INSCRIPTIONS

I. CUNEIFORM

Inscriptions in characters sometimes termed cuneiform or wedge-shaped, sometimes arrow-headed, have been found throughout a large part of western Asia,—in Persia and Babylonia, Assyria and Media, Armenia and Mesopotamia. The names given to the characters are derived from their form, as some of them resemble the points of arrows, though most have the appearance of wedges, thicker at one end than at the other. This appear-ance is due to the fact that the characters were originally impressed upon moist clay by a metal stylus, and the form consequently assumed by them was subsequently imitated by the engraver upon stone and metal. The characters were primarily pictorial, but in course of time the outlines of the primitive pictures came to be alone preserved, while the nature of the writing materials caused curves to become angles, and rounded lines straight ones.
Varieties of Cuneiform Writing.-—The original home of the cuneiform system of writing was either Elam or Babylonia, the inventors of the hieroglyphics in which it originated being the ancient Accadian population of Chaldea. It passed from the latter to a number of other nations, undergoing at the same time a variety of modifi-cations. It was first borrowed by the Semitic settlers in Babylonia and Assyria, and from them it was handed on to the Turanian tribes of India, the Alarodians of ancient Armenia, and the Aryans of Persia, while the Turanian inhabitants of Elam or Susiania preserved the system as it had been in use among the Accadians of Chaldea.

In Babylonia, Assyria, Susiania, and Media the forms of the characters underwent several changes at succes-sive periods, the tendency in each case being to simplify the characters by dropping superfluous wedges. In Baby-lonia we have to distinguish between the archaic, the linear, the hieratic, and the later forms of the characters. The archaic forms are principally found on bricks and cylinders of the Accadian epoch (before 2000 B.C.), and are the oldest forms of the characters of which we have contemporary specimens. The linear forms were in use at the same time, and are marked off from the archaic forms by being written in continuous lines instead of a series of wedges, and sometimes also by a closer resemblance to the original pictures from which they were derived. The hieratic forms were mainly employed between the over-throw of the Accadian power (about 1700 B.C.) and the 8th century B.C., more especially for contracts and similar docu-ments. The later forms may be seen on the monuments of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, a further modification of them being used for the Babylonian transcripts of the Persian cuneiform inscriptions. In Assyria also we may classify the characters as archaic, hieratic, and later (or Ninevite), though the forms they assumed in Assyria were not identical with those used in Babylonia which we have called by similar names. The hieratic forms were mainly employed in Assyria for ornamental or religious purposes, and may be compared with our own black letter. In Susi-ania the archaic forms of the characters lingered to the last, though in the northern part of the country simpli-fied forms were in use. In Media a considerable differ-ence may be observed between the peculiar forms of many characters in the older inscriptions of Mai-Amir and the forms borne by them in the Protomedic transcripts of the Persian monuments. The Armenian or Vannic characters were the same as those of Assyria, except that where one line or wedge had to be drawn across another, it was broken into two. But this was to prevent the stone from breaking at the point of section.

It will be noticed that the cuneiform characters were employed to express very different languages. The Accadian, like the allied dialects of Susiania and primitive Media, was agglutinative, and probably belonged to the Ural-Altaic family of speech; Assyrian and later Baby-lonian were Semitic ; Persian was East Aryan ; while the Armenian of Van seems to claim affinity with that Alarodian group of tongues of which Georgian may be regarded as the modern representative.

The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing.—As already stated, the cuneiform characters were in their origin pictorial. In many cases it is possible to restore the primitive hieroglyphics or ideographs by the help of the archaic and linear Babylonian forms,- and a fragment of a clay tablet has been discovered on which the pictorial originals of a few characters are given. In order to restore the primitive pictures, it is frequently necessary to turn a character upon its side, from which we may infer that the ideographs were once written vertically like Chinese. Thus ^ J*^ the ideograph of " an eye," is plainly a representation of the eye in a vertical position.

The primitive pictures denoted either objects or ideas, the latter being represented metaphorically by the picture of one or more objects. "Life," for example, was expressed by the picture of a growing flower, " a month " by placing the numeral xxx. within the circle of the sun, which symbolized the day. But the same picture might denote more than one idea or object. Thus the circle of the sun represented not only " the sun " and " the day," but also "light," "brilliance," and the like; and a pair of legs represented the ideas of "going," " walking," and "running." By combining two or more ideographs together, fresh ideas might be symbolized to an almost infinite extent; " drink-ing," for example, is denoted by placing the three drops which denoted water within the picture of the mouth, " language " by substituting the tongue for the three drops of water, and " a tear " by setting the ideograph of water before that of the eye.

Out of this early picture-writing there soon grew a syllabary. Accadian was an agglutinative language, which was already largely affected by phonetic decay, the result being that on the one hand the same word might be used indifferently for noun, verb, and adverb, as in English, while on the other hand the loss of final sounds had reduced a great part of the vocabulary to the condition of mono-syllables. Ideographs consequently came to be associated with the sounds of the words which they primarily or most usually represented, and these words were mostly mono-syllabic. Thus the ideograph of " month " (itii) was known as id or it, that of " going " (dun) as du, that of " drinking " as nak, that of a " tear " as

But the same object or idea was frequently expressed by more than one name, while each of the ideas represented by a single sign was naturally denoted by a different word. Hence the same ideograph, or character, as we may now term it, had varying pronunciations assigned to it according to its meaning and use; the ideograph of the " sun," for instance, was called, not only ut or ud (for utu), but also par (for para), tarn, lakh, and His. Thus the ideographs, as soon as they came to appeal to the ear as well as to the eye, were necessarily polyphonous.

A further step in advance was now taken. An ideograph continued to represent the pronunciation of the word for which it originally stood even when it no longer represented the word itself; that is to say, the pronunciation of the word it denoted became attached to it as a mere phonetic value. This important innovation, which amounted to a change of the old picture-writing into a syllabary, must have taken place at an early period in its history. Though native proper names, which were always significant, could be written ideographically, it was necessary to find some other way of denoting foreign proper names, which had no meaning in Accadian. The pronouns, moreover, must have been a difficulty from the first, and the fact that these are invariably represented in Accadian, not by ideographs, but by characters used phonetically, indicates a very early date for the employment of the characters to represent syllabic sounds as well as ideas. This is borne out by the existence of several compound characters, in which the second element denotes only the pronunciation of the words for which they stand. The picture of a corpse, for example, had the phonetic value of bat, since bat, meant " corpse" and "death" in Accadian; but, as bat also signified "a fortress," the ideograph of " corpse " was inserted within the ideograph of " enclosure," not because there was any relationship between the ideas of "death" and "fortress," but to indicate that the character which meant an enclosure was to be interpreted as signifying " a fortress," and to be pronounced bat. So, too, the usual word for " going " was dun or du; but there was another word ara or ra with the same meaning, and when the latter was intended to be read the fact was pointed out by attaching the character which had the phonetic value of ra to the ideograph which expressed the idea of "going."

While the characters could thus be used as mere phonetic symbols, some few of them could be employed, on the other hand, for the language of the eye only. These were the determinative prefixes and affixes, such as the eight-rayed star, which represented a deity, or the shaded circle, which denoted a country or place. Their original use seems to have been to mark out those groups of characters which had to be read phonetically, and not as ideographs.

Like the lexicographers of China, the lexicographers of Accad attempted to classify and arrange the characters of their syllabary. Every character received a name of its own, so that literary works could be copied from dictation. A list of primary characters was first drawn up, each of which was named from the object it originally represented. The remaining characters were regarded as compounds, and divided into two classes. The first class consisted of characters which differed from the primary ones in having extra wedges, the second class of those that were reallycom-pounds. This classification of the syllabary must have been completed at a very remote date, since the analysis of many of the compound characters can only be explained by the forms they bear in archaic Babylonian, and in some cases even the archaic Babylonian forms are not sufficiently primitive. We may gather from this some idea of the epoch to which the invention of the cuneiform system of writing reaches back.

The Transmission of the Cuneiform Characters.—As far back as the second millennium B.C. Semitic tribes were ID possession of a part of Chaldea. Duigi, the son and sue* cessor of the first Accadian monarch of whom we have contemporaneous record, has left us an inscription in which the cuneiform system of writing is adapted to the expression of a Semitic language. By the 17th century B.C. the Accadian language seems to have been wholly superseded by Semitic Babylonian and its northern dialect Assyrian. Along with other elements of civilization, the Semites received the cuneiform system of writing from their pre-decessors, and in the process of transmission the transfor-mation of the old picture-writing into a syllabary was com-pleted. The Accadian words represented by the characters when used as ideographs became phonetic values, and, since the same ideograph usually represented several different words, almost every character was polyphonous. It is true that some of these Accadian words, and even some of the phonetic values borne by the characters in Accadian, were rejected by the Semites, but on the other hand new pho-netic values attached themselves to a few of the characters derived from the Semitic pronunciation of the latter when employed ideographically. For the Semites continued to use the characters on occasions ideographically as well as syllabically.

A greater extension was also given to the employment of determinative prefixes; the name of an individual, for instance, is always preceded by an upright wedge, the names of a country and a city by the ideographs which stand for these two ideas. The reader was assisted towards knowing when a character was used as an ideograph by the employment of phonetic complements, that is to say, characters which denoted the last syllable of the word intended to be read. Thus, when the ideograph ^, " to conquer," is followed by the syllable ud, we may infer that it must be pronounced acsud, " I conquered," or some other person of the past tense of the same verb.

The real difficulty the cuneiform syllabary offers to the decipherer is not the polyphony of the characters, but one which would not have been felt by the Assyrians them-selves. Accadian and Assyrian phonology did not always agree, and in borrowing the Accadian system of writing the Assyrians had to adapt the sounds of their own language, as best they could, to the phonetic symbols of another. Consequently no distinction in writing is made between final 6 and p; g, c, and k; and d, dh, and t. Teth is inadequately represented sometimes by d, sometimes by t; and there is but one character for za (m) and tsa (tf¥). No difference could be drawn between u and yu, and i and yi, while the representative of the consonantal ayin has to stand also for the diphthong e.

The Assyrians continued to follow the example of the Babylonians in writing on clay, but they also made use of papyrus and stone. This literature on clay is very exten-sive, and embraces every branch of study known at the time. For an account of it see BABYLONIA, vol. iii. p. 191.

The learned court of Assur-bani-pal in the 7th century B.C. amused itself with essays in Accadian composition, the extinct language of primitive Babylonia standing in much the same relation to the Assyrians that Latin does to us. But literary Assyrian itself was fast becoming an artificial dialect. The Aramasan alphabet was introduced into Nineveh at least as early as the 8th century B.C., and, though Nebuchadnezzar and his successors continued to employ the cuneiform syllabary, the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus was a blow from which the old mode of writing never recovered. The literary dialect and the characters in which it was inscribed were more and more disused, and finally disappeared altogether. Commercial tablets, how-ever, dated in the reigns of the earlier Arsacid princes, have been found written in cuneiform, and if M. Oppert's identification is correct, a deed of sale, now in the Zurich museum, and written in cuneiform characters, is dated in the fifth year of Pacorus, the contemporary of Domitian.

The Assyrian syllabary was borrowed by the Armenians and Minnians of Lake Van in the reign of a certain king named Lutipri in the 9th century B.C. The characters both in form and use are identical with those of Nineveh, except that the Armenians rejected the polyphony of the Assyrian syllabary, and with one or two exceptions used each sign with one phonetic value only.

After the occupation of Armenia by the Aryans, the use of the cuneiform character seems to have been discontinued, and no " Vannic " or Armenian cuneiform inscriptions are known to exist of later date than the 7th century B.C.

The example set by the Armenians seems to have been soon followed by their Turanian neighbours in Media. The earliest specimens of the so-called Protomedic (or Amardian) syllabary are to be found in the inscriptions of Mai-Amir and Sherif Khan. The syllabary of Nineveh appears to have been again the source from which the new script was borrowed. As among the Armenians, polyphony was rejected, a few ideographs only were used, and a selected number of characters employed. The Protomedic tran-scripts of the Persian inscriptions are written in this syllabary. In Susiania or Elam the archaic Babylonian form of cuneiform continued in use up to the last.

It was reserved for the Aryans of Persia to discover the ultimate capabilities of the cuneiform system of writing by reducing its characters to an alphabet of forty letters. These were divided into two classes, those with an inherent vowel a, and those which were followed by u and i. At the same time all superfluous wedges were thrown away, and the forms of the characters thus simplified as much as their pronunciation. Dr Oppert has pointed out the prin-ciple upon which the formation of this new alphabet was carried out. Some one meaning was selected among those a character might bear when used as an ideograph, and this was rendered by its Persian equivalent. The initial sound of the latter was the alphabetic value henceforth represented by the character. Thus ^-^JiS " time of life," 'Zaya in Persian, was contracted into >-J^ and made to represent 'z (a, u\ A few ideographs were retained along with the alphabetic characters. The Persian cuneiform alphabet, called " Assyrian letters " by Herodotus, seems to have been invented in the early part of the reign of Darius, and, being confined to monumental purposes, soon fell into disuse.

Possibly the reduction of the cuneiform syllabary into an alphabet was suggested by a previous acquaintance with alphabetic writing. In the Persian inscriptions the words are divided from one another by an oblique wedge. A similar division of words is found in one or two Assyrian inscriptions.

See Menant, Le Syllabaire Assyrien, 1861-73 ; Sayce, Lectures upon the Assyrian Language and Syllabary, 1877. (A. H. S.)

II. SEMITIC.

An account has already been given (see ALPHABET) of the derivation of the Phoenician alphabet from the hieratic alphabet of the Egyptian papyri of the middle empire. No early monuments written in it have as yet been found; the first known examples belong to a time when the alphabet had been widely spread and a literature had long existed. At this time we find the alphabet divided into two branches, the Phoenician and the Aramaean, the first being again subdivided into archaic and Sidonian. The last two are chiefly distinguished by the form of the g», which is angular in the first and rounded in the second.

The earliest inscription in the Phoenician alphabet known to us is the stele of Mesha, king of Moab, found at Dhiban and belonging to the 9th century B.C. In this Mesha relates that after the death of Ahab his god Chemosh enabled him to shake off the yoke of Israel, to drive the Gadites out of Ataroth, and to fortify Kir-hareseth, Aroer, Horonaim, Dibon, and other places. The language of the inscription differs only dialectically from Hebrew.
To the same form of the alphabet belong most of the Phoenician inscriptions on the engraved gems brought of late years from Assyria and Babylonia, among which may be mentioned a cone with the image of a " golden calf " and the names Shemaiah and Azariah (in'l"lTJ? p in*J?DB>^. The Aramaic legends on the bilingual lion-weights of Nimrud, which date from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II. (745-727 B.C.) downwards, also belong to the same form of the alphabet. With these inscriptions may be classed the Phoenician inscription on a bowl lately restored by M. Clermont Ganneau, which mentions a King Hiram, and had been brought with other merchandise from Phoenicia to Cyprus, where it was found. Of later date are the graffiti scratched on the legs of the colossi at Abu-Simbel in Nubia by Phoenician travellers or mercenaries.

The most important monument of the Sidonian period of the Phoenician alphabet is the sarcophagus of Eshmun'azar, son of Tabnith (1 Tennes), " king of the Sidonians," which is probably of the 6th century B.C. It may, however, be later. The inscription upon it states that Eshmun'azar had restored the ruined temples of Sidon, and prays the gods to preserve to that city the possession of " Dor, Joppa, and the rich cornlands in the plain of Sharon." Other note-worthy monuments of the same period are the so-called " Second Sidonian Inscription," which records the installa-tion of a subordinate " king of Sidon " by a " king of the Sidonians" of Phoenicia ; the inscriptions from Citium in Cyprus of King Pumyathon and his father Melecyathon in the 4th century B.C., as well as the bilingual Phoenician-Greek and Phoenician-Cypriote inscriptions from the same island, the Phoenician-Cypriote inscription of Melecyathon having furnished Mr George Smith with the key to the Cy-priote syllabary; together with six inscriptions from Athens and two from Malta; and the three inscriptions found by M. Renan at Umm'-el-Awamid on the Phoenician coast.

The numerous dedicatory inscriptions found on the site of Carthage are written in what is termed the Punic development of the Sidonian alphabet; all apparently belong to the Greek period. The most important Punic inscription is the tariff of sacrifices found at Marseilles in 1845, an abridged edition of which was discovered on the site of Carthage by Mr Davis in 1860. The regulations contained in it have a striking analogy to many of those of Leviticus. Its date, however, cannot be very early, since it makes no mention of human sacrifices. The Punic alphabet was the source of those of Numidia and Boetica, where inscriptions have been found.

The series of Aramaean inscriptions begins with the dockets on Assyrian contract-tablets of the age of Tiglath-Pileser II. and his successors, when Nineveh and Carchemish became the chief centreB of trade in western Asia. To the same period may be assigned an interesting gem from Babylonia inscribed ninny m TWplh, as well as the cylinder of the eunuch Achadban, son of Gebrod, from Babylonia, and the cone of Hadrakia, son of Hurbad, from, Nineveh. As already observed, the inscriptions on the Assyrian lion-weights, though in the archaic Phoenician form of the alphabet, are Aramaic in language. Passing over the engraved stones of the Achssmenian epoch, we may notice the famous bronze lion of Abydos, belonging probably to the 5th century B.C., on which an Aramaic legend is written. Of considerably later date is the inscription on an altar found by M. Mariette in the Serapeum, in characters which resemble those of the Aramaean papyri of Ptolemaic Egypt. The alphabet of the latter, however, is still more closely represented by certain funereal monuments found in Egypt with Aramaean inscriptions, the best known of which is the inscription of Carpentras, which records the death of a priestess of Osiris.

Starting from the 1st century B.C., the ruins of Palmyra and Taiba have furnished us with a large number of inscrip-tions in the Aramaic dialect of the locality. MM. de Vogue and Waddington alone have discovered more than a hundred of them. Most of them are written in what may be termed uncial characters, but there are a few in a cursive hand, Among the persons mentioned in them is Odeinath (Odenatus), the husband of Zenobia. Palmyrene inscrip-tions have been met with in Africa and Rome, and a bilingual one (in Palmyrene and Latin) has lately been found at South Shields.

Professor Sachau has recently discovered two inscriptions in Old Syriac characters, one at Zebed, near Palmyra, aocompanied by Greek and archaic Arabic transcripts, and the other among the early Christian tombs of Edessa.

Passing over an Aramaic legend found by M. de Saulcy on a sarcophagus of the tombs of the kings at Jerusalem, and the coins of the kings of Edessa, we may notice the Mendaite inscription of twenty lines discovered in a tomb at Abu-Shadr in southern Babylonia, and first explained by Dietrich. It probably belongs to the 4th or 5th century. Inscriptions in Western Aramaic have been found in the Hauran. Among these is one on a tomb at Sueydeh, raised by Odeinath to his wife Hamrath in the time of Herod the Great, accompanied by a Greek transcript. Six other inscriptions of the same period come from the temple of Siah; one of them is dedicated to the god Katsiu, the Zeus Kasios of the Greeks.

The Hauran, more particularly the neighbourhood of Bozra, has also yielded a number of Nabathean inscriptions, written in a sort of Aramaic running hand. Nabathean inscriptions have further been found at Umm' er-Russas in Moab, and at Petra, as well as on the coins of Aretas and other Nabathean princes. But they are specially numerous on the rocks of Sinai, where they were scratched by pilgrims in the 3d and 4th centuries of our era, and were first deciphered by Beer. They consist for the most part of proper names, preceded or followed by the word shdlom, "peace." The Aramaic dialect of these inscriptions is tinctured by Arabisms, among which may be mentioned the use of the article el. Two Nabathean inscriptions have been discovered at Pozzuoli, where, as we learn from the Acts, there was a Jewish colony.

The Nestorian Syrians carried their language and letters as far even as China. The celebrated inscription of Si-gan-fu is written in good Estrangelo of the 8th century. A Hebrew inscription has also been found at Khai-fong-fu.

