The City Dionysia, the feast of Dionysus Eleuthereus,[16] was the most famous and magnificent of all the Bacchic festivals, and was therefore also called the Great Dionysia, or simply the Dionysia, without any further epithet.[17] It was held from the first inside the city, at the sacred enclosure of Eleuthereus[18] on the south of the Acropolis. Hence the name City Dionysia, to distinguish it from the Anthesteria and the Lenaea, which, at any rate in early times, were celebrated outside the walls. A poet who brought out his plays at this festival was said to exhibit them ‘in the city’; if successful, he was said to have won ‘a city victory’.[19] The feast lasted for at least five days, and possibly for six. It took place in the month Elaphebolion, at a date corresponding to the end of March.[20] The spring was then just beginning, and the sea had again become navigable.[21] Consequently the city was crowded with visitors from all parts of Greece. It was at this season that the allies came to Athens to pay the annual tribute. Ambassadors from foreign states often chose this time for the transaction of diplomatic business. Large numbers of strangers were attracted by mere pleasure, and the celebrity of the festival. Aeschines, in his rhetorical language, describes the audience in the theatre at the City Dionysia as consisting of the ‘whole Greek nation’.[22] The presence of so many strangers gave a lively appearance to the streets, in marked contrast to the quietness which prevailed at the winter festival of the Lenaea.[23] The Athenians gladly seized this opportunity of displaying before foreign Greeks the glories of their city. The various spectacles provided, the religious ceremonial, the trains of sacrificial victims, the choral songs and dances, the tragedies and comedies exhibited before countless multitudes in the vast open-air theatre, were all calculated to impress strangers with the wealth, public spirit, and artistic supremacy of Athens.