but the precinct was too small for sacrifice on any large scale. A flight of thirteen steps, descending from the south-west corner of the temenos, leads to a sacred way which went down the mountain and came out near the temple of Serapis.
These facts warrant at least the following inferences:—
1. The grotto on Cynthus was a primitive temple[1], whoever were the people that first worshipped there. It shows the very genesis of the early temple from step to step. First, an altar in the open air; then a roof to shelter the altar; next, a door to keep out the profane; lastly, a precinct added to the house of the god.
2. This temple was the seat of an oracle. The presence of the cleft for water (χάσμα) in such a cavern would of itself make this almost certain. The grotto on Cynthus is analogous in this respect to the adyton at Delphi, the cave of the Clarian Apollo, the cave of Trophonius, the shrines of the Sibyl at Cumae and Lilybaeum, the oracle of the earth in Elis, with many more that could be named[2] We need not lay stress on the probable presence of tripod and cortina.
3. Among the deities once adored here was a young god whose statue shows Greek workmanship of a mature age.
