It can be clearly shown that the ancient Agora was bound down to its site by manifold ties, other than those of mere solidity in its construction. It stands in Mycenæ, says our author (p. 341), on the most imposing and most beautiful spot of the city, from whence the whole was overlooked. It was on these high places that the men of the prehistoric ages erected the simple structures, in many cases perhaps uncovered, that, with the altars, served for the worship of the gods. In Scheriè, it was built round the temple, so to call it, of Poseidon (_Od._ VI. 266). In the Greek camp before Troy the _Agora_ was in the centre of the line of ships (_Il._ XI. 5-9, 806-8). There justice was administered, and there "had been constructed the altars of the gods." Further, it is clear, from a number of passages in Homer, that the place of Assembly was always close to the royal palace. In the case of Troy we are told expressly that it was held by the doors of Priam (_Il._ II. 788, VII. 345, 6). In Scheriè, the palace of Alkinoös was close to the grove of Athenè (_Od._ VI. 291-3); and we can hardly doubt that this grove was in the immediate vicinity of the Posideïon, which was itself within the _Agora_. In Ithaca (_Od._ XXIV. 415 _seqq._), the people gathered before the Palace of Odysseus, and then went in a mass into the _Agora_. While it was thus materially associated with those points of the city which most possessed the character of fixtures, it is not too much to say, considering the politics of early Greece, that it must, in the natural course, have become a centre around which would cling the fondest moral and historical associations of the people. Into the minor question whether the encircling slabs are the remains of an original portion of the work or not, I do not think it needful for me to enter. But, while I believe that the _Agora_ is where it was, the honour paid to the dead by the presence of their tombs within it is not affected by either alternative; but only the time of paying it. If this be the old _Agora_, they were honoured by being laid in it; if it is of later date, they were honoured by its being removed in order to be built around them; if at least this was done knowingly, and how could it be otherwise, when we observe that the five tombs occupy more than a moiety of the whole available space? We know, from the evidence of the historic period, that to be buried in the Agora was a note of public honour; we cannot reasonably doubt, with the five graves before us, that it was such likewise in the historic age. It was a note of public honour, then, if these bodies were originally buried in the _Agora_. If we adopt the less probable supposition that the Agora was afterwards constructed around them by reason of their being there, the honour may seem even greater still.