ATHENS. 255 
Nearly all that we know of the building is CHAP. 
derived from an accidental allusion made to it 
by Pausanias, in his description of Achaia; for 
it was not erected, as he himself declares, when 
he had finished his account of Attica 3 . It was 
raised by Herodes, in memory of his wife; and 
considered as far surpassing, in magnitude and 
in the costliness of its materials, every other 
edifice of the kind in all Greece*. The roof of it 
was of cedar. The Coilon for the seats was 
scooped in the solid rock of the Citadel; a prac- 
tice so antient, that from this circumstance 
alone a person might be induced to believe, 
with Chandler^ some more antient theatre existed 
upon the spot before Herodes added any thing 
to the work. The first thing that strikes a 
modern traveller, in viewing the Grecian thea- 
tres, is the shallowness of the Proscenion, or 
place for the stage. It is hardly possible to 
conceive how, either by the aid of painting or by 
scenic decoration, any tolerable appearance of 
distance or depth of view could be imitated. 
two Choragic Pillars near to the Theatre of Bacchus, the columns of 
Hadrian's Temple of Olympian Jove, and a distant view of the ridge 
of Hymettus. 
(3) Pausanias Achaiea, c. 20. p. 574. Lips. 1696. 
(4) Tiara ycif piyifat n *< is TJV irciffa,v vxieriKi x.x.rx,tK:uw. Pausanite 
Achaiea, ibid. 
