22 TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



antiquities which render this country so interesting. 

 The greatest ornament of this poor little town, 

 which contains scarcely a thousand inhabitants, 

 (though in the time of the Romans it ranked next to 

 ^Egidanow, Capo d'Istria, the most important place 

 in Istria,) is the circus. It has three stories, each 

 of seventy-two arches, and is one of the best pre- 

 served monuments of this kind, which is principally 

 owing to the material of which it is built ; a solid, 

 fine-grained limestone. The temple, which the 

 city of Pola dedicated to Rome, under Caesar 

 Augustus, in a chaste and noble style, with a pro- 

 pylaeum of the Corinthian order, is not so well pre- 

 served. The porta aurea, a triumphal arch, with 

 columns of the Corinthian order, now serves as a 

 gate to the town, * The Venetians, after they 

 had separated Pola, and many other seaport towns 

 of Istria and Dalmatia, from the dominions of the 

 kings of Hungary, erected a fort here, with four 

 bastions, which, however, is now in ruins. From 

 it there is a fine view of the harbour with its 

 verdant islands, of the town and the colossal am- 

 phitheatre, which rises above pleasant groves of 

 olives and laurels. 



While our frigate was under repair, we had lei- 

 sure to make several excursions in the environs of 



* Voyage pittoresque et historique de I'lstrie et Dalmatie, 

 rddig^ d'aprfes I'itin^raire de L; F. Cassas, par Joseph Lavallee, 

 Paris, 1802, fol. 



