The Temple of Bacchus—once wrongly credited to Jupiter—may have been completed under Septimius Severus in the 190s, as his coins are the first to show it beside the Temple of Jupiter. It is the best preserved of the sanctuary's structures, as the other rubble from its ruins protected it. It is enriched by some of the most refined reliefs and sculpture to survive from antiquity. The temple is surrounded by forty-two columns—8 along each end and 15 along each side—nearly in height. These were probably erected in a rough state and then rounded, polished, and decorated in position. The entrance was preserved as late as Pococke and Wood, but the keystone of the lintel had slid following the 1759 earthquakes; a column of rough masonry was erected in the 1860s or '70s to support it. The 1759 earthquakes also damaged the area around the soffit's famed inscription of an eagle, which was entirely covered by the keystone's supporting column. The area around the inscription of the eagle was greatly damaged by the 1759 earthquake. The interior of the temple is divided into a nave and a adytum or sanctuary on a platform raised above it and fronted by 13 steps. The screen between the two sections once held reliefs of Neptune, Triton, Arion and his dolphin, and other marine figures but these have been lost. The temple was used as a kind of donjon for the medieval Arab and Turkish fortifications, although its eastern steps were lost sometime after 1688. Much of the portico was incorporated into a huge wall directly before its gate, but this was demolished in July 1870 by Barker on orders from Syria's governor Rashid Pasha. Two spiral staircases in columns on either side of the entrance lead to the roof.