168 



TEMPLE OF JUPITER SERAPIS. 



[Ch. XXX. 



tliicloiess of many of these beds varies greatly 



sometimes 



rises to a greater height than at the point above described 



compose 



gently upwards towards the base of the old cliffs. 

 Now, if snch appearances presented themselves 



mio^ht 



some 



Mediter 



to suppose the sea to have sunk generally from twenty to 

 twenty-five feet since the shores of Campania were covered 



sum 



buildings, is an hypothesis obviously un- 

 tenable. The observations, indeed, made during modern 

 surveys on the moles and cothons (docks) constructed by the 

 ancients in various ports of the Mediterranean, have proved 

 that there has been no sensible variation of level in that sea 

 during the last two thousand years. "^ 



Thus we arrive, without the aid of the celebrated temple, at 



mar 



.1 



modern time 



that not only this change of position, but the accumulation 

 of the modern strata, was posterior to the destruction of 

 many edifices, of which they contain the embedded relics. 

 If we next examine the evidence afforded by the temple 

 itself, it appears, from the most authentic accounts, that the 

 three pillars now standing erect continued, down to the 

 middle of the last century, almost buried in the new marine 

 strata (c, fig. 125). The upper part of each, protruding 

 several feet above the surface was concealed by bushes, and 

 had not attracted, until the year 1 749, the notice of anti- 

 quaries; but, when the soil was removed in 1750, they were 

 seen to form part of the remains of a splendid edifice, the 



was still preserved, and upon it lay a 



pavement 



number of columns of African breccia and of granite, 

 original plan of the building could 



The 



be traced distinctly : 

 it was of a quadrangular form, 70 feet in diameter, and 



Hamilton's yiew, plate 26, Campi Phle- called the Academia, anciently stood, 

 gra: (reduced in Plate VIL), is taken, * On the authority of the late Ad- 



and on which, he says, Cicero's yiUa, miral Smyth, li.K 



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