of the GrcBCO- Roman Era in certain ancient Sites of Asia Minor. 147 



this public-spirited individual was too obvious and too tempting a one not to be 

 fine-drawn, and accordingly we find subjoined to it the words a/ia Stj 6 kol viKcoueof, 

 thus making the following sentence. To the divine and ever-sacred artists, the 

 architect (Julius ?) Nicodemus (that is, people-vanquisher), and who has at the 

 same time approved himself Niconeus (that is, youth-vanquisher), S^c, an 

 attempt at paronomasia whereby I conceive were intended to be expressed his ad- 

 mirable fortitude and strength of mind in contributing of his substance to pro- 

 mote the comfort and ensure the safety of his fellow-citizens of Pergamus. 



, It will be perceived, that the writer of this encomiastic sketch was also a poet, 

 on a small scale, as he terminates it with a catalectic tetrameter of the trochaic 

 metre : but in judging of its merits we must exercise a little charity, and suppose 

 that the gross blunder in the sixth foot is due to the oversight of the sculptor. 



One additional observation, and I shall dismiss these inscriptions. It will be 

 noticed, that series of the same letters range in one, with the first, fourth, and 

 last lines ;* in the other, with all.f What these mean, is the question. In the 

 grave-yard of the church of St. Theodore, already mentioned, I observed similar 

 series in all the epitaphs. I conceive them to be numerals. In the inscription 

 of Isidotus, I think it is clear that they point at once to the year of our era ; but 

 in that of Nicodemus, the case appears to be otherwise, as the letters, supposing 

 them to be numeral marks, correspond to 2000, 100, 80, 6. I conclude, therefore, 

 that the reckoning in this last is the old Roman one, ab urbe condita, as in the 

 Consular Fasti : and this agrees extremely well with the internal evidence which is 

 supplied by the similarity of their style, this showing that their dates cannot have 

 been very far asunder. I have, therefore, referred them, in my Commentary, to 

 the years 1433 and 1461 after our Lord. J 



d. I now proceed to the earlier tituli, the first two of which concern the Em- 

 peror Hadrian. I have placed the more perfect one, though later in its date, the 

 first, on account of its state of preservation. It was copied by me from a large 

 cubical block of the finest Parian marble, which I found in the possession of a 

 Greek resident in the upper quarter of the town, and which originally supported 



» Viz. ATSA. f Viz. BPnS. 



t I have referred inscription b to the Byzantine period, notwithstanding its dating eight years 

 subsequent to the fall of the empire, as so brief an interval was not sufficient to produce any per- 

 ceptible change in the style of these documents. 



