Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/424

398 present state. At some points it would seem as if the pillars rested on the fourth step. In that case, to enter the temple you would have to go down a step. In other places, however, the uppermost step is cut through, and then it looks as if the columns had rested on bases; and then again these spaces have been filled up, and so we have once more the first case. An architect is necessary to determine this point.

The sides have twelve columns, not reckoning the corner ones; the back and front six, including them. The rollers on which the stones were moved along, still lie around you on the steps. They have been left, in order to indicate that the temple was unfinished. But the strongest evidence of this fact is the floor. In some spots (along the sides) the pavement is laid down. In the middle, however, the red limestone rock still projects higher than the level of the floor as partially laid ; the flooring, therefore, cannot ever have been finished. Nor is there a trace of an inner temple. Still less can the temple have ever been overlaid with stucco ; but that it was intended to do so, we may infer from the fact that the abaci of the capitals have projecting points, probably for the purpose of holding the plaster. The whole is built of a limestone, very similar to the travertine; only it is now much fretted. The restoration which was carried on in 1781 has done much good to the building. The cutting of the stone with which the parts have been reconnected, is simple, but beautiful. The large blocks standing by themselves, which are mentioned by Riedesel, I could not find: probably they were used for the restoration of the columns.

The site of the temple is singular. At the highest end of a broad and long valley, it stands on an isolated hill; surrounded, however, on all sides by cliffs, it commands a very distant and extensive view of the land, but it takes in only just a corner of the sea. The district