Next to the temple of Æsculapius as you go to the Acropolis is the
temple of Themis. And before it is the sepulchre of Hippolytus. His
death they say came to him in consequence of the curses of his father.
But the story of the guilty love of Phædra, and the bold forwardness
of her nurse, is well known even to any barbarians who know Greek.
There is also a tomb of Hippolytus among the Træzenians, and their
legend is as follows. When Theseus intended to marry Phædra, not
wishing if he had children by her that Hippolytus should either be
their subject or king, he sent him to Pittheus, to be brought up at
Træzen and to be king there. And some time after Pallas and his sons
revolted against Theseus, and he having slain them went to Træzen to
be purified of the murder, and there Phædra first saw Hippolytus, and
became desperately enamoured of him, and (being unsuccessful in her
suit) contrived his death. And the people of Træzen have a myrtle whose
leaves are perforated throughout, and they say it did not grow like
that originally, but was the work of Phædra which she performed in her
love-sickness with her hairpin. And Theseus established the worship
of the Pandemian Aphrodite and of Persuasion, when he combined the
Athenians into one city from several townships. Their old statues did
not exist in my time: but those in my time were by no mean artists.
There is also a temple to Earth, the Rearer of Children, and to
Demeter as Chloe. The meaning of these names may be learnt from the
priests by enquirers. To the Acropolis there is only one approach: it
allows of no other, being everywhere precipitous and walled off. The
vestibules have a roof of white marble, and even now are remarkable
both for their beauty and size. As to the statues of the horsemen I
cannot say with precision, whether they are the sons of Xenophon, or
merely put there for decoration. On the right of the vestibules is
the shrine of Wingless Victory. From it the sea is visible, and there
Ægeus drowned himself as they say. For the ship which took his sons
to Crete had black sails, but Theseus told his father, (for he knew
there was some peril in attacking the Minotaur), that he would have
white sails, if he should sail back a conqueror. But he forgot this
promise in his loss of Ariadne. And Ægeus seeing the ship with black
sails, thinking his son was dead, threw himself in and was drowned.
And the Athenians have a hero-chapel to his memory. And on the left
of the vestibules is a building with paintings: and among those that
time has not destroyed are Diomede and Odysseus, the one taking away
Philoctetes’ bow in Lemnos, the other taking the Palladium from Ilium.
Among other paintings here is Ægisthus being slain by Orestes, and
Pylades slaying the sons of Nauplius that came to Ægisthus’ aid. And
Polyxena about to have her throat cut near the tomb of Achilles. Homer
did well not to mention this savage act. He also appears to me to have
done well, in his account of the capture of Scyrus by Achilles, to have
said not a word about what others relate, of Achilles having lived
at Scyrus among the maidens, which Polygnotus has painted; who has
also painted Odysseus suddenly making his appearance as Nausicaa and
her maids were bathing in the river, just as Homer has described it.
And among other paintings is Alcibiades, and there are traces in the
painting of the victory of his horses at Nemea. There too is Perseus
sailing to Seriphus, carrying to Polydectes the head of Medusa. But I
am not willing to tell the story of Medusa under ‘Attica.’ And, among
other paintings, to pass over the lad carrying the waterpots, and the
wrestler painted by Timænetus, is one of Musæus. I have read verses in
which it is recorded that Musæus could fly as a gift of Boreas, but
it seems to me that Onomacritus wrote the lines, and there is nothing
certainly of Musæus’ composition except the Hymn to Demeter written
for the Lycomidæ. And at the entrance to the Acropolis is a Hermes,
whom they call Propylæus, and the Graces, which they say were the
work of Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, whom the Pythian priestess
testified to have been the wisest of men, a thing which was not said to
Anacharsis, though he went to Delphi on purpose.