the Africans. There was a city in Libya named Coël, which the Romans rendered Coëlu. They would have expressed it Coelus, or Cœlus; but the name was copied in the time of the Punic wars, before the s final was admitted into their writings. Vaillant has given several specimens of coins struck in this city to the honour of some of the Roman [674]emperors, but especially of Verus, Commodus, and Antoninus Pius. [Illustration: Pl. II. _Temple of Mithras near Naki Rustan in Persia. Also temples in the rock near the Plain of the Magi._ From Le Bruyn.] Among the Persians most of the temples were caverns in rocks, either formed by nature, or artificially produced. They had likewise Puratheia, or open temples, for the celebration of the rites of fire. I shall hereafter shew, that the religion, of which I have been treating, was derived from the sons of Chus: and in the antient province of Chusistan, called afterwards Persis, there are to be seen at this day many curious monuments of antiquity, which have a reference to that worship. The learned Hyde supposes them to have been either [675]palaces, or tombs. The chief building, which he has taken for a palace, is manifestly a Puratheion; one of those open edifices called by the Greeks Ὑπαιθρα. It is very like the temple at Lucorein in upper Egypt, and seems to be still entire. At a glance we may perceive, that it was never intended for an habitation. At a distance are some sacred grottos, hewn out of the rock; the same which he imagines to have been tombs. Many of the antients, as well as of the moderns, have been of the same opinion. In the front of these grottos are representations of various characters: and among others is figured, more than once, a princely personage, who is approaching the altar where the sacred fire is [676]burning. Above all is the Sun, and the figure of a Deity in a cloud, with sometimes a sacred bandage, at other times a serpent entwined round his middle, similar to the Cnuphis of Egypt. Hyde supposes the figure above to be the soul of the king, who stands before the altar: but it is certainly an emblem of the Deity, of which we have a second example in Le [677]Bruyn, copied from another part of these edifices. Hyde takes notice, that there were several repetitions of this history, and particularly of persons, solem et ignem in pariete delineatos intuentes: yet he forms his judgment from one specimen only. These curious samples of antient architecture are described by [678]Kæmpfer, [679]Mandesloe, [680]Chardin, and [681]Le Bruyn. They are likewise taken notice of by [682]Thevenot, and Herbert. In respect to the grottos I am persuaded, that they were temples, and not tombs. Nothing was more common among the Persians than to have their temples formed out of rocks. Mithras e [683]Petrâ was in a manner a proverb. Porphyry assures us, that the Deity had always a rock or cavern for his temple: that people, in all places,