nians afterwards lodged Demetrius Poliorcetes. The precious effects of Minerva and of the other deities were amassed, and registered on marble. The tutelary gods were Jupiter Saviour, and Plutus, who had wings and eyes. The keys of this place, and of the gates of the Acropolis, were intrusted with the Prytanes; one of whom, chosen by lot, had them in his custody, but for a night only and a day, when he was called the epistates, or president; and then resigned them to a successor. The precaution of jealousy regulated and limited the command in this manner, lest a tyranny should be established on the possession of the public treasure and of the Acropolis.

The marbles, which recorded these riches of the Athenians, have not all perished. We discovered some, which I carefully copied, among the rubbish at the farther end of the Parthenon; and purchased one of a Turkish woman living in the Acropolis. Another had been conveyed down to the French convent; and, after we left it, was placed as a step in the staircase of a kitchen erected by the friar. All these inscriptions, which are very ancient, commemorate jewels, victories, and crowns of gold, rings, and a variety of curiosities consecrated by eminent persons; giving some, though an inadequate, idea of the nature and quality of the treasure. Another marble, which has been engraved at the expense of the society of Dilettanti, was discovered at a house not far from the temple of Minerva Polias, placed, with the inscribed face exposed, in the stairs. The owner, who was branded for some unfair dealing with the appellative Jefút, or the Jew, prefixed to his name, seeing me bestow so much labour in tak

ing a copy, became fearful of parting with the original under its value. When the bargain was at length concluded, we obtained the connivance of the disdar, his brother, under an injunction of privacy, as otherwise the removal of the stone might endanger his head, it being the property of the grand signior. Mustapha delivered a ring, which he commonly wore, to be shewn to a female black slave, who was left in the house alone, as a token; and our Swiss, with assistants and two horses, one reputed the strongest in Athens, arrived at the hour appointed, and brought down the two marbles, for which he was sent, unobserved; the Turks being at their devotions in the mosque, except the guard at the gate, who was in the secret. The large slab was afterwards rendered more portable by a mason. We saw many other inscribed marbles, besides these; some fixed in the walls, or in the pavement of the portico of the mosque; some in the floors and stairs of the houses; or lying in the courts, and among rubbish; all which we were permitted to copy; the Turks even prying into corners, and discovering several which they had often passed before without notice.

CHAP. XII.

FRONT OF THE HILL OF THE ACROPOLIS THE CAVE OF APOLLO AND PAN-A FOUNTAIN AND STATUE-THE PELASGICON AND LONG ROCKS-AN INSCRIPTION-THE THEATRE OF BACCHUS THE ATHENIANS FOND OF GLADIATORS -A GROTTO AND CHORAGIC MONUMENT-THE ODEUM OF PERICLES AND ATTICUS HERODES.

THE rock of the Acropolis spreads in front, sloping down from before the Propylea and outworks; and

is covered with Turkish sepulchres and gravestones, among which stands a small mosque P. At the foot is a deep narrow vale, with a road leading through, between the hill and Lycabettus, or the mountain, which lies before it. On one side, the buryinggrounds are bounded by a bare craggy rock, with a track passing over it toward the temple of Theseus. We shall leave this, which was the hill of the Areopagus, on the left hand, and descend by the way most frequented; intending to survey the outside of the Acropolis, keeping it on the right, until we have completed the circuit.

And first, below the right wing of the Propylea, or the temple of Victory, is a cave, once sacred to Apollo and Pan. It appears to have been adorned with votive tablets; and before it are some masses of brick wall, remnants of a church, founded, it is probable, on the removal of their altars, to insult them, and to prevent their votaries from cherishing a superstitious veneration of the spot. Apollo, one of its owners, deserved, instead of worship, to have been tried and condemned for a rape, which it was believed he committed in this cave on Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, who exposed in it afterwards the child Ion, from whom the Ionians of Europe and Asia were named. As to Pan, it is related, that on the landing of the Medes at Marathon, Phidippides, being sent to summon the Lacedæmonians, was met by him in Arcadia, when he declared an affection for the Athenians, and promised to be their ally. P mosque] oratory. R.

4 below the right wing of the Propylea, or the temple of Victory, is a cave,] below the wing of the Propylea, on the right hand, is a cave.

R.

A temple, on mount Parthenius near Tegea, remaining in the second century, was erected, they affirmed, on the very place of the interview. He was believed to have attended at Marathon, and to have contributed largely to the victory, by striking the enemy with the species of terror from him called panic. Miltiades rewarded him with a statue, and on the pedestal was an inscription, which is preserved among the epigrams ascribed to Simonides. Moreover, he was inserted in the catalogue of Athenian divinities. The goat-footed god quitted his habitation on the mountain, and, according to Lucian, settled at Athens, living in the cave under the Acropolis, a little beneath the Pelasgic wall; where the people still continued to assemble two or three times a year, to sacrifice a he-goat to him, to feast and be

merry.

By the road-side, before you come to the town, is a fountain, in the wall on the left hand, supplied probably by the same spring as the well once in the temple of Neptune; for the water descends from the Acropolis, and is not fit for drinking. Farther on is a statue of Isis inserted in the wall on the right hand; a ruined church; and the gateway of the outwork next the town. We shall turn up on the right, and keep in the outskirt, on the side of the hill.

The Athenians permitted the Pelasgi, who fortified the Acropolis, to dwell beneath, and bestowed on them a portion of land to cultivate, as a reward for their labour. Afterwards, they accused them of a conspiracy, and of waylaying their sons and daughters, who went for water to the fountain called Enneacrunus; drove them out of Attica, and execrated the spot on which they had lived, making it unlaw

ful to dig, or sow, or build there; the transgressors to be apprehended, carried before the archon, and fined. It was the advice of the Delphic oracle, that the Pelasgicon should be kept rough and naked; but, on the invasion by the Peloponnesians, the people flocking into the city, that spot, with the temples, except a few which could not be forced open, and the towers of the long walls, received inhabitants. The Pelasgicon probably comprehended the acclivity, or vacant space, on this side above the houses, which now produces grain; and perhaps it was forbidden to be occupied for the security of the fortress, which on that quarter was most liable to be surprised by treachery, or carried by assault. Some large single rocks, which lie there, and have rolled down from above, disparted by their own weight, or the violence of earthquakes, are, it is likely, those called anciently the long rocks, and mentioned as near the cave of Apollo and Pan.

The hill of the Acropolis is more abrupt and perpendicular, as well as narrower, at the extremity, or end opposite to the Propylea. There, beneath the wall, is a cavern, the roosting-place of crows and daws. A long scaffold was standing against the outside of the fortress above, and many large stones had fallen down. One was inscribed and contained a decree of the tribe named Pandionis. In this record, Nicias is praised and honoured with a crown, because he had obtained a victory with a chorus of boys at the Dionysia, or festival of Bacchus, and with one of men at the Thargelia, or festival of

"The Pelasgicon is mistaken for a temple by the interpreter of Thucydides, lib. ii.