The excavations which have brought to light the ancient sanctuary of the Limnae were not undertaken solely, or even chiefly, with that object. Rather the intention was to settle, if possible, other and wider topographical questions: where lay the ancient road to the Acropolis, where the ancient agora, and where the city well, Kallirrhoë. Yet, to some, who awaited with an almost breathless impatience the result of these excavations, their great hope was that the precinct of the Limnae might be found; that they might know where in imagination to picture the ancient rites of the Anthesteria and the marriage of the Queen and those earliest dramatic contests from which sprang tragedy and comedy. The wider results of the excavations will be noted in connection with the Enneakrounos; for the moment it is the narrower, intenser issue of the Limnae that alone concerns us.

So far our only topographical clues have been two. (1) Thucydides has told us that the sanctuary in the Marshes with the other sanctuaries he mentions was ‘towards’ the ancient city; we have fixed the Pythion at the North-West corner of the Acropolis, and as his account seems to be moving westwards, we expect the Dionysiac sanctuary to be West of that point. (2) We know also (p. 87) that the ancient orchestra was near the Areopagus. We look for a site for the Dionysia which shall combine these two directions. If that site is also a possible Marsh, so much the better; and here indeed, in the hollow between the Pnyx, Areopagus, and Acropolis, water is caught and confined; but for artificial drainage, here marsh-land must be. This, by practical experience, the excavators soon had reason to know.

A portion of the results of the excavations begun by the German Archaeological Institute in 1887[209] and lasting for upwards of ten years is to be seen on the plans in Figs. 24 and 35. The enlarged plan of a portion of the excavations (Fig. 24) for the moment alone concerns us. The first substantial discovery that rewarded the excavators was the finding of the ancient road. It followed, as Professor Dörpfeld had always predicted it would, the lie of the modern road. Roads being strictly conditioned by the law of least resistance do not lightly alter their course. The present carriage road to the Acropolis is a little less devious in its windings than the ancient one, that is all (Fig. 35).

Just below where the ancient road passes down from the West shoulder of the Acropolis, and at a level much higher than that of the road itself, the excavators came on a building of Roman date and indifferent masonry, which proved to be a large hall, with two rows of columns dividing it into a central nave and two aisles. To the East the hall was furnished with a quadrangular apse. Within this apse was found an altar[210] decorated with scenes from the worship of Dionysos, a goat being dragged to the altar, a Satyr, a Maenad, and the like. This altar would in itself rouse the suspicion that we are in a sanctuary dedicated to Dionysos, but fortunately we are not left to evidence so precarious.

Of far greater interest than the altar, and indeed for our purpose of supreme importance, was another discovery. In the apse, with the altar mentioned and other altars, was found the drum of a column (Fig. 25), which had once stood in the great hall; columns just like it are still standing, so that it belongs without doubt to the building. On it is an inscription[211], divided into two columns and 167 lines in length, which from its style may be dated about the third century A.D. Above the inscription, in a relief in pediment form containing Dionysiac symbols, two panthers stand heraldically, one to either side of a cantharus; above is the head of a bull. Inscriptions arranged in this fashion on columns are not unusual in the third century A.D.[212]

The inscription contains the statutes of a thiasos, or club of persons calling themselves Iobakchoi, who met in a place—the hall where the inscription was set up—called the Bakcheion. This is our quadrangular building marked Bakcheion on the plan (Fig. 24). The rules, which are given in great detail, are very interesting, but for the present one thing only concerns us—the name of the thiasos, the Iobakchoi. Iobakchos was a title of Dionysos, a title probably derived from a cry uttered in his worship, and, we remember (p. 85) with sudden delight, the Gerarae, the attendants of the Queen, promised in their oath to celebrate, in accordance with ancestral usage, the Iobakcheia.

But the building, and even the traces of an earlier structure that preceded it[213], are of late date; we are on the spot, and yet so far the sanctuary in the Marshes eludes us. But not for long. Digging deeper down, to the level of the ancient road, the excavators came on another and an earlier structure, the triangular precinct marked on the plan, and here at last evidence was found that settled for ever the site of the sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes.

