Imperial cult of ancient Rome cult was the burial and the memorials which any respectable Greek family gave their dead, but paid for by their City in perpetuity. Most heroes were the figures of ancient legend, but some were historical: the Athenians revered Harmodius and Aristogeiton as heroes, as saviours of Athens from tyranny; also, collectively, those who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Statesmen did not generally become heroes, but Sophocles was the hero Dexion ("the Receiver") – not as a playwright, nor a general, but because when the Athenians took Asclepius' cult during the Peloponnesian War, Sophocles housed an image of Asclepius until
Owls to Athens sexual encounter with an important Athenian woman. The setting is Athens in 307 BC, sixteen years after the death of Alexander the Great.As in the other books in the series, persons and places are frequently given their Greek names rather than the English ones (Sokrates, Platon, etc.). Owls to Athens Owls to Athens is the fourth book in the Hellenic Traders series by H.N. Turteltaub (a pseudonym of Harry Turtledove). Like the others in the series it is a work of historical fiction concerning the adventures of a pair of Greek traders from Rhodes. "Taking owls to Athens" was a