Ancient Hebrew epigraphy is poorly represented. The earliest Hebrew inscriptions are three from Siloam, one of which is addressed to " Baal of the temple," a fragment found in the streets of Jerusalem by M. Vernes, and a boundary stone discovered by M. Ganneau near Gezer. The royal names on the pottery found near the foundations of Solomon's temple are not Hebrew, but Phoenician. The Maccabean period has left us several inscribed monuments and coins. The oldest are the epitaph of eight members of the priestly family of Hezir (1 Chr. xxiv. 15) on the Doric tomb of St James at Jerusalem, the beginning of an inscription on a monument to the north-west of Jerusalem, and an inscription on the sarcophagus found by De Saulcy in the tomb of the kings, which probably belongs to a female relative of Helen, queen of Adiabene, in the 1st century of our era. Other early inscriptions have been copied in Galilee, especially in the synagogues of Kefr-Bereim as well as in the Jewish catacombs on the Via Portuensis at Rome. From the 10th century onwards the Jewish cemeteries in Spain, Italy, the south of France, Turkey, and Egypt enable us to trace the history of Hebrew writing up to the close of the Middle Ages; and Professor Ascoli has lately drawn attention to the inscrip-tions in the Jewish cemetery of Venosa, which enable us to fill up the gap that had previously existed between the memorials of the 10th century and those of the 4th. We must not forget also the exorcisms, written in a dialect allied to that of the Mishna on bronze bowls found at Babylon by Sir A. H. Layard, or the sepulchral inscriptions collected by Firkowitz in a Karaite cemetery of the Crimea, dated sometimes from the creation, sometimes from the capture of Samaria. The latter belong to the 9th and following centuries, though the discoverer falsified the dates of many of them in order to assign them to an earlier period (see Strack in the Z. D. M. 67., xxxiv. 1, 1880). Hebrew inscriptions in ancient characters have further been met with from Tiflis to Derbend.

Arabic epigraphy begins with the rise of Islam. Two systems of writing were used concomitantly, the Cufic or uncial, and the Neski or running hand, neither of which, however, can be derived from the other. The earliest inscriptions yet known are two sepulchral ones, the first of which has been published by Wetzstein, Waddington, and De Vogue, while the other has lately been discovered by Sachau at Zebed. A Cufic inscription, dated 693 A.D., has been copied by De Vogue, at Jerusalem, and the old cemetery near Assuan contains a large number of similar inscriptions, some of which, as deciphered by Count Amari, contain the names of the companions of the prophet. Unfortunately this cemetery has never been thoroughly examined. Mention may also be made of Cufic inscrip-tions at Bozra, in Sicily, and elsewhere. Inscriptions in Greek and Neski Arabic have been found at Damascus, Tiberias, and other places, one of which is dated 696 A.D., while others are even older.

Passing to the north, we find the rocks of the desert of Safa (south-east of Damascus) covered with graffiti written in peculiar characters which long defied decipherment. About six hundred and eighty of them have been copied. M. Halevy, however, has now succeeded in reading them (see Journal Asiatique, Jan.-Feh, 1877, and Z. D. M. G., xxxii. 1, 1878), and showing that they are mostly the productions of Thamudite soldiers in the Roman army. The alphabet turns out to be intermediate between the Phoenician and the Himyaritic. The Himyaritic is the name usually given to the form of the Phoenician alphabet used in southern Arabia. Here a considerable number of pre-Islamitic inscriptions have been found, belonging partly to the kingdom of Saba, partly to that of Ma'n or the Mineans, where a dialect allied to that of Hadramaut was spoken. Many of them contain the names of kings, while most make us acquainted with various deities, among others 'Athtar, the equivalent of Ashtoreth. The Him-yaritic alphabet was carried to Abyssinia, where it became the Ghe'ez or Ethiopic syllabary. The earliest specimens of Ethiopic writing are two inscriptions of King Tazgna copied by Ruppell on the monuments of Axum, which belong to the 5th century.
Inscriptions in still undeciphered characters, some of __ which resemble those of the Himyaritic alphabet, though [ the larger number is more closely related to the demotic and hieratic characters of Egypt, have been copied (in 1880) by Professor Robertson Smith on the rocks of Taif near Jeddah. (Compare the inscription from the neigh-bourhood of El-Wijh given by Wellsted, ii. 189.) Captain Burton has also found an inscription in characters not unlike the Himyaritic, in the Wady Intaysh, with which he compares two semi-Nabathean inscriptions from Wady Unayyid copied by Dr Wallin, and an inscription at Mecca given by Dozy (The Gold Mines of Midian, 1878).

The inscriptions of the Semitic Babylonians and As-syrians are separately treated above. The curious Hittite hieroglyphics found of late years at Carchemish, Aleppo, Hamath, and various places in Asia Minor do not seem to conceal a Semitic language.

See Fr. Lenormant, Essai sur la Propagation de VAlphabet phénicien dans l'ancien Monde, 1872-75 ; E. Renan, Histoire générale et Système comparé des Langues Sémitiques, 1863 ; Gesenius, Scriptural Linguaique Phœniciaz Monumenta, 1837; Schroder, Die phiinizische Sprache, 1869 ; De Vogué, Mélanges d'Archéologie orientale, 1868. Clermont-Ganneau's work on the Moabite Stone will supersede previous monographs. (A. H. S.)

III. INDIAN

The inscriptions of India are very numerous and of great variety. They are found upon rocks, pillars, and build-ings, in caves, topes, and temples, and on plates of copper. These last are grants of land made by kings for religious purposes, and they are historically valuable because they contain, not only the name of the grantor, but a more or less complete list of his predecessors. Implicit reliance cannot be placed on these documents. Vanity has some-times led to the invention of an illustrious ancestry. So far back as the old lawgiver Manu, punishments were denounced upon the forgers of grants, and plates that are palpable forgeries have been discovered.

1 He found the key to it by a very happy guess. He was engaged in copying some short inscriptions engraven upon the pillars of a temple at Sânchi, and he observed that, although each inscription was in the main different, all of them terminated with the same two letters. Knowing that devout Buddhists were in the habit of making votive offerings of pillars, rails, and ornaments to their temples, and of inscrib-ing upon them a record of the gift with the name of the donor, Mr Prinsep assumed that the oft repeated two letters represented the word ddnam, "gift," and this surmise proved to be correct. He thus obtained the consonants d and n, and as the name preceding the word dânam must necessarily he in the genitive case, this fact made him

The oldest and most important of the inscriptions are the religious edicts of King Piyadasi, who is styled Devdnam-piya, " the beloved of the gods." Their date is clearly proved to be about 250 B.C. This Piyadasi is now by universal consent admitted to be identical with the great Maurya king Asoka, grandson of Chandra-gupta, whose identification by Sir W. Jones with Sandrakoptos or Sandracottus, the ally of Seleucus Nicator, is the corner-stone of that very tottering structure, Hindu chronology. The first published inscription of Piyadasi was copied from a stone column 42 feet high, and known as the Ldt or pillar of Eiroz Shah, a sultan who, about the middle of the 14th century, conveyed it to Delhi from a village in the hills about 250 miles distant, and re-erected it as an ornament to his capital. The same monarch brought from Meerut and re-erected near his palace another similar column, but this was thrown down by an explosion in the year 1719, and, although it has lately been raised again, it is so much mutilated that scarcely half of the inscription remains. A copy of the inscription on the first of these columns was published by Captain Hoare in the Asiatic Researches in 1801. It was a subject of great curiosity and speculation, but it baffled all attempts to decipher it until the year 1837, when the acute sagacity of James Prinsep surmounted the difficulty. This particular alphabet having been first discovered on and translated from a Ldt, or pillar inscrip-tion, obtained the name of the " Ldt alphabet," but the name " Indian Pali" is now generally preferred.

The mystery of the alphabet being thus penetrated, the longer and more important rock inscriptions were taken in hand. Two versions were then known, one at Girnar in Kathiawar, the other discovered and copied by Kittoe at Dhauli in Orissa, at the extreme opposite side of India. Dr Wilson of Bombay and Captain Postans furnished Prinsep with copies of the former, and he collated the two versions. He then transliterated them in modern char-acters, and with the help of a pandit he rendered them into English. Not long afterwards Prinsep's brilliant discoveries were brought to a close by his untimely death in April 1840.

master of the letter s. He used this key with such ardour and success that in the course of a month he was able to make a transliteration and

In the year 1836 M. Court, an officer in the service of Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab, made known the existence of a rock inscription at Kapur-di-giri, west of the Indus, and not very far from Attock. Subsequent explorations show that the rock is really situated in the village of Shahb&z-garhi. No copy was obtained until October 1838, when the traveller Masson most carefully and perseveringly made a calico stampage and an eye copy. These he presented to the Royal Asiatic Society, whose acute and laborious secretary, Edwin Norris, proceeded to make a reduced copy of the calico stampage. This inscrip-tion was not in the Lat character, but in that now known as the Bactrian Pali or Ariano-Pali, which bears strong indications of a Phoenician origin. The Lat alphabet or Indian Pali is written, like the character of the Sanskrit, from left to right; the Ariano-Pali runs from right to left. This character had previously been found on the bilingual coins of the Greek kings of Bactria, the obverse of which bore a Greek legend, and the reverse had some letters which proved to be a rendering of the same in Ariano-Pali. Masson first detected the connexion between the two legends, and Prinsep following up his suggestion soon settled the value of several of the Ariano-Pali letters. Similar discoveries were made simultaneously by Lassen in Germany. The letters so discovered were available as keys for the interpretation of the Shahbaz-garhi inscription, but only as keys, for the inscription contained many dubious and unknown characters, and, unlike the alphabet of the Indian Pali, it possessed numerous compound letters. It was in the process of copying that Norris, like Prinsep, hit upon a clue. He remarked a frequently repeated group of letters, and he came to the conviction that these represented the words Levdnam-piya. He made known this opinion (J. R. A. S., viii. 303), and gave a copy of a short separate part of the inscription to a young student, afterwards Professor Dowson, who accepted the reading. Knowing that these words were the oft repeated title of Piyadasi in the Girnar inscription, Mr Dowson proceeded to make a comparison of the two and discovered their identity. The whole inscription eventually proved to be a third version of Asoka's edicts. In the year 1850 a fourth version was discovered and copied, though it was not made public, by Mr (now Sir Walter) Elliot, at Jaugada near Ganjam in Orissa, about 50 miles south of Dhauli. Lastly, a fifth copy was discovered by Mr Forrest early in 1860, at Khalsi, west of the Jumna, about 15 miles from Masuri or Mussooree. The late Captain Chapman (J. R. A. 8., xiii. 176) brought from Ceylon a copy of a small fragment of rock inscription, and in this the words Devanam-piya are distinct, but the copy was made by eye and is unintelligible. These inscriptions show the extent of Asoka's influence, if not of his direct empire. Their positions are Afghanistan, the foot of the Himalayas, the extreme east and west of the centre of India, and presump-tively Ceylon, where it is known from other sources that As oka ruled. The inscription of Shahbaz-garhi is the only one in the Ariano-Pali character, the others are in the Lat or Indian Pali alphabet. The language of all of them is a Prakrit or a sort of Pali, the immediate descendant of Sanskrit, but bearing marks of a long process of detrition. There are dialectical differences in the different versions, and there are also divergences of spelling, as Idja = raja, dipi — lipi, &c. The Khalsi inscription differs from the other Indian Pali versions in having two of the three dis-tinct sibilants of the Sanskrit, while the others have only one. The inscriptions at Girnar, Khalsi, and Shahbaa-garhi consist of fourteen distinct edicts; those at Dhauli and Jaugada omit three of them, but add two new ones, which, being written apart, are known as the " detached edicts."

When Prinsep and his pandit made their translations, they had before them only the two versions of Girnar and Dhauli. On the publication of the ShahbAz-garhi version Professor H. H. Wilson made a comparison of the three, and brought out an amended translation which was certainly an improvement upon Prinsep's; but he was far from satisfied with his performance, and declared it " open to correction on every page." The learned and critical Burnouf subsequently studied them, and made fresh translations of parts, which again marked an advance, but he declared that " personne ne peut se flatter d' arriver du premier coup a l'intelligence definitive de ces monumens difficiles." Professor Kern of Ley den has since worked upon them, and his method is turning the language back into Sanskrit and then translating into English. This process only carries out more systematically that of the previous translators. They all interpreted the inscriptions through Sanskrit, making use of such knowledge of Pali and the other Prakrits as they possessed or could acquire. The translations are acknowledged to be imperfect and unsatisfactory, and no great improvement can be expected through Sanskrit alone. The words vary greatly in form from their Sanskrit originals, and some changes of meaning and construction no doubt accompanied their alterations in form, Comparative philology, in tracing back the modern tongues of India through the Prakrits to the Sanskrit, will probably throw fresh light upon the language of the inscriptions, and make more perfect translations possible. All the known inscriptions of Asoka are now accessible to the student. General Cunningham, the Archaeological Surveyor of Hindustan, has published the first volume of his Corpus Inscriptioimm Indicarum, in which he has given carefully corrected facsimiles, with parallel translitera-tions, of the five versions and all published translations. Mr Burgess also has published an excellent collotype of the Girnar version, with transcriptions and translations, in his Archaeological Survey of Kdthiawdr. Asoka was a convert to Buddhism, but his edicts bear few distinctive marks of that or any formal religion, and they are entirely free from vaunts of his power and dignity. They inculcate a life of morality and temperance, a practical religion, not one of rites and ceremonies. They proscribe the slaughter of animals, and they enjoin obedience to parents, affection for children, friends, and dependants, reverence for elders, Buddhist devotees, and Brahmans, universal benevolence, and unreserved toleration. They would seem to have been set up at a time when there were few differences between Buddhists and Brahmans, and their apparent object was to unite the people in a bond of peace by a religion < of morality and charity free from dogma and ritual. One of the edicts provides for the appointment of missionaries to spread the religion. The thirteenth edict refers to Asoka's foreign relations. It mentions the Greek king Antiochus, and refers to some connexion through him with four other kings, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, and Alexander, or, to quote the words of the Shahbaz-garhi version, " Antiyoke nama Yona-raja parancha tena Antiyokena chaturo |||| rajane Turamaye nama Antikini nama Maka nama Alikasandare nama." The four strokes are numerals, equi-valents of the word chaturo (four), and in the Khalsi ver-sion the numerical sign used is +. Prinsep and his pandit gave a confused rendering of this edict, but no one else has attempted to translate it. There has been some difference of opinion as to the identification of these Greek kings, but the most approved names are Antiochus Theos of Syria, Ptolemy II. of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander II. of Epirus, 253-251 B.C.

Besides the five great inscriptions of Asok^i, there are six other rock inscriptions consisting of single edicts, three of which, found at Sahsaram, Biipnath, and Bairat are the same, but the last is imperfect. Dr G. Biihler has trans-lated them. A second and different inscription at Bairat has been translated by Wilson, Burnouf, and Kern. These separate edicts are not found among the fourteen, but they are of similar style and spirit. Two of them have the dis-tinction of being dated thus : " 256 [years have elapsed] since the departure of the Teacher," i.e., since the death of Buddha, the time of which has been variously assigned to 544 and 478 B.C. In these two edicts Asoka, after stating that he had been " a hearer of the law" more than thirty-two years and a half, adds, " I did not exert myself strenuously. But it is a year and more that I have entered the community of [ascetics]."

The pillars erected by Asoka would appear to have been numerous, but only a few now remain. Six of these, at Delhi (2), Allahabad, Lauriya (2), and Sanchi, are inscribed. Five of them present in a slightly variant form the text of a series of six edicts that were promulgated by Asoka in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, 236 B.C. These pillar inscriptions, which are beautifully cut, are not repetitions of those on the rocks, but they are of similar purport. The pillars at Delhi and Allahabad have since been covered, wherever space was left, and even between the lines of Asoka's inscription, with records and scribblings of later dates. The only one of consequence is the inscription of Samudra-gupta on the Allahabad pillar. The " iron pillar " of Delhi belongs to a later age, and its inscription is dated 1052 A.D.

In immediate succession to the rock and pillar inscrip-tions of Asoka come the inscriptions of the caves and rock-cut temples. There are caves in Bihar, Cuttack, and elsewhere with inscriptions showing that they were con-structed by Piyadasi or Asoka. Soon after these, about the 2d century A.D., come the caves at Khandagiri in Cuttack, over which there is an important but much defaced inscription. It records the construction of the caves by a king Aira of Kalinga, a convert from Brahman-ism to Buddhism, and it gives glimpses of his religious and beneficent life that make its defacement a matter of especial regret. The letters of the inscriptions in the oldest caves show a slight departure from the forms of the Lat alphabet, and would seem to have been written from about the beginning of the Christian era to the 5th cen-tury. The caves at Ajanta, Karlen, Kanhari, Nasik, and Junir are Buddhist, and contain many inscriptions, but most of these records are of no historical value, as they simply commemorate the dedication of a cave, chamber, cistern, or some other votive gift, coupled with the name of the donor. The same observation applies generally to the topes at Amaravati, Sanchi, and elsewhere. In the caves of Nasik there are some historical records, and the great cave-temple of Karlen is recorded to have been con-structed for an emperor named Devabhuti, by a foreigner called " Dhanukakata " or " Dhlnukakati," which name is understood to represent Xenocrates. In a Jain cave-temple at Badarni there is an inscription of the Chalukya dynasty, dated in 578 A.D. The caves of Elephanta and Ellora are of a much later date. There have been many explorers of the caves and copyists of the inscriptions. Dr J. Wilson successfully interpreted some of the inscriptions, but Dr Stevenson has been the greatest decipherer. The letters of the inscriptions in the caves are often formed with a want of precision and distinctness, and the copies obtained are not always satisfactory, so the translations are open to some doubt, and are capable of improvement.

Soon after the inscriptions of Asoka we have those of the Turushka or Indo-Scythic kings Kanishka andHuvishka, the Kanerke and Ooerke of the bilingual coins, whose names are linked with a third as " Hushka, Jushka, and Kanishka " in the Kashmir chronicle called Baja Tarangini. Their inscriptions have been found in Afghanistan, in the Punjab, and in the hills, and as far east as Mathura. With the exception of those at Mathura, they are in the Ariano-Pali character. They are all short; some consist of only six or seven words. The majority of the inscriptions are dated. The Macedonian months are used, but there is no certainty as to the era. The word used is " Samvatsara," and, as there is an era so called, some maintain that they are dated in that era, but as the word " samvatsara " means also year, it may imply a year of some unknown era or of a king's reign. Their period is about the beginning of the Christian era. The first inscription discovered was on a stone slab found by General Court in a large tope at Manikyala in the Punjab; the longest is one punched on a brass vase extracted by Masson from a tope at Wardak in Afghanistan. The former was discovered just before Prinsep's death, but he did no more with it than picking out the king's name as " Kaneshm," and conjecturing that the date figured xx9 signified cxx. General Cunningham subsequently interpreted the date as 446, and the title of the king correctly as " Kanishka, maharaja of the Gushang tribe." No further discoveries of importance were made until the year 1862, when Mr Roberts obtained, at Hasan Abdal in the Punjab, a copper plate with five lines of inscription, which he sent to the Royal Asiatic Society. The letters on this plate were clearly written, and, when read by Professor Dowson, the record furnished the long desired key to the numeral system, for the date was given both in words and figures. The forms of the numerals had made Prinsep and others suspect a Roman influence, but the figure i proved to be 10 and the x equivalent to 4. The inscription was a record made by a satrap named Liako Kusuluko of his having deposited a relic of Sakyamuni (Buddha) in an institution near Taxila. Before the pub-lication of the translation copies of this inscription were sent to India with the explanation of the date, and with a call for independent translations of the text. General Cunningham made a translation which was revised by Babii Rajendra Lai, and when brought together the versions were found to be in close agreement.
Professor Dowson succeeded in making out considerable portions of the Manikyala, Wardak, and other inscriptions, and found that all had reference to the deposit of relics. No progress has since been made in the interpretation of these inscriptions, although there is ample scope for further study. The Manikyala inscription is dated in the year 18, and was made in the reign of Kanishka; the Wardak urn is dated in the year 51, and was inscribed in the reign of his successor Huvishka. There are other inscriptions, in which the names of these kings appear, and the names of King Moga or Moa and of Gondophares have also been found. Several short inscriptions in this character owe their discovery to General Cunningham, who has been most persevering in his search and constant in his endeavours to interpret them. Another series of inscrip-tions of these Indo-Scythian rulers was obtained by General Cunningham from the ruins of the Buddhist temples and other buildings at old Mathura. These inscriptions are in the Indian Pali character and the Sanskrit language, and have been translated by Professor Dowson. Several of them are dated "Sam," the common abbreviated form of Samvatsara. The earliest certain date is 44, and as one of the dates is as high as 280, it is clear that some era is intended. If it be the Samvatsara era, the dates range from 13 B.C. to 337 A.D. These inscrip-tions have two peculiarities in which they agree with the practice of the inscriptions in western India : instead of months they use the triple series of seasons, and the numerals are arbitrary symbols having little or no arith-metical relation to each other. The explanation of these figures has occupied the attention of Prinsep, Dr Steven-son, General Cunningham, Dr Bhau Daji, and Mr E. Thomas, and may be said to be accomplished. Some further inscriptions have since been found at Mathura and translated by General Cunningham. The whole series furnishes the names of Kanishka, Huvishka, and Vasu-deva [BAZOAHO of the coins], all of whom bear the arro-gant title Devaputra, " son of God." One of the last discovered inscriptions is dated as early as the year 5.

