The precinct had lost prestige by the time of Pausanias[225]. Had the temple of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes been above ground he would assuredly not have passed it by. Near to where the precinct once was he saw a building, a circular or semi-circular one, which may have been a last Roman reminiscence of the orchestra, and still of note though it did not occupy the same site; he notes ‘a theatre which they call the Odeion.’ It is probable that this was the theatre built by Agrippa and mentioned by Philostratos[226] as ‘the theatre in the Kerameikos, which goes by the name of the Agrippeion.’ * * * * * Before leaving the sanctuary in-the-Marshes, a word must be said as to the Anthesteria or, as Thucydides calls it, ‘the more ancient Dionysiac Festival.’ I have tried elsewhere[227] to show in detail that the Dionysiac element in the Anthesteria was only a thin upper layer beneath which lay a ritual of immemorial antiquity, which had for its object the promotion of fertility by means of the placation of ghosts or heroes. On the first day, if I am right, the _Pithoigia_ was an Opening not only of wine-jars but of grave-jars; the second, the _Choes_, was a feast not only of Cups but of Libations (χοαί); the third, the _Chytroi_, not only a Pot-feast, but a feast of Holes in the ground and of the solemn dismissal of Keres back to the lower world. That the collective name of the whole feast _Anthesteria_ did not primarily mean the festival of those who ‘did the flowers,’ but rather of those who ‘revoked the ghosts[228].’ But in trying to distinguish the two strata, the under stratum of ghosts, the upper of Dionysos, I never doubted that the Pot Contest on the day of the _Chytroi_ belonged to Dionysos. Dionysos and the ‘origin of the drama’ are canonically connected. It has remained, therefore, something of a mystery how Dionysos, late-comer as he was, contrived to possess himself of the ancient ghost-festival and impose his dramatic contests on a ritual substratum apparently so uncongenial. Religions are accommodating enough, but some sort of analogy or possible bridge from one to the other is necessary for affiliation. The difficulty disappears at once if we accept Professor Ridgeway’s[229] recent theory as to the origin of tragedy. The drama according to him is not ‘Dorian,’ and, save for the one element of the Satyric play, not Dionysiac. It took its rise in mimetic dances at the tombs of local heroes. When Dionysos came to Athens with his Satyr attendants he would find the Pot-Contests as part of the funeral ritual of the Anthesteria. He added to the festival wine and the Satyrs. Small wonder that comedy, as in the _Frogs_, was at home in the Underworld, and could in all piety parody a funeral[230] on the stage. * * * * *