Proceedings of the expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa, from Tripoly eastward

by Frederick William Beechey; H. W. Beechey

This theatre is placed by the side of the road leading down to the fountain, and must have been a beautiful object when perfect; the richness of the materials of which the columns were formed, adding greatly to the effect of the building, if not in point of taste, at least in point of costliness and splendour. The style and execution of the remaining parts of this structure have not however been neglected; and we often stopped to admire the beauty of the Corinthian capitals, which were carved with great sharpness and freedom, and exhibited considerable taste of design. The position of this building will be seen in the ground plan of the city (p. 520); it is the most northern, and the largest of the two. The plan of the other theatre differs materially from that of the one which we have just described, and its proportions are also very different. The depth of the orchestra is much less in proportion to its width, and the space allotted to the seats is at the same time greater for the size of the building. Instead of being approached from above, as that which we have first mentioned appears to have been, there are five passages (or vomitoria), by which the spectators entered, and two communicating with some place beneath the front of the stage which are so much blocked up with rubbish, occasioned chiefly by the fall of the roof, that we could not explore them to the end. These passages descend very abruptly towards the centre, and appear to communicate with the same point, or with each other; they have been arched with blocks of stone, ranged longitudinally, and are of very good construction. We were able to go down thirty-two feet in one of them, after some little trouble in clearing the entrance; but the impediments which then presented themselves were too serious for our time and resources. A casual observer would not have been aware that there were any passages in this theatre by which the spectators entered, so much was the whole building covered with soil and vegetation; and it was only on close examination, that some appearance of the arched roofs which covered them was discernable; and we determined upon excavating in the same line below.

It soon appeared, that passages really existed; and we succeeded in clearing one of them sufficiently to determine the fact beyond dispute. We found that the roofs descended with the seats, some of which they probably supported, but the floors appear to have been level; or, at least, the inclination is so slight (if there be any) as not to be ascertained by the eye. In the course of this excavation we found that some of the rows of seats were hollow; and were in hopes of discovering a further confirmation of the circumstance mentioned by Vitruvius, that the Greeks were in the habit of appropriating hollow spaces beneath the seats of their theatres to the reception of brazen vases, by means of which the sound was considerably improved. We were led to imagine the possibility of this, from the fact of the spaces to which we allude having been carefully formed, and not left merely for the purpose of saving material, or adding to the lightness of the building. We found nothing, however, which could be said to verify the conjecture; and a few fragments of pottery, which were picked up in some of these apertures, were all that presented themselves, in confirmation of the practice alluded to, during the progress of our excavation[4].

We must observe, with respect to the passages which we have supposed to have been used as entrances to the theatre, that they were all of them on the same level, and had no other communication than with a præcinction, a few feet above the orchestra; how many cannot well be ascertained, as we could not, in the present state of the building, determine the position of the lowest range of seats, and the height of it from the level of the orchestra. The sides of the passages were cased with stone and marble, and decorated with architectural ornament; but we could not ascertain the elevation of the front presented to the stage, no portion of which is standing: perhaps, among the ruins which encumber the orchestra some details of this might be found; but the little time which we had to excavate did not allow us to search for them long, and some fragments of Doric columns were all that we dug out, except blocks of stone and marble. The passages were perfectly strait, and communicated direct with the lower ranges of seats, from which the spectators must have ascended to the upper ones; but we could not perceive any remains of staircases, which were not perhaps necessary, considering the moderate size of the building. No portion of the stage, except the lower part of a wall, is now remaining, which indeed seems rather to have formed a part of the proscenium, as it appears to be somewhat in advance of the stage itself. The width of the orchestra where it joins the proscenium is not more than sixty feet, and its depth about eighty. The depth of the whole space occupied by the seats is not more than forty feet. There are extensive remains of building which appear to have been attached to this theatre, on its eastern side: they seem to have inclosed public walks, and have been surrounded by porticoes, and strong walls of considerable height, in one of which a gate still remaining has been formed communicating directly with one of the principal roads. In the neighbourhood of the theatre we have last mentioned, there are still many statues above ground, in excellent style. One of these, from the representation of the Ammon’s head, and the eagles which ornament the armour, is probably a statue of some one of the Ptolemies; and near it is a female statue, one of the Cleopatras, Berenices, or Arsinoës, perhaps, of the family.

