Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/160

 , but only a coarse species of amphorae and some paterae, with a few coins, neither rare nor handsome, mostly brass, and principally of Severus, Pupienus, Alexander, Julia Mammea. Balbur, and Gordianus Pius. A number of intaglios of poor execution were picked up in different parts, as also some very common Carthaginian medals, but nothing indicating high antiquity or tasteful skill. Willing, however, to make as fair a trial as possible, I continued excavating until the 12th of February, when, having explored the principal basilica, a triumphal arch, a circus, a peristyleum, and several minor structures, with only a strengthened conviction of the precarious chance of recovering any specimens of art worth the labour and expence of enlarged operations, I determined to desist.

“In the course of the excavation I had an opportunity of observing that, the period of the principal grandeur of the city must have been posterior to the Augustan age, and when taste was on the decline; for notwithstanding the valuable materials with which it was constructed, it appears to have been overloaded with indifferent ornament, and several of the mutilated colossal statues I found, were in the very worst style of the Lower Empire. There are also many evidences of the city having been occupied after its first and violent destruction, from several of the walls and towers being built of various architectural fragments confusedly heaped together.

“Although there are several exceedingly fine brick and cementitious edifices, most of the walls, arcades, and public buildings, are composed of massy blocks of freestone and conglomerate, in layers, without cement, or at most with very little. The temples were constructed in a style of the utmost grandeur, adorned with immense columns of the most valuable granites and marbles, the shafts of which consisted of a single piece. Most of these noble ornaments were of the Corinthian order; but I also saw several enormous masses of architecture, ornamented with triglyphs, and two or three cyathiform capitals, which led me to suppose that a Doric temple, of anterior date, had existed there. On a triple plinth near them I observed a species of socle, used in some of these structures as the base of a column, with part of the walls of the Cella, surrounded by a columnar peristyle.

“The city was encompassed by strong walls of solid masonry, pierced with magnificent gates, and was ornamented with spacious porticoes, sufficient portions of which still remain to prove their former splendour. It was divided from its principal suburb to the east by a river, the mouth of which, forming a spacious basin, was the Cothoa, defended at its narrow entrance by two stout fortifications; and branching out from them, may be observed, under water, the remains of two large moles. On the banks of this river, the bed of which is still occupied by a rivulet, are various ruins of aqueducts, and some large reservoirs in excellent preservation. Between the principal cisterns and the torrent to the westward of Leptis,