The travels and manuscripts of Dr. Anthony Askew and the development of Greek epigraphy in the 18th century

Abstract

This PhD dissertation investigates the early development of the field of Greek Epigraphy – the study of ancient inscriptions – during the 18th century by focusing on the travellers, merchants, and diplomats in the Eastern Mediterranean who read, copied, and collected these new sources for the ancient Greek world encountered on their journeys. The work stems from the discovery of an unpublished manuscript in the British Library, a notebook kept by Anthony Askew during his travels through Greece in 1747–8, a full edition of which is here presented. The manuscript contains around two hundred Greek and Latin inscriptions that Askew copied down in Athens and on the islands of Paros and Antiparos, many of which were never seen by anyone else and have subsequently been lost.

Askew had a Classical education but then studied medicine at Cambridge and Leiden before embarking on his tour through Europe to Greece. A life-long passion of his was the collecting of Classical manuscripts of ancient authors, and he would eventually in London amass one of the world’s largest private libraries. Inscriptions remained a central interest during his collecting, and he became part of a network of antiquarians across Europe who shared drawings and texts of inscriptions, discussed them, bought the stones and the manuscripts, and displayed them in their homes. The dissertation asks why inscriptions particularly grabbed the attention of travellers, how the collecting of them in physical or paper form enhanced their social and academic reputations, and how inscriptions were regarded by the wider public, universities and museums that held them in Britain during the long eighteenth century.