The stadium as we see it to-day is mainly the work of Herodes Atticus, who is said by Pausanias to have reseated it with marble, as he certainly did at Athens.[444] The French excavations, however, show that Pausanias’ statement can hardly be accurate. The seats are not of marble but of local stone, and are apparently quite complete. There is no sign of any marble facing having existed, and not a trace of marble has been found in the stadium. If marble was used at all, it can only have been for special parts of the seats. Yet even without marble the appearance of the stadium is sufficiently imposing. The actual track is bounded at either end by a stone sill similar to those found at Olympia and Epidaurus. The stone sill is composed of 17 or 18 sections, and the parallel grooves are about 3-1/2 in. apart. The length of the track is 177·5 metres, and its breadth varies from 25-1/2 metres at the ends to 28-1/2 metres in the centre. The object of this curve, which we find at Athens and in a much less marked degree elsewhere, was to give a better view of the whole course to the spectators. The west end terminates in a shallow curved sphendone 9-1/2 metres deep, and the east end is similarly curved, though the curve is interrupted at the south by the main entrance to the stadium from the precinct below. In this eastern end there stand four pillars of poor and late workmanship which seem to have formed a triumphal entrance for officials and competitors. The two sides and the western sphendone are surrounded by rows of stone seats raised on a stone basement 5 feet high. There are six rows of seats on the south and west, twelve on the north, affording places for some 7000 spectators, though many more could find room on the slopes above the stadium to the north. Flights of steps at the east end gave access to two corridors which ran right round the stadium, above and below the tiers of seats. The latter were further divided by flights of steps placed at regular intervals. There were thirteen of these on either side, dividing the stadium into twelve equal lengths of half a plethron, and these divisions may have served like the similar divisions at Epidaurus for purposes of measurement. Another detail which recalls the stadium of Epidaurus is a seat of honour occupying the centre of the first two rows of seats on the north side. [Illustration: Fig. 45. The starting lines at Delphi. (From a photograph by Mr. Emery Walker.)]