dern surveys on the moles and
cothons (docks) constructed by the ancients in various ports of the
Mediterranean, have proved that there has been no sensible variation of
level in that sea during the last two thousand years.[715]

Thus we arrive, without the aid of the celebrated temple, at the
conclusion, that the recent marine deposit at Puzzuoli was upraised in
modern times above the level of the sea, and that not only this change
of position, but the accumulation of the modern strata, was posterior to
the destruction of many edifices, of which they contain the imbedded
remains. If we next examine the evidence afforded by the temple itself,
it appears, from the most authentic accounts, that the three pillars now
standing erect continued, down to the middle of the last century, almost
buried in the new marine strata (_c_, fig. 89). The upper part of each
protruding several feet above the surface was concealed by bushes, and
had not attracted, until the year 1749, the notice of antiquaries; but,
when the soil was removed in 1750, they were seen to form part of the
remains of a splendid edifice, the pavement of which was still
preserved, and upon it lay a number of columns of African breccia and of
granite. The original plan of the building could be traced distinctly:
it was of a quadrangular form, seventy feet in diameter, and the roof
had been supported by forty-six noble columns, twenty-four of granite
and the rest of marble. The large court was surrounded by apartments,
supposed to have been used as bathing-rooms; for a thermal spring, still
used for medicinal purposes, issues just behind the building, and the
water of this spring appears to have been originally conveyed by a
marble duct, still extant, into the chambers, and then across the
pavement by a groove an inch or two deep, to a conduit made of Roman
brickwork, by which it gained the sea.

Many antiquaries have entered into elaborate discussions as to the deity
to which this edifice was consecrated. It is admitted that, among other
images found in excavating the ruins, there was one of the god Serapis;
and at Puzzuoli a marble column was dug up, on which was carved an
ancient inscription, of the date of the building of Rome 648 (or B. C.
105), entitled "Lex parieti faciundo." This inscription, written in
very obscure Latin, sets forth a contract, between the municipality of
the town, and a company of builders who undertook to keep in repair
certain public ed