_The Sanctuary of the Semnae Theai or Venerable Goddesses._ The site of this sanctuary is practically certain. Euripides[238] in the _Electra_ makes the Erinyes, when they are about to become Semnae, descend into a chasm of the earth near to the Areopagos. Near to the Areopagos there is one chasm and one only, that is the deep fissure on the North-East side, the spot where tradition has long placed the cave of the Semnae[239]. A cave they needed, for they were under-world goddesses. Their ritual I have discussed in detail elsewhere[240]; here it need only be noted that it was of great antiquity and had all the characteristic marks of a chthonic cult. As under-world goddesses the Venerable Ones bore the title also of _Arai_, Imprecations; they were for cursing as well as blessing; the hill it is now generally acknowledged took its name from them rather than from the war-god Ares. Orestes it will be remembered[241] came to the Areopagos to be purified from his mother’s blood, and he found the people celebrating the Choes; he found them, if our topography be correct, close by, in the precinct of Dionysos-in-the-Marshes. * * * * * _The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Pandemos._ Harpocration[242] in explaining the title _Pandemos_ tells us that Apollodorus in the sixth book of his treatise _About the Gods_ said that this was ‘the name given at Athens to the goddess whose worship had been established somewhere near the ancient agora.’ His conjecture that the goddess was called Pandemos because all the people collected in the agora need not detain us, but the topographical statement coming from an author who knew his subject like Apollodorus, is important. We have to seek the sanctuary of Pandemos somewhere on or close to the West slope of the Acropolis, somewhere near the great square which as we shall see (p. 131) stood in front of the ancient well-house and formed the ancient agora. Pausanias[243] mentions the worship of Aphrodite Pandemos in a sentence of the most tantalizing vagueness. After leaving the Asklepieion he notes a temple of Themis and in front of it a monument to Hippolytus. He then tells at length the story of Phaedra and next goes on ‘When Theseus united the various Athenian demes into one people he introduced the worship of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho. The old images were not there in my time, but those I saw were the work of no obscure artists.’ Immediately after he passes to the sanctuary of Ge Kourotrophos and Demeter Chloe and then straight to the citadel.