Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (6.1890-1897 (1897))

358

A SEPULCHRAL INSCRIPTION FROM ATHENS.

with the original. In minuscules, in later spelling, and arranged
with regard to its metrical form, it is as follows :

rha"t»}<? jjSeia? re %£tpt | v <f)l\0Tr)T0S eraipa |
EvduXXa cTTrjXrjV tijvS' e | ireOrj/ce rdcfia)

auy B«m; fivr/fjLijv yap | ael SaicpvTov eyovaa |
rfXnclas t>)? err}? itXal | ei curocf>0tp,evT]<; |

" Because of faithful and sioeet friendship, thy companion EuthyEa
has placed this stone upon thy grave, Biote ; for thy memory she forever
cherishes with tears as she laments for thy perished youth."

The inscription probably belongs to the early part of the fourth
century e. c. It has been compared carefully with many inscrip-
tions of the fifth and fourth centuries, public and private, in the Na-
tional Museum and elsewhere in Athens.1 It has been compared
with all the accessible late fifth century inscriptions quoted by
Kohler in his article, Die attische Grabsteine des fiinften Jahr-
hunderts;"2 and in the forms of the letters and the arrange-
ment of the whole it shows an advance upon those inscriptions.
The characters, in general, are post-Euclidean, r and A appear
instead of A and V . H is no longer the spiritus asper, but is
v \ Q is in use. There is no sign for the spiritus asper, as we
see from ETAIPA. All the letters of the post-Euclidean alphabet
are exhibited except f, £ and which are not needed in this
inscription. The forms for these letters in documents of the
early fourth century are I, I and Y*. The arrangement is
<rroL^h6v. 0 is used to denote o and the pseudo-dipthong ov.

1 A public document recording an act of the year b. c. 408 (CIA, iv, p. 166,
62s) is in characters which closely resemble those of this epitaph. Lolling, who first
published that inscription in the AeXriov 'Apxa.to\oya<6v, 1838, pp. 206-207, speaks of
the characters as post-Euclidean, and notes their appearance in this document as pe-
culiar. Kirchhoff, in CIA, 1. c, sa37s, Indies enim crebrescente ilia aetate Ionicae
litteraturae usu facile potuit fieri, ut eiiam non iassi populi deereto lapicidae pro
arbitrio ea uti occiperent.

2 M'dth. Athen, x. p. 350 £f.

3Compare HOP05 j KPENES. CIA, iv, p. 51, 499"; Kohler, Mitth.
Athen, ii, p. 183. See meisterhans, Gram. d. ait. Inschriften, \ 3, 6.

< For I see CIA, ii, 5; for I, CIA, ii, 3; for Y> CIA, ii, 2 and 5. These
inscriptions are in the National Museum in Athens, and closely resemble this epi-
taph in lettering. Compare Meisterhans, \ 3, 4.