^62 Mr Forbes's Physical Notices of the Bay of Naples. 



which Septimus Severus and Marcus Aurelius record their 

 labours in adorning it with precious marbles. * The in- 

 scription of the third century B. C. must therefore have re- 

 ferred merely to the original temple, of which the ground- 

 plan, probably borrowed from the Greeks, was perhaps pre- 

 served, but subsequently entirely renewed from the pavement 

 to the roof, the former being composed of a variety of orna- 

 mental stones in a pattern, the latter of slabs of Pentelic mar- 

 ble, and the columns in the interior of Cipollino and Africano 

 marbles, and of granite. 



But another guide to its date involves a question equally 

 interesting, To what deity this temple was dedicated ? The 

 very extraordinary want of publicity under which the ancient 

 inscriptions relating to these remains seems to have lain, has 

 sometimes raised a doubt on the subject, or even admitted of 

 complete scepticism. Lalande*!* supposes that it was more 

 probably a temple of the Nymphs than one of Serapis ; Spal- 

 lanzani and Breislak speak of its designation as one of conjec- 

 ture ; De Jorio \ gives as the reason for admitting its desig- 

 nation, that medicinal baths were evidently employed in it, 

 which certainly were strongly characteristic of the Serapea, or 

 temples in honour of this god, who presided over the medical 

 art in the estimation of the Egyptians, from whom his wor- 

 ship was derived. The authors of the superb French work, 

 the " Voyage Pittoresque dans la Royaume de Naples^'' have 

 founded the authority of the appellation of these ruins upon 

 an altar found there with the obscure inscription ©vsaris 

 SACRVM, to which, in rather a circuitous method, an interpre- 

 tation in favour of the worship of Serapis has been applied 

 from two Celtic words ; though how the Celts or their lan- 



• Breislak, Campame, ii. 167. 



+ Voyage en Jtalie, vii. 341. 



t I regret that I have had no access to the pamphlet of this author pub- 

 lished expressly on the Temple of Serapis, and which may possibly con- 

 tain some of the inscriptions above alluded to, and of the want of publi- 

 city of which I have complained. Yet, however agreeable and well-in- 

 formetl a man the Canonico de Jorio may be, and I know him to be so, his 

 works, as far as I have seen them, contain little either of originality or of 

 research. 



