EXECUTED BY BRUCE AFTER HIS RETURN TO SCOTLAND.

[(Large-size)]

HENRY S. KING Co. LONDON.

7. A highly finished drawing, representing architectural details of soffits, cornice, and architrave. ([Plate XIX.])

8. A highly finished drawing of soffits of architrave of order.

This arch is of a richer architectural composition than that of Trajan, which will presently be described. It has but a single opening, without archivolt, flanked by two square niches, with rounded heads, underneath the level of the impost. Four Corinthian columns corresponding to pilasters enrich both façades. These existed nearly entire in Bruce’s time, and even M. Guérin mentions ‘un petit vestibule soutenu sur deux colonnes corinthiennes,’[176] but these have now entirely disappeared, although the stylobates are still in place. The whole entablature seems as though it had been thrown down since Bruce’s drawing was made, and the stones all piled up again without much regard to order. It is more likely, however, that this may be only a general dislocation of the building, caused by an earthquake. Fragments of cornice highly decorated may be seen here and there in the crumbling mass, and the very rich treatment of the impost, which is in a tolerably good state of preservation, would attest the magnificence of the building, even if Bruce’s exhaustive designs did not exist. To show the present condition of this monument, a photograph taken by my companion, the Earl of Kingston, is also given ([Plate XVIII.])

The two façades are identical; on the ravine side the foundations are entirely exposed to view, and consist of a mass of rubble masonry, twelve or thirteen feet in height, between which and the floor of the arch are three courses of substantial cut stones, but there is no appearance of this having been connected with any other structure.

It is difficult to understand that a building of this nature could have been constructed at the edge of a ravine without there being an arch of some kind to span the latter. Mr. Davis says that he observed part of a paved road on the opposite side of the ravine, from which he infers that a bridge must have existed;[177] but after the most careful search, with his work in my hands, I was unable to trace any vestige of this. Probably therefore the ravine, if it existed at all in ancient times, has been much deepened by the action of water during the last sixteen hundred winters.

M. Guérin mentions that he discovered amongst the débris, at the base of the monument, ‘a sculptured Greek cross, which would assign to this monument a date posterior to the Christian era.’[178]

I recognised this stone without difficulty, and though it is much obliterated by time, I feel confident that it is actually the detail of soffit, figured by Bruce in Sheet 7, above mentioned. This is shown on [Plate XIX.;] the lowest figure, with all the details of the acanthus leaves worn off, might easily be taken to represent a Greek cross.