About the period of the Indo-Scythians there was in Surashtra, on the western coast of India, a dynasty of rulers who called themselves Kshatrapas or satraps, and are known as the Sah or more properly Sinha kings. These have left some inscriptions commencing with their founder Nahapana, but they are better represented by their coins, the legends on which are in the Indian Pali character. On some of the earlier ones the distinctive name of the king is given also in Ariano-Pali. An inscription in a cave at Nasik records its construction and dedication by Nahapana. The most important of their inscriptions is that of Rudra Dama, the seventh king of the dynasty, dated in the year 72, but of what era is undetermined. This is engraven on the famous rock of Girnar near Junagarh, the same as that on which the edicts of Piyadasi are inscribed. It is in Indian Pdli, and was first deciphered by Prinsep. Since then the trans-lation has been revised by Professor Wilson, Dr Bhau Daji, and Professor Eggeling. It commemorates the repair of a dam or embankment of the river Palasinf. Its most interesting passage records the fact that the same dam had been formerly repaired by " the Maurya raja Chandra-gupta," the classical Sandrakoptos, and it is the only monumental mention known of that king. It also names Asoka specifically as " Asoka Maurya," not as Piyadasi. Mr Burgess has published a fine collotype of this inscription in his Archxological Survey.

After the Sahs come the Guptas of Kanauj, a dynasty which must not be confounded with the Maurya dynasty of which Chandragupta (Sandrakoptos) was a member. The inscriptions of the Guptas are in a slightly advanced form of the Indian Pali. One, the first known, translated by Dr Mill, was inscribed by Samudra-Gupta on the old Asoka column at Allahabad, another is inscribed on the Asoka rock at Girnar, being the third on that rock. It records another repair of the PaMsini dam by Skanda-Gupta, and a copy with a translation by Bhau Daji is published in Burgess's Survey. All the Gupta inscriptions are dated in the Gupta-kdla, the Gupta era, the epoch of which has long been and still remains a subject of dispute. Other inscrip-tions of this dynasty have been found at Mathuri, on a pillar at Bhitari in Gházipúr, at Sánchi, Eran, and other places. After the Guptas come the inscriptions of Toramána, who seems to have succeeded them in Central India.

The Guptas were overthrown by the Vallahhi or Ballabhi kings, the founders of Vallabhi-pura in Káthiáwár, who established themselves in the latter half of the 5th century A.D. No monumental inscriptions of this dynasty have been discovered, but their copper grants are numerous, and fresh discoveries are constantly being made. Far down in the south the Kongu kings have left grants of the 4th century, and one of questionable authenticity corresponds in date to 188 A.D. In the Deccan reigned the great family of the Chálukyas, which in course of time divided into two branches. They reigned from the 5th to the 12th century A.D., and their inscriptions, especially their copper grants, are very numerous. Sir Walter Elliot made the history of this dynasty his especial pursuit, and suc-ceeded in collecting and epitomizing some hundreds of inscriptions. Mr Burgess, the archaeological surveyor of western India, and other explorers are constantly making fresh discoveries of inscriptions relating to the Chálukyas and other dynasties of the west and south; and these are quickly translated by the indefatigable Mr Fleet, Mr Bice, Dr Burnell, and other busy translators. Many other dynasties have left copper plate inscriptions which cannot be here described, and. a mere list would be of greater length than value. The inscriptions are found in all parts of the country, and date from the early periods above stated until the establishment of the Mahometan rule. They are almost all in Sanskrit, but in the south inscriptions are found in Tamil and Old Canarese. Through all of them the gradual change of the letters from the old Indian Pali to the modern forms is distinctly traceable. Mr Rice has published a thick volume of inscriptions discovered in Mysore, and the pages of the Indian Antiquary add every month to the store. A very handsome volume of photo-graphs of inscriptions has been prepared by Mr Fleet at the expense of the Government, but only ten copies have been made.

The inscriptions of the Mahometans in India are also numerous. They are either in Arabic or in Persian, and are often engraved with exquisite skill and grace. Some celebrate victories, but most of them record the erection of mosques, palaces, tombs, and other edifices. These inscriptions are occasionally valuable in settling dates, but as the Mahometans are good historians their inscriptions are of less importance than those of their Hindu predecessors, who did not write history. (j. D.*)

IV. GREEK.

Greek Etymologically the term inscription (liriypat¡>r¡) would inscrip- include much more than is commonly meant by it. It would ions. inciude words engraved on rings, or stamped on coins, vases, lamps, wine-jar handles, &c. But Boeckh was clearly right in excluding this varia supellex from his Corpus Inseriptionum Grxcarum, or only admitting it by way of appendix. Giving the term inscription a somewhat narrower sense, we still include within it a vast store of documents of the greatest value to the student of Greek civilization. It happens, moreover, that Greek inscriptions yield the historian a richer harvest than those of Rome.
Partly from fashion, but partly from the greater abundance of the material, the Romans engraved their public documents (treaties, laws, &c.) to a large extent on bronze. These bronze tablets, chiefly set up in the Capitol, were melted in the various conflagrations, or were carried off to feed the mint of the conqueror. In Greece, on the contrary, the Materials mountains everywhere afforded an inexhaustible supply of for them, marble, and made it the natural material for inscriptions. Some Greek inscribed tablets of bronze have come down to us, and many more must have perished in the sack of cities and burning of temples. A few inscriptions on small thin plates of lead, rolled up, have survived; these are chiefly imprecations on enemies or questions asked of oracles. But as a rule the material employed was marble. These marble monuments are often found in situ; and, though more often they were used up as convenient stones for building purposes, yet they have thus survived in a more or less perfect condition.

Inscriptions were usually set up in temples, theatres, at Place of the side of streets and roads, in re/icvy or temple-precincts, erection, and near public buildings generally. At Delphi and Olympia were immense numbers of inscriptions,-—not only those engraved upon the gifts of victorious kings and cities, but also many of a more public character. At Delphi were inscribed the decrees of the Amphictyonic assembly, at Olympia international documents concerning the Felopon-nesian cities; the Parthenon and Acropolis were crowded with treaties, laws, and decrees concerning the Athenian confederation; the Heraeum at Samos, the Artemisium at Ephesus, and indeed every important sanctuary, abounded with inscriptions. It is a common thing for decrees (^rr)^>io-jj.aTa) to contain a clause specifying where they are to be set up, and what department of the state is to defray the cost of inscribing and erecting them. Sometimes dup-licates are ordered to be set up in various places; and, in cases of treaties, arbitrations, and other international documents, copies were always set up by each city con-cerned. Accordingly documents like the Marmor Ancy-ranum and the Edict of Diocletian have been restored by a comparison of the various fragments of copies set up in diverse quarters of the empire.

6 See Karapanos, Dodone et ses ruines.

Greek inscribed marbles varied considerably in their Forms of external appearance. The usual form was the o-r-qXri, the ascribed normal type of which was a plain slab, from 3 to 4 ormar l63-even 5 feet high, 3 or 4 inches thick, tapering slightly upwards from about 2 feet wide at bottom to about 18 inches at the top, where it was either left plain or often had a slight moulding, or still more commonly was adorned with a more or less elaborate pediment; the slab was otherwise usually plain. Another form was the /Joyios or altar, sometimes square, oftener circular, and varying widely in size. Tombstones were either o-rijAat (often enriched beneath the pediment with simple groups in relief, com-memorative of the deceased), or KLOVCS, pillars, of different size and design, or sarcophagi plain and ornamental. To these must be added statue-bases of every kind, often inscribed, not only with the names and honours of individuals, but also with decrees and other documents. All these forms were intended to stand by themselves in the open air. But it was also common to inscribe state documents upon the surface of the walls of a temple, or other public building. Thus the cella-walls of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene were covered with copies of the awards made concerning the lands disputed between Samos and Priene (C. /. G., 2905, and infra); similarly the walls of the jirtemisium at Ephesus contained a number of decrees (Wood's Ephesus, appendix), and the proscenium of the Odeum was lined with crustx, or " marble-veneering," under 1 inch thick, inscribed with copies of letters from Hadrian, Antoninus, and other emperors to the Ephesian people (Wood, ibid., p. 44). The workmanship and appearance of inscriptions varied considerably according to the period of artistic development. The letters incised with the chisel upon the wall or the o-rTJXrj were painted in with red or blue pigment, which is often traceable upon newly unearthed inscriptions. When Thucydides, in quoting the epigram of Pisistratus the younger (vi. 54), says, " it may still be read a/xuSpots ypa/t/xao-i," he must refer to the fading of the colour; for the inscription was brought to light in 1877 with the letters as fresh as when they were first chiselled (see Kumanudes in 'A6r/vcuov, vi. p. 149; Corpus Inscr. Att., suppl. to vol. i. p. 41). The Greeks found no inconvenience, as we should, in the bulkiness of inscriptions as a means of keeping public records. On the contrary they made every temple a muniment room; and while the innumerable crnjAcu, Hermx, bases, and altars served to adorn the city, it must also have encouraged and educated the sense of patriotism for the citizen to move continually among the records of the past. The history of a Greek city was literally written upon her stones.

Value of The primary value of an inscription lay in its documen-iuserip- tary evidence (so Euripides, Suppl. 1202, foil). In this toons. Way they are continually cited and put in evidence by the orators (e.g., see Demosth, Fals. Leg., 428; iEschin., In Ctes., § 75). But the Greek historians also were not slow to recognize their importance. Herodotus often cites them (iv. 88,90, 91 ; v. 58 sq.; vii. 228); and in his account of the victory of Plataea he had his eye upon the tripod-inscription (ix. 81; cf. Thuc. i. 132). Thucydides's use of inscriptions is illustrated by v. 18 foil, 23, 47, 77; vi. 54, 59. Polybius used them still more. In later Greece, when men's thoughts were thrown back upon the past, regular collections of inscriptions began to be made by such writers as Philochorus (300 B.C.), Polemo (2d century B.C., called o-rqAo/coVas for his devotion to inscriptions), Aristodemus, Craterus of Macedon, and many others.





Modem At the revival of learning, the study of inscriptions collec- revived with the renewed interest in Greek literature, editors'* ^yrla0 °^ Aneona, early in the 15th century, copied a vast number of inscriptions during his travels in Greece and Asia Minor; his MSS. collections were deposited in the Barberini library at Rome, and have been used by other scholars. (See Bulletin of the French archaeological school at Athens, vol. i.) Succeeding generations of travellers and scholars continued to collect and edit, and Englishmen in both capacities did much for this study.

Thus early in this century the store of known Greek in-scriptions had so far accumulated that the time had come for a comprehensive survey of the whole subject. And it was the work of one great scholar, Augustus Boeckh, to raise Greek epigraphy into a science. At the request of the Academy of Berlin he undertook to arrange and edit all the known inscriptions in one systematic work, and vol. i. of the Corpus Inscriptionum Grxcarum was published in 1828, vol. ii. in 1833. He lived to see the work completed, al-though other scholars were called in to help him to execute his great design; vol. hi., by Franz, appeared in 1853 ; vol. iv., by Kirchhoff, in 1856. The work is a masterpiece of lucid arrangement, profound learning, untiring industry, and brilliant generalization. Out of the publication of the Corpus there grew up a new school of students, who devoted themselves to discovering and editing new texts, and working up epigraphical results into monographs upon the many-sided history of Greece. In the Corpus Boeckh had settled for ever the methods of Greek epigraphy ; and in his Staatshaushaltung cler Athener (well known to English readers from Sir G. C. Lewis's translation, The Public Economy of Athens, 2d ed., 1842) he had given a palmary specimen of the application of epigraphy to historical studies. At the same time Franz drew up a valuable introduction to the study of inscriptions in his Elementa Ejngraphices Grxcx (1840).
Meanwhile the liberation of Greece and increasing facilities for visiting the Levant combined to encourage the growth of the subject, which has been advanced by the labours of many scholars, and chiefly Ludwig Ross, Leake, Pittakys, Rangabé, Le Bas, and later by Meier, Sauppe, Kirchhoff, Kumanudes, Waddington. Together with the development of this school of writers, there has gone on a systematic exploration of some of the most famous sites of antiquity, with the result of exhuming vast numbers of inscriptions. Cyrene, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Priene, Bhodes, and Ephesus have been explored by the English ; Athens, Eleusis, and Dodona by the English and the Greeks ; Olympia by the Greeks and Germans ; Cyprus by General Cesnola ; Delphi and Delos by the French ; and Pergamos by the Germans. A German and a French institute have been established at Athens, chiefly engaged in the study of inscriptions. And still the work proceeds at a rapid rate. For indeed the yield of inscriptions is practically inexhaustible : each island, every city, was a separate centre of corporate life, and it is significant to note that in the island of Calymnos alone Mr Newton collected over one hundred inscriptions, many of them of considerable interest.

The result of this has been that Boeckh's great work, though it never can be superseded, yet has ceased to be what its name implies. The four volumes of the C. I. G. contain about 10,000 inscriptions. But the number of Greek inscriptions now known has been estimated at 20,000 or 30,000. Many of these are only to be found published in the scattered literature of dissertations, or in Greek, German, and other periodicals. But several comprehensive collec-tions have been attempted, among which may be named— Bangabé, Antiquités Helléniques, 2 vols., 1842-1855; Keil, Sylloge Inscriptionum Bœoticarum, 1847 ; Kumanudes, 'ATTI/OJS ènrypaoW e-n-iTvy-^coi, 1871 ; Le Bas, Voyage Archéo-logique, vols. i.-iii., in course of continuation by M. Wad-dington ; Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, edited by C. T. Newton, pt. i., " Attika," by E. L. Hicks, 1874; and above all the Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, under-taken by the Berlin Academy, of which there have already appeared vol. i. by Kirchhoff, 1873 (with supplement, by the same, 1877) ; vol. ii. pt. 1, by Kôhler, 1877 ; vol. iii. pt. 1, by Dittenberger, 1878.

The oldest extant Greek inscriptions appear to date from the Oldest middle of the 7th century B. c. During the recent excavations at Greek Olympia a number of fragments of very ancient inscriptions have inscrip. been found, which have been published in the recent numbers of tions. the Archaologische Zeitung (1878-1880). But what is wanted is a sufficient number of very early inscriptions of fixed date. One such exists upon the leg of a colossal Egyptian statue at Abu-Simbel on the upper Nile, where certain Greek mercenaries in the service of King Psammeticlms recorded their names, as having explored the river up to the second cataract (ft I. 67., 5126). Even if Psani-metichus II. is meant, the inscription dates between 594 and 589 B. c. Documents earlier than the Persian war are not very frequent ; but after that period the stream of Greek inscriptions goes on, gene-rally increasing in volume, down to late Byzantine times. Classifi- Greek inscriptions may most conveniently be classified under the cation, following heads :—(1) those which illustrate political history ; (2) those connected with religion ; (3) those of a private character. Political 1. Foremost among the inscriptions which illustrate Greek history inscrip- and politics are the decrees of senate and people (\pn<pio-fiaTa ßovAfjs, tions. èKK\Ti<rias, &c. ) upon every subject which could concern the interests of the state. These abound from every part of Greece. It is true that a large number of them are honorary, i.e., merely decrees granting public honours (crowns, statues, citizenship, and other privileges) to strangers who have done service to the particular city. But the importance of an honorary decree depends upon the individual and the services to which it refers. And even the mere headings and datings of the decrees from various states afford curious and valuable information upon the names and titles of the local magis-trates, the names of months, and other details. Droysen in his Hellenismus (1877-78) has shown how the history of Alexander and his successors is illustrated by contemporary ^0iV^aTa. And when the student of Athenian politics of the 5th and 4th centuries turns to the 2d volume of the ft I. A., he may wonder at the abundance of material before him ; it is like turning over the minutes of the Athenian parliament. One example out of many must suffice :—No. 17 in ft I. A., ii. pt. 1, is the famous decree of the archonship of Nausinicus (378 B.C.) concerning the reconstruction of the Athenian confederacy. The terms of admission to the league occupy the face of the marble ; at the bottom and on the left edge are inscribed the names of states which had already joined.
Inscribed laws (vofnoi) occur with tolerable frequency. The following are examples :—A citation of a law of Draco's from the irpâros &%wv of Solon's laws (ft I. A., i. 61 ; cf. Hermes, ii. p. 27) ; a reassessment of the tribute payable by the Athenian allies in 425 B.c. (ft I. A., i. 37 ; Köhler, Urkunden und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Delisch-attischen Bundes, 1870, p. 63) ; a law passed by the Amphietyonic council at Delphi, 380 B.c. (Boeckh, 0.1. 67., 1688; G. I. A., ii. 545); law concerning Athenian weights and measures (Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung, vol. ii. p. 356; G. I. 67., 123); the futile sumptuary law of Diocletian concerning the maximum prices for all articles sold throughout the empire (Waddington, Edit de Dioctétien, 1864 ; Mommsen, 0. I. Lot., vol. iii. pt. 2, 801 sq.).

Besides the inscribed treaties previously referred to, we may in-stance the following :—Between Athens and Chaleis in Eubœa, 445 B.C. (ft I. A., suppl. to vol. i., 27a); between Athens and Ehegium, 433 B.c. (ft I. A., i. 33, and suppl. ibid., p. 13) ; between Athens and Leontini, dated the same day as the preceding (ft I. A., suppl. to vol. i., 33a) ; between Athens and Bceotia, 395 B. 0. (ft I. A., ii. 6); between Athens and Chaleis, 378 B.C. (ibid., p. 398) ; between Athens and Sparta, 271 B.c. (ft /. A., ii. No. 332) ; between Hermias of Atarneus and the Ionian Erythrée, about 350 B.c. (Le Bas and Waddington, Voyage Arch., iii. 1536a) ; treaties in the local dialect between various cities of Crete, 3d century B.c. (C. I. 67., 2554-6 ; Rangabé, Ant. Hellen., 2478 ; Hermes, iv. 266). Egger's Études historiques sur les traités publics chez les Grecs et chez les Romains (Paris, 1866) embraces a good many of these documents.

