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PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
with a slight change in the division of the letters, were Hellenic rather 
than either Pelasgian (which I believe to have been a comparatively 
barbarous dialect) or Etruscan. I proceeded to read them on that hypo¬ 
thesis, and they certainly seemed to me to afford a very probable and 
adequate solution of the enigma. I, therefore, requested permission, and 
obtained it, to mention my conjecture to the Academy, and I was in hopes 
that it might have excited some interest, both from * this interesting 
fragment,’ as Donaldson terms it, not having been attempted to be ex¬ 
plained up to 1844, the date of the “ Varronianus;” and also from the 
new view, as it seemed to me, which it tended to open up respecting 
the very great antiquity of the Hellenic or Epic form of the Greek 
language. Eor the inscription is on a vase, which was dug out of a 
tomb at Cervetri, the ancient Caere or Agylla; and the tombs there are 
supposed by Italian literati and architects, according to Mrs. Hamilton 
Gray, in her “ Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria,” to be above 3000 years 
old. 
They are found to contain articles of such magnificence and taste as 
induce the belief that centuries must be conceived to have rolled away 
ere a people could have attained such a height of civilization. Indeed, 
this view would pretty well settle the claims of the Latin language, or 
even of most of its elements (contrary to the received opinion of scholars), 
to be considered as older than the Greek. It is curious that Donaldson 
appears to labour under a suspicion that some of these inscriptions called 
Pelasgian or Etruscan are “ almost Greek,” “nearly akin to Greek,” 
and “little else than archaic Greek,” and, yet, that he did not attempt 
to explain this particular one as Greek. 
His explanation, indeed, is merely of the words singly , and he says 
that the interpretation of the whole must be mere guess-work. After 
such an assertion from a scholar of his reputation, I proceed to offer an 
interpretation with considerable diffidence, and chiefly in the hope that 
some member of the Academy, better qualified than I have any preten¬ 
sions to be, may enter on what may prove a most interesting inquiry. 
I have not seen a fae-simile of this inscription, which, unfortunately, is 
not mentioned in Mrs. Gray’s work; but, judging by the specimens of 
those which she has given, it must have run without intervals between 
the letters or words, from right to left. 
I propose to read it thus, as Greek, for greater convenience, in the 
more modern form of letters and direction:— 
MI NIKE GYM A MI MA0Y MAPAM AISIA 101 HYPENAI 
E0EEPA I2IE EIIANA MI NE0Y NASTAV HEAE$V. 
Or, as I interpret it, in a more common form :— 
Mi N iKT]' Ovfia fjioi , fiaOv, ptjpov, Xvcrei iQi iroprjvac 
Erspa,, ecrai rjirava, poi ve6v, vaffrov , aXeupa. 
“ I am Victory; go provide for me incense, wine, flesh, for expiation. 
Or you are needy; for me, water, barley-cake, oil.” 
