“He slew Othryoneus, who had lately come to the war from Cabesus, induced by the glory of the contest, and who sought in marriage the most beautiful of the daughters of Priam, Cassandra, without a dower.”[1425] He does not mention any force having been used, nor does he attribute the death of Ajax by shipwreck to the wrath of Minerva, nor to any similar cause, but says, in general terms, that he was an object of hatred to Minerva, (for she was incensed against all who had profaned her temple,) and that Ajax died by the agency of Neptune for his boasting speeches. The Locrian virgins were sent there when the Persians were masters of the country. 41. Such is the account of the Ilienses. But Homer speaks expressly of the demolition of the city: “The day will come when at length sacred Ilium shall perish,[1426] After we have destroyed the lofty city of Priam,[1427] By counsel, by wisdom, and by artifice, The city of Priam was destroyed in the tenth year.”[1428] Of this they produce evidence of the following kind; the statue of Minerva, which Homer represents as in a sitting posture, is seen at present to be a standing figure, for he orders them “to place the robe on the knees of Athene,”[1429] in the same sense as this verse, “no son of mine should sit upon her knees,”[1430] and it is better to understand it thus, than as some explain it, “by placing the robe at the knees,” and adduce this line, “she sat upon the hearth in the light of the fire,”[1431] [CAS. 601] for “near the hearth.” For what would the laying the robe at the knees mean? And they who alter the accent, and for γούνασιν read γουνασιν, like θυιάσιν, or in whatever way they understand it,[1432] come to no conclusion. Many of the ancient statues of Minerva are found in a sitting posture, as those at Phocæa, Massalia, Rome, Chios, and many other cities. But modern writers, among whom is Lycurgus the rhetorician, agree that the city was destroyed, for in mentioning the city of the Ilienses he says, “who has not heard, when it was once razed by the Greeks, that it was uninhabited?”[1433] 42. It is conjectured that those who afterwards proposed to rebuild it avoided the spot as inauspicious, either on account of its calamities, of which it had been the scene, or whether Agamemnon, according to an ancient custom, had devoted it to destruction with a curse, as Crœsus, when he destroyed Sidene, in which the tyrant Glaucias had taken refuge, uttered a curse against those who should rebuild its walls. They therefore abandoned that spot and built a city elsewhere. The Astypalæans, who were in possession of Rhœteium, were the first persons that founded Polium near the Simoïs, now called Polisma, but not in a secure spot, and hence it was soon in ruins.