On the east coast of Attica, between Marathon and Sunium, are Brauron, “lovely” Prasiæ, and Thoricus. These with Markopoulo and other sites in the southern inland plain, Mesogia, have been yielding a wealth of prehistoric remains that fill out more and more the dim background of antiquity. Thoricus, a bay some six miles north of Sunium, was the birthplace of Philonis, “the daughter of the morning star,” and grandmother of Thamyris, the Thracian bard who dared to contend with the Muses. The inhabitants were not unmindful of their traditions and built a theatre, unique by reason of its oval orchestra. It is in ruins, but the absence of all traces of a stage seem to date it as of the best classic period. Laurium, just below, is the terminus of the railroad. Its silver mines, now worked chiefly for lead, play an important rôle in Greek history. The chorus in the “Persians” of Æschylus explains to Queen Atossa that the source of the Athenian sinews of war is— “A fountain running silver, treasure of the land.” The standard coins of Athens, of various denominations, stamped with an archaic Athena head on the obverse and the owl on the reverse, are referred to in the “Birds” of Aristophanes as Lauriot owls:— “First, what every Judge amongst you most of all desires to win, Little Lauriotic owlets shall be always flocking in. Ye shall find them all about you, as the dainty brood increases, Building nests within your purses, hatching little silver pieces.”[19] When the Spartans occupied Attica in 413 B. C., they cut off Athenian access to the mines, and Plutarch tells us how a slave described a hoard of Athenian money secreted by the Spartan Gylippus under his roof-tiles as “numerous owls roosting under his Cerameicus.” Footnote 19: Translated by Rogers.