I. It is to be noticed in the first place, as Miss Harrison points out (Primitive Athens, pp. 96-7), that, on the one hand, none of those writers who themselves saw the temple ἐν Λίμναις (and indeed hardly any writers, the possible exceptions being considered below) speak of it as the Lenaeum or in connexion with the Lenaeum; while on the other hand, contemporary (and nearly all later) mentions of the dramatic contest at the Lenaea fail to connect it with the Λίμναι. And it is obvious that, as the precinct ἐν Λίμναις was only open once a year, on the 12th of Anthesterion (pseudo-Dem. in Neaer. § 76, see below), the Lenaeum cannot (any more than the temple or precinct of Dionysus Eleuthereus) have been absolutely identical with it, though the possibility is not thereby excluded that the Lenaeum may have been a larger precinct in a part of which the temple ἐν Λίμναις stood. The passages referring to the ἐν Λίμναις, without reference to the Lenaeum, are Thuc. ii. 15; Aristoph. Ran. 211 sqq.; pseudo-Dem. in Neaer. § 76; and Phanodemus ap. Athen. xi. p. 465 a: there can also be little doubt that Paus. i. 20. 3 refers to the temple ἐν Λίμναις, though he does not name it. I make only such comments on these passages as are necessary for showing that they afford no ground for the identification of the Lenaeum and the ἐν Λίμναις. (A) Thuc. ii. 15: τὸ δὲ πρὸ τούτου ἡ ἀκρόπολις ἡ νῦν οὖσα πόλις ἦν καὶ τὸ ὑπ’ αὐτὴν πρὸς νότον μάλιστα τετραμμένον· τεκμήριον δέ· τὰ γὰρ ἱερὰ ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ ἀκροπόλει καὶ ἄλλων θεῶν ἐστί, καὶ τὰ ἔξω πρὸς τοῦτο τὸ μέρος τῆς πόλεως μᾶλλον ἵδρυται, τό τε τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ Ὀλυμπίου καὶ τὸ Πύθιον καὶ τὸ τῆς Γῆς καὶ τὸ ἐν Λίμναις Διονύσου, ᾧ τὰ ἀρχαιότερα Διονύσια τῇ δωδεκάτῃ ποιεῖται ἐν μηνὶ Ἀνθεστηριῶνι. This passage can only be used to prove the ἐν Λίμναις identical with the Lenaeum (or closely connected) if we can identify the ἀρχαιότερα Διονύσια with the Lenaean festival or part of it. Gilbert, Dörpfeld, and others have attempted to do this. (It should be noted that, in the case of Dörpfeld and his followers, this attempt is secondary to an attempt to fix the temple ἐν Λίμναις at a particular spot, where he has discovered the remains of a precinct of Dionysus, containing a wine-press, ληνός.) They argue that the use of the comparative ἀρχαιότερα by Thucydides implies that he knew only of _two_ Dionysia, one the older, the other the later. The later must obviously be the Great or City Dionysia; and therefore the earlier, it is argued, must be the Anthesteria, Lenaea and Rural Dionysia, all regarded as one and the same festival; the place of the Anthesteria must therefore be the place of the Lenaea; and as a comparison of Thucydides with the pseudo-Dem. in Neaeram (below) proves that the place of at least one part of the Anthesteria—that which was celebrated on the 12th Anthesterion—was the ἐν Λίμναις, it follows that the Lenaea must also have taken place ἐν Λίμναις, not of course in the actual sanctuary of Dionysus, but close to it.