of the GrcBco- Roman Era in certain ancient Sites of Asia Minor. 115 



my good fortune, during my stay at Athens, to become acquainted with the 

 gentleman* who is at present employed by the Greek government as Curator 

 of Antiquities in that metropolis, and to benefit by many interesting conversa- 

 tions with him on the present state of learning in Greece, and the progress of his 

 researches. He is himself an author, having given to the public a topographical 

 account of ancient Athens, which has been translated into several of the modern 

 languages. He has collected, moreover, in the Acropolis and the Theseium 

 (which were the principal scenes of my labours), a considerable number of 

 statues, busts, reliefs, and inscribed tablets, most, if not all of which, have 

 been published in Ephemerides, and in his own work. This consideration, 

 however, did not deter me from prosecuting my researches in the same field, and 

 holding a converse on Minerva's height, or within the sanctuary of the hero-god 

 of Athens, with her jurists, her priests, her statesmen, and her warriors. 



But I press forwards somewhat too rapidly. Greece, though the principal 

 scene of my labours, was one of the last ; and it is my present intention to lay 

 before my fellow-academicians, with all the respect which is due to so learned and 

 distinguished a body, a summary of my researches in the order in which they 

 were conducted. I might have observed a different, and, for some purposes, 

 perhaps a more convenient arrangement ; I mean by this, a classification of the 

 documents which I have collected, according as they related to public or to private 

 concerns, to secular or religious, to the historical or the purely legal. Of all these 

 I possess examples, viz., treaties, lists of magistrates, treasury accounts, temple 

 inventories, epitaphs, with a great variety of others, which have unfortunately 

 been so mutilated and defaced, as to afford a wide scope to the student in such 

 matters for the exercise of his palaeographical sagacity. 



Now, an arrangement under these several heads presents many advantages, 

 when the subject is made a study : and a more convincing proof of its expediency 

 cannot be cited than from the great work of Professor Bockh, wherein the reader 

 is at a loss which to admire most, the lucidity of the disposition or the accuracy 

 of the details. But as the circumstances under which I appear before the 

 Academy, and hope shortly to present myself before the public, are somewhat 

 different from those of the mere editor, I have deemed it best to be guided in a 



