there were but few antiquaries within about three hundred and fifty years, that could read and give the sense of the articles of treaty between Rome and Carthage, made a little after the expulsion of the kings. The laws of the twelve tables, collected by Fulvius Ursinus, and published in the words of the kings and Decemviri that made them, are a specimen of the very great alteration that time introduced into the Latin tongue: nay, the pillar in the capitol, erected in honour of Drusillus about one hundred and fifty years before Cicero, shews, that even so small a tract of time as a century and half, caused great variations. After the Roman tongue attained the height of its purity, it quickly declined again and became corrupted, partly from the number of servants kept at Rome, who could not be supposed to speak accurately, and with judgement; and partly from the great concourse of strangers, who came from the remote provinces, so that the purity of it was to a great degree worn off and gone, before the barbarisms of the Goths quite extinguished it. And what has thus happened in the learned languages, is as observable in all the other languages of the world; time and age varies every tongue on earth. Our English, the German, French, or any other, differs so much in three or four hundred years that we find it difficult to understand the language of our forefathers; and our posterity will think ours as obsolete, as we do the speech of those that lived ages ago : and all these alterations of the tongues may, I think, be sufficiently accounted for by some or other of the causes before assigned. 3. ON ALPHABETIC WRITING. From the same work, volume 1, page 222. The Latins and Greeks were certainly the only people of Europe that had the use of letters very early let us now see how they came by their knowledge of them. And as to the Latins, all writers agree, that they received their letters from the Greeks, being first taught the use of them by some of the followers of Pelasgus, who came into Italy about 150 years after Cadmus came into Greece, or by the Arcadians, whom Evander led into these parts about 60 years after Pelasgus. Pliny and Solinus imagined the Pelasgi* to have been the first authors of the Latin letters; but Tacitus was of opinion that the first Italians † were taught letters by the Arcadians; and Dionysius Halicarnasseus expressly affirms the same thing; so that in this point indeed there is a difference amongst writers; but still the Pelasgi and Arcadians being both of them Grecian colonies that removed to seek new habitations, it remains uncontroverted, that the Latins received their letters from the Greeks, whichsoever of these were the authors of them. It is very probable the Pelasgi might first introduce the use of them, and the Arcadians, who came so soon after them, might bring along with them the same arts as the Pelasgi had before taught, and letters in particular; and some parts of Italy might be instructed by one, and some by the other; and this is exactly agreeable to Pliny. ¶ That the Latin letters were derived from the Greek seems very probable from the similitude the ancient letters of each nation bear to one another. Tacitus || observes, that the shape of the Latin letters was like that of the most ancient Greek ones; and the same observation was made by § Pliny, and confirmed from an ancient table of brass inscribed to Minerva. Scaliger has endeavoured to prove the same point, from an inscription on a pillar which stood formerly in the Via Appia to old Rome, and was afterwards removed into the gardens of Farnese. Vossius is of the same opinion, and has shewn at large how the old Latin letters were formed from the ancient Greek, with a very small variation. Let us now come to the Greeks; and they confess that they were taught their letters. The Ionians were the first that had knowledge of them, and they learned them from the Phoenicians. The Ionians did not form their letters exactly according to the Phoenician alphabet, but + L. 11. p. 131. * Plin. l. 7. c. 56. Dion. Halicar. 1. 2. $ L. 7. c. 58. + Voss. 1. 1, c. 24, 25. C they varied them but little, and were so just as to acknowledge whence they received them, by always calling their letters Phoenician. And the followers of Cadmus are supposed to be the persons who taught the Ionians the first use of their letters. This is the substance of what is most probable about the origin of the Greek letters. There are indeed other opinions of some writers to be met with; for some have imagined that Palamedes was the author of the Greek letters, others that Linus, and others that Simonides; but these persons were not the first authors, but only the improvers of the Greek alphabet. The long vowels 7 and w were the invention of Simonides: for at first e and o were used promiscuously, as long or short vowels, x, and e, were letters added to the alphabet by Palamedes; and § and, tho we are not certain who was the author of them, did not belong to the original alphabet; but still, tho' these letters were the inventions of Palamedes, Linus, or Simonides, yet they cannot be said to be the authors of the Greek letters in general, because the Greeks had an alphabet of letters before these particular ones came into use; as might be shewn from several testimonies of ancient writers, and some specimens of ancient inscriptions, several copies of which have been taken by the curious. Vossius* was of opinion that Cecrops was the first author of the Greek letters; and it must be confessed that he has given some, not improbable, reasons for his conjecture; and Cecrops was an Egyptian, much older than Cadmus, and was remarkable for understanding both the Egyptian and Greek tongues; but the arguments for Cadmus are more in number, and more conclusive than for Cecrops. If Cecrops did teach the Greeks any letters, the characters he taught are entirely lost; for the most ancient Greek letters, which we have any specimen of, were brought into Greece by Cadmus, or his followers. Herodotus † expressly affirms himself to have seen the very oldest inscriptions in Greece, and that they were wrote in the letters which the Ionians first used, and learned from Cadmus, or the Phoenicians. The inscriptions he speaks of were upon the tripods at Thebes in Boeotia, in the Temple of Apollo. There were three of these Tripods: The first of them was given to the Temple by Amphitryon, the descendent of Cadmus : the second by Laius the son of Hippocoon: the third by Laodamas the son of Eteocles. Scaliger has given a copy of these inscriptions (as he says) in the old Ionian letters, but I doubt he is in this point mistaken, as he is also in another piece of antiquity which he has copied, namely, the inscription on Herod's pillar, which stood formerly in the Via Appia, but was See Plut. Sympos. 