Description of Greece

As you go to Eleusis from Athens along what the Athenians call the Sacred Way you see the tomb of Anthemocritus.[*](Just before the Peloponnesian War.) The Megarians committed against him a most wicked deed, for when he had come as a herald to forbid them to encroach upon the land in future they put him to death. For this act the wrath of the Two Goddesses lies upon them even to this day, for they are the only Greeks that not even the emperor Hadrian could make more prosperous.

After the tombstone of Anthemocritus comes the grave of Molottus, who was deemed worthy of commanding the Athenians when they crossed into Euboea[*](350 B.C.) to reinforce Plutarch,[*](Tyrant of Eretria in Euboea.) and also a place called Scirum, which received its name for the following reason. The Eleusinians were making war against Erechtheus when there came from Dodona a seer called Scirus, who also set up at Phalerum the ancient sanctuary of Athena Sciras. When he fell in the fighting the Elusinians buried him near a torrent, and the hero has given his name to both place and torrent.

Hard by is the tomb of Cephisodorus, who was champion of the people and opposed to the utmost Philip, the son of Demetrius, king of Macedon. Cephisodorus induced to become allies of Athens two kings, Attalus the Mysian and Ptolemy the Egyptian, and, of the self-governing peoples, the Aetolians with the Rhodians and the Cretans among the islanders.

As the reinforcements from Egypt, Mysia, and Crete were for the most part too late, and the Rhodians, whose strength lay only in their fleet, were of little help against the Macedonian men-at-arms, Cephisodorus sailed with other Athenians to Italy and begged aid of the Romans.[*](198 B.C.) They sent a force and a general, who so reduced Philip and the Macedonians that afterwards Perseus, the son of Philip, lost his throne and was himself taken prisoner to Italy. This Philip was the son of Demetrius. Demetrius was the first of this house to hold the throne of Macedon, having put to death Alexander, son of Cassander, as I have related in a former part of my account.

After the tomb of Cephisodorus is the grave of Heliodorus Halis.[*](Nothing more is known of this man.) A portrait of this man is also to be seen in the great temple of Athena. Here too is the grave of Themistocles, son of Poliarchus, and grandson of the Themistocles who fought the sea fight against Xerxes and the Persians. Of the later descendants I shall mention none except Acestium. She, her father Xenocles, his father Sophocles, and his father Leon, all of them up to her great-grandfather Leon won the honor of being torch-bearer, and in her own lifetime she saw as torch-bearers, first her brother Sophocles, after him her husband Themistocles, and after his death her son Theophrastus. Such was the fortune, they say, that happened to her.