Now the Athenians have statues in the theatre of their tragic and
comic dramatists, mostly mediocrities, for except Menander there is no
Comedian of first-rate powers, and Euripides and Sophocles are the
great lights of Tragedy. And the story goes that after the death of
Sophocles the Lacedæmonians made an incursion into Attica, and their
leader saw in a dream Dionysus standing by him, and bidding him honour
the new Siren with all the honours paid to the dead: and the dream
seemed manifestly to refer to Sophocles and his plays. And even now
the Athenians are wont to compare the persuasiveness of his poetry and
discourses to a Siren’s song. And the statue of Æschylus was I think
completed long after his death, and subsequently to the painting which
exhibits the action at Marathon. And Æschylus used to tell the story
that when he was quite a lad, he slept in a field watching the grapes,
and Dionysus appeared to him and bade him write tragedy: and when
it was day, he wished to obey the god, and found it most easy work.
This was his own account. And on the South Wall, which looks from the
Acropolis to the theatre, is the golden head of Medusa the Gorgon,
with her ægis. And at the top of the theatre there is a crevice in
the rocks up to the Acropolis: and there is a tripod also here. On it
are pourtrayed Apollo and Artemis carrying off the sons of Niobe. I
myself saw this Niobe when I ascended the mountain Sipylus: the rock
and ravine at near view convey neither the idea of a woman, nor a woman
mourning, but at a distance you may fancy to yourself that you see a
woman all tears and with dejected mien.
As you go from the theatre to the Acropolis is the tomb of Calus.
This Calus, his sister’s son and art-pupil, Dædalus murdered and fled
to Crete: and afterwards escaped into Sicily to Cocalus. And the temple
of Æsculapius, in regard to the statues of the god and his sons and
also the paintings, is well worth seeing. And there is in it a spring,
in which they say Halirrhothius the son of Poseidon was drowned by
Ares for having seduced his daughter, and this was the first case of
trial for murder. Here too among other things is a Sarmatic coat of
mail: anyone looking at it will say that the Sarmatians come not a whit
behind the Greeks in the arts. For they have neither iron that they
can dig nor do they import it, for they have less idea of barter than
any of the barbarians in those parts. This deficiency they meet by the
following invention. On their spears they have bone points instead
of iron, and bows and arrows of cornel wood, and bone points to their
arrows: and they throw lassoes at the enemy they meet in battle, and
gallop away and upset them when they are entangled in these lassoes.
And they make their coats of mail in the following manner. Everyone
rears a great many mares, being as they are a nomadic tribe, the land
not being divided into private allotments, and indeed growing nothing
but forest timber. These mares they use not only for war, and sacrifice
to the gods of the country, but also for food. And after getting
together a collection of hoofs they clean them and cut them in two, and
make of them something like dragons’ scales. And whoever has not seen
a dragon has at any rate seen a pine nut still green: anyone therefore
comparing the state of the hoof to the incisions apparent on pine nuts
would get a good idea of what I mean. These they perforate, and having
sewn them together with ligaments of horses and oxen make them into
coats of mail no less handsome and strong than Greek coats of mail: for
indeed whether they are struck point-blank or shot at they are proof.
But linen coats of mail are not equally useful for combatants, for they
admit the keen thrust of steel, but are some protection to hunters, for
the teeth of lions and panthers break off against them. And you may see
linen coats of mail hung up in other temples and in the Gryneum, where
is a most beautiful grove of Apollo, where the trees both cultivated
and wild please equally both nose and eye.