C AFFA. 
149 
Caff a any evidence that such a city ever existed'. 
An inscription in the walls of the fortress proves 
that edifice to have been completed so late as 
1474 , the very year of the capture of the city 
by the Turks, under Mohammed the Second ; and the 
earliest date of any other inscription does not 
refer to a period anterior to the termination of 
the fourteenth century. We obtained one in 
the Armenian language; the letters of which 
were beautifully sculptured in relief, upon a 
slab of white marble. It is now preserved in 
the Vestibule of the University Library of Cam- 
bridge; and a translation of this inscription is 
given in the account there published of the 
Greek Marbles \ It commemorates work done 
to' one of the churches of Caffa, in the year 
1400 . Another inscription in the wall of the 
fortress is in the Latin language : this is re- 
markable for an error in the word tempore, 
noticed also by Odorico. It is placed beneath 
three coats of arms, sculptured upon the same 
stone, as follows : 
TENPORE • MAGNIFICI • DOMINI • BATISTE 
IVSTINIANI • CONSVLIS ■ MCCCCLXXIIII • 
(1) A passage in the “ Excerpta e Michalonis Lituani I'm "mentis," 
printed at the Elzevir Tress in 1630, proves that Stara Crirn was 
believed to occupy the site of Theodosia, as will hereafter appear. 
(2) Clarke’s Greek Marbles, p. 8. No. VIII. 
L 2 
CHAP. 
IV. 
