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One of the marbles, which we brought from Athens, relates to the sale of this theatre; containing a decree for crowning with olive a person, who had procured an advance in the price; and also for crowning the buyers, four in number. On another marble, the honour of a front seat in the theatre, with an olive crown and several immunities and privileges, is conferred on one Callidamus; and it is enacted, that the crown be proclaimed by the herald in the full assembly, to demonstrate that the Piræensians had a proper regard for men of merit. This inscription is not more remarkable for its antiquity, which is very great, than for its fine preservation, being as fair as when first reposited in the temple of Vesta. A third contained the conditions, on which the Piræensians leased out the sea-shore, and salt-marshes, the Theséum and other sacred portions. It is dated in the archonship of Archippus, about three hundred and eighteen years before Christ.

CHAP. VI.

We set out for Athens-Two roads described by Pausanius--The barrow of Euripides-The public cisterns-M. Lycabettus--We arrive at the French convent-Reception at Athens.

AFTER viewing the monastery of St. Spiridion and the ports, we returned to the custom-house, and waited to hear - from Athens, not without some impatience. We saw the acropolis or citadel, with the great temple of Minerva, from the window. An archon, named Ianáchi Isofime, to whom

we had sent, arrived before noon, attended by a servant, to welcome us; and was followed by a capuchin friar, then residing in the French convent at Athens. We were detained until the sun was on the decline, when we set forward mounted on asses, or on horses laden with our baggage.

Pausanias describes two ways from the ports to Athens. By the road from Phalerum was a temple and statue of Juno, the building half burned, and without a door or roof; remaining, with a temple of Ceres by the port, unrepaired, as a memorial of the enmity of the barbarians under Mardonius. By the entrance of the city was a tomb of the Amazon Antiope. On the other road, which led from the Piræus, were ruins of the walls erected by Conon, with sepulchral monuments; among which, those of Menander and Euripides were the most noted. That of the latter poet was a cenotaph, or mound of earth without his ashes. By the city-gate was a sepulchre of a soldier, who was represented standing near his horse, the sculpture by Praxiteles. The inclosures, .which now intervene, may have occasioned some small alteration in the course of the two roads. They were nearly in the same direction, and not far asunder.

After passing the site of the theatre, and the termination of the rocky peninsula, we had on the right hand a level spot covered with stones, where, it is probable, was the remoter agora of the Piræus. Farther on, by the road side, is a clear area within a low mound, formed perhaps by concealed rubbish of the walls of the temple of Juno. We then entered among vineyards and cotton grounds, with groves of olive trees. On one side rises a large barrow, it is likely the cenotaph of Euripides. In a tree was a kind of couch, sheltered with boughs, belonging to a man employed to watch

there during the vintage. The foul weather we experienced at sea had extended to Attica, where heavy showers had fallen, with terrible thunder nnd lightning, flooding the land and doing much damage. An Albanian peasant was expecting the return of the archon, who was one of the annual magistrates called Epitropi or Procurators, with a present of very -fine grapes, on which we regaled; and another, who was retiring with his leather bucket, hanging flaccid at his back, enabled us to get water from a well about mid-way.

Beyond the vineyards are the public cisterns, from which water is dispensed to the gardens and trees below, by direction of the owners, each paying by the hour, the price rising and falling in proportion to the scarcity or abundance. In the front is a weeping willow, by which is inserted a marble with an ancient sepulchral inscription in fair characters. Beyond the cisterns is the mountain once called Lycabettus, lying before the acropolis. It is bare or covered with wild sage and plants, except where the scanty soil will admit the plough. It was formerly in repute for olives. We saw behind the cisterns a marble statue, sedent; as we supposed, of a philosopher. It was sunk in the ground, and the face much injured, but we were told had been discovered, not many years before, entire.

The road, dividing at the cisterns, branches through the plain, which is open and of a barren aspect. The way to the left of Lycabettus, which anciently led to the Pilæan gate, now passes on between the solitary temple of Theseus, and the naked hill of the Areopagus, where the town begins. that side is also a track leading over Lycabettus. We proceeded by the way to the right, on which, at some distance from the cisterns, is an opening in the mountain, and a rocky

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