the society of the Iobacchi. There is an obvious difficulty in assuming that λίμναι, in the sense of “marshes,” existed in this confined area, but stagnant pools may still be seen here in winter. Dörpfeld’s identification of the Dionysium, ἐν λίμναις cannot be regarded as proved; his view that another Pythium and another Olympieum existed in this neighbourhood is still less probable; but the inconclusiveness of these theories does not necessarily invalidate his identification of the Enneacrunus, with regard to the position of which the language of Thucydides is far from clear. Another enclosure, a little to the south, is proved by an inscription to have been a sanctuary of the hitherto unknown hero Amynos, with whose cult those of Asclepius and the hero Dexion were here associated; under the name Dexion, the poet Sophocles is said to have been worshipped after his death. The whole district adjoining the Areopagus was found to have been thickly built over; the small, mean dwelling-houses intersected by narrow, crooked lanes convey a vivid idea of the contrast between the modest private residences and the great public structures of the ancient city.
The age of the Peisistratids (560–511 B.C.) marked an era in the history of Athenian topography. The greatest of their foundations, the temple of Olympian Zeus, will be referred to later. Among the monuments of their The Academy and Lyceum. rule, in addition to the enlarged Agora and the Enneacrunus, were the Academy and perhaps the Lyceum. The original name of the Academy may have been Hecademia, from Hecademus, an early proprietor (but see Academy, Greek). The famous seat of the Platonic philosophy was a gymnasium enlarged as a public park by Cimon; it lay about a mile to the north-west of the Dipylon Gate, with which it was connected by a street bordered with tombs. The Lyceum, where Aristotle taught, was originally a sanctuary of Apollo Lyceius. Like the Academy, it was an enclosure with a gymnasium and garden; it lay to the east of the city beyond the Diocharean Gate.
Little was known of the buildings on the Acropolis in the pre-Persian period before the great excavations of 1885–1888, which rank among the most surprising achievements of modern research. The results of these operations, which were conducted by the Archaeological Society under the direction of Kavvadias and Kawerau, must be summarized with the utmost The Acropolis before the Persian wars. brevity. The great deposits of sculpture and pottery now unearthed, representing all that escaped from the the ravages of the Persians and the burning of the ancient shrines, afford a startling revelation of the development of Greek art in the 7th and 6th centuries. Numbers of statues—among them a series of draped and richly-coloured female figures—masterpieces of painted pottery, only equalled by the Attic vases found in Magna Grecia and Etruria, and numerous bronzes, were among the treasures of art now brought to light. All belong to the “archaic” epoch; only a few remains of the greater age were found, including some fragments of sculptures from the Parthenon and Erechtheum. We are principally concerned, however, with the results which add to our knowledge of the topography and architecture of the Acropolis. The entire area of the summit was now thoroughly explored, the excavations being carried down to the surface of the rock, which on the southern side was found to slope outwards to a depth of about 45 ft. In the lower strata were discovered the remnants of Cyclopean or prehistoric architecture already mentioned. Of later date, perhaps, are the limestone polygonal retaining walls on the west front, which extended on either side of the early entrance. Of these a portion may probably be attributed to the Peisistratids, in whose time the Acropolis once more became the stronghold of a despotism. Its fortifications, though not increased, were apparently strengthened by the Tyrants. To its embellishment they probably contributed the older ornamental entrance, facing south-west, the precursor of the greater structure of Mnesicles (see Propylaea) and the colonnade of the “Hecatompedon,” or earlier temple of Athena, at this time the only large sacred edifice on the citadel. The name was subsequently applied to the cella, or eastern chamber, of the Parthenon, which is exactly 100 ft. long, and also became a popular designation of the temple itself.
The ancient Hecatompedon may in all probability be identified with an early temple, also 100 ft. long, the foundations of which were pointed out in 1885 by Dörpfeld on the ground immediately adjoining the south side of the The old temple of Athena. Erechtheum. On this spot was apparently the primitive sanctuary of Athena, the rich temple (πίων νηός) of Homer (Il. ii. 549), in which the cult of the goddess was associated with that of Erechtheus; the Homeric temple is identified by Furtwängler with the “compact house of Erechtheus” (Od. vii. 81), which, he holds, was not a royal palace, but a place of worship, and traces of it may perhaps be recognized in the fragments of prehistoric masonry enclosed by the existing foundations. The foundations seem to belong to the 7th century, except those of the colonnade, which was possibly added by Peisistratus. According to Dörpfeld, this was the “old temple” of Athena Polias, frequently mentioned in literature and inscriptions, in which was housed the most holy image (ξόανον) of the goddess which fell from heaven; it was burnt, but not completely destroyed, during the Persian War, and some of its external decorations were afterwards built into the north wall of the Acropolis; it was subsequently restored, he thinks, with or without its colonnade—in the former case a portion of the peristyle must have been removed when the Erechtheum was built so as to make room for the porch of the maidens; the building was set on fire in 406 B.C. (Xen. Hell. i. 6. 1), and the conflagration is identical with that mentioned by Demosthenes (In Timocr. xxiv. 155); its “opisthodomos” served as the Athenian treasury in the 5th and 4th centuries; the temple is the ἀρχαῖος νεὼς τῆς Πολιάδος mentioned by Strabo (ix. 16), and it was still standing in the time of Pausanias, who applies to it the same name (i. 27. 3). The conclusion that the foundations are those of an old temple burnt by the Persians has been generally accepted, but other portions of Dörpfeld’s theory—more especially his assumption that the temple was restored after the Persian War—have provoked much controversy. Thus J. G. Frazer maintains the hitherto current theory that the earlier temple of Athena and Erechtheus was on the site of the Erechtheum; that the Erechtheum inherited the name ἀρχαῖος νεώς from its predecessor, and that the “opisthodomos” in which the treasures were kept was the west chamber of the Parthenon; Furtwängler and Milchhöfer hold the strange view that the “opisthodomos” was a separate building at the east end of the Acropolis, while Penrose thinks the building discovered by Dörpfeld was possibly the Cecropeum. E. Curtius and J. W. White, on the other hand, accept Dörpfeld’s identification, but believe that only the western portion of the temple or opisthodomos was rebuilt after the Persian War. Admitting the identification, we may perhaps conclude that the temple was repaired in order to provide a temporary home for the venerated image and other sacred objects; no traces of a restoration exist, but the walls probably remained standing after the Persian conflagration. The removal of the ancient temple was undoubtedly intended when the Erechtheum was built, but superstition and popular feeling may have prevented its demolition and the removal of the ξόανον to the new edifice. The temple consisted of an eastern cella with pronaos; behind this was the opisthodomos, divided into three chambers—possibly treasuries—with a portico at the western end. The peristyle, if we compare the measurements of the stylobate with those of the drums built into the wall of the Acropolis, may be concluded to have consisted of six Doric columns at the ends and twelve at the sides. In one of the pediments was a gigantomachy, of which some fragments have been recovered.
In 1896 excavations with the object of exploring the whole northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis were begun by Kavvadias. The pathway between the citadel and the Areopagus was found to be so narrow that it is The grottoes of Pan and Apollo. certain the Panathenaic procession cannot have taken this route to the Acropolis. On the north-west rock the caves known as the grottoes of Pan and Apollo were cleared out; these consist of a slight high-arched indentation
