BARTHELEMI (Jean Jacques), the Nestor of French literature, was a man so eminent for his knowledge of antiquities, that every classical reader must be interested in his fate. He was born, we believe, at Paris about the latter end of the year 1715; and being educated for the service of the church, he became prior of Courcay, keeper of the medals and antiques in the French king's cabinet, and in 1747 was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions. From that period his life was wholly devoted to letters; and in recording the principal events of it, we can only enumerate, in their order, his various publications.
A dissertation of his on the river Pactolus was read 1748 (Hist. de l'Acad. X. 29.); Reflections on a Medal of Xerxes, King of Arfamata (Mem. de l'Acad. XXXVII. 171.), found, or said to be found, by Fourmont in the temple of Apollo Anycleus (XXXIX. 120.); Essay on Numismatic Palæography, ib. 223; Dissertation on two Samaritan Medals of Antigonus King,
King of Judea, ib. 257; Remarks on some Inscriptions published by different authors, XLV. 69; Dissertation on Arabic Coins, ib. 143; by which it appears that the Mohammedan princes copied the heads of Greek and Roman ones on their coins, and gave Arabic inscriptions of their own names on the reverse. On the Ancient Alphabet and Language of Palmyra, ib. 179; on the Ancient Monuments of Rome, the result of a tour in Italy to collect medals for the royal cabinet, to which he added 300, XLIX. 151; on some Phœnician Monuments, and the Alphabets formed from them, LIII. 23. The characters on the written mountains, which he here cites, have been proved of no value; and he illustrates the conformity between the Phœnician and the Egyptian characters from the latter on the bandages of the mummies. Explanation of the Mosaic Pavement of the Temple of Præneste, ib. 149; of which there have been four engravings since its first discovery in 1650, and which Barthelèmi refers to the voyage of Adrian into Egypt. It may be of that date, but there is no reason to suppose that it represents any thing more than an Egyptian landscape. The form of letters determines the date in the judgment of the learned Abbé. On the Relations of the Egyptian, Phœnician, and Greek Languages, LVII. 383; on some Medals published by different authors, LIX. 270; Explanation of an Inscription under a Bas-relief in the Bishop of Carpentras's Library, 1767, ib. 363; on the Number of Pieces represented in one Day on the Theatre at Athens, LXXII. 286; three Comedies, as many Tragedies, a Satire, and a Petite Piece; Remarks on some Medals of the Emperor Antoninus struck in Egypt, LXXX. 484. 1775 (A).
His interpretation of the Phœnician inscription at Malta, LIII. 23, was controverted by our learned linguist, Mr Swinton, in Philos. Transact. LIV. art. xxii. p. 119; in farther remarks, ib. art. lxx. p. 393.
In 1792 he published a dissertation on an ancient Greek inscription, containing an account of expenses of the public feasts under the archontate of Glaucippus, 420 years before Christ.
The intimate acquaintance which he had cultivated with classical antiquity, enabled him, in the clove of a long life, to compose that chef-d'œuvre, the "Travels of the Younger Anacharsis into Greece" in the middle of the fourth century before the vulgar era. In representing the curiosity of a Scythian savage (for we cannot consider in any other light the man who put music and the excesses of the table on the same level), he takes occasion to interweave very curious and instructive details on the laws, religion, manners, customs, and general spirit, of a great nation, as well as its progress in arts and sciences. The epoch which he has chosen is that of letters and arts, combining the age of Pericles with that of Alexander, the revolution which changed the appearance of Greece, and soon after overturned the empire of Persia. The introduction comprehends the 1250 years elapsed from the age of Cecrops to the supposed era of Anacharsis, in two intervals; the first reaching to the commencement of the Olympiads, the second to the capture of Athens by the Lacedæmonians. The