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

by Frederick William Beechey; H. W. Beechey

We should mention that the walls of the ædes have decided returns of six feet both in front and rear of the temple, towards the two columns which range in a line with them; they are about four feet and a half in thickness, and one of the stones of which they were composed measured fifteen feet in length.

The smaller temple, like that which we have just described, was built upon a rising ground, and had the additional elevation of a very solid basement or substructure, considerably raised above the level of the summit of the hill, part of which (about four-and-twenty feet) has been left as a kind of terrace round the building. The disposition of the columns is by no means evident in this temple, and the number is very uncertain; but the ambulatory must have been a good deal below the pavement of the ædes, since there is no space allowed for it upon the basement we have mentioned; and it must consequently have been upon the terrace beneath it, which appears to have been left for that purpose. The columns must therefore have been unconnected with the roof, and have merely supported the covering of the ambulatory. Indeed, it seems likely that the portico was altogether detached from the ædes, and judging from the remains of a wall, which appears to be part of the original plan, and the position of a column without it, we may perhaps suppose that it was situated on the edge of the terrace above-mentioned; and that the whole space of four-and-twenty feet between this wall and that of the ædes, was a space between the portico and the body of the temple, which does not appear to have been covered in. In this disposition we imagine the wall just alluded to to have formed the back of the portico, and the column, still remaining, to have been one of the range which supported its roof in front. Immediately below this column the ground descends, and traces may be observed of steps leading up to it.

In the ædes there seem to have been only a pronaos and cella; and in the latter is a detached mass of building, raised above the level of the other parts of it, for which we are wholly at a loss to account, there being no analogy between its disposition and that of any part of a cella in its usual arrangements.

The length of the ædes is a hundred and eleven feet, and its breadth fifty feet; the outer walls are four feet in thickness, and that of the pronaos somewhat more than three. The capitals of some fluted columns which are now lying at the foot of the hill on which the temple stands, are of no established order of architecture, and may perhaps be said to be a mixture of Greek and Egyptian; a coalition which we should certainly expect to meet with at Cyrene, but of which we recollect to have seen only a few instances. Close to this building, on its northern side, is the quarry from which the stone employed in its construction was probably taken, forming a deep trench at the foot of the hill. The aspect of both temples is nearly east, as is usual, we believe, in buildings of such a description.

To the eastward of the larger temple, and close to the city walls, are the remains of the stadium, part of which is excavated in the rocky soil on which it stands, and those parts only built which the rock could not supply. Its length is somewhat more than seven hundred feet, and its breadth about two hundred and fifty. The course is now so much buried, and overgrown with long grass and other vegetation, that the mode in which it was disposed could not be ascertained with any certainty; neither is it easy to decide clearly how much space was allotted to the seats, which do not occupy at present more than five-and-thirty feet on either side. The whole is, in fact, (like the temples,) in a very ruinous state, and nearly all the constructed part has disappeared. There are two masses of building to the north-westward of the stadium, which appear to have had some connection with it, but we will not venture to state any decided opinion with respect to their precise use. One of them is a solid quadrangular mass, now about five feet in height, which appears to have been intended as a station merely, from which the horses and chariots of those contending for the prize might be inspected as they entered or came out of the stadium, for it is not sufficiently elevated to command a view of the course. It is fifty-eight feet in length by eighteen in breadth, without any appearance of having been more than a kind of raised platform, unvaried by architectural ornament; and we have only suggested the use for it mentioned because we cannot in fact assign any other to it. The second may, perhaps, have been a small temple, or some building in which the contending parties, and those who had the management or superintendence of the games, might assemble to make arrangements respecting the course, or to settle any differences which might arise with regard to the race. Its form is similar to that of a temple, without external columns; but there is some appearance of there having been a colonnade attached to it, supported by the walls of the building. It is raised upon a small eminence, about an hundred feet to the westward of the terrace, near the entrance of the stadium. Westward of the circular part of the hippodrome, and to the south-east of the largest of the temples which have been described, is a walled space of ground of considerable extent, which may have been appropriated to the gymnasium; but there is so little at present remaining within its limits, that we will not venture an opinion respecting it. We could very much have wished to excavate in parts of this inclosure, as well as about the temple themselves, but our time and means would not allow of it: the stadium would probably afford little of interest, for the stones which were employed in its construction appear to have been carried away in later times to serve in other buildings; and, indeed, little more could be expected from excavating the temples, than fragments of architecture too much decayed by time to render them particularly useful in furnishing details, or of statues which enthusiasm and bigotry have probably defaced, if they should even have been spared by the hand of time.

