"That queer snub-nosed man back of Sophocles is Socrates the philosopher," he said. "He is a friend of Pericles also, though he is poor and queer, and is always standing about the market-place talking to any one who will listen to him."
"Are there two philosophers in Athens?" asked Dion. "I thought Anaxagoras was the philosopher."
Melas laughed. "Philosophers are as thick in Athens as bees in a hive," he said, "and poets too."
The beautiful embroidered robe, borne on a chariot shaped like a ship, now appeared in the procession, and the crowd breathed a long sigh of wonder and admiration as it passed. Then came a long row of young girls bearing baskets and jars upon their shoulders. They were followed by older women, for women were allowed to take part in this festival. After them came youths on horseback, and then more youths leading garlanded oxen for the sacrifice. The procession was so long that the end of it was still winding through the streets below some time after the head had reached the top of the incline. Right up the steep slope it streamed, between the gaping crowds massed on either side, and when the very end of it had passed out of sight, the people closed in behind it and swarmed over the level height of the sacred hill.
Melas and the children pushed their way with the others, but the crowd was so great and the movement so slow that when at last they got near the sacred altars before the Erechtheum, the ceremonies were over and the air was already filled with smoke and the smell of roasting meat.
It was late afternoon before the feasting was over, and, meanwhile, the entire hill-top of the Acropolis was covered with moving crowds. As a part of the festival, there were all sorts of games and side shows. Dion and Daphne were so busy watching sword-swallowers, and tumblers, and men performing all sorts of strange and wonderful tricks, they almost forgot entirely the Gorgon's head with the snaky locks, which the Stranger had told them about, and which Dion so much wished to see. Daphne was the first to remember it.
"I'm going to see the new temple that Pericles is building over there.
Don't you want to see it, too?" said Melas to the Twins. "Where?" said
Dion. Melas pointed to a great heap of marble blocks toward the southern
side of the Acropolis. It was then that Daphne thought about the statue.
"Dion wants to see the Gorgon's head," she said.
"Well, then," answered Melas, "hurry up about it, for it is getting late and we must soon be starting for your uncle's house."
The two children trotted away toward the great bronze statue near the entrance without another word, and it was not until they were quite out of sight that Melas remembered he had not told them where to meet him.