We wished to have introduced a drawing which we made of the figure first mentioned, the ornamental parts of which are beautifully executed; but our limits will not allow of it. The head and limbs are wanting, but the trunk, clothed in armour, is a beautiful example of taste and execution. It is of white marble, much larger than life, as is also the female statue near it, of corresponding dimensions.

There are several other statues above ground in this part of the city, in the best style of Grecian art; and many good examples of Roman sculpture, or it may be Roman portraits, executed by Greek artists, which we should rather conclude from the excellence of the workmanship employed in them, and from the fact of Cyrene having been a colony of Greeks, even when under the dominion of Rome.

Every part of the city, and indeed of the suburbs, must have formerly abounded in statues; and we are confident that excavation judiciously employed, in many parts even indiscriminately, would produce at the present time many admirable examples of sculpture.

We will now proceed to give some account of the amphitheatre, of which considerable remains are still extant without the walls to the westward of the town, and which must have been in its perfect state a very conspicuous object from the sea. It has been constructed on the verge of a precipice, commanding a most extensive and beautiful view, and receiving in all its purity the freshness of the northern breeze, so grateful in an African climate. Part of it is built against the side of a hill which formed the support of the ranges of seats fronting the precipice; and that portion of it which bordered upon the verge of the descent rose abruptly from the edge, like a stupendous wall, overlooking the country below. The foundations of this part of the amphitheatre were, it may be imagined, remarkably strong, and they still remain to a great extent very perfect; but all the seats which they supported have been tumbled at once from their places, and lie in masses of ruin beneath. This appears to have been occasioned by a part of the substructure having given way; and as we imagine the whole side to have fallen at once, the crash must have been a tremendous one. On the opposite side, (that which rests against the hill,) nearly forty rows of seats are still remaining, one above the other; and as each of these are fifteen inches in height, the edge of the precipice appears from the upper seats to be close at the foot of the ranges, although the whole of the arena intervenes, and it often made us giddy to look down from them. As the lower ranges of seats are not in their places, it is difficult to ascertain the diameter of the arena, but it seems to have been more than a hundred feet across; and to have been, like that which we have mentioned at Ptolemeta, of a perfectly circular form. There is no appearance of any præcinctions, owing probably to the absence of interior communications, which are not to be found in this building; and it seems to have been chiefly approached from the top, which is equal in height with the level summit of the hill, against which the seats are on this side built. The most natural approach would certainly have been that which leads from the fountain of Apollo, along the edge of the descent which we have mentioned: this will be evident from the plan of the city; but strong walls, which are undoubtedly of ancient construction, cross the road here so completely as to preclude the possibility of any approach from the city to the amphitheatre in this direction. If the walls which we allude to had not been standing at the present day many feet above the level of the road, we should have concluded that they must originally have contained gates which led to the arena; but there is no appearance whatever of such communication, even supposing that the gates were approached by flights of steps, which would not have been an unreasonable conjecture.

The only road which remains (under the difficulties stated) must at the same time have been a circuitous one; and as it communicated merely with the level summit of the hill, against which the seats rested, any approach to the arena, or other lower parts of the amphitheatre, must have been by descents, right and left to them, from the terrace (or platform) which surrounds the upper range of seats, or by the staircases leading from it to the lower ranges, of which decided vestiges are still remaining. The arena seems to have been about a hundred English feet in diameter, and the seats to have occupied a space of about eighty feet in depth; if we reckon the level space (or platform) inclosing the amphitheatre at twenty, the whole building will have stood upon three hundred feet of ground. It could not be ascertained whether any subterranean chambers existed communicating with the arena, as this part is incumbered with the ruins of the fallen seats, and we had neither time nor means to excavate in search of them; we should rather conclude that there were not; for on the north side, where no seats are remaining, (all this portion of the building having fallen down the cliff,) the substructure is very apparent, and no arrangement appears to have been made for vaults. There are remains of a Doric colonnade along the edge of the cliff, forming the north side of one of the spaces walled in to the eastward of the amphitheatre, the capitals of which are beautifully formed, exhibiting all the sharpness and taste peculiar to the early manner of executing the order. Both these inclosures appear to have been appropriated to the amphitheatre,—perhaps as public walks for the use of the audience; but it is difficult to say how they were approached, either from the east or from the west; and the two other sides are inaccessible, in consequence of the abrupt descent of the cliff to the northward, and the rise of the mountain to the southward of the inclosures. We have already said that there is no appearance of any gates, by which the amphitheatre could have been accessible from the eastward, through the walled spaces here alluded to; but we think there must have been a communication originally, although there are at present no traces of any. There is a small building close to the eastern wall of the inclosures, apparently of very early construction: it is a simple quadrangle, without any interior divisions; and the remains of several columns, all of which are not apparently in their original places, are still visible on the north side of the structure, but none are observable on the other sides. This building has also no gate, and it is evident from the appearance of the walls, all of which are standing, that there have never been any formed in it; we will not pretend to say for what purpose it may have been erected.

