Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present ConditionBucke, Charles
History
Ruins of Ancient Cities (Vol. 1 of 2): With General and Particular Accounts of Their Rise, Fall, and Present Condition
Bucke, Charles
Cities and towns, Ancient
stand six enormous columns, which appear to be totally unconnected with
the rest of the building. On a more attentive examination, however, we
discover a series of foundations, which seem to mark out the peristyle
of a grand temple, to which these columns belonged. Pococke supposes
this temple never to have been finished. We must examine them narrowly
before we can conceive all the boldness of the elevation, and the
richness of their workmanship. Their shafts are twenty-one feet eight
inches in circumference, and fifty-eight high; so that the total height,
including the entablature, is from seventy-one to seventy-two feet.
These six pillars are all that now remain of twenty-four[142].
The southern side of the grand temple has, at some distant period, been
blocked up to build a smaller one, the peristyle and walls of which are
still remaining. This temple presents a side of thirteen columns by
eight in front, which, like all the rest of the ruins, are of the
Corinthian order[143]. To reach the smaller temple from the larger one,
you must cross trunks of columns, heaps of stone, and a ruinous wall.
After surmounting these obstacles, you arrive at the gate, where you may
survey the enclosure, which was once the habitation of a god; but
instead of the awful scene of a prostrate people, and sacrifices offered
by a multitude of priests, the sky, which is open from the falling in of
the roof, only lets in light to show a chaos of ruins covered with dust
and weeds. The walls, which supported the roof, are thirty-one feet
high, and without a window. There are tablets in the form of lozenges,
on which are represented Jupiter seated on his eagle, Leda caressed by
the swan, Diana with her bow and crescent, and several busts which seem
to be figures of emperors and empresses.
The number of lizards to be seen is so great, that Mr. Bruce says, that
those he saw one day in the great court of the temple of the sun
amounted to many thousands; the ground, the walls, and stones of the
ruined buildings being covered with them. Besides these two, there is a
smaller temple of very great beauty. The building itself, exclusive of
the pillars, by which it is surrounded, is only thirty-two feet in
diameter; and the height is divided into two parts, in the lower of
which the architecture is Ionic, and in the higher Corinthian. The grace
and lightness of the exterior of this edifice has induced several
competent critics to call it "a perfect gem of art."
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