Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for destination: "FILOPAPPOU Hill ATHENS".
The Museium (to Mouseion) was the hill to the SW. of the Acropolis, from which
it is separated by an intervening valley. It is only a little lower than the Acropolis
itself. It is described by Pausanias (i. 25. § 8) as a hill within the city walls,
opposite the Acropolis, where the poet Musaeus was buried, and where a monument
was erected to a certain Syrian, whose name Pausanias does not mention. There
are still remains of this monument, from the inscriptions upon which we learn
that it was the. monument of Philopappus, the grandson of Antiochus, who, having
been deposed by Vespasian, came to Rome with his two sons, Epiphanes and Callinicus.
[Dict. of Biogr. vol. I. p. 194.] Epiphanes was the father of Philopappus, who
had become an Attic citizen of the demus Besa, and he is evidently the Syrian
to whom Pausanias alludes. This monument was built in a form slightly concave
towards the front. The chord of the curve was about 30 feet in length: in front
it presented three niches between four pilasters; the central niche was wider
than the two lateral ones, concave and with a semicircular top; the others were
quadrangular. A seated statue in the central niche was obviously that of the person
to whom the monument was erected. An inscription below the niche shows that he
was named Philopappus, son of Epiphanes, of the demus Besa (Philopappos Epiphanous
Besaieus). On the right hand of this statue was a king Antiochus, son of a king
Antiochus, as we learn from the inscription below it (basileus Antiochos basileos
Antiochou). In the niche on the other side was seated Seleucus Nicator (basileus
Eeleukos Antiochou Nikator). On the pilaster to the right of Philopappus of Besa
is the inscription C.IVLIVS C. F.FAB (i. e. Caius Julius, Caii filius, Fabia)
ANTIOCHVS PHILOPAPPVS, COS. FRATER ARVALIS, ALLECTVS INTER PRAETORIOS AB IMP.
CAESARE NERVA TRAIANO OPTVMO AVGVSTO GERMANICO DACICO. On that to the left of
Philopappus was inscribed Basileus Antiochos Philopappos, basileos Epiphanous,
tou Antiochou. Between the niches and the base of the monument, there is a representation
in high relief of the triumph of a Roman emperor similar to that on the arch of
Titus at Rome. The part of the monument now remaining consists of the central
and eastern niches, with remains of the two pilasters on that side of the centre.
The statues in two of the niches still remain, but without heads, and otherwise
imperfect; the figures of the triumph, in the lower compartment, are not much
better preserved. This monument appears, from Spon and Wheler, to have been nearly
in the same state in 1676 as it is at present; and it is to Ciriaco d'Ancona,
who visited Athens two centuries earlier, that we are indebted for a knowledge
of the deficient parts of the monument. (Leake, p. 494, seq.; comp. Stuart, vol.
iii. c. 5; Prokesch, Denkwurdigkeiten, vol. ii. p. 383; Bockh, Inscr. no. 362;
Orelli, Inscr. no. 800.)
Of the fortress, which Demetrius Poliorcetes erected on the Museium
in B.C. 229 (Paus. i. 25. § 8; Plut. Demetr. 34), all trace has disappeared.
There must have been many houses on the Museium, for the western side
of the hill is almost covered with traces of buildings cut in the rocks, and the
remains of stairs are visible in several places,--another proof that the ancient
city wall did not run along the top of this hill. There are also found on this
spot some wells and cisterns of a circular form, hollowed out in the rock, and
enlarging towards the base. At the eastern foot of the hill, opposite the Acropolis,
there are three ancient excavations in the rock; that in the middle is of an irregular
form, and the other two are eleven feet square. One of them leads towards another
subterraneous chamber of a circular form, twelve feet in diameter at the base,
and diminishing towards the top, in the shape of a bell. These excavations are
sometimes called ancient baths, and sometimes prisons: hence one of them is said
to have been the prison of Socrates.
This extract is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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