it was
later degraded by being turned into a slaughter-house, and was only
cleared of such additions a few years since. Situated near the
cathedral, almost on the highest part of the town, it stands on a
terrace whose great retaining wall still shows the massiveness of Roman
work.

Of the temple itself there remains about half of the podium, some eleven
feet high, fourteen granite columns, twelve of which still retain their
beautiful Corinthian capitals, and the architrave and part of the frieze
resting on these twelve capitals. Everything is of granite except the
capitals and bases which are of white marble; but instead of the
orthodox twenty-four flutes each column has only twelve, with a
distinctly unpleasing result. The temple seems to have been hexastyle
peripteral, but all trace of the cella has disappeared. Nothing is known
of the temple or who it was that built it, but in Roman times Evora was
one of the chief cities of Lusitania; nothing else is left but the
temple, for the aqueduct has been rebuilt and the so-called Tower of
Sertorius was mediaeval. Yet, although it may have less to show than
Merida, once Augusta Emerita and the capital of the province, this
temple is the best-preserved in the whole peninsula. (Fig. 2.)

Before the Roman dominion came to an end, in the first quarter of the
fifth century, Christianity had been for some time firmly established.
Religious intolerance also, which nearly a thousand years later made
Spain the first home of the Inquisition, had already made itself
manifest in the burning of the heretical Priscillianists by Idacius,
whose see was at or near Lamego.

Soon, however, the orthodox were themselves to suffer, for the Vandals,
the Goths, and the Suevi, who swept across the country from 417 A.D.,
were Arians, and it was only after many years had passed that the ruling
Goths and Suevi were converted to the Catholic faith.

The Vandals soon passed on to Africa, leaving their name in Andalucia
and the whole land to the Goths and Suevi, the

[Illustration: FIG. 1.

HOUSE FROM SABROSA.
NOW IN MUSEUM, GUIMARAES.
]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.

EVORA.
TEMPLE OF "DIANA."
]

Suevi at first occupying the whole of Portugal north of the Tagus as
well as Galicia and part of Leon. Later they were expelled from the
southern part of their dominion, but they as well as the Goths have left
practically no mark on the country, for the church built at Oporto by
the Suevic king, Theodo