In the age of Greek decadence the honors of the prosodion were sometimes paid to men. Athenæus gives this lively description of the procession which greeted Demetrius Poliorketes: "When Demetrius returned from Leucadia and Corcyra to Athens, the Athenians received him not only with incense and garlands and libations, but they even sent out processional choruses, and greeted him with ithyphallic hymns and dances: stationed by his chariot-wheels, they sang and danced and chanted that he alone was a real god; the rest were sleeping, or were on a journey, or did not exist; they called him son of Poseidon and Aphrodite, eminent for beauty, universal in his goodness to mankind; then they prayed and besought and supplicated him like a god." The hymn which they sang may be read in Bergk, vol. iii. p. 1314. It is one of the most interesting relics of antiquity.[80] For the sake of its rare and curious metre alternating the iambic and trochaic rhythms, I have faced the difficulties of translation, and have ventured on the following version: See how the mightiest gods, and best-beloved Towards our town are winging! For lo, Demeter and Demetrius This glad day is bringing! She to perform her daughter's solemn rites; Mystic pomps attend her: He, joyous as a god should be, and blithe, Comes with laughing splendor. Show forth your triumph! Friends all, troop around! Let him shine above you! Be you the stars to circle him with love; He's the sun to love you. Hail, offspring of Poseidon, powerful god, Child of Aphrodite! The other gods keep far away from earth; Have no ears, though mighty; They are not, or they will not hear us wail: Thee our eye beholdeth; Not wood, not stone, but living, breathing, real, Thee our prayer enfoldeth. First give us peace! Give, dearest, for thou canst: Thou art Lord and Master! The Sphinx, who not on Thebes, but on all Greece Swoops to gloat and pasture; The Ætolian, he who sits upon his rock, Like that old disaster; He feeds upon our flesh and blood, and we Can no longer labor; For it was ever thus the Ætolian thief Preyed upon his neighbor; Him punish thou, or if not thou, then send Oedipus to harm him, Who'll cast this Sphinx down from his cliff of pride, Or to stone will charm him.