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 immediately to the east of the Clepsydra and a double and somewhat deeper cavern a little farther to the east. In the first mentioned are a number of niches in which  (votive tablets) were placed: some of these, inscribed with dedications to Apollo, have been discovered. The whole locality was the seat of the ancient cult of this deity, afterwards styled “Hypacraeus,” with which was associated the legend of Creüsa and the birth of Ion. The worship of Pan was introduced after the Persian wars, in consequence of an apparition seen by Pheidippides, the Athenian courier, in the mountains of Arcadia. Another cave more to the west was revealed by the demolition of the bastion of Odysseus. To the east a much deeper and hitherto unknown cavern has been revealed, which Kavvadias identifies with the grotto of Pan. Close to it are a series of steps hewn in the rock which connect with those discovered in 1886 within the Acropolis wall. Farther east is an underground passage leading eastward to a cave supposed to be the sanctuary of Aglaurus where the ephebi took the oath; with this passage is connected a secret staircase leading up through a cleft in the rock to the precinct of the Errephori on the Acropolis. It is conceivable that the priestesses employed this exit when descending on their mysterious errand.

In the fifty years between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars architecture and plastic art attained their highest perfection in Athens. The almost complete destruction of the buildings on the Acropolis and in the lower city, among them many temples and shrines which religious sentiment might otherwise have preserved, facilitated the realization of the magnificent architectural designs of Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, while the rapid growth of the Athenian empire provided the state with the necessary means for the execution of these sumptuous projects. Of the great monuments of this epoch few traces remain except on the Acropolis. After the departure of the Persians the first necessity was the reconstruction of the defences of the city and the citadel. The walls of the city, now built under the direction of Themistocles, embraced a larger area than the previous circuit, with which they seem to have coincided at the Dipylon Gate on the north-west where the Sacred Way to Eleusis was joined by the principal carriage route to the Peiraeus and the roads to the Academy and Colonus. The other more important gates were the Peiraic and Melitan on the west; the Itonian on the south leading to Phalerum, the Diomean and Diocharean on the east, and the Acharnian on the north. The wall, which was strengthened with numerous towers, enclosed the quarters of Collytus on the north, Melite on the west, Limnae on the south-west and south, and Diomea on the east. The scanty traces which remain have not been systematically excavated except in the neighbourhood of the Dipylon; the discovery of sepulchral tablets built into the masonry illustrates the statement of Thucydides with regard to the employment of such material in the hasty construction of the walls. The circuit has been practically ascertained in its general lines, though not in details; it is given by Thucydides (ii. 13. 7) as 43 stades (about 5½ m.) exclusive of the portion between the points of junction with the long walls extending to the Peiraeus, but the whole circumference cannot have exceeded 37 stades. Possibly Thucydides, who in the passage referred to is dealing with the question of defence, included a portion of the contiguous long walls in his measurement; this explanation derives probability from his underestimate of the length of the long walls.

The design of connecting Athens with the Peiraeus by long parallel walls is ascribed by Plutarch to Themistocles. The “Long Walls” ( ) consisted of (1) the “North Wall” ( ), (2) the “Middle” or “South Wall” (, Plato, Gorg. 555 ;  ); and (3) the “Phaleric Wall” ( ; The north and Phaleric walls were perhaps founded by Cimon, and were completed about 457  in the early administration of Pericles; the middle wall was built about 445  The lines of the north and middle walls have been ascertained from the remnants still existing in the 18th century and the scantier traces now visible. The north wall, leaving the city circuit at a point near the modern Observatory, ran from north-east to south-west near the present road to the Peiraeus, until it reached the Peiraeus walls a little to the east of their northernmost bend. The middle wall, beginning south of the Pnyx near the Melitan Gate, gradually approached the northern wall and, following a parallel course at an interval of 550 ft., diverged to the east near the modern New Phalerum and joined the Peiraeus walls on the height of Munychia where they turn inland from the sea. The course of the Phaleric wall has been much disputed. The widely-received view of Curtius that it ran to Cape Kolias (now Old Phalerum) on the east of the Phaleric bay is not accepted by recent topographers. The exigencies of the defensive system planned by Themistocles could only have been satisfied by a juncture of the Phaleric wall with that of the Peiraeus. The existence of any third wall was denied by Leake, according to whose theory the southern parallel wall would be identical with the Phaleric. The language of Thucydides, however, seems decisive with regard to the existence of three walls. The Phaleric wall, branching from the city circuit at some point farther east than the middle or south wall, may have followed the ridge of the Sikelia heights, where some traces of fortifications remain, and then traversed the Phalerum plain till it reached the Peiraeus defences at a point a little to the north-west of their junction with the middle wall. The Phaleric wall, proving indefensible, was abandoned towards the close of the Peloponnesian war; with the other two walls it was completely destroyed after the surrender of the city, and was not rebuilt when they were restored by Conon in 393 The parallel walls fell into decay, during the Hellenistic period, and according to Strabo (ix. 396) were once more demolished by Sulla.

The great advantages which the Peiraic promontory with its three natural harbours offered for purposes of defence and commerce were first recognized by Themistocles, in whose archonship (493 ) the fortifications of the Peiraeus were begun. Before his time the Athenians used as a port the roadstead of Phalerum at the north-eastern corner of Phalerum bay partly sheltered by Cape Kolias. As soon as the building of the city walls had been completed, Themistocles resumed the construction of the Peiraeus defences, which protected the larger harbour of Cantharus on the west and the smaller ports of Zea and Munychia (respectively south-west and south-east of the Munychia heights), terminating in moles at their entrances and enclosing the entire promontory on the land and sea sides except a portion of the south-west shore of the peninsula of Acte. The walls, built of finely compacted blocks, were about 10 ft. in thickness and upwards of 60 ft. in height, and were strengthened by towers. The town was laid out at great expense in straight, broad streets, intersecting each other at right angles, by the architect Hippodamus of Miletus in the time of Pericles. In the centre was the Agora of Hippodamus; on the western margin of the Cantharus harbour extended the emporium, or Digma, the centre of commercial activity, flanked by a series of porticoes; at its northern end, near the entrance to the inner harbour, was another Agora, on the site of the modern market-place, and near it the , the corn depot of the state. This inner and shallower harbour, perhaps the , was afterwards excluded from the town precinct by the walls of Conon, which traversing its opening on an embankment ( ) ran round the outer shore of the western promontory of Eëtionea, previously enclosed, with some space to the north-west, by the wider circuit of Themistocles. In the harbours of Zea and Munychia traces may be seen of the remarkable series of galley-slips in which the Athenian fleet was built and repaired. The galley-slips around Zea were roofed by a row of gables supported by stone columns, each gable sheltering two triremes. Among the other noteworthy buildings of the Peiraeus were the arsenal ( ) of Philo and the temples of Zeus Soter, the patron god of the sailors, of the Cnidian Artemis, built by Cimon, and of Artemis Munychia,