Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/294

244 Antimachia is another small and scattered village. Here, in a church called Proskynema, I found an inscription behind the altar, which commemorated the erection of a statue to a gymnasiarch, Aurelius Aristaichnos; another inscription found here, published by Ross, records a decree of a religious fraternity, who celebrated the rites of Zeus Hyetios,—"the rain-bringing Jupiter,"$115$ a deity who must have been held in peculiar esteem in this district, from its extreme dryness. We learn from Plutarch that Herakles was worshipped with peculiar rites at Antimacliia, in accordance with a local myth, by which he was supposed to have landed here on his return from Troy; and in a curious inscription found in the town of Cos, mention is made of this worship, and of a piece of land (temenos) set apart by bequest for the endowment of his priests, whose dignity was hereditary in a particular family.$116$

In the vestibule of the church of Panagia, I found a sepulchral cippus scidptured in relief, with festoons hanging from bulls' heads. One of the bulls' heads is placed between a gryphon on the left and a lion on the right; each with his right forepaw raised. In this vestibule is also the capital of an Ionic column. In the village I purchased a small Greek vase Avith ornaments painted in crimson, of a cream- coloured ground, but without incised lines, in a very archaic style.$117$ This must have been found in a tomb, but I could not get the peasants to indicate the spot.

At about an hour's distance from Antimachia, is a place on the south-eastern shore, where Ross places