Of far greater interest than the altar, and indeed for our purpose of supreme importance, was another discovery. In the apse, with the altar mentioned and other altars, was found the drum of a column (Fig. 25), which had once stood in the great hall; columns just like it are still standing, so that it belongs without doubt to the building. On it is an inscription[211], divided into two columns and 167 lines in length, which from its style may be dated about the third century A.D. Above the inscription, in a relief in pediment form containing Dionysiac symbols, two panthers stand heraldically, one to either side of a _cantharus_; above is the head of a bull. Inscriptions arranged in this fashion on columns are not unusual in the third century A.D.[212] The inscription contains the statutes of a _thiasos_, or club of persons calling themselves Iobakchoi, who met in a place—the hall where the inscription was set up—called the Bakcheion. This is our quadrangular building marked _Bakcheion_ on the plan (Fig. 24). The rules, which are given in great detail, are very interesting, but for the present one thing only concerns us—the name of the thiasos, the Iobakchoi. Iobakchos was a title of Dionysos, a title probably derived from a cry uttered in his worship, and, we remember (p. 85) with sudden delight, the _Gerarae_, the attendants of the Queen, promised in their oath to celebrate, in accordance with ancestral usage, the Iobakcheia. But the building, and even the traces of an earlier structure that preceded it[213], are of late date; we are on the spot, and yet so far the sanctuary in the Marshes eludes us. But not for long. Digging deeper down, to the level of the ancient road, the excavators came on another and an earlier structure, the triangular precinct marked on the plan, and here at last evidence was found that settled for ever the site of the sanctuary of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes. * * * * * The sanctuary, for such we shall immediately see it was, is of triangular shape, and lies substantially lower than the roads by which it is bounded. The sides of the triangle face approximately, North, East and South-West. The precinct is surrounded by an ancient polygonal wall, a portion of which from the South end of the South-West side is shown in Fig. 26. The material is throughout blue calcareous stone, but the masonry is by no means of uniform excellence or of the same date. At various periods the wall must have undergone repairs. The space enclosed is about 560 square metres. Owing to the fact that the precinct lay deeper than the surrounding roads, sometimes to the extent of two metres, the wall is supported in places by buttresses, only one of which is of good Greek masonry; the rest seem to have been added shortly before the ancient precinct fell into disuse. [Illustration: FIG. 26.]