Pausanias' Description of Greece, Volume 1

On the mainland of Greece, facing the islands called the Cyclades and the Ægean sea, the promontory of Sunium stands out on Attic soil: and there is a harbour for any one coasting along the headland, and a temple of Athene of Sunium on the summit of the height. And as one sails on is Laurium, where the Athenians formerly had silver mines, and a desert island of no great size called after Patroclus; for he had built a wall in it and laid a palisade, when he sailed as admiral in the Egyptian triremes, which Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, sent to punish the Athenians, Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, in person making a raid into their territory with a land force and ravaging it, and the fleet simultaneously hemming them in by sea. Now the Piræus was a township in ancient times, but was not a port until Themistocles ruled the Athenians; but their port was Phalerum, (for here the sea is nearest to Athens), and they say that it was from thence that Menestheus sailed with the ships to Troy, and before him Theseus to exact vengeance from Minos for the death of Androgeos. But when Themistocles was in power, because the Piræus appeared to him to be more convenient as a harbour, and it was certainly better to have three harbours than one as at Phalerum, he made this the port. And even up to my time there were stations for ships, and at the largest of the three harbours the tomb of Themistocles; for they say that the Athenians repented of their conduct to him, and that his relatives exhumed his remains and brought them home from Magnesia. Certain it is that the sons of Themistocles returned from exile, and hung up a painting of Themistocles in the Parthenon. Now of all the things in the Piræus best worth seeing is the temple of Athene and Zeus; both their statues are of gold, and Zeus has a sceptre and Victory, while Athene is armed with a spear. Here, too, is a painting by Arcesilaus of Leosthenes and his sons, that famous hero who at the head of the Athenians and all the Greeks defeated the Macedonians in battle in Bœotia, and again beyond Thermopylæ, and drove them into Lamia over against Mount Œta and shut them up there. And it is in the long portico, where those near the sea have their market, (for there is another market for those more inland), and in the back of the portico near the sea are statues of Zeus and Demos, the design of Leochares. And near the sea is a temple erected to Aphrodite by Conon, after his victory over the Lacedæmonian fleet off Cnidus in the peninsula of Caria. For Aphrodite is the tutelary saint of the men of Cnidus, and they have several temples of the goddess; the most ancient celebrates her as Doritis, the next in date as Acræa, and latest of all that which everybody else calls Athene of Cnidus, but the Cnidians themselves call it Athene of the Fair Voyage.