MERGE TO GYRENE. 543 already described from the details which we were able to procure of them. In the large inclosed space attached to the smaller theatre, where there are still traces of colonnades extending three hundred feet, is a semicircular building situated at the western extremity of one of the porticoes (or colonnades) here alluded to, which resembles in its form the tribunal of a basilica. It is possible that this might have been the forum, as the porticoes would have afforded very ample convenience in any weather for the transaction of business ; and its position, close to the principal road leading through the centre of the town with which it communicates by a gateway, would at the same time have been equally favourable. Its situation, however, with regard to the theatre, to which it is decidedly attached, has rather led us to imagine, that this place contained the covered walks, or porticoes, for the convenience, or shelter in rainy weather, of the audience ; as which we have mentioned it above. The central space, where there are no traces of building, with the exception of a kind of raised platform opposite the gateway, were most probably in that case laid out as a garden ; and the whole together would have somewhat resembled in plan the garden and covered w alks of the Palais Royal at Paris. A very strong wall, on the south side of which is the gateway, extends at the present day round three sides of the place ; and the southern wall appears to have been continued about four hundred feet farther in the same line (turning then to the north in a Hne parallel with the eastern wall), and to have inclosed the small theatre within its limits. ATe have already mentioned the statues which we found in this space, at the back of the theatre now'