ARCHITECTURAL INSCRIPTION, 



599 



the public works. (Pollux, lib. vii. c. 33.) The word occurs in the 

 first line of the preceding inscription, which is a report of the survey 

 of the temple, partly finished, made by the Epistatse, whose names 

 are mentioned, and by the architect Philocles. Ta.h ttveypcctydv epyu 

 rou veco, " they took an account of the work of the temple j" the in- 

 scription therefore is properly an dvccypxtpvi *, recensio ; it was made in 

 the archonship of Diocles, 409 B.C., in that meeting of the senate 

 in which Nicophanes was the secretary of the first prytany. f The 

 inscription was written six years before the archonship of Euclid ; 

 and is about fifty years posterior to the celebrated marble X relating to 

 those of the tribe Erectheis who had perished in battle ; a copy of 

 which is given by Montfaucon, Palse. 1. ii., and by Maffei, Mus. 

 Veron. After the archonship of Euclid, y was no longer written A, 

 nor the lambda L, in which form they both appear in the Athenian 

 marble. The use of o for ov seems to have been retained to a later 

 age, until the time of the Macedonian aera. § Although H occurs as 

 an aspirate in the inscription, yet it is certain that this character, 

 used as a letter, as well as €>, was known in the time of Euripides, 

 who died before the archonship of Euclid ; and Callias, a poet prior 

 both to Sophocles and Euripides, has described the form of Y and XI ; 

 and H as well as XI occur on some of the Macedonian coins of the 

 fifth century B. C. || 



L. 1. 'Ei/ 7ro\ei. This expression has not always been properly un- 

 derstood ; see Larcher, Herodotus, i. 453. lb. u.yu\pct. It is re- 



* ' kvctyqoL$siv, proprie de iis rebus, quae solenniter describuntur et in tabulas referuntur. 

 Sluiter, Lec. Andoc. 201. 



f YlpwTog lypaft/xareyo-ev, Greffier de la premiere Prytanie. See Barthelemy, Mem. de 

 l'Acad. xlviii. 407- 



% The true date of this inscription is fixed by Barbeyrac. Anci. Traites, p. 110. 

 Montfaucon referred it to the year 445) B.C., when Cimon died ; but the war of Egypt 

 mentioned in it, is of the date 463 ; and that of iEgina, of 457- 



§ Taylor, Sand. Marm. viii. 



|| Knight, Proleg. ad Homerum, sect. 78. See also Valesius in Not. Mauss. Har- 

 pocrat., who supposes the Ionic letters were used privately, but not publicly received 

 before the archonship of Euclid, Oly. xciv. 2. 



