268 Mr Forbes's Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. 



jects are represented according to the old style in perspective, 

 and executed in a very distinct and interesting manner. We 

 there see, exhibited in a manner decisive both from appear- 

 ance and situation, the three pillars, which no one can imagine 

 to be any other than those of Jupiter Serapis now standing. 

 This evidence I consider quite satisfactory, and I shall not 

 spend time by pursuing it farther, since, though a part of 

 the columns should have always been exposed, it is only what, 

 on any consideration we should expect, and does not at all af- 

 fect any geological theory. Two points, marked Fons on the 

 map, obviously correspond with the well-known thermal springs, 

 one of which must have been exactly in its present site. 



The disinterment of the temple seems to have proceeded 

 rather from a growing taste for antiquities than from an acci- 

 dental discovery. It has been asserted that in 1750, " a pea- 

 sant fortunately espied the top of one of the columns a few 

 inches above ground," upon which an excavation was under- 

 taken; but Messrs Cochin and Bellicard,* who wrote soon 

 after that period, expressly inform us, that in 1749 the three 

 pillars were visible, being only half buried in the ground, which 

 is at all events the most probable supposition. In 1750 the 

 disinterment was commenced by Charles III. King of Naples, 

 and (unfortunately for art and antiquity,) two years after, the 

 palace of Caserta was commenced, to which were transferred 

 almost all the portable riches of these splendid remains. 



The plan of the temple given in Plate IV. will make its 

 structure clear, with a short description. The atrium or court 

 of the temple was enclosed by a series of chambers regularly 

 disposed in a quadrangle, measuring 134 feet by 115 to the 

 exterior. Half of these apartments entered from the portico 

 which, though now ruined, seems to have existed all round the 

 interior court H H H H, while those which opened externally 

 were intended for persons who resorted to the temple for the 

 benefit of their health and used those medicinal waters which 

 were the constant accompaniments of the Serapea of the 

 Greeks.-|- The two apartments at the corners D D, seem to 

 have been more particularly adapted for the use of bathers, 



• Antiquit^s d' Hcrculaneum, 8vo. 

 f De Jorio, Pozzuoli, &c. p. 32. 



4 



