430 ALEXANDRIA TO COS. 
^^j^F' shrine of the Lindian Minerva, must have ren- 
dered the temple, considered as a museum 
only, one of the most curious sights to which 
the inhabitants of Greece resorted. Vessels o 
antient bronze, military trophies, armour, and 
weapons, were frequently suspended as dona- 
tives, in their sanctuaries. But such was the 
antiquity of some of the gifts in the Lindian 
temple, that one of them, a bronze caldron, had 
been presented by Cadmus; and it was distin- 
guished by an inscription in Phoenician charac- 
ters'. An offering of Amasis, king of Egypt y 
seems to have been regarded as the principal 
marvel of the temple, notwithstanding the pic- 
tures of Parrhasius and of Zeuxis, by which it 
had been adorned ; this was a linen thorax of 
net-work, each thread consisting of as many 
filaments as there are days in the year. The 
Consul Mutianus, says Pliny, had himself unra- 
velled one of these threads, and had borne tes- 
timony to the fact^. 
(1) Diodorus Sic. lib. ii. Herodot. lib. ii. 
(2) " Mirentur hoc, ignorantes in jEgyptii quondam regis, quem 
Amasim vocant, thorace in Rhodiorum insulft ostendi in teinplo 
Minervae cccLxv fills singula fila constare. Quod se expertum nuper 
Romae prodidit Mutianus ter Consul, parvasque jam reliquias ejus 
superesse bfic cxperientium injuria." Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xh, e.l, 
L. Bat. 1635. 
