ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ATHENS. 



483 



We must have recourse therefore, in this instance, to written 

 authorities alone ; and we shall find that Pausanias, with the help of 

 some occasional information from other writers of antiquity, will to a 

 certain extent supply the deficiency. 

 \ Pausanias describes the approach to the city in two different 



directions. * After mentioning very briefly what deserved notice on 

 the road from Phalerum, he speaks of the ruins of the long walls, 

 (that had been rebuilt by Conon,) on the road from the Piraeus ; and 

 he arrives at another gate of the city, which we can have little doubt 

 must have been the Piraean. Here it is that Pausanias begins his 

 description of Athens, and as this is a point of so much importance 

 in respect to what follows, I shall endeavour to ascertain its true 

 position. 



It is evident that the line of the northern long wall must point out 

 the direction of the gate here noticed, both in respect to the Piraeus 

 and the Acropolis ; and it is fortunate that so much of this wall as will 

 serve to ascertain its general direction is still in existence. The 

 foundations may be traced to the extent of a mile and a half along 

 the modern road, and this portion of the wall is perfectly straight 

 and nearly level. From the western end, which butts against a hill 

 near the Piraeus, I observed that the Parthenon bore precisely over 

 the eastern end of the line, the Propylaea appearing to the left of it. 

 If we advance in the same direction from the eastern end of the 

 wall towards the Acropolis, we shall arrive by a gradual ascent at a 

 hollow between the hills of the Museum and Pnyx, which is the 

 modern way from the Piraeus to the Acropolis ; and here are still 

 to be seen some small vestiges of a gate and of the city-walls. We 

 must therefore regard this as the Piraean gate, which in fact it is 

 admitted to be by many who have published their remarks on the 

 topography of Athens ; and the question next to be considered, is, in 



* The long walls having been destroyed a century before the time of Pausanias, that 

 traveller probably alludes to a more direct line of road from Phalerum, otherwise he would 

 scarcely have noticed two separate roads. 



3 q 2 



