The interior of the theatre at Athens was decorated with the statues of various public persons, some distinguished, others not. In the time of Lycurgus bronze statues were erected in honour of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[545] Pausanias mentions that in his time there were several statues of dramatic poets in the theatre, but, with the exception of Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander, they were all very obscure individuals.[546] The base of Menander’s statue, with an inscription recording his name and the name of the sculptor, has been discovered near the western parodos. Its original site, however, is unknown.[547] Astydamas, the tragic poet, was voted a statue in the theatre on account of the excellence of his tragedy called Parthenopaeus. He wrote an epigram to be inscribed upon the base, regretting that he had not been born in the time of the great tragic writers, so as to be able to compete with worthy antagonists. The Athenians were so disgusted with his conceit, that they refused to allow the epigram to be inscribed, and the expression, ‘to praise one’s self like Astydamas,’ passed into a proverb.[548] The statue of Astydamas originally stood at the inside corner of the auditorium on the western side, and there was probably a corresponding statue on the eastern side.[549] One of the grammarians says that there were also statues of Themistocles and Miltiades in the theatre, each with a captured Persian standing beside him. But his statement is probably a fiction, invented to explain the passage on which he was commenting, and which he misunderstood.[550] In later times, it is stated, a statue of Eurycleides the conjuror was erected in the theatre.[551] It is probable that during the reign of Hadrian thirteen statues of him were placed in the thirteen different blocks of the auditorium. The inscriptions on the bases of four of these statues have been found in the existing remains of the theatre.[552] In addition to the statues, various votive offerings were erected in the two side-entrances. Many of the bases were still in their original position when the theatre was first excavated, but they have now mostly disappeared. Four of them, however, still remain. One of them supported the memorial erected by Xenocles in 306, to commemorate his services as Agonothetes. The other three belong to the Roman period.[553] There were also various inscriptions and tablets connected with theatrical affairs. A copy of the decree of the Amphictyonic Council, conferring certain privileges upon the Athenian actors, was inscribed on stone and put up in the theatre.[554] Numerous records of dramatic and dithyrambic contests were erected either in the theatre or in the immediate neighbourhood. There were lists of the victors in all the competitions at the Lenaea and the City Dionysia. There were lists of all the tragedies and comedies ever produced in the theatre at Athens. There were lists of all the poets