The Builder of Rome

Four and a half centuries ago, a Flemish diplomat with the mouth-filling name of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, whom horticulturists know as the man who introduced lilacs and tulips into Europe, was making a slow progress through Turkey to negotiate with the Ottoman sultan, Soleiman the Magnificent, and along the way he dropped in at Ankara. There he came across an inscription of the Roman emperor Augustus, which he noted in his correspondence:

We saw a very fine inscription (at Ankara), a copy of the tablets upon which Augustus drew up a succinct account of his public acts. I had it copied out by my people as far as it was legible. It is graven on the marble walls of a building, which is probably the ancient residence of the governor, now ruined and roofless. One half of it is upon the right as one enters, and the other on the left. The upper paragraphs are almost intact; in the middle difficulties begin owing to gaps; the lowest...