1897.] on Greek and Latin Palaeography. 377 



left, and so on, just as the ploughing ox cuts the furrows in the field — 

 this primitive alphabet, under local influences which cannot now be 

 defined, developed into two main branches or groups, to which the 

 designations of Eastern and Western have been applied. The Eastern 

 or Ionian branch was that current in Asia Minor and the neighbouring 

 islands, and in certain states of Greece ; the Western branch was 

 employed more extensively in Greece and in most of the states of the 

 Peloponnese, and also in the Achaean and Chalcidian colonies of 

 Italy and Sicily. The most special mark of distinction between the 

 two branches is the symbol or letter representing the sound x. In 

 the Eastern branch this sound is represented by H, and the letters 

 X and ^ have the sounds of kh and ps, as we know them in ordinary 

 usage in Greek literature, Athens having naturally followed the 

 Ionian system. In the Western branch the letter H is wanting, while 

 X and ^ have the values of x and kh ; the sound ps being expressed 

 in separate letters tt? or ^s, or rarely by a special sign '^. No satis- 

 factory explanation has yet been found for this remarkable distinction 

 The Latins borrowed the Western Greek alj)habet from the Chalcidian 

 colonies, such as Cumae, planted on the Campanian coast. The Greek 

 double letters (or aspirates) tli, ph, kh, representing no sounds in the 

 Latin tongue, were dropped ; the third letter, at first used to express 

 the hard g sound, came to be also used for the k sound, and the letter 

 K, though it remained in the alphabet, became almost a dead letter. 

 Gradually the k sound ousted the g sound in the third letter, and for 

 expression of the latter another symbol had to be invented. This was 

 found by differentiating the C by a stroke or tail, thus creating the 

 letter G. A place for this new letter had been meanwhile left vacant 

 by the gradual extinction of the soft s ov z sound in Latin, whereby 

 the presence of Z was dispensed with. In Quintilian's time X was 

 *• ultima nostrarum " and closed the alphabet. Later, Y and Z were 

 added, not for the purpose of expressing native sounds, but for the 

 more exact transliteration of Greek. 



To find illustrations of the use of the early forms of the Greek and 

 Latin alphabets, we should have recourse to inscriptions on stone or 

 metal, but this would take us beyond the limits of our present subject, 

 which is confined to the history of the development of handwriting, as 

 distinct from epigraphy. And yet, while we thus lay aside the more 

 ancient examples of texts, either Greek or Latin, we must not assume 

 that handwriting only began where the early inscriptions leave ofiF. 

 In consequence of the recent discoveries in Egypt, our former views 

 in regard to the antiquity of the practice of writing in Greece 

 have undergone considerable modification. There is always, and I 

 imagine there always has been, a tendency to refuse to bygone 

 generations that capacity for acquiring and diffusing knowledge 

 which we flatter ourselves is an attribute of modern intelligence ; 

 and all unexplored periods of history are dark ages. But we now 

 know that three hundred years before the Christian era the Greeks in 

 Egypt, in difierent classes of society, the professional man and man 



