the spectators. The arrangements were, therefore, considerably modified. The orchestra and auditorium were reduced in size to a semicircle.[310] The consequence was that the stage became a much more prominent object, and that all the spectators had a fairly good view of it. To return to the wooden theatres of the sixth century. As regards the place in which they were erected, there is some difficulty. The remains of an old orchestra belonging to the sixth century were discovered not many years ago in the enclosure of Dionysus Eleuthereus at the foot of the Acropolis. It follows, therefore, as a matter of practical certainty that the dramatic performances at the City Dionysia must have been given from the first in this orchestra, within the enclosure of the god of the festival. No doubt in the same way the Lenaeum was the original site of the performances at the Lenaea;[311] but the site of the Lenaeum itself is much disputed. The most probable view is that it was in or adjoining the market-place: but it is not certain where the market-place itself lay.[312] There was an old proverb in use at Athens, by which a bad seat at any spectacle was called the ‘view from the poplar’. The grammarians, who apparently follow Eratosthenes, give the following explanation. They say that at the old dramatic exhibitions the wooden benches for the spectators reached as far as a certain poplar; and that the people who could not get seats on the benches used to scramble up the poplar.[313] It is possible that the story is an attempt to account by conjecture for a current proverbial expression; but it may represent a genuine tradition.