Archaeology Magazine - June 1972 - 47

are twenty-six rows of seats, not counting the
special row at the bottom. Most of the seats were
still in place when the drawing was made.
Gyriacus' drawing of what he calls "the remains of baths right in front of the theater"
makes it clear that what he saw was the great
cistern of the theater with its nine arched compartments.
Sketch of the
theater and
at
cistern
Delos from
the manuscript in Munich, CLM/.
35 v.

this point we seem to begin a second tour
A.
of the island, made probably on another day and
beginning at the same point as the first, i.e. at the
Gymnasium. Here, he says, "at an ornate marble
gate whose three large blocks remain intact and
in place, we found this inscription, written in
large letters which have almost been destroyed
by the ages." A much-battered fragment of white
marble has been found in the Gymnasium on
which the first word of this inscription can be
read. The drawing itself, of an arched portico
with a rectangular doorway attached on the left,
looks like a conflation of the arches and rectangular doorway of the Gymnasium.
As in his first visit, he moved directly from the
Gymnasium to Mt. Kynthos where he sketched
what he called "walls made of large, serpentine
blocks." This drawing has been accepted by the
French excavators as a representation of the
grotto shrine of Herakles on the west slope of Mt.
Kynthos. In one point only would I differ from
them: they read the inscription on the gable as
"p(orta) ru(pestris) ," whereas it most certainly
must be taken as "p(edes) XII."
"Not far from the shrine of Apollo," continues
Gyriacus, "we saw the traces of the giant temple
of Diana and large marble remains." The drawing of confused ruins does little to tell us which
monument he supposed to be the Artemision
(the Temple of Artemis, to use Diana's Greek
name) .
"Near the sea," he goes on, "close to the temple
of Apollo, we also saw a huge marble theater. It
appears to have been 25 tiers high and about 60
cubits wide." His drawing has caught the regular
masonry and the turn of the analemma toward
the stage on both sides. Below the diazoma there

^^ext he returns to the Sacred Lake, which he
again calls "a circular naumachia, half a stade in
width, still filled with water and provided with a
wall and decorated with columns." Here he copied
two inscriptions of the Roman period, then
moved south to take down "an inscription in neat
Latin lettering on the marble stairs on the side
of another contest hall bedecked with countless
marble columns." This "contest hall" may be the
Agora of the Italians just north of the sanctuary,
for fragments of the inscription were found there.
After recording other inscriptions at "a hall
near the citadel of the city of Delos," he departed.
It was April 11, 1445, and as he turned his
face toward Tinos, Naxos and Paros, he called
on his patron genius, Mercury, whose delightful
portrait is based on an archaistic relief with
changes introduced (one hopes) by Schedel or
his copyist. The account of the visit to Delos ends
with the prayer which he made at this time:
"Nurturing father of the arts, of mind, of wit
and of speech, best lord of ways and journeys,
who by your most holy power have long blessed
my mind and heart; just as you made safe and
easy our most jocund travels by land and sea
through Latium, Illyria, Greece, Asia and Egypt:
so, bright Genius, vouchsafe on this happy, favorable, fortunate Sunday, the third day before the
Ides of April, as I depart from once-sacred Delos,
birthplace of Phoebus, through the Aegaean to
Mykonos, within view of it, and to Tinos, with
the noble Francesco Nanni, who governs these
famous Cycladic islands for Venice with a
quaestor's power, and in the governor's ship
which is equipped with 14 rowers, and with a
favoring sea and chorus of Nymphs and Nereids,
vouchsafe to direct, favor and accompany this our
journey through the whole world and, in your
kindness, make it a blessed and a happy one."
The author has presented to the readers of
Archaeology an acount of the earlier travels of
Cyriacus of Ancona in Athens (23 [1970] 96-105
and 188-199).
215
Archaeology Magazine - June 1972

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