ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 289 
Some have contended, that the island, to which 
Diodorus here gives the name of “Ictis,” is the Isle 
of Wight, on account of the partial resemblance, 
which the Greek 17); bears to the Latin Vectis. 
But as Diodorus spent a considerable time at 
Rome, for the purpose of collecting materials for 
his work, it seems in the highest degree improba- 
ble, that he should have remained unacquainted 
with the true mode of spelling the Latin name 
Vectis. 
In proper names beginning with V, Greek 
writers are accustomed to express this letter, 
either by the consonant B, or by the diphthong 
ov. Thus, for the Latin Varro, the Greeks 
wrote indifferently B2jw., or Ovdjjav; for Valerius, 
Barges, OF Odaarfaos; for Virgilus, Bigybasos, OF Otseyirsos 5 
and for Nervit, NéSia, or Neovio.* Numerous in- 
stances of the substitution of the diphthong ov for 
the Latin V, in the proper names of places, might 
be adduced from Ptolemy and Strabo. Thus, to 
go no further than the name Vectis, Ptolemy 
writes it with an ov, clearly showing that he did 
not disregard the initial letter V.¢ In Strabo 
* Jos. Sealigeri Animadv. in Euseb. Chronicon ; p. 112, 
a.—Dawesii Misc. Crit. Sect. iv. 
} In the present text we have Odixrnosc, but Wesseling sup- 
