ones, on the outer as well as the inner
side. One kind was white, another black, and a third red, and as they
quarried, they at the same time hollowed out double docks, having roofs
formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple,
but in others they put together different stones, varying the colour
to please the eye, and to be a natural source of delight. The entire
circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, they covered
with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated
with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the
red light of orichalcum. The palaces in the interior of the citadel were
constructed on this wise:--In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to
Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded
by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot where the family of the ten
princes first saw the light, and thither the people annually brought the
fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, to be an
offering to each of the ten. Here was Poseidon's own temple which was a
stadium in length, and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate
height, having a strange barbaric appearance. All the outside of the
temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver,
and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof
was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with gold and silver and
orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars and floor,
they coated with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold:
there was the god himself standing in a chariot--the charioteer of
six winged horses--and of such a size that he touched the roof of the
building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding
on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them by the men of
those days. There were also in the interior of the temple other images
which had been dedicated by private persons. And around the temple on
the outside were placed statues of gold of all the descendants of the
ten kings and of their wives, and there were many other great offerings
of kings and of private persons, coming both from the city itself and
from the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar
too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to this magnificence,
and the palaces, in like manner, answered to the greatness of the
kingdom and the glory of the tem