500 
MERGE TO GYRENE. 
tremity of the city. The handsome marble columns, which now 
encumber the structures which they once contributed so materially 
to adorn, afford evident proofs that no expense had been spared 
in the erection of these magnificent buildings ; for the material of 
which their shafts are composed is not found in this part of the 
coast of Africa, and must have been transported at great labour 
and cost from the quarries of distant places On the centre of the 
shaft of some of these columns we found the figure of a large cross 
engraved ; they have all been originally formed of single pieces, 
some of which still remain entire, and would be no unappropriate 
or inconsiderable ornaments to churches of modern construction. 
The discovery of these splendid monuments of Christianity in a 
country now labouring under ignorance and superstition, afforded 
pleasing memorials of early piety, and recalled the active times 
of Cyprian and Anastasius, of the philosophic Synesius, (himself a 
Cyrenean) and other distinguished actors in those memorable scenes 
which northern Africa (from Carthage to Alexandria) once pre- 
sented to an admiring world. But the grass is now growing over 
the altar-stone, and the munificence which gave birth to the struc- 
tures here alluded to is visible only in their ruins f . 
♦ Pi'obably from the shores of the Red Sea, where there is a great variety of coloured 
marble. 
-|- The bishoj)ric of Ptolemais was transferred to Apollonia (then called Sosuza), as 
that of Gyrene had been formerly to Ptolemais. The present Arab name of the port is 
Marsa Susa, which is evidently a corruption of the Ghristian appellation of this ancient 
harbour of the Gyrenaica. 
