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299 On the Attic Dionysia. 299 quaries to speak of the Len^ea as a rural festival, but was very early inclosed within the walls. This enlargement may have taken place before the age of Theseus, suggested perhaps by the sanctity of the ground, which would not have been taken into the original city. The selection of the marshy ground for the sanctuary of Bacchus, and for the site of the winepress, admits of various explanations. It is at all events conformable to the practice of other cities. So at Sparta the temple of Bacchus stood in the suburb called the Marsh from the nature of the ground, though in Strabo''s time it had become dry ^^. Such was no doubt the case at Athens also : and the marsh was chosen for the sake of the water : but perhaps originally without any other motive than the convenience of applying it, collected in an artificial reservoir, to various uses connected with the festivals of Bacchus. One of these is described by Phanodemus (Athenaeus p. 4<Q5) who relates that the Athe- nians were used to take sweet new wine {yXevKo^) from the casks, and to mix it near the temple of Bacchus in the Marsh in honour of the god, and then to drink of it themselves: whence Bacchus received the epithet Limnaeus, because the new wine was then first drunk diluted with water : and for the like reason the springs were called Nymphs and nurses of Bacchus, because the mixture of water increases the measure of wine : as Timotheus, in a fragment preserved by Athenaeus in the same passage, speaks of the blood of Bacchus mixt with the fresh tears of the Nymphs. Phanodemus evidently alludes to the HiOoiyia and the Xoe?, and means to relate their origin. VII. It remains to inquire how far the preceding conclu- sions are confirmed by the accounts transmitted to us regarding the introduction of the worship of Bacchus into Attica. The Attic traditions mention Amphictyon as the first king who received the £cod in his dominions : in his reio;n Bacchus came into Attica, and was entertained by Semachus, and presented his daughter with a roeskin (Syncell. p. 297 ed. Bonn) ; and in a house behind a sanctuary of Bacchus in Athens, Pausa- nias saw a groupe of figures in clay, representing king Am- phictyon feasting Bacchus and other gods (l. 2. 5.) We are '^ VIII. p. 250. TO TTiikaLOV eki^vaie to TrpodpV(TlV e^6t.