Though I am but drifted desolate dust where once was Mycenae, though I am more obscure to see than any chance rock, he who looks on the famed city of Ilus, whose walls I trod down and emptied all the house of Priam, will know thence how great my former strength was; and if old age has done me outrage, I am content with Homer's testimony.
XXV AMPHIPOLIS ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA
City built upon Strymon and the broad Hellespont, grave of Edonian Phyllis, Amphipolis, yet there remain left to thee the traces of the temple of her of Aethopion and Brauron, and the water of the river so often fought around; but thee, once the high strife of the sons of Aegeus, we see like a torn rag of sea-purple on either shore.
XXVI SPARTA AUTHOR UNKNOWN
O Lacedaemon, once unsubdued and untrodden, thou seest shadeless the smoke of Olenian camp-fires on the Eurotas, and the birds building their nests on the ground wail for thee, and the wolves to do not hear any sheep.
XXVII BERYTUS AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Formerly the dead left their city living; but we living hold the city's funeral.
XXVIII SED TERRAE GRAVIORA LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM
Me, a hull that had measured such spaces of sea, fire consumed on the land that cut her pines to make me. Ocean brought me safe to shore; but I found her who bore me more treacherous than the sea.