Pausanias Analysis

There is a street running from the Prytaneion, known as the "Street of the Tripods." The place is named after it, and temples stand there which, although not especially large, support bronze tripods containing reliefs particularly worthy of remembrance. Among them is a satyr, of which Praxiteles is said to have held a very high opinion. Once, when Phryne asked him which of his own creations he thought most beautiful, they say that, as her lover, he agreed to give it to her, yet was unwilling to state directly which seemed best to him. So a servant of Phryne ran in and announced to Praxiteles that most of his works had been destroyed by fire which had broken out at his workshop—though not all of his works had perished.

Immediately Praxiteles rushed out through the doors, saying that he had labored in vain if indeed the flames had taken both the Satyr and the Eros. But Phryne urged him to be calm and remain, since no harm had occurred, yet by his agitation he unknowingly revealed to her clearly which pieces he considered the most beautiful of all he had made. By this stratagem, Phryne chose for herself the Eros. As for the Satyr, it is represented in the nearby temple of Dionysus—the figure of a boy offering a drinking-cup. And Thymilos created the group showing the standing figures of Eros and Dionysus together.

The oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is beside the theatre, and within its enclosure there are two temples and two images of Dionysus: Dionysus Eleuthereus and another made of ivory and gold by Alcamenes. There are paintings here as well, depicting Dionysus guiding Hephaestus up to heaven. The Greeks also recount this story: after Hera cast Hephaestus out at his birth, he harboured resentment against her and sent her, as a gift, a golden throne furnished with invisible bonds, and when she sat upon it she was immediately bound fast. None of the gods could persuade Hephaestus to free her except Dionysus, whom Hephaestus trusted above all others. Dionysus, therefore, made him drunk and brought him back to heaven. These scenes are depicted here, along with Pentheus and Lycurgus paying the penalty for their insults against Dionysus, Ariadne asleep, Theseus setting sail, and Dionysus arriving to carry off Ariadne.

Near the sanctuary of Dionysus and the theater there is a structure said to have been formed to imitate Xerxes' tent. It was built a second time, the original having been burned by Sulla, a Roman general, when he captured Athens. The cause of this war was as follows. Mithridates ruled over the barbarians around the Euxine Sea. Concerning the pretext by which he waged war against the Romans, how he crossed into Asia, and how many cities he seized by force of arms or won over as allies—let these matters be the concern of those who wish to know Mithridates' affairs. I shall relate only what pertains to the capture of Athens.

Aristion was an Athenian employed by Mithridates on embassies to the Greek cities. It was Aristion who persuaded the Athenians to side with Mithridates against the Romans. Yet he did not convince them all, but only the populace and the turbulent faction among them; those Athenians of reputation went voluntarily over to the Romans. When battle ensued, the Romans prevailed decisively. Aristion and the Athenians fled into the city, pursued by the Romans, while Archelaus and the barbarians withdrew into Piraeus. Archelaus also was one of Mithridates' generals; earlier, he had invaded the territory of the Magnesians dwelling around Sipylus, where these Magnesians wounded Archelaus himself and slew most of his barbarian forces.

The Athenians were under siege, and Taxilus, a general of Mithridates, was at that time besieging Elateia in Phocis. But upon the arrival of messengers, he withdrew his forces from there and began leading them toward Attica. Learning of these events, the Roman general left part of his army to continue the siege of Athens, while he himself, commanding the greater strength of his forces, advanced into Boeotia to confront Taxilus. On the third day afterward, messengers reached both Roman camps: to Sulla came the news that the Athenians' wall had fallen, and to those besieging Athens word came that Taxilus had been defeated in a battle near Chaeronea. When Sulla returned to Attica, he imprisoned those Athenians who had resisted him in the Cerameicus, and then ordered one from every ten of them, drawn by lot, to be led away to execution.

As Sulla was relentless in his anger against the Athenians, certain men secretly fled to Delphi. When they asked if it were now fated that Athens itself should perish utterly, the Pythia gave them that oracle about the wineskin. Later, Sulla was afflicted with the very disease that, as I learn, also seized Pherecydes of Syros. Now, Sulla indeed had treated the majority of Athenians more cruelly than might have been expected even from a Roman. Nevertheless, I myself do not think that this was the cause of his misfortune, but rather the wrath of Hikesios, because Sulla forcibly removed Aristion, who had sought refuge in the sanctuary of Athena, and put him to death. Athens, thus sorely afflicted by the Roman war, once again flourished under the reign of Emperor Hadrian.