Sicyon was in great reputation for the arts, and painting in particular; the true taste for which was preserved there in all its ancient purity. It is even said, that Apelles, who was then admired by all the world, had been at Sicyon, where he frequented the schools of two painters, to whom he gave a talent; not for acquiring a perfection of the art from them, but in order to obtain a share in their great reputation. When Aratus had reinstated his city in its former liberties, he destroyed all the pictures of the tyrants; but when he came to that of Aristratus, who reigned in the time of Philip, and whom the painter had represented in the attitude of standing in a triumphant chariot, he hesitated a long time whether he should deface it or not; for all the capital disciples of Melanthus had contributed to the completion of that piece; and it had even been touched by the pencil of Apelles. This work was so inimitable in its kind, that Aratus was enchanted with its beauties; but his aversion to tyrants prevailed over his admiration of the picture, and he accordingly ordered it to be destroyed. In the time of Pausanias, Sicyon was destroyed by an earthquake. It was, nevertheless, not long after, not only one of the noblest cities of Greece, on account of its magnificent edifices, many of which were built of marble, and ingenious workmen, but it was a distinguished place when the Venetians were masters of the Morea. The period, however, when it fell from that eminence is unknown. Sicyon[220] was the school of the most celebrated artists of antiquity, and was sumptuously decorated with temples and statues. Pausanias enumerates seventeen temples, a stadium, a theatre, two gymnasia, an agora, a senate-house, and a temenos for the Roman emperors, with many altars, monuments, and numerous statues of ivory and gold, of marble, of bronze, and of wood. Its present condition, in respect to population, may be, in a great measure, attributed to its having, about twenty years before Sir George Wheler visited it, been afflicted by the plague. “This final destruction,” said one of the inhabitants, “is a judgment of God upon the Turks for turning one of the Christian churches into a mosque. The Vaywode fell down dead upon the place, the first time he caused the Koran to be read in it. This was followed by a plague, which, in a short time, utterly destroyed the whole town; and it could never afterwards be repeopled.” So little is known[221] concerning this ancient seat of Grecian power, that it is not possible to ascertain in what period it dwindled from its pre-eminence to become, what it is now, one of the most wretched villages of the Peloponnesus. The remains of its former magnificence are, however, still considerable, and in some instances they exist in such a state of preservation, that it is evident the buildings of the city either survived the earthquakes said to have overwhelmed them, or they must have been constructed at some later period.