Through the open doorway between the towers might be seen dimly the
sacred cone or pillar which was emblematic of deity; on either side the
eye caught the ends of the aisles, not more than half the height of the
towers, and each crowned with a strongly projecting cornice, perhaps
ornamented with a row of uræi. In front of the two aisles, standing by
themselves, were twin columns, like Jachin and Boaz before the Temple
of Solomon. The aisles were certainly roofed: whether the nave also was
covered in, or whether, like the Greek hypæthral temples, it lay open
to the blue vault of heaven, is perhaps doubtful. The walls of the
buildings, after a few courses of hewn stone, were probably of wood,
perhaps of cedar, enriched with the precious metals, and the pavement
was adorned with a mosaic of many colours, "white, yellow, red, brown,
and rose."[634] Outside the temple was a mass of verdure. "In the sacred
precinct, and in its dependencies, all breathed of voluptuousness, all
spoke to the senses. The air of the place was full of perfumes, full of
soft and caressing sounds. There was the murmur of rills which flowed
over a carpet of flowers; there was, in the foliage above, the song of
the nightingale, and the prolonged and tender cooing of the dove; there
were, in the groves around, the tones of the flute, the instrument which
sounds the call to pleasure, and summons to the banquet chamber the
festive procession and the bridal train. Beneath the shelter of tents,
or of light booths with walls formed by the skilful interlacing of a
green mass of boughs, through which the myrtle and the laurel spread
their odours, dwelt the fair slaves of the goddess, those whom Pindar
called, in the drinking-song which he composed for Theoxenus of Corinth,
'the handmaids of persuasion.'"[635] Here and there in the precincts,
sacred processions took their prescribed way; ablutions were performed;
victims led up to the temple; votive offerings hung on the trees; festal
dances, it may be, performed; while in the cloister which skirted the
peribolus, dealers in shrines and images chaffered with their customers,