Thus the upper hemicycle stair repeats the two hemicycles of the lower terrace, and the relation between them is a triangle, which repeats in a different plane the triangle of the double converging ramp. The arches are treated as beams to bear the weight of stone construction, and the stone construction is a caisson for the concrete. Fasolo and Gullini argue ingeniously for a date earlier than Sulla for the Sanctuary, but their arguments have not found general favor. The most that can be said is that certain inscriptions mentioning restoration, reconstruction, or dedications to Fortune earlier than 80 B.C. imply a previously existing and probably much simpler structure, centering on the east half of the Hemicycle Terrace, but nothing in the technique or materials now visible or inferred requires other than a Sullan date for any part of the Sanctuary. [Illustration: FIG. 5.6 Kos, Sanctuary of Asclepius, reconstruction. (R. Herzog and P. Schatzmann, _Kos_ 1, Pl. 40)] [Illustration: FIG. 5.7 Tarracina. View toward Circeii from Temple of Jupiter Anxur. (H. Kähler, _Rom und seine Welt_, Pl. 49)] In materials and methods, in massiveness and axial symmetry, the Sanctuary of Fortune bears a Roman stamp. But when we recall the experience of Sulla and his lieutenants, the Luculli, in the Creek East, Greek influence is very likely. Of the many Hellenistic Greek complexes available for comparison, the closest in spirit to Palestrina is the Sanctuary of Asclepius on the island of Kos in the Dodacanese, in the southeast Aegean Sea, where the major temple, built in the mid-second century B.C., is the focal point of a grandiose composition (Fig. 5.6). Placed on the highest of three terraces, it is framed by a three-sided colonnade like the Cortina Terrace at Palestrina, and approached by three successive monumental stairways leading up the lower terraces, which are arched as at Palestrina. A few standard architectural ingredients, arches, colonnades, monumental stairways, are grouped as a clearly defined composition, easy to grasp, simple, bold, plastic, the few standard elements firmly juxtaposed. Contrasts of scale, an elevated and central position, an axial approach, all make of the temple the focal, culminating point of the composition. It is exactly so at Palestrina, and in scores of other Hellenistic sanctuaries. Also noteworthy in both places is “the same outspoken taste for vista. Not only is the triple-terraced sanctuary visible from afar, not only is the crowning element, a temple, a beacon toward which visitor and worshipper alike are drawn by the now familiar devices of setting, frontality and access, but again, once we have reached the summit, a scene of breathtaking beauty, of unexpected amplitude, of mountain, sea and plain confronts us.” The words are those of Phyllis Lehmann, from whom the description of the site at Kos draws heavily, but they were reinforced by a visit made by the present