But mortal women were not the only companions of Dionysus. The exuberant play of nature, the change from death to life as winter made way for spring, not only goaded human hearts with a divine torture, but peopled the hills with lithe nymphs of untouched soul, rollicking with Pan and even with the greater god whose joy, to spirits touched to finer issues, was more terrible than sweet. Pan and the nymphs had their special dwelling-place in the Corycian Cave, which Pausanias mentions as one of the four most famous caverns of the whole world, “among a total number past finding out.” It was certainly the most remarkable one in Greece, a country abounding in “caves that open upon the beach or in the deep sea,” and in mountain caverns due to the frequent honeycombing by earthquake and subterranean currents. Very large and containing two chambers, it lies about seven miles northeast of Delphi, near the top of one of the low hills which form the northern boundary of the Parnassian uplands. According to the descriptions of travellers, the greater chamber has slender stalactites hanging from the roof at both ends, and at the inner end stalagmites rise from the ground to meet them. The other chamber, like a remote shrine, must be reached through a narrow passage and lies in almost total darkness. At the mouth of the cave an inscription was found containing a dedication to Pan and the nymphs. Certainly a fit abode for divine embodiments of soulless nature was this vaulted, echoing grotto, whose cavernous mouth opens upon the widespread beauty of an untamed world. Æschylus may have seen the “Corycian Rock” or he may have trusted to the eyes of others in describing its hollow loneliness, “the home of birds, and the resort of deities.”