The sanctuary, for such we shall immediately see it was, is of triangular shape, and lies substantially lower than the roads by which it is bounded. The sides of the triangle face approximately, North, East and South-West. The precinct is surrounded by an ancient polygonal wall, a portion of which from the South end of the South-West side is shown in Fig. 26. The material is throughout blue calcareous stone, but the masonry is by no means of uniform excellence or of the same date. At various periods the wall must have undergone repairs. The space enclosed is about 560 square metres. Owing to the fact that the precinct lay deeper than the surrounding roads, sometimes to the extent of two metres, the wall is supported in places by buttresses, only one of which is of good Greek masonry; the rest seem to have been added shortly before the ancient precinct fell into disuse.

A notable point about this precinct wall is that there is no trace of any large entrance-gate. We expect a gate at the South-West side, where the precinct is skirted by the main road. Here the wall is well preserved, but there is no trace of any possible gate. The only feasible place is at the South end of the East wall, where there seems to have been a break, and towards this point, as we shall see, the small temple is orientated. Here, then, and in all probability here only, was there access to the precinct.

At the North-West corner the excavators came on a structure so far unique in the history of discoveries. They found a walled-in floor 4·70 m. by 2·80. This floor is carefully paved with a mixture of pebbles, stone, and cement, and is inclined to one corner at an angle of 0·25 m. At this lowest point there is a hole through the wall enclosing the floor, and outside, let into the pavement, is a large vessel, 0·50 m. in diameter, quadrangular above, round below. They had found, beyond all possible doubt, what they had never dared to hope they might find, an ancient Greek wine-press or lenos, and at the finding of that wine-press fled the last lingering misgiving. In Fig. 27 is a view[214] of the wine-press, which shows clearly how it lies just in the corner of the triangular precinct, with its South-West wall (in the front of the picture) abutting on the Panathenaic way. The stucco floor of the wine-press comes out in dead white. In the background can be seen, to the right, the North aisle of the rectangular Bakcheion, and, to the left, the foot of the Areopagus rock.

The wine-press, which is shown in section in Fig. 28, had, like the precinct, had a long history. It had been rebuilt more than once. The paved floors of two successive structures are clearly visible. The upper one is smaller than the lower, and, of course, of later date. It is, however, below the level of the Bakcheion, and must have been underground when the Bakcheion was built. The lower wine-press is at the same level as the Lesche, on the opposite side of the road, which is known to be of the 4th century B.C. Under this 4th century wine-press is a pavement which must have belonged to a third, yet earlier structure. It may be noted that these wine-presses are in every respect exactly similar to those in use among the Greeks to-day. The wine-press within the precinct is not the only one that came to light; scattered about near at hand were several others. Two can be seen on the plan in Fig. 35. It was indeed a place of wine-presses, a Lenaion.

The wine-press in itself would mark the precinct as belonging to Dionysos, but there was more evidence forthcoming. In the centre of the precinct is the foundation in poros stone of a large altar, 3·10 metres square (Fig. 29). In this foundation there once were four holes; three of them remain, and the fourth may be safely supplied. These holes are evidently intended for the supports on which the actual altar-table rested. Such altar-tables are familiar in vase-paintings, and seem to have been in use specially in the cult of Dionysos; they held the wine-jars offered to the god, and baskets of fruit such as those on which the attendants of the Queen took their oath (p. 85). Moreover, the actual altar-slab of just such a table has been found in Attica, and it bears an inscription to Dionysos Auloneus[215]. Yet another important point remains. On the West step of the altar foundation a long groove is sunk in the stone. Its purpose is obvious. Both on the Acropolis and elsewhere in sacred precincts such grooves are found, and they served to contain the bases of stelae, on which decrees, dedications, and the like were inscribed. Is it not at least possible that we have here not only the altar on which the Queen took her oath, but the groove in which was set up the very stele on which it was inscribed, the stele which stood ‘alongside of the altar’ (παρὰ τὸν βωμόν)?

We have, then, a precinct secluded from the main road; within it, open to the air, a great altar. But inside this precinct not a single inscription nor any sort of votive offering has come to light. In a precinct so important this at first sight seems strange. The explanation lies to hand. Votive offerings are meant to be seen, meant to show forth the piety of the worshipper as well as the glory of the god. Was it worth while to dedicate an offering in a precinct that was open but for one day in the whole year? Apparently not. This was essentially a ‘mystery’ sanctuary, with no touch of the museum.

