[187] It is almost certain that an ancient road from Eleusis followed the eminently natural line taken by the modern road from Eleusis to Eleutheræ. There was also, in all probability, a route from Athens to Eleutheræ which did not enter Eleusis at all, but, branching from the Sacred Way near the Rheitoi after traversing the low pass through Mount Ægaleos, went up the Thriasian plain and joined the road from Eleusis among the low hills of Western Attica.
[188] These ridges will be found numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in the accompanying map.
[189] Marked A 6 in the map.
[190] Called in the map, for purposes of distinction, the Asopos ridge, the Long ridge, and the Plateau.
[191] Those of the streams marked A 4 and A 5 on the map.
[192] During my stay at Kriekouki, in December ’92–January ’93, the rainfall was at times extraordinarily heavy. Nevertheless, I had not on any occasion the slightest difficulty in crossing any of the streams, and it was not even necessary to get wet in so doing. On one occasion also I happened to be following the line of one of the watercourses leading to the Œroë amid a downpour of rain such as we rarely see in England, which had been going on with more or less continuity for the previous fourteen hours; and yet, as I descended the brook towards the plain the water became less and less until, on the plain, there was no water running in the stream bed.
[193] Pausanias knew the roads through these two passes.
(1) Platæa-Athens road.
He says (xi. 1, 6) that Neokles, the Bœotarch, in his surprise of Platæa in the year 374, led the Thebans οὐ τὴν εὐθεῖαν ἀπὸ τῶν Θηβῶν τὴν πεδιάδα, τὴν δὲ ἐπὶ Ὑσιὰς ἦγε πρὸς Ἐλευθερῶν τε καὶ τῆς Ἀττικῆς.
There will be occasion to show that Hysiæ was in all probability a small place, on a site just outside the southernmost end of the village of Kriekouki. It was therefore at the eastern side of the opening of the valley through which the road from Platæa to Athens passed. The remains of that ancient road are, however, at the other side of the valley opening; and, therefore, Hysiæ was not upon it. Probably, however, down the valley came a track which is still used, and which, after passing through the village of Kriekouki, goes due north to Thebes in a line parallel to the main road from Dryoskephalæ. This would be the road which Pausanias here mention. It would, in entering the valley to the pass, go close to this site of Hysiæ. Of the identity of this site it will be necessary to speak in a later note.