petra, situated near the southern extremity of the island, in the neighbourhood of which they found a curious and singular natural descent to a fountain called Pegāda, or the well frequented by the shepherds of the vicinity. It was imIt was impossible, says Mr. Gell, to visit this sequestered spot, without being struck with the recollection of the fount of Arethusa and the rock Korax, which the poet mentions in the same line. The words are,

cities in other parts of Greece, and which they conceived could have been no other than the Necropolis, or place of sepulture for the inhabitants of Marathia.

At the town of Bathi itself, though we have some interesting details of modern manners, our travellers found nothing which bore particu. lar coincidence with any pa sage in the Odyssey; although the harbour answered exactly to the Aeros TokuBeveros of Homer. (Odyss. xvi. 324.) Having crossed to Dexia on the right of the Gulph of Bathi, our travellers found a Odyss. xiii. 407. cave, the description of which bears so strong a resemblance to that of the grotto of the Nymphs, that we cannot but agree with Mr. Gell in his remarks on Strabo. That valuable

- αι δε νέμονται Mag Kogaxos witen, E TE xenon Agturn

Two caves at the extremity of the curve formed by the precipice, presented them as they conceived with another accompaniment of the fount mentioned by the poet at the close of the fourteenth book, when Eumæus seeks his couch beneath the hollow rock, secure from the current of the northern wind. Above, at a short distance, they found a pastoral dwelling, which circumstances seemed to suggest had been erected on the very spot on which the fold or stathmos of Eumæus had been once situated. There were also the vestiges of some ancient habitations, and the place was called Amarathia. These, and some occurrences of a less important kind appear to have afforded our travellers something more than a presumption, that the Ithaca of Homer was not the creature of his own fancy; for though the grand outline of a fable may be easily imagined, yet the consistent adaptation of minute incidents to a long and elaborate falsehood, is a task of the most arduous and complicated

nature.

In proceeding toward Bathi, the capital of the island, on the summit of a ridge projecting from the rocks of Korax, they found the remains of antique tombs, such as are usually found in the vicinity of ancient

writer asserts

Εν τε τη Ιθάκη, ουδέν εςιν άντρον τοις τον είδε Νυμφαίον οιον φησιν Ομηρος.

"But Strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his informer on many occasions.

"That Strabo had never visited this country is evident, not only from his inaccurate account of it, but from his citarelations are in direct opposition to each tion of Apollodorus and Scepsius, whose other on the subject of Ithaca."

After passing Dexia, Mr. Gell continues, our boat conveyed us to the foot of the bill of Aito, or the Eagle, which still exhibits the vestiges of a city and its Acropolis. There is a fountain in the neighbourhood, and the wall of the city, he says, is yet to be traced through almost its whole extent. We are here reminded of the passage in the Odyssey, which relates to the journey of Ulysses and Eumæus from the farm near the rock Korax; where the fount near the citadel is mentioned.

Whether the generality of readers will agree with Mr. Gell in here

tracing what he conceives to have been the ruins of Ulysses' palace, we know not, but his references to the Odyssey are apposite, and the very curious remains of ancient masonry which mark the Acropolis of Aito, are precisely of the same class with the fortifications of Argos, Tirynthus, and Mycena, the most ancient known in Greece, and reputed the work of the cyclops, in the time of Pausanias.

cient masonry, it would not be easy to trace its connection with the name of the poet to any remote period.

Such are the principal features in "the Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca" a work which we are well satisfied every lover of Homer will peruse with pleasure.

The plates which accompany it are no less than fifteen in number, besides the vignette of the coins of Ithaca in the title. The most curious are the map of Ithaca, the view of the rock Korax and the fountain Arethusa, the view of Bathi, the specimens of ancient masonry at Aito, and the Leucadian promontory.

At Leuka, on the western foot of Mount Neritos, Mr. Gell conjecturally places the garden of Laertes; but in regard to the rock which is called the school of Homer, he observes, that though it certainly presents vestiges of anART. II. The Antiquities of Magna Grecia. By WILLIAM WILKINS, Jun. M. A. F. A. S. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Folio. AMONG the valuable works which have been of late years written on the ruins and remains of Grecian art, few will be found more curious or more superb than this by Mr. Wilkins.

To many of our readers it may perhaps be needles to say, that the south part of Italy was anciently called Magna Grecia; although how much of the country it exactly comprehended is uncertain. Seneca says the whole coast of the Tuscan sea was called by that name; and Strabo, who is good authority, extends it to Sicily.

