99 
stadia square. A common Olympic stadium was 
one hundred and eighty-three metres : the 
Egyptian stadium was only ninety-eight^. The 
pyramid was built of brick and asphaltum. A 
temple {vccos) was erected on its top^, and another 
at its basis. The first, according to Herodotus, 
was without statues ; it contained only a table of 
gold, and a bed on which reposed a female 
chosen by the god Beliis Diodorus Siculus, 
on the other hand, asserts, that the upper temple 
contained an altar, and three statues, to which, 
according to notions taken from the worship of 
the Greeks, he gave the names of Jupiter, Juno, 
and Rhea:}:. But neither these statues nor any 
part of the monument existed in the time of Dio- 
dorus and Strabo. In the Mexican teocallis, 
as in the temple of Belus, the lower naos was 
distinguished from the temple on the platform 
of the pyramid. The same distinction is clearly 
pointed out in the letters of Cortez, and in the 
history of the conquest written by Bernal Diaz, 
who dwelt several months in the palace of the 
king Axajacatl, and consequently opposi^b the 
teocalli of Huitzilopochtli, 
* Vincent, Voyage of Nearchus, p. 50 (French transla- 
tion). 
t Herodotus, lib. 1, c. 181, 183. 
t Diodorus Siculus, Ed. Wesseiingiana, vol. 1, lib. 2, page 
123. 
H 2 
