DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.800#0178
lfiO
ANCIENT ATHENS.
the circumstance that on his return, being driven to Carystus, in Euboea,
by a storm, they despatched some ships of war to bring him home, with
a silver-footed couch on which to enter the city. The whole population
flocked out as he approached Athens, expecting some wonderful tidings
from Mithridates ; but the wiser part could not help admiring the freaks
of fortune on contrasting the pomp of his entry, exceeding any the
Eomans had indulged in, with his former state of a poor schoolmaster
in a ragged cloak. The actors and others connected with the Dionysiac
theatre especially welcomed him, hailing him as the messenger of the
new Dionysus, and invited him to the hearth of their guild to partici-
pate in their prayers and sacrifices. Instead of his former hired
lodgings, he now dwelt in the house of one of the richest men in
Athens, brilliant with embroidery, pictures, statues, and plate. When
he went abroad in a splendid chlamys, and wearing a golden ring
engraved with the head of Mithridates, he was preceded and followed
by a crowd of slaves, and those thought themselves happy who could
but get near enough to him to touch the hem of his garment.
The day after his arrival, a great crowd, both citizens and strangers,
assembled spontaneously in the agora to hear what he had to tell
them. Having ascended the rostra placed before the stoa of Attalus
for the use of the Eoman praetors, he began with a good deal of affec-
tation and grimace to magnify and extol the power of Mithridates;
then, after pausing a while to let his speech take full effect, he pro-
ceeded to exhort his auditors no longer to endure the state in which they
were, a state of anarchy purposely prolonged by the Eoman senate in
settling what form of government they would have. " Let us," he
exclaimed, " no longer submit to see our closed temples, and squalid
gymnasia, our deserted theatre, our dumb tribunals, our Pnyx, conse-
crated by divine oracles, ravished from the people! ■ Shall we endure
the sacred voice of Iacchus to be silenced, the venerable temple of the
Eleusinian goddesses to be shut up,1 and the schools of the philosophers
to be reduced to silence ? "
1 Such seems to be the meaning, as avaKropov rolv Bcdiv KtAft/ttvov (Atlien.
Casaubon observes, of the words ri o-epvov v. 51). They would • also apply to the
ANCIENT ATHENS.
the circumstance that on his return, being driven to Carystus, in Euboea,
by a storm, they despatched some ships of war to bring him home, with
a silver-footed couch on which to enter the city. The whole population
flocked out as he approached Athens, expecting some wonderful tidings
from Mithridates ; but the wiser part could not help admiring the freaks
of fortune on contrasting the pomp of his entry, exceeding any the
Eomans had indulged in, with his former state of a poor schoolmaster
in a ragged cloak. The actors and others connected with the Dionysiac
theatre especially welcomed him, hailing him as the messenger of the
new Dionysus, and invited him to the hearth of their guild to partici-
pate in their prayers and sacrifices. Instead of his former hired
lodgings, he now dwelt in the house of one of the richest men in
Athens, brilliant with embroidery, pictures, statues, and plate. When
he went abroad in a splendid chlamys, and wearing a golden ring
engraved with the head of Mithridates, he was preceded and followed
by a crowd of slaves, and those thought themselves happy who could
but get near enough to him to touch the hem of his garment.
The day after his arrival, a great crowd, both citizens and strangers,
assembled spontaneously in the agora to hear what he had to tell
them. Having ascended the rostra placed before the stoa of Attalus
for the use of the Eoman praetors, he began with a good deal of affec-
tation and grimace to magnify and extol the power of Mithridates;
then, after pausing a while to let his speech take full effect, he pro-
ceeded to exhort his auditors no longer to endure the state in which they
were, a state of anarchy purposely prolonged by the Eoman senate in
settling what form of government they would have. " Let us," he
exclaimed, " no longer submit to see our closed temples, and squalid
gymnasia, our deserted theatre, our dumb tribunals, our Pnyx, conse-
crated by divine oracles, ravished from the people! ■ Shall we endure
the sacred voice of Iacchus to be silenced, the venerable temple of the
Eleusinian goddesses to be shut up,1 and the schools of the philosophers
to be reduced to silence ? "
1 Such seems to be the meaning, as avaKropov rolv Bcdiv KtAft/ttvov (Atlien.
Casaubon observes, of the words ri o-epvov v. 51). They would • also apply to the