‹‹‹ Vitr. 2.8.14 | Table of Contents | Vitr. 2.8.16 ›››
15Artemisia then embarking her own sailors and marines on board of the Rhodian fleet, set sail for Rhodes. The inhabitants of that city seeing their vessels return decorated with laurels, thought their fellow citizens were returning victorious, and received their enemies. Artemisia having thus taken Rhodes, and slain the principal persons of the city, raised therein a trophy of her victory. It consisted of two brazen statues, one of which represented the state of Rhodes, the other was a statue of herself imposing a mark of infamy on the city. As it was contrary to the precepts of the religion of the Rhodians to remove a trophy, they encircled the latter with a building, and covered it after the custom of the Greeks, giving it the name ἄβατον.
15So Artemisia embarked her own soldiers and oarsmen in the ships of the Rhodians and set forth for Rhodes. The Rhodians, beholding their own ships approaching wreathed with laurel, supposed that their fellow-citizens were returning victorious, and admitted the enemy. Then Artemisia, after taking Rhodes and killing its leading men, put up in the city of Rhodes a trophy of her victory, including two bronze statues, one representing the state of the Rhodians, the other herself. Herself she fashioned in the act of branding the state of the Rhodians. In later times the Rhodians, labouring under the religious scruple which makes it a sin to remove trophies once they are dedicated, constructed a building to surround the place, and thus by the erection of the “Grecian Station” covered it so that nobody could see it, and ordered that the building be called “ἁβατον.”