INSCRIBED SLING-BULLETS. 99 



SO stamped to signify to the besieged that Phseneas was then on the 

 Roman side. 



EY2KAN0Y is on a glans made of brass. Vischer explains it as 

 standing for ev aK-qvov, an ironical address to the person struck by 

 it, " be lodged well," " take good quarters." The view of Curtius, 

 that it was an address to the missile to place itself well in the head 

 of the enemy, seems to me preferable. TPOFAAION, i.e. TputydXiov, 

 is on a bullet preserved at Argos. It means " a sweet-meat," or 

 " fruit for dessert," and is used here in the sense — 'Here's a sugar- 

 plum for you.' On the original the inscription stands thus : 



Tpor 



E 

 AAION, 



whence Groettling proposed the strange reading Tpwye 'AAiov, in 

 the sense, I presume, " Bite it in vain," like our " This is a hard 

 nut to cracK." Curtius explains the E as a numeral denoting the 

 number of bullets thus inscribed. To me this explanation seem'a 

 unsatisfactory, and 1 am inclined to suggest that it was intended 

 that Tpwry should be taken twice, soil, rpwye rpwyaAiov, " eat a sugar- 

 plum." 



ESVEEIS ET ME CELAS, i.e. esuris et me celas, "you are 

 starving, and hide* it from me," refers to the famine in Perusia, 

 during the siege, and the extraordinary care with whic h L. Antoniua 

 endeavoured to conceal it from the besiegers. See Appian, v. 35. 

 On the same glans, which bears C-CAESARVS VICTORIA, we 

 have also 



LANTONI CALVIt 

 PEEISTI, 



i.e. L. Antoni calve peristi, " Lucius Antoniua, you bivld-pate, you 

 are undone." There is no historical testimony as to the baldness of 

 Lucius Antonius, but De Minicis believes that he has found evidence 

 of it on a denarius bearing a representation of his head. 



Some expressions in inscriptions of this class are, as might be ex- 

 pected, very coarse. Thus we have on one, belonging to the be- 



• This use of celare with the accusaciv^i) is not uncoinmoii. Thus in Cicero, Phil. ii. 

 Eteuim vereor, ne aut celatum me ab ipsis illis non honestum, &c. The irifaninfj of celatum 

 me is not " that I was concealed," but " that I was kept iu the dark," "that it was concealed 

 from me." See Epist. adfam. vii. 20. 



t The second I is effaced, II standing as usual for E ; or the horizontal lines of E have 

 disappeared. 



