340 REVIEWS — THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS. 



liarly compatible with, the essential requisites or adjuncts of his 

 temple ; and on this subject Sir Edmund aduces some valuable 

 evidence : 



" At Pozzuoli a building of some sort occupied the centre of the area. Whether, 

 as in Egypt, the image of the god was placed there, or behind the four columns 

 to ■which the ruin owes its modern celebrity, may be uncertain. The lowness of 

 situation must have deprived our temple of subterranean passages, and the under- 

 ground arrangements so elaborately provided in the Egyptian model. The pos- 

 session, however, of a natural hot spring just behind the temple must have made 

 up for many disadvantages. No appendage could be more appropriate for the 

 temple of a god who among his many attributes usurped those of .^sculapius. 



" This warm spring, however, suggests another curious question with reference 

 to a passage in Pausanias. After mentioning several eases of fresh springs in the 

 sea, and the hot springs in the channel of the Mseander, Pausanias proceeds as 

 follows : — ' Before Dicsearchia of the Tyrseni (Pozzuoli) there is water boiling up 

 in the sea, and for the sake of it an island made with hands, so that not even this 

 water is wasted, but serves people for warm baths.' 



" May not this spring be the very one now existing behind the Temple of 

 Serapis ? 



"Had the hot spring of Pausanias originally discharged itself into the sea, it 

 does not seem likely that it would have been used at all ; but if its virtues had 

 been long known to the inhabitants of Pozzuoli, and a gradual encroachment of 

 the sea, or rather a depression of the land, deprived them of the benefit of the 

 baths to which they had become accustomed, what could be more natural than 

 that a small mound or island should be made by hand in the shallow water, in 

 order that the baths might be again available ? 



" Pausanias does not indeed say that these baths were connected with a temple 

 of Serapis, but this is immaterial. 



" On this theory a number of curious questions present themselves. 



" Which is the pavement of the building existing at the time of Pausanias ? 

 What, relatively to the floor as now seen, was the level of the original building 

 submerged in the sea ? Is it represented by the mosaic pavement found five feet 

 below the floor of the temple ? If so, it would be important to examine the soil 

 between the two pavements, and to ascertain whether it appears to warrant the 

 supposition that it was a part of a mound constructed artificially." 



Here accordingly we perceive that a new element comes in to com- 

 plicate the question. Not only has the land, with the superimposed 

 temple, been raised and depressed by natural causes, but the hand of 

 man has also been working and counter working with nature : filling 

 in and raising up when she depressed, as now digging down to ascer- 

 tain her former operations. But on this also the researches of 

 accurate scholarship can throw fresh light. Sir Edmund Head pro- 

 ceeds : 

 " It should be stated that, according to the general notion, mosaic pavements 



