Closely resembling the Olympic stadium was that at Epidaurus,[438] where the festival of the Asclepiea was celebrated as early as the time of Pindar. It lies in a shallow trough formed by two low ridges descending into the plain from the hills which encircle the sanctuary of Asclepius. The bottom of the valley has been levelled and its eastern end and part of the sides raised by an embankment. Its western end lies open giving free access to visitors, who here as at all Greek festivals might enter freely without payment. The actual track is 181·30 metres long. Finish and start are alike, marked at either end by a pair of stone pillars between which lies a row of stone slabs with parallel grooves and sockets precisely similar to those found at Olympia, save that there are only eleven divisions and that the parallel grooves are somewhat closer, about four inches apart. The fact that traces of lead were found in some of the sockets confirms the view that iron posts were fastened in them. The pillars possibly belong to an earlier time than the slabs, when start and finish were still marked by lines drawn in the sand between the pillars. The stone slabs seem to have been added in Macedonian times when the stadium was improved, and a record of this reconstruction is preserved in an inscription which states that one Philon of Corinth having undertaken a contract for providing the starting lines (ὕσπλακα) and having failed to fulfil his contract within the specified time was condemned by the Agonothetes and Hellanodicae to pay a fine of 500 drachmae.[439] A still later, possibly Roman arrangement for the start is seen in five half pillars placed at either end in front of the stone sill which they were obviously intended to supersede (Fig. 42). On each side these pillars have a shallow groove intended apparently to hold some form of barrier or starting gate, such as we find used in the Roman Circus.[440] A further difficulty is caused by the remains of four small stone platforms which stood immediately in front of the stone sills, two at each end between the outside pillars and the edge of the course. Their use is quite unknown; but the fact that they completely block the grooved starting lines immediately behind them proves that they belonged to some later arrangement. Possibly they are remains of an intermediate arrangement between the stone sill and the pillars, or possibly they served for starters and judges in later times. [Illustration: Fig. 42. The Stadium of Epidaurus, S.E. corner, showing the starting lines and rectangular end. (From a photograph by Mr. Emery Walker.)]