In the sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes we expect not only precinct and altar but an actual temple, the existence of which we know, not from Thucydides, but from the scholiast[216] on the Frogs of Aristophanes. Commenting on the word ‘marsh’ he says, ‘a sacred place of Dionysos, in which there is a dwelling and a temple of the god.’ Callimachus in the Hekale says,

The ‘dwelling’ may be some building that contained the wine-press; the temple happily has been found, and its position in relation to the precinct is strange and significant.

The foundations of the temple came to light in the South corner of the precinct. It is of small size (3·96 by 3·40 m.), and consists of a quadrangular cella and a narrow pronaos. From its small size it seems unlikely that the pronaos had any columns. The masonry is very ancient. The walls are polygonal, and the blocks of calcareous stone of which they are made are on the South-West side unusually large. In the foundations of the side-walls a few poros blocks occur. There are no steps serving as foundation to either cella or pronaos. From this Professor Dörpfeld concludes that in all probability this temple is earlier than the temple of Dionysos Eleuthereus, close to the skenè of the theatre. The temple of Eleuthereus belonged to the time of Peisistratos; it is more carefully built than the one newly discovered, and it has one step. Early though the newly discovered building undoubtedly is, it was preceded by a yet earlier structure, the walls of which, marked on the plan, lie beneath its foundations.

Quite exceptional is the relation of the temple to the precinct. It does not lie in the middle, and is, moreover, separated from the inner part of the precinct by a wall and a door that could be closed. This separating wall is however apparently later than the temple, which possibly at one time stood free within the precinct. The separating wall is only explicable on ritual grounds. It made it possible for the temple to be accessible all the year round, whereas the precinct, save for one day in the year, was closed.

Are we to give to the ancient sanctuary the name Lenaion? To the sanctuary itself probably not. The meaning of Lenaion, it would seem, is not ‘sanctuary of the god Lenaios,’ but rather ‘place of the wine-press.’ It is noticeable that writers who could themselves have seen the sanctuary never call it Lenaion. Thucydides[217], the writer of the oration against Neaera[218], be he Demosthenes or Apollodorus, and again Phanodemus[219], as quoted by Athenaeus, all speak of it as the sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes. Isaeus[220] calls it the Dionysion-in-the-Marshes. On the other hand, when contemporary authors speak of the dramatic contest which was held not in honour of Dionysos Eleuthereus but at the older Dionysia, they speak of the contest as at or on the Lenaion, never as in-the-Marshes. The natural conclusion is that the name Lenaion is applicable to the place where the contests actually took place, namely to the ancient Orchestra and perhaps its immediate neighbourhood. The district of the wine-presses naturally had its dancing place, and that dancing place was called the Lenaion. To this day the peasants of Greece use for their festival-dances the village threshing-floor.

In the theatre of Eleuthereus Dr Dörpfeld[221] has given back to us the old orchestra. He has shown us deep down below the successive Graeco-Roman and Roman stages the old circular orchestra built of polygonal masonry (Fig. 16). On this old orchestra, with only wooden seats for the spectators, were acted, we now know, the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, nay tradition[222] even says, and we have no cause to doubt its veracity, that Thespis was the first (in 586 B.C.) to exhibit a play in the ‘city’ contest (ἐν ἄστει).

But ancient though it was, before it, as we have seen, came the orchestra in the Limnae. Dr Dörpfeld had hoped that his excavations would give back this orchestra too; this hope has not been fulfilled. Traces have been found of a circular structure on the South slope of the Areopagus and are marked on the plan (Fig. 46), but they are of uncertain date, and, if they mark the site of any ancient building, it is probably that of the Odeion of Agrippa. The old orchestra lay at the North-West corner of the Areopagos.

Tradition records the beginning of the contests ‘in the city,’ i.e. in the theatre of Eleuthereus, but the beginnings of the other festivals, the Lenaia and the Chytroi, held in the Limnae, are lost in the mists before. The two are in all probability but different names for the same festival, or rather the Chytroi is the whole ceremony of the third day of the Anthesteria and Lenaia the name given to the dramatic part of the ceremonies. But though we do not know the beginning, and though, as will presently be seen, the ‘Pot-Contests’ went back in all probability to a time before the coming of Dionysos, we have hints as to how the end came, how the splendour and convenience of the great theatre of Eleuthereus gradually obscured and absorbed the primitive contests of the orchestra in the Limnae.

