ATHENS. 313 
not to have been connected with, or to have 
made a part of, any other building, but to have 
been originally intended to remain insulated." 
He also considers the inscriptions upon the two 
sides of it " as a complimentary effusion of gra- 
titude to a liberal benefactor ;" and yet he has 
been induced, by the forced construction of a 
passage in Plutarch, to believe this building to 
be the Arch of JEgeus, rebuilt by the Roman 
Emperor. If this had been the case, and if 
Hadrian, as he supposes, had really restored a 
venerable fabric owing to any regard for the 
consideration in which its original founder was 
held, he would not surely have opposed his 
own fame to that of Theseus, as we find it to 
be vaunted in the two inscriptions upon the 
arch 5 . It seems more reasonable to suppose 
that these inscriptions were placed by the 
Athenians upon a triumphal arch erected in 
honour of Hadrian, as adulatory testimonies of 
their regard for a patron to whose munificence 
their city was so much indebted, and as the 
(a) On the south-eastern side, towards the Acropolis: 
AIAEI5AHNAI0H2En2HnPINriOAI2 
Hoe sunt Athens Tliesei quondam urbs. 
On the north-western side, towards the Temple of Jupiter Olympius 
AIAEI2AAPIANOTKOrXI0H2En2I10AI2 
Ha tunt Athence Hadriani, et nequaquam Thesei urbs. 
