444 
MEKUJK TO GYRENE. 
when there were only two they were both painted red, which was 
sometimes the only colour employed when there were three. We 
could not ascertain what particular colour was used for the abacus 
and echinus, for we seldom found any traces of colour remaining 
either upon them or upon the shafts of the columns. In one or two 
instances, however, the abacus seems to have been red, and in one 
which we have given in plate (p. 452), it appears to have been some- 
thing of a lilac colour. The colours of the metopes and architraves 
must also be left in uncertainty ; and, indeed, it may perhaps be 
inferred from our never finding any positive colour remaining upon 
them, that the larger parts of the entablature were left plain, and 
that the smaller, or ornamental, parts only were painted. We are 
ourselves inclined to think that this was the case, as well with regard 
to the entablature as to the columns ; for we should otherwise have 
found the parts in question occasionally painted, which we do not 
recollect to have decidedly seen. 
It may here be remarked, with respect to what appears to have 
been the established colour of the triglyphs at Cyrene, that there is 
a singular correspondence between this practice of the Cyreneans and 
that which is attributed by Vitruvius to the artificers of early times 
when wood was used instead of stone in the construction of their 
buildings. For the parts which, in the wooden structures alluded to, 
corresponded to the triglyphs of later periods, are said by this author 
to have been covered with blue wax ; and we have already stated 
that blue was the prevailing colour of the triglyphs in buildings of 
all classes at Cyrene. It would thus appear that the colours, like 