The city walls approach closely to the southern extremity of the stadium, and are in this part very decided. They begin from the verge of a deep ravine, as will appear by the plan, and continue in an unbroken line to the spacious reservoirs (at the south-eastern angle of the city) which are mentioned in the publication of Dr. Della Cella. Here we lose traces of them, but they again make their appearance on the south side of the buildings just alluded to, and extend to the brink of the large ravine with which the aqueduct communicated. Beyond this (the aqueduct), a wall was unnecessary, for the mountain descends perpendicularly to the bed of the ravine, and renders all approach to the town in this direction impossible; and as the wall of the aqueduct has not been built with arches, but carried along the mountain in a solid mass, it would have been fully sufficient for the purpose of defence, and was probably built solid with this intention.

Square towers were attached to the city wall in various parts, not apparently at regular intervals, but approaching each other more closely where the ground was low, and consequently more favourable to the attack of an enemy. Several parts of the wall have been excavated in the rocky soil on which they stood, and building only employed where the rock was not sufficiently high to render it unnecessary. It should be stated, that the masses of rock here alluded to were not of the nature of a cliff, but detached masses rising in irregular forms as well from within as without the walls. It is evident, as will appear by the plan of the city, that the line of wall was continued round the large reservoirs above mentioned, so as to inclose them completely within its limits, a precaution which might naturally be expected in a climate where water is so valuable. If the winter rains should fail, which we should scarcely think possible at Cyrene, these cisterns might have been filled from the aqueduct which communicated with the principal fountain, for although it only extended across the high ground to the westward of the town, there are traces of conduits, or water-courses, in every part of the city, leading towards the place on which it has been built.

We ought not to omit on this occasion a few remarks which are necessary on the subject of the reservoirs here alluded to, as they may serve to explain an error into which Signor Della Cella appears to have fallen, with respect to the inscriptions which he found in them. He has informed us, that these inscriptions were in a language altogether unknown to us, each stone of the interior wall bearing a separate letter, so that the inscriptions continued, in parallels with the ranges of stone, along the whole length of the buildings in question. The partial absence of light, and the immediate presence of water in these spacious and gloomy subterranean inclosures, appear to have conspired, with the inconvenient position which it was necessary for the Doctor to take, in preventing him from copying more than a few of them. These, however, he tells us, may probably be serviceable in contributing towards the elements of languages now wrapt in obscurity; languages which are the only means at present afforded us of checking the various statements which have come down to us upon the authority of Greek historians, and other writers in that language, who it is well known (Signor Della Cella observes) were so much attached to every thing peculiar to themselves, that they could not avoid pointing out a Grecian origin for whatever bore the traces of civilization. We give the passage here alluded to in the Doctor’s own words[5], and proceed to mention, that the letters which compose his inscriptions have no other meaning than that which is usually conveyed by what are called quarry marks, and do not form any sentence or any single word. Many of them are Greek letters, which are occasionally reversed, and placed in various positions, so that the same letter might at first sight be taken for several others distinct from itself; sometimes two or more Greek letters appear together on the same stone, (occasionally united in a kind of cipher,) and their forms are often made out so rudely, from the dispatch used in cutting and often scratching them on the blocks of stone, as not to bear a very close resemblance to the usual ones. Some of them are not letters of any kind, but simply marks or characters invented for the occasion, as will be observed by the instances which are given of them below[6]. We fear, too, that even if the characters in question had really been inscriptions of the greatest importance, they must have been for ages lost to the world, and were certainly never intended to meet the public eye by those who had them placed where they are; for the whole interior of the cisterns, or reservoirs, upon the stones of which they are inscribed, have been coated with a thick and very hard cement, which still remains perfect in a great many places. We may add that these cisterns, which are three in number, one at right angles with the two others, are partly built, and partly excavated in the rock, as Signor Della Cella very truly observes. The roofs are arched with stone and beautifully turned; indeed, the whole construction of these vaulted chambers, in which large and very regularly-shaped stones have been employed, is excellent in the highest degree. Externally, the roofs are built up on the sides, and form at the top long platforms, or terraces, each of more than a hundred and fifty feet in length, along which we have often walked with pleasure admiring the beauty of their structure.

