BENGAZI. 
383 
and other parts of various buildings of more than ordinary conse- 
quence at Ptolemeta, that very little satisfactory information can be 
obtained of their plans, without a good deal of labour in clearing 
them, from the accumulation of soil, and the fragments of fallen 
building, with which they are encumbered. There is a structure of 
very large dimensions at the north-eastern part of the town, the 
outer walls of which are still standing to a considerable height ; but 
the plan of its interior is not sufficiently apparent to authorize any re- 
storation of it, and we will not even hazard a conjecture of its nature. 
On its northern face are three large quadrangular tablets of stone, built 
into the wall, each five feet in length by four in height, on which are 
cut the Greek inscriptions (marked 1), given in plate (page 385) ; and 
to the westward and south-westward of this building are many in- 
teresting remains of private dwelling-houses, palaces, baths, &c., which 
require a great deal of excavation. On a pedestal in one of these, is the 
inscription (4) in plate (page 385) ; most of them appear to have been 
Roman, and the capitals and bases of some of the columns belonging 
to them are very fanciful and overcharged with ornament. Some of 
the shafts of small columns in this mass of building are spiral, and 
formed of coloured marbles ; and may probably be attributed to the 
time of Justinian, when the city revived under his politic munifi- 
cence. If the taste displayed by the Greeks and Romans of this 
period had been at all in proportion to the expense which they la- 
vished upon their public and private edifices of almost every descrip- 
tion, the result would have been splendid in the extreme ; but the 
costliness of material, and the labour employed in ornament, will not 
