When Sir Thomas ROE set out for Constantinople he was charged with commissions to search for antiquities on BUCKINGHAM’S behalf, as well as on Lord ARUNDEL’S. He was himself a novice in such inquiries. He had to encounter excessive difficulties from the jealousy, and sometimes the dishonesty, of the Turkish and other agents whom he was obliged to employ. Most of them were stubborn in their belief that a search for old marbles did but mask the pursuit of buried treasure of greater currency. And to difficulties of this sort was added a standing fear that every service rendered to the Earl Marshal might be esteemed an offence to the powerful favourite at Whitehall. To an urgent letter which he had received from ARUNDEL just as he was embarking, Sir Thomas replied, from Constantinople, in January, 1622. ‘I moved our Consul, Richard MILWARD, at Scio, whom I found prepared and ready,’ he reports. ‘We conferred about “the Maid of Smirna” which he cannot yet obteyne, without an especiall command [from the Porte]. I brought with mee from Messina the Bishop of Andre, one of the islands of the Arches, a man of good learning and great experience in these parts. Hee assured mee that the search after old and good authors was utterly vaine.... The last French ambassador had the last gleanings. Only of some few he gave mee notice as of an old Tertullian, and a piece of Chrisostome ... which may be procured to be copied, but not the originall.... Concerning antiquities in marbles, there are many in divers parts, but especially at Delphos, unesteemed here, and, I doubt not, easy to be procured for the charge of digging and fetching, which must be purposely undertaken. It is supposed that many statues are buried to secure them from the envy of the Turks, and that, leave obteyned, [they] would come to light, which I will endeavour as soon as I am warm here.’ After mentioning that he had already procured some coins, he adds, with amusing naïveté, ‘I have also a stone, taken out of the old pallace of Priam in Troy, cutt in horned shape, but because I neither can tell of what it is, nor hath it any other bewty but only the antiquity and truth of being a peece of that ruined and famous building, I will not presume to send it you. [Sidenote: Sir T. Roe to Lord Arundel, 27 Jan., 1621 [O. S.]; _Negotiations_, p. 16.] Yet I have delivered it to the same messenger, that your Lordship may see it and throw it away.’