The international relation of Greek cities is further illustrated by awards of disputed lands, delivered by a third city called in (%KKXnros TT6\IS) to arbitrate between the contending states, e.g., Rhodian award as between Samos and Priene (ft /. 67., 2905 ; Le Bas and "Wadd., Voy. Arch., iii. No. 189 sq.) ; Milesian between Messenians and Spartans, recently discovered at Olympia (Arch. Zeit., 1876, p. 128 ; see Tac, Ann. iv. 43) ; and many others. Akin to these are decrees in honour of judges called in from a neutral city (ÇUVIKUV SiKacrrhpiov) to try suits between citizens which were complicated by political partisanship (see ft I. G., No. 23495, and Boeckh's remarks).

Letters from kings are frequent ; as from Lysimachus to the Samians (ft /. 67., 2254) : from Antigonus I. directing the transfer of the population of Lebedus to Teos (Le Bas-Wadd., Voy. Arch., iii. No. 86). Letters from Roman emperors are commoner still ; such as ft I. 67., 3175, 3176, 3178, 3834.

The internal administration of Greek towns is illustrated by the minute and complete lists of the treasures in the Parthenon of the time of the Peloponnesian war (Boeckh, Staatshaush., vol. ii. ) ; public accounts of Athenian expenditure (ibid. ) ; records of the Athenian navy in the 4th century, forming vol. iii. of the same work. The management of public lands and mines is specially illustrated from inscriptions (ibid., vol. i. passim) ; and the political constitution of different cities often receives light from inscriptions which cannot be gained elsewhere (e.g., see the document from Cyzicus, ft I. 67., 3665, and Boeckh's note).

Inscriptions in honour of kings and emperors are very common. The Marmor Ancyranum has already been mentioned ; but an earlier example is the Monumentum Adnlitanum (from Abyssinia, ft I. 67., 5127) reciting the achievements of Ptolemy Euergetes I.

Offerings in temples (____^___) are often of great historical value, e.g., the helmet of Hiero, now in the British Museum, dedicated at Olympia after his victory over the Etruscans, 474 B.C. (ft I. _., 16) ; and the bronze base of the golden tripod dedicated at Delphi after the victory of Platsea, and carried off to Constantinople by Constan-tine (Déthier und Mordtmann, Epigraphik von Byzantion, 1874).

Religious inscriptions.

2. The religion of Greece in its external aspects is the subject of a great number of inscriptions. The following are a few specimens, (1) Institution of festivals, with elaborate ritual directions—see Sauppe, Die Mysterieninschrift aus Andania, 1860, and the singular document from the Ephesian theatre, in Wood's Ephesus, appendix vi. 1 ; the following also relate to festivals—ft I. G., 1845, 2360, 2715, 3059, 3599, 36416. (2) Laws defining the appointment, duties, or perquisites of the priesthood—ft /. 67., 2656; Staats-haush.,ü.\>. 121 sq. (3) Curious calendar of sacrifices from Myconus, '__-'nvaiov, ii. p. 237. (4) Fragment of augury rules, Ephesus, 6th century _. c., ft /. 67., 2953. (5) Leases of ____-_ and sacred lands— ft I. 67, 103, 104, 2693_, 2694 ; Le Bas and Wadd., Voy. Arch., iii. No. 415, &c. (6) Imprecations written on lead, and placed in tombs or in temples—Franz, El. Epigr. Gr., p. 168 ; Newton, Cnidus, llalicarnassus, ami Branchidse, pi. 7, 13. (7) Oracles are referred to—ft I. 67, ii. p. 1091 (Ross, Archäol. Aufs., p. 495) ; ft I. 67., 2717. (8) Among the inscriptions from Delphi few are more curious than those relating to the enfranchisement of slaves under the form of sale to a god (see Foucart, Sur Vaffranchissement des esclaves par forme de vente, &c, Paris, 1857). This catalogue might be enlarged indefinitely.

Private inscriptions.

3. There remain a large number of inscriptions of a more strictly private character. The famous Parian marble (ft /. 67., 2374) falls under this head ; it was a system of chronology drawn up, perhaps by a schoolmaster, in the 3d century _. _. The excessive devotion of the later Greeks to athletic and other competitions at festivals is revealed by the numerous dedications made by victorious competi-tors who record their successes (see ft I. 67., passim). The dedica-tions and honorary inscriptions relating to the Ephebi of later Athens (which occupy half of ft I. A., iii. pt. 1), dreary as they seem, have yet thrown a curious light upon the academic life of Roman Athens (see A. Dumont, Essai sur VÉphèbie Attique) ; and from these and similar late inscriptions the attempt has been made to construct Fasti of the later archons (Dumont, Essai sur la chronologie des Archontes Athéniens, 1870 ; R. Neubauer, Commentationes Epi-graphies, 1869 ; Westermann in Pauly's Real-Encyelopädie, vol. i., new ed., s.v. Archontes). The sepulchral monuments have been beautifully illustrated in Stackelberg's Gräber der Hellenen (cf. Pervanoglu, Die Grabsteine d. alt. Griechen, Leipsic, 1863). Some of the most interesting epitaphs in the ft I. G. are from Aphro-disias and Smyrna. Kumanudes's collection of Attic epitaphs has been mentioned above ; they yield a good deal of information about the Attic demes, and some of them are of high importance, e.g., the epitaph on the slain in the year 458 B.c. (ft /. 67., 165), and on those who fell before Potidœa (ft I. A., i. 442). Closely connected with sepulchral inscriptions is the famous "Will of Epicteta" (ft /. 67., 2448). It was also customary at Athens for lands mort-gaged to be indicated by boundary-stones inscribed with the names of mortgager and mortgagee, and the amount (Franz, El. Epigr. Gr., p. 168, 338) ; other ôpoi are common enough.

The names of sculptors inscribed on the bases of statues were col-lected in 1871 by G. Hirschfeld (Tituli Statuariorum Sculptorum-que) ; but since then the number has been greatly increased by excavations at Olympia and elsewhere. In most cases the artists are unknown to fame. Among the exceptions are the names of Pythagoras of Rhegium, whom we now know to have been a native of Samos (Arch. Zeit., 1878, p. 82), Polyclitus the younger (Arch. Zeit., 1878, p. 12), and Pœonius of Mende, who sculptured the marble Nike at Olympia (Arch. Zeit., 1875, p. 178).

The bearing of inscriptions upon the study of dialects is very Study of obvious. A handy collection has been made by Cauer (Delectus dialects. Inscr. Gr., Leipsic, 1877) of the principal inscriptions illustrating this subject ; and the dialect of the Athenian dramatists has been illustrated from inscriptions by Wecklein (Curie Epigr. ad Gram-maticam Graecam et Poetas scenicospertinentes, Leipsic, 1869).

The date of inscriptions is determined partly by the internal evi- Date of dence of the subject, persons, and events treated of, and the charac- inscrip-ter of the dialect and language. But the most important evidence tions. is the form of the letters and style of execution. Much of this evi-dence is of a kind difficult to appreciate from a mere description. Yet—besides the ßnva-______'__ writing of many early documents -we may mention the contrast between the stiff, angular characters which prevailed before 500 or 450 B.c. and the graceful yet simple forms of the Periclean age. This development was part of the general movement of the time. Inscriptions of this period are usually written o-roixnbov, i.e., the letters are in line vertically as well as horizontally. From the archonship of Euclides (403 _. _. ) onwards, the Athenians adopted the fuller alphabet which had obtained in Ionia since the 6th century. Before 403 _. _. £ and _ were expressed in Attic inscriptions by X2 and _2, while E did duty for -q, c, and sometimes ei, Oforo, ov, and __,—H being used only for the aspirate.

The documents of Lycurgus's administration are recognized by their small, neat characters, very carefully inscribed. The Macedonian period betrays a falling off in neatness and firmness of execution,— the letters being usually small and scratchy, excepting in inscrip-tions relating to great personages, when the characters are often very large and handsome. At this time came in the use of apixes as an ornament of letters. These tendencies increased during the period of Roman dominion in Greece, and gradually, especially in Asia Minor, the iota adscriptum was dropped. The Greek characters of the Augustan age indicate a period of restoration ; they are uniformly clear, handsome, and adorned with apices. Under the empire the characters fast degenerated, combining increased orna-ment with less delicacy of execution. In the 2d or 3d century, if not earlier, the circular and square sigma (ç, c.) occur, together with the circular epsilon (Q. There are a good many pretty in-scriptions under the Antonines ; but later the writing grows more coarse and clumsy until Byzantine times, when the forms appear barbarous indeed beside an inscription of the Augustan or even Antonine age.

Collections of marbles.

The finest collections of inscribed Greek marbles are of course at Athens. There are also good collections, public and private, at Smyrna and Constantinople. The British Museum contains the best collection out of Athens (now being edited) ; the Louvre contains a good many (edited by Frbhner, Les inscriptions Grecques du musée du Louvre, 1865) ; the Oxford collection is very valuable, and fairly large ; and there are some valuable inscriptions also at Cambridge.

The following essays give good outlines of the whole subject:—Boeckh, C. I. G.,
prefat-e to vol. i. ; Westermann in Pauly's Real - Encycl., s. v. Inscriptiones ; Egger,
" Des collections d' inscriptions Grecques " in Joui nal des Savants, 1871 ; 0. T. New-
ton, Essays on Art and Archxology. 1S80, p. 95, 209 Besides the -works already
quoted, the following should be mentioned:—Boeckh's Kleine Schriften ; Weseher-
Foucart, Inscriptions recueillies à Delphes, 1863 ; Michaelis, Der Parthenon ; Wad-
dington, Fast s des Provinces Asiatiques, part i., 1872. and Mémoire sur la chron-
ologie de la vie du rhéteur Aristide ; Kirchhoff, Studien zur Geschichte der
griechischen Alphabets, 1867 ; Keil, Specimen Onomatologi Grœcî, 1840, and
Analecta Epigraphica et Onomatologica, 1842 ; C. Curtius. Studien und Urkunden
zur Geschichte von Samos, Lübeck. 1877 ; Meier, De proxenia, 1843, and Die Pri-
vatschiedsrichter und die öffentlichen Diäteten Athens, Halle, 1846 ; Bétant, An
fuerint apud Gnecos judices certi litibus inter civitates componendis, diss, inaug ,
Berk, 1862 ; Foucart. Des Associations Religieuses chez les Grecs, Paris, 1873 ;
Lüders, Die Dionysischen Künstler, Berk, 1873. (E. L. H.)

V. ROMAN.

I. Roman Inscriptions (by which general name are de-signated, in classical archaeology, all non-literary remains of the Latin language, with the exception of coins, letters and journals) fall into two distinct classes, viz. (1) those which were written upon other objects of various kinds, to denote their peculiar purpose, and in this way have been preserved along with them; and (2) those which them-selves are the objects, written, to be durable, as a rule, on metal or stone. The first class is that of inscriptions in the stricter sense of the word (styled by the Romans tituli, by the Germans Aufschriften) ; the second is that of instru-ments or charters, public and private (styled by the Romans first leges, afterwards instrumenta or tabulée, and by the Germans Urkunden).

No ancient Latin authors have professedly collected and explained or handed down to us Roman inscriptions. Some of the orators and historians, such as Cicero, Livy, Pliny the elder, and Suetonius among the Latins, and Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Josephus among the Greeks, occasionally mention inscriptions of high historical interest. A few grammarians, as for example, Varro, Verrius Flaccus, and Valerius Probus of Berytus, quote ancient words or formulée from them, or explain the abbreviations used in them. Juridical instruments, laws, constitutions of emperors, senatus consulta, and the like appear here and there in the various collections of Boman jurisprudence.

Inscriptions (in the wider sense, as we shall henceforth call them without regard to the distinction which has been drawn) have been found in nearly every centre of ancient Boman life, but, like many other remains of antiquity, only seldom in their original sites. The great mass of them has to be sought for in the large European museums of ancient art, and in the smaller local collections of ancient remains which occur nearly everywhere in the European provinces of the former Boman empire, as well as in the north of Africa, and also here and there in Asia Minor.

Only those copies of inscriptions are to be received with full confidence which are furnished by experienced and well-equipped scholars, or which have been made with the help of mechanical methods (casts, photographs, moist and dry rubbings), not always applicable with equal success, but depending on the position and the state of preserva-tion of the monuments. From the first revival of classical learning in the Carolingian age, attention was paid anew, by pilgrims to Rome and other places worth visiting, to epigraphic monuments also. In the time of the Renaissance, from the end of the 14th century downwards, some of the leading Italian scholars, like Poggio and Signorili, and the antiquarian traveller Cyriacus of Ancona, collected inscriptions, Greek and Latin. In the 15th century large collections of the inscriptions of all countries, or of limited districts, were made by Giovanni Marcanova, Fra Felice Feliciano, Fra Michele Ferrarino, Fra Giocondo the archi-tect of Verona, Marino Sanudo the Venetian polyhistor, and others. At the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th, the first printed collections can be recorded (Spreti's for Bavenna, 1489; Peutinger's for Augsburg, 1508 ; Huttich's for Mainz, 1520 ; Francesco degli Alber-tini's for Borne, printed in 1521 by Jacopo Mazochi), while during the same century, a long list of epigraphic travellers, like Pighius, Bambertus, and Accursius, or antiquarian collectors, like Sigonius, Panvinius, Antonius Augustinus with his collaborators Ursinus and Metellus, and many others, were busy in augmenting the stock of epigraphic monuments. The series of printed epigraphic Corpora begins with that of Apianus (Ingolstadt, 1534), the only one arranged in geographical order, and is con-tinued in those of Smetius (1558, but edited only after the author's death by Justus Lipsius, 1588), Gruter (with Joseph Scaliger's Indices, 1603, and re-edited by Graevius, 1707), Gudius (about 1660, edited by Hessel, 1731), Eeinesius (1682), Fabretti (1699), Gori (1726), Doni (1731), Muratori(1739), Maffei (1749), Donati (1765-75). These collections, manuscript and printed, will never altogether lose their value, as great numbers of inscriptions known to the ancient collectors have since been lost or destroyed. But, inasmuch as even towards the beginning of the 15th century, as well as afterwards, especially from the 16th down to a very recent period, all sorts of inaccu-racies, interpolations, and even downright falsifications, found their way into the Corpora, these can be employed only with the greatest caution. Modern critical research in the field of epigraphy began with the detection of those forgeries (especially of the very extensive and skilful ones of Pirro Ligorio, the architect to the house of Este) by Maffei, Olivieri, and Marini. The last-named scholar opens a new era of truly critical and scientific handling of Roman inscriptions (especially in his standard work on the Atti dei Fratelli Arvali, Rome, 1795); his disciple and successor, Count Bartolomeo Borghesi (who died at San Marino in 1860), may be rightly called the founder of the modern science of Boman epigraphy. Orelli's handy collection of Roman inscriptions (2 vols., Zurich, 1828) is a first attempt to make accessible to a larger scientific public the results of the researches of Marini and his successors ; but it was not completed (and thoroughly corrected) until nearly thirty years later, by Henzen (Orelli, vol. iii., with the indispensable Indices, Zurich, 1856), who, them s , not an accent), down to the epoch of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. In some very rare instances the doubling of consonants is indicated by a sicilicus, a hook (') upon them. The double i indicates, in some examples, from Caesar down to Domitian, the consonantal j (as in cuiius, eiius). To save space, on coins first and afterwards in inscriptions also, two or three or even more letters were joined, especially at the end of the lines, to a nexus or a ligatura. This system of compendious writing, very rare in the republican epoch, and slowly extending itself during the 1st century, became rather frequent in the 2d and 3d, especially in Spain and Africa. There is no constant system in these nexus litterarum, but generally the rule is observed that no substantial element of a single letter is to be counted for twice (thus, e.g., >f is it or ti, not Titi). In the republican period, the numbers from one to nine are mostly written in the additive form (I II III fill V VI VII VIII Villi), and similarly in combination with X, XX, and so on (XXXX, LXXXX); V, for five, seems to be a graphic division of X. The ^ of the Chalcidian alphabet, \V, is the numeral for fifty (afterwards ± and L, which has originally nothing to do with the letter L); the S, 0, is that for a hundred (replaced early by the initial of the word centum, C); the Q, (D, is that for a thousand (afterwards M, the initial of mille), of which (V\, OO are only slight graphic alterations. The multiples of a thousand by 10 are written thus tfft (10,000), rtSu (100,000). From <D came, by graphic division, T) (not D the letter) for 500 (with Fft 5000, (Si 50,000). A peculiar mark (OS) appears rarely for 500,000 (Hermes, iii., 1868, p. 467). Numerals are usually dis-tinguished from letters in the ancient period, down to the end of the republic, by a stroke drawn through them, as in tiVIR, duo(m) vir(om) +tS duo semis (sestertius), -B 500; it was afterwards put above them, as in TTVIR, XVIR, iTTTilVIR, duovir, decemvir, sevir.

manuals of metrology.

The direction of the writing is, even in the oldest inscriptions, from left to right; there exists only one very ancient example of an inscription, found at the lake Fucinus, written in a kind of Bovo-Tpo<j>w86v arrangement (H. Jordan, Hermes, vol. xv., 1880, p. 5), while in the Sabellic inscriptions similar arrangements are not in-frequent. Each word is separated from the other by a sign of interpunction which is not wanted, therefore, at the end of lines or of the whole text. Exceptions to this rule occur only in the later period (from the 2d century downwards), and sometimes under special conditions, as when abridged words form the end of the line. Here and there even the different syllables of each word are separated by interpunction. The interpunction is formed by a single dot (except in some very ancient inscriptions, such as those of Pisaurum, where, as in Greek and other Italian monu-ments, three dots _ are used), which, according to the technical skill of the different periods in stone-cutting, is in some very ancient inscriptions quadrangular, or similar to an oblique cross ( x ), or oblong (as a bold stroke), but, as a rule, triangular, and never circular. This triangular dot changes, by ornamentation, into a hook (7) or a leaf (+); the ivy-leaf-shaped dot is especially frequent in in-scriptions from about the 2d century downwards. The dot is always placed at the middle height of the letters, not, as now, at the foot of the line. In large texts of in-struments the interpunction is often omitted; in the later period it is often entirely wanting; and in short texts, in the disposition of the lines, in the varying sizes of the letters employed, in the division of words at the end of the lines, &c, certain rules are observed, which cannot be detailed here. In some instances older inscriptions have been cancelled and more recent ones substituted (e.g., on milestones), especially in the case of the damnatio memoriae (in cases of high treason), in consequence of which the names of consuls and emperors are often cancelled ; but in modern times also inscriptions have been deliberately destroyed or lost ones restored.

For understanding the texts of the inscriptions an accurate knowledge of the system of abbreviations used in them is necessary. These are almost invariably litter32, singulares; that is to say, the initial letter is employed for the entire word (in all its grammatical forms), or, if one initial, as belonging to more than one word, is not sufficiently clear, the first two or even the first three letters are employed ; rarely more than three. Abbreviations in the true sense of the word (by dropping some letters at the end) are to be found, in the older period, only at the end of lines, and not frequently. In the later period some instances of them have been observed. The litterx singulares, as Valerius Probus taught, are either generally employed (usus generalis) in all classes of written documents (and so in literature also), as, for instance, those of the indi-vidual names (the prxnomina), the names of days and feasts (leal, for Icalendx), and those of the chief magistrates (cos. for consid) and the like ; or they belong chiefly (but not exclusively) to certain classes of documents, such as those used in juridical acts (I. for lex, h. for hères, s. d. m. for sine dolo malo, and so on), in sepulchral inscriptions (h. s, e., hie situs est) or in dedicatory inscriptions (v. s. I. m., votum solvit libens mérito), &c.

