The oldest stage-buildings, which Dörpfeld dates soon after the middle of the fourth century and Puchstein at the end of the fifth, are marked by cross-shading in the plan, and denoted by the letter _n_. They consisted, as will be seen, of a long and narrow rectangular structure. In the front, towards each end, were two projecting side-wings. The length of the building was 152 feet, and its depth, measured between the wings, 21 feet. The wings themselves were 25 feet wide, and projected about 17 feet on the inside. The roof of the building was originally supported by a line of columns running along the centre, of which some traces still remain. At the back of the building there was a low narrow wall, running immediately in front of the supporting wall, and fitted with square holes at regular intervals. The purpose of the wall is very obscure; but Dörpfeld conjectures that the upper story was of wood, and not of stone, and that it rested on wooden beams which were placed in these holes. Puchstein, on the other hand, believes that there was an upper story of stone. The evidence is not sufficiently clear to render a decision possible.[385] As regards the appearance of the building in the front nothing can be ascertained with certainty. The space between the side-wings evidently contained the stage, but no traces of it are to be found. It must therefore have been a temporary erection of wood. Dörpfeld supposes that the front of the two side-wings, and the front of the wall between them, were decorated with columns and entablatures about thirteen feet high.[386] But the evidence for this opinion is far from conclusive. It is founded on the fact that the stylobates used in the later side-wings were not originally designed for that position, but had obviously been used somewhere else before. Dörpfeld supposes, perhaps correctly, that they stood at first in front of the Lycurgean side-wings.[387] But this is no justification for assuming that the wall between the wings in the Lycurgean building was also decorated in the same way. The stylobate used for this part of the later building was a new one, and not an old one rearranged; and this fact seems to show that there was no such stylobate in the building of Lycurgus. Otherwise there would have been just as much reason for using it, as for using the two stylobates from the wings. On the whole then it is clear that we know very little about the old stage-building of the fourth or late fifth century beyond the shape of its ground-plan. As to its height, the material used in its upper stories, and the manner in which its front was embellished, there is no certain evidence.