Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/261

Elevation of the Temple. 237 with the larger building it decorates. The proportion which we have established in almost every limb of the sanctuary, between diameter and height, was one to two ; and nothing shows that this rule was departed from in a far more important section, which from its size and place was calculated to produce the greatest effect. Hence we have been induced, or rather obliged, to make our pylon over the vestibule 1 20 cubits high, exactly coinciding with Chronicles and Josephus (2 Chron. iii. 4, and Ant. Jud., VIII. iii. 2). We are fully aware that the testimony of the latter has been impugned as overstepping the regions of credi- bility, or as a blundering mistake of his translator, an opinion that at first was shared by us, but which examination of the text has caused us to reverse, as being proportioned to the other parts of the building. That this enormous pylon stood in the first or the second temple we do not maintain, although we are convinced that as an ideal it was ever present to the mind of the prophet, and if specified in Chronicles and Josephus, it was because it had lived in the memory of the people and of the priesthood. Steps, or rather grades, preceded the landing which connected the court of the priests with the vestibule of the temple. But as they were too high for any ordinary man, a shallow notch was cut on the face of each grade to place the foot upon and facilitate the ascent. These indentations were invisible at a short distance, so that the monumental aspect of this gigantic pediment was not destroyed. A similar arrangement was frequent in the public buildings of Greece and Rome, notably in temples and theatres. Past the vestibule was or is, if preferred, the temple properly so called, roofed over with cedar wood and a layer of beaten earth. Two schemes are open to us : we may either suppose the scaffold- ing to have consisted of beams about eleven metres long, whose ends rested on the walls at each side, or of rafters slightly curved and half that length, which leant on a central master beam, correspond- ing with the axis of the naos, and of necessity of the same length. Such dimensions may seem abnormal to our ideas, but were not unusual to builders who could dispose of the forests of Lebanon, and trees many centuries old, in the pay too of a rich monarch. Like Egyptian temples, the inner elevation of the sanctuary diminished from the entrance to the end. This difference, we believe, was not observable on the outside. On the authority, therefore of many interpreters, we have utilized this loss of height