was in some part of the rocks of the Acropolis, there remains only in this part of the narrative of Pausanias a want of local connexion between the Poecile and the new Agora. But the Poecile was in one of the most illustrious parts of the Agora of the middle period of Greek history; as the incidental mention of it by ancient writers' demonstrates, as well as the position of the Hermes Agoraus at the Astic Gate, which was near the Poecile 2. Pausanias therefore, it is evident, referred to the Agora of the Augustan and subsequent ages; which, doubtless, occupied ground contiguous to the eastern part of the prior Agora, and probably even comprehended that extremity of it. Both from this consideration therefore, and from the natural import of the narrative of Pausanias, we may confidently assume that the Poecile was not far distant from the portico of Augustus, westward.

We learn from an Athenian antiquary that the Herma. street called the Hermæ conducted from the Stoa Basileius to the Poecile ". This celebrated and cen

* Particularly Æschines :-προσέλθετε οὖν τῇ διανοίᾳ καὶ εἰς τὴν Στοὰν τὴν Ποικίλην· ἁπάντων γὰρ ὑμῖν τῶν καλῶν ἔργων τὰ ὑπομνήματα ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ ἀνάκειται. c. Ctesiph. p. 575, Reiske. The statue of Solon, which Pausanias describes to have been before the Pocile, is placed by Demosthenes (c. Aristog. 2) and by Ælian (Var. Hist. 8, 16) in the Agora.

See above, p. 121, where note 2 will explain the reason of my having ventured to give the name of Astic Gate to this vλiç Οι πυλών.

31

̓Απὸ γὰρ τῆς Ποικίλης καὶ τῆς τοῦ Βασιλέως στοᾶς εἰσὶν οἱ Ερμαϊ καλούμενοι. Mnesicles sive Callistratus ap. Harpocrat., ap. Phot. Lex. in 'Epμai.

From Harpocration, on the authority of Antiphon (c. Nicoclea) it appears that the Stoa of the Thracians was in this street.

tral part of the Agora, therefore, which received its name from a great number of Hermæ, dedicated by persons both in public and private stations', seems to have been a continuation of the great Ceramic street leading through the Agora by the Poecile to the portal of the new Agora; and thus we trace exactly the route of philosophy, in her way from the Academy to the Pocile, that is to say, from the platonic philosophers to the stoics, as imagined by Lucian 2.

There must have been still, however, a third street, leading directly from near the Stoa Basileius to the northern side of the ascent to the Propylæa; and it

1 ὑπὸ ἰδιωτῶν καὶ ἀρχόντων. Harpocr. in Ερμαϊ. Among them were the 'Iñáρɣεiι 'Epμaï, so called as having been dedicated by Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus. They were inscribed with moral sentences in verse, έλεγεῖα ἐξ ὧν ἔμελλον βελτίους οἱ ἀναγινώσκοντες γίνεσθαι. Hesych. in Ιππάρχειος Ἑρμῆς. Plato (Hipparch. 4) alludes to them as being in the middle of the city (ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ ̓́Αστεος), and adds that Hipparchus placed similar monuments in the Demi. He has left us the inscriptions on two

of them,

Μνῆμα τόδ' Ιππάρχου στείχε δίκαια φρονῶν.

Μνῆμα τόδ' Ιππάρχου μὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα.

Three-headed Mercuries were common at the meeting of three ways, where they were inscribed as posts of direction. There appears to have been one of these in the street of the Mercuries at a branch called the 'Eoría ódós: it was dedicated by Patrocleides, the lover of Hipparchus, and was therefore, it may be supposed, near the Hipparcheian Hermæ. Harpocrat., Suid. in Τρικέφαλος ὁ Ἑρμῆς. Μικρὸν δ ̓ ἄνω τοῦ Τρικεφάλου παρὰ τὴν Εστίαν ὁδόν. Isæus, ibid.

* ἐνταῦθα γὰρ ἐν Κεραμεικῷ ὑπομενοῦμεν αὐτήν· (Philosophiam) ἡ δὲ ἤδη που ἀφίξεται, ἐπανιοῦσα ἐξ ̓Ακαδημίας ὡς περιπατήσειε καὶ ἐν τῇ Ποικίλῃ, τοῦτο γὰρ ὁσημέραι ἔθος ποιεῖν αὐτῇ. Lucian.

Piscator. 13.

was probably in this direction, and not in the street of the Hermæ, that stood the Hephæsteium and the Aphrodisium. For the Hephæsteium was near the Colonus Agoræus, and a street, branching from the Ceramic street, near the supposed site of the Stoa Basileius, in the direction of the northern ascent to the Acropolis, would pass just below the northern projection of the Areiopagus; a height corresponding, both in nature and position, with that Colonus Agoræus on which Meton placed his new astronomical instrument for the public use, and which, in consequence of its elevation and central position, became also a customary place of hire for labourers 3, whence it received the epithet of Μίσθιος as well as that of 'Αγοραίος. It is stated also that the Colonus Agoræus was behind the Macra Stoa; whence it becomes probable that the Macra Stoa conducted from the Stoa Basileius to the ascent of the Acro

· δύο γὰρ ὄντων τῶν Κολωνῶν, ὁ μὲν Ιππειος ἐκαλεῖτο, οὗ μέσ μνηται Σοφοκλῆς, ὡς Οἰδίποδος εἰς αὐτὸν καταφυγόντος· ὁ δ ̓ ἦν ἐν ̓Αγορᾷ παρὰ τὸ Ευρυσάκειον, οὗ συνῄεσαν οἱ μισθαρνοῦντες. J. Poll. 7, 132.

