And now I believe I have wearied you sufficiently by leading you up and down the Ancient and Famous City of Tadmor, and giving you so dry an Account of our Employment there. After 4 Days stay we returned, not the way that we came, but proceeding Eastward towards the River Euphrates. In our way to which, the third Day, passing though a Village called Tieve, upon a Stone set wrong End upwards, in the midst of the Wall of the Mosch, we met with the following Inscription.
ΔΙΙ ΜΕΓΙΣΤΩ ΚΕΡΑΥΝΙΩ ΥΠΕΡ ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑΣ ΤΡΑ: ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥ ΣΕΒ... ΤΟΥ ΚΥΡΙΟΥ ΑΓΑΘΑΝΓΕΛΟΣ ΑΒΙΛΗΝΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΔΕΚΑΠΟΛΕΟΣ ΤΗΝ ΚΑΜΑΡΑΝ ΩΚΟΔΟΜΗΣΕΝ ΚΑΙ ΤΗΝ ΚΛΙΝΗ.... ΕΞ ΙΔΙΩΝ ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕΝ ΕΤΟΥΣ ΕΜΥ ΜΗΝΟΣ ΛΩΟΥ.
And under this was another in the same Language and Character we had seen at Tadmor; I was surprized to find such an Inscription in this Place, nor can any way guess how they should come by it: And the mention of Decapolis makes me still more in the Dark. If one might extend the Bounds of Decapolis, as some are said to have done, as far as Cælosyria, and comprize under this Name again all Syria, Phænicia only excepted, then need it not be brought from elsewhere, but first set up in this Village. But this will not be allowed by those who make Decapolis only a part of Palestine. The Matter of Fact it contains is only an Account of the Magnificence of this Agathangelus Abilenus, whoever he was; who for the safety of the Emperor Hadrian, erected at his own Charges, and Dedicated to Jupiter the Thunderer, a Royal Banquetting-House, (for so I take [17]ΚΑΜΑΡΑ to signifie) and a Bed of State; for after ΚΛΙΝΗ there is doubtless a Letter omitted, and it ought to be ΚΛΙΝΗΝ. The Date 445 agrees to the Year of our Lord 123. which was the seventh of the Reign of Hadrian. And the Month ΛΩΟΣ is our August.
Arsoffa.
The next Day we past by the Ruins of a large Monastery of the Maronites, as I guess it to have been by an Inscription we met with upon the Capitals of several Marble Pillars, which supported the middle Isle of a handsome Church, which was to this effect.
† ΕΠΙ ΣΕΡΓΙΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΚΟ. ΤΟΥ ΣΥΝΓΕΝ~ ΜΑΡΩΝΙΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΧΩΡΕΠΙΣΚΟ.
From thence we past on, and came the same Night to Euphrates, and having travelled two Days on the Banks of that Famous River, we came to the Tents of the King of the Arabs, who had furnish'd us with a Guide for our Voyage. With him we remained two Nights, and in two Days Travel more came back safe to Aleppo, having been out in the whole just 18 Days.
The Reverend and Learned Author of this Account, cannot with Justice be censured, if some Minute Particulars of the History of this Place, have escaped his Memory, being obliged to write without recourse to the Books proper for his purpose, which were not to be had in that Country. We have since procured a Curious Prospect of these Noble Ruins, taken on the Place; which, with some further Remarks thereon, are here Published.