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The Spartan, who had risen when Pausanias addressed him, drew his chief a little aside from the rest. "Pausanias," said he, "the hard Naxian stone best tames and tempers the fine steel; but the steel may break if the workman be not skilful. These Athenians are grown insolent since Marathon, and their soft kindred of Asia have relighted the fires they took of old from the Cecropian Prytaneum.
Ce'crops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a colony from the Delta to Greece, about the year 1556 B.C. Two years later he proceeded to Attica, which had been desolated by a deluge a century before, and there he is said to have founded, on the Cecropian rock the Acrop'olis a city which, under the following circumstances, he called Athens, in honor of the Grecian goddess Athe'na, whom the Romans called Minerva.
In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his guests. The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and, therefore, he also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid particular attention to Glaucus. 'You will see, my friend, said he, with a wave of his hand, 'that I am a little classical here a little Cecropian eh? The hall in which we shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks.
On the Cecropian rock that yet fronts the sea, he watched the coming of the vessel and the waving of the white sail: the masts appeared the ship approached the white sail was not visible: in the joy and the impatience of the homeward crew, the pilot had forgotten to hoist the appointed signal, and the old man in despair threw himself from the rock and was dashed to pieces.
Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed except by Thespiae and Plataea, which towns he reduced, and spread desolation over Attica until he arrived at the foot of the Cecropian hill, which he found guarded by a handful of desperate citizens who refused to surrender. But the brave defenders were soon put to the sword, and Athens was plundered and then burned to the ground.
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