(M112) The ruins of Olba, among the most extensive and remarkable in Asia Minor, were discovered in 1890 by Mr. J. Theodore Bent. But three years before another English traveller had caught a distant view of its battlements and towers outlined against the sky like a city of enchantment or dreams.(447) Standing at a height of nearly six thousand feet above the sea, the upper town commands a free, though somewhat uniform, prospect for immense distances in all directions. The sea is just visible far away to the south. On these heights the winter is long and severe. Snow lies on the ground for months. No Greek would have chosen such a site for a city, so bleak and chill, so far from blue water; but it served well for a fastness of brigands. Deep gorges, one of them filled for miles with tombs, surround it on all sides, rendering fortification walls superfluous. But a great square tower, four stories high, rises conspicuous on the hill, forming a landmark and earning for this upper town the native name of _Jebel Hissar_, or the Mountain of the Castle. A Greek inscription cut on the tower proves that it was built by Teucer, son of Tarkuaris, one of the priestly potentates of Olba. Among other remains of public buildings the most notable are forty tall Corinthian columns of the great temple of Olbian Zeus. Though coarse in style and corroded by long exposure to frost and snow, these massive pillars, towering above the ruins, produce an imposing effect. That the temple of which they formed part belonged indeed to Olbian Zeus is shown by a Greek inscription found within the sacred area, which records that the pent-houses on the inner side of the boundary wall were built by King Seleucus Nicator and repaired for Olbian Zeus by “the great high-priest Teucer, son of Zenophanes.” About two hundred yards from this great temple are standing five elegant granite columns of a small temple dedicated to the goddess Fortune. Further, the remains of two theatres and many other public buildings attest the former splendour of this mountain city. An arched colonnade, of which some Corinthian columns are standing with their architraves, ran through the town; and an ancient paved road, lined with tombs and ruins, leads down hill to a lower and smaller city two or three miles distant. It is this lower town which retains the ancient name of Oura. Here the principal ruins occupy an isolated fir-clad height bounded by two narrow ravines full of rock-cut tombs. Below the town the ravines unite and form a fine gorge, down which the old road passed seaward.(448) § 7. The God of the Corycian Cave.