The journey to Bassæ from Andritsæna is very similar, though too short to be laborious. It conducts to a scene of the most impressive solitude, at an elevation of nearly 4000 feet, commanding a magnificent view both of land and sea, including Mt. Ithome and the great Messenian plain. In the Temple of Bassæ, dedicated to Apollo in this secluded spot by the people of Phigalia, which was six miles distant, the beauty of art seems to vie with the grandeur of nature. The ruin is acknowledged by general consent to be the finest in the Peloponnesus, though for centuries it was known only to the shepherds in the neighbourhood. Designed by Ictinus, one of the architects of the Parthenon, the structure has weathered the storms of more than twenty-three centuries. Of the thirty-eight Doric columns which surrounded the temple only three are now wanting, and their architraves are almost intact. The frieze of the _cella_ or inner chamber was discovered in 1812, and was purchased two years afterwards by the British Government for £19,000--to be preserved in the British Museum. On it are represented the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons, and the fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. The design is admirable, but the execution is so poor as to suggest that the work was done by local sculptors. Though the frieze is of marble, the temple generally was built of grey limestone quarried in the neighbourhood. Unlike other Greek temples, which look to the east to greet the rising sun, that of Bassæ faces the north. This is accounted for by the fact that it was built over an older shrine, which, from the nature of the rocky ledge on which it stood, could not be extended any farther east and west. The old entrance, however, was still preserved, and the image of the god still faced to the east. Pausanias tells us of a bronze statue of Apollo, twelve feet high, which was removed from the temple to Megalopolis and set up in the market-place, but it has long since disappeared. The same writer conjectures that the temple was erected in honour of Apollo Epicourios for having averted from Phigalia the plague with which Athens was visited during the Peloponnesian War. But it is considered more likely to have been a general tribute to the god on account of the health-giving breezes which play over the spot, and which no doubt made it a favourite resort for the invalids of the district.