TO RHODES. 
569 
Prom our distant vaew of the place, being citAP. 
about two leagues from the entrance of its ^^'" 
southern and larger port, the hill whereon its 
manship with the remains we had elsewhere found of the finer ages of 
Greece. The forms of the stones and junctures of the building are 
more slovenly and inaccurate, and the architecture is not of the same 
elegant proportions with the earlier Doric buildings at Athens, and in 
Magna Grajcia. The intercolumniations are much greater, and the 
entablature heavier, and with less relief and projection. The lower 
parts of the columns are buried in earth ; and near them are two or 
t^ee plain sarcophagi, of ordinary work, and without inscriptions. 
Broken stumps of columns, in a line with those which are standing, and 
many ruined fragments of marble, are scattered over the field. From the 
length of the colonnade, and the disappearance of all the corresponding 
columns of the peristyle, if this be supposed to have been a temple, 
I should hesitate to adopt the conjecture. It appeared to me the remains 
of a stoa, or portico, and probably ranged along one side of the antient 
Agora of the town. It agrees in many respects with the situation 
assigned to the Agora by Vitruvius ; as it would be on the right of a 
person looking from tlie modern fortress, where stood the antient castle 
and palace of Mausolus, at the eastern horn of the greater port ; while 
the smaller port formed by the island of Arconnesus would be on the 
left, in which order Vitruvius seems to place them. A quantity of 
marble is dug up near these ruins, the remains of other magnificent 
buildings. The walls are visible from hence through a great part of 
their extent, which appears to have been about six English miles from the 
western horn of the port, along high grounds to a considerable eminence 
north-west of this ruin, and thence to the eastern promontory on which 
the modem castle is built. On the eminence, which I noticed, are 
traces of antient walls, indicating the- situation of the fortress called the 
Arx Media by Vitruvius, wherein stood the Temple of Mars ; but of 
that, or indeed of the fortress itself, there are but indistinct remains, so 
that we could not ascertain the position of the temple. At the foot of 
this hill remains the antient theatre, fronting the south : it is scooped in 
the hill, and many rows of marble seats are left in their places. The 
arcades of communication, and the proscenium, are in ruins. IHany 
large caverns are cut in the hill behind the theatre, probably places of 
sepulture, 
