TO RHODES. 229 
sages and poets and historians ; Cicero and chap. 
Vitruvius expatiate on the magnificence of its 
capitar. Such was the flourishing state of the 
Fine Arts in the city of Mitylene^, when Mar- 
cellus, after the battle of Pharsalia, retired thither 
to end his days in hterary ease, that a modern 
traveller, after the lapse of seventeen centuries, 
could behold nothing but proofs of the splendour to 
which they had attained ^ The medals oi Lesbos 
are less known than of any other island in the 
Archipelago; because those which have been 
described as its antient silver coinage, properly 
belong to Macedonia'. Yet the island itself has 
never been fully examined in modern times ; 
probably from its being so completely under 
the Moslem dominion. Tournefort, who has given 
us the best account of it, with that industry 
and erudition which characterize his writings, 
had little opportunity for its investigation. 
According to his own confession, he was, for 
the most part, confined to the shore at Petra^ ; 
(2) Gc. De Leg. Agr. Vitiuv. Y\h.\. c.Q. 
(3) 'H fiiyiirrv rro\is. Strah. Geogr. lib. xiii. 
(4) " Aussi n'y voit-on que bouts de colounes, la pluspart de marbre 
blanc, quelquesunes gris-cendr^, ou de granit, &c II n'est 
pas croyable combien dans les ruines dont nous parloas, ilyrcste de 
chapiteaux, de frises, de piedestaux, de bouts d'Inscriptions," &c. 
Tournef. Voy. du Lev. torn. II. p. 81. Lyon, 1717. 
(5) See Combe's Accouut of Hunter's Medals, IVum. Vet. Pop. et 
Urb. &c. Tab. 33. Fig. 1. &c. p. 171. 
(6) Voyage du Levant, torn. II. p. 86. 