It was, we know, the great statesman Lycurgus who, in the 4th century B.C., built the first permanent stone stage in the theatre and made the seats for the spectators as we see them now. So pleased was he, it would seem, with his theatre that he thought it useless and senseless to have plays acted elsewhere. Accordingly in the Lives of the Ten Orators[223] we learn that Lycurgus introduced laws, and among them one about comic writers ‘to hold a performance at the Chytroi, a competitive one, in the theatre,’ and ‘to record the victor as a victor in the city,’ which had formerly not been allowed. He thus revived the performance which had fallen into disuse.

Lycurgus meant well we may be sure, but he was a Butad[224], he ought to have known better than to pluck up an old festival by the roots like that and think to foster it by transplantation. The end was certain; the old precinct, deserted by its festivals, was bit by bit forgotten, overgrown, and at last in part built over by the new Iobakchoi.

The precinct had lost prestige by the time of Pausanias[225]. Had the temple of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes been above ground he would assuredly not have passed it by. Near to where the precinct once was he saw a building, a circular or semi-circular one, which may have been a last Roman reminiscence of the orchestra, and still of note though it did not occupy the same site; he notes ‘a theatre which they call the Odeion.’ It is probable that this was the theatre built by Agrippa and mentioned by Philostratos[226] as ‘the theatre in the Kerameikos, which goes by the name of the Agrippeion.’

Before leaving the sanctuary in-the-Marshes, a word must be said as to the Anthesteria or, as Thucydides calls it, ‘the more ancient Dionysiac Festival.’ I have tried elsewhere[227] to show in detail that the Dionysiac element in the Anthesteria was only a thin upper layer beneath which lay a ritual of immemorial antiquity, which had for its object the promotion of fertility by means of the placation of ghosts or heroes. On the first day, if I am right, the Pithoigia was an Opening not only of wine-jars but of grave-jars; the second, the Choes, was a feast not only of Cups but of Libations (χοαί); the third, the Chytroi, not only a Pot-feast, but a feast of Holes in the ground and of the solemn dismissal of Keres back to the lower world. That the collective name of the whole feast Anthesteria did not primarily mean the festival of those who ‘did the flowers,’ but rather of those who ‘revoked the ghosts[228].’

But in trying to distinguish the two strata, the under stratum of ghosts, the upper of Dionysos, I never doubted that the Pot Contest on the day of the Chytroi belonged to Dionysos. Dionysos and the ‘origin of the drama’ are canonically connected. It has remained, therefore, something of a mystery how Dionysos, late-comer as he was, contrived to possess himself of the ancient ghost-festival and impose his dramatic contests on a ritual substratum apparently so uncongenial. Religions are accommodating enough, but some sort of analogy or possible bridge from one to the other is necessary for affiliation.

The difficulty disappears at once if we accept Professor Ridgeway’s[229] recent theory as to the origin of tragedy. The drama according to him is not ‘Dorian,’ and, save for the one element of the Satyric play, not Dionysiac. It took its rise in mimetic dances at the tombs of local heroes. When Dionysos came to Athens with his Satyr attendants he would find the Pot-Contests as part of the funeral ritual of the Anthesteria. He added to the festival wine and the Satyrs. Small wonder that comedy, as in the Frogs, was at home in the Underworld, and could in all piety parody a funeral[230] on the stage.

Thucydides has given us four examples of sanctuaries outside the polis which are ‘towards that part’ of it, but again, as in the first clause, he seems to feel that if he has spoken the truth it is not the whole truth, so he saves himself from misunderstanding by an additional clause, ‘and other ancient sanctuaries are placed here.’

It would be idle to try and give a complete list of all the sanctuaries that were situated in this particular region, still more idle to decide of what particular sanctuaries Thucydides was thinking. The precinct of Aglauros and the Anakeion on the North side, the sanctuary of the Semnae and the Amyneion on the West, the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos and that of Themis on the West and South-West are all ‘towards’ the approach. Three out of these, the Amyneion, the sanctuary of the Semnae, and the sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos, are of such interest in themselves and so essential to the forming of a picture of the sanctities of ancient Athens that a word must be said of each.

