To us to-day the top of the Acropolis appears as a smooth plateau sloping gently westwards towards the Propylaea, and this plateau is surrounded by fortification walls, whose clean, straight lines show them to be artificial. Very similar in all essentials was the appearance presented by the hill to the contemporaries of Thucydides, but such was not the ancient Acropolis. What manner of thing the primitive hill was has been shown by the excavations carried on by the Greek Government from 1885-1889. The excavators, save when they were prevented by the foundations of buildings, have everywhere dug down to the living rock, every handful of the _débris_ exposed has been carefully examined, and nothing more now remains for discovery. When the traveller first reaches Athens he is so impressed by the unexpected height and dominant situation of Lycabettus, that he wonders why it plays so small a part in classical record. Plato[8] seems to have felt that it was hard for Lycabettus to be left out. In his description of primitive Athens he says, ‘in old days the hill of the Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and Ilissus, and included the Pnyx on one side and Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite side of the hill,’ and there is a certain rough geological justice about Plato’s description. All these hills are spurs of that last offshoot of Pentelicus, known in modern times as Turkovouni. Yet to the wise Athena, Lycabettus was but building material; she was carrying the hill through the air to fortify her Acropolis, when she met the crow[9] who told her that the disobedient sisters had opened the chest, and then and there she dropped Lycabettus and left it ... to the crows. A moment’s reflection will show why the Acropolis was chosen and Lycabettus left. Lycabettus is a good hill to climb and see a sunset from. It has not level space enough for a settlement. The Acropolis has the two _desiderata_ of an ancient burgh, space on which to settle, and easy defensibility.