210

INSCRIPTIONS FROM ANTIIEDON.

that, in cases where both spellings occur in the same inscription, the
inconstancy of spelling is caused by inconstancy of pronunciation.
The affection of the pronunciation which came about in the third
century was constant. Its representation, on the other hand, was
often neglected by the stone-cutters. In regard to the form HlXeidela
from Thisbe, M. Foucart, who published the inscription in which it
occurs,13 has made a mistake to which attention ought to be called.
Speaking of EtXettfew?, he says : 31. Larfeld a fait remarquer que, dans
les textes dc Cheronde et de Lebadee, ei est souvent employe a la place de
v. La dedicace de Thisbe fait connaUre la mfrne alteration dans une
troisieme ville. The change referred to by Larfeld (pp. cit., p. xviii)
is between et. and v representing 01, and to bring into connection with
this a change from an original v to et, is entirely misleading. It is an
impossibility for original v to become et, in Boiotian, the very dialect,
which shows the greatest tenacity in preserving the old open sound.
We have nothing to do with a phonetic change from one to the other.
The two forms are distinct and dependent on a play between strong and
weak suffix-forms. The relation of WtXetdela to ~El\ei0vla is the same
as that of yeyovela to yeyovvla (suffix -Fecr-ia to va-t,a).u In the form
EiXecdla from Chaironeia, the et has become t, as regularly in Boiotian.

III.—Six fragments of bluish stone, fitting together. Total length,
1.015 m.; height, 0.20 m.; height of letters, 0.02-0.025 m.

IM-Is: AC SIMAXQTASOOYI \TEPA§KAPAIAAKH
MEA/ ^ 0 I A A A P T CMIAIEIAEIOOYIH

.....- f[e]t? Ao[u]o-i/ia^fu ra? Oov^ya^repa^ KapatSa Krj

Translation.---nes, son of Lysimachos, (dedicates) to Artemis

Eileithyia (these statues of) his daughters, Karais and Melanthis.

Comment.—The name K<zpai.'<? has been hitherto met with, so far as
we know, only at Chaironeia (Bull, de eorr.hell&n.,yii r, p. 55); MeXavOlt;,
as a woman's name, only at Tanagra (Coiaatz, 987). One of the breaks
in the stone runs through the fourth letter of 'Apre/juSi,, but the re-
maining marks can belong only to an E, not by any possibility to an
A. The inscription shows the customary Boiotian orthography, ex-

"BuU. de corr. hellen., 1884, p. 415.

11 Meyer, Or. QrummatikW, \y. 308 ; Bkugmann, 67?-. Grammulik in Iwan Mutter's
Handbucli, \ 73.