Now there is a way from the Prytaneum called _The Tripods_, so called
from some large temples of the gods there and some brazen tripods in
them, which contain many works of art especially worthy of mention. For
there is a Satyr on which Praxiteles is said to have prided himself
very much: and when Phryne once asked which was the finest of his
works, they say that he offered to give it her like a lover, but would
not say which he thought his finest work. A servant of Phryne at this
moment ran up, and said that most of Praxiteles’ works were destroyed
by a sudden fire that had seized the building where they were, but
that they were not all burnt. Praxiteles at once rushed out of doors,
and said he had nothing to show for all his labour, if the flames had
consumed his Satyr and Cupid. Phryne then bade him stay and be of good
cheer, for he had suffered no such loss, but it was only her artifice
to make him confess which were his finest works. She then selected the
Cupid. And in the neighbouring temple is a boy Satyr handing a cup to
Dionysus. And there is a painting by Thymilus of Cupid standing near
Dionysus. But the most ancient temple of Dionysus is at the theatre.
And inside the sacred precincts are two shrines of Dionysus and two
statues of him, one by Eleuthereus, and one by Alcamenes in ivory and
gold. There is a painting also of Dionysus taking Hephæstus to Heaven.
And this is the story the Greeks tell. Hera exposed Hephæstus on his
birth, and he nursing up his grievance against her sent her as a gift a
golden seat with invisible bonds, so that when she sat in it she was a
prisoner, and Hephæstus would not obey any of the gods, and Dionysus,
whose relations with Hephæstus were always good, made him drunk and
took him to Heaven. There are paintings also of Pentheus and Lycurgus
paying the penalty for their insults to Dionysus, and of Ariadne
asleep, Theseus putting out to sea, and Dionysus coming to carry her
off. And there is near the temple of Dionysus and the theatre a work
of art, said to have been designed in imitation of Xerxes’ tent. It
is a copy, for the original one was burnt by Sulla the Roman general
when he took Athens. And this is how the war came about. Mithridates
was king of the barbarians in the neighbourhood of the Euxine Sea.
Now his pretext for fighting against the Romans, and how he crossed
into Asia, and the cities he reduced by war or won over by diplomacy,
let those who wish to know the whole history of Mithridates concern
themselves about all this: I shall merely relate the circumstances
attending the capture of Athens. There was an Athenian called Aristion,
whom Mithridates employed as ambassador to the Greek States: he
persuaded the Athenians to prefer the friendship of Mithridates to
that of the Romans. However he persuaded only the democracy and the
fiercer spirits, for as to the more respectable Athenians they of
their own accord joined the Romans. And in the battle that ensued the
Romans were easily victorious, and pursued Aristion and the fleeing
Athenians to the city, and Archelaus and the barbarians to the Piræus.
Now Archelaus was the general of Mithridates, whom before this the
Magnesians who inhabit Sipylus wounded, as he was ravaging their
territory, and killed many of the barbarians. So Athens was blockaded,
and Taxilus another general of Mithridates happened to be investing
Elatea in the Phocian district, but when tidings of this came to him he
withdrew his forces into Attica. And the Roman general learning this
left part of his army to continue the siege of Athens, but himself went
with the greater part of his force to encounter Taxilus in Bœotia. And
the third day after news came to both the Roman camps, to Sulla that
the walls at Athens had been carried, and to the force besieging Athens
that Taxilus had been defeated at Chæronea. And when Sulla returned
to Attica, he shut up in the Ceramicus all his Athenian adversaries,
and ordered them to be decimated by lot. And Sulla’s rage against the
Athenians not a whit relaxing, some of them secretly went to Delphi:
and when they enquired if it was absolutely fated that Athens should be
destroyed, the Pythian priestess gave them an oracular response about
the bladder.[4] And Sulla after this had the same complaint with which
I learn Pherecydes the Syrian was visited. And the conduct of Sulla
to most of the Athenians was more savage than one would have expected
from a Roman: but I do not consider this the cause of his malady, but
the wrath of Zeus the God of Suppliants, because when Aristion fled for
refuge to the temple of Athene he tore him away and put him to death.
Athens being thus injured by the war with the Romans flourished again
when Adrian was Emperor.