FROM THE HELLESPONT TO RHODES, 
% 2 $ 
by three sides of a square;* a circumstance characterizing 
perhaps, rather the country, than the age of an inscription. It 
was very common among Dorian colonies settled in Asia Minor. 
ATONY 
210 rno 
AFXl2K.ni 
QNOIKO 
NOMOY 
The tmncatuve of its angles introduced the semicircular letter; 
but this was of remote antiquity, and in use long prior to the 
age often assigned to it; as may be proved by the manuscripts 
found in Herculaneum, and by a fragment of the writings of a 
very ancient author, who compares the new moon to the sigma 
of tlie Greeks.f 
The other inscription is in the same wall, and relates to gla¬ 
diatorial ami hunting sports, exhibited by the persons mentioned 
in the inscription. .The. expression M onp&xov occurs in 
.an inscription found by Peyssonel at Cyzicum. This “troop 
# It is a curious fact, and perhaps a proof of the great antiquity of the angular Alpha- 
bet 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 cryptography of the moderns expressed by 
the four extended sides of a square, and with, or without points, was in use among 
the Greeks, as may be proved by a document in one of the manuscripts brought home 
!>y the author now in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. 
| The late Professor Porson used to cite this fragment, as proof of the antiquity of 
the semicircular sigma. Vid. Tzetzes nyCommentario MS. in Hsrmogenem, quoted 
by Ruhnken in his Notes on Longinus, Sect. 3, p. 135.. 
rooppw <5? Acgz(3&vov7CU. cucrasp vsoitT XoipiAos 
xak&'novs At Sour jvs 6<jra. y robs urorapouj, yns <p r /z fids’ 
us firiv EsAriyriv cupczvou tcclA ty Aicrxpjw 
outw 7ap Ai^eriv avraTs aur os Aiqxplw A ijsi, 
MHNH TO KAAON OX PAN OX NEON EIFMA. 
On which Ruhnken rerparks; “ Pro cTyaya, v. 3. et5. scribendum ouypa. Siceninrr. 
xEschntm novam kmam vo.cabat a figura sigmatis. GraecrC. Ex quo loco refell it ur, quod 
Is. Vossius et Ez. Spanhemlus statuebant, hanc sigmatis figurarn serius in Graecoruna- 
«:onsuetudinem venisse. Nam iEschrion, sive Sanguis sit, sive Mitylenaeus, cert© 
vetusfus scriptor 6st,” Vide Jonsiumde Script. Hist. Phil, if: 2. p- 124-. 
