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TEMPLE OF JUPITEE SERAPIS. 



169 



the roof had been supported hj 46 noble columns^ 24 

 of granite/ and the rest of marble. The large court was 

 surronnded bj apartments^ supposed to have been used 

 as bathing-rooms ; for a thermal spring, still used for 

 medicinal purposes, issues just behind the building, and the 

 water of this spring appears to have been originally conveyed 

 by a marble duct, still extant, into the chambers, and then 

 across the pavement by a groove an inch or two deep, to a 

 conduit made of Eoman brickwork, by which it gained the sea. 

 Many antiquaries have entered into elaborate discussions 

 as to the deity to which this edifice was consecrated. It is 

 admitted that, among other images found in excavatino- the 

 ruins, there was one of the god Serapis ; and at Puzzuoli a 

 marble column was dug up, on which was carved an ancient 

 inscription, of the date of the building of Eome 648 (or B.C. 

 105), entitled *^ Lex parieti faciundo.' This inscription, written 

 in very obscure Latin, sets forth a contract, between the 

 municipality of the town, and a company of builders who 

 undertook to keep in repair certain public edifices, the 

 Temple of Serapis being mentioned amongst the rest, and 



t3 



mai 



Head 



and antiquities of this district, and the Greek, Eoman, and 



informed 



Nile 



same lorm 



s 



Puzzuoli, and surrounded in like 



temple at 



manner 



accustomed 



from 



as to the nature and cure of their diseases. Hence it was 

 very natural that the priests of Serapis, a pantheistic diidnity, 

 who, among other usurpations, had appropriated to himself 

 the attributes of Esculapius, should regard the hot spring as 

 a suitable appendage to the temple, although the original 

 feerapeum of Alexandria could boast no such medicinal waters, 

 oignor Carelli^' and others, in objecting to these views, have 

 nisisted on the fact, that the worship of Serapis, which we 



^ Dissertazione sulla »Sagra Arcliittetura degli Antichi. 



