Temples and the Dates of their Foundation. 



77 



peculiar; but the temple is shown to have apparently followed the 

 general rule, and that when rebuilt about three hundred years after 

 the first foundation, the orientation was corrected so as to follow the 

 precessional movement of the star. 



In the examples of Greek remains in Calabria, of which six 

 examples are given, are two cases of orientation to the winter sol- 

 stice, and an instance is afterwards given from Pompeii (originally 

 a Greek city) of orientation to the summer solstice — of these 

 extremes I have found no examples in Greece itself. One of the 

 examples of the winter solstice, from the ancient city of the Locri, is 

 remarkable as being taken from foundations lying underneath those 

 of a later temple with very different orientation and a different 

 heliacal star. The winter solstice temples were warned by the set- 

 ting, and the summer solstice temple by the rising, of the same star, 

 ft Geminorum. 



The dates of the earliest of the Italian temples follow, at an 

 interval of nearly nine hundred years, that of the foundation of the 

 earliest of those in Greece. The temples in Sicily are rather later 

 still, which would be the natural development, and are also in 

 remarkable accordance with what is known by historical tradition of 

 the Greek civilization of the island. 



From Thucydides B. VI are derived the dates at which Hellenic 

 colonies founded, or occupied, the following cities : — 



Syracuse B.C. 784 



Selinus '. 629 



Agrigentum. . , 582 



And it may be inferred from the same authority that the foundation 

 of Segeste preceded the above given dates. 



The orientation dates which I have derived for temples in these 

 cities are — 



Segeste B.C. 830 



r815 



Syracuse <^ 695 



1 450 

 r870 



Selinus 1 610 



1550 



There are also at Selinus four other temples, of which I only 

 obtained approximate orientations, sufficient, however, to show me 

 that their dates would not be anterior to the seventh century B.C. 



r b.c. 820 

 470 



Agrigentum ■( 450 



430 

 L 400 



