The final alterations in the Athenian theater (Fig. 40)[156] were made in the third or fourth century A.D. by Phaedrus, governor of Attica (Ἀτθίδος ἀρχός), who dedicated the “platform of the theater” (βῆμα θεήτρου) to Dionysus in an inscription which still stands on the uppermost of the stone steps leading from the orchestra to the stage. The gutter was now filled up with earth and refuse, and the rosette-shaped openings in its covering were carefully closed. Plaster was used as needed, and the balustrade and the front wall of the stage (the hyposcenium) were reinforced and made water-tight by supporting walls. The intention was plainly to enable the orchestra to be flooded for the representation of mimic sea fights. The stage was partially rebuilt and was lowered. The hyposcenium was adorned with a frieze (Figs. 39 and 41),[157] the extant portion of which is interrupted at three points by two blank spaces and a recess. The latter is filled by a kneeling Silenus. It is clear that the frieze had been used before and that its slabs had originally been placed in immediate juxtaposition. Moreover, the heads of the figures have been cut away, so that the frieze, when complete, must have been about half a foot higher than at present. The Phaedrus stage is four feet three and a half inches high; and as Dörpfeld was originally inclined to believe that this same frieze had at first stood before the Neronian stage, he estimated the height of the latter at about four feet nine and a half inches. In my opinion, this estimate ought to be retained. But though Dörpfeld now considers the Nero stage to have been higher than this, he has not indicated whether he still believes its front wall to have been the original position of the frieze.