History of the Peloponnesian War

And from his time even to this day the Athenians have celebrated at the public expense a festival called the Synoecia,[*]("Feast of the Union," celebrated on the sixteenth of the month Hecatombaeon.) in honour of the goddess. Before this[*](i.e. before the Synoecismus, or union of Attica under Theseus.) what is now the Acropolis was the city, together with the region at the foot of the Acropolis toward the south.

And the proof of this is as follows: On the Acropolis itself are the sanctuaries[*](It is taken for granted that these temples were ancient foundations.) of the other gods as well as of Athena,[*](A lacuna in the text is generally assumed; Classen would supply καὶ τὰ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς after θεῶν ἐστι, and I translate this.) and the sanctuaries which are outside the Acropolis are situated more in that quarter of the city, namely those of Olympian Zeus, of Pythian Apollo, of Earth, and of Dionysus in Limnae, in whose honour are celebrated the more ancient Dionysia[*](The Anthesteria, contrasted with the Lenaea, which was also an ancient festival, but of less antiquity. The city Dionysia was of comparatively recent origin.) the twelfth of the month Anthesterion, just as the Ionian descendants of the Athenians also are wont even now to celebrate it. In that quarter are also situated still other ancient sanctuaries.

And the fountain now called Enneacrunus,[*](Enneacrunus, Nine Conduits; Callirrhoe, Fair Stream.) from the fashion given it by the tyrants, but which anciently, when the springs were uncovered, was named Callirrhoe, was used by people of those days, because it was close by, for the most important ceremonials; and even now, in accordance with the ancient practice, it is still customary to use its waters in the rites preliminary to marriages and other sacred ceremonies.

And, finally, the Acropolis, because the Athenians had there in early times a place of habitation, is still to this day called by them Polis or city.

Because, then, of their long-continued life of independence in the country districts, most of the Athenians of early times and of their descendants down to the time of this war, from force of habit, even after their political union with the city, continued to reside, with their households, in the country where they had been born; and so they did not find it easy to move away, especially since they had only recently finished restoring their establishments after the Persian war.

They were dejected and aggrieved at having to leave their homes and the temples which had always been theirs,—relics, inherited from their fathers, of their original form of government—and at the prospect of changing their mode of life, and facing what was nothing less for each of them than forsaking his own town.

And when they came to the capital, only a few of them were provided with dwellings or places of refuge with friends or relatives, and most of them took up their abode in the vacant places of the city and the sanctuaries and the shrines of heroes, all except the Acropolis and the Eleusinium and any other precinct that could be securely closed. And the Pelargicum,[*](A fortification built by the "Pelasgians " on the west side of the Acropolis, the only side accessible to an enemy. It was to the space below and above this fortification that the curse attached.) as it was called, at the foot of the Acropolis, although it was under a curse that forbade its use for residence, and this was also prohibited by a verse-end of a Pythian oracle to the following effect:

1. The Pelargicum unoccupied is better,

for it was not on account of the unlawful occupation of the place that the city was visited by the calamities, but it was on account of the war that there was the necessity of its occupation, and the oracle, although it did not mention the war, yet foresaw that the place would never be occupied for any good.

Many also established themselves in the towers of the city walls, and whereever each one could find a place; for the city did not have room for them when they were all there together. But afterwards they distributed into lots and occupied the space between the Long Walls and the greater part of the Peiraeus.