Note 208 — Chapter XI · THE CAMPAIGN OF PLATÆA. (continued 2)

The members of the American school at Athens who excavated parts of the site of Platæa some years ago were inclined to believe that at the time of the battle the town stood on the higher or southern end of the bastion which is now strewn with the traces of the successive towns which have occupied the site; and that it did not extend northward to the point where the bastion sinks more or less abruptly into the plain. They also believed that they discovered the foundations of the temple of Hera on this north extension of the bastion. I am disposed to think that their conjecture as to the position of the contemporary town is correct, though the question is not of sufficient importance with respect to this particular passage in Greek history to render it desirable or necessary to quote the mass of evidence on which the opinion is founded. The position of the temple of Hera as determined by them agrees with the brief mention of it in this passage of Herodotus.