Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/264

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

M. Beulé regards as characteristic of good Greek building—the double-T joining of stones; but in the style M. Homolle finds a certain heaviness, a want of character and elegance. Judging by the evidence of the remains themselves, he concludes that the temple of Apollo is "at least of the fourth century B.C., and doubtless of the beginning of that century."

Along the outer rectangle of the temple, on its north side, was an avenue about 9 feet 10 inches broad, which was once bordered on right and left by two lines of small marble pedestals. Here were found some 150 inscriptions, chiefly accounts relating to the temple of Apollo and the temple of Artemis. North of this avenue, which separated it from the temple of Apollo, stood a much smaller temple on a different plan: it had four columns on each front, east and west, but no columns on the sides, north and south (ἀμφιπρόστυλος); the cella was probably square: it had pronaos and naos, but no opisthodomos. This may have been the Artemision; or, if Artemis shared the temple of Apollo, the Letoön. The former hypothesis seems the more probable, but it is not certain.

Such, in brief, is the sum of the topographical results to which M. Homolle's researches have led. He had to deal, in truth, with "the ruins of ruins," and it required such skill and perseverance as his to ascertain thus much. But, even if he had not been rewarded with some 350 new inscriptions, and with some valuable relics of art, his labour would not have been in vain. We now know the exact site, the size,