This Stadium lay far beyond the sacred precinct to the west, and occupied a lofty and magnificent situation. In what Pausanias calls “the highest part of the city” the slopes of Parnassus break sufficiently to leave a narrow shelf of flat ground. Every foot of this was used for the erection of the structure, the northern side being bounded by the precipices of the great mountain, the southern side being supported by a wall of polygonal masonry. Part of this wall is still left, and in the interior there are tiers of seats to tempt the dreamer. The marble with which Herodes Atticus is said to have faced them in the second century after Christ is now all gone. But one may yet sit on the original stone and see not only the valley of the Plistus far below, but westward a bright strip of the Corinthian Gulf. Here once gathered eager thousands to watch the foot races and the wrestling matches, and to hear the contesting flutes and the rival lyres. Originally, before the Crisæan war, the Pythian festival had occurred only once in eight years and had consisted of a contest in singing, to the accompaniment of the lyre, a hymn to Apollo. The early musical festival found its aftermath in the combination of musical with athletic contests in the more frequent “Games” instituted by the Amphictyons after they had taken Delphi under their common charge. This was a part of that general reorganization in the sixth century by which the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean, and especially the Olympic games were thrown into high relief among the multitudinous festivals of Greece. At Delphi a hymn in honour of the god of the golden lyre continued to be an important part of the proceedings. Among the most conspicuous discoveries of the French are three fragments of such hymns, engraved on stone, two of them accompanied by musical notation. The hymns are late ones, of no especial merit, but their scores have furnished a key to that art which played so large a part in Greek education, literature, and philosophy, and which made the Pythian festival a reminder of the lord of music.