One school of topographers, headed by the great name of Curtius, placed the agora at the North side of the Acropolis. We have seen that, though wrong for the beginning of things, this is right for the end. Another school, though they knew that the Roman market lay Northwards, yet had compunctions about the earlier agora. This earlier agora they placed due South of the Acropolis, completely separated from the Roman one. The separation was in idea as well as in place. The early agora was supposed to be in some obscure way a religious, the later a political and commercial centre. Such an arrangement is shown in the plan in Fig. 48[291]. It is purely theoretical and impossible. The Panathenaic way is made to run North of the Areopagus up the impracticable hill, and the ancient agora lies as a sort of desert island by itself, away from the Council House, the Tholos, the Stoa Basileios, and the rest. The West slope is left void. When and how the mysterious leap from old to new, from South to North, was taken no one explained. This brings us to our second source of error. [Illustration: FIG. 48.] 2. _A misunderstanding of the text of Thucydides._ What has led topographers to make this singular and unmeaning division of old and new? why have they placed the old agora South of the Acropolis? Simply because, misunderstanding the words of Thucydides, they think _he_ placed it South. Thucydides says, it will be remembered (p. 7), that, in the days before Theseus, ‘_what is now the citadel was the city, together with what is below it towards about South_.’ We have seen that the simple and satisfactory explanation of the words is that the reference is to the bit of ground known as the Pelargikon, extending mainly West and South-West of the Acropolis and included in the ancient city. We have also seen—and this is of paramount importance—that the sole gist and point of Thucydides’ argument is to show the smallness of the ancient city, to prove that it was practically the same as the citadel, only there was this bit over ‘_towards about South_.’ It is the fatal accuracy of Thucydides that has led to his being misunderstood. It is actually thought that he desires to prove _two_ points: first, that the ancient city was the citadel; second, that the portion of the city not contained in the citadel was to the South[292]; whereas, as already seen, the _direction_ of the city has nothing, could have nothing, to do with the case.