1.18.1 The sanctuary [hieron] of the Dioskouroi is ancient. They themselves are represented as standing, while their sons are seated on horses. Here Polygnotus^* painted [graphein] the marriage of the daughters of Leukippos, which was [a story that was] pertinent to them [= the Dioskouroi], while Mikon painted those who sailed with Jason to the land of Kolkhis. He [=Mikon] focused his [artistic] effort on Akastos and the horses of Akastos.

1.18.2 Looming over the sanctuary [hieron] of the Dioskouroi is a sacred-precinct [temenos] of Aglauros. It was to Aglauros and her sisters, Herse and Pandrosos, that they say Athena gave Erikhthonios, whom she had hidden in a box [kibōtos], forbidding them to pry curiously into what was entrusted to their charge. Pandrosos, they say, obeyed, but the other two opened the box [kibōtos], and went mad [mainesthai] when they saw Erikhthonios, and they threw themselves down the steepest part of the Acropolis. Here it was that the Persians [Mēdoi] climbed [up the Acropolis] and killed the Athenians who thought that they understood the oracle^* better than did Themistocles, and fortified the Acropolis with logs and stakes.^*

1.18.3 Close by is the Prytaneion [‘City Hall’], in which the laws of Solon are inscribed, and statues [agalmata] are placed of the goddesses [theai] Eirene [‘Peace’] and Hestia [‘Hearth’], while among the statues-of-humans [andriantes] is Autolykos, a contestant in the pankration.^* And I say-this-because [gar] the likenesses of Miltiades and Themistocles have had their inscriptions reinscribed to refer to a Roman and a Thracian.

1.18.4 As one descends from here to the lower part of the city, there is a sanctuary [hieron] of Serapis, whose worship the Athenians introduced from Ptolemy. Of the Egyptian sanctuaries [hiera] of Serapis the most famous is at Alexandria, the oldest at Memphis. Into the second of these two neither stranger nor priest may enter, until they make-a-funeral-for [thaptein] Apis. Not far from the sanctuary of Serapis is the place where they say that Peirithoös and Theseus made their pact before setting forth to Lacedaemon and afterwards to Thesprotia.

1.18.5 Close by is built a temple [nāos] of Eileithuia, who they say came from the Hyperboreans to Delos as a helper [boēthoos] to Leto in her labor; and from Delos the name spread to other populations. The people of Delphi sacrifice [thuein] to Eileithuia and sing a hymn [humnos] of Olen. But the Cretans customarily-think [nomizein] that Eileithuia was born at Amnisos in the territory of Knossos, and that Hērā was her mother. Only among the Athenians are the wooden-figures [xoana] of Eileithuia draped [kaluptesthai] all the way to the feet. The women told me that two [of these xoana] are Cretan, being offerings [anathēmata] of Phaedra, and that the third [xoanon], which is the oldest, Erysikhthon conveyed [komizein] from Delos.

1.18.6 Before one enters the sanctuary [hieron] of Olympian Zeus—Hadrian ‘King’ [basileus] of the Romans dedicated [anatithenai] the temple [nāos] and the statue [agalma] [of Zeus], so worthy of viewing [théā], which in size exceeds all other statues [agalmata] except for the colossi [kolossoi] in Rhodes and in Rome, and is made of ivory and gold with an artistic skill [tekhnē] that is remarkable when the size is taken into account—before one enters, as I say, there are statues [eikones] of Hadrian, two of Thasian stone, two of Egyptian. In front of the columns [kiones] stand bronze statues that the Athenians call apoikoi poleis. The whole enclosure [peribolos] [of the precinct] is about four stadium-lengths, and it is full of statues; for every city has dedicated a likeness [eikōn] of ‘King’ [basileus] Hadrian, but the Athenians have surpassed them all in dedicating [anatithenai], in the back part of the temple, the colossus [kolossos] [of Zeus], so worthy of viewing [théā].

1.18.7 Within the enclosure [peribolos] are antiquities: a bronze Zeus, a shrine [nāos] of Kronos and Rhea, and a sacred-precinct [temenos] of Earth [Gē] surnamed Olympian [Olumpiā]. There is an opening in the floor here, which is the width of a cubit, and they say that it was here that the water flowed off after the cataclysm that occurred in the time of Deukalion, and into it they cast every year ground wheat mixed with honey.

1.18.8 On top of a column [kiōn] is a statue [andrias] of Isocrates, in whose memory [mnēmē] three things are to be noted: his being most-painstaking [epiponōtatos] in continuing to have students [mathētai] up to the end of his ninety-eight years, his being most-moderate [sōphronestatos] in keeping aloof from politics [politeiā] and from officiousness in public-affairs [koina], and his being most-devoted-to-freedom [eleutherōtatos] in dying a voluntary death, distressed as he was at the news of the battle at Khairōneia.^* There are also statues in Phrygian marble of Persians supporting a bronze tripod; both the figures and the tripod are worthy of viewing [théā]. The ancient sanctuary [hieron] of Olympian Zeus the Athenians say was built by Deukalion, and they show as a sign [sēmeion]—that Deukalion resided [oikeîn] in Athens—a tomb [taphos] that is not far from the present temple [nāos].

1.18.9 Hadrian constructed other buildings also for the Athenians: a temple [nāos] of Hērā and Zeus Panhellēnios [‘belonging to all Hellenes’], a sanctuary [hieron] that was common [koinon] to all the gods, and, most famous of all, a hundred columns [kiones] of Phrygian marble. The walls [toikhoi] too are constructed of the same material as the porticoes [stoai]. And there are rooms there adorned with a gilded roof and with alabaster stone, as well as with statues [agalmata] and paintings [graphai]. In them are kept books [biblia]. There is also a gymnasium named after Hadrian; of this too the columns [kiones] are a hundred in number, from the Libyan quarries.