Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/365

Rh burgs and tribes (Phylæ), to which the new citizens were assigned by lot. Among the names of the Demes is that of Pothoi. The resemblance between this name and that of the harbour Pothia is curious. I am assured that in the small island of Telendos, lying off Calymnos, is a place called Potha.

The list which I have here given of inscriptions, and which does not include all the fragments found, will serve to give some idea of the rich collection of historical and municipal records which must have once existed in the Temple of Apollo. It is curious that, till the time of Ross's visit, hardly any inscriptions of Calymnos were known to exist.

The excavations on this site show very clearly what has been the fate of the greater part of the Greek temples in the Archipelago. The scriptures in marble must have been at a very early period broken up by the Iconoclasts, and the fragments built into the walls of monasteries, or made into lime; while the works in bronze or more precious materials were melted down and probably converted into Byzantine money at Constantinople. The inscriptions being generally on thin slabs very serviceable in masonry, have not been so ruthlessly destroyed as the statues, and many probably will be found in the walls and pavement of ruined monasteries.

At a place called Argos, near the upper town of Calymnos, are two portions of a frieze of gryphons, in relief, which, doubtless, once ornamented the Temple of Apollo, One of these fragments was