It may be observed here that the preenornina are, as a rale, always written in the universally known abbrevia-tions (in the few instances where they are written in full, it is a consequence of Greek influence or of peculiar cir-cumstances). The gentilicia in -ius are abridged, in the republican period, in -i (in the nominative, perhaps for -is). In the always abbreviated indications of ancestors or patrons (in the case of slaves and freedmen), as Cf., Gai films, M. I., Marci libertus (s. for servus is not frequent), the feminine gender is sometimes indicated by inversion of the letters. Thus O. I. (or lib.) or W (an inverted AA) I. designates a mulieris libertus ; T and 1 are used for filia, piupilla. On the tribus and their abbreviations, and on the so-called military tribus (which are names of colonies collocated, for the sake of symmetry, at the place usually occupied, in the nomenclature, by the tribus), and on the other indications of origin used in the designation of in-dividuals, the indexes to the above-named works give sufficient information ; on the geographical distribution of the tribus, see Grotefend's Imperium Romanum tributim de-scriptum (Hanover, 1863). For the abbreviations of official charges, urban and municipal, and, in the imperial period, civil and military (to which, beginning with the 4th cen-tury, some Christian designations are to be added), see also the explanations given in the indexes. Among these abbre-viations the first instances are to be found of the indication of the plural number by doubling the last letter ; thus Augg., Caess., coss., dd. nn. (domini nostri), are used from the 3d century downwards (see De Rossi's preface to the Inscriptiones Christ, urbis Romœ) to distinguish them from Aug., Caes., as designating the singular. In the later period, a dot or a stroke over the abridged word, like that upon numerals, here and there indicates the abbreviation. III.—1. Among the inscriptions in the stricter sense (the tituli), perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most frequent, are the sepul-chral inscriptions (tituli sepulcrales). Of the different forms of Roman tombs, partly depending upon the difference between burial and cremation, which were in use side by side, the latest and a very complete account is given in Marquardts Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer (vol. vii. part i., Leipsic, 1879, p. 330 sq.). The most ancient examples are those of a sepulcretum at Prieneste (C. I. £., i. 74, 165, 1501 a-d; Ephem. epigr., i. 25-131, Wil. 153); the oldest of these contain nothing but the name of the deceased in the nominative ; those of more recent date give it in the genitive. The oldest and simplest form remained always in use down to Christian times ; it is that used on the large tectonic monuments of the Augustan age (e.g., that of Caecilia Metella, C. I. L., vi.1274) and in the mausolea of most of the emperors, and is still frequent in the tituli of the large columbaria of the same age (C. I. L., vi., part ii.). It was early succeeded by the lists of names, given also in the nominative, when more than one individual, either dead or alive, were to be indicated as sharers of a tomb. To distinguish the members still alive, a v (vivit, vivos, vivi) was prefixed to their names (e.g., C. I. L., i. 1020, 1195, 1271); the deceased were sometimes marked by the 85jra nigrum' (C. I. L., i. 1032; Wil. 158; see also C. I. L., vi. 10251 sq.). Only the names in the nominative are shown,too, on the sa,rcophagi of the Turpleii and Fourii at Tuseulum (C. I. L., i. 65-72 ; Wil. 152), and in the oldest inscriptions on those of the Scipiones, painted with minium (C.I. L., i. 29; Wil. 537), to which, were added afterwards the insignia of the magistratus curules (C. I. L., i. 31; Wil., 538) and the poetical elogia. Of a somewdiat different kind are the inscriptions scratched without much care on very simple earthen vessels which belonged to a sepulcretum of the lower class, situated outside the porta Capena at Rome, on the Appian road, near the old church of San Cesario (C. I. L., i. 882-1005, 1539,1539 a-d = C. I. L., vi. 8211-8397; Wil. 176); they can be ascribed to the period of the Gracchi. On these ollee, besides the name of the deceased, also for the most part in the nominative, but on the more recent in the genitive, the date of a day, probably that of the death, is noted ; here and there obit (or o.) is added. About the same epoch, at the beginning of the 6th century, along with the growing taste for tectonic ornamen-tation of the tombs in the Greek style, poetical epigrams were added to the simple sepulchral titulus, especially amongst the half-Greek middle class rapidly increasing in Rome and Italy ; Saturnian (C. I. L., i. 1006), iambic (1007-1010), and dactylic (1011, compare Annali dell' Instituto Archeologico, vol. xxxvii., p. 308) verses become more and more frequent in epitaphs (see Wil. 548 sq.). In prose also short designations of the mental qualities of the deceased (homo bonus, misericors, avians pauperum, or uxor frugi bona pudica, and the like), short dialogues with the passer-by (originally borrowed from Greek poetry), as vale-salve, salvus ire, vale et tu, &c. (Wil. 180), then indications of his con-dition in his lifetime, chiefly among the Greek tradesmen and workmen, e.g., lanius de colle Viminale (C. I. L., i. 1011), mar-garitarius de sacra via, 1027, and the like), and some formula?, such as ossa hie sita sunt, heic cubat, heie situs est (in republican times mostly written in full, not abridged) were added. The habit of recording the measurement of the sepulchre, on the sepulchral cippus, by such formulas as locus patet in fronte pedes tot, in agro (or in via, or retro) pedes tot, seems not to be older than the Augustan age (C. I. L., i. 1021, with Mommsen's note ; Wil. 188). About the same time also the epitaphs more frequently state how long the deceased lived, which was formerly added only on certain occasions (e.g., in the case of a premature death), and mostly in poetical form. The worship of the dei Manes, though undoubtedly very ancient, is not alluded to in the sepulchral inscriptions themselves until the close of the republic. Here and there, in this period, the tomb is designated as a (locus) oleum Maanium (e.g., at Hispellum, C.I. L., i. 1410); or it is said, as on a cippus from Corduba in Spain (C. I. L., ii. 2255; Wil. 218), C. Sentio Sat(urnino) co(n)s(ulc)—that is, in the year 19 B.c.—dei Manes receperunt Abulliam N(wmerii) l(ibertam) Nigellam. In the Augustan age the titulus sepulcralis begins to be confounded with the titulus sacer ; it adopts the form of a dedication dcis Manibus, offered to the dei Manes (or dei inferi Manes, the dei parentum being the Manes of the parents) of the deceased (see Orel. 4351; Wil. 217-228). This formula, afterwards so common, is still very rare at the end of the republic, and is usually written in full, while in later times it is employed, both simply and in many varied forms (as dis manibus sacrum, or d. m. et memorise, d. m. et genio, or memoriae setcrnm, pad et quieti, quieti seternse, somno aeternali, and so on ; Wil. 246), in thousands of monuments. By similar degrees the titulus sepulcralis adopts many of the elements of the titulus honorarius (the indication of the cursus honorum, of the military charges, &c., as, e.g., in the inscription of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, C. I. L., i. 598 = vi. 1276, Wil. 1105, on the pyramid of Cestius, C. I. L., vi. 1374, and on the monument at Ponte Lucano of Ti. Plautius Silvanus iElianus. consul 74 A.D., Orel. 750, Wil. 1145, and many others), of the tituli operum publi-corum (e.g., inonumentum fecit, sibi et suis, &c.), and of the instru-menta. Testaments (like those of Dasumius of the year 109 A.D.— C. I. L., vi. 10229, Wil. 314, and T. Flavius Syntrophus—C. /. L., vi. 10239, Henz. 7321, Wil. 313), or parts of them (like that on the tomb of a Gaul of the tribe of the Lingones, belonging to Ves-pasian's time, Wil. 315), funeral orations (as those on Tuna, the wife of Q. Lucretius Vespillo, consul 19 B.C.—C.I.L., vi. 1527, in Orel. 4859 incomplete ; on Murdia— C. I. L., vi. 10230, Orel. 4860, Rudorff, Abhandlungen der Kbnigl. Akademie der Wissenscliaftenzu Berlin, 1868, p. 217 sq.; and that of Hadrian on the elder Maticlia, found at Tivoli—Mommseninthe same Abhandlungen, 1863, p. 483 sq.), numerous statements relating to the conservation and the employment of the monuments (C. I. £.,vi. 10249; Wil. 287-290), to their remaining within the family of the deceased,—from which came the frequent formula " h(oe) m(onumentum) h(eredem) n(on) sfequetur)" and the like (Wil. 280),—and relating to the annual celebration of parentalia (Wil. 305 sq.), down to the not un-common prohibition of violation or profanation of the monument (compare, for instance, C. I. L., i. 1241, Wil. 267, from Naples, "deis inferum parentum sacrum, ni violato ;" C. I. L., iii. 3955, from Siscia, "ne quis in hoc ar\e]a porcos agi facere velit;" C.I.L., ii. 2703, from Portugal, in a distich, " quisquis honorem agitas, ita te tua gloria servet, prsecipias puero ne linat hunc lapidem;" C.I.L., vi. 2357, "hospes ad Mine tumulum ne meias ossa precantur," &c.; and Wil. 271-273), and the addition of the name of the stone-cutter (C. I. L., v. 7670; Wil. 2490; Orel.-Henz. 6344) and of the writer of the titulus (De Rossi, Inser. Christ., i. p. 9, 5; Wil. 1285, 2490), with many other particulars (on which the index of Wil. p. 678 s<7., may be consulted), form the text of the sepulchral inscriptions of the later epoch from Augustus down-wards. To these are to be added many local peculiarities of provinces (as Spain and Africa), districts (as the much-disputed sub aseia dedicate of the stones of Lyons and other parts of Gaul), and towns, of which a full account cannot be given here.

2. Of the dedicatory inscriptions (or tituli sacri), the oldest known are the short indications painted (along with representations of winged genii, in the latest style of Graeco-Italian vase painting), with white colour on black earthen vessels, by which those vessels (pocula) are declared to be destined for the worship, public or private, of a certain divinity (C. I. L., i. 43-50 ; Ephem. epigr. i. 5-6 ; Wil. 2827 a-i); they give the name of the god, as that of the possessor, in the genitive (e.g., Saeturni pocolom, Lavernai poeolom). The proper form of the dedication, the simple dative of the name of a divinity and often nothing else (as Apolenei, Fide, Junone, &c., which are all datives), is shown on the very primitive altars found in a sacred wood near Pisaurum (C. I. L., i. 107-180 ; Wil. 1-14); but also the name of the dedicants (matrona, matrona Pisaurese, which are nomin. plur.) and the formula; of the offering (dono declrot or dedro, donu dat, where dono and donu are accus.) are already added to them. This most simple form (the verb in the perfect or in the present) never disappeared entirely; it occurs not infrequently also in the later periods. Nor did the dative alone, without any verb or formula, go entirely out of use (see C. I. L., i. 630 ; Wil." 36; C. I. L., i. 814 = vi. 96; Orel. 1850; Wil. 32; G. I. L., i. 1153 ; Henz. 5789 ; Wil. 1775). But at an early date the verb donum dare and some synonyms (like donum portare, ferre, mancupio dare, parare) were felt to be insufficient to express the dedicator's good will and his sense of the justice of the dedication, which accordingly were indicated in the expanded formula dono dedet lub(e)s inereto (C. I. L., i. 183, cf. p. 555; Wil. 21 ; C. I. L., i. 190 ; Wil. 22), or, with omission of the verb, dono mere(to) lib(e)s (C. I. L., i. 182). The dative case and this formula, completely or partially employed (for merito alone is also used, as C. I. L., i. 562, cf. Ephem. epigr., ii. 353, Wil. 29), remained in solemn use. To lubens (or libens) was added Isetus (so in Catullus, 31, 4), and, if a vow preceded the dedication, votum solvit (or voto condemnatus dedit; see C. I. L., i. 1175 ; Henz. 5733 ; Wil. 142 ; and C. I. L., ii. 1044); so, but not before the time of Augustus (see O. I. L., i. 1462 = iii. 1772), the solemn formula of the dedica-tory inscriptions of the later period, v. s. I. TO. or v. s. I. I. m., arose. To the same effect, and of equally ancient origin with the solemn words dare and donum dare, the word sacrum (or other forms of it, as sacra[ara]), conjoined with the name of a divinity in the dative, indicates a gift to it (e.g., C. I. L., i. 814; Wil. 32; 0. I. L., i. 1200-1201; Wil. 33 a b); the same form is to be found also in the later period (e.g., C. I.L., i. 1124 ; Henz. 5624-5637), and gave the model for the numerous sepulchral inscriptions with dis Manibus sacrum mentioned before. Sacrum combined with a genitive very seldom occurs (Orel. 1824 ; Wil. 34); ara is found more frequently (as ara Neptuni and ara Ventorum, Orel. 1340). Dedications were frequently the results of vows ; so victorious soldiers (such as L. Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth—C. I. L., 1. 541 sq. ; Orel. 563 ; Wil. 27), and prosperous merchants (e.g., the brothers Vertuleii— C. I. L., i. 1175 ; Henz. 5733 ; Wil. 142) vow a tenth part of their booty (de praedad, as is said on the basis erected by one of the Fourii of Tuseulum—C. I. L., i. 63, 64 ; Henz. 5674 ; Wil. 18) or gain, and out of this dedicate a gift to Herculus or other divinities (see also _. I. L., i. 1503 ; "Wil. 24 ; _. I. L., 1113 ; Wil. 43). Again, what one man had vowed, and had begun to erect, is, by his will, executed after his death by others (as the propylum Ceteris et Proserpinac on the Eleusinian temple, which Appius Claudius Pulcher, Cicero's well-known pre-decessor in the Cilician proconsulate, began—_. I. L., i. 619 = iii. 347 ; Wil. 31); or the statue that an sedilis vowed is erected by himself as duovir (_. I. L., iii. 500 ; Henz. 5684) ; what slaves had promised, they fulfil as freedmen (_. I. L., 1233, servos vovit liber solvit; C.I.L., 816, W. 51, " ser(vos) vov(it) leibert(us) solv(it)"), and so on. The different acts into which an offering, according to the circumstantially detailed Roman ritual, is to be divided (the consecratio being fulfilled only by the solemn dedieatio) are also specified on dedicatory inscriptions (see, for instance, consacrare or consecrare, Orel. 2503, and Henz. 6124, 6128 ; for dedicare, _. I. L., i. 1159, Henz. 7024, Wil. 1782, and compare Catullus's hum lucum tibí dedico consecroque Priape, fragra. 2 ap. Lachmann and Miiller ; for dicare, see the aara leege Albana dicata to Vediovis by the genteiles Iuliei, _. I. L., i. 807, Orel. 1287, Wil. 101). Not exactly dedicatory, but only mentioning the origin of the gift, are the in-scriptions on the pedestals of offerings (________, donaría) out of the booty, like those of M. Claudius Mareellus from Enna (_. I. L., i. 530; Wil. 25, "Hinnad cepit") or of M. Fulvius Nobilior, the friend of the poet Ennius, from JF.tolia (_. I. L., i. 534 ; Orel. 562 ; Wil. 26d, and Eullettino dell' Instituto, 1869, p. 8 ; _. I. L., vi. 1307 ; Wil. 266, "AFtolia cepit" and "Ambracia cepit"); they ' contain only the name of the dedicator, not that of the divinity. Of the similar offerings of L. Mummius, already mentioned, two only are preserved in their original poetical form, the Roman in Saturnian verses of a carmen triumphale (_. I. L., i. 541; Orel. 563 ; Wil. 27a) and that found at Reate in dactylic hexameters (_. I, L., i. 542 ; Wil. 276); the rest of them contain only the name of the dedicant and the dative of the community to which they were destined (_ I. L., i. and Wil. I.e.). Of a peculiar form is the very ancient inscription on a bronze tablet, now at Munich, probably from Rome, where two aidiles, whose names are given at the beginning as in the other donaría, '' vicesma(m) parti(m) or [ex] vicesma parti Apolones (that is, Apollinis) dederi (that is, dedere)" (_. I. L., i. 187 ; Orel. 1433). Many, but not substantial, varieties arise, when old offerings are restored (e.g., G.I.L,'\. 638, 632 = Orel. 2135, and Wil. 48 ; _. I. L., i. 803; Henz. 5669, 6122) ; or the source of the offering (e.g., de stipe, _. I. L., i. 1105 ; Henz. 5633a; ex reditu pecuniae, ex patrimonio suo, ex ludis, de muñere gladiatorio, and so on); or the motive (exjusso, ex imperio, ex visu, ex oráculo, monitu, viso moniti, somnio admonitus, and the like), or the person or object, for which the offering was made (_. I. L.,'\. 188, pro poplod ; Ephem. epigr., ii. p. 308,pro trebibos ; pro se, pro salute, in honorem domus divina}, &c.), are indicated ; or, as in the tituli operum publicorum, the order of a magistrate (de senati sententia, _. I. L., i. 560 = vi. 1306; Orel. 5351 ; i. 632 = vi. 110 ; Orel. 2135 ; Wil. 48 ; deeurionum decreto, &c.), and the magistrates or private persons executing or controlling the work, the place where and the time when it was erected, are added. On all these details the indexes, especially that of Wil. (ii. p. 675), give further information. The objects themselves which are offered or erected begin to be named only in the later period just as in the tituli operum publicorum ("basim donum dant," _. I. L., i. 1167 ; "signum basim," _. I. L., i. 1154 ; "____," _. I. L., i. 1468 ; Orel. 1466 ; Wil. 52 ; _. I. L., i. 1109 ; Wil. 54); in the later period this custom becomes more frequent. It is hardly necessary to observe that all kinds of offerings have very frequently also been adorned with poetry ; some of these carmina dedicatoria are given by Wil. 142-151.





3. Statues to mortals, whether living or after their death (but not on their tombs), with honorary inscriptions (tituli honorarii), were introduced into the Roman republic after the Greek model, and only at a comparatively late date. One of the oldest inscrip-tions of this class comes from Greek soil and is itself Greek in form (_. I L., i. 533; Wil. 649), "ItoJliceiL. CorneliumScipionem (i.e., Asiagenum) honoris caussa" lost and of not quite certain reading, belonging to 561 A.TJ.C (193 B.C.); the same form (in the accusative) appears in other (Latin or Latin and Greek) inscrip-tions from Greece (_. I. L., i. 596 = iii. 532 ; Wil. 1103 ; _. I. L., iii. 365 ; Ephem. epigr., iv. 77 ; compare also _. I. L., i. 587, 588 ; Orel. 3036). The same Greek form occurs also, curiously enough, ia an honorary inscription of the age of Constantine (_. I. L., i. 1708 ; Wil. 1227). But at an earlier date, at the end of the 5th century A.tr.c, the noble house of the Scipios had already intro-duced the use of poetical elogia, in the ancient form of the carmina trmmplialia in Saturnian verses (from the 6th century in elegiac distichs). As has been stated above, they were added to the short tituli, painted only with minium on the sarcophagi, giving the name of the deceased (in the nominative) and his curulian offices (exclusively), which were copied perhaps from the well-known imagines preserved in the atrium of the house (_ I. L., i. 29 sq.; Orel. 550 sq.; Wil. 537 sq.; and elsewhere). They hold, by their contents, an intermediate place between the sepulchral inscriptions, to which they belong properly, and the honorary ones, and there-fore are rightly styled elogia. What the Scipios did thus privately for themselves was in other cases done publicly at a period nearly as early. The first instance preserved of such a usage, of which Pliny the elder speaks (Hist. Nat., xxxiv. § 17 sq.), is the cele-brated columna rostrata of C. Duilius, of which only a copy exists, made in the time of the emperor Claudius (C. I. L., i. 195 = yi. 1300; Orel. 549 ; Wil. 609). Then follow the elogia in-scribed at the base of public works like the Arcus Fabianus (C. I. L., i. 606, 607, and p. 278, elog. i. —iii. = vi. 1303, 1304 ; Wil. 610), or of statues by their descendants, as those belonging to a sacrarium domus Augustae (C. I. L., i. elog. iv.-vi. = C. I. L., vi. 1310, 1311) and others belonging to men celebrated in politics or in letters, as Scipio, Hortensius, Cicero, &c, and found in Rome either on marble tablets (C. I. L., i., vii.-xii. = C. I. L., vi. 1312, 1279, 1283, 1271, 1273 ; Wil. 611-613) or on busts (C. I. L., i., xv.-xix. = C. I. L., vi. 1327, 1295, 1320, 1309, 1325, 1326 ; Wil. 618-621;seealsoftZZ.,i. 40=vi. 1280; Wil. 1101; and CEL., i. 631 = vi. 1278 ; i. 640 = vi. 1323; vi. 1321, 1322, where T. Qwineti seems to be the nominative), and in divers other places (C. I. L., i., xiii., xiv.; Wil. 614, 615). This custom seems to have been resumed by Augustus with a political and patriotic aim, praised by the poet Horace (Od., iv. 8, 13, "incisa notis marmora publieis, per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis post mortem ducibus "); for he adorned his forum with the statues of celebrated men from iEneas and Romulus downwards (C. I. L., i., xxiv., xxv., xxvii, xxxii. = C. I. L., vi. 1272, 1308, 1315, 1318 ; Wil. 625, 626, 627, 632), and other towns followed his example (so Pompeii, G. I. L., i., xx., xxii. =Wil. 622, 623; Lavinium, C. I. L., i., xxi., Wil. 617; Arretium, C. I. L., i., xxiii., xxviii., xxix., xxx., xxxi., xxxiii., xxxiv. =Wil. 624, 625, 629-633). All these elogia are written in the nominative. In the same way in the colonies statues seem to have been erected to their founders or other eminent men, as in Aquileia (C. I. L., i. 538 = v. 873, Wil. 650 ; compare also C. I. L., v. 862 ; Orel. 3827) and Luna (C. I. L., i. 539 =Wil. 651).

