The sun had long gone down beneath the dizzy peaks of Lebanon, indeed night had far advanced, when Lactantius, Mobilius, and myself, properly arrayed in dark vestments, sallied toward the temple of the sun. Hurried along at a rapid pace, for he feared we had tarried too long, we soon came in view of the temple’s towering portico, which may still be seen by the curious stranger, even in the absence of the moon; for ever-burning lamps, filled, as they say, by never-failing oil, hang beneath the architrave. Entering at the great door, we were stopped by the porter, but recognising Mobilius, he permitted us to pass, without farther scrutiny, though he was evidently displeased; for although I could not clearly distinguish what he spoke, I heard him mutter angrily in the Syrian tongue. We did not cross the grand courts, which, like the portico, were filled with perpetual lamps, but hastened through low corridors, vaults, and crooked passages, which might defy the skill of man to retrace, but Mobilius seemed well accustomed to them, so that I inferred he had acted as a guide on more than one occasion. After endless windings, we came into an archway, faintly lighted from without, and proceeding farther, entered a dark room. Here we were obliged to grope our way, and were commanded by Mobilius to tread with the utmost caution. We speedily, however, came to a spot, from which we beheld the great floor of the temple, through a narrow opening, artfully concealed in one of the ornaments of the entablature. All was still. “Earlier than I expected,” whispered Mobilius, “the ceremonies have not yet begun.” This leisure enabled me to examine the exquisite architecture of the edifice. The temple was the loftiest of all those that surrounded it, and which had their position and style of architecture in strict reference to this, as their great centre. The roof was of marble, and I could clearly distinguish, by the lamps around, the delicacy and lightness of its mouldings, pannels, and compartments. In the centre was a sun, carved in the full glory of his rays: marshalled at equal distances, surrounded by its sculptured edge, and sunk deeply into the marble, like a picture in its frame, were the heads of Venus, or as this people designate her, the “Syrian Goddess,” and also of Jupiter and other deities; and if I do not err, I could discern, constellated like the rest, the heads of Antoninus, and of other Roman emperors. The marble walls were carved with niches and tabernacles disposed in two rows, which were filled with statues, between the floor and the roof, and supporting the latter, stood pilasters and columns of the same order as those which sustain the architrave.