You would imagine from the way in which Wilkins endeavours to correct an error which Wheeler never made, that the columns of this temple were in five pieces, but this is not true; the number of _drums_ or _frusta_ is eleven or twelve, but the junction in those which have suffered no violence is so beautifully fine, that it is frequently impossible to trace it, even on the smooth surface of white marble. The inner range of columns is more shattered than the outer, and here we begin to be sensible of the immediate effects of the explosion occasioned by the bombs of the Venetians in 1687. The space between the internal columns, forming the pronaos, appears to have been filled up with a metal grating resting on a sill of marble. The holes for fastening it still remain, and the situation of the plinth, on which this grating rested, is indicated by the parts cut away to receive it at the foot of the columns. The doorway is 16 feet 8 inches wide in the original work, but it has been contracted by blocks of marble, at some more recent period; probably when the edifice was converted into a Greek church, and this has misled Stuart. Besides the evidence of this being a posterior contraction, arising from the inferior nature of the work, and its total want of connexion with the wall of the cell, we may observe also that some of the stones used are covered with inscriptions. No ornamental architrave remains to the door, but there are vestiges whence we may conclude that this part was of metal, as in the Propylæa. When you have once entered the building you see the manner in which it has suffered. The powder must have been near the middle; and on each side, both the wall of the cell, and the columns of the peristyle have been thrown down. At the eastern end, the walls and the inner range of columns are destroyed. Perhaps towards the west, the walls still existed between the ancient temple and the opisthodomus, and protected in some degree the western end; but that wall is now entirely destroyed, and the surface of the wall of the cell everywhere shattered, exposing a raw white fracture. But we are not yet fairly within the temple; we must first consider the Opisthodomus. It is paved with slabs of white marble 8 inches thick, 5 feet 8 inches long, and 3 feet 11 inches wide, all bedded in rough masonry, or on the native rock. There are four square blocks of a larger size, being 5 feet 10 inches square, and 14 inches thick; placed in corresponding situations, so as to divide the area of the room into nine equal parts, and appearing to have received the columns which supported the roof. Stuart has imagined six such columns, but without sufficient reason.