CHAPTER IV

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The Platæans have also a temple to Arean Athene, which was built from the spoil given to them by the Athenians after the battle of Marathon. The statue of the goddess is wooden but gilt over: the head and fingers and toes are of Pentelican marble. In size it is nearly as large as the brazen one in the Acropolis, (which the Athenians dedicated as the firstfruits of the battle at Marathon,) and is also the work of Phidias. And there are paintings in the temple by Polygnotus, Odysseus having just slain the suitors, and by Onatas the first expedition of Adrastus and the Argives against Thebes. These paintings are on the walls in the vestibule of the temple, and at the base of the statue of the goddess is an effigy of Arimnestus, who commanded the Platæans in the fight against Mardonius and still earlier at Marathon.

There is also at Platæa a temple of Eleusinian Demeter, and the tomb of Leitus, the only leader of the Bœotians that returned home after the Trojan war. And the fountain Gargaphia was fouled by Mardonius and the Persian cavalry, because the Greek army opposed to them drank of it, but the Platæans afterwards made the water pure again.

As you go from Platæa to Thebes you come to the river Oeroe, Oeroe was they say the daughter of Asopus. And before crossing the Asopus, if you turn aside and follow the stream of the Oeroe for about 40 stades, you come to the ruins of Scolus, among which are a temple of Demeter and Proserpine not complete, and half the statues of the goddesses. The Asopus is still the boundary between the districts of Platæa and Thebes.

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