146 
clarke's travels. 
fashioned, by those barbarians, into shapes whereby every trace 
of their former honours have been annihilated. Much, how¬ 
ever, yet exists, proving the rank maintained by the Telmes- 
sensiaus, although little within the precincts of the modern town. 
Yet even here we observed some antiquities, and among these 
a marble altar, on which a female figure was represented, with 
the extraordinary symbols of two hands figured in bas-relief, 
as if cut olF and placed by her, with this inscription: 
eiphnhxaipe 
Near the same place was also the capital of an Ionic pilaster; 
having the architect’s name, liermolyciis, so engraven upon it 
as not to be discerned when the building, to which it belonged, 
was perfect; the letters being inscribed behind the capital, 
where the stone was intended to be placed against a w all; and 
thus written: 
EPOTOATKOT 
Not being able to discovery any other antiquities within the 
town, we passed through it, toward the east;* and here found 
ample employment, in the midst of the sepulchres of the Tel- 
tnesseusians. Some of these have been delineated, but without 
accuracy or effect, in the w ork of Monsieur de Choiseul Gouf- 
fier.f They are the sepulchres to which allusion was made in 
a former volume, when discussing the subject of the origin of 
temples.J It was there stated, that the most ancient heathen 
structures, for offerings to the gods, were always either tombs 
themselves, or they were built where tombs had been. Hence 
the first temples of Athens, Paphos, and Miletus; and hence 
the terms used by the most ancient writers in their signification 
of a temple. Hence also the sepulchral origin and subsequent 
consecration of the pyramids of Egypt. But since Mr. Bry- 
& The remains of Genoese and Venetian buildings cover all the coast near the town. 
We found here, in full bloom, that exceedingly rare plant the aristolochia mnuronm. 
It is badly represented in Tournefort’s Travels, tom ii. p. 79. The singular colour 
of the flower, and also its brown leaves, made me at first doubt whether it were an ani¬ 
mal or a plant. 11 grows also near the ruins of the theatre. 
| Voyage Pitlorcsquede la Grtce. This has been stated for the purpose of contradicting 
a note published in the English edition of Savary’s Lelters'on Greece, p. 49. Lond. 
1788 , where it is said, that “ these ancient monuments are delineated with great mi¬ 
nuteness and aceuracy in the Voyage Pitloresqne.''' If the reader attempt to form his 
judgmentof the ruins of Telmessus from that work, he will pot obtain any notion ade¬ 
quate to their grandeur, or even to the truth of their appearance. Neither is the au¬ 
thor of this work akle to supply, by drawings, what is wanted for better information. 
% “ Journey along the frontier of Circassian See part 1. chap. XVII. p. 399. of the 
sfe)nd edition. 
