14 DIANA'S TEMPLE AT EPHESUS. the former seems to be impossible having regard to the evidence. Dr Murray discussed and dismissed the possibility of fluted columns with deep bases standing on the pedestals, but did not consider the obvious possibility of the same columns with the torus only, being placed exactly like the drums. Choisy, in adopting Dr Murray's scheme, allows that the disposition was unusual to the Greeks. I must think that such unnecessary complication was foreign to their ideals, and that the irregularity on the flanks would have been most marked and awkward in having three varieties of bases in succession. (Figs. Fig. II. Proposed Restoration and Dr Murray's Scheme below, flank view 6, II.) It is very awkward also to have the steps sloping down against the sculptured pedestals without any flat space between. The primary idea of the platform seems, as we have seen, to have been to lift the temple above the marshy site ; allowing the principal columns to start from the lower level is opposed to this. As only a part of the columns were sculptured, it seems unlikely that some of them would be doubly decorated, making, indeed, a total of fifty-two sculptured portions, which would have sufficed exactly to surround the whole temple. There seem to have been both square sculptured stones and drums in the ancient