Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/346

 314 ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. Part ]. strono-ly inclines me to believe that the arrangement shown in the plan is correct. Baalbec. The teni])les of Palmyra and Kangovar have been already men- tioned in speaking of that of Jerusalem, to I® _M-^-tiClESIli!.-rfl which class they seem to belong in their general arrangements,though their details are borrowed from Roman architecture. This, however, is not the case with the temples at Baalbec, which, taken together and with their accom- paniments, form the most magnificent temple group now left to us of their class and age. The great temple, if completed (which, how- ever, it jn-obably never was), would have been about 160 ft. by 290, and therefore, as a Corinthian temple, only inferior to that of Jupiter Olympius at Athens. Only nine of its colossal columns ai*e now standing, but the bases of most of the others are in situ. Scarcely less magnilicent than the temple itself was the court in Avhich it stood, above 380 ft. square, and surrounded on three sides by recessed porticoes of most exuberant richness, though in perhaps rather questionable taste. In front of this was a hexagonal court of very great beauty, with a noble portico of 12 Corin- thian columns, with two square blocks of masonry at each end. The whole extent of the portico is 260 ft., and of its kind it is perhaps unrivalled, certainly among the buildings of so late a date as the period to which it belongs. T he other, or smaller temple, stands close to the larger. Its dimensions, to the usual scale, are sliown in the plan (Woodcut No. 196). It is larger 190. Plan of SmaU Temple at Baalbec. Scale 100 ft. to 1 in. 1U7 Elevation of Small Temple at Baalbec. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.