Perhaps

{ for <.

for A,1 to distinguish it from ▲ (a).

There are several pieces of evidence that tend to show that this form, with waving outline, was the normal cursive for ≤, rather than Ɛ or €, and that the latter where found are rather of the nature of casual cursives.

(1) Some Ionic inscriptions give the form {, or 3, for the four-bar sigma.2 That this is a normal and not a casual cursive, appears probable from the fact that this waving, rounded form occurs sometimes in the midst of rather carefully executed angular forms, where indeed it would have been easier for the stone-cutter to have used the angular form. In these and all similar cases we may safely assume that the stone-cutter was merely imitating, perhaps inadvertently, the cursive forms occurring in his hastily prepared manuscript copy. (2) Further evidence is afforded by well-known descriptions of sigma that have come down to us. Thus the shepherd in Euripides's Theseus describes the third letter in the name of Theseus as βόστρυχός τις ὣς εἱλιγμένος ; and the rustic, in a play of Theodectes, says of the same letter that it is ἑλικτῷ βοστρύχῳ προσεμφερές, and later that it is βόστρυχος. These phrases mean a 'curl of hair,' a 'wavy lock.' Such waving locks we see, for example, on the ancient statues of Apollo, and in the tresses of Nike on vase paintings." Agathon likens the letter to a Scythian bow-ΣKVOLKO TE Σκυθικῷ

1 This form is a cursive in the Antiope fragments (Petrie Papyri, plates 1, 2). It also occurs on a red-figured ‘amphora' in the Ashmolean collection (Gardner, No. 276), of the 'fine style,' where we read—incised on the bottom of the vase KAI (σkos), the name of the vase. Of A a the vases furnish many examples; cf. also C. I. A. II1. 1 b, passim (B.C. 403).

2 Cf. Roberts, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Nos. 133, 134 (Miletus). The forms are more correctly given in Roehl, Imagines Inscriptionum Graecarum Antiquiss., 2d ed., p. 48, Nos. 2, 3. See also Roberts, l.c., 42 a (Sigean inscription), or Roehl, l.c., p. 50. 8.

3 Athen. X. 454 C (Nauck, T. G. F2. p. 477). 4 Athen. X. 454 E (Nauck, T. G. F2. p. 803).

5 Cf. the Nike in the Ashmolean collection, Gardner, No. 274, pl. 2. Gardthausen, however, seems to assume that the word ẞóσтpuxos in these passages refers to the crescent sigma, but hardly correctly (Griechische Paläographie, p. 106) Cf. Blass, .c., p. 304.

6 Athen. X. 454 D. There is no doubt whatever as to the shape of the Scythian bow. To the evidence on this point, cited by Saglio in Daremberg-Saglio, Dic

τόξῳ τὸ τρίτον ἦν προσεμφερές — the shape of which was ٤٠ Neither of these descriptions fits the form or E, which Blass postulates as the transitional forms of sigma lunatum.

Indeed, apart from the considerations just urged, Є could not have been a normal cursive form for sigma. It was, as we have seen, already in current use for E, and it is extremely improbable that two distinct letters could have had the same normal cursive form. A few cases are cited where Ɛ or Є do duty for sigma.1 I am disposed to explain these as casual cursives, if not at times, especially in the case of €, actually clumsy attempts to change a C already written or cut into something looking more like , by adding the cross-bar. Indeed, for C. I. A. II. 236, 8 (B.C. 312) this explanation is highly probable: the stone-cutter had-ex hypothesi— carelessly cut a sigma lunatum (following his papyrus copy): observing his blunder, he seeks to correct it. The curved line already cut cannot be changed; the horizontal line is an approach to the reëntrant angle of the four-bar sigma.

In view of these considerations it seems probable that in the cursive writing of the fifth century B.C., the Ionic fourbar sigma had taken on the normal form {, and that the other shapes of this letter are merely irregular and accidental.

