FROM RHODES TO THE GtfLPH OF GLAUCUS. 
143 
of one magnificent design. Tlie removal of any object from 
the rest would materially have injured the grandeur of the 
whole. Savary, who saw this theatre at Telmessus, says it is 
much less than that of Patara, # and we found its diameter not 
half so great as that of Alexandria Troas; yet the effect pro¬ 
duced by it seemed greater. Some of the stones used in its 
construction are nine feet long, three feet wide, and two feet 
thick. Three immense portals, not unlike the appearances pre¬ 
sented at Stonehenge, conducted to the arena. The stones 
which compose these gates are larger than those I have de¬ 
scribed. The centre gateway consists only of five, and the two 
others of three each, placed in the most simple style ofarchitec- 
ture. Indeed, every thing at Teimesses is colossal. A certain 
vastness of proportion, as in the walls of Tirynthus or Orolona, 
excites admiration mingled with awe; and this may be said to 
characterize the traces of the Dorian colonies over all the 
coast of Asia Minor. The grandeur of the people, as well 
as the sublime conceptions of their artists, were displayed 
not only in the splendour of their buildings, but in the size 
of the materials wherewith their edifices were constructed. 
The kings and people of Caria and of Lycia have left 
behind them monuments defying the attacks of time or of 
barbarians. Amidst the convulsions of nature, and the earth¬ 
quakes desolating the shores of the Carpathian Sea, these build¬ 
ings have remaiued unshaken. The enormous masse? constitu¬ 
ting the doors of the Telmessensian theatre were placed to¬ 
gether without cementation or grooving; they are simply laid 
one upon the other: and some notion may be formed of the as¬ 
tonishing labour necessary in the completion of the edifice to 
which they belong, when it is further stated that every stone 
in the exterior walls of the building appears sculptured in regu 
lar parallelograms, formed by bevelling the edges.f 
There were, originally, five immense doors leading to the 
arena, although three only remain standing at this day. The 
largest of these being the central place of entrance, consisted of 
five pieces of stone; two being on each side, as uprights, and 
one laid across. The uprights are ten feet two inches, and five 
feet eleven inches, making the whole height of the door eleven 
feet six inches. The breadth of these stones is three feet ten 
* “ Letters on Greece,” lib. ii. p. 48. Lond. 1?88. 
t In all descriptions of this kind, the pencil of the artist is so much superior to the 
pen of the writer, that it is doubtful, whether, after every endeavour to give an ideas 
of this appearance, the account will be intelligible, 
