( 480 ) 



ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ATHENS. 



[BY MR. HAWKINS.1 



The public buildings of Athens are often mentioned in the writings 

 of the ancients, but for the most part, in so cursory a way, as to 

 afford us very little information about their relative position. Nor is 

 it possible, I believe, to supply this deficiency without the aid of 

 Pausanias. * For although it be true, that there are many passages in 

 those writings, which point out the situation of two or more buildings 

 in respect to each other, or their general bearing from one central 

 point, the Acropolis ; yet, it is Pausanias alone, who gives us the 

 arrangement of the whole, and conducts us in a regular succession 

 from one object to another. 



Pausanias, therefore, (whose professed purpose it was to describe 

 the antiquities of Athens,) must be regarded as our safest guide ; and 

 the work of Meursius, who has collected under one point of view all 

 that relates to this subject, will prove a very useful commentary on 

 that author, f 



* Of the works of Heliodoriis Periegetes, who gave an .^ccount of the Acropolis ; of 

 Menecles or Callistratus, who described Athens ; and of Phiiochorus, who wrote on At- 

 tica, nothing remains but the citations that are given us by Suidas, Harpocration, Hesy- 

 chiusj Pausanias, and others. 



f There ate few passages in ancient authors illustrative of the history and antiquities of 

 Athens and Attica which have escaped the diligence of this critic; but those who consult 

 him must exercise their own judgment in the use which they make of these materials; in 

 proof of which I need only mention, that Meursius has quoted indiscriminately the passages 

 which relate to the three temples of Jupiter Olympius, and that he teems never to have 

 suspected that the temple of Bacchus, which is mentioned by Pausanias, was the same as 

 the temple of Bacchus in Limnis. The same want of discrimination is manifest in his 

 account of the 'Sih'ta. 



