362 BENGAZI.

water, that the inhabitants were obliged to relinquish their houses, and disperse themselves about the country in different directions.

The reparation of the aqueducts and cisterns of the town, which, it seems, had fallen into decay, restored Ptolemeta to its former flourishing state ; and this act is recorded, among many others of a similar nature performed at the command of Justinian, in the eulogy of that emperor by Procopius. As Ptolemeta is unprovided with springs, the care of its reservoirs and aqueducts must have been at all times peculiarly essential ; and we find that its buildings of this class are among the most perfect of its existing remains.

It is probable that the cisterns we have mentioned above, as being situated under the tesselated pavement of the edifice which Bruce calls a temple, were among those alluded to by Procopius. They consist of two divisions of arched chambers, running parallel with each other, which are connected by others of shorter dimensions, running in an opposite direction. They communicate mutually, by means of small door-ways, of the form which will be seen in the plan (page 367), and circular apertures were left at intervals in the roof, which received light and air from the court-yard above them, and might have served equally as entrances to the cisterns, or as places from which the water might be drawn up in buckets. They have all of them been coated with an excellent cement, which is still, for the most part, very perfect, and occupy a square of about an hundred feet. We may suppose that these reservoirs were occasionally available as supplies for the general use of the town, since the remains of an aqueduct leading from them through the centre of it are still visible, as