he delayed his work until Mr. Burgon himself arrived in England with the vase, which he brought down to Cambridge for Dr. Clarke's inspection, by whom it was most accurately copied. It is a remarkable circumstance, however, that although this copy, as well as those of Mr. Hughes, Mr. Dodwell, Mr. Millingen, and others, gives the word as we have written it, and rightly so, A ENEON, yet all the commentators on it, and amongst them those eminent scholars Dr. Blomfield and Mr. Walpole, have invariably read it as A ENEON, changing the last theta into an omicrou. According to the former of these gentlemen, the word is 'Alyvéwv the lengthened form for 'Anyv, and the legend signifies that the vase was a prize given by the city of Athens; and this opinion he defends with many learned arguments. Mr. Walpole, on the contrary, assumes that it is for 'Alŋvaíwv, i. e. the vase was the prize of the Athenæa, as the Panathenæa were denominated at their first institution. Mr. Rose observes that the word may stand either for Aonverwv of Abnvewv, and it is a curious fact that the word Anvelo, for Alvaro, does occur in one of the inscriptions which he has edited. But why read Aleveov at all? The word is evidently meant for Aonyev, and the painter has committed one of the numberless errors which we have seen committed by engravers, in leaving out an E after the last e. It is remarkable that Mr. Rose himself in his late tour on the continent saw a vase, very similar to this Burgonian one, which had been discovered in a sepulchre of Calabria, and which exhibits the identical words TON AOENEBEN ABAON. Mr. Rose observes on this, that he scarcely knows what to decide; whether the tenant of the Calabrian sepulchre had gone to Athens and there gained the prize, or whether some Athenian colony of Magna Græcia had established similar games among themselves, where this victor had received his vase. Mr. R. rather inclines to the latter opinion, but we prefer the former : in the first place, history is silent respecting any such games; and in the next, Tüv 'Alývndev is but an ancient form of expression for τῶν ̓Αθηναίων, "the Athenians:" nay, the very same form occurs in the fourth inscription of Mr. R.'s second class, which is the legend of a votive helmet found at Olympia, ΤΑΡΓΕΙΟΙ ΑΝΕΘΕΝ ΤΟΙ ΔΙΕΙ ΤΟΝ ΚΟΡΙΝΘΟΘΕΝ, which Porson and Payne Knight both explain as άrò Tv Kopivoiwv. The same expression is evidently used at the commencement of Hesiod's poem: Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι Here the word Пispinder must be joined with Mouga (" Musæ Pieria oriunda"), not with deurs as it is commonly taken, ❝ come from Pieria." When it is so used, it requires a preposition, as in Il. 4. 603. ὁ δὲ κλισίηθεν ἀκούσας "Εκμολεν ἶσος "Αρηϊ and II. . 492. anò Тpointsy jóvτa. In fact though used adverbially, it is an old form of the genitive case, as is evident from Il. 0.304. Τόν ῥ ̓ ἐξ Αἰσύμνηθεν ὀπυομένη τέκε μήτηρ, Considering this momentous question as set at rest, we pass on to another very remarkable inscription, which is the third of this class. It was discovered in Leucadia, now Santa Maura, in the year 1753, and was first published in an historical memoir of that island by a certain Petrizzopulo, who declares that Odoardo Cavalier Montaigu de Wortley (by which appellation we suppose he means Mr. E. Wortley Montague,) saw and interpreted this inscription on his return from Arabia in 1766. We hope, however, that he returned with a better knowlege of Arabic than he has shown of Greek in this interpretation, which is something like what we should fancy Partridge would have made of an old Roman monument. Mr. Rose was long inclined to think the inscription spurious, or even that Petrizzopulo had been imposed on by some wag; but certain circumstances have induced him to lay aside this suspicion. After an attentive consideration of the transcript in Petrizzopulo's book, which we procured with some difficulty, we are decidedly inclined to think it genuine; but we cannot absolve Mr. Rose, in this instance, from the fault of not giving a very accurate facsimile of it. In this inscription Koph or