In the temple of Athene Polias is a Hermes of wood, (said to be a
votive offering of Cecrops,) almost hidden by myrtle leaves. And of
the antique votive offerings worthy of record, is a folding chair
the work of Dædalus, and spoils taken from the Persians, as a coat
of mail of Masistius, who commanded the cavalry at Platæa, and a
scimetar said to have belonged to Mardonius. Masistius we know was
killed by the Athenian cavalry: but as Mardonius fought against the
Lacedæmonians and was killed by a Spartan, they could not have got
it at first hand, nor is it likely that the Lacedæmonians would have
allowed the Athenians to carry off such a trophy. And about the olive
they have nothing else to tell but that the goddess used it as a proof
of her right to the country when it was contested by Poseidon. And
they record also that this olive was burnt when the Persians set fire
to Athens, but though burnt it grew the same day two cubits. And next
to the temple of Athene is the temple of Pandrosus; who was the only
one of the three sisters who didn’t peep into the forbidden chest.
Now the things I most marvelled at are not universally known. I will
therefore write of them as they occur to me. Two maidens live not far
from the temple of Athene Polias, and the Athenians call them the
_carriers of the holy things_: for a certain time they live with the
goddess, but when her festival comes they act in the following way by
night. Putting upon their heads what the priestess of Athene gives them
to carry, (neither she nor they know what these things are,) these
maidens descend, by a natural underground passage, from an enclosure
in the city sacred to Aphrodite of the Gardens. In the sanctuary below
they deposit what they carry, and bring back something else closely
wrapped up. And these maidens they henceforth dismiss, and other two
they elect instead of them for the Acropolis. And near the temple of
Athene is an old woman, about a cubit in size, well-modelled, with an
inscription saying that she is the handmaid Lysimache, and there are
large brazen statues of two men standing apart as for a fight: the one
they call Erechtheus and the other Eumolpus. And yet all that know
Athenian Antiquities are aware that it was Eumolpus’ son, Immaradus,
that was slain by Erechtheus. And at the base are statues of Tolmides’
prophet, and Tolmides himself, who was the Athenian Admiral, and did
great damage especially to the maritime region of the Peloponnesians,
and burnt the dockyards of the Lacedæmonians at Gythium, and took Bœæ
in the neighbouring country, and the island of Cytherus, and made a
descent on Sicyonia, and, when the Sicyonians fought against him as
he was ravaging their land, routed them and pursued them up to the
city. And afterwards when he returned to Athens, he conducted colonies
of the Athenians to Eubœa and Naxos, and attacked the Bœotians with
a land force: and, having laid waste most of the country, and taken
Chæronea after a siege, when he got to Haliartia was himself killed in
battle and his whole army defeated. Such I learnt were the fortunes
of Tolmides. And there are old statues of Athene: they are entire but
rather grimy, and too weak to bear a knock, for fire passed upon them
when Xerxes found the city bare of fighting men, as they had all gone
to man the fleet. There is also a representation of a boar-hunt, (about
which I know nothing for certain unless it is the Calydonian boar,) and
of the fight between Cycnus and Hercules. This Cycnus they say killed
among others the Thracian Lycus in a prize fight: but was himself
slain by Hercules near the river Peneus.
Of the legends that they tell at Trœzen about Theseus one is that
Hercules, visiting Pittheus at Trœzen, threw down during dinner his
lion’s skin, and that several Trœzenian lads came into the room with
Theseus, who was seven years of age at most. They say that all the
other boys when they saw the lion’s skin fled helter skelter, but
Theseus not being afraid kept his ground, and plucked an axe from one
of the servants, and began to attack it fiercely, thinking the skin
was a live lion. This is the first Trœzenian legend about him. And
the next is that Ægeus put his boots and sword under a stone as means
of identifying his son, and then sailed away to Athens, and Theseus
when he was eighteen lifted the stone and removed what Ægeus had left
there. And this legend is worked in bronze, all but the stone, in the
Acropolis. They have also delineated another exploit of Theseus. This
is the legend. A bull was ravaging the Cretan territory both elsewhere
and by the river Tethris. In ancient times it appears wild beasts
were more formidable to men, as the Nemean and Parnasian lions, and
dragons in many parts of Greece, and boars at Calydon and Erymanthus
and Crommyon in Corinth, of whom it was said that some sprang out of
the ground, and others were sacred to the gods, and others sent for
the punishment of human beings. And this bull the Cretans say Poseidon
sent into their land, because Minos, who was master of the Grecian sea,
held Poseidon in no greater honour than any other god. And they say
that this bull crossed over from Crete to the Peloponnese, and that one
of the twelve Labours of Hercules was to fetch it to Eurystheus. And
when it was afterwards let go on the Argive plain, it fled through the
Isthmus of Corinth, and into Attica to the township of Marathon, and
killed several people whom it met, and among them Androgeos the son
of Minos. And Minos sailed to Athens, (for he could not be persuaded
that the Athenians had had no hand in the death of Androgeos,) and did
great damage, until it was covenanted to send annually seven maidens
and seven boys to Crete to the Minotaur, who was fabled to live in the
Labyrinth at Gnossus. As to the bull that had got to Marathon, it is
said to have been driven by Theseus into the Acropolis, and sacrificed
to Athene. And the township of Marathon has a representation of it.