The hills running across the middle distance are a portion of the chain which divides the Attic plain into its two main parts. To the left we have the picturesque outline of Lycabettos, then the rolling hills above the Ilissus, next the rectangular form of the Acropolis, and to the right the Museion or Philopappus Hill. Behind this chain of hills and rocky eminences arises the great mass of Mount Hymettos.
given by Sophocles, which has been thus translated by Prof. Lewis Campbell—
Gleaming Colonus, where the nightingale
In cool, green covert warbleth ever clear,
True to the deep-flushed ivy and the dear
Divine, impenetrable shade,
From wildered boughs and myriad fruitage made,
Sunless at noon, stormless in every gale.
But you have only to go a short distance to the west and you will find the olive woods, rich in all their ancient charms. For the Greek scholar Colonus will always have a strong attraction as the birthplace of Sophocles, and as the scene of his Œdipus Coloneus; but the ordinary traveller will perhaps find his best reward for the excursion in the very beautiful view which it affords of Athens and the Acropolis.
Soon after leaving the Dipylon Gate, on the way to Eleusis, the road passes through the olive grove already mentioned, which borders the course of the Cephisus for several miles, though the bed of the river is often dry owing to the water being diverted from its course for purposes of irrigation. It was at this point that a strange play of abusive wit usually took place between the returning celebrants of the Mysteries as they crossed the bridge, and the crowd of spectators. A little farther on the spot is passed where Demeter is said to have presented Phytalus with the first fig-tree. About midway between Athens and Eleusis, at the top of the pass over Mt. Ægaleos, from which you have a charming view of the city as you look back, there is a deserted monastery dating from the thirteenth century, the work of one of the Burgundian Dukes of Athens. It is built on the site of an ancient temple of Apollo, and has inherited the name of Daphni, Apollo’s favourite, while its walls are also enriched with marbles from the ancient edifice, though it was deprived of three fine Ionic columns, which were transferred by Lord Elgin to the British Museum. About a mile farther, where a stone has been discovered bearing the letters Ζ ex asteos (i.e. Seven miles from the City), there are some scanty remains of a temple of Aphrodité, and behind it a rocky wall with niches for votive offerings, some of which have been recovered, especially doves in marble and bronze. It is about this point that the bay of Eleusis comes into view, looking like a lake, with Salamis, of glorious memory, enclosing it on the south-west. A mile or two farther on there are salt springs quite close to the road, called Rhiti, whose waters have been dammed up so as to form pools in which there is said to be good fishing, once the exclusive property of the priests of Demeter. The Thriasian plain is now seen on the right, and by and by Eleusis itself is reached, an unattractive and unhealthy village with about 1200 (Albanian) inhabitants, which would have no interest for the visitor except as the birthplace of Æschylus, if it were not for the sacred and venerable ruins on the adjoining hill.
It is a remark of Pausanias that “there is nothing on which the blessing of God rests in so full a measure
