[71] This temple is enclosed by an outermost wall of very great length and breadth, which gains additional solidity by four porticos so adorned as to present a very costly appearance. Each of them is twofold, and the stone and timber used as its materials and supplied in abundance, combined with the skill of experienced craftsmen and the care bestowed on it by the master-builders, have produced a very perfect piece of work. The inner walls are smaller and in a severer style of architecture.
[72] Right in the very middle stands the sanctuary itself with a beauty baffling description, to judge from what is exposed to view. For all inside is unseen except by the high priest alone, and indeed he, though charged with the duty of entering once a year, gets no view of anything. For he takes with him a brazier full of lighted coals and incense, and the great quantity of vapour which this naturally gives forth covers everything around it, beclouds the eyesight and prevents it from being able to penetrate to any distance.
[73] The huge size and height of the sanctuary make it in spite of its comparatively low situation as prominent an object as any of the highest mountains. In fact, so vast are the buildings that they are seen conspicuously and strike the eye with admiration, especially in the case of foreign visitors, who compare them with the architecture of their own public edifices and are amazed both at their beauty and magnificence.
[74] But there is no grove within the walled area by order of the law, for many reasons. First, because the temple which is truly holy does not seek to provide pleasure and hours of easy enjoyment but the austerity of religion; secondly, because the means used to promote the verdure of trees, being the excrements of men and irrational animals, cannot be brought in there without profanity; thirdly, because the plants of the wild kind of vegetation are of no use, but only, as the poets say, “a burden to the soil,” while those of the cultivated variety which produce fruits of the same quality will distract the weak-minded from the solemnity of the sacred rites.
[75] Furthermore, overgrown places and dense thickets are the resort of malefactors, who use their obscurity for their own safety and as an ambush whence they can suddenly attack whomsoever they wish. Broad spaces and openness and absence of restriction on every side, where there is nothing to hinder the sight, are most suitable to a temple, to enable those who enter and spend their time there to have an accurate view.