The Amyneion. The Amyneion, or sanctuary of Amynos[231], is known to us only through monumental evidence, brought to light in the recent excavations. Its discovery is one of the things that make us feel suddenly how much of popular faith we, relying as we must almost wholly on literature, may have utterly lost.

If after leaving the precinct of Dionysos in-the-Marshes we follow the main road for about 35 metres, we come on a precinct (Fig. 30) of much smaller size and of quadrangular shape, which abuts on the road and along the North side of which a narrow foot-path leads up to the Acropolis. The precinct-walls are of hard blue calcareous stone from the Acropolis and neighbouring hills, and the masonry is good polygonal. The entrance-gate (A), which has been rebuilt in Roman times, is at the North-West corner. A little to the East of the middle of the precinct, and manifestly of great importance, is a well (B). The natural supply of this well was reinforced by a conduit-pipe, which leads direct into it from the great water-course of Peisistratos, which will later (p. 119) be described. Near the well are remains of a small hero-chapel, and within this was found the lower part of a marble sacrificial table (C), decorated with two snakes. The masonry of the precinct wall, the well, and the shrine all point to a date at the time of Peisistratos. Even before the limits of this precinct were fairly made out the excavators came upon a number of fragments of votive offerings of a familiar type. Such are reliefs representing parts of the human body, breasts and the like, votive snakes, and reliefs representing worshippers approaching a god of the usual Asklepios type. Conspicuous among these was a fine well-preserved relief (Fig. 31), depicting a man holding a huge leg, very clearly marked with a varicose vein, exactly where, doctors say, a varicose vein should be. The inscription[232] above the figure is unfortunately so effaced that no facts emerge save that the dedicator, the man who holds the leg, was the son of a certain Lysimachos, and was of the deme Acharnae. The style of the letters and of the sculpture dates the monument as of about the first half of the 4th century B.C. It was clear enough that the excavators had come on the precinct of a god of healing, and a few decades ago the precinct would have been labelled without more ado as ‘sacred to Asklepios.’ We should then have been left with the curious problem, Why had Asklepios two precincts, one on the South, one on the West? We know that Asklepios made his triumphant entry into the great precinct on the South slope in 421 B.C.; if he had had a precinct on the West slope since the days of Peisistratos, why did he leave it?

But now-a-days in the matter of ascription we proceed more cautiously. We know that votive-reliefs of the ‘Asklepios’ type are offered to almost any local hero, that local heroes anywhere and everywhere are hero-healers[233]. Hence local hero-healers were gradually absorbed and effaced by the most successful of their number, Asklepios. In literature we hear little of the hero-cult of an Amphiaraos, but his local shrine went on down to late days at Oropus. Fortunately in our precinct we have inscriptions that leave us no doubt. On a stele[234] (Fig. 32) found there we have an inscription as follows: ‘Mnesiptolemè on behalf of Dikaiophanes dedicated (this) to Asklepios Amynos.’

At first we seem no further; we have the familiar Asklepios worshipped under the title of Amynos, Protector, Defender. A second inscription[235], however, makes it certain that Amynos is not merely an adjective attached to Asklepios, but the cultus title of a person separate from Asklepios. This inscription, of the latter half of the 4th century B.C., is in honour of certain persons who had been benefactors of the thiasos (ὀργεῶνες) of Amynos and of Asklepios and of Dexion. We know who Dexion was; he was Sophocles, heroized, and he, the mortal, came last on the list. Sophocles had a shrine apart, or it may be a separate shrine within the larger one. The same inscription[236] goes on to order that the honorary decree was to be ‘engraved on two stone stelae, and these to be set up, the one in the sanctuary of Dexion, the other in that of Amynos and Asklepios.’

Sophocles[237] though, to us, he is first in remembrance, comes last in ritual precedence; Amynos is first. The history of the little shrine is instructive. Not later than Peisistratos, and how much earlier we do not know, the worship was set up of a local hero with the title Protector, Amynos. At some time or other, perhaps shortly after the pestilence at Athens, which the local Protector had been powerless to avert, it was thought well to call in a greater Healer-Hero, Asklepios, who meanwhile had attained in the Peloponnesos to enormous prestige. The experiment was tried carefully and quietly in the little precinct. Amynos kept his own precedence. No one’s feelings are hurt; the snake of the Peloponnesos is merely affiliated to the local Athenian hero-snake, the same offerings are due to both, the pelanoi, the votive limbs. But the new-comer is too strong; Asklepios waxes, Amynos wanes—into an adjective. Asklepios outgrows the little precinct and betakes himself to a new and grander sanctuary on the South slope.

