Location information

The Museium (Philopappus monument)

The Museium (to Mouseion) was the hill to the SW. of the Acropolis, from which it is separated by an intervening valley. It is only a little lower than the Acropolis itself. It is described by Pausanias (i. 25. § 8) as a hill within the city walls, opposite the Acropolis, where the poet Musaeus was buried, and where a monument was erected to a certain Syrian, whose name Pausanias does not mention. There are still remains of this monument, from the inscriptions upon which we learn that it was the. monument of Philopappus, the grandson of Antiochus, who, having been deposed by Vespasian, came to Rome with his two sons, Epiphanes and Callinicus. [Dict. of Biogr. vol. I. p. 194.] Epiphanes was the father of Philopappus, who had become an Attic citizen of the demus Besa, and he is evidently the Syrian to whom Pausanias alludes. This monument was built in a form slightly concave towards the front. The chord of the curve was about 30 feet in length: in front it presented three niches between four pilasters; the central niche was wider than the two lateral ones, concave and with a semicircular top; the others were quadrangular. A seated statue in the central niche was obviously that of the person to whom the monument was erected. An inscription below the niche shows that he was named Philopappus, son of Epiphanes, of the demus Besa (Philopappos Epiphanous Besaieus). On the right hand of this statue was a king Antiochus, son of a king Antiochus, as we learn from the inscription below it (basileus Antiochos basileos Antiochou). In the niche on the other side was seated Seleucus Nicator (basileus Eeleukos Antiochou Nikator). On the pilaster to the right of Philopappus of Besa is the inscription C.IVLIVS C. F.FAB (i. e. Caius Julius, Caii filius, Fabia) ANTIOCHVS PHILOPAPPVS, COS. FRATER ARVALIS, ALLECTVS INTER PRAETORIOS AB IMP. CAESARE NERVA TRAIANO OPTVMO AVGVSTO GERMANICO DACICO. On that to the left of Philopappus was inscribed Basileus Antiochos Philopappos, basileos Epiphanous, tou Antiochou. Between the niches and the base of the monument, there is a representation in high relief of the triumph of a Roman emperor similar to that on the arch of Titus at Rome. The part of the monument now remaining consists of the central and eastern niches, with remains of the two pilasters on that side of the centre. The statues in two of the niches still remain, but without heads, and otherwise imperfect; the figures of the triumph, in the lower compartment, are not much better preserved. This monument appears, from Spon and Wheler, to have been nearly in the same state in 1676 as it is at present; and it is to Ciriaco d'Ancona, who visited Athens two centuries earlier, that we are indebted for a knowledge of the deficient parts of the monument. (Leake, p. 494, seq.; comp. Stuart, vol. iii. c. 5; Prokesch, Denkwurdigkeiten, vol. ii. p. 383; Bockh, Inscr. no. 362; Orelli, Inscr. no. 800.)
  Of the fortress, which Demetrius Poliorcetes erected on the Museium in B.C. 229 (Paus. i. 25. § 8; Plut. Demetr. 34), all trace has disappeared.
  There must have been many houses on the Museium, for the western side of the hill is almost covered with traces of buildings cut in the rocks, and the remains of stairs are visible in several places,--another proof that the ancient city wall did not run along the top of this hill. There are also found on this spot some wells and cisterns of a circular form, hollowed out in the rock, and enlarging towards the base. At the eastern foot of the hill, opposite the Acropolis, there are three ancient excavations in the rock; that in the middle is of an irregular form, and the other two are eleven feet square. One of them leads towards another subterraneous chamber of a circular form, twelve feet in diameter at the base, and diminishing towards the top, in the shape of a bell. These excavations are sometimes called ancient baths, and sometimes prisons: hence one of them is said to have been the prison of Socrates.

This extract is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD)
• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...