MERGE TO GYRENE. 
439 
or the ground immediately about the entrance to them*. The 
cellse were sometimes sunk to a considerable depth below the levels 
of the chambers, and contained ranges of bodies or cineral urns 
placed one above another, each division being separated from that 
above and beneath it by a slab of stone, resting on a projecting 
moulding which was raised on two sides of the cella. There are also 
divisions, in many instances, in the length of the cellae, some of them 
containing three and four places for bodies on the same level, but 
these are always ranged (to use a naval phrase) head and stern of 
each other ; and we never saw an instance in which any two of them 
were parallel. In fact, the width of the cella, which, we have already 
stated, was regulated by the space between the columns, would have 
rendered such an arrangement impossible, since it was of the same 
breadth in aU parts, whatever might be its extent in length and depth. 
For a more complete idea of these elegant mansions of the dead we 
refer our readers to the plates containing the ground-plans and ele- 
vations of such of them as we had time to secure on paper. It will be 
seen that the proportions of the several members of the entablature 
varied considerably in the few instances given ; and indeed, we may say 
that there are scarcely two facades where the measurements exactly 
correspond-f. 
* All the excavated tombs were not provided with antechambers, and the celloe in 
such cases commenced from the surface of the external fa 9 ade. 
4 The metopes are often far from being square, and the mutules ai-e placed at dif- 
ferent distances from the triglyphs according to the fancy of the architect. The capital 
of the triglyphs Is very rarely continued, in the same line, across the metopes ; but is 
almost always deeper in the last-mentioned division, forming a moulding in the space 
between the triglyphs, which gives an air of finish tp this part of the entablature. 
