of the Grceco-Roman Era in certain ancient Sites of Asia Minor. 123 



country, are, for the most part, quite as ready as their masters, to appropriate to 

 less worthy purposes the records of the civilization and the taste of their fore- 

 fathers. 



All these Ephesian inscriptions illustrate in the strongest manner the ex- 

 pressions of the sacred historian, Ti? yap iariv avdpcowos os ov yivcocTKet ttjv 

 i(f)€(ricou ttoXlv uecoKopou odaav ttjs fieydXrjs deas apre/MiSos ; * the first two 

 having been framed with the avowed intention of enforcing and perpetuating the 

 worship of the tutelary goddess of that celebrated emporium. Sufficient of the 

 preliminary matter of the longest of these remains to inform us as to the grounds 

 on which the ruling powers of Ephesus founded this and similar decrees ; the 

 document forming part of a Psephism which had been enacted by the senate and 

 people. Its purport was to command the strict observance of the entire month 

 Artemision, by a succession of festivals and assemblies, which are termed 

 iopToi, lepofjirjuiai, Travrjyvpeis ; the second being Introduced, as appears evi- 

 dent, with a special reference to the Artemlsiac solemnities which were ordained 

 for a particular month. Thus the sacred month of the Nemean games, or rather 

 the collective series of solemn observances which were enjoined as appropriate to 

 that period, are termed by Pindar Upo/xvla vefied^.f 



There are curious and interesting allusions in the preamble of this decree to 

 the circumstances which we know from other sources to have existed amongst 

 the Macedonians, the Egyptians, and the people of Laconia, namely, of their 

 having had sacred months ; the first and third, their Artemisius, for holding 

 assemblies and celebrating feasts, called in this section of the Psephism einixrfvia. 

 I regret to observe, that the passage which completed the argument from ex- 

 ample, by citing that of the Egyptians, has been exceedingly defaced ; but 

 sufficient has remained to enable me to determine with tolerable certainty, that 

 this had not been forgotten, as, fortunately, the first syllable of the sacred month 

 has escaped the ravages of the destroyer. Now, the names of the Egyptian 

 months are perfectly well known, as are those also of the Macedonian, of which 

 the learned Ideler has given a catalogue comparatively with the Athenian and 

 the Syro- Macedonian. J In this, the Artemisius of the second of these peoples 

 corresponds to the Munychion of the third, at least on Plutarch's authority ; and 



* Acts, xix. 35. , f Nem. iii. 4. 



% Handbuch der matheniatischen und technischen Chronologie, Th. i. ; p. 39 in Passow's Lexicon. 



