444 MEKUJK TO GYRENE.

when there were only two they were both painted red, which was sometimes the only colour employed when there were three. We could not ascertain what particular colour was used for the abacus and echinus, for we seldom found any traces of colour remaining either upon them or upon the shafts of the columns. In one or two instances, however, the abacus seems to have been red, and in one which we have given in plate (p. 452), it appears to have been something of a lilac colour. The colours of the metopes and architraves must also be left in uncertainty ; and, indeed, it may perhaps be inferred from our never finding any positive colour remaining upon them, that the larger parts of the entablature were left plain, and that the smaller, or ornamental, parts only were painted. We are ourselves inclined to think that this was the case, as well with regard to the entablature as to the columns ; for we should otherwise have found the parts in question occasionally painted, which we do not recollect to have decidedly seen.

It may here be remarked, with respect to what appears to have been the established colour of the triglyphs at Cyrene, that there is a singular correspondence between this practice of the Cyreneans and that which is attributed by Vitruvius to the artificers of early times when wood was used instead of stone in the construction of their buildings. For the parts which, in the wooden structures alluded to, corresponded to the triglyphs of later periods, are said by this author to have been covered with blue wax ; and we have already stated that blue was the prevailing colour of the triglyphs in buildings of all classes at Cyrene. It would thus appear that the colours, like