VII. 
TO RHODES. 253 
sides of a square'; a circumstance characte- citai'. 
rizing, perhaps, rather the country, than the age 
of an inscription. It was very common among 
the Dorian colonies settled in Asia Minor. 
AIONY 
c( ovno 
AEUCKIi; 
n N o n< o 
NO MOY 
The rounding of its angles introdsced the semi- 
circular letter; but this was of remote antiquity, 
and in use long prior to the age often assigned 
to it ; as may be proved by manuscripts found 
in Herailaneum, and by a fragment of the writings 
of a very antient author, who compares the new 
moon to the Sigma of the Greeks^. 
(3) It is a curious fact, and perhaps a proof of the great antiquity of 
the angular /Alphabet of the Greeks, that two or three of its characters, 
in different positions, afford the whole. Indeed, as such a form of 
writing must consist wholly of the same straight line, under different 
circumstances of combination and position, every letter may be derived 
from the sides of a square. The ci-yptography of the Moderns, 
expressed by the four extended sides of a square, and with, or without 
points, was in use among the Greeks. 
(4) The late Professor Po»*ore used to cite the following fragment, as 
proof of the antiquity of the Semicircular Sigma. Tzetzes in Commenta- 
rio MS. in Hermogenem, quoted by Ruhnken, in his Notes on Longinus, 
sect. 3. p. 135. 
xaXsJv Tov; kl^ou; yr,; hoTa, rov; -rorafiovs, yis ^As/Saj* 
u; Tr,* 2sX^w>iv ovgavou vtolXiv Ai<r^^iitv ffiyfta. 
o'iStu ya^ X'i%t<nv auraTs alro; Air^^iuv Xtyii, 
MHNH TO KAAON OTPANOT NCON CIFMA. 
On 
