OF THE ORIENTATIONS OF A NUMBER OF GREEK TEMPLES. 
823 
We may feel satisfied that the axis of the temple shoM^s in general the line of the 
Sun’s approach. In the lists given above there are but three clear exceptions to this 
j-ule—exceptions already referred to. 
The star, however, in the case of any temple would answer the purpose of a time- 
warner, provided it showed itself from the adytum at any point within the eastern 
opening, if rising, or the western if setting, and some amount of uncertainty may 
arise in settling the date of the temple’s foundation from this cause—but when the 
solar and stellar elements are properly combined, the margin of possible error is not 
great, because the right ascension of the Sun can be calculated rigidly, and this 
determines that of the star very closely, by deducting from the Sun’s H.A. the 
interval of time required for the heliacal observation of the star, artd when once the 
star’s right ascension is established, its declination, and the date corresponding to its 
place, become known. 
In the majority of cases above given—about two-thirds of the number—the dates , 
are clearly earlier than any remains at present visible, but it is not so altogether. At 
Athens, in the Archaic temple, there are parts of the foundations which cannot but 
go back to a very early date, and at the temple of Jupiter Olympius, there is a wall 
of rude workmanship of a date much anterior to the works of Pisistratus, which are 
themselves intermediate in date between this wall and the present Cossutian temple. 
The angle, also, is different from that of the remains at present visible. The remains 
of the earlier temple of Bacchus must also be very old. At Rhamnus, the temple of 
Themis has the appearance of great antiquity, and there are traces at Sunium of a, 
structure underneath the existing temple which seem of a date not inconsistent with 
that which has been deduced from the orientation. At Ephesus there are foundations 
of three temples lying one over the other. The middle one was the work of Crcesus. 
The lowest of the three may c[uite well have been as early as 715 b.c., and in five 
examples where we have architectural remains standing, namely, the temple at 
Corinth, both those at .dUgina, the later Heraeum at Argos, and the Metroum at 
Olympia, I see no reason for dissenting from the dates derived from the orientation. 
And even in the case of the Herseum at Olympia, it may be noticed that although 
the date of the existing structure (unquestionably the most ancient example of 
temple architecture in Greece, of which any remains are standing above ground) 
would scarcely, consistently with architectural analogy, be placed so early as the 
middle of the fifteenth century B.c., yet it might have been almost coeval with the 
establishment of the Dorian supremacy in the Peloponnesus in the middle of the 
eleventh century, and if at that date it had been built parallel to the lines pro¬ 
vided for a more ancient shrine of the orientation date, the statue might have been 
still illuminated by the rising Sun, preceded by tlie same time-warning star— 
Spica. Both sun and star, indeed, would have demanded a certain amount of change 
of amplitude, but still within the limits of the eastern opening. 
In addition to the above list, is the great temple of Eleusis. Its orientation lies 