To this latter portion, exclusive of Pæstum, Mr. Wilkins's searches are confined.

re

In the Introduction, Mr. Wilkins deems it expedient to offer some remarks upon the principles by which the construction of the Grecian Temples appears to have been regulated; because the general principles which are given by Vitruvius in the fourth chapter of the fourth book, for the division of the ædes, or temple within the peristyle of the Romans, are found upon investigation to fail eutirely in their

application to the Temples of the Greeks. He concludes it with some pertinent remarks upon the Temple of Jerusalem. Indepen. dently of the interest excited by the antiquity and sanctity of which, he observes, we shall find that an enquiry into the arrangement and dimensions of its component parts will be amply repaid by the light which it tends to diffuse upon the history of Architecture in general. When compared with the plan and proportions of some of the earliest Grecian Temples, such as at Pæs tum and Ægina, so great a resemblance will be found to subsist between them, as to afford a presumptive proof that the architects both of Syria and Greece were guided by the same general principles, in the distribution and proportion of the more essential parts of their buildings. Some deviations may perhaps be found to occur, but such only as might naturally be expected in temples built for the celebration of rites, differing so much as did the Jewish and the Heathen.

The first Chapter treats of the History of SICILY in general, both

before and after its colonization by the Greeks: concluding with the return of Marcellus to Rome, after the capture of Syracuse.

In the second Chapter we enter upon the history of SYRACUSE itself; which, after the colonists had expelled the Siculi from their possessions on the coast, and enlarged the city, became separated into five distinct parts. The first was Ortygia upon the island, the original city of the emigrants separated from the main land by a narrow channel: this, upon the subsequent enlargement of the city, became the citadel. Acradina and Tyche were next added, and afterwards Neapolis and Epipola; hence the whole city was called Pentapolis, although Epipola was not inclosed within the city walls until the time of Diony

sius.

The more magnificent of the remains at Syracuse, consist of the Temple of Minerva in Ortygia; the remains of a Greek Theatre at Neapolis; and the foundations of the famous wall in Epipolæ, with which the city was inclosed by Dionysius the elder. Six plates illustrate the Temple of Minerva and its parts: the first, which is a general view, is executed in aqua-tinta; the rest are in a more finished and elaborate style of engraving. The remains of the theatre, two shafts of pillars belonging to a temple of Jupiter Olympius, the Fountain Cyane, and the Fountain Arethusa, are subjects scarcely less interesting to the reader,

The history and remains of AGRIGENTUM form the subject of the third chapter.

The site of the ancient city, Mr. Wilkins observes, is incontrovertibly ascertained by the remains of those magnificent works, which have hitherto survived the ravages of war, and the more slow, although not less certain, devastations of time. These ruins, he adds, lie in one of the most

beautiful situations which the Island affords.

"At the south-east angle of the ancient city, upon a rocky eminence which bids defiance to all approach, except through the town, stand the majestic remains of a temple formerly dedicated to Juno Lucina. the monuments existing in Sicily, is of the This building, like the greater part of Doric order of architecture; it followed the general form of hexastyle-peripteral temples, and had six columns in each front, and thirteen in the flanks, including those at the angles. The Pronaos and Posticum had each two columns intervening between the Ante, which terminated the

walls of the Cella. All the columns of blature, are yet remaining entire, as are the north Peristyle, and part of the entamore or less dilapidated, and have lost, two at the south east angle: the rest are with their capitals, courses of the frustra which composed the shafts. however, one in the north, and the other Only two. in the east front, have entirely disappeared.

"Both the longitudinal and transverse walls of the Cella are remaining to a certain height; that which divides the Pronaos from the Cella seems, from its thickness, to have contained staircases, which are sometimes to be met with in Grecian

temples, for the purpose of conducting to

the apartments over the vestibule.

which went completely round the temple: "The Stylobate consists of three steps, on the north, where the ground falls, it is raised upon a plinth, or plain substructure. The remains of a peribolus, or court, are visible before the east front. It appears to have extended to the brow of the declivity, which on that side particularly is steep and craggy.

from the outside of the angular columns, "The length of the temple, measured is 124 5" 0, and the breadth 54' 7" 0. 5' 0, wide; the columns, including the ca The Cella is 48' 11" 0, long, and 25 pital, are 21' 20, in height, and 4 6" 0 in diameter.

Fazellus calls this the temple of the goddess Pudicitia, and tells us that in his time it was called the Tower of the Virgins.

The name of Juno Lucina he attributes to another temple, no remains of which are now to be discovered."

Another curious ruin, converted by the inhabitants to a place of

ART. III. A Letter addressed to the Gentlemen of the British Museum.
Author of the Dissertation on the Alexandrian Sarcophagus. 4to.
IN the form of question and an-
swer, in this publication, Dr. Clarke

sumes the Alexandrian cistern at the SARCOPHAGO contentus erit. Mors British Museum to have been the tomb of Alexander the Great.

The characteristic features by which the identity may be proved in both instances, he conceives to be afforded, first, by the passage of Herodian quoted in our former Review, in which Alexander's body is stated to have been deposited in a Logos; and secondly, from the coincidence of features between the Alexandrian cistern, and two others exactly so formed, and of the same dimensions, which bear the name of ZOPOE, at Alexandria Troas.

In allusion to the celebrated passage of Juvenal, he then asks, "why does that writer call it Sarcophagus?" as if the poet intended any absolute allusion to the sepulchre of the Macedonian hero. Because the Romans, he adds, called a SOPOE by that name.

"Quest. How is this proved?