Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/360

 344 HISTORY OF GREECE. in the Homeric poems. 1 The Latin alphabet, which is nearly identical with the most ancient Doric variety of the Greek, was derived from the same source, also the Etruscan alphabet, though if O. Miiller is correct in his conjecture only at second-hand, through the intervention of the Greek. 2 If we can- not make out at what time the Phenicians made this valuable communication to the Greeks, much less can we determine when or how they acquired it themselves, whether it be of Semitic invention, or derived from improvement upon the phonetic hiero- glyphics of the Egyptians. 3 Besides the letters of the alphabet, the scale of weight and that of coined money passed from Phenicia and Assyria into Greece. It has been shown by Boeckh, in his " Metrologie," that 1 The various statements or conjectures to be found in Greek authors (all comparatively recent) respecting the origin of the Greek alphabet, are collected by Franz, Epigraphice Graeca, s. iii, pp. 12-20 : "Omnino Graci alphabet! ut certa primordia sunt in origine Phoenicia, ita cemis terminus in litteratura lonicd seu Simonidea. Quae inter utrumquc a veteribus ponuntur, incerta omnia et fabulosa Non comrrviramur hi iis quae de littera- rum origine et propagatione ex fabulosa Pe.asgorum historia (cf. Knight, pp. 119-123; Raoul Kochette, pp. 67-87) ncque in iis quae de Cadmo nar- rantur quern unquam fuisse hodie jam nemo crediderit Alphabeti Phcenicii omncs 22 literas cum antiquis Graecis congruere. hodie nemo est qui ignoret." (pp. 14-15.) Franz gives valuable information respecting the changes gradually introduced into the Greek alphabet, and the erroneous statements of the Grammntioi as to what letters were original, and what were subsequently added. Kruse also, in his "Hellas," (vol. i. p. 13, and in the first Beylage, annexed to that volume,) presents an instructive comparison of the Greek, Latin, and Phcnician alphabets. The Greek authors, as might be expected, were generally much more fond ( f referring the origin of letters to native heroes or gods, such as Palamedt's. Prometheus, Mnsaeus, Orpheus, Linus, etc., than to the Phenicians. The oldest known statement (that of StGsichorus, Schol. ap. Bekkcr. Anecdot ii, p 786) ascribes them to Palamedes. Both Franz and Krusc contend strenuously for the existence and habit of writing among the Greeks in times long anterior to Homer : in which I dissent from them. 2 See O. Miillcr, Die Etruskcr (iv, 6), where there is much instruction or the Tuscan alphabet. 3 This question is raised and discussed by Justus Olshauscn, Ueber den Urs prong des Alphabctcs (pp. 1-10), in the Kieler Philologische Studicn, 1841.