REMARKS ON THE AMYCLiEAN MARBLES. 



455 



edge of each marble is a wreath composed of the mystic plants sacred 

 to Ceres or to Bacchus ; ears of corn, pomegranates, cones of the fir, 

 ivy, &c. In the centre of each is the representation of a patera, in 

 one of which is inscribed 



AN0OTCH AAMAINETOT YflOCTATPIA 



and in the other, 



AATArHTA ANTIITATPOT IEPEIA. 



Now I have not been able to find any authority for supposing that the 

 custody of the temple of the Amyclsean Apollo was committed to 

 women, or the rites performed by priestesses ; and it is scarcely credi- 

 ble that Pausanias, who dwells so long on the subject, should omit to 

 mention a circumstance in itself not of very frequent occurrence, 

 and which on other occasions of less interest he does not fail to re- 

 cord. The Abbe Fourmont, it is true, tells us, that he found at 

 Amyclee an inscription containing nothing less than a list of all the 

 priestesses, inscribed at different periods, from the date of the found- 

 ation of the temple down to the time of the Roman conquest. 

 Among the first of these ladies, or as he calls them, the fiotregeg 

 Kai Ksqsca tv AttoWuvos, we find the name of Laodamia, the daughter 

 of King Amyclas, who, if she ever had any existence at all, lived 

 before the Trojan war. The boldness of this forgery can only 

 be equalled by the author's ignorance of the language in which he 

 attempts to write, and even of the proper forms of the letters which 

 he employs ; for he has produced a jargon unlike the Greek of any 

 dialect, and has given us the representation of characters which are 

 not only unknown in Greek paleography, but many of which are 

 entirely at variance with the principles which appear universally to 

 have regulated the mode of writing pursued throughout the widely- 

 extended settlements of this people in the most ancient times. The 

 silence therefore of ancient authors, and especially of Pausanias, is 

 almost decisive on this point ; indeed, I fear that the inscriptions on 

 our marbles offer the only argument, feeble as it is, to prove that 

 priestesses had ever belonged to the Amyclsean temple. The Abbe 

 Fourmont observed these inscriptions near to the probable site of the 