But along with this primitive and genuine form of the titulus honorarius another form of it, equivalent to the dedicatory inscrip-tion, with the name of the person honoured in the dative, begins to prevail from the age of Sulla onwards. For the oldest examples of this form seem to be the inscriptions on statues dedicated to the dictator at Rome (C. I. L., i. 584 = vi. 1297; Orel. 567; Wil. 1102a) and at other places (Caieta and Clusiuui, O. I. L., i. 585, 586 ; Wil. 11026, c), in which the whole set of honours and offices is not enumerated as in the elogia, but only the honores praisentes ; compare also the inscription belonging to about the same date, of a quaestor urbanus, C. I. L., i. 636). Within the Greek provinces also, at the same period, this form is adopted (ft I. L., i. 595 = iii. 531; Henz. 5294; Wil. 1104). Similar dedications were offered to Pompcy the Great (at Auximum and Clusium, C. I. L., i. 615, 616 ; Orel. 574; Wil. 1107) and to his legate L. Afranius (at Bologna, but erected by the citizens of the Spanish colony Valentia, ft I. L., i. 601; Henz. 5127 ; Wil. 1106). They are succeeded by the statues raised to Ceesar (at Bovianum, C. I. L., i. 620 ; Orel. 582 ; Wil. 1108), and, after his death, iussu populi Eomani, in virtue of a special law, at Rome (ft I. L., i. 626 = vi. 872 ; Orel. 586 ; Wil. 877). With him, as is well known, divine honours begin to be paid to the princeps, even during life. In this same form other historical persons of high merit also begin to be honoured by posterity, as, for example, Scipio the elder at Saguntum (ft I. L.,
ii. 3836 ; Wil. 653), Marcellus, Romanorum ensis, at Nola (Mommsen, Inscr. Neap., 1984 ; Henz. 5347), Marius at Cereatae Marianse,
the place which bears his name (Mommsen, Inscr. Neap., 4487,'
Wil. 654). Of statues erected by the community of a municipium to a private person, that of L. Popillius Flaccus at Ferentinum seems to be the oldest example (C. I. L., i. 1164; Wil. 655, and his note). In Rome, Augustus and his successors in this way permitted the erection of statues, especially to triumphatores, in the new fora, including that of Augustus (C. I. L., vi. 1386; Orel 3187 ; Wil. 634 ; C. I. L., vi. 1444 ; Henz. 5448 ; Wil. 635) and that of Trajan (G. I. L., vi. 1377; Henz. 5478 ; Wil. 636; vi. 1549 ; Henz. 5477 ; Wil. 639 ; iv. 1549 ; Orel. 1386 ; Wil. 637 ; ft I. L., 1565, 1566 ; Wil. 640); and this custom lasted to a late period (ft I. L., vi. 1599 ; Henz. 3574 ; Wil. 638), as is shown by the statues of Symmachus the orator (C. I. L., vi. 1698, 1699; Orel. 1186, 1187 ; Wil. 641), Claudian the poet (C. I. L., vi. 1710; Orel. 1182; Wil. 642), Nicomachus Flavianus (C. I. L., vi. 1782, 1783 ; Orel. 1188; Henz. 5593 ; Wil. 645, 645a), and many other eminent men down to Stilicho (C. I. L., vi. 1730, 1731; Orel. 1133, 1134; Wil. 648, 648a), who died in the year 408. In similar forms are conceived the exceedingly numerous dedications to the emperors and their families, in which the names and titles, according to the different historical periods, are exhibited, in the main with the greatest regularity. They are specified in detailed indexes by Henzen and Wilmanns, as well as in each volume of the Corpus. In the provinces, of course, the usages of the capital were speedily imitated.. Perhaps the oldest example of a titulus honorarius in the form of an elogium (but in the dative), with the full cursus honorum of the person honoured, is a bilinguis from Athens, of the Augustan age (C. I. L., iii. 551; Henz. 6456a; Wil. 1122); the honours are here enumerated in chronological order, beginning with the lowest; in other instances the highest is placed first, and the others follow in order. In the older examples the formula "honoris causa," or virtutis ergo (Hermes, vol. vi., 1871, p. 6), is added at the end, as in an inscription of Mytilene belonging to the consul of the year 723 A.u.c, i.e., 31 B.C. (G. I. L., iii. 455; Orel. 4111; Vil. 11046); the same, abbreviated (h.c.), occurs on an inscription of about the same age from Cirta in Africa (C. I. L., viii. 7099 ; Vil. 2384). Shortly afterwards the honour of a statue became as common in the Eoman municipia as it was in Athens and other Greek cities in the later period. Each province furnishes numerous examples, partly with peculiar formulae, on which the indexes of Vilmanns (p. 673, 696 sq.) may be consulted. Special mention may be made of the numerous honorary inscriptions belonging to auriga;, histriones, and gladiatores; for those found in Rome see O. I. E., vi. 10044-10210.

dating from the year 745 (9 B.C.) (C. 1. L., v. 7231; Orel. 626), and the similar one on the tropica Augusti (la Turbia) (C. I. L., v. 7817) of the year 747 (7 B.C.), which Pliny also (Hist. Nat., iii. § 136) records, and those of the other emperors at Rome, of which only that of Claudius, the conqueror of Britain (C, I.L., vi. 920, 921 ; Orel. 715; Wil. 899), with the statues of himself and his family, need be

He who erects a temple or a public building, or constructs a road, a bridge, an aqueduct, or the like, by inscribing his name on the work, honours himself, and, as permission to do so has to be given by the public authorities, is also honoured by the community. Therefore the tituli operum publicorum, though in form only short official statements (at least in the older period) of the origin of the work, without any further indications as to its character and purpose, partake of the style of the older honorary inscriptions. Of the ancient and almost universally employed method of erecting public buildings by means of the locatio censoria one monument has preserved some traces (Ephem. epigr., ii. 199). The oldest instance of this class is that commemorating the restoration of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, begun, after its destruction by fire in the year 671 (83 B.C.), by Sulla and continued five years later by the well-known orator and poet Q. Lutatius Catulus, but completed only about twenty years afterwards. Here, after the name of Catulus in the nominative and the indication of the single parts of the build-ing (as, for example, substructionem et tcttularium) follows the solemn formula de s(enati) s(entcntia) faciundum coeravit eidemque prdbavit (O. I. L., i. 592 = vi. 1314; Orel. 31, 3267; Vil. 700). With the same formula the praetor M. Calpurnius Piso Frugi (of about the same period) dedicated an unknown building (G. I. L., i. 594 = vi. 1275), restored afterwards by Trajan. On a work executed by the collegium tribunorumplebis (O. I. L., i. 593=»vi. 1299 ; Wil. 787), perhaps the public streets within the town, the sum employed for it is also inscribed. Precisely similar is the oldest inscription of one of the bridges of Rome, the ponte dei quattro eapi, still preserved, though partly restored, on its original site, which com-memorates its builder, the tribune of the year 692 (62 B.C.), L. Fabricius (C. I. L., i. 600 = vi. 1305 ; Orel. 50; Wil. 788); it was restored by the consuls of the year 733 (21 B.C.).' On privately erected buildings the founder after his name puts a simple fecit (as also on sepulchral inscriptions); so, possibly, did Pompey, when he dedicated his theatre as a temple of Venus Victrix and, on Cicero's clever advice, as Varro and Tiro had it from Cicero himself, in-scribed on it COSTERT (not tertium or tertio) (see Gellius, Noct. Ait., x. 1). So Agrippa, when he dedicated his Pantheon in the year 727 (27 B.C.), inscribed on it only the words M. Agrippa L. f. cos. tertium fecit (O. I. L., vi. 896; Orel. 34; Wil. 731), as all who visit the Eternal City know. Of municipal examples it will be sufficient to name those of the majestic temple of Cora (O. I. L., i. 1149-1150 ; Wil. 722, 723), of Ferentinum, with the measurements of the foundation (O. I. L., i. 1161-1163 ; Wil. 708), of the walls and towers at jEclanum (C. Z L., i. 1230; Orel. 566; Henz. 6583; Wil. 699), of the theatre, amphitheatre, baths, and other structures at Pompeii (G. I. L., i. 1246, 1247, 1251, 1252 ; Orel. 2416, 3294 ; Henz. 6153 ; Wil. 730, 1899-1901). At Alatrium a munificent citizen gives an enumeration of a number of works executed by him in the period of the Gracchi, in his native town ("hsec qum infera scripta sunt de scnatu sententia facienda coiravit," G. I. L., i. 1166; Orel. 3892; Wil. 706); and, more than a century later, the same is done at Cartima, a small Spanish town near Malaga, by a rich woman (C. £ L., ii. 1956 ; Wil. 746). Military works, executed by soldiers, especially frequent in the Danubian provinces, Africa, Germany, and Britain, give, in this way, manifold and circum-stantial information as to the military administration of the Romans. On a column found near the bridge over the Minho at Aquee Flaviae, the modern Chaves in northern Portugal, ten com-munities inscribed their names, probably as contributors to the work, with those of the emperors (Vespasian and his sons), the imperial legate of the province, the legate of the legion stationed in Spain, the imperial procurator, and the name of the legion itself (O. I. L., ii. 2477 ; Wil. 803) ; and similarly, with the name of Trajan, on the famous bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara, in Spanish Estremadura, the names of the municipia provincial Lusi-taniae stipe conlata quae opuspontis perfecerunt are inscribed (C. I. L., ii. 759-762 ; Orel. 161,162; Wil. 804).

As in some of the already-mentioned inscriptions of public works the measurements of the work to which they refer (especially, as may be supposed, in the case of works of great extent, such as walls of towns or lines of fortification, like the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius in Britain) are indicated, so it early became a custom in the Roman republic to note on milestones the name of the founder of the road and, especially at the extremities of it and near large towns, the distances. So in the vol di Diana in Lucania P. Popilius Lsenas, the consul of the year 622 (132 B.C.), at the end of a road built by him, set up the miliarium Popilianum (O. I. L., i. 551,; Orel. 3308; Wil. 797), which is a general elogium to himself, in which he speaks in the first person (viam fecei ab Eegio ad Capuam, &c.). One of the single miliaria set up by him is also preserved (C. Z Z., i. 550; Henz. 7174a"; Wil. 808), which contains only his name and the number of miles. In the same brief style are conceived the other not very frequent republican miliaria found in Italy (C. I. L.,i. 535-537; Henz. 5348 ; Wil. 567 ; O. I. L., i. 540; Henz. 5350, 6226 ; Wil. 807 ; C. I. L., i. 558, 559 ; Henz. 5353; Wil. 808 ; G. I. L.,\. 561; Henz. 5180; Wil. 811; C. I. L., i. 633 ; Wil. 812) down to the time of Augustus (Mommsen, I. A ., 6244; Wil. 813), and also the even more rare sjiecimens from the provinces (from Asia—C. I.E., i. 557 = iii. 479, Wil. 826, C. I. E., i. 622 = iii. 462, Wil. 827; from Spain—C. I.E., i. 1484-1486 = ii. 4920-4925, 4956, Wil. 828, 829). Augustus inscribed on each milestone on his road across Spain " a Beete et Jano Augusta ad Oceanum" (e.g., C. I. L., ii. 4701; Wil. 832), Claudius on those of a road in Upper Italy founded by his father Drusus "viam Claudiam Augustam quam Drusus pater Alpibus bello patefactis derexserat munit ab Altino (or a flumine Pado) ad flumen Danuvium" (O. I. L., v. 8002, 8003 ; Orel. 648, 708; Henz. 5400; Wil. 818).

The later milestones vary greatly in form, but all contain most precious and not yet nearly exhausted materials for ancient geography and topography; in the volumes of the Corpus they are taken together under the special head viae publicae (and here and there privalee) at the end of each chapter.

le deque e gli acquedotti, &c, Rome, 1880.

A similar character, resulting from the combination of a mere authentic record with the peculiar form of the honorary inscrip-tion, belongs to the kindred classes of inscriptions of the aqueducts and of the different boundary-stones. The aqueducts of Rome are known to have their origin in remote antiquity; but no inscriptions belonging to them, so far as has been as yet discovered, go farther back than to the age of Augustus. The large dedicatory inscrip-tions of the celebrated aqueducts of Rome (as the Aquse Marcia, Tepula, and Julia, C. I. L., vi. 1244-1246, Orel. 51-53, Wil. 765 ; the Virgo, CEL., vi. 1252, Orel. 703, Wil. 763; the Claudia, etc., CEL., vi. 1256-1258, Orel. 54-56, Wil. 764) have quite the character of honorary inscriptions, while the various cippi ter-minates, which mark the ground belonging to the aqueduct, show the greatest analogy to the milestones (e.g., C. I. L., vi. 1243a-g; Henz. 6635, 6636 ; Wil. 775-779). The other Italian and pro-vincial varieties cannot be specified here. Of boundary-stones, or cippi terminates, some very ancient specimens have been preserved. To the age preceding the Second Punic War belong two, found at Venusia and erected by municipal magistrates (CEL., i. 185, 186; Orel. 3527, 3528 ; Wil. 863); they give a short relation of a decree, by which certain localities were declared to be sacred or public (" aut sacrom aut poublicom loeom ese"). Then follow the cippi Gracchani, by which Gams Gracchus and his two colleagues, as tres viri agris iudicandis adsignandis, measured the ager Campanus, for its division among the plebs. They contain the names of the tres viri in the nominative, and in addition, on the top, the lines and angles of the cardo and decumanus, according to the rules of the agrimensores, or the boundary lines between the ager publicus andprivatus (C. I. L., i. 552-556 ; Henz. 6464; Vil. 859-861). From the age of Sulla we still have various boundary-stones giving the line of demarcation between different communities (between Fanum and Pisaurum— C. I. L., i. 583, Orel. 570, Vil. 861 ; between Ateste, Vicetia, and Patavium—C. I. L., i. 547-549, Orel. 3110, Henz. 5114, 5115, Wil. 865, 866). To the town of Rome belong the termini ripse Tiberis (C. I. L., i. 608-614 = vi. 1234a—Z), beginning in the Augustan age, and the termini of the pomoerinm of Claudius and Vespasian as censors, and of the col-legium augurum under Hadrian (CEL., vi. 1231-1233; Orel. 710, 811 ; Wil. 843, 844), while others, of the consuls of the yeai 4 A.D. (CEL., vi. 1263; Orel. 3260; Wil. 856), of Augustus (G. I. L., vi. 1265; Henz. 6455; Wil. 852), &c, show the boundary between the ager publions and privatus. With similar objects boundary-stones were erected by the emperors, or, under their authority, by magistrates, mostly military, in the rest of Italy also (as in Capua—Mommsen, /. N. 3590, Orel. 3683, Wil. 858 ; at Pompeii—I.N. 2314, Wil. 864) and in the provinces (as in Syria— G. 1. L., iii. 183 ; in Macedonia—G. I. L., iii. 594 ; in Dalmatia— G. I. L., iii. 2883 ; in Africa—G. I. L., viii. 7084-90, 8211, 8268, 10803, 10838, Wil. 869, 870 ; in Spain—a I. L., ii. 2349, 2916, Wil. 871—where the pratum of a legion is divided from the territory of a municipium ; in Gaul—Wil. 867 ; in Germany, in the column lately found at Miltenberg on the Main, Homier Jahrbücher, vol. lxiv., 1878, p. 46, &c. ). The recent attempt to combine under some boundary system the numerous stones found in Britain on military buildings, as on the wall of Hadrian and in divers castra, which indicate the centuriae of legions and cohorts employed in the work and its measurements as executed by them, has been finally refuted by Mr Clayton (in the Archseologia JEliana, 1880). Private grounds (pcdaturee) were unfrequently marked off by terminal cippi. To this class of tituli must be added also the curious inscrip-tions incised upon the steps of Roman circuses, theatres, and amphi-theatres (see Hübner, Annali dell' Instituto archeologico, vol. xxviii., 1856, p. 52 sq., and vol. xxxi., 1859, p. 122 sq.), as, for instance, upon those of the Coliseo at Rome (C.I.L., vi. 1796,1-37; compare R. Lanciani, Bullcttino archeologico municipale, 1881).

