MERGE TO GYRENE. 
543 
already described from the details which we were able to procure of 
them. In the large inclosed space attached to the smaller theatre, 
where there are still traces of colonnades extending three hundred 
feet, is a semicircular building situated at the western extremity of 
one of the porticoes (or colonnades) here alluded to, which resembles 
in its form the tribunal of a basilica. It is possible that this might 
have been the forum, as the porticoes would have afforded very 
ample convenience in any weather for the transaction of business ; 
and its position, close to the principal road leading through the centre 
of the town with which it communicates by a gateway, would at the 
same time have been equally favourable. Its situation, however, 
with regard to the theatre, to which it is decidedly attached, has 
rather led us to imagine, that this place contained the covered walks, 
or porticoes, for the convenience, or shelter in rainy weather, of the 
audience ; as which we have mentioned it above. The central space, 
where there are no traces of building, with the exception of a kind 
of raised platform opposite the gateway, were most probably in that 
case laid out as a garden ; and the whole together would have some- 
what resembled in plan the garden and covered w alks of the Palais 
Royal at Paris. A very strong wall, on the south side of which is 
the gateway, extends at the present day round three sides of the 
place ; and the southern wall appears to have been continued about 
four hundred feet farther in the same line (turning then to the 
north in a Hne parallel with the eastern wall), and to have inclosed 
the small theatre within its limits. ATe have already mentioned the 
statues w^hich we found in this space, at the back of the theatre now' 
