Stanhope, John Spencer: Olympia or topography illustrative of the actual state of the plain of Olympia and of the ruins of the city of Elis (London, 1824)

39

untravelled antiquarian and scholar, that. I have undertaken this task;
with them must rest the decision of all these questions. If they
acknowledge this as the site of the Hippodrome, it will remain for
M. Pouqueviile to prove, that his Aphesis corresponds with the description
oi'Pausanias, rather than Co consider it with reference to the exploded plan
of Gedoyn.

I am afraid that a terrace 4230 feet in length will scarcely he considered
as a proof of the existence of a stadium, hut M. Pouqueviile has made an
admission on this point of material importance to me; he acknowledges
that, it served at the same time to prevent the inundations of the Alpheus;
and upon discovering a third bank, he immediately supposes that he has
found the remains of the Amphitheatre of Adrian. If I understand
correctly the position of this bank, I trust that it also served to check the
inundations of the Alpheus, as otherwise the Amphitheatre of Adrian,
depending for protection against the encroachments of the water upon
another bank still further removed from the river, must necessarily have
itself been sometimes submerged; upon the whole, this admission of M.
Pouqueville's comes in support of what I have already observed, that the
variations of this part of the plain may probably owe their rise to the
inundations of the Alpheus; and it appears not unlikely that these
inundations were on one side checked by the conical hill, which has been
already spoken of as the eastern boundary of the plain, and on the other by
the western extremity of the bank.