4. We now come to the last class of tituli, viz., those which in the Corpus are arranged, at the end of each volume, under the head of Instrumentum. By this very comprehensive term are designated objects which vary greatly among themselves, but which are of such a character as not to fall within any of the classes of tituli described before, or the class of the instrumenta in the proper sense of that word,—the laws, &c. The tituli of the instru-mentum, embrace movable objects, destined for public and private use, and illustrate almost every side of the life of the ancient Romans. As systematic treatment of them is hardly possible, a simple enu-meration only of their different classes can be given, without cit-ing special examples. The first species of them is metrological, comprehending the inscriptions on measures and weights. The gold and silver plate used in the best Roman houses was also always marked with a note of its weight,—as is seen, for instance, on the different objects belonging to the Hildesheim find (see Hermes, iii., 1868, p. 469 sq. ; Philologus, xxviii., 1869, p. 369), the Corbridge lanx in Northumberland House (C.I.L., vii. 1268), and many others. A second species is formed by the tesserse, tokens, or marks, mostly in bronze, bone, and ivory, but also earthen, of which the most interesting are the so-called tesserse gladiatorise, little staves of bone with holes at the top, and with names of slaves or freed-men and consular dates upon them, the relation of which to the munera gladiatoria is by no means certain (see G I. L., i. 717 sq., and Hübner, Monatsberichte der Bert. Aîcad. der Wissenschaften, 1867, p. 747 sq., Revue archéologique, vol. xvi., 1868, p. 469 sq., and Ephem., iii. 203). The other circular tesserae of ivory or bone, with emblems and short inscriptions, partly Greek and Latin, may with more confidence be attributed to the ludi sceenici (see Henzen, Annali dell' Instituto archeologico, vol. xx., 1848, p. 273 sq., and vol. xxii, 1850, p. 357 sq.) and to other ludi; but the uses of many of them remain very uncertain. A third species is that of inscriptions carved, inscribed, painted, or stamjied upon various materials, raw or manufactured, for trade or household use. Such are, to begin with the most solid and heavy, the inscriptions carved or painted on masses of stone, mostly columns, in the quar-ries, and preserved either on the rocks themselves in the quarries or on the roughly hewn blocks transported to the Roman emporium on the Tiber bank. Curious specimens of the first kind are pre-served in Lebanon, and in the north of England, near Hadrian's Wall and elsewhere ; on the second may be consulted a learned treatise by Padre L. Bruzza (" Iscrizioni dei marmi grezzi," in the Annali dell' Instituto archeologico, vol. xlii., 1870, p. 106-204). Of a kindred character are the inscriptions, mostly stamped or engraved in the mould, of pigs of silver, bronze, and lead (and pewter), found in the Roman mines in Spain and England (see Hübnor, "Römische Bleigruben in Britannien," in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, vol. xi., 1857, p. 347 sq., and C. I. L., vii. p. 220 sq. ; A. Way, Archailogical Journal, vol. xvi., 1859, p. 23, and vol. xxiii., 1866, p. 63). A fourth species of tituli of this class is strictly related to the military institutions of the Roman empire. Many of the weapons are marked with the names of the bearer and of the military corps to which he belonged,—so, for example, the buckles of their shields (see Hübner, "Römische Schildbuckel," in Archiioloqisch-epigraphischc Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich, vol. ii., 1878, p. 105 sq. ; by far the best extant specimen is the umbo of a legionary soldier of the eighth legion found in the Tyne near South Shields, G. I. L., vii. 495), and sometimes the swords, as that of Tiberius from Mainz (now in the British Museum, see Bonner Winckelmannsprogramm of 1848). The leaden glandes used by the funditores, the slingers, in the Roman army bear curious historical inscriptions (see G. I. L., i. 642 sq., and, on the question of the authenticity of many of them, much discussed of late, Bergk, Bonner Jahrbücher, vols, lv., Ivi., 1875, p. 1 sq., and Zangemeister, Monatsberichte, der Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1875, p. 465, 1876, p. 65 sq. ; Bullettino dell' Instituto archeologico, 1877, p. 172, 1879, p. 190 sq.). Special mention must be made also of the leaden seals or marks, evidently of military origin (perhaps to be borne by the soldiers as a countersign), which have been found in many parts of England, but nowhere else as yet (C. I. L., vii. 1269 ; Ephem. epigr., iii. p. 144, 318, iv. p. 209)" Of the highest interest are the manifold productions of the Roman tile and brick kilns. Next to the tiles with consular dates made at Veleia (C. I.E., i. 777 foil.), those signed with the name of legions or other military corps, and employed in the various military build-ings of these, are especially worthy of mention ; they form an im-portant chapter in every geographical part of the Corpus. But private persons, too, especially the rich landed proprietors, and afterwards the emperors and their kinsmen, kept large figulinae, and their manufactures—tiles of every description and other earthenware—were spread over the Roman empire. The different sorts of earthen vessels and lamps, the fragments of which are found in great quantities wherever Roman settlements occurred, are arranged at the end of each volume of the Corpus. But a scientific inquiry into their origin, age, and employment, difficult on account of the enormous and always increasing mass of the extant remains, has not yet been undertaken, the small works of Froehner (Inscrip-tioncs terrae coctse vasorum, Göttingen, 185S) and Schuermans (Siglcs figulins, Brussels, 1867) being by no means satisfactory. On Roman lamps and their inscriptions the accurate catalogue of the Vienna collection by Kenner (" Die antiken Thonlampen des K. K. Münz- und Antiken-Cabinetes und der K. K. Ambraser Sammlung," in the Archiv für Kunde österreichischer Geschichts-quellen, vol. xx., Vienna, 1858) may be consulted with advantage. But a good beginning to a thorough treatment of the question has been made by an accurate exploration of the chief deposit of those fragments, the Monte testaccio at Rome, by Dressel ("Ricerche sul Monte testaccio," in the Annali dell' Instituto archeologico, vol. i., 1878, p. 118-192). Inscriptions are found on various classes of vessels, painted (as the consular dates on the large dolia for wine oil, &c, see Schöne C. I. L., iv. p. 171 sq., and Ephem. epigr., i. p. 160 sq.), stamped on the clay when still wet or in the mould, and scratched in the clay when dry, like those on the walls of ancient buildings in Pompeii, Rome, and other places of anti-quity. Like the corresponding Greek ware, they contain chiefly names of the makers or the merchants or the owners, and can be treated in a satisfactory manner only when brought together in one large collection, inasmuch as, besides being made in many local potteries, they were exported principally from some places in Italy (e.g., Arezzo) and Spain, in nearly every direction throughout northern and western Europe, the countries outside the Roman frontiers not excluded. Vessels and utensils of glass and of metal (gold, silver, and especially bronze) were also exported from Italy on a large scale, as is being more and more readily recognized even by those antiquaries who formerly were wont to assume a local origin for all bronze finds made in the north of Europe. These utensils, ornaments, and other objects made of precious metals (such as cups, spoons, mirrors, fibulm, rings, gems), not unfrequently bear Latin inscriptions. On the very ancient silver and bronze caskets, for holding valuable articles of the female toilet, which have been found at Prameste, are inscribed, in addition to the names of the artist and of the donor, occurring once, the names of the persons in the mythical representations engraved upon them (C. I. L., i. 54-60, 1500, 1501 ; Jordan, Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte der lateinischen Sprache, Berlin, 1879, p. 3 sq.). In the ancient well of the Aquae Apollinares, nearVicarello in Tuscany, three silver cups have been found with circumstantial itineraries "a Gades (sic) usque Romam" engraved upon them, evidently gifts to the divinity of the bath for recovered health presented by travellers from the remote city named (Henzen 5210). Similar is the Rudge Cup, found in Wiltshire and preserved at Almvick Castle, which contains, engraved in bronze, an itinerary along some Roman sta-tions in the north of England (C. I. E., vii. 1291). The inscriptions of the Hildesheim silver find and others of a similar character have been already mentioned; and many examples might be enume-rated besides. On the ancient glass ware and the inscriptions on it the splendid works of Deville (Histoire de l'art de la verrerie dans Tantiquite, Paris, 1873) and Froehner (La verrerie antique, description de la collection Charvet, Paris, 1879) may be consulted ; on the Christian glasses that of Garrucci (Vetri ornati difigure in oro trovati nei cimiteri dei cristiani primitivi di Roma, Rome, 1858). The last species of tituli is formed by the stamps them-selves with which the inscriptions on many of the objects already named are produced. They are mostly of bronze, and contain names ; but it is not easy to say what sort of objects were marked with them, as scarcely any article stamped with a still existing stamp has been found. Amongst the materials stamped leather also is to be mentioned. One class only of stamps differs widely from the rest,—the oculists' stamps, engraved mostly on steatite (or similar stones), and containing remedies against diseases of the eyes, to be stamped on the glass bowls in which such remedies were sold, or on the medicaments themselves (see Grotefend, Die Stempel der römischen Augenärzte gesammelt und erklärt, Göttingen, 1867 ; since its publication many new examples have come to light).

IV. The other great class of inscriptions above referred to, the instrumenta or leges, the laws, deeds, &c, preserved generally on metal and stone, from the nature of the case have to be considered chiefly with regard to their contents ; their form is not regulated by such constant rules as that of the tituli, so far as may be inferred from the state of completeness in which they have been preserved. The rules for each special class therefore, though, generally speaking, maintained—as was to be expected of Roman institutions—with remarkable steadiness from the earliest times down to a late period, must be based upon a comprehensive view of all the examples, including those preserved by ancient writers, and not in the monumental form. These documents are, as a rule, incised on bronze plates (only some private acts are preserved on wood and lead), and therefore have their peculiar form of writing, abbreviation, mterpunction, &c, as has been already explained. A complete collection of these monuments, although projected by many workers in the field of Roman jurisprudence from Antonius Augustinus downwards, has not yet been made. The older Roman laws are now collected, in trustworthy texts, in the Corpus, vol. i.; of the documents belonging to the later period a very compre-hensive though not quite complete sylloge is given in the late lamented C. G. Bruns's Fontes juris Romani antigui (Tübingen, 4th ed., 1879).

1. Among the earliest occasions for committing to writing agreements, which may be supposed to have been originally verbal only, must certainly be reckoned international transactions (leges foederis ocfmdera). At the head of the prose records written in the Latin language we find the treaties of alliance of Tullus Hostilius with the Sabini (Dionysius Halic., iii. 38), of Servius Tullius with the Latini (Dionysius, iv. 26 ; Festus, p. 169 ; this was, partly, at the same time, as will afterwards appear, the oldest document of the sacred class), of the second Tarquinius with Gabii (Dionysius, iv. 58 ; Festus, epit., p. 56). They are followed, in the oldest re-publican period, by the celebrated fmdera with Carthage, so much discussed o Elate; by the pacts of Sp. Cassius Vecellinus with the Latini of the year 261 (493 B.c.), which Cicero seems to have seen still in the forum behind the rostra, written on a bronze column (Pro Balbo, 23, 53 ; see also Livy, ii. 33; Festus, p. 166 ; and Momm-sen's Piömischc Forschungen, ii. p. 153 sq.) ; and by the fcedus Ardeatinum of 310 (444 B.c.) mentioned by Livy (iv. 7). Of all these documents nothing has been preserved in an authentic form, save some few words quoted from them by the ancient grammarians. Of onefoidus only is there a fragment still in existence, relating to the Oscan civilas libera Bantia (C. I. L., i. 197); it was drawn up between 621 and 631 (133 and 123 B.c.), and contains the clausula of the fadus, which was written in Latin and in Oscan. On account of this peculiar circumstance, the document gave occasion to Klenze, and afterwards to Mommsen, to resume (for the sake of Roman jurisprudence, in the first instance) inquiry into the Oscan and other Italian dialects. Some other Roman fcedera are preserved only in Greek, e.g., that with the Jews of the year 594 (160 B.c.) (Josephus, Ant., xii. 6, 10). Some others, made with the same nation between 610 and 615 (144 and 139 B.c.) (Jos., Ant., xiii. 5, 6, and 7, 8), are mentioned in an abridged form only (see Mendelssohn, '' Senati consul ta Romanorum quae sunt in Jose phi antiquitatibus," &c, in the Acta Societ. Philol. Lips., vol. v., 1875, p. 87 sq., and compare PJieinisches Museum für Philologie, vol. xxx., 1875, p. 118 sq., xxxii., 1877, p. 249 ; Ritschl's Opuscula, vol. v. p. 99 sq.; Mommsen, Hermes, vol. ix., 1874, p. 281 sq.; Niese, Hermes, vol. xi., 1876, p. 466 sq.), or given in that of a senatus consullum, to which they must formally be ascribed. Amongst the fcedera may be reckoned also the curious oath, sworn, perhaps, according to a general rule obtaining for all civitates foederatie, by the citizens of a Lusitanian oppidum, Aritium, to Gaius Cresar on his accession to the throne in A.D. 37 (C. I. L., ii. 172; Wil. 2839).
Closely related to the fcedera are the pacts between communities and private individuals, respecting palronatus or hospilium (tabulae patronalus et hospitii, also, when in small portable form, tesserae hospitales), of which many specimens from the end of the republic down to a late period of the empire have been preserved (see Gazzera, Memorie dell' Academia di Torino, vol. xxxv., 1831, p. 1 sq., and Mommsen, Römische Forschungen, i. p. 341 sq.). There is at present no complete collection of these; for since Gazzera's time many new ones have been found. Of the numerous examples scattered through the different volumes of the Corpus may be quoted the tessera Fundana, containing the pact of hospitality be-tween the community of Fundi and a certain Ti. Claudius (who cannot, with certainty, be identified), the oldest hitherto known, in the form of a bronze fish (C. I. L., i. 532; Henz. 7000; Wil. 2849); the tabula of the pagus Gurzensium in Africa, delivering the patronate to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero's grandfather, in 742 (12 B.c.), in the afterwards solemn form of a tabella fastigata, to be fixed in the atrium of the person honoured (Orel. 3693 ; Wil. 2850); that of the civitas Palantin a with apere-grinus named Acces Licirni of the year 752 (2 B.c.) (Ephem. epigr.,

i. 141; Hermes, v., 1871, p. 371 sq.); that of Laeilbula, in Spain, with one Q. Marius Balbus, of 5 A.D. (O. I. L., ii. 1393) ; that of the Bocchoritani on the island of Majorca, of 6 A.D. (C. I. L., ii. 3695 ; Wil. 2851); the four relating to C. Silius Aviola, dating from 27 to 28 A.D., all found at Brescia (C. I. L., v. 4919-4922) ; that of the colonia Julia Aug. legionis vii. Tupusuctu, in Africa, with the imperial legate Q. Julius Secundus, of 55 A.D. (O. I. L., viii. 8837; Wil. 2851); that of two gentilitates, the Desonci and Tridiavi, of the gens of the Zcelae, in Spain, now in the Museum of Berlin, which contains an older act of the j'ear 27, and another more recent of the year 127 A.D. (O. I. L., ii. 2633; Orel. 156); that of the respublica Pompelonensis (Pampluna in Spain) of 185 A.D. (O. I. L., ii. 2960 ; Wil. 2854); that of the Segisamonenses, in Spain, of 239 A.D., now in the museum at Burgos (Ephem. epigr., ii. 322); that of the fabri subidiani (i.e., subrediani, qui sub aede consistent) of Cordova, of 348 A.D (C. I. L., ii. 2211; Wil. 2861); and, in addition to many others, those found together at Rome, on the site of the palace of Q. Aradius Valerius Proculus, and belonging to him and other members of his family, from divers African cities, and executed in 321 and 322 A.D. (C. I. L., vi. 1684-88; Orel. 1079, 3058).

2. Hardly inferior in antiquity, and of superior value, are the remains of laws ill the stricter sense of the word (leges and plebi-scita), preserved to us in the originals, although unfortunately only in fragments more or less extensive. Of those laws the oldest and most important are the lex Acilia (for so it is in all probability to be styled) rcpetuiidarum of the year 631 (C. I. L., i. 198), which is incised on a bronze table about 2 metres broad, in 90 lines of about 200 to 240 letters each, and therefore extremely inconvenient to read, and the lex agraria of 643 (111 B.C.), written on the reverse of the table of the Acilia, abrogated shortly afterwards (C. I. L., i. 200); this is the third of the celebrated laws of C. Gracchus bear-ing upon the division of public lands. Then follow the lex Cornelia de viginti quaestoribus, a fragment of Sulla's legislation, the eighth tabic only, of the whole set, being preserved (C. I. E., i. 202); the plebiscitum de Thermensibus, on the autonomy of Ter-messus in Pisidia, proposed by the tribuni plebis, in 682 (72 B.c.), one of four or five large bronze plates (C. I. L., i. 204) ; the lex Rubria de civilate Gallim cisalpinm of 705 (49 B.c.), written in a new and more convenient form (belonging as it does to Caesar's legislation), in two columns, with numbered divisions, being the fourth out of an unknown number of plates (C. I. L., i. 205) ; the lex Julia municipalis, or, from the place where it was found, the tabulae Heracleenses of 709 (45 B.c.), written on the reverse of the much older Greek law of that community, preserved partly at Naples, partly in the British Museum (C. I.E., i. 206), also a fragment of Csesar's general municipal institutions; it contains a curious passage relating to the public promulgation of laws (v. 15). These are the laws of the Roman republic preserved in important fragments; some minor ones (brought together in C. I. L., i. 207-211) may be left out of account here. In the imperial age, laws in general were replaced by senatus consulta, or by imperial decrees. It was also in the form of a senatus consullum that the leges de imperio, on the accession of the emperors, seem to have been promulgated. An example of such a law, preserved in part on a bronze tablet found at Rome, is the lex de imperio Vespasiani (C. L L., vi. 930; Orel. vol. i. p. 567). There is, besides, one special category of imperial constitutions which continued to be named leges, viz., the constitutions given by the emperors to the divers classes of civitates, based upon the ancient traditional rules of government applied to Rome itself as well as to the colonise, and municipia,. Of this sort of leges some very valuable specimens have come from Spanish soil, viz., the lex colonise Julise Genetivae Urbanorum sice Ursonis (now Osuna), given to that colony by Caesar in 710 (44 B.c.), but incised, with some alterations, in the time of Vespasian, of which three bronze tables out of a much larger number remain (Hübner and Mommsen, Ephem. epigr., ii. p. 150 sq. and 221 sq.); the lex Salpensana and the lex Malacilana, given to these two municipia by Domitian, between 81 and 84 A.D., each on a large bronze plate, written respectively in two and in five columns, with the single chapters numbered and rubricated (G. I. L., ii. 1963, 1964, compare Mommsen, "Die Stadtrechte der ateinischen Gemeinden Salpensa und Malacca in der Provinz Baetica," in the Abhandlungen der sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, philol.-histor. Classe, vol. iii., 1857, p. 363 sq.); the lex metalli Vipascensis, given, with all probability, by one of the three Flavii, as a constitution to a mining district of southern Portugal, one bronze plate numbered iii.—three or more, therefore, being, lost (see Hubner, Ephem. epigr., iii. p. 165 sq. and, for a popular account, the Deutsche Rundschau, August 1877, p. 196 sq.). The so-called military diplomas, although in certain respects nearly related to the leges of the later period, are better placed along with the imperial decrees.

3. A third species of official documents is formed by decrees of the senate of Rome, of the analogous corporations in the colonise and municipia, and of the divers collegia and sodalicia, consti-tuted, as a rule, after a similar fashion and debating in nearly the same way as the Roman and the municipal senates. The oldest Roman senatus consulta are those translated into the Greek lan-guage and containing treaties of alliance, as already mentioned. They are preserved either on monuments or by ancient authors, as Josephus :—e.g., the fragment found at Delphi, from the year 568 (186 B.C.), and the sc. Thisbseum, from Thisbe in Boeotia, 584 (170 B.C.) (Ephem. epigr., i. p. 278 sq., ii. p. 102, and Job. Schmidt, Zeit-schrift der Savigny-Stiftung, vol. iii., 1881), those of 616, 619, 621, 649 (138-105 B.C.) (C. I. Grsec, 2905, 2908, ii. 2485, 2737; Le Bas and Waddington, vol. iii. p. 195-198 ; Annali dell' Institute, vol. xix., 1847, p. 113 ; Ephem. epigr., iv. p. 213 sq.), and those relating to the Jews, dating from 615, 621, and 710 (139, 133, and 44 B.C.) (Josephus, Ant., xiii. 9, 2, xiv. 8, 5 and 10, 9). The two oldest senatus consulta written in Latin are also preserved in a more or less complete form only by ancient authors; they are the sc. dephilosophis et rhetori-busot 593 (161 B.C.) (Gellius, Nod. Att., xv. 11, 1) and that dehastis Martiis of 655 (99 B.C.) (Gellius, iv. 6, 2). The only one belong-ing to the oldest period preserved in the original Latin form, of which only a part exists, together with the Greek translation, is the sc. Lutatianum, relating to Asclepiades of Clazomenae and his companions, dating from 676 (77 B.c.)(C. I. L., i. 203). The rest, belonging to the later epoch from Cicero downwards, about twenty in number, are mostly preserved only in an abridged form by ancient writers,—such as Cicero, Frontinus, Macrobius,—or in J ustinian's Digesta (see Hiibner, De senatus populique Bomani aetis, Leipsic, 1859, p. 66 sq.); a few exist, however, in a monumental form, complete or in fragments—as the two sc. on the ludi ssecu-lares, dating from 17 B.C. and 47 A.D., preserved on a marble slab found at Rome (C I. L., vi. 877); the fragments of two sc. in honour of Germanicus and the younger Drusus, from Rome, on bronze tablets (G. I. L., vi. 911-912; Henz. 5381-5282); the two sc. Hosidianum and Volusianum, containing regulations for the demolition and rebuilding of houses in Rome, incised on the same bronze plate, found at Herculaneum, dating from Nero's time, between 41 and 46 and from 56 A.D. (Orel. 3115; Mommsen, Berichte der sdchs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, philol.-histor. Classc, 1852, p. 272 sq.); and, of a later period, the sc. Cassianum or Nonianum of 138 A.D., containing a market regulation for the saltus Beguensis in Africa, where it has been found preserved in two examples on stone slabs (Ephem. epigr., ii. p. 271 sq., not com-plete in Wil. 2838), and the fragment of that for Cyzicus, belong-ing to the reign of Antoninus Pius (Ephem. epigr., iii. p. 156 sq.). There exists, besides, a chapter of a sc., relating to the collegia, inserted in the decree of a collegium at Lamivium, to be mentioned below. Of the municipal decrees, of which a greater number is preserved (see Hiibner, De sen. populique Bom. actis, p. 71 sq.), only a few of the more important may be mentioned here:—the lex Puteolana de parieti faciundo of 649 (105 B.C.) (G. 1. L., i. 577; Orel. 3697; Wil. 697) ; the two deereta (or so-called ccnotaphia) Pisana in honour of Lucius and Gaius Caesar, the grandsons of Augustus, of 3 A.D. (Orel. 642, 643; Wil. 883); the decretum Lanu-vinum of 133 A.D., containing the regulations of a collegium funeraticium, styled collegium salutare Dianse et Antinoi (Or. 6086; Wil. 319); and the decretum Tergestinum, belonging to the time of Antoninus Pius (O. I. L., v. 532; Henz. 7167; Wil. 693). There are, however, more than thirty others preserved, some of them, such as those from Naples, written in the Greek language. Of the third speciality, the deereta collcgiorum, only the lex collegii aquae of the first century (Marini, Atti de' fratelli Arvali, p. 70; Rudorff and Mommsen, Zeitschrift fur Bechtsgeschichte, vol. xv., 1850, p. 203, 345 sq.), and the lex collegii JEsenlapii et Uygise, of 153 (O. I. E., vi. 10234; Orel. 2417 ; Wil. 320) need be mentioned here; many more exist. One of them, the lex collegii Jovis Ocrneni, dating from 167 A.D., found at Alburnum major in Dacia, is pre-served on the original tabella cerata on which it was written (O. I. L., iii. p. 924_; Henz. 6087; Wil. 321).