τοὺς μισθωτοὺς Κολωνίτας ὠνόμαζον, ἐπειδὴ παρὰ τῷ Κολωνῷ εἱστήκεισαν, ὃς ἐστὶ πλησίον τῆς ̓Αγορᾶς, ἔνθα τὸ Ηφαίστειον καὶ τὸ Εὐρυσάκειόν ἐστι· ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ ὁ Κολωνὸς οὗτος ̓Αγοραῖος. Harpocrat. in Κολωνίτας.

3

3 See above, p. 219.

* Όψ ̓ ἦλθες, ἄλλ ̓ ἐς τὸν Κολωνὸν ἴεσο. Ἐπὶ τῶν μισθωτῶν ἔλεγον· τοὺς γὰρ ἐπὶ τὸ ἔργον ἐλθόντας ὀψὲ ἀπέλυον πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ μισθωτήριον· τὸ δὲ ἦν ἐν Κολωνῷ. Hesych. in Όψ ̓ ἦλθες, Κολωνός. J. Poll. 1. 1.

The same height seems to be alluded to in the Andria of Terence, 2, 2. v. 19.

* Κολωνός ἐστιν ὁ ἕτερος ὁ Μίσθιος λεγόμενος· οὕτω μέρος τι νῦν σύνηθες γέγονε Κολωνὸν καλεῖν τὸ ὄπισθεν τῆς Μακρᾶς στοᾶς. Schol. Aristoph. Αν. 998.

polis on the northern side, forming a street in or near which the temples of Vulcan and of Venus Urania were situated. To the supposition that these two buildings may have stood more directly between the Stoa Basileius and the Pocile, the objection occurs that this almost inevitably identifies the Macra Stoa with the street of the Herma, which can hardly be conceived: nor is there any height near this line which would in that case correspond to the Colonus Agoraus. If the preceding conjectures on the plan of this part of Athens are correct, it would appear that the Ceramic dromus had a triple separation at or near the Stoa Basileius; one conducting to the Poecile and New Agora, the middle street leading to the northern ascent to the Acropolis, and the third along the southern side of the hill of Mars to the ascent of the Acropolis on the southern side. The point of separation was probably the Triodus of the Cerameicus, at which stood the Hermes of four heads, made by Telesarchides; the fourth head was probably directed towards Dipylum, which street was very naturally not taken into consideration in the name Triodus, although there was, in fact, at or near the point of separation a meeting of four streets. It follows, from the supposed positions of the Pœcile and temple of Venus Urania, that the Pylon asticus, or gate at

1

τετρακέφαλος Ἑρμῆς . . . . ἐν τῇ τριόδῳ τῇ Κεραμεικῷ ἵδρυτο. Hesych. in Ερμῆς Τρικέφαλος.

Ἑρμῆς Τετρακέφαλος· ἐν Κεραμεικῷ Τελεσαρχίδου ἔργον. Phot. Lex. in v.

The following was the inscription upon it:

Ἑρμῆ Τετρακέφαλε, καλὸν Τελεσαρχίδου ἔργον,

Πάνθ' ὁράας.

Eustath. in II. . 334.

which stood the famous Hermes Agoraus, was on the south-western side of the Poecile '.

sium

mæum.

Westward of the gate of the New Agora and of Gymnathe Corinthian colonnade which lies to the north of Ptoleit, and between those two ruins and the temple of Theseus, are remains of several large buildings. Some courses of the walls are extant in two places, but their plan among the modern structures which encumber the site has not yet been traced. That, of which a part of the wall still exists at a distance of 230 yards to the south-eastward of the temple of Theseus, seems to have been a part of the Gymnasium Ptolemæum; 1. Because it formed part of a building which stood not far from the Theseium, as

1

The word Tuλv, which Philochorus applied to this gate, generally refers in inscriptions to the portal or entrance-gate of an inclosure, and the trophy placed upon it favours the opinion that it was the kind of structure from which the Roman triumphal arches were derived. This Pylon was of very early date; having been not only more ancient than the trophy erected upon it about the year 304, in the war of the Athenians against Cassander, but more ancient than the Hermes Agoræus, which was placed at this gate in the archonship of Cebris, B.c. 482-1. See above, p. 121, n. 2. It may, therefore, have been as old as the Stoa Peisianacteius, or Poecile; the proximity of which is strongly marked by Lucian, who describes the Hermes Agoræus as πapà Thy Howiλny (Jup. Trag. 33). The Pylon, therefore, may have stood before the entrance of that celebrated Stoa, which, from the description of its paintings by Pausanias, appears to have been a στοά τετράγωνος (V. Strabo, p. 646.) with an ὕπαιθρον, or quadrangle open to the sky; and thus to have resembled exactly the painted cloisters which adorned Italy on the revival of the arts, and which are probably lineal descendants of the Stoæ. The two other chief Athenian Stoæ, the Basileius and Eleutherius (Harpocr. in Baoiλetos Eroa), may have been of the same description.

S