And as one goes into the portico, which they call _The Painted Chamber_ from the paintings, there is a brazen statue of Hermes of the Market-Place, and a gate near, and by it is a trophy of the Athenians who overcame Plistarchus in a cavalry engagement, who, being the brother of Cassander, had brought his cavalry and a foreign force against them. Now, this portico has first the Athenians drawn up in battle array, at Œnoe in Argive territory, against the Lacedæmonians: and it is painted not in the height of the action, nor when the time had come for the display of reckless valour in the heady fight, but at the commencement of the engagement, and when they were just coming to blows. And in the middle of the walls are painted the Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. Now these are the only women as it seems from whom reverses in war did not take away a relish for danger; for after the capture of Themiscyra by Hercules, and later on after the destruction of the army which they sent against Athens, they yet went to Ilium and fought with the Athenians and other Greeks. And next to the Amazons you may see painted the Greeks at the capture of Ilium, and the kings gathered together on account of Ajax’s violence to Cassandra: and the painting has Ajax himself, and Cassandra among the other captive women. And at the end of the painting are the Greeks that fought at Marathon, of the Bœotians the Platæans, and all the Attic contingent are marching against the barbarians. And in this part of the painting the valour is equal on both sides, but in the middle of the battle the barbarians are fleeing and pushing one another into the marsh. And at the end of this painting are the Phœnician ships, and the Greeks slaying the barbarians who are trying to get on board. Here too is a painting of the hero Marathon from whom the plain is named, and Theseus in the guise of putting out to sea, and Athene and Hercules: for by the people of Marathon first, as they themselves allege, was Hercules considered a god. And of the combatants there stand out most plainly in the painting Callimachus, who was chosen by the Athenians as Polemarch, and Miltiades, one of the generals, and the hero who was called Echetlus, of whom I shall make mention hereafter. Here also are fixed up brazen shields, and these have an inscription that they are from the Scionæans and their allies, and others smeared over with pitch, that neither time nor rust should hurt them, are said to have belonged to the Lacedæmonians who were captured in the island of Sphacteria. CHAPTER XVI.