1. 9. prob. 2. & 3. Philostrat. 1. 2. de vit. Sophist. Critias apud Athenæum, 1. 1. Clem. Alex. Strom. I. 1. Voss. de arte Gram. 1. 1. c. 10. Scaliger in Not. ad Euseb. 1617. Grot. in Not. ad lib. de veritat. Rel. 1. 1, n. 13. Bochart. Geog. Sacrâ. ‡ Digress. ad ann. Euseb. 1617. Loc. supr. cit. + Loc. supr. cit. afterwards removed into the gardens of Farnese. The letters on this pillar do not seem to be the old Ionian, as may be seen by comparing them with Chishull's Sigean inscription, or with the letters on the pedestal of the colossus at Delos, of which Montfaucon gives a copy; but they are either (as Dr Chishull imagines) such an imitation of the Ionian, as Herod a good Antiquary knew how to make; or they are the character which the Ionian letters were in a little time changed to, for they do not differ very much from them. But, to return: It is, I say, agreed by the best writers, that the Greeks received their letters from the Phoenicians, and that the ancient Ionian letters were the first that were in use amongst them. And thus we have traced letters into Phoenicia. We have now to enquire whether the Phoenicians were the inventors of them, or whether they received them from some other nation. We must confess that many writers have supposed the Phoenicians to be the inventors of letters. Pliny* and Curtiust both hint this opinion; and agreeable hereto are the words of the Poet . Phoenices primi, famæ si credimus, ausi And Cretias T Φοίνικες δ' εὗρον γράμματ' ἀλεξίλογα. And so Hesychius makes ἐκφοινίξαι and ἀναγνῶσαι, to act the Phænician, and to read, to be synonymous terms. But there are other authors, and with better reason, of another opinion. Diodorus || says expressly, that the Syrians were the inventors of letters, and that the Phoenicians learnt them from them, and afterwards sailed with Cadmus into Europe, and taught them to the Greeks. Eusebius assents to this, and thinks & the Syrians that first invented letters, were the Hebrews; tho' this is not certain. It is indeed true *, that the ancient Hebrews had the same tongue and characters, or letters, with the Canaanites or Phoenicians, as might be evidenced from the concurrent testimonies of many authors; nay, all the nations in these parts, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Samaritans, and probably the Assyrians for some ages, spake and wrote alike. Athanasius Kircher imagined that the Phoenicians learnt their letters from the Egyptians, and endeavoured to prove that the first letters which Cadmus brought into Greece, were Egyptian. He describes • Plin. l. 5. & l. 7. + Lib. 4. § 4. ¶ Apud Athenæum, l. 1. Lucan. Pharsal. 1. 3. Lib. 5. § Præp. Evang. 1. 10. * Lucian. Choeril. de Solymis. Scal. digress. ad Ann. Euseb. 1617. + Edip. Egypt. Tom. 3. diatr. prælusor. 3. the figures of these Cadmean letters, and endeavours to prove, that they were the very same that were used at that time in Egypt; but his arguments for this opinion are not conclusive. The letters he produces are the present Coptic, as the very names and figures of them shew evidently; not that the Greek letters were derived from them, but rather that the Egyptians learned them from the ancient Greeks; and I believe (says Bishop Walton) whoever shall read the Coptic books, will find such a mixture of Greek words in them, that he cannot doubt but that Ptolemy, after his conquests in Greece, brought their letters, and much of their language into Egypt. Kircher endeavours to shew by their form and shape, that the Greek letters were formed from the Egyptian description of their sacred animals, which he thinks were the letters which the Egyptians at first used in their common writing, as well as in their Hieroglyphical mysteries. These letters, he says, Cadmus communicated to the Greeks, with only this difference, that he did not take care to keep up to the precise form of them, but made them in a looser manner. He pretends to confirm his opinion from Herodotus; and lastly affirms from St Jerom, that Cadmus, and his brother Phoenix, were Egyptians; that Phoenix, in their travels from Egypt, stay'd at Phoenicia, which took its name from him; that Cadmus went into Greece, but could not possibly teach the Grecians any other letters, than what himself had learnt when he lived in Egypt. But to all this there are many objections. 1. The Hieroglyphical way of writing was not the most ancient way of writing in Egypt, nor that which Cadmus taught the Greeks. 2. Herodotus, in the passage cited, does not affirm Cadmus to have brought Egyptian letters into Greece, but expressly calls them Phœnician letters ; and, as we said before, the Phoenician letters were the same as the Hebrew, Canaanitish, or Syrian, as Scaliger, Vossius, and Bochart have proved beyond contradiction. 3. St. Jerome does not say whether Cadmus's letters were Phoenician or Egyptian, so that his authority is of no service in the point before us; and as to Cadmus and Phoenix's being Egyptians, that is much questioned; it is more probable they were Canaanites, as shall be proved hereafter. Many considerable writers have given the Egyptians the credit of inventing letters; and they all agree that Mercury or Thyoth was the inventor of them. Pliny in the very place where he says that some ascribed the invention of letters to the Syrians, confesses that others thought the Egyptians the inventors of them, and Mercury their first author. Diodorus expressly ascribes the invention of them to the same person; and so does Plutarch and Cicero.|| Tertullian & went * In Terpsich. φοίνικα τοῦ Κάδμου γράμματα. Hist. 1. 7. c. 56. Lib. Diodor. 1. 2. ¶ Sympos. 1. 20. c. 3. de Natura Deorum 3. § Lib. de corona Militis, c. 8. & de Testim. Animæ, c. 5. 9. |