Instances have been given above of several cursive forms of letters in use as early as the last half of the fifth century B.C. That sigma lunatum C for o was also an early cursive form (ie. before 403-2 B.C.) admits of easy demonstration: (1) This form occurs on vases of Athenian manufacture, known, from external evidence,2 to be earlier than tionnaire des Antiquités, I. p. 389, add Amphis, fr. 13 (Kock), where Plato's knit brows (σκυθρωπάζειν . ἐπηρκὼς τὰς ὀφρος) had the form of a Scythian bow (cf. Aristoph. Lys. 7, μὴ σκυθρώπας ̓, ὦ τέκνον. ] οὐ γὰρ πρέπει σοι τοξοποιεῖν τὰς ὀφρύς).

...

1 On Є for σ, on the stones, see Larfeld, Griech. Epigraphik (I. Müller, Handbuch, 12.), p. 535; add C. I. A. IV. 2, 53 a (after B.C. 418). Vases furnish a few instances of Ɛ=σ. See also C. I. A. I. 510 (somewhat later than 450 B.C.). Meisterhans, Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften, 2d ed., pp. 1, 2, and notes. 2 Some of the vases, — of Athenian origin, — on which the form occurs, come from the Greek graves in Gela, where entombment had ceased after the capture of the city by the Carthaginians in B.C. 405; Gardner, Ashmolean Museum, p. vi (Evans). Other forms are on Athenian vases from Nola, to which, as Winter has

403 B.C.; (2) it occurs on vases showing in their technique both of form, drawing, and other ornamentation, the 'early fine' or the 'fifth century' style of Athenian vase painters;1 (3) it occurs in vase inscriptions along with the distinctive forms (and values) of the Attic alphabet, some of which are universally admitted to have passed out of use about 403 B.C. and others before 300 B.C. In nearly all of these cases, then, the form must belong to a period at least as early as the closing years of the fifth century B.C. And as this form, which occurs frequently, is often carefully and not hurriedly drawn, it must be assumed to have become a normal and must not be regarded as a casual cursive.

A few representative examples may be cited.

Ι. ΚΛΕΝΙΑΣ | ΚΑΛΩΣ. Κλεινίας καλός. Red-figured Nolan amphora, in the British Museum, E 297; Klein, Lieblingsins., p. 84. 4. The many vases with this 'love-name' belong to the same period as those with Charmides, which Cecil Smith would date between 400 and 380 B.C. (Journ. Hellen. S., 1883, p. 97), which is perhaps too late. Klein suggests that Cleinias may well have been the father of Alcibiades; Percy Gardner thinks the brother of Alcibiades may here be meant (Ashmolean Museum, on No. 309).

2. ΑΛΚΙΜΑΧΩΣ | ΚΑΛΩΣ | ΕΠΙΧΑΡΟΣ. ̓Αλκίμαχος καλὸς ἘπιXápovs. Red-figured amphora from Nola, in the British Museum, E 330; Klein, ibid., p. 85. 2. Two other vase-inscriptions with Alcimachus as 'love-name,' in which C = σ, are cited by Klein, ibid., 4(KAMOS, KAɅOC, etc.), and 6.

In our 1 and 2 the writing of N = o suggests an Athenian-ParianThasian artist, or at least one working under the influence of the great Thasian master Polygnotus in the fifth century B.C.

3. ΗΥΓΙΑΙΝΟΝ | ΚΑΛΟΣ. Υγιαίνων καλὸς. Polychrome lecythus with white ground, in the British Museum; Klein, ibid., p. 86. 1. The use of H = ' and 0 = w point to a date that can hardly be later than 403 B.C.

shown, the export of Athenian vases ceased about 425 B.C.; Winter, Die Jüngeren Attischen Vasen, pp. 3, 4.

1 E.g., Ashmolean Museum, No. 266 (from Gela), No. 288 (from Chiusi); Klein, Lieblingsinschriften, p. 86 (our No. 3); Boston, Robinson's Catalogue, No. 448 (from Eretria); Berlin, No. 2529 (from Chiusi).

̓Αλκιμ[ή]δης

4. ΑΛΚΙΜ.ΔΗΣ | ΚΑΛΟΣ | ΑΙΕ+ΥΛΙΔΟ. Kaλòs Aioxvλídov. White lecythus from Gela, in Oxford (Ashmolean Museum, No. 266, Gardner), figured in Klein, ibid., p. 83. Beautiful drawing of the fifth century' (Gardner).

