Simultaneously with these excavations I had 22 men working in a north-westerly direction, from the south-eastern corner of the Acropolis, in order to lay bare the Great Tower still further on that side, an operation that has become impossible to effect from my great trench. But as the hill at this point has only a very gradual slope I was compelled to make the new cutting with a considerable slope, which renders the carting-off of the _débris_ much more troublesome, but is absolutely necessary, to enable us to reach the requisite depth of 26 feet for arriving at the Tower. At the very commencement of this cutting, at a foot below the surface, I came upon two enormous walls, each of which is 10 feet thick. The first seems to belong to the Middle Ages,[217] and consists of large blocks of Corinthian pillars joined by cement and of other marble blocks taken from ancient buildings. The second wall, which follows immediately, must certainly belong to the town-wall built by Lysimachus, which was 40 stadia long.[218] It is composed of large and beautifully hewn blocks of limestone, which are laid one upon another without any kind of cement, and which generally bear a monogram. As the letter is not always the same, and as for instance upon one stone there is a Σ, and upon another an Υ or a Δ, I presume that they are the initials of the different builders. In the first wall I found a marble slab nearly a foot thick, 32½ inches broad, and 3½ feet long, with the following inscription:--
ΗΒΟΥΛΗΚΑΙΟΔΗΜΟΣ ΓΑΙΟΝΚΑΙΣΑΡΑΤΟΝΥΙΟΝΤΟΥΣΕΒΑΣ ΤΟΥΤΟΝΣΥΝΓΕΝΗΚΑΙΠΑΤΡΩΝΑΚΑΙΕΥ ΕΡΓΕΤΗΝΤΗΣΠΟΛΕΩΣ
Ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ δῆμος Γάϊον Καίσαρα τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Σεβασ- τοῦ τὸν συνγενῆ καὶ πατρῶνα καὶ εὐ- εργέτην τῆς πόλεως.
The person praised in this inscription can by no means have been the Emperor Caligula, for in that case the title αὐτοκράτωρ would have been added. But as this word is wanting, the person meant is certainly Caius Cæsar, the son of Vipsanius Agrippa and of Julia, the daughter of Octavianus. He had a brother called Lucius. Both were adopted by Augustus, and owing to this adoption they received the title of “υἱὸς τοῦ Σεβαστοῦ,” and both were selected by Augustus as his successors. Caius Cæsar, born in the year 20 B.C., was adopted at the age of three years. He took part in the Trojan games, which Augustus instituted at the dedication of the temple of Marcellus. At the age of fifteen he was appointed Consul, and when nineteen he was made Governor of Asia. During his administration there he became involved in a war with Phraates the king of Armenia, was wounded, and died in the year 4 after Christ, on the 21st of February, at the age of 24.[219] As in the inscription he is called the kinsman, the benefactor, and the patron of Ilium, it is probable that he often came here during his administration; at all events, he took great interest in the city, and lavished favours upon it. The family of the Julii always attached great importance to their descent from Iülus (or Ascanius) the son of Æneas; and the sole political object of Virgil’s Æneid was to prove and glorify their genealogy. This explains the favours which the Julii lavished upon Ilium, and their hatred against the Greeks because they destroyed Troy, and also because they had espoused the cause of Mark Antony.