1897.] on Greek and Latin Palseography. 379 



be wondered at, then, that the dates formerly assigned to some of 

 the examples of classical papyri must be reconsidered by the light of 

 recent discoveries. 



If we take up a table of alphabets, drawn from the oldest ex- 

 amples of Greek writing extant, and glance along the lines of the 

 different letters, we see how various their formation was under 

 different conditions, even at that early period.* In the first two 

 columns we have the formal letters used in the classical fragments ; 

 in the others we have the letters used in documents, all of a more or 

 less cursive character. How very cursive some of them could become 

 is evident, if we examine the examples of the letters Lambda, Mu, 

 Nu, Pi, Tau and Omega. With regard to the last letter, the transi- 

 tion, which without those examples it would not be easy to exjolain, 

 from the original horseshoe-shaped letter to the later w form is 

 readily followed. How easily there might have been a confusion 

 between a Lambda and a Mu and a Pi ! for each of those letters in 

 some instances is formed simply by a curved stroke. The Tau with 

 the horizontal only on the left is an example of a rapid method of 

 constructing the letter, which has a modern parallel in the t of some- 

 what similar shape in use among the French. A second table will 

 carry us on to the third century after Christ, missing, however, one 

 century, the first century B.C. ; for it is a remarkable circumstance 

 that among the large number of papyri that have been recovered 

 there are scarcely any that actually bear dates within that hundred 

 years. However, comparing the forms of letters of the second cen- 

 tury B.C. with those of the first century of our era, we conclude that 

 it was a period of decadence in Greek handwriting, the letters of the 

 later century being inferior to those of the earlier time. 



Probably the very oldest example of Greek writiug is the papyrus 

 fragment, now in the Imperial Library at Vienna, inscribed with an 

 invocation of a certain Artemisia against the father of her child. It 

 is probably as early as the first half of the third century b.c. The 

 handwriting is rough, every letter being written separately in the style 

 of an inscription ; and, judging by the fluent character of other extant 

 specimens of nearly contemporary current handwriting, we are justi- 

 fied in assuming this papyrus to represent, not the educated style of 

 tie time, but rather the imperfect effort of one not much accustomed 

 to use the pen.j 



It is, however, even though an illiterate production, a document 

 of much value in that it shows exactly individual forms of letters of 

 the formal alphabet of the time. The contemporary literary hand 

 is seen at its best in some fragments of the ' Phaedo* of Plato, which 

 had been employed, together with other papyrus documents, as the 



* See the carefully drawn table in 'The Flinders Petrie Papyri,' ed. Prof. J. P. 

 Mahnify ; in the ' Cunningham Memoirs ' of the Eoyal Irish Academy, 1891. 

 t Facsimiles of the Paheograpliioal Society, ii. 14L 