5. AI+AC KAɅOC. Aíxas kaλós. Polychrome white lecythus from Eretria, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (No. 448, Robinson). Klein, ibid., pp. 82, 83, cites three other Lichas vases (two Nolan amphorae and a lecythus), on one of which we read ΛΙ+ΑΣ | ΚΑΛΟΣ | ΣΑΜ . ΟΣ. Λίχας καλὸς Σάμιος. To Klein's list must now be added our No. 5 (Boston, No. 448); a second Boston lecythus (Perkins collection); and a third lecythus in Athens, cited by Pollak, Arch.-Epigr. Mitt. aus Öst., 1895, p. 19. 18, making six vases with Lichas as 'love-name.' These vases are of Athenian origin, and belong not later than 350 B.C.

6. EVAINETOC || ΚΑΛΟΣ || ΓΑΛ . . ΙΣΤΕ | ΚΑΛΛΙΑΣ || EVAION. Εὐαίνετος || καλός || πα[ναρ]ίστη (so Heydemann) || Kaλlías | Evaíwv. Red-figured bell-crater from Sorrento, now in Naples, Coll. Santangelo, No. 281 (Heydemann, p. 697); Klein, ibid., p. 69. 4. Inscription also in C. I. G. 8077; cf. Arch. Zeit. 1869, p. 82, 16. Euaeon, as a 'love-name,' occurs on six vases indexed by Klein, none of which can be later than 350 B.C. This Callias is identified by Klein with 'Kallias III'; a cylix bearing his name contains a design drawn im Stil der Parthenonfigur' (Hartwig ap. Klein, p. 62).

These examples, which might be multiplied, are sufficient to prove with the other considerations — that sigma lunatum was in use as a cursive form while the Attic alphabet was still employed, before 403 B.C. (as well as long afterward). It remains, however, to be shown that it was a simplification not of the Ionic four-bar sigma, as has been generally maintained, but of the Attic three-bar letter.

As we have found it in use along with Ionic sigma at a date when various Attic letters were concurrently used with the Ionic, it may very well have been one of the Attic letters. Again, in the great Eastern group of Greek alphabets, in branches closely related to the Ionic alphabet, if not in the alphabet itself, the symbol < Chad—at least in the fifth

century B.C.a very different value from that of sigma. Thus, at Paros, Delos, Naxos, and Ceos, it had the value of B1; at Melos it had the value of o2; and at Samothrace, in an angular form (retrograde), it had the value of y,3 while at Corinth, Corcyra, Rhodes, etc., in its curved form, it had the same value.1 It seems highly improbable that the symbol could have had in the Ionic alphabet also at the same time the value of sigma.

We should be obliged to accept the derivation of C from ≤ only if ( had first come into existence at a period when > was the sole form in use, long after the disappearance of >. Such is by no means the fact. As we have seen above, Coccurs, simultaneously with, in inscriptions that belong not later at least than B.C. 403.

The Athenian vase inscriptions furnish numerous examples of forms of, originally casual cursives, which inevitably led the way to the form and secured its adoption as the normal cursive form in Attic writing. Greatest caution. must be exercised in the use of this evidence: many of the examples are undoubtedly of the nature of casual cursives, but there is a good residuum from which safe inferences may be drawn.

Innumerable instances occur where the lower bar of threebar is abbreviated; these are of course carelessly written three-bar sigmas, but they led the way to the final dropping of the lower bar and the establishment of the form < C as a form of sigma.5 Many vases signed by Tleson (late sixth century B.C.) show this form, which at this early date can

1 Cf., e.g., Roberts, Gr. Epigraphy, Nos. 17 (Paros), 24 a (Delos), 26 a (Naxos), No. 32 (Ceos?).

2 Roberts, ibid., Nos. 8 f.

3 Roberts, ibid., No. 162.

4 Roberts, ibid., Nos. 87 (Corinth), 98 (Corcyra), 131 a (Rhodes).

5 The history of the ancient form of P offers a parallel to that of sigma lunatum. In the later forms of the Greek alphabet R lost its appendage, and became P, while in the Italic alphabets it lengthened the appendage and became R. Similarly, on my theory, ≤ dropped, in the Attic alphabet, its lower bar and became sigma lunatum, while in the Italic alphabets it became established, with a lengthening and rounding of both upper and lower bars, in the form S.