RUINS OF TELMESSUS. 299 
served as a screen, to conceal a hollow recess, chap. 
VIII. 
of the same height and breadth as that side ■ 
of the vault. In this recess was probably 
secreted one of those soothsayers for which 
Telmessus was antiently renowned'; so that 
when persons entered the vault to consult the 
oracle, a voice apparently supernatural might 
answer, where no person was visible. Similar 
means of deception, employed by Heathen 
priests, are exhibited by their remains at Argos 
in Peloponnesus, as will hereafter be described. 
With regard to this Cave, it is difficult to explain 
the manner in which the person who delivered 
the oracular sayings obtained an entrance to the 
recess. We could observe neither hole nor 
crevice ; nor would the place have been disco- 
vered, if some persons had not, either by 
accident or by design, broken a small aperture 
through the artificial wall, about four feet from 
the floor of the vault. A flight of steps extended 
(l) Telmessus was so renowned for the art of diiinalion, that Crasus, 
king of LydUt, sent to consult its soothsayers upon dii occasion men- 
tioned by Herodotus. The famous haruspex of Alexander the Great 
was Aristander of Telmessus. Arrlan (Epod. lib. ii. ed. Gronov.) 
says of the people, Enai ya^ raus TiXfiiTffia; ffo^als rcc h'a ilny'-.f^xi, ««< 
fffiiriv UTO yivov; ^ilMai auroli xai yufai?,t xai *ai7t rhv fiavrua.*- It may be 
observed here, that the name of the city, in the text of Jrrian, and in 
Gronovius's commentary, is written Telmissus. Our inscriptions, copied 
there, prove the word to be as written in the following passage of 
Cicero: " Telmessus in Carid est: qua in urbe excellU hanispieum 
disciplina." CiCERO de Divinat tone, lib. i. 
