24
As he walked along he asked me about things on earth, first the usual questions, how much wheat now costs in Greece, whether the last winter hit us hard and whether the crops needed more rain. Then he inquired whether any of the descendants of Phidias were still left, why the Athenians had omitted the Diasia for so many years, whether they had any idea of finishing the Olympieion for him and whether the men who robbed his temple in Dodona had been arrested.The temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens was completed by Hadrian a generation before these lines were written; and, if we may trust a casual reference to the Diasia in Plutarch (de tranquil, an. 20), that festival had been reinstituted in some form or other. Here again Lucian seems to be following Menippus.
