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“Coming at last to Greece under these circumstances, at one moment he abused the Eleans, at another he counselled the Greeks to take up arms against the Romans,The life of Antoninus Pius (Script. Hist. Aug.), § 5, notes suppression of a rebellion in Achaia, and at another he libelled a man outstanding in literary attainments and position because he had been a benefactor to Greece in many ways, and particularly because he had brought water to Olympia and prevented the visitors to the festival from dying of thirst, maintaining that he was making the Greeks effeminate, for the spectators of the Olympic games ought to endure their thirst—yes, by Heaven, and even to lose their lives, no doubt, many of them, through the frequent distempers which formerly ran riot in the vast crowd on account of the dryness of the place!The man was the famous Herodes Atticus. For the aqueduct built by him at Olympia see Frazer’s Pausanias, Vol. IV, pp. 72 ff. Philostratus (Vit. Soph. II, 1, 33) records that Herodes was often berated by Proteus, to whom on one occasion he hinted that it might at least be done in Greek. And he said this while he drank that same water! When they almost killed him with stones, mobbing him with one accord, he managed to escape death at the moment by fleeing to Zeus for sanctuary (stout fellow!),
