The stadium, or circus, of Athens was formed in this way, taking in plan the shape of a horseshoe. It was here that the public games and races took place, the upper or circular end being occupied by the seats of the judges. It belongs, however, to a later period, having been constructed in the time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. A few years ago the King of Greece caused the stadium to be excavated, and several marble chairs and seats were discovered. Each city of importance possessed a Palæstra, or gymnasium, in which were rooms for bathing in hot or cold water, for the wrestlers to anoint themselves with oil and fine dust, and a school for young lads. The building was enclosed by a portico and surrounded by pleasure-grounds in which the public exercises took place. The private dwellings were of one story in height, surmounted by terraces and divided by courts. The women’s apartments were separated from the men’s, and the larger houses contained banqueting-halls with accommodation for musicians and singers. The furniture consisted of tables in wood and choice stone, vases, candelabra, tripods in bronze, and rich Oriental carpets. Externally the houses were painted brilliantly and decorated with wreaths, garlands, and arms. Outside the entrance door stood the statue of the god of the household—Jupiter, Minerva, or Mercury. The richer citizens preferred country villas to city residences, which they surrounded with ornamental gardens and woods. The groves of the Academy where Plato held his school in the shade of the olives, outside the city gates, are probably the most celebrated of the latter. The dead were buried in necropoli without the city, and their place of interment marked by tombs in the form of pyramids or funeral pyres, or more simply by a stella, or upright tablet, inscribed with the name and virtues of the deceased, and upon which were carved scenes in his life. In the colonies in Asia Minor the system of excavating chambers in the rock was adopted, the entrance to them being marked by Ionic columns supporting entablatures and pediments. The public buildings of Athens were built of white marble from the island of Paros and the mountain quarries of Pentelicus, resembling in its fracture the purest loaf-sugar. The sun and rain have stained them to a tawny red during the many ages which have passed over them, and nearly all trace of the various dyes, with which they are supposed to have been coloured, has disappeared to-day. The Greeks built their walls of bonded masonry, the vertical joints coming in the centres of the stones above and below, and they were frequently additionally strengthened by metal anchors. In walls of unusual thickness it was customary to construct the inside and outside faces first and fill the intervening spaces with loose stones and mortar, with an occasional through stone to connect the parts and bind them together.