These walls may be considered, in one respect, as marking the boundary of the holy ground; but further, they were built with a view to protecting not only the sanctity, but the wealth too of the temple.
The statues were often of gold and ivory; and the offerings of golden shields and goblets, and other votive presents, given by those who consulted the oracles, formed a treasure considerable in proportion to the character and renown of the sacred place. Cicero, in his accusation of Verres, notices that the treasures of a state were often deposited too in sanctuaries, not only as protected by the abhorrence of sacrilege, but by the strength of the place: thus the general subsidies collected by the Athenians, at the close of the Persian wars, were kept in the Parthenon; and the wealth pillaged from the temple at Phocis, by Philomelus, and which occasioned the holy war, was immense. On these accounts the greater temples were often placed in actual fortresses. The Temple of Minerva at Syracuse, was in the Ortygia; the Parthenon of Athens, in the Acropolis; the Roman Temple of Jupiter, in the Capitol; and the Editor, when in Sicily, remarked the circumvallations inclosing the temples at Selinunté, and the almost impregnable situations of those at Agrigentum and Segesté.
The foundations of ancient circumvallation at Siwah may thus be considered, in some degree, as indications of the origin and purpose of the building within the inclosure.
The Ammonian temple was certainly surrounded by a strong wall; “triplici muro circumdatum,” as Diodorus, lib. xvii. and Q. Curtius, lib. iv. cap. 7, both inform us. Curtius uses the word munitio, and the Ἀκρόπολις, or arx of Diodorus, answers in description to the mount of Siwah itself; and the temple of Ammon being represented as being erected within the third or more distant inclosure of wall, its distance from the citadel may well correspond with that of the ruins in question, from the town of Siwah.
Horneman further informs us, that the ancient building which he describes, stood in the centre of the area, and partly on a rock; and at the same time observes, that the ground generally throughout the area was broken and dug up in search of treasure; from which may be inferred that formerly there were other buildings within the inclosure. On this head it is almost unnecessary to cite ancient authorities; it will appear from a view of the well known ruins in Greece, Sicily, and the Magna Græcia, &c. that the ancients often availed themselves of one and the same circumvallation, and erected different temples within the general inclosure; so, in the Achaicis of Pausanias, cap. cxx. the temples of Minerva and of Diana Laphia are within the same boundary of wall, without enumerating the many other instances in that curious journal; or to the three temples actually remaining at Pæstum, &c. within the inclosure of one and the same wall. In reference to the subject more immediately under consideration, the Ammonian temples of Juno and Mercury were in high repute with the Greeks, as mentioned in the Eliacis, p. 416, edit. Kuhn: and these temples were probably within the same inclosure as that of Ammon. The temple of Ammon being the principal, might be supposed to be erected in the centre and on the rock, which strong foundation may have in part yet preserved it, whilst the foundations of the others more easily dug and broken up, have brought those edifices low to the ground; and hence the very materials (as we are told) have been carried away, and no vestiges remain but of the area of the earth having been disturbed and heaped, as the work of search, dilapidation, and pillage was carried on.
Fourthly, Mr. Horneman was shewn, at the distance of half a mile from the ruins, “a spring of fresh water, which takes its rise in a grove of date trees, and in a most romantic and beautiful situation.”
This description precisely answers to that of the Fountain of the Sun, mentioned by ancient writers: and the distance from the chief temple too, seems to agree. “Haud procul arce extrinsecùs alterum Hammonis fanum jacet, quod multæ arbores proceræ inumbrant, et fons proximus est, ὀνομαζομένη Ἠλίου κρήνη·” Diod. Sic. Tom. II. p. 199. So too Curtius, “Est etiam aliud Hammonis nemus; in medio habet fontem; Aquam Solis vocant.” Lib. iv. cap. 7.
Thus far the merely descriptive accounts agree. If a further point can be ascertained, it will be conclusive, and the beautiful spot visited by our traveller, be identified as that of the Fountain of the Sun, situated extrinsecùs, or without the inclosure, in which stood the principal temple of Ammon.
The water of the Fountain of the Sun was, at different periods of each twenty-four hours, successively hot and cold: “Aquam enim habet, cum horis diei miris subinde vicibus re variantem. Nam sub lucis ortum tepidam emittit. Die hinc progrediente pro horarum succedentium ratione, frigescit. Sub æstum vero meridianum frigedo ejus summa est. Quæ rursùs parili modo remittit usque ad vesperam. Tunc appetente nocte rursùs incalescit, ad mediam usque noctem, ubi exæstuat. Exinde calor sensìm deficit: donec unà cum exortâ luce pristinam teporis vicem recuperârit.” Diod. Sic. Tom. II. edit. Wesseling, p. 199.
Mr. Horneman appears to have made no inquiries on this curious subject; but tells us, that having asked, “if there was any spring of fresh water near?” he was shewn to the one he describes, undoubtedly the nearest, and probably the same as seen by Mr. Brown, who says, (p. 24 of his Volume of Travels), “that one of the springs which rise near the ruins described, is observed by the natives, to be sometimes cold and sometimes warm.” Mr. Brown does not appear to have considered the Oasis of Siwah as that of Ammon. He had no favourite discovery to set forth and confirm by particular remarks and circumstances: he had not an interest in his account of the changeable temperature of this spring, but that of truth. The periodical variation from hot to cold, and from cold to heat, may rather, therefore on his relation, be assumed as fact; and be taken as a matter of proof concurrent with the grove, the spring itself, the distance from the ruins, and the beauty of the situation, all answering to the descriptions of the Fountain of the Sun, given by ancient writers, and, in reference to the ruins, rendering the conjecture more probable, that they are those of the Temple of Ammon.