In respect to the general plan, it must everywhere be borne in mind, that many parts, and especially the south side, have been greatly disfigured and obscured by the Saracenic erections of the middle ages; when the whole area of both temples was converted into a Muslim fortress.1

THE GREAT TEMPLE.-The eastern front presents the remains of a magnificent Portico, one hundred and eighty feet long, flanked at each end by a square tower or pavilion. The floor of the portico is elevated some twenty feet above the ground; and the wall below it is built of large undressed stones; indicating that here was an immense flight of steps leading up into the portico. These however have wholly disappeared; having doubtless been employed in the Saracenic works.

The portico was about thirty-seven feet in depth. It had twelve columns in front, of which only the pedestals now remain. The diameter of the columns was four feet three inches; with an interval of nine and a half feet between them. On two of these pedestals were cut (with abbreviations) the following inscriptions, copied by Wood and Dawkins, but now nearly illegible.

Co

I. Magnis Diis Heliupolitanis pro salute Antonini Pii Felicis Augusti et Julia Augustæ matris domini nostri castrorum Senatus patriæ . lumnarum dum erant in muro inluminata sua pecunia ex voto libenti animo solvit.

II. Magnis Diis Heliupolitanis. . . . oriis domini nostri Antonini Pii Felicis Augusti et Julia Augustæ matris domini nostri castrorum. ntonianæ capita columnarum dum erant in muro inluminata sua pecunia ..

...

The pavilions at the ends of the portico are built of very large stones; we measured the size of one stone, twenty-four feet five inches long. They are ornamented on the outside with a belt or cornice on the level of the portico; there are also pilasters at the corners, and two intervening ones on the sides. In front, near the bottom of each, is a door leading to the vaults beneath the platform. The top of each pavilion has been rebuilt by the Saracens. On the same level with the portico is a square room in each, thirty-one feet wide by thirty-eight feet deep; and entered from the portico by three doors. These rooms are highly decorated with pilasters, niches, cornices, and once probably with statues. The same is true of the back wall of the portico.

The great portal leading from the portico to the temple

1 One of these structures is a clumsy quadrangular fort, directly abutting upon the front of the lesser temple.

2 These inscriptions are cut in the long slender style of letters, which is regarded as marking the period of Septimius Severus, at the close of the second century. M. De VOL. III-43*

Sauley therefore regards them as a votive testimonial in behalf of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, afterwards Caracalla, the son of Severus and the empress Julia Domna. Narrat. II. p. 623.-M. De Sauley considers the two inscriptions as being nearly identical.

courts is seventeen feet wide. On each side of it is a smaller one, ten feet in width.

These portals lead into the first court, which is in form a Hexagon. Its length between east and west, from side to side, is about two hundred feet; its breadth from angle to angle about two hundred and fifty feet. On the eastern side, and on each of the sides towards the north and south, was a rectangular exedra, a room or recess like the side chapels in Romish churches, with four columns in front of each; and with smaller irregular rooms intervening. The recess on the east formed a vestibule before the entrance from the portico. The exedræ were doubtless roofed over; but all is now in ruins.

The western side of the Hexagon was occupied by a broad portal fifty feet wide, with two side portals each of ten feet, leading into the Great Quadrangle, the vast court directly in front of the temple proper. This area measures about four hundred and forty feet in length from east to west, by about three hundred and seventy feet in breadth, including the exedra. Beginning at the portals in the middle of the east side, and proceeding towards the north, we have next to the smaller portal an immense niche, eighteen feet wide, intended apparently for a colossal statue. Then comes a rectangular exedra with four columns in front; and this is followed by a room next the corner, closed up in front except by a door. This room, in front, joins upon a similar one on the north side of the court; and both connect with a small square room between them in the angle. Proceeding west along the north side of the court, we have first a rectangular exedra with four columns in front, then a semicircular one with two columns; and next, occupying the middle of this side, a longer rectangular exedra with six columns in front. Then follows, as before, in corresponding order, a semicircular exedra with two columns, a rectangular one with four columns, and a room with a door next the corner. On the western side of the court, between this corner and the great peristyle, a distance of one hundred feet, there were no exedra. Proceeding from the eastern portal of the court southwards, and thence along the southern wall, the arrangement of the rooms and exedræ corresponded entirely to those just described along the other side. The exedræ were thirty feet deep; and were doubtless once roofed over. It was in the fronts of these exedræ, that the columns of Syenite granite from Egypt would seem to have been employed. Many of these columns, twenty-nine inches in diameter, are still strewed around, especially in the southern part of the court.' Their bases and capitals are 1 One of these granite columns, of the Sauley as lying in one of the vaults besame diameter, is mentioned by M. De neath; Narrative II. p. 626.

supposed by Wood to have been of the same material as the other parts of the temple. The exedra were decorated within and without with pilasters and also with niches; the latter having either scollop work above or pediments. Along the front of the exedræ above was an entablature with an elegantly sculptured frieze. In the middle of the western part of this court are the remains of a raised platform or esplanade; on which would seem to have been two rows of pedestals, three in a row, as if for statues or sphynxes. These remains are mentioned by Volney; but not by Wood and Dawkins.