The precinct and worship of Amynos, though it has no mention in literature, is preserved to us perhaps through its association with the dominant worship of Asklepios; but Amynos was probably only one among many heroes who had their chapels and their family worships scattered along the main road of the city where countless little buildings remain unidentified (Fig. 35). If the supposition suggested above (p. 99) be correct these local heroes must have had choral dances about their tombs, those choral dances affiliated by the late-comer Dionysos, and ultimately leading to the development of the drama. At the festival of the Anthesteria these local ghosts would be summoned from their tombs on the day of the Pithoigia; on the day of the Chytroi they would be fed and their descendants would hold a wake with revels and dancings.

The Sanctuary of the Semnae Theai or Venerable Goddesses. The site of this sanctuary is practically certain. Euripides[238] in the Electra makes the Erinyes, when they are about to become Semnae, descend into a chasm of the earth near to the Areopagos. Near to the Areopagos there is one chasm and one only, that is the deep fissure on the North-East side, the spot where tradition has long placed the cave of the Semnae[239]. A cave they needed, for they were under-world goddesses. Their ritual I have discussed in detail elsewhere[240]; here it need only be noted that it was of great antiquity and had all the characteristic marks of a chthonic cult. As under-world goddesses the Venerable Ones bore the title also of Arai, Imprecations; they were for cursing as well as blessing; the hill it is now generally acknowledged took its name from them rather than from the war-god Ares. Orestes it will be remembered[241] came to the Areopagos to be purified from his mother’s blood, and he found the people celebrating the Choes; he found them, if our topography be correct, close by, in the precinct of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes.

The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos. Harpocration[242] in explaining the title Pandemos tells us that Apollodorus in the sixth book of his treatise About the Gods said that this was ‘the name given at Athens to the goddess whose worship had been established somewhere near the ancient agora.’ His conjecture that the goddess was called Pandemos because all the people collected in the agora need not detain us, but the topographical statement coming from an author who knew his subject like Apollodorus, is important. We have to seek the sanctuary of Pandemos somewhere on or close to the West slope of the Acropolis, somewhere near the great square which as we shall see (p. 131) stood in front of the ancient well-house and formed the ancient agora.

Pausanias[243] mentions the worship of Aphrodite Pandemos in a sentence of the most tantalizing vagueness. After leaving the Asklepieion he notes a temple of Themis and in front of it a monument to Hippolytus. He then tells at length the story of Phaedra and next goes on ‘When Theseus united the various Athenian demes into one people he introduced the worship of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho. The old images were not there in my time, but those I saw were the work of no obscure artists.’ Immediately after he passes to the sanctuary of Ge Kourotrophos and Demeter Chloe and then straight to the citadel.

Of the actual sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos not a trace has been found. From the account of Pausanias coupled with that of Harpocration we should expect it to be somewhere below the sanctuary of Ge and above the fountain Enneakrounos, near which was the ancient agora, and of course outside the Pelargikon. When the West slope of the Acropolis was excavated[244] in the upper layers of earth about 40 statuettes of Aphrodite were found, and these must have belonged to the sanctuary. Inscriptions[245] relating to her worship were found built into a mediaeval fortification wall near Beule’s Gate. These, as not being in situ, cannot be used as topographical evidence, but they give us important information as to the character of the worship of Pandemos.

The first[246] of these inscriptions (Fig. 33) dates about the beginning of the fifth century B.C. ‘[...]dorus dedicated me to Aphrodite a gift of first fruits, Lady do thou grant him abundance of good things. But they who unrighteously say false things and....’ Unfortunately here the inscription breaks off so the scandal will remain for ever a secret. Aphrodite, it is to be noted, is prayed to as a giver of increase. She does not seem yet to have got her title of Pandemos, but as this occurs in the two other inscriptions found with this one, and they probably all three came from the same sanctuary, this Aphrodite is almost certainly she who became Pandemos.

