CHAP. VIII.

Rhodes.

Antiquities.

shore a few of our wounded troops, who, were taken to the hospital already prepared for their reception; but these were men who fell in the first moments of landing, and could give but a very imperfect account of the success of an enterprise destined to crown with immortal honour the Statesman by whom it was planned, and the armies by which it was achieved. All we could then learn was, that, after a severe conflict, the French had retreated towards Alexandria; and, having near relations and dear friends engaged in the enterprise, it is not necessary to describe our feelings upon the intelligence.

The principal ruins at Rhodes are not of earlier date than the residence of the Knights of Malta'. The remains of their fine old fortress are sufficient to prove that the building has sustained little injury from time or barbarians. It still exhibits a venerable moated castle, of great size and strength; so fortified as to seem almost impregnable. A drawing made from it might furnish one of our theatres with a most striking decoration. It appears a complete system of fortification; combining all the paraphernalia of dykes and draw-bridges, battlements and bastions. The cells of the knights are yet entire, forming a street within the works and near these cells is the cathedral, or chapel, whose

(1) "In the year 1308, the Emperor Emanuel, upon the expulsion of the Knights from St. John d'Acri, made them a grant of this island, which they continued to possess until the year 1522, when, after a glorious resistance, the Grand-master, Villiers, was compelled to surrender it to Solyman II. The Knights then retired, first to Candia, and afterwards to Sicily, where they continued till the year 1530, when Charles V. gave them the island of Malta." Egmont and Heyman, vol. I. p. 270.

whose wooden doors, curiously carved, and said to have been wrought of an incorruptible kind of cedar, have been preserved in their original state. The arms of England and of France appear sculptured upon the walls. The Turks have converted the Sanctuary into a magazine for military

stores.

Of Lindus, now called Lindo, the antient capital of Rhodes, so little visited by travellers, so remarkable by its early claim to the notice of the historian, and so dignified by, the talents to which it gave birth', we collected a few scattered observations from the clergy and surgeons of the British fleet. One of the former, chaplain of the Admiral's ship, assured me that the antiquities he had seen there were very numerous. He spoke of the ruins of a temple, which may have stood on the site of the fane originally consecrated by the Daughters of Danaus to the Lindian Minerva'. When our countrymen were there, many inscriptions

(2) It was founded by Egyptians, under Danaus, fourteen hundred years before the Christian æra. It is one of the three cities alluded to by Homer (Il. B. 668. See also Strabo, lib. xiv.) Notice of it also occurs in the Parian Chronicle.

(3) It gave birth to Cleobulus, one of the Seven Sages; and to Chares and Laches, the artists who designed and completed the Colossus. A mistake, highly characteristic of French authors, was committed by Voltaire, respecting this famous statue: it is noticed by Mentelle, in a note to the article LINDOS, Encyclopédie Méthodique. Voltaire having read Indian for Lindian, relates that the Colossus was cast by an Indian.

(4) Ἱερὸν δὲ ἐστὶν Αθηνᾶς Λινδίας αὐτόθι ἐπιφανές, τῶν Δαναΐδων ἵδρυμα. "There" (at Lindus) “is a conspicuous temple of the Lindian Minerva, the work of the Danaïdæ." Strabon. Geogr. lib. xiv. p. 937. Ed. Oxon. Savary says the ruins of this edifice are still visible, on an eminence near the sea: Letters on Greece, p. 96. The inhabitants here consecrated the 7th Ode of Pindar's Olympics, by inscribing it in letters of gold: Ibid. Demetrius Triclinius. Lindus was the port resorted to by the fleets of Egypt and of Tyre before the building of Rhodes. Ibid.

CHAP. VIII.

Lindus.

CHAP. VIII.

Inscriptions.

inscriptions were noticed; and of these, one may be here inserted, on account of the evidence it contains with regard to the real position of the antient city.

ΛΙΝΑΙΟΙ

ΑΓΗΣΙΣΤΡΑΤΟΝ

ΠΟΛΥΚΡΕΟΝΤΟΣ

ΝΙΚΩΝΤΑΟΛΥΜΠΙΑ

ΠΑΙΔΑΣ ΠΑΛΑΝ

ΠΡΑΤΟΝΛΙΝΔΙΩΝ

Many cities in Asia and Europe celebrated games in imitation of the four sacred games of Greece'. Agesistratus, who is commemorated in this inscription, was the first of the Lindians who had overcome the Boys in wrestling at the Olympic Games 2.

Some vases, of great antiquity, were also dug in a garden of these, I procured one with upright handles. Future travellers may therefore expect considerable gratification, and a fund of inquiry, in the due examination of this part of the island. Lindus is not more than one long day's journey from Rhodes, if the traveller makes use of mules for his conveyance.

The inscriptions I noticed at Rhodes were principally upon marble altars. These exhibited the cylindrical form, adorned

(1) See Recueil d'Antiq. tom. ii. p. 223; and also Corsini Diss. Quatuor, Agon. p. 20.

(2) In an Inscription found at Sparta, and cited by Caylus, we read, 'Exevlépiæ ἄνδρας παλάν.