looking out from the Acropolis, where the temple of Niké now stands, being overcome with grief at the apparent failure of his son’s heroic undertaking, threw himself down among the rocks and perished. According to another version of the story, he was waiting on the shore and threw himself into the sea. To commemorate the event embodied in this tradition the Athenians were in the habit of sending a ship to Delos every year to offer to Apollo a sacrifice of a less distressing nature. During the month in which this took place, no public act was permitted that was considered to be out of keeping with it, such as the execution of a criminal; and it was owing to this that Socrates was so long confined in prison after sentence of death had been passed upon him. Theseus was believed to have given the Athenians his countenance and aid at the battle of Marathon, and a few years afterwards they were commanded by the Delphian oracle to bring back his bones from the island of Scyros, where he had met a violent death. The injunction was obeyed in 469 B.C. by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, who discovered a gigantic skeleton, and brought it to Athens amid great rejoicing. It was then reinterred in a sanctuary devoted to Theseus’ memory, which is often mentioned by subsequent Greek writers, and afforded a refuge within its spacious precincts to the poor and oppressed, whether bond or free, who felt themselves to be in danger. Unfortunately the historical references to this sanctuary, as well as the fact that it was in honour of a hero, not of a god, forbid us to identify it with the noble Doric temple standing between the Areopagus and the Agora or Market-place, which is now commonly known as the Theseum. The probability is that the latter building was a temple in honour of Hephæstus or of Hephæstus and Athena. It is built of white Pentelic marble, with thirty-four columns in all, the sculptures on it being of Parian marble, and is second only to the Parthenon in majestic beauty. Traces of the bright red and blue colouring, which was used even in the decoration of marble, can be distinctly seen; and part of the coffered roof is still in position, adorned with painted stars. During the Middle Ages it was turned into a church dedicated to St. George, and it is doubtless owing to this cause that it still survives in such an excellent state of preservation.