The second inscription (Fig. 34), dating about the middle of the 4th century B.C., is carved on an architrave adorned with a frieze of doves carrying a fillet. The architrave is broken midway. Only the left-hand half is represented in the figure. This inscription[247] again is partly metrical, forming an elegiac couplet.

Beneath in prose and in smaller letters come the names of the dedicators. Pandemos is here quite plainly the official title of the goddess.

The third and latest inscription[248] is carved on a stele of Hymettus marble. It is exactly dated (283 B.C.) by the archon’s name, the elder Euthios. It records a decree made while a woman called Hegesipyle was priestess. The decree, which is too long to be here quoted in full, ordains that the astynomoi should at the time of the procession in honour of Aphrodite Pandemos ‘provide a dove for the purification of the temple, should have the altars anointed, should give a coat of pitch to the roof and wash the statues and prepare a purple robe.’

Aphrodite Pandemos was a ‘great and holy goddess,’ giver of increase. She was no private divinity of the courtesan; the second inscription tells us that she was worshipped by a married woman, who is her priestess. It is literature and not ritual that has cast a slur on the title Pandemos; the state honoured both her and Ourania alike ‘according to ancestral custom.’ Plato[249] in his beautiful reckless way will have it that because there are two Loves there are two Goddesses, ‘the elder one having no mother, who is the Heavenly Aphrodite, the daughter of Ouranos; to her we give the title Ourania, the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and her we call “Of-all-the-People,” Pandemos.’

The real truth was that Aphrodite came to the Greeks from the East and like most Semitic divinities she was not only a duality but a trinity.

When Pausanias[250] was at Thebes he saw the images of this ancient Oriental trinity and he knew whence they had come. ‘There are wooden images of Aphrodite at Thebes so ancient that it is said they were dedicated by Harmonia and that they were made out of the wooden figure-heads of the ships of Cadmus. One of them is called Heavenly, another Of-all-the-People, and the third the Turner-Away.’ The threefold Aphrodite came from the Semitic East bearing three Semitic titles: she was the Queen of Heaven[251], she was the Lady of all the People, Ourania and Pandemos, what the third title was which the Greeks translated into Apostrophia we do not know; as already noted it took slight hold. At Megalopolis[252] we see how the third title of the trinity faded. There close to the house where was an image of Ammon made like a Herm and with the horns of a ram, there—significant conjunction—was a sanctuary of Aphrodite in ruins, with the front part only left and it had three images, ‘one named Ourania the other Pandemos, the third had no particular name.’ So it was that the Greeks lost the trinity and kept, all they needed, the duality.

The Greeks themselves always knew quite well whence came their Heavenly Aphrodite, she of Paphos, and she of Kythera. Herodotus[253] is explicit. He is telling how some of the Scythians in their passage through Palestine from Egypt pillaged the sanctuary of Aphrodite Ourania at Ascalon. ‘This sanctuary,’ he says, ‘I found on enquiry is the most ancient of all those that are dedicated to this goddess, for the sanctuary in Cyprus had its origin from thence, as the Cyprians themselves say, and that in Kythera was founded by Phenicians who came from this part of Syria.’ Pausanias[254] says ‘the first to worship Ourania were the Assyrians, next to them were the dwellers in Paphos of Cyprus, and the Phenicians of Ascalon in Palestine. And the inhabitants of Kythera learnt the worship from the Phenicians.’

The Oriental origin[255] of Ourania, Queen of Heaven, the armed goddess, the Virgo Caelestis, was patent to all; but Aphrodite in her more human earthly aspect, as Pandemos, goddess of the people and of all increase, was so like Kourotrophos, like Demeter, that she might easily be thought of as indigenous. Yet her ritual betrays her. For the purification of her sanctuary we have seen there was ordered a dove. Instinctively we remember that when Mary Virgin[256] went up to the temple of Jerusalem for her purification she must take with her ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’ In the statuettes of Paphos, Aphrodite holds a dove in her hand; the coins of Salamis in Cyprus are stamped with the dove[257]. At the Phenician Eryx when the festival of the Anagogia[258] came round, and Aphrodite Astarte went back to her home in Libya, the doves went with her, and when they came back at the Katagogia, a white multitude, among them was one with feathers of red gold, and she was Aphrodite.