Nor can a provision for washing or bathing in this temple seem strange to any one, who reflects, how high a rank this mode of purification held among the religious ceremonies of almost all nations of the world. As for the Romans, with whom we are principally concerned in the present inquiry, the subsistence of this usage among them might be abundantly shewn by the testimonies of their writers; and also by the accommodations provided for it in other buildings of the same character with that before us. Some of these still remain within the neighbourhood of Pozzuolo, _viz._ the magnificent temple near the lake of Avernus ascribed to Apollo, which has an apartment adjoining to it indisputably intended for the purpose intimated above. For it is furnished with several stone cisterns, whose inward dimensions are proportioned to the ordinary size of an human body; and near them is a spring, out of which the water was taken up, and poured into a bason hollowed out in the side of the wall: from thence it ran along in a groove or channel cut in the ends of the cisterns, to be let out upon the persons bathing in them, according to their pleasure, or as occasion should require. So likewise in the temple of Venus (as it is commonly called) near Baiæ, there is a large chamber containing several stone seats for washing, with little cells contiguous to it for undressing before, and anointing the body and dressing afterwards. I have but one more particular to add concerning the apartment in the north-west angle of the temple, _viz._ that, when it was cleared of its rubbish, there was found in a niche in one of its sides a male and female figure naked, and in the most flagrant act of natural lewdness. It is now (as we were informed) in a private room in the palace at Portici, nor can be seen without the King’s special permission. In the same place, probably, may stand the statue of a satyr in an unnatural action with a goat, which was found at Herculaneum, and is, they say, of exquisite sculpture, but concealed in the palace above-mentioned with the same strict care as the former.