ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ATHENS. 



497 



in which it stood. Of this street, one vestige only remains, the 

 choragic monument of Lysicrates ; the position of which, both with 

 respect to the Acropolis and the Olympium, enables us to fix retro- 

 spectively with still more precision the site of the Prytaneum, which as 

 he is now advancing towards the theatre he has left to the north. 



Before his arrival at the theatre, however, Pausanias speaks of a 

 temple of Bacchus of the highest antiquity, which seems to have 

 been in his way towards it. This, without doubt, is the temple of 

 Bacchus in Limnis, mentioned by Thucydides among those very 

 ancient buildings which stood on the south-side of the Acropolis. 

 Few of the temples at Athens have been oftener alluded to by ancient 

 writers. The epithet evidently implies a low or marshy situation, and 

 as there is no ground of this description in the present city, or even 

 adjacent to it, the temple here mentioned by Pausanias has been 

 generally supposed to be distinct from that of Bacchus in Limnis. 

 There is, however, sufficient evidence of their identity. First, in the 

 position assigned by Pausanias, which is in reality the lowest part of 

 the city, and secondly, in some springs of brackish water, which, rising 

 at the northern base of the Acropolis, and of the hill of the Areopagus, 

 naturally flow in this direction ; nor is it surprising, as the level of 

 the ground in most parts of the city has been raised from 10 to 18 

 feet, that all traces of this marshy spot should have been obliterated. 



After noticing the edifice in the form of Xerxes's tent, which stood 

 between this temple and the theatre, and to which I shall presently 

 have occasion to recur, Pausanias conducts us to the latter, the situ- 

 ation of which he points out with great precision ; for we learn that 

 it stood at the foot of the rock, on the southern side of the Acropolis, 

 and that there was a grotto or cavern immediately above it. Nothing 

 now remains of the theatre but the cavea ; but this is exactly in the 

 position here described, a grotto occurring just above it, faced with 

 marble pilasters that support an entablature, on which are some 

 inscriptions, proving it to have been a choragic monument. Above 

 this entablature is a statue of marble and two columns, on each of 

 which are the marks of the feet of a tripod, and this may be regarded 



3 s 