Koppa Q is used for K, and many of the letters are similar in form to those on the ancient coins of Leucadia. The following is Professor Böckh's ingenions interpretation. Παιρο (i. e. Φαίρων) ὁ Μενεσικράτους τοῦ κορειτίου (κορινθίου) καὶ οὐκ ̓Ακαρνὰν ἱερὸν ̓Απόλλωνος καὶ πόλειν (πόλιν) ὁμοονομάτειν (ὁμώνυμον) ματῆρος (μητέρος) κειτισα (ἔκτισα) Tàv Év Tập AEUXάτy. Mr. Rose, however, properly remarks a slight titubation here in limine; for both his own and Petrizzopulo's copy has ΠΑΙΡΟ ΤΟ ΜΕΝΕΣΙΚΡΑΤΟΣ. Mr. Payne Knight thought that the marble must have been mutilated, and that ПAIPO was the concluding part of some noun in a preceding line; but on this Dr. Young remarked, that there are no examples of any Greek nouns ending in maipos. Mr. Rose and Dr. Young both conjecture that the whole proper name, with the word eius, existed in a preceding line of the mutilated marble. Mr. R. gives rather an unfortunate real son for supposing the marble to be mutilated; viz. that the first line of this Bourgondor inscription, as it now stands, is written from right to left, whereas the sculptors, as he observes, generally began with a line from left to right. We confess that our opinion is different; for we think that the sculptors, es pecially in very ancient inscriptions, would naturally begin according to the old method, from right to left; afterwards indeed. when the invention had taken root, or when they wrote BourrpoonSòv after the third style had obtained, they might vary the rule. In proof of our opinion we have only to refer to the oldest inscription probably in Mr. R.'s work, the Crissaan, at p. 325, and that on Mr. Cockerell's bronze Hare in the same plate. There is also another observation of Mr. Rose on this inscription, with which we do not quite agree, though we dissent from it with considerable diffidence. He remarks that the form of the accusatives ὁμοονομάσειν and πόλειν offend against all the established laws of the Greek language. This is certainly true, as far as regards that language when brought to its high and palmy state of perfection; but in its early origin, we can easily imagine the declension of such a noun as Tóλg to have proceeded thus, πολις, πολε-ος, πολε-ι, πολε-ιν: but we have already adverted to the indiscriminate use of sand, whether it arise from the early imperfection of the language, or the unskilfulness, of engravers. If the reader wishes for more examples of this, he may turn to Mr. Rose's work, p. 395. where in an inscription from Trin. Coll. Lib. ii. 25, he will find IAKYZEN for EIAKYΣEN, and ii. 44 and 51, HMEIN and KABEIKOMEΝΟΣ for ΗΜΙΝ and ΚΑΘΙΚΟΜΕΝΟΣ. Also in the Pro legom. p. xxx. he will find in an inscription copied by Mr. Hughes at Athens the words HEΡΑΚΛΕΙΤΟΣ ΝΑΥΚΛΕΙΟΣ and XEPPONEZITHE. Before we conclude, however, we must not forget to give the explanation of this curious inscrip tion by the late Professor Dobree from Mr. R.'s appendix.199 »» [4 καὶ Β τω] παῖδε τω Μενεσικράτους τοῦ Κορειτίου ἱερέως τἀπόλλωνος, καὶ πολεινόμου, τὸ μνῆμα τῇ μητρὶ [Θεανοϊέ) ἐκτισάτην ἐν τῷ Λευκάτῃ. The Professor observes that the inscription is so wretchedly copied that some license must be given to conjecture. He certainly by this contrivance has brought out the best Greek; but that of the Prussian, we think, adheres much more closely to the original, and is much more easily deduced from it. The fourth inscription is a legend from a votive helmet found at Olympia, and is curious from being written in the exact T characters of the Etruscan alphabet. Mr. Walpole reads it thus, Kovos paros, i. e. Kólógu séroler but we rather agree with Mr. Rose in Koros μαποεσεν, i. e. Κοῖός μ' ἐποίησεν. ed a sad te cit Of the seventh inscription we are presented with three copies, one made by Sir W. Gell, another by Mr. Cockerell, and the last from the Ionian Antiquities, being quite a disgrace to the work in which it is edited. From the two former we easily collect the following: [ΕΡ] ΜΗΣΙΑΝΑΞ ΗΜΕΑΣ ANEOHKEN....TOMÖAANI. In the hiatus Mr. Cockerell would place the word AINAIS, which he thinks the characters will bear: with Mr. Rose we think this objectionable, on account