pavement of the portico of a house, which we inhabited for some months, between the portal and the remnant of the gymnasium of Ptolemy, was a pedestal with an inscription almost effaced, in which he is styled Pontiff of the Augustan Deities.

From the plan and proportions of the ruin it has been inferred, that the fabric, to which the portal belonged, was not a temple. An edict of the emperor Hadrian inscribed on the jamb of a door-case, regulating the sale of oil and the duties to be levied on it, has been urged in favour of the opinion, that the portal was the entrance of the inclosure of the agora or market-place mentioned by Strabo, who lived to about the twelfth year of Tiberius Cæsar, as in a district of the city called Eretria. The Athenians, reduced in number are supposed to have removed it from the Ceramicus, where the blood of the citizens had streamed, to a spot more central and convenient; and to have employed the donations to their goddess on a public work of general utility.

The same me

The Athenians were a people ever ready to offer up the incense of flattery. A sophist, a favourite of the emperor Trajan, expostulates in one of his orations with the Rhodians, on the injustice and absurdity of their conduct. They freely decreed the honorary statue. The prætor selected one out of the great number, which adorned their city. The name was erased, and it was inscribed to a new owner. thod, he adds, was practised in other places and at Athens, which city deserved censure in many articles, and especially for its prostitution of public honours. He instances, the placing of the title Olympius on a noisy orator, a Phœnician, a native of an ignoble village; the placing the statue of a wretched poet, who had rehearsed at Rhodes, next to Menan

der; and a ridiculous inscription in compliment of Nicanor, the purchaser of the island Salamis. It was his opinion, that the Athenians had disgraced their city, and their predecessors; and, that the abject state of this people rendered Greece, of which it had been the head, an object of compas

sion.

Pausanias may be illustrated from this invective of the sophist. On entering Athens he observes near the temple of Ceres an equestrian statue, which represented Neptune throwing a spear at the giant Polybotes; but the inscription gave it then to another, and not to Neptune. The images of Miltiades and Themistocles in the Prytanéum were changed in the same manner into a Roman and a Thracian. The author has purposely concealed their names. The colossal statues of Attalus and Eumenes had been inscribed to Antony, and subverted by a hurricane. Of these he is silent. The statue of Menander graced the theatre of Bacchus; and he informs us in general that the images there were mostly of poets of inferior note. The presents bestowed by Julius Cæsar and Augustus did not reconcile the Athenians to their family. A few triremes, the remains of their navy, had been numbered in the fleet of Pompey. They had honoured Brutus and Cassius, joined Antony, and revolted from Augustus. Pausanias records the temples of Julius and Augustus in the agora of Sparta, but is reserved at Athens. In the Parthenon he knew the emperor Hadrian only. He could not for certain say, whether the equestrian statues before the acropolis were the sons of Xenophon, or others placed there for ornament. He affirms that evil having greatly increased and overspreading all countries and cities, no person, except in name and from flattery to his superior rank, was any longer converted

from a man into a god. He did not relish the human deities. He found at Athens abundant evidence of its ancient splendour, and saw the city reflourishing under the auspices of the emperor Hadrian. He would not revive the memory of its depression, by enlarging on the monuments of its inconsistent adulation. He passes by the temple of Rome and Augustus in the acropolis; will not acknowledge the emperor and Agrippa at the entrance; nor describe a fabric founded on the munificence of the first Cæsars, and adorned with all the divinities of the Julian family.

CHAP. XXII.

Athens the seat of philosophy-The way to the Academy - Of the Academy--Öf the Colonus Hippius-Gardens of Philosophers--The graves and sepulchres levelled-Site of the Academy.-Colonus Hippius--The river Cephissus.

ATHENS was the parent of philosophy as well as of eloquence. It had three celebrated gymnasia without the city, the Academy, the Lycéum, and Cynosarges; from which as many sects dated their origin, the Platonic, the Peripateric, and the Cynic; followers of Plato, of Aristotle, and Antisthenes. The stoic philosophy was instituted by Zeno in the stoa or portico named Pocile, and the garden of Epicurus was in the city.

The Academy was in the suburb without Dipylon, and distant from the gate only six stadia, or three quarters of a mile. On the way to it was a small temple of Diana, to which the image of Bacchus Eleutherus was annually borne in procession; then the tomb of Thrasybulus; and a little out of the

R

road, of Pericles, of Chabrias, Phormion, and the citizens who had died in battle, serving their country by sea or land. The public solemnized their obsequies, and they were honoured with funeral orations and games. The stele or pillars standing on the graves declared the name of each, and to what demos or borough he belonged. These perished honourably at different periods and in various actions. Some also of the Athenian allies were interred there, and Clisthenes, Conon, Timotheus, the philosophers Zeno and Chrysippus, Nicias an eminent painter, Harmodius and Aristogiton, the orator Ephialtes, and Lycurgus son of Lycophron, with many more of high renown. Not far from the Academy was the monument of Plato, and in this region was shewn the tower of Timon the man-hater. A miraculous tomb not far from Dipylon, on the left hand, is not mentioned by Pausanias. It was of earth, not large, and had on it a short pillar, which was always crowned with garlands. There Toxaris, a Scythian and physician, was buried. He was believed to continue to cure diseases, and was revered as a hero.

The Academy was once the possession of a private person, named Academus, who gave it to the people. Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, surrounded it with a wall. Cimon drained the low grounds near it. The spot, parched and squalid, was improved and rendered very pleasant. The walks were shaded with tall plane-trees, and cooled by running water. Before the entrance was an altar of Love; and, besides others, one of Prometheus, from which the race called Lampadophoria began. The winner was he who first reached the city with his lamp unextinguished. Plato commenced teaching at the Academy, then reputed unwholesome. Afterwards he

preferred a small garden by the Colonus Hippius, his own property. The Lacedæmonians spared the Academy, when they ravaged Attica; but Sylla, wanting timber for machines, cut down the grove there and at the Lycéum. The successors of Plato enjoyed a considerable revenue, which, in the subsequent ages, was greatly augmented by legacies, from persons desirous of contributing to the leisure and tranquillity of the philosophic life.

Colonus Hippius, the Equestrian Hill, was beyond the Academy, and distant ten stadia, a mile and a quarter, from the city. There was an altar of Equestrian Neptune and Minerva, with an heroum or monument of Pirithous and Theseus, of Ædipus, and of Adrastus. It was affirmed, that the unhappy Theban, an exile and suppliant, had rested there in the sacred portion of the Furies; but Pausanias preferred the authority of Homer. The grove and temple of Neptune had been burned by Antigonus. Sophocles was born and lived at the Colonus, and there were the copper mines.

The little garden of Epicurus in the city was on the side toward Dipylon, and by the road to the Academy. The teacher of ease, it is recorded, was the first who introduced that species of gratification, the enjoyment of the country in town. The garden of the philosopher Melanthius was opposite to the statue of Minerva Pæonia, which is mentioned as the first in the Mercuries. It was in the way to the Academy; for Lycurgus, son of Lycophron, with some of his descendants, was buried in it at the public expense. On the graves were placed flat slabs with inscriptions. The Lacydéum or garden of Lacydes was in the Academy.

By the destruction of Dipylon and the city-wall we are deprived of the ancient boundaries of Athens; and the town,