[ 602 ] 
and yet the ducts of the letters they exhibit appear 
considerably different ; it muff be allowed, at leaft 
in fome degree, probable, that they did not origi- 
nally appertain to the fame city : and had the mo- 
nument, oil which the local term nAAMTPHINiOC 
is infcribed, been firft eredted at Tadmor, that term 
might perhaps have been deemed by fome Super- 
fluous and unneceffary, not to lay improper and ab- 
iurd. With regard to the fecond Roman Palmy- 
rene infeription, I muft beg leave likewife to remark, 
that the forms of the elements it contains, which 
have Suffered pretty much from the injuries of time, 
are not precifely the fame with thofe of Mr. Daw- 
kins's letters. From whence I Should be induced to 
conclude, as it is void of a date, that it muit either 
have been the produce of a different age ; or, which 
may perhaps be deemed more probable, that the 
injuries of time have obliged feveral of the ele- 
ments of which it is compofed to recede fomething 
from their original forms. But, notwithstanding this, 
that it firft appeared either at, or in the neighbour- 
hood of, the city of Tadmor, we have all the 
reafon in the world to believe. For as Tibe- 
rius Claudius, who was a foreigner, dedicated the 
altar, which it adorned, to Malachbelus and the other 
divinities of Tadmor, who (26) are therein treated 
as local deities ; it had undoubtedly its Situation at 
firft either in that metropolis, or fome other place in 
the territories of the Palmyrenes. 
8. From the fame infeription we may likewife in- 
fer, that the Calbites, therein-mentioned, performed 
[ib) Pbilofopb. Tran fact. Vol. xlviii. p. 756. 
a vow 
I 
