This cardinal question is the interpretation of an account given by Thucydides of the character and limits of ancient Athens. Both Dr Frazer and Professor Ernest Gardner hold by an interpretation which though almost universally prevalent down to recent times has been, in my opinion, disproved by the recent excavations of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens and the explanation of their results by Professor Dörpfeld. An adequate examination of the new theory could perhaps hardly be expected in such a book as Professor Gardner’s, and it will not be found there. Dr Frazer, it is needless to say, stated Professor Dörpfeld’s view with fulness and fairness, so far as was then possible or consistent with his main purpose. But the passage of Thucydides deserves and requires a more full consideration than it could receive incidentally in an edition of Pausanias. Moreover at the time when Dr Frazer visited Athens the excavations were only in process, and the results had not been fully developed when his book was published. It was therefore impossible for Dr Frazer to give in one place such a connected account of the new evidence and theory as in a question of this magnitude seems desirable. The view I set forth is not my own but that of Professor Dörpfeld. In the light of his examination of the passage of Thucydides what had been a mere ‘Enneakrounos Episode’ interesting only to specialists, became at once a vital question affecting the whole history of primitive Athens. Professor Dörpfeld’s views convinced me even before they were confirmed by excavation. I expressed my adhesion in my _Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens_, but I did not then see their full significance. For English readers these views have been so far stated as heresies to be combated, or as rash speculations needing danger-signals. The danger seems to me the other way. To my mind this is a case where adherence to traditional views can only leave us in straits made desperate by the advancing tide of knowledge. I have therefore set forth Prof. Dörpfeld’s views, not apologetically, but in full confidence, as illuminating truths essentially conciliatory and constructive. Save in the Conclusion, on the question of the _metastasis_, I have added to the topographical argument nothing of my own. If here and there I have been unable to resist the temptation of wandering into bye-paths of religion and mythology, I trust the reader will pardon one who is by nature no topographer. For topography all that I have done is to set forth as clearly and fully as I could a somewhat intricate argument. * * * * *