Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/14

X THUCYDIDES trates the use of letters or words, or the growth of the dialects, or the history of prose writing, it may be in- cluded under Philology. In so far as it contributes to our knowledge of the religion, commerce, laws, political institutions, or of the private life and manners of the ancients, it may be placed under the head of Antiquities. It may also be classed with History, inasmuch as historical facts are recorded in inscriptions and the accounts of historians are confirmed or modified by them. To elevate such an accidental and multifarious kind of knowledge into a science of ' Epigraphy' is misleading. Its method, if it have any single method, is inductive, that is to say, it proceeds from the examination of facts, a general know- ledge of history and of inscriptions being brought to bear on the analysis of some particular one. It has frequent recourse to hypotheses, of which many remain and will for ever remain unverified. The arrangement of inscrip- tions adopted by Boeckh' according to the countries in which they are found, or the states to which they belong, is commonly the most convenient ; they may be further divided according to date, or, when the date cannot be ascertained, according to the subjects of them. The older Attic inscriptions are generally imperfect. Of many only a few words or lines, often not more than a word or two, survive. The slabs of marble on which they are engraven are commonly broken and scattered ; they are found in the beds of rivers, on the sites of temples, in the neighbourhood of the Erechtheum, on the ' Cp. Boeckh, Corpus Inscriptionum Graccarum, praef. p. xii ff. To this work (quoted as C. I. G.^, a noble monument of learning and critical sagacity ; to the admirable Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum (vol. i and iv) of KirchhofT, quoted in this essay as C. I. A. and Suppl., and his treatises on the Athenian treasury' ; to the Inscriptiones Graecae Antiquissimac of Rohl (I. G. A.) ; to Kohler's separate work on the Tribute Lists, as well as to the interesting essaj-s of Mr. Charles Newton, and to the beautiful and accurate collection of ancient Greek inscrip- tions in the British Museum by Messrs. Newton and Hicks, the author would express his great obligations.