But Piraeeus suffered still more severely; it was destroyed by Sulla quite intentionally, for he set fire to the arsenal (ὁπλοθήκη) and the νεώσοικοι, in which there were spaces for 400 galleys. Athens was in a state of the deepest distress: the survivors received, what the Romans in their official language called freedom, that is, they were allowed to choose their own magistrates, and had jurisdiction in criminal cases. But the city was like a wilderness, though it always retained the remembrance of earlier times. The people did not indeed forget the fearful calamities they had experienced, but in that happy climate man enjoys the present; the scenes of terror gradually ceased to be thought of, men soon assembled again, and Athens became one of the most delightful places to live in, to which Romans of education and rank, such as Atticus, withdrew from the political turmoils of the time, and cheered their life in a world of ideas and in dreams of the olden times. Under the emperors, Athens recovered several islands which it had formerly possessed, as Scyros, Lemnos, and Imbros, which to some extent enabled it to exist. In the reign of Hadrian the Ilisus flowed with gold; Herodes Atticus was indeed an acquisition for which the city had to pay dearly, for his vanity made him an unbearable and arrogant man, though he was withal empty-headed; but still it was a period of relative prosperity. The philosophical school of Athens acquired more consistency under Hadrian; it was a kind of university, where especially dialectics and speculative philosophy were pursued; but the exact sciences and grammar were less attended to. A residence there was still very beneficial to young men, for the ancient serene spirit of its inhabitants still survived in certain beautiful traits; men loved to dwell there; it was still the soil and the atmosphere of Athens, the vicinity of the monuments of classical antiquity, and with all its degeneracy Athens still preserved a shadow of its ancient urbanity.