It is the ruin of a temple to an unknown god, which stood at some distance north of the ancient city; two parallel rows of columns, ten on one side, five on the other, with architrave all but entire, and a basement shattered.  The fine Doric capitals are well preserved; the pillars themselves, crumbling under the tooth of time, seem to support with difficulty their noble heads.  This monument must formerly have been very impressive amid the wide landscape; but, a few years ago, for protection against peasant depredators, a wall ten feet high was built close around the columns, so that no good view of them is any longer obtainable.  To the enclosure admission is obtained through an iron gateway with a lock.  I may add, as a picturesque detail, that the lock has long been useless; my guide simply pushed the gate open.  Thus, the ugly wall serves no purpose whatever save to detract from the beauty of the scene.

Vegetation is thick within the temple precincts; a flowering rose bush made contrast of its fresh and graceful loveliness with the age-worn strength of these great carved stones.  About their base grew luxuriantly a plant which turned my thoughts for a moment to rural England, the round-leaved pennywort.  As I lingered here, there stirred in me something of that deep emotion which I felt years ago amid the temples of Paestum.  Of course, this obstructed fragment holds no claim to comparison with Paestum’s unique glory, but here, as there, one is possessed by the pathos of immemorial desolation; amid a silence which the voice has no power to break, nature’s eternal vitality triumphs over the greatness of forgotten men.

At a distance of some three miles from this temple there lies a little lake, or a large pond, which would empty itself into the sea but for a piled barrier of sand and shingle.  This was the harbour of Metapontum.

I passed the day in rambling and idling, and returned for a meal at the station just before train-time.  The weather could not have been more enjoyable; a soft breeze and cloudless blue.  For the last half-hour I lay in a hidden corner of the eucalyptus grove—­trying to shape in fancy some figure of old Pythagoras.  He died here (says story) in 497 B.C.—­broken-hearted at the failure of his efforts to make mankind gentle and reasonable.  In 1897 A.D. that hope had not come much nearer to its realization.  Italians are yet familiar with the name of the philosopher, for it is attached to the multiplication table, which they call tavola pitagorica.  What, in truth, do we know of him?  He is a type of aspiring humanity; a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim radiance through legendary Hellas.  The English reader hears his name with a smile, recalling only the mention of him, in mellow mirth, by England’s greatest spirit.  “What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?” Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio:  “That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.”  He of the crossed garters disdains such fantasy.  “I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.”