of the Grasco- Roman Era in certain ancient Sites of Asia Minor. 1 17 



Alexandria Troadis ;* Beeram, the representative of Assos ;f and one or two 

 other places of minor importance, in the Troad, on the site of Roman military 

 stations, where I collected a few Latin inscriptions. 



This list, to which is to be added a small collection which I made at Smyrna, 

 comprehends my labours in the department of inscriptions during two excursions 

 which I made from that city ; one around the churches of the Apocalypse ; and 

 another to the Dardanelles, returning by the coast to Smyrna. 



Of these sites, Aphrodisias and Thyatira furnished me with by far the 

 greatest number of inscriptions. Indeed, so numerous are the inscribed monu- 

 ments in the first of these places, that the principal trouble devolving upon the 

 traveller is a selection of the most important, or those which illustrate best the 

 ancient records of the place. I find fifteen of these inscriptions in my note- 

 book ; but at least ten times that number solicit the attention of the antiquarian : 

 and accordingly the curious in such matters will find, in the last published volume 

 of Mr. Fellows' travels in those regions, a much larger collection of the inscrip- 

 tions of Aphrodisias than I have made. It will be borne in mind, however, 

 that that gentleman worked at a great mechanical advantage, for, avowedly un- 

 acquainted with Greek literature himself, he adopted the plan of what may be 

 termed mechanical copying ; in which way two or three sheets of the soft Turkish 

 paper will perform in a few minutes as much work as would cost ordinary drudges, 

 who have the misfortune to know something of the language, as many hours to 

 get through. Any one, however, who has seen his first volume, will clearly ap- 

 preciate the advantages of this method. Whenever an inscription is at all de- 

 faced, and the most valuable are generally not the least so, the thousand lines 

 which the chisel of time has indented in it, are as faithfully represented in the 

 mechanical counterpart, as those of the epigraph itself; a source of error most 

 prolific, as well as vexatious, to the decipherer afterwards, when threading his 

 way through the palaeographical labyrinth. 



The strangest readings have, in consequence, found their way into that part 

 of Mr. Fellows' first volume which relates to Inscriptions. His second, which has 

 recently made its appearance, I have not had time to examine with the minuteness 

 which it seems to deserve. 



• Acts, xvi. 8, 11. t Ibid. xx. 13, 14. 



