r
contests of gladiators or of wild beasts; but the partition, being not
more than three feet high, would be no protection whatever from an
evil-disposed wild beast.

All these later additions and details are, I fear, calculated to detract
from the reader's interest in this theater, which I should indeed
regret--for nothing can be more certain than that this is the veritable
stone theater which was built when the wooden one broke down, at the
great competition of AEschylus and Pratinas; and tho front seats may have
been added, and slight modifications introduced, the general structure
can never have required alteration.

It is indeed very large, tho I think exaggerated statements have been
made about its size. I have heard it said that the enormous number of
30,000 people could fit into it--a statement I think incredible; for it
did not to me seem larger than, or as large as, other theaters I have
seen, at Syracuse, at Megalopolis, or even at Argos. But, no doubt, all
such open-air enclosures and sittings look far smaller than covered
rooms of the same size. This is certain, that any one speaking on the
stage, as it now is, can be easily and distinctly heard by people
sitting on the highest row of seats now visible, which can not, I fancy,
have been far from the original top of the house. And we may doubt that
any such thing were possible when 30,000 people, or a crowd approaching
that number, were seated. We hear, however, that the old actors had
recourse to various artificial means of increasing the range of their
voices. Yet there is hardly a place in Athens which forces back the mind
so strongly to the old days, when all the crowd came jostling in, and
settled down in their seats, to hear the great novelties of the year
from Sophocles or Euripides. No doubt there were cliques and cabals and
claqueurs, noisy admirers and cold critics, the supporters of the old,
and the lovers of the new, devotees and sceptics, wondering foreigners
and self-complacent citizens. They little thought how we should come,
not only to sit in the seats they occupied, but to reverse the judgments
which they pronounced, and correct with sober temper the errors of
prejudice, of passion, and of pride.

WHERE PAUL PREACHED TO THE ATHENIANS[50]

BY J. P. MAHAFFY

It was on this very Areopagus, where we are now standing, that these
philosophers of fashion came into contact with the thorough earnestness,
the profound convictions, the r