Within a few hundred yards of the Acropolis lies the small rocky hill called Areopagus. Although associated with the God of War in name and story, it was also the traditional scene of one of Athena’s greatest triumphs, when she held the scales of justice so wisely between the grief-stricken matricide Orestes and the avenging _Erinyes_ or Furies who had dogged his steps all the way from Argos to Delphi and from Delphi to Athens. In the rocky cleft at the side of the hill was the awful shrine in which the relentless pursuers, otherwise called the _Eumenides_ (“Gracious Ones”), found their quietus--the Areopagus becoming thenceforward the authorised tribunal for the trial of all cases of homicide, and superseding the savage law of blood-feud. It was on this same Mars’ Hill that the apostle of a higher faith pled with the Athenians for the recognition of the risen Christ, whom he proclaimed as the appointed representative of the “Unknown God,” whose altar he had observed in the adjacent market-place. CHAPTER X ATHENS AND ELEUSIS From Athens to Eleusis is a journey of about twelve miles by a road which follows very much the line of the Sacred Way, along which the great procession went for the celebration of the Mysteries. The starting-point was close to the Dipylon Gate, of which there are still sufficient remains to enable us to understand its structure. It was the most strongly fortified point in the city wall, being the part most exposed to attack; and it was there that the city was taken by the Roman general Sulla, who had recourse to the erection of a mound in the neighbourhood. The gate was a double one, as its name implies, not merely in the sense of being a divided gate with a pillar in the centre, but as a combination of two separate gates with a walled court between them, so that an enemy who forced his way through the outer gate would find himself (as Philip V. of Macedonia once did) exposed to attack not only in front but also from the sides, and would be glad to make good his retreat from such an untenable position.