REMARKS ON THE AMYCLiEAN MARBLES. 



453 



dation, thereby holding out a salutary lesson of the necessity of caution 

 and prudence in the explanation of objects connected with remote 

 antiquity. 



I should observe, that, according to the Abbe Fourmont, the 

 marbles in question were to be seen in a temple which he discovered 

 near Amyclae, of the goddess Oga or Onga, to whom, according to 

 an inscription on the edifice, it was dedicated by King Eurotas about 

 fifteen hundred years before Christ. Count Caylus* has published 

 an engraving of these marbles from a drawing preserved among the 

 papers of the Abbe in the king's library in Paris. In this drawing it 

 is not very easy to recognise the originals. The subjects supposed 

 to be represented by the sculpture are human limbs, arms, hands, 

 feet, and legs, with knives and other instruments, denoting the 

 sacrifice of human victims ; a circumstance which very naturally 

 puzzles the Count, considering that the inscriptions are not written 

 in a character peculiarly antient, and that the silence of historians is 

 uniform respecting the existence of a worship in Greece at any 

 period, which prescribed such rites. The temple, which the Abbe 

 describes as composed of massive blocks of stone, and whose simple 

 and solid construction had enabled it to stand until the middle of the 

 last century, as well as the inscription on the front, which informed 

 him of the fact of its dedication, have all unfortunately vanished. 

 But I apprehend, that although the temple of the goddess has dis- 

 appeared, the true building, when divested of this antient and 

 venerable character, still exists in the shape of a modern Greek 

 chapel, in which M. Fourmont, if he was himself ever actually at 

 Sparta, may have seen the marbles, and where I found them in the 

 year 1803. 



It cannot be necessary to detain you longer with the impudent 

 frauds of this person. You will find them in the Memoirs of the 

 Academy of Inscriptions, where they are supported by all the parade 



* Recueil d'Antiquites, torn. ii. pi. 51 . 



