Note (return) — THE TEMPLE ON THE ACROPOLIS BURNT BY THE PERSIANS.

That the Pelasgicum was of considerable size is known from the fact that it was one of the sacred precincts occupied when the people came crowding in from the country at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, 117 and from the inscription 118 which forbade that stone should be quarried in or carried from the precinct, or that earth should be removed therefrom. That the Pelasgicum with its nine gates was on the south, west, and southwest slopes, the formation of the Acropolis rock proves, since it is only here that the Acropolis can be ascended easily. That it should include all that position of the hillside between the spring in the Aesculapieum on the south and the Clepsydra on the northwest, was necessary; for in the space thus included lay the springs which formed the source of the water-supply for the fortifications. That the citadel was divided into two parts, the Acropolis proper, and the Pelasgicum, we know. 119 One of the two questions in each of the two passages from Aristophanes refers to the Acropolis, and the other to the Pelasgicum, and the two are mentioned as parts of the citadel. That the Pelasgicum actually did extend from the Aesculapieum to the Clepsydra we know from Lucian. 120