Leading from the Prytaneion [‘City Hall’] is a road called Tripods [Tripodes]. The place [khōríon] takes its name from the shrines [nāoi], large enough to hold the tripods [tripodes] that stand upon them, of bronze, and containing works of artisanship that are most worthy of remembering [mnēmē], including a Satyr, of which Praxiteles is said to have thought-of [phroneîn] very highly. Once upon a time, Phryne asked him which of his works [erga] was the most beautiful of them all, and they say that he agreed to give that one as a gift [to her], but he refused to say which of his works appeared to him to be the most beautiful of them all. Well, a slave of Phryne rushed up to Praxiteles saying that a fire had broken out in his building and that the greater number of his works [erga] were lost, though not all were destroyed.

Praxiteles at once started to rush out the door saying that his labor was all lost if in fact the fire [phlox] had caught his Satyr and his Love [Eros]. But Phryne ordered him to stay and be of good courage, for he had suffered no grievous loss, but had been trapped into confessing which were the most beautiful of his works. So, Phryne chose the statue of Love [Eros]; meanwhile, a Satyr is in the temple of Dionysus close by—a boy holding out a cup. The Love [Eros] standing with him and the Dionysus were made by Thymilos.

The oldest sanctuary [hieron] of Dionysus is near the theater. Within the enclosure [peribolos] are two temples [nāoi] and two statues of Dionysus, the Eleuthereus [‘Deliverer’] and the one that Alkamenes made of ivory and gold. There are paintings [graphai] here. One of them shows Dionysus bringing up [an-agein] Hephaistos to the sky [ouranos]. And the following things are also said about this by the Greeks [Hellēnes]: Hephaistos, when he was born, was thrown down by Hērā. In revenge, he sent to her as a gift a golden throne [thronos] with invisible bonds [desmoi]. When Hērā sat down she was held bound, and Hephaistos refused to listen to any other of the gods except for Dionysus—in him he placed the fullest trust—and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to the sky [ouranos]. Also painted [on the wall painting] are Pentheus and Lycurgus (Lukourgos) paying the penalty [dikē] for having committed-outrage [hubrizein] against Dionysus; also Ariadne, asleep; Theseus, departing by sea; and Dionysus, arriving to abduct [harpazein] Ariadne.

Near the sanctuary [hieron] of Dionysus and the theater is a structure that is said to be a replica [mīmēsis] of the tent [skēnē] of Xerxes. It has been rebuilt, for the old building was burned down by the Roman general [stratēgos] Sulla when he captured Athens.¹ The cause [aitiā] of the war was this. Mithridates was king over the barbarians [barbaroi] around the Black Sea [Pontos Euxeinos]. Now his pretext [prophasis] for making war against the Romans, and how he crossed into Asia [Minor], and what cities he took by force of arms or made his friends, I must leave for those to find out who wish to know the things concerning Mithridates. What I will highlight here is the capture of Athens.

There was an Athenian, Aristion, whom Mithridates used as his envoy to the Greek [Hellēnides] cities. He persuaded the Athenians to join Mithridates rather than the Romans, although he did not persuade all, but only the common-people [dēmos] and, in particular, the most turbulent part of the common-people [dēmos]. But those Athenians who were of any account [logos] fled to the Romans of their own accord. In the engagement that followed, the Romans won a decisive victory; Aristion and the Athenians fled and were pursued right into the city [of Athens itself], while Arkhelaos and the barbarians were pursued right into the [harbor city of] Peiraieus. This Arkhelaos was another general of Mithridates, whom earlier than this the Magnesians who inhabit [oikeîn] the region of Mount Sipylos wounded when he raided their territory, killing most of the barbarians as well. So, Athens was besieged.

Taxilos, a general [stratēgos] of Mithridates, was at the time besieging Elateia in Phokis, but, on receiving the news, he withdrew his troops towards Attica. Learning this, the general [stratēgos] of the Romans entrusted the siege of Athens to a portion of his army, and with the greater part of his forces advanced in person to engage Taxilos in Boeotia. On the third day from this, news came to both the Roman armies; Sulla heard that the Athenian fortifications had been breached, and the besieging force learned that Taxilos had been defeated in battle near Khairōneia. When Sulla returned to Attica he rounded up inside the Kerameikos the Athenians who had opposed him, and one chosen by lot out of every ten he ordered to be led to execution.

Sulla did not relent in his anger against the Athenians, and so a few who managed to escape to Delphi inquired there whether the time had now come when it was fated for even Athens to become a deserted place. The Pythia said-in-an-oracular-pronouncement [khrē-] the-things-having-to-do-with the ‘wine-skin’ [askos]. Afterwards, Sulla was afflicted with that disease [nosos], which I learn also afflicted Pherecydes of Syros. Although Sulla treated the Athenian people in a way that was so savage as to be unseemly for a Roman, I do not think that this was the cause [aitiā] of his misfortune [sumphorā]. What caused it, rather, was I think the cosmic-anger [mēnīma] of the Lord-of-Suppliants [Hikesios], for he [= Sulla] had dragged Aristion from the sanctuary [hieron] of Athena, where he had sought asylum, and killed him. Thus was Athens afflicted by the war with Rome, but it blossomed [antheîn] again when Hadrian was-‘King’ [basileuein].