from the Scionæans and their allies, and others smeared over
with pitch, that neither time nor rust should hurt them, are said to
have belonged to the Lacedæmonians who were captured in the island of
Sphacteria.