8
By this time we had proceeded until we were opposite the statue of Hiero the despot. The foreign visitor, by reason of his genial nature, made himself listen to the various tales, although he knew them all perfectly well; but when he was told that a bronze pillar of Hiero’s standing above had fallen of itself during that day on which it happened that Hiero was coming to his end at Syracuse, he expressed his astonishment. Whereupon I proceeded to recall to his mind other events of a like nature, such, for example, as the experience of Hiero Cf. Pausanias, x. 9. 7, with Xenophon, Hellenica, vi. 4. 9. Presumably the same man is referred to in both passages, as he may well have lived till the battle of Leuctra in 371 b.c., and he may be mentioned also in Xenophon, Hellenica, i. 6. 32, but where his name was Hiero or Hermon cannot, apparently, be determined with certainty. the Spartan, how before his death, which came to him at Leuctra, the eyes fell out of his statue, and the stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated from the naval battle at Aegospotami; and the stone statue of Lysander Cf. Life of Lysander, chap. xviii. (443 a). himself put forth a growth of wild shrubs and grass in such abundance as to cover up the face; and at the time of the Athenian misfortunes in Sicily, the golden dates were dropping from the palm-tree and ravens were pecking off the edge of the shield of Pallas Athena Cf. Pausanias, x. 15. 5.; and the crown of the Cnidians which Philomela, despot of the Phocians, had presented to the dancing-girl, Cf. Athenaeus, 605 c. Pharsalia caused her death, after she had emigrated from Greece to Italy and was disporting herself in the vicinity of the temple of Apollo at Metapontum; for the young men made a rush for the crown, and as they struggled with one another for the gold, they tore the girl to pieces.
