CHAPTER XXII.
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.