“Then comes Perseus again, in the adventure: which preceded the sea-monster. He is cutting off the head of Medusa, and Athena is shielding him. He has done the daring deed, but has not looked, except at the reflection of the Gorgon in the shield, for he knows the cost of looking at the reality.

“In the middle of the wall, above the posternOr perhaps, “rear window.” is constructed a shrine of Athena. The goddess is ‘of marble, and is not in harness but as a war-goddess. would appear when at peace.

“Then we have another Athena, not of marble this time, but in colours as before. Hephaestus is pursuing her amorously; she is running away and Erichthonius is being engendered of the chase. Mother Earth gave birth to him, not Athena.

"On this there follows another prehistoric picture. Orion, who is blind, is carrying Cedalion, and the latter, riding on his back, is showing him the way to the sunlight.

"The rising sun is healing the blindness of Orion, and Hephaestus views the incident from Lemnos.

“Odysseus is next, feigning madness because he does not want to make the campaign with the sons of Atreus. The ambassadors are there to summon him, All the details of his pretence are true to life—the wagon, the ill-matched team, He yoked an ass and an ox together. the folly of his actions. He is shown up, however, by means of his child. Palamedes, son of Nauplius, comprehending the situation, seizes Telemachus and threatens, sword in hand, to kill him, meeting Odysseus’ pretence of madness with a pretence of anger. In the face of this fright Odysseus grows sane, becomes a father and abandons his pretence.

“Last of all Medea is pictured aflame with jealousy, looking askance at her two boys with a terrible purpose in her mind—indeed, she already has her sword—while the poor children sit there laughing, unsuspicious of the future, although they see the sword in her hands.

“Do you not see, gentlemen of the jury, how all these things attract the hearer and turn him away to look, leaving the speaker stranded? My purpose in describing them was not that you might think my opponent bold and daring for voluntarily attacking a task sp difficult, and so pronounce against him, dislike him and leave him floundering, but that on the contrary you might support him and do your best to close your eyes and listen to what he says, taking into consideration the hardness of the thing. Even under these circumstances, when he has you as supporters, not judges, it will be just barely possible for him to avoid being thought altogether unworthy of the splendour of the hall. Do not be surprised that I make this request in behalf of an adversary, for on account of my fondness for the hall I should like anyone who may speak in it, no matter who he is, to be successful.” If this piece had not come down to us among the works of rime nobody would ever have thought of attributing it to him.