4. The fourth species of instrumenta are the decrees, sometimes in the form of letters, of Roman and municipal magistrates, and of the emperors and their functionaries, incised, as a rule, on bronze tablets. The oldest decree in the Latin language which has been preserved is that of L. iEmilras Paulus, when praetor in Hispania Baetica, dating from 189 B.C., for the Turris Lascutana in southern Spain (G. I. L., ii. 5041 ; Wil. 2837); of the same date is a Greek ons of Cn. Manlius, consul of the year 565, for the Heracleenses Cariae (Le Bas and Waddington, n. 588). Then follow the famous epistula consilium (falsely styled commonly senatus consultum) ad Teuranos de bacchanalibus, dated 568 (186 B.C.) (C. I. L., i. 196); the sentence of the two Minucii, the delegates of the senate, on a dispute concerning the boundaries between the Genuates and Viturii, 117 B.o. (O. I. L., i. 199; Orel. 3121; Wil. 872); and the epistula of the praetor L. Cornelius (perhaps Sisenna), the praetor of 676 (78 B.C.) ad Tiburtes (G.I.L., i. 201). These belong to the republican age. From the imperial period a great many more have come down to us of varying quality. Some of them are decrees or constitutions of the emperors themselves. Such are the decree of Augustus on the aqueduct of Venafrum (Henz. 6428 ; Wil. 784); that of Claudius, found in the Val di Nona, belonging to 46 A.D. (O. I. L., v. 5050; Wil. 2842); of Vespasian for Sabora in Spain (CLE., ii. 1423), and for the Vanacini in Corsica (Orel. 4031); of Domitian for Falerii (Orel. 3118) ; the epistles of Hadrian relating to iEzani in Phrygia, added to a Greek decree of Avidius Quietus (O. I. L., iii. 355; Henz. 6955), and relating to Smyrna, in Greek, with a short one of Antoninus Pius, in Latin (C. /. L., iii. 411 ; Orel. 3119) ; the decrees of Commodus relating to the saltus Buruni-tanus in Africa (Mommsen, Herme's, vol. xv., 1880, p. 358 sq.); of Severus and Caraealla for Tyra (Akerman in Mcesia), Latin and Greek (O. I.E., iii. 781; Henz. 6429); of Valerian and Gallienus for Smyrna, also Latin and Greek (O.I.L., iii. 412); of Diocletian de pretiis rerum venalium, containing a iong list of prices for all kinds of merchandise, preserved in divers copies more or less com-plete, in Latin and Greek (CEL., iii. p. 801 sq. ; compare Ephem. epigr., iv. p. 180, and, as similar monuments, the lex partus of Cirta, of 202 A.D., Wil. 2738, and the fragment of a regulation for the importation of wines into Rome, Henz. 5089, Wil. 2739); and some of the age of Constantine, as that relating to Hispellum in Umbria (Henz. 5580 ; Wil. 2843), that of Julian found at Amorgos (Henz. 6431), and some others, of which copies exist also in the juridical collections. Of two imperial rescripts of a still later age (413 A.D.), fragments of the originals, written on papyri, have been found in Egypt (see Mommsen and Jaffe, Jahrbuch des gemeinen deutschen Bcchts, vol. vi., 1861, p. 398 ; Hanel, Corpus legum, p. 281). Imperial decrees, granting divers privileges to soldiers, are the diplomata militaria also, mentioned above, incised on two com-bined bronze tablets in the form of diptycha, of which about seventy examples have been brought together in the Corpus (vol. iii. p. 842 sq.); some specimens are given in AVil. 2862-2869, and in the Ephem. epigr. (vol. ii. p. 452, and vol. iv. p. 181 sq.), belonging to nearly all emperors from Claudius down to Diocletian. Though not a decree, yet as a publication going back directly to the emperor, and as being preserved in the monumental form, the speech of the emperor Claudius, delivered in the senate, relating to the Roman citizenship of the Gauls, of which Tacitus gives an abstract (Ann. xi. 23), ought also to be inentioned here ; it was engraved on large bronze slabs by the public authority of Lugudunum (Lyons), where a large fragment of it is still preserved (Boissieu, Inscriptions antiques de Lyon, p. 132 sq.). Another sort of decrees, relating to a great variety of subjects, has to be mentioned, emanating, not directly from the emperors, but from their functionaries. Such are the decree of the proconsul L. Helvius Agrippa, of the year 68 A.D., on the boundaries of some tribes on the island of Sardinia (Wil. 872 a); that of the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Julius Alexander, written in Greek, of the same year (C. I. Grsec., 4957); that of C. Helvidius Priscus, on a similar question relating to Histonium, belonging perhaps to the end of the first century (Wil. 873) ; that of the legate of Trajan, C. Avidius Quietus, one of the friends of Plutarch, found at Delphi, in Greek and Latin (C. /. L., iii. 567; Orel. 3671 ; Wil. 874) ; a rescript of Claudius Quartinus, perhaps the imperial legate of the Tarraconensis, of the year 119A.D., found at Pampluna (CEL., ii. 2959 ; Orel. 4032); the epistle of the^rai-fectiprsetorio to the magistrates of Saepinnm, of about 166-169 A.D. (Mommsen, I.N., 4916 ; Wil. 2841) ; the decree of L. NoviusRufus, another legate of the Tarraconensis, who ex tilia recitavit, of 193 A.D. (CEL., ii. 4125; Orel. 897; Wil. 876); the sentence of Alfenius Senecio, then subprefect of the classisprsetoria Misenensis, belonging to the beginning of the third century, formerly existing at Naples (Mommsen, I. N., 2646) ; and some others of the fourth and fifth centuries, not requiring specific mention here. Quite a collection of epistles of high Roman functionaries is found in the celebrated inscription of Thorigny (Mommsen, Berichte der sdchs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1852, p. 235 sq.). The letter of a provincial functionary, a priest of Gallia Narbonnensis, to the fabri subsediani of Narbonne, of the year 149, may also be mentioned (Henz. 7215 ; Wil. 696a). To these must be added the tabulae oli-mentarise, relating to the well-known provision made by Trajan for the relief of distress among his subjects, such as that of the Ligures Baebiani (Mommsen, I.N., 1354; Wil. 2844) and that ofVeleianear Parma (Wil. 2845); while evidence of similar institutions is fur-nished by inscriptions at Tarracina, at Sicca in Africa, and at Hispalis in Spain (Wil. 2846-48; C.I.L., ii. 1174). Atthe close of this long list of official documents may be mentioned the libellusoi the procurator operum publicorum a columna divi Marei of the year 193 (O. I. L., vi. 1585; Orel. 39; Wil. 2840) and the interlocutiones of the prsefecti vigilum on a law-suit of the fullones of Rome, of 244 A.D., inscribed on an altar of Hercules (CEL., vi. 266; Wil. 100). These documents form a most instructive class of instrumenta.

5. Many documents, as may be supposed, were connected with religious worship, public and private. The oldest lex templi, which continued in force until a comparatively late period,' was the regu-lation given by Servius Tullius to the temple of Diana on the Aventine, after the conclusion of the federal pact with the Latini, noticed above. Mention is made of this ancient law as still in force in two later documents of a similar character, viz., the dedi-cation of an altar to Augustus by the plebs of Narbo in southern France, of 764 A.D., but existing only, at Narbonne, in a copy, made-perhaps in the 2d century (Orel. 2489 ; WI1. 104), and that of an altar of Jupiter, dedicated at Salonae in Dalmatia in 137 A.D., still existing in part at Padua (C. I. L., iii. 1933 ; Orel. 2490 ; "Wil. 163). Another lex fani still existing is that of a temple of Jupiter Liber at Furfo, a vicus of southern Italy, of the year 696 (58 B.C.), but copied, in vernacular language, from an older original (O. I. E., i. 603 ; Orel. 2488 ; Wil. 105 ; compare Jordan in Hermes, vol. vii., 1872, p. 201 sq.). The lists of objects belonging to some sanctuaries or to the ornaments of statues are curious, such as those of the Diana Nemorensis at Nemi (Henz., Hermes, vol. vi., 1871, p. Ssq.), and of a statue of Isis in Spain (Hiibner, Hermes, vol. i., 1866, p. 345 sq. ; compare G.L.L., ii. 2060, 3386, Orel. 2510, Wil. 210), and two synopses from . temple at Cirta in Africa (Wil. 2736, 2737). The sortes given by di\ ..nities may also be mentioned (see C. I. E., i. p. 267 sq.; Wil. 2822). To a temple also, though in itself of a secular character, belonged a monument of the highest historical importance, viz.* the Index rerum a se gestarum, incised on bronze slabs, copies of which Augustus ordered to be placed, in Latin and Greek, where required, in the numerous Augustea erected to himself in company with the Dea Roma. This is known as the Monu-mentum Ancyranum, because it is at Angora in Asia Minor that the best preserved copy of it, in Greek and Latin, exists ; but frag-ments remain of other copies from other localities (see O. I. L., iii. p. 779 sq., and the special editions of Mommsen, Berlin, 1865, and Bergk, Gottingen, 1873). Among the inscriptions relating to sacred buildings must also be reckoned the numerous fragments of Roman calendars, or fasti anni Juliani, found at Rome and other places, which have been arranged and fully explained by Mommsen (C. I. L., i. p. 293 sq. ; compare Ephem. epigr., i. p. 33, ii. p. 93, iii. p. 5, 85, iv. p. 1 sq., and for those found in Rome, C. I. L., vi. 2294-2306). Local, provincial, or municipal kalcndaria have like-wise been found (as the feriale Oumantim, C. I. L., i. p. 310, and the Oapuanum, Mommsen, I. N., 3571). Many other large monu-mental inscriptions bear some relation, more or less strict, to sacred or public buildings. Along with the official calendar exhibited on the walls of the residence of the ponlifex maximus, the list of the eponymous magistrates, inscribed by the order of Augustus on large marble slabs, was publicly shown,—the fasti consulares, the recon-struction and illustration of which formed the life-work of Borghesi. These have been collected, down to the death of Augustus, by Henzen, and compared with the additional written testimonies, by Mommsen, in the Corpus (vol. i. p. 293 sq.; see also Ephem. epigr., i. p. 154, ii. p. 210, 285, iii. p. 11 sq. ; compare Hirschfeld and Mommsen in Hermes, vol. iii., 1874, pp. 93, 267 sq.), along with the acta triumphorum and other minor fragments of fasti found in various Italian communities (ft I. L., i. p. 453 sq.; Epliem. epigr., i. p. 157, iii. p. 16), while the fasti sacerdotum publicomim populi Romani, together with the tabula feriarum Latinarum, are given in the volume devoted exclusively to the monuments of Rome (vol. vi., p. 441 sq.; compare Hermes, vol. v., 1870, p. 379, unci Ephem. epigr., ii. p. 93, iii. pp. 74, 205 sq.). Documents of the same kind, as, for example, the album ordinis Thamugadensis from Africa (Ephem. epigr., iii. p. 77 sq.), and a considerable mass of military lists (latcrcula, of which those belonging to the garrison of the metropolis are brought together in C. I. L., vi. p. 651 sq.), are given on many dedicatory and honorary monuments, chiefly from Lambaesis in Africa (ft I. E., viii.). As those documents, though having only a partial claim to be ranked with the sacred ones, derive, like many other dedicatory monuments, their origin and form from that class, so also the protocols (acta), which, from Augustus downwards, seem to have been preserved in the case of all important collegia magistratuum, now survive only from one of the largest and most distinguished collegia sacerdotum, in the acta collegii fratrum Arvalium, to which Marini first drew the attention of epigraphists ; they form one of the most important masses of epigraphic monuments preserved to us in the Latin language (see C. I. L., vi. p. 459 sq., Epliem. epigr., ii. p. 211 sq., and Henzen's Acta fratrum Arvalium, Berlin, 1874).

6. Another species of instruments is formed by private documents. They have been incidentally preserved (inserted, for instance, into sepulchral and honorary inscriptions), in the later period not un-frequently in monumental form, as the testaments, given partly or in full, mentioned above (viz., that of Dasumius and the Gaul, CEL., vi. 10229, Wil. 314, 315, and some capita testamentorum or codicilli, as that of M. Meeonius Leo found at Petelia—Mom-msen, I. N., 78, 79 ; Orel. 3677, 3678 ; Wil. 696), and the dona-tions, such as those of T. Flavius Syntrophus (C. I. L., vi. 10239 ; Wil. 313), of T. Flavius Artemidorus (Wil. 310), of Statia Irene and Julia^Monime (C. I. E, vi. 10231, 10247; Wil. 311, 318). Of a peculiar description is the pactum fiduciae, found in Spain, engraved on a bronze tablet, and belonging, in all probability, to the 1st century (ft I. L., ii. 5042), which seems to be a formulary. Other documents relating to private affairs exist in their original form, written on tabellae ceratae. Those found together in a mining dis-trict of Dacia have been arranged and explained by Mommsen and Zangemeister (ft I. L., iii. p. 291 sq., with facsimiles); those found at Pompeii in 1875, containing receipts of the banker L. Cœcilius Jucundus, have been published by De Petra ("Le tavo-lette cerate di Pompei," Atti dell' Academia de' Lincei, vol. iii., 1876) and explained by Mommsen (Hermes, vol. xii., 1877, p. 88 sq. ). These documents are written in cursive letters ; and so mostly, too, are some other curious private monuments, belonging partly to the sacred inscriptions,—the defixioncs, imprecations directed against persons suspected of theft or other offences, who, according to a very ancient superstition, were in this way believed to be delivered to punishment through the god to whom the defixio was directed. The numerous Greek and Latin (and even Oscan) examples of this usage have been brought together by Wachsmuth (Rheinisches Museum, vol. xviii., 1863, p. 559 sq. ; Henz., Bullet-tino dell' Institute, 1866, p. 252 ; compare ft I. L., i. 818-820, C. I. L., vii. 140). Only a few of them are incised on stone (as that to the Dea Ataecina from Spain, C. I. E., ii. 462) ; for the most part they are written, in cursive letters, or in very debased capitals, on small bronze or lead tablets (so ft I. L., i. 818, 819 ; Henz. 6114, 6115 ; Wil. 2747, 2748), to he laid in the tombs of the "defixi," or deposited in the sanctuaries of some divinity. Some new specimens of this class have been lately added from Pavia and Arezzo in Italy (Mommsen, Hermes, vol. iii., 1868, p. 302, and vol. iv., 1869, p. 282 sq. ; Wil. 2749, 2753, 2754) ; one was lately found at Bath (Zangemeister, Hermes, vol. xv., 1880, p. 588 sq.).

7. Many of the private documents just alluded to have not a monumental character similar to that of the other inscriptions in the wider sense of the word, as they are written on materials not very durable, such as wood and lead,—in the majority of cases, in cursive characters ; but, nevertheless, they cannot be classed as literature. As a last species, therefore, of instrumenta, there remain some documents, public and private, which similarly lack the strict monumental character, but still are to be reckoned among inscriptions. These are the inscriptions painted or scratched on the walls of the buildings of ancient towns, like Pompeii, where, as was to be expected, most of them have been pre-served, those from other ancient cities buried by the eruptions of Vesuvius and from Rome being very small in number. All the various classes of these inscriptions—public and private advertise-ments, citations for the municipal elections, and private scribblings of the most diverse (and sometimes most indecent) character, once partly collected by Chr. Wordsworth (Inscriptiones Pompeianm, &c., London, 1837, 1846)—are now arranged by Zangemeister in the Corpus, vol. iv. (see also Ephem. epigr., i. pp. 49, 177sq., and some specimens in Wil. 1951 sq.), whence their peculiar palseographic and epigraphic rules may be learned. And, lastly, as related to some of these advertisements, though widely differing from them in age and character, may be mentioned the so-called diptycha consularia, monuments, in the first instance, of the still very respectable skill in this branch of sculpture to be found at this late period. They are, as is generally known, earved-ivory tablets, in the form of pugillaria, and seem to have been invitations to the solemnities connected with the accession of high magistrates, especially to the spectacles of the circus and amphitheatre ; for they contain, along with representations of such spectacles, the names, and often the portraits, of high functionaries, mostly of the 5th and 6th cen-turies. Since Gori's well-known work on this class of monuments (Thesaurus vetcrum dipiychorum, &c, 3 vols., Florence, 1759) no comprehensive collection of them has been published ; as speci-mens see G. I. L., ii. 2699, and v. 8120, 1-9.

Bibliography.—There is no "Textbook" of Roman epigraphy which can be recommended to the student. Brissonius, in his work De formulis et solemnibus populi Romani verbis libri VIII. (first published at Paris, 1583 ; edited, with additions by Conradi and Bach, at Frankfort and Leipsic, 1754), gives some useful information about the instrumenta ; Maffei, in his Ars critica lapidaria (published, after his death, in Donati's Supplement to Muratori, 1765), goes too far in his suspicions about forgeries ; Moreelli's Lexicon epigraphicum (in his Opera epigraphica, 5 vols., Padua, 1819) is made for use in the composition of modern Latin inscriptions. Zaccaria's Instituzione antiquario-lapidaria osia introduzione alio studio délie antiche latine iscrizioni (Rome, 1770, and Venice, 1793) has its merits, though it is somewhat antiquated, and is, besides, a rather scarce book. But students must be warned against Zell's Handbuch der romischen Epigraphik (2 vols., Heidelberg, 1850-1852), which is a work in every respect thoroughly unsatisfactory. For Christian inscriptions Le Blant's Manuel d'épigraphie chrétienne d'après les marbres de la Gaule (Paris, 1869), on which the article in Martigny's Dictionnaire des antiquités chrétiennes (2d éd., Paris, 1877, p. 357 sq.) is based, and that in Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (vol. i., London, 1875, p. 841 sq.), maybe consulted with advantage. (E. HÙ.)



The authors of the above article were as follows:
-- Cuneiform and Semetic: Rev. A. H Sayce, Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford.
-- Indian: John Dowson, late Professor of Hindustani, University College, London.
-- Greek: Rev. E. L. Hicks, M.A., Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
-- Roman: Dr. E Hübner, Professor of Classical Philology, University of Berlin.