of the position of the article, but there may be others who think such slight inaccuracies not inconsistent with the early state of the language. This inscription was found near the ruins of the temple of the Didymean Apollo, and denotes, as Colonel Leake has observed, a very remarkable dedication of two rows of stone seats, surmounted by statues cut in the Egyptian style of sculpture, which extended along the sacred way, from the seashore to the temple of the god. In Plate iv. Fig. 1. we have the names of Agamemnon, Epe, (i. e. Epeus) and Talthybius. The bas-relief from which they are taken, and which contains figures of these heroes, was found in Samothrace more than thirty years ago by Choiseul, who left it at Galata, from whence it was brought to France and deposited in the Louvre by Dubois in 1816. It is an extraor ordinary circumstance, that both he and the Count Clarac assert the existence of an omega in the name of Agamemnon, which we can contradict from the experience of long observation. The name, however, of the King of men is written exactly as it is said by Pausanias to have been written at Olympia, inì rà λαιὰ ἐκ δεξιῶν, lib. v. c. 25. The next inscription on this Plate is from a terra-cotta vase, found in a sepulchre near Capua, designating the names of certain heroes supposed to have been concerned in an Italian boar-hunt. This at least was the opinion of the celebrated D'Ancarville, until the idea seized him that some kind of hiero glyphic mystery was attached to the forms of birds in ancient painting. After speaking of sculpture and the art of engraving in early ages, he observes, "La peinture adoptant cette maxime, toutes les choses dont elle fit usage devinrent les élémens du discours historique, dont elle étoit une sorte d'écriture, &c." And again, "Les oiseaux entrent dans cette peinture pour différens motifs; posés sur le terrein où se passe l'action, 154 Notice of Rose's Ancient Greek Inscriptions. * les uns en indiquent le lieu, et leur attitude en marque quelque fois la Ceux agissent en indiquent la cause de cette action, avec les personnages même, ordinairement fatum ou de la destinée, dont les oiseaux étoient les interprètes, &c." Having observed an eagle (AETOX) on this vase, he instantly fixed on Ætolia as the scene of this hunt, which must needs be the Calydonian chase, although not one of the heroes here mentioned is in the list given of that celebrated action by Pausanias. An owl-feralis carmine bubo-over one of these personages denotes his death, and a swan denotes the end of the action, &c. The dissertation of this ingenious person on this subject is amusing; but we cannot help thinking that hehas allowed his imagination in some instances to outstrip his judgment in the constitution of his theory, which he pushes too far, like our own countryman Mr. Christie in his disquisition on the funeral vases of the ancients. This gentleman's opinion is, that they all had an allusion to the Eleusinian mysteries. The fact, no doubt, is, that many of the initiated carried with them to the tomb painted vases, which had a reference to their initiation but this was only part of a general system which induced the ancients to bury some articles of peculiar value and estimation with their former possessors; in accordance with which principle it is, that so many toys and baubles are discovered within the graves of children, and such beautiful ornaments of female attire in gold and silver within those of women: besides, what connexion, we might ask, can there exist between the curious Burgonian vase, which was found in the tomb of the Panathenaic conqueror, and the mysteries of Eleusinian initiation? But we must beware of entering into a lengthened discussion: indeed the limits of our article will not allow us even to proceed beyond the first class of these valuable inscriptions. It is our intention, however, to continue our remarks in the succeeding numbers of our Journal, though we hope that we have already said enough to bring Mr. Rose's interesting work, where it ought to be, into the Library of every one pretending to the name of a scholar. : 1 32 |