PANORAMIC VIEW OF ATHENS. 



559 



G. 7. The remains of an ancient building- on the IHssus. The 

 loundation-stones are large blocks of white marble. It is the ruin of 

 a temple ; but it is uncertain to whom it was dedicated. Stuart has 

 given a drawing of it. (Antiq. vol. i. c. 2.) It has suffered much in 

 its appearance since his time ; he calls it the temple of Panops. 



H. 8. Hymettus. It joins on to the right side of Plate I., and com- 

 pletes the Panorama. i 



NOTE. 



[Many tombs and sepulchres have been cut out of the rock on the 

 eastern side of the Pircean harbour, as well as numerous niches or 

 shrines in the face of them ; and here votive offerings to Neptune 

 were placed. Among the ruins of the town of Piraeus, some of 

 the ancient streets may yet be traced ; and the remains of two 

 theatres, and of a Doric temple, marked by the capitals and triglyphs 

 now scattered near its site. 



The construction of part of the ancient walls here is remarkable ; 

 they are not built in horizontal courses, but formed of huge polygonal 

 blocks of stone with smooth joints. 



The masonry of the long walls is very coarse, and materials of 

 every kind seem to have been used. There have been towers at 

 certain distances all the way from the Piraeus to Athens ; but the wall 

 on the side of Munychia is not so easily traced as the other. The 

 foundations are about twelve feet thick. In the space between the 

 long walls, over which the road to Athens conducted us, we observed 

 in many places the foundations of houses, built on terraces, for 

 which the rocky groimd had been levelled, with the utmost regard to 

 economy of space; staircases had also been cut in the rock. We 

 here noticed some remains of tessellated pavements and many ancient 

 wells. Some of these have a hollow cylindrical stone at their mouth, 

 about three feet high above the surface of the ground ; others have a 

 moulding round the top, and look like circular altars ; and I believe 

 it was not uncommon to have bas reliefs on them. The stones were 

 deeply indented by the frequent friction of the ropes to which the 

 bucket was hung. One of these wells, if it be a well, is of a very 



