Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/94

66 to represent a seal; then dressed, and placed in the arms of the godfather, who, for fear of accidents, held the child in a scarf suspended round his neck. Then the godfather marched all round the font with him several times, the Archbishop all the time exorcising the evil spirits that might be supposed to harbour designs against the unconscious little squaller. This perambulation round the font reminded me of the old pagan ceremony called Amphidromia, in which, seven days after birth, a child was carried in its cradle swiftly round a blazing altar by torchlight. The resemblance between the two ceremonies may, however, only be accidental.

On returning the Archbishop's visit I saw, in the courtyard of his house, the celebrated marble chair which is engraved in Pococke's Travels.$31$ It is very richly sculptured. The back is curved. Two seated gryphons with outspread wings form the arms of the chair. The seat rests on four lions' legs; on each side below the gryphons is a tripod round which a serpent is coiled. In the front of the chair, under the seat, is the inscription,—

Below is a footstool, ornamented in front with an arabesque, representing a Triton with two tails.

This marble chair is probably from an ancient theatre, where Potamon must have sat in the front row, among the civil and religious dignitaries of