to the south of the Neda, in which case it would correspond to the lofty mountain of Kúvela. Mt. Elaeum contained a cavern sacred to the Black Demeter, situated in a grove of oaks. Of the position of Mt. Cotilium there is no doubt. On it was situated the temple of Apollo Epicurius, which was built in the Peloponnesian War by Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon at Athens. It was erected by the Phigaleans in consequence of the relief afforded by Apollo during the plague in the Peloponnesian War, whence he received the surname of Epicurius''. The temple stood in a place called Bassae, and according to Pausanias excelled all the temples of Peloponnesus, except that of Athena Alea at Tegea, in the beauty of the stone and the accuracy of its masonry. He particularly mentions that the roof was of stone as well as the rest of the building. This temple still remains almost entire, and is next to the Theseum at Athens the best preserved of the temples of Greece. It stands in a glen (whence the name Βᾶσσαι, Doric for Βήσση, Βῆσσαι) near the summit of Mt. Cotilium, in the midst of a wilderness of rocks, studded with old knotty oaks. Nineteenth-century British scholar William Mure who visited the site wrote that “there is certainly no remnant of the architectural splendour of Greece more calculated to fascinate the imagination than this temple; whether by its own size and beauty, by the contrast it offers to the wild desolation of the surrounding scenery, or the extent and variety of the prospect from its site.” A spring rises about ten minutes walk southwest of the temple, and soon afterwards loses itself in the ground, as Pausanias has described. North of the temple was the highest summit of the mountain, which one reaches in ten minutes' time by a broad road constructed by the Greeks. This summit was called Cotilum (Κώτιλον), whence the whole mountain derived the name of Cotilian; here was a sanctuary of Aphrodite, of which there are still some traces. The grandeur of the ruins of the temple have given to the whole of the surrounding district the name of the Columns (στοὺς στύλους or κολόνναις). The temple is at least two and a half hours walk from the ruins of the city, and consequently more than the 40 stadia, which Pausanias mentions as the distance