VOYAGE FROM IN E AD A, 
If by the basis be meant the altar, the cha- 
racters are no longer visible; at least they 
escaped our observation. Sandys was too ac- 
curate a writer to insert such an inscription 
without authority. Tournefort 3 confirms what 
he has said, by giving a description of the 
pillar, although the sea would not permit him 
to examine it closely ; and he adds, that the 
base and shaft were not made for each other. 
According to him, it was a Corinthian pillar, 
abdut twelve feet high, placed, perhaps, as a 
guide to vessels. The history ot the altar is 
preserved by Dionysius of Byzantium 4 , who 
relates, that an altar to Apollo was placed upon 
this rock; whereof, says Tournefort, the base 
of this pillar may be a remnant ; for the festoons 
are of laurel-leaves, which were from a tree 
sacred to that God. The altar remains entire ; 
the loss of the column has only restored it to 
its original state. The festoons are supported 
George Dousa who visited the spot in 1759, give the reading as it has 
been here published. Perhaps Sandys copied the Inscription from 
Dousa, whose work is now exceedingly rare. “ In basi hujus Columriie 
Inscriptionem Latinis litcris ineisam animadverti, caeterum ita vctus- 
tate temporis excsam, ut si earn /. Leunclavius V. N. et in hoc stu- 
diorum genere baud tralaticii versatus, non eruisset, a nemine legi 
posset.” Dousa Iter Constantinop. p. 20. L. Bat. 1600. 
(3) Voyage du Lev. Lett. XV. 
(4) Dionysius Byzantius, apud Gyllium, de Bosph, Jhrac. lib. 