Fronting upon this great quadrangle was the vast Peristyle, measuring two hundred and ninety feet in length by one hundred and sixty in breadth. On each side were nineteen columns, with capitals of the Corinthian order; and at each end ten, counting the corner columns twice; that is, fifty-four in all. The diameter of these columns is given by Wood as seven feet at the base and five feet at top. Our measurement gave to some of them a diameter of seven feet three or also four inches.3 The distance between the columns was usually eight feet; in the middle of the eastern front, a little more. The height of the shafts was about sixty-two feet, with a richly sculptured entablature of nearly fourteen feet more; making in all nearly seventy-six feet. The columns were mostly formed of three pieces; many of which now lie scattered on the ground. They were fastened together by iron pins or cramps, a foot long and a foot thick; and sometimes two of these were employed, one round and the other square. So solidly were the parts thus joined together, that in some instances the fall of the columns has not separated them. One of the most revolting forms of the ruthless barbarism under which these splendid ruins have suffered, is still seen in the cutting and breaking away of the bottom of the columns yet standing, in order to obtain these masses of iron!

These rows of columns stood upon immense walls, built up nearly fifty feet above the ground outside. The eastern wall rested against the platform of the grand quadrangle; from which there would seem to have been an ascent to the level of the great peristyle. The southern wall is now mostly covered by the rubbish of ages. That on the west is concealed by the gigantic masonry yet to be described. The northern wall is free. It is built of bevelled stones, well wrought and finished. Courses of

longer stones alternate with layers of shorter ones. The thickness of these courses is very uniformly three feet eight inches; and from the present surface of the ground outside to the pedestals of the large columns above, there are thirteen courses, or about forty-eight feet. In the southern wall the courses of stones were similar; and the elevation probably the same. Whether on the level of these walls above there was a vaulted esplanade, enclosed by the peristyle; whether this was mounted by a cella within the latter; or whether the esplanade and peristyle alone served the purpose of a vast hypethral temple; can perhaps never be determined. It may be, that the latter is not the least probable hypothesis.

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This magnificent peristyle, thus elevated some fifty feet above the adjacent country, formed of course a conspicuous object in every direction. Even now, the six western columns of its southern side, the only ones which yet remain upright, constitute the chief point of attraction and wonder in all the various views and aspects of Ba'albek. In the time of Wood and Dawkins, A. D. 1751, nine columns were yet standing.

Not less wonderful than the other parts of the great temple are the immense external Substructions, by which the walls supporting the peristyle are enclosed and covered; if indeed that term can be properly applied to huge masses of masonry, on which nothing rests. This external substruction wall is found on the north side and west end of the peristyle; and exists also probably on the south side beneath the mounds of rubbish. It is marked by Wood as everywhere twenty-nine and a half feet distant from the walls supporting the columns; and as being itself ten feet thick.

The most imposing of these substructions is the western wall, as viewed from the outside. It rises to the level of the bottom of the columns, some fifty feet above the surface of the ground; and in it is seen the layer of three immense stones celebrated by all travellers. Of these stones, the length of one is sixty-four feet; of another, sixty-three feet eight inches; and of the third, sixty-three feet; in all one hundred ninety feet eight inches. Their height is about thirteen feet; and the thickness apparently the same, or perhaps greater. They are laid about twenty feet above the ground; and below them are seven others of like thickness, and extending somewhat beyond the upper ones at each end. It is obvious, that these huge blocks formed the covering, 1 Wood and Dawkins give to these the name of subasement, with a like question as to its strict propriety.

2

2 Dr Wilson speaks here of "one stone overlooked both by Maundrell, and Wood and Dawkins, probably because irregularly cut in the outer surface, though of undi

vided mass, which is sixty-nine feet in length, thirteen in depth, and eighteen in breadth;" Lands of the Bible II. p. 381. This statement I am unable either to confirm or to contradict. Like all former travellers, except Dr Wilson, we observed no such stone.

The

and marked the extent, of the west end of the great temple, corresponding to the breadth of the vast colonnade above. wall extending from these blocks southwards is of inferior materials and probably modern.-It was doubtless these three enormous stones, that gave to the great temple its ancient epithet of Trilithon.1

2

On the north, the substruction wall is only about twenty feet in height, and was never completed. It also is built up of cyclopean work; immense stones laid as brought from the quarry, but never dressed smooth. Here are nine stones, measuring on an average thirty-one feet in length, nine feet seven inches in breadth, and thirteen feet in depth. In speaking of the huge block still lying in the quarry, I have said that there would seem to be no place for it in the plan of the present structures.3 Still, it may not be impossible, that the said block was intended to be placed upon this very wall, in a line with the similar course at the west end; but for some reason the work was abandoned, and the wall left in its present unfinished state. In this way, the noble inner wall of bevelled stones, sustaining the line of columns above, has remained open on this side to public view and access.

Under the northern and southern sides of the great quadrangle, which project far beyond the peristyle and the hexagonal court, are long vaulted passages extending quite through from outside to outside. There is at least one like transverse passage connecting them; and probably more. Other passages and rooms beneath the platform are also described. The arch of the vaults is circular; and on the walls are seen fragments of Latin inscriptions, and occasionally a bust. In the days of Maundrell and also of Pococke, the only entrance to the platform and courts of the great temple above was through these vaults; emerging somewhere near the lesser temple. The vaults we did not examine, except by looking in at the entrances.

Along the external face of the northern wall of the great court, are seen occasionally bevelled stones; but not laid with any regularity. Midway of the height of this wall, some thirty feet from the ground, runs a belt or ledge like a cornice, similar to that on the pavilions in front. Opposite the middle of the

1

"Iepòv Tpínov, Chron. Pasch. I. p. 561 ed. Dind. p. 303 Par.

Lands of the Bible II. p. 382. 3 See above, p. 505.

Ritter Erdk. XVII. i. p. 236. H. Guys, Relation II. p. 24.

These are mentioned by Maundrell, May 5th; by Pococke, who speaks of two busts, II. i. p. 111; by De Saulcy II. p. 626 sq. -Maundrell says that some of the inscrip