Modern Athens climbs up around the lower slopes of Mount Lycabettus, which rises on the east like an index finger above the Attic plain. Although this peak is less than one thousand feet high, its isolated position opens out an unrivalled panorama of the Cephisian plain from Parnes and Pentelicus down to Piræus and the bay, with Salamis, the mountains of the Megarid, the Isthmus, Argolis and Ægina beyond. In the “Frogs” of Aristophanes Æschylus’s many-jointed compounds are likened to “great Lycabettuses.” Athena, it is said, while carrying Lycabettus through the air to fortify her Acropolis, dropped it suddenly in its present exclusive position; but, if we are to believe Plato, who had a vague inkling of the geologic truth, her rival, the earth-shaker, rent it asunder from the Acropolis, with which it was once continuous. From Lycabettus, it would appear, the stream of the Eridanus made its way north of the Acropolis and flowed out by the channel now laid bare near the Dipylon gate. The Ilissus, rising on the slopes of Hymettus, flows south of the city and, first uniting with the Eridanus, joins, between Athens and Piræus, the Cephisus, which draws its waters from the Pentelicus and Parnes ranges. This configuration of the landscape, with arable plain-land watered by mountain streams, was the important factor in country life about Athens. Clouds on Hymettus, as Theophrastus tells us, were a sign of rain. The altar of “Shower-giving Zeus,” whether on Hymettus or, as Pausanias says, on Mount Parnes, would have no lack of suppliants in times of drought. The Clouds, in a fragment of the lost edition of Aristophanes’s play, vanish adown Lycabettus and go off to the top of Parnes. In the play as preserved, the mock Socrates, instructing his thick-headed scholar, points out the cloud-goddesses:— “Now please to look here by Parnes anear, now I see they’ll be gently descending.” And the Clouds, leaving Bœotia behind, come over Parnes, showering down the praises that Aristophanes delighted to bestow on the Attic country:— “Let us, maidens, that bring fresh showers, go unto Pallas’s brilliant land to turn our eyes on the country of Cecrops, favoured of heroes, rich in its loveliness, there where is honour to consecrate secrets; there where the temple that welcomes its votaries flings wide its doors at the mysteries sacred; there where are gifts for the gods up in heaven; stately-roofed temples and statues of splendour; there are processionals unto the blessed ones, hallowed exceedingly; fair are the chaplets entwining the offerings unto the deities; ever recurring the festivals, season by season; and, when the spring cometh on, there’s the grace of the Bromian god and incitements to choirs melodious; aye and the Muse with the music of deep-voicèd flutings.”