A T H E N S the Parthenon; Fiirtwangler and Milchhdfer hold the strange view that the “ opisthodomos ” was a separate building at the east end of the Acropolis, while Penrose thinks the building discovered by Dorpfeld was possibly the Cecropeion. Curtius and J. W. White, on the other hand, accept Dorpfeld’s identification, but believe that only the western portion of the temple, or opisthodomos, was rebuilt after the Persian war. Admitting the identification, we may perhaps conclude that the temple was repaired in order to provide a temporary home for the venerated image and other sacred objects : no traces of a restoration exist, but the walls probably remained standing after the Persian conflagration. The removal of the ancient temple was undoubtedly intended when the Erechtheion was built, but superstition and popular feeling may have prevented its demolition and the removal of the l~6avov to the new edifice. The temple consisted of an eastern cella with pronaos; behind this was the opisthodomos, divided into three chambers—possibly treasuries —with a portico at the western end. The peristyle, if we compare the measurements of the stylobate with those of the drums built into the wall of the Acropolis, may be concluded to have consisted of six columns at the ends and twelve at the sides. The internal arrangements of the Erechtheion are still a subject of controversy. The peculiar design of the temple is attributable to the necessity imposed on the 011 arc Jheion^ ^ ^^ect °f including within the building a number of sacred places, and combining several cults. Within its precincts Pausanias (i. 26. 5) found altars to Poseidon, with whose worship that of Erechtheus was associated, to the hero Butes and to Hephaestus, also a well of salt water and the imprint of Poseidon’s trident. Whether he also found here the ancient image of Athena and her ever-burning lamp is open to doubt owing to the vagueness of his language; he may mean to attribute these objects either to the Erechtheion or to the old temple adjoining it. If he places them in the Erechtheion that name can strictly apply to only a portion of the existing building, the remainder of the temple, which he describes as “double,” being the “sanctuary of Athena” (vabs Trjs IIoAtdSos) which he subsequently mentions. On this assumption the eastern and larger chamber of the Erechtheion has generally been identified with the shrine of Athena Polias. The western chamber adjoining the porch of the Maidens may possibly have contained the tomb of Cecrops, and the altars mentioned by Pausanias; the identification of the rock-hewn cistern beneath the pavement in this compartment with the salt well of Erechtheus is very doubtful. The mark of the trident is in the crypt beneath the north portico. The beautiful north door of the temple is held by E. Gardner and It. Schultz (Journal Hell. Stud. 1891) not to be identical with the original one, the present heavy door-jambs and the lintel being restorations. The excavation of the Pandroseion or temenos of Pandrosos, the daughter of Cecrops, which adjoins the ErechThe Pan. theion on the west, has revealed no traces of droseitn a temple. The site of this precinct, in which and Chat, the sacred olive tree of Athena grew, has cotheke. peen aim0st certainly fixed by an inscription found in the bastion of Odysseus. At its north-western extremity is a platform of levelled rock which may have supported the altar of Zeus Hypsistus. The excavation of the ground immediately west of the Parthenon brought to light the remains of a large rectangular building, apparently fronted by a colonnade. This has been identified with the Chalcotheke, a storehouse of bronze implements and arms, which was formerly supposed to lie against the north wall near the Propylaea. The site was hitherto
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erroneously believed to be the temenos of Athena Ergane. The adjoining temple of Nike is proved by an inscription found in 1896 to have been built before the Propylaea. During the course of the excavations on the Acropolis the bastion built by the Greek chieftain Odysseus, to protect the staircase leading down to the well £>eilwvai 0/ Clepsydra below the north-western cliff, was historic demolished. The “ Tower of the Franks,” ™onu. an interesting remnant of the Middle Ages ments‘ which stood near the temple of Nike, had been taken down in 1874, despite the protests of Freeman, Penrose, and other scholars. The projected removal of the Turkish minaret in the south-west corner of the Parthenon has happily not been carried out; its preservation is essential to the stability of the adjoining masonry. In 1892 Dorpfeld began a series of excavations in the district between the Acropolis and the Pnyx with the object of determining the situation of the Excavabuildings described by Pausanias as existing tions in in the neighbourhood of the Agora, and more 1892.98. especially the position of the Enneacrunus fountain. The Enneacrunus has hitherto been generally identified with the spring Callirrhoe in the bed of the Ilissus, a little to the south-east of the Olympieion; it is apparently placed by Thucydides (ii. 15) in proximity to that building, as well as the temple of Dionysus h At/xmis and other shrines which he mentions as situated to the south of the Acropolis. On the other hand Pausanias (i. 14. 1), who never deviates without reason from the topographical order of his narrative, mentions the Enneacrunus in the midst of his description of certain buildings which were undoubtedly in the region of the yVgora, and unless he is guilty of an unaccountable digression the Enneacrunus which he saw must have lain west of the Acropolis. It is now generally agreed that the Agora of classical times covered the low ground between the hill of the “ Theseion,” the Areopagus, and the Pnyx ; and Pausanias, in the course of his description, appears to have reached its southern end. The excavations revealed a main road of surprisingly narrow dimensions winding up from the Agora to the Acropolis. A little to the south-west of the point where the road turns towards the Propykea was found a large rock-cut cistern or reservoir which Dorpfeld identifies with the Enneacrunus. The reservoir is supplied by a conduit of 6th - century tiles connected with an early stone aqueduct, the course of which is traceable beneath the Dionysiac theatre and the royal garden in the direction of the upper Ilissus. These elaborate waterworks were, according to Dorpfeld, constructed by the Pisistratids in order to increase the supply from the ancient spring Callirrhoe ; the fountain was furnished with nine jets, and henceforth known as Enneacrunus. This identification has been hotly contested by many scholars, and the question must still be regarded as undecided. An interesting confirmation of Dorpfeld’s view is furnished by the map of Guillet and Coronelli, published in 1672, in which the Enneacrunus is depicted as a well with a stream of running water in the neighbourhood of the Pnyx. The fact that spring water is not now found in this locality is by no means fatal to the theory : recent engineering investigations have shown that much of the surface water of the Attic plain has sunk to a lower level. In front of the reservoir is a small open space towards which several roads converge; close by is a triangular enclosure of polygonal masonry, in which were found various relics relating to the worship of Dionysus, a very ancient wine-press (A^vos), and the remains of a small temple. Built over this early precinct, which Ddrpfeld identifies with the Dionyseion Iv Xl/xvais, or Lenseon, is a S. I. — 96
