Herculaneum tour

This tempie was built in the third century B.C., and is formed of 48 Ionie columns, which were changed into Corinthian columns in Nero's age. On a high platform is the cella, the most sacred part of the tempie, also surrounded by thirty Corinthian columns. There were several different deities in this tempie, among them Apollo while shooting an arrow and opposite him, Diana the huntress, From other findings it is probable that Mercury was worshipped here too. This rectangular square 32 metres wide and 142 metres long, paved in travertine and surrounded by a covered arcade on three sides, was the heart of politicai and religious life the city. During the Samnite age the arcade was composed of two orders of columns, built in Nucera tuff. These columns were in Doric style, whiist the trabeation on which the upper columns rested was in Ionie style. The columns and trabea-tions on the eastern and western sides, however, are from the Roman period. At the centre of the western side of the square we can admire the suggestum, which was the stand from which the orators spoke to the people. Along the southern side of the arcade are to be found several large bases on which were placed the statues of the most impor-tant men of the city. The public buildings, which are to be found along the southern, eastern and western sides, were hidden by the colonnade so that the only building completely visible was the Tempie of Jupiter on the northern side, at the sides of which were two triumphal arches.