The south-eastern part of the city appears to be that which was most thickly inhabited, and the number of small buildings crowded closely together are, in their present state, likely to exercise the patience of those who may endeavour to make out their plans. We gave up the task as a hopeless undertaking after a few days’ attentive examination of these remains; and it seems probable, that if we had even succeeded in giving all the details which can now be procured of them, little interesting matter would have resulted from the collection. Those in the centre of the town (in the neighbourhood of the theatres) are of much more importance; and the remains in the space between the theatres and the aqueduct have very considerable interest. We do not think, however, that satisfactory plans could be given of either without a great deal of excavation, and we should certainly hesitate in giving names to any which we have not already described from the details which we were able to procure of them. In the large inclosed space attached to the smaller theatre, where there are still traces of colonnades extending three hundred feet, is a semicircular building situated at the western extremity of one of the porticoes (or colonnades) here alluded to, which resembles in its form the tribunal of a basilica. It is possible that this might have been the forum, as the porticoes would have afforded very ample convenience in any weather for the transaction of business; and its position, close to the principal road leading through the centre of the town with which it communicates by a gateway, would at the same time have been equally favourable. Its situation, however, with regard to the theatre, to which it is decidedly attached, has rather led us to imagine, that this place contained the covered walks, or porticoes, for the convenience, or shelter in rainy weather, of the audience; as which we have mentioned it above. The central space, where there are no traces of building, with the exception of a kind of raised platform opposite the gateway, were most probably in that case laid out as a garden; and the whole together would have somewhat resembled in plan the garden and covered walks of the Palais Royal at Paris. A very strong wall, on the south side of which is the gateway, extends at the present day round three sides of the place; and the southern wall appears to have been continued about four hundred feet farther in the same line (turning then to the north in a line parallel with the eastern wall), and to have inclosed the small theatre within its limits. We have already mentioned the statues which we found in this space, at the back of the theatre now alluded to; and suggested that one of them in all probability was a resemblance of one of the Ptolemies; the head of the statue is wanting, and we fear it has been knocked off at some period by the Arabs of the place, for the chance of disposing of it at Tripoly or Bengazi; a fate which has befallen many a beautiful example of Grecian art, now lying in the city and the neighbourhood of Cyrene. It is possible, however, that it might be found in the course of excavation, although we did not ourselves succeed in discovering it in the parts where we dug for it about the statue. We remember to have been very anxious upon the occasion, and fancied that we should know a head of any of the Lagides, meet with it wherever we might. It was from the decorations carved upon the armour, as we have stated in another place, that we imagined this statue to be the portrait of a Ptolemy; and it is well known that the eagle and the head of Jupiter Ammon are usually borne on the coins of that family. If it had been possible, we should have brought home what remains of this statue (which is merely the trunk), as well as several other very excellent examples of Grecian sculpture in its neighbourhood; and we are convinced, that excavation judiciously employed in the central and eastern parts of Cyrene, would bring to light many beautiful specimens of art, now covered only with the soil and vegetation which have been allowed to accumulate for ages about them. There have been several public buildings of importance immediately without the walls inclosing the theatre, of which plans might perhaps be satisfactorily made, if excavation were employed for the purpose; and it is very probable that inscriptions might at the same time be found, which would help to throw light upon the nature of the buildings, and to ascertain the period at which they were erected. There must be a considerable number of those buried in different parts of the city; for we never saw an ancient town in which fewer inscriptions are to be seen than that of Cyrene; especially for a town in which literature and the fine arts were cultivated with so much success. The few which we copied are scarcely worth inserting, and we shall only give (in addition to that over the fountain) another in Doric Greek, which is given by Signor Della Cella, in the reading of which we also differ in some respects from his copy. It was found upon a stone bearing the form of a pedestal, immediately without the wall above mentioned; and the Doctor has suggested that the remains of a female statue, seated in a chair, which is lying in the road not far from it, was the representation of Claudia Arete, the matron, in commemoration of whose benevolence and virtue the inscription in question was erected by the Cyreneans. We give it below[7], but are not of opinion that the statue alluded to by Dr. Della Cella ever occupied a place upon the pedestal inscribed. Near this female statue is another of a young man (also without the head) which we never remember to have seen equalled in Greek sculpture, for the taste and execution of the drapery.

There are some extensive remains of building, with a very handsome colonnade, on the high ground between the small theatre and the aqueduct, which appear to be those of a palace or other residence of more than ordinary importance. From the northern colonnade the ground descends abruptly, and the soil is kept up by a wall which forms the back part of the chambers built at the foot of it. These consist of a single range of quadrangular apartments, which appear to have been from twenty-five to thirty in number; their length (at right angles with the wall already mentioned) is about forty feet, and their average breadth (for they differ in some instances) about twenty. It is not at present evident, whether these communicated with the building above them or not; but one of them has had a wall built across it, opposite to that which forms the back of the chambers, in which there is no door, so that there could not have been any access to it from the lower ground. There is at the same time no appearance of any staircase leading down to them from above; and if there had, it would have been necessary to have built a separate one for each, for they have no communication one with another. We do not, therefore, imagine that all of them have been closed, but that they had access to the ground in front of them, and none to the colonnades and chambers above. That which is built across is placed at one angle of the range, and is eight feet wider the average breadth, taking it at twenty feet. If a groom or a coachman were to give an opinion with respect to the use of the chambers in question, with reference to the structure above, they would certainly decide, without the least hesitation, that this uniform, long range of building, was the stabling of the palace, and could only have been appropriated to the horses and chariots of the noble Cyrenean who inhabited it. As we have never seen the stables of any ancient residence, whether Grecian or Roman, we will not venture to assign such a use to these chambers; but it is well known that the Cyreneans were particularly celebrated for their skilful management of horses and chariots, and we must confess, without being either coachmen or grooms, that such an appropriation did more than once occur to us[8].