As Cyriac crossed and recrossed the Mediterranean, catching rides on Venetian and Genoesc naval ships as one might now take suburban commuter trains and calmly examining gems with their captains, he pursued his lifelong effort "to speak with the dead"--a vocation that took him through the Aegean, down to Egypt, and into mainland Greece and led him to record his adventures in richly detailed letters as well as the notebooks in which he copied inscriptions. Cyriac documented his two stays at Cyzicus with characteristic care.
   --Anthony T. Grafton, New York Review of Books

Edward W. Bodnar is Professor of Classics, Emeritus, Georgetown University.