It Is The Ruin Of A Temple To An Unknown God, Which Stood At Some
Distance North Of The Ancient City; Two Parallel Rows Of Columns,
Ten On One Side, Five On The Other, With Architrave All But Entire,
And A Basement Shattered.
The fine Doric capitals are well
preserved; the pillars themselves, crumbling under the tooth of
time, seem to support with difficulty their noble heads.
This
monument must formerly have been very impressive amid the wide
landscape; but, a few years ago, for protection against peasant
depredators, a wall ten feet high was built close around the
columns, so that no good view of them is any longer obtainable. To
the enclosure admission is obtained through an iron gateway with a
lock. I may add, as a picturesque detail, that the lock has long
been useless; my guide simply pushed the gate open. Thus, the ugly
wall serves no purpose whatever save to detract from the beauty of
the scene.
Vegetation is thick within the temple precincts; a flowering rose
bush made contrast of its fresh and graceful loveliness with the
age-worn strength of these great carved stones. About their base
grew luxuriantly a plant which turned my thoughts for a moment to
rural England, the round-leaved pennywort. As I lingered here, there
stirred in me something of that deep emotion which I felt years ago
amid the temples of Paestum. Of course, this obstructed fragment
holds no claim to comparison with Paestum's unique glory, but here,
as there, one is possessed by the pathos of immemorial desolation;
amid a silence which the voice has no power to break, nature's
eternal vitality triumphs over the greatness of forgotten men.
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