OF THE TEMPLE OF BASSAE.

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It was founded, not in a spot to which the materials for building could readily be brought, or where it might display to passing crowds the evidence it afforded of the affluence and skill of those who erected it; but it stood alone, exposed to winds and storms, on a bleak and rugged mountain difficult of access, and seeming, by its seclusion and solitude, to ask for no other notice than that of the Deity to whom it was consecrated. The first theatre which was constructed at Rome was designed to appease the wrath of the Gods during a pestilence. This Temple of Bassae was an offering of a more pleasing kind; it was raised, not during the ravages of a plague, but as a grateful record of deliverance from them. It was inscribed to APOLLO EPICURIUS, or the HELPER.

The building stands not from east to west,-the usual direction of Greek temples, but from north to south. Another peculiarity is observable in the number of its columns: while that of those on each flank generally exceeds by one the double of those at each end, here are six at each end, and fifteen upon each side. The building was a hundred and twenty-five feet in length by forty-seven in breadth. It was in the Doric style,

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ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE AT BASSAE.

peripteral and hypæthral, and raised upon three steps. It was built by the architect of the Parthenon at Athens, Ictinus.

Pausanias speaks of this Temple of Bassae as eclipsing all the fabrics of the same kind in the Peloponnesus by the beauty of its stone and the harmony of its construction. Such being the case, it may be considered as an instance of singular good fortune, or rather an interposition of Providence, watching over the Arts which delight and dignify the mind of man, that this fabric should remain in a more perfect state than any other temple, with the exception of that of Theseus, in the whole of Greece.

The principal entrance was on the north. Having mounted the steps, passed through the columns of the portico, and of the pronaos, we arrive in the cella. Here, on each side, and attached to the wall, were arranged five Ionic columns of white marble, for the purpose of supporting the roof, which stretched from the walls of the cella so as to cover the greater part of its interior, leaving only an aperture in the centre, like that in the vault of the Pantheon at Rome, for the admission of light and air. Between the two most southern Ionic columns stood one of the Corinthian order, also of white marble, which supported the architrave over the southern entrance into the cella.

The frieze which once adorned the interior requires no description for those who have access to it in the national Museum of England. Suffice it to say, that it is, in all probability, the work of the scholars of Phidias. And as the architects and sculptors employed in the erection and decoration of this temple were of Athenian extraction, so many of the subjects represented in this frieze are connected with Athenian history. They refer to the struggles of Theseus with the Centaurs and Amazons.

Such is the seclusion in which the temple of Bassae stands, that for many

THE NEDA-IRA-THE PAMISUS.

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ages its very existence was either unknown or forgotten. Like the temples at Pæstum in this respect, it was not till after the middle of the eighteenth century that this, the most beautiful and most perfect of all the remains of Greek architecture in the Peloponnesus, was discovered to survive in nearly the same state as when visited more than a thousand years before by Pausanias. The country of Messenia was endowed much more liberally by Nature than the neighbouring territory of Laconia. The river NEDA, which takes

its rise in one of the ridges of Mount Lycæum, flows eastward in a winding course through a beautiful valley, by the walls of IRA, the fortress of Aristomenes, and of Phigaleia, into the Ionian Sea. Several small streams, rising near the same spot, unite their waters in a deep channel, which tends to the south, leaving Mount Ithome and the city of Messene on the right, and empty themselves in a copious river, the PAMISUS, which falls into the Gulf between Messenia and Laconia, the receptacle of numerous other small rills from the Messenian basin.

Irrigated by these rivers, and possessing many woody valleys and wide plains through which they flowed, Messenia was famed for the number and beauty of its herds and flocks, and for the variety of its shrubs and fruit

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trees in addition to this, the mountains here were not of sufficient height, as was the case in Laconia, to render its climate inclement by retaining the snow for the greater part of the year, or by screening the lands beneath them from the sun.

It was not wonderful, therefore, that the Lacedæmonians were covetous of a neighbouring land In the year B. c. 724, ITHOME, the Acropolis and capital of Messenia, was taken by the Spartans. In 685, the war was renewed

so superior to their own.

under Aristomenes, who fortified himself in Ira, in the fastnesses of Mount Lycæum. Here he remained for many years, and performed those wonderful feats of courage, and saved himself by those marvellous escapes, which made him the national hero of Messenia. But, in 668, Ira fell into the hands of Sparta, as Ithome had done before. Nothing remained for the conquered Messenians but to become Helots or Exiles. Many fled beyond the sea, and settled in Sicily, Italy, and Africa; but enough remained behind to render Sparta the mistress of two hundred thousand slaves.

After a long banishment, during which they preserved their language and manners unaltered, the Messenians returned, in the year B. c. 370, to their ancient abodes from which they had been exterminated by the Spartans being recalled by the Theban general and statesman Epaminondas, who had just laid low the power of Sparta on the field of Leuctra, they proceeded with the sound of flutes and pipes and vocal melody, and with the sacred pomp of procession and of sacrifice, to rebuild on the ridges of Mount ITHOME their city which had so long lain desolate. That day was

the return to them from a Captivity of near three centuries. The responses of the Augurs, who were consulted whether the new city would prosper, were favourable. The victims were propitious; everything bore the aspect of hope and joy. Artificers of every kind were present, materials flowing in