The Greeks who fought against the King of the Persians erected at Olympia a brazen Zeus, and an Apollo at Delphi, after the actions of Artemisium and Salamis. It is said also that Themistocles, when he went to Delphi, brought of the spoils of the Medes as a present to Apollo, and when he asked if he should offer them inside the temple, the Pythian Priestess bade him at once take them away altogether. And these were the words of her oracular response: “Put not in my temple the beautiful spoils of the Persians, send them home as quickly as possible.” It is wonderful that the god declined to accept the spoils of the Medes only from Themistocles. Some think the god would have rejected all the Persian spoil equally, if those who offered it had first asked (like Themistocles) if the god would accept it. Others say that, as the god knew that Themistocles would be a suppliant of the Persians, he refused on that account to accept the spoil from him, that he might not win for him by acceptance the undying hate of the Medes. This invasion of Greece by the barbarian you may find foretold in the oracles of Bacis, and earlier still in the verses of Euclus. Near the great altar is a bronze wolf, the votive offering of the Delphians themselves. The tradition about it is that some man plundered the treasures of the god, and hid himself and the gold in that part of Parnassus where the forest trees were most thick, and that a wolf attacked him as he slept and killed him, and that this wolf used to run into the town daily and howl: and the Delphians thought this could not but be by divine direction, so they followed the wolf and discovered the sacred gold, and offered to the god a bronze wolf. [101] xv. 419-421. CHAPTER XV. The gilt statue of Phryne here was made by Praxiteles, one of her lovers, and was an offering of Phryne herself. And next it are two statues of Apollo, one offered by the Epidaurians in Argolis after victory over the Medes, and the other by the Megarians after their victory over the Athenians at Nisæa. And there is an ox an offering of the Platæans, when they defended themselves successfully on their own soil with the rest of the Greeks against Mardonius the son of Gobryas. Next come two more statues of Apollo, one offered by the people of Heraclea near the Euxine, the other by the Amphictyones when they fined the Phocians for cultivating land sacred to the god. This Apollo is called by the Delphians Sitalcas,[102] and is about 35 cubits high. Here too are statues of the Ætolian Generals, and of Artemis and Athene, and two statues of Apollo, votive offerings of the Ætolians after their victories over the Galati. Phaennis indeed foretold in her oracles, a generation before it happened, that the army of the Celts would pass from Europe to Asia to destroy the cities there.