configure vs debian

yesterday i tried to build the latest & greatest xemacs straight from cvs, on my home system, i.e., debian unstable if i tried to configure --with-athena=3d, the configuration stopped, with the message (more or less) "i found no suitable athena library" i had to configure without specifying anything with regard to athena, i built xemacs, installed and, surprise, i had a working xemacs with xft and 3d widgets... it's me that i've done something bad, it's configure or it'debian? ciao gb