Volume 1

The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman.

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    218/532 (page 152)
    according to my opinion, the letter 0, being not, yet, found out, the ancients expreffed its power, by the letter A. Thefe are two youths, in a fitting pofture, each of them holding a fpear; they are pieces of ancient workmanfhip. We have feen many other itatues, alfo, of thefe gods in ancient temples; and, in all of them, they reprefented two youths in military habits. It is lawful to fee thefe, and to hear what others fay concerning them ; and to write what213 Calliftratus, be vain. Befides, as the following words, now, Hand in all the editions, Dionyfius is made to fay that the letter n, not being, as yet, found out, the ancients expreffed its power by the letter A ; when he, no doubt, knew, and certain it is, that the n, as well as the A, was among the fixteen, or, as others fay, the feventeen letters brought into Greece, from Phoenicia, by Cad¬ mus. The Venetian manufcript, in Hudfon’s notes, has Asyoct, on the margin of which was written, as he fays, ocvli ra Seyas' A #if7i 0 hrot- tvouag. This is, further, explained by the Vatican manufcript, which has and the following fentence ftands thus •, ri> Sbloi pj7T« ygxyyxlos tv^ysva 1 yjv (x&vx ^Ayv Jvvoiyiv to <kA7ct; which I have made no difficulty of following in the text: For, whether the infcrip- tion was Asymt or Asyn, the reafon, alledged by both the manufcripts, is juft. Since the letter©was not, in rea¬ lity, one of the Cadmean letters, but invented, long after, by Simonides, together with the two other afpirate letters <]> and X; which is fo true, that, before the invention of thefe three let¬ ters, the Greeks e made ufe of the af¬ pirate H after T, II and K *, and writ, for example, THTEAAA, IIHTAAON, K HPT SO 2, in which they have been followed by the Romans, as I fhail fhew in another f place. The Carinae was a ftreet in Rome, called fo, as Servius fays, from the refemblance of the houfes to the keels of fhips; which, however, may be much doubted. I agree, intirely, with Cafaubon, in reading ovtAiai, and fhail add to the reafons, given by him, to fupport that reading, which may be feen in Hud- fon, that our s author himfelf calls this hill Ovshiix, where he fays that Valerius Publicola built a houfe, which, from its fituation, gave um¬ brage to the people : And h Livy, fpeaking of the fame fa6t, fays of Va¬ lerius aedificabat in fummd Velid, 2lS‘ KaAA<f£#;o?, Zcclvgo;, Aqxltvcr.- I know not that any other author has made mention of Calliftratus, as the writer of the Samothracian hiftory. 1 Satyrus is not much more known, u rile fs he is the fame with the bio¬ grapher, who writ the life of Philip, the father of Alexander the great. e Mar. Viflor. 'See the 4iftannot. on the fourth book. s B. v. c. 19. h B. ii. c. 7. ‘Voffius Hilt. Graec. B.iii. p. 410. the