No. V. — Temple of Jupiter Serapis* 261 



surprisingly little. Neither the laborious Cluverius nor the 

 more modern and elegant Cramer * has noticed any traces of 

 such a temple being preserved by the classic writers ; yet its 

 ruins prove the conspicuous character it must have held as a 

 work of art ; and to them alone we must look for a key to its 

 entire history, which is almost unknown till the very late pe- 

 riod of its discovery, which took place in 1 750, when some 

 projecting columns, formerly concealed by bushes, attracted 

 sufficient curiosity to induce an excavation, which produced 

 the discovery of what to this hour would have been one of the 

 grandest remains of Roman antiquity, had not the rapacity of 

 the then reigning king of Naples made the splendid pillars of 

 African breccia a seizure, to adorn his magnificent palace of 

 Caserta, where they still form the supports of the vestibule of 

 the royal chapel. Inscriptions, those luminaries of antiquity, 

 though so often neglected and oftener perverted, have not 

 failed to throw some light on these remains ; but the recorded 

 notices of them are extremely dispersed, and of most of them 

 I have not been able to procure copies at length. We accord- 

 ingly find among different authors considerably various ac- 

 counts of the date of the temple. It has been stated by an 

 Italian writer, -[• and thence, I presume, copied into one of our 

 best guide books, J that an inscription was found, indicating 

 the date of the edifice to be the sixth century of Rome, or the 

 third before Christ ; and it is added, that itsrichness and elegant 

 taste prove the high advancement of the Romans in the fine 

 arts at that early period. But, unfortunately for this opinion, 

 it is well known that hardly any foreign marbles were intro- 

 duced even into Rome till after the commencement of our 

 aera.§ The whole style of the architecture has been referred by 

 some authors to the second, || and by others even to the third 

 century ^ after Christ ; and, what is most satisfactory, inscrip- 

 tions were actually found in the Atrium of the temple, in 



• Ancient Italy, vol. ii. An excellent work, 

 •f Ferrari Guida di Napoli. 

 X Starke. 



§ See this Journal, vol. ix. p. 30, &c. 



II Voyage Pittoresque dans la Royaume de Naples, folio, vol. ii. 

 % Gothe Morpkologie, 