In returning from the amphitheatre to the city, the road skirts the edge of the cliff, which descends everywhere abruptly, and the soil is kept up by strong walls along the brink of the descent, without which it would be washed down by the winter rains, and the buildings in time undermined. It is over a part of this wall that the fountain of Apollo (which in ancient times was copiously distributed over the city and fertile lands of Cyrene) now precipitates itself, as it probably did in its natural state, into the plain, and finds its way to the sea. Near the end of this wall begin the ranges of tombs which skirt the northern face of the mountain below the city, descending in galleries one above another, till they reach the level of the plain at its foot. The summit is occupied by part of the city; and the edge of the descent was here, as in front of the fountain, skirted by a wall running along the whole line of the cliff, till it joined that which enclosed Cyrene to the westward. From this portion of the mountain descend five large ravines, once thickly wooded with pine and other trees, which have been cleared for the use of the town, and to disencumber the ground appropriated to the tombs. Some of the ravines are, however, still partially wooded, in many places very thickly, and springs of excellent water are found in various parts of them.

The north side of the town, from its present appearance, does not seem to have been ever much inhabited, and very few remains of dwelling-houses are observable there. The buildings which still exist are however of an interesting character, and excavation would be particularly desirable in this part. Two eminences which rise conspicuously above the general level of the summit are occupied by the ruins of spacious temples, and close to the western wall of the city is all that remains of the stadium. The largest of the temples (we mean the ædes, without the columns) is a hundred and sixty-nine English feet in length, and its breadth sixty-one feet. It is of the Doric order, in its early style; and the capitals, which with the columns are lying on the ground, still exhibit marks of excellent taste and execution, though very much defaced by time; they measure nine feet across, and the capital and abacus are of one piece. The form of this building is peripteral; but the columns on the sides appear to have been twelve in number, which is one more than is allowed to temples of that class by Vitruvius, supposing the edifice to be hexastyle; for in peripteral temples the number of intercolumniations on the flanks should, according to this author, be only double those of the front. That there were twelve columns, however, appeared evident on the first inspection, from the existing number of capitals lying on one of the sides of the temple; and on adding two spaces, and the diameters of two columns to the length of the ædes (or body of the temple), which is, as we have stated from actual measurement, a hundred and sixty-nine English feet, and comparing this measurement with that of twelve columns and eleven spaces, the first number given was two hundred and five, and the latter two hundred and four, which result was quite near enough to be conclusive of the fact. In this calculation we have taken the diameter of the columns, as they measured within an inch or two, at six feet; and supposed the intercolumniation to be systyle, that is two diameters of the columns. The same calculation applies equally to the breadth of the temple, which would seem to prove that the intercolumniation assumed was correct,—six columns and five spaces giving ninety-six,—and the breadth of the ædes, with two spaces, and the diameters of two columns added, ninety-seven; bringing the results within one of each other, as in the instance just given with regard to the length. Traces are still remaining of a pronaos and posticus; but one of the walls of the pronaos (the only one remaining) has a very decided return of two feet (at its central extremity) in the direction of the cella. The depth of the posticus is at the same time much greater than that of the pronaos, and rather more than half as much as that of the cella: this distribution is, however, consistent with the character of the climate; for the rain falls very heavily, and almost incessantly, during the winter season at Cyrene; and the unusual space given to the posticus would be found very serviceable to the inhabitants, particularly as the temple was somewhat removed from what may be called the inhabited part of the town. The same reasoning would apply equally in summer time, for the heat of Cyrene is at that period very great. An additional motive for increasing the posticus so much beyond its usual dimensions would be found in the width of the ambulatory (which is regulated by that of the intercolumniations), for the systyle species is too contracted to afford much shelter on any occasion; and we may probably assume, from the calculations above stated, that the temple in question was in fact of that species, although the intercolumniation could not otherwise be ascertained, on account of the encumbered and ruined state of the building, which we had no opportunity of excavating.