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Errors in the Orthography of Classical Names, &c.

(Continued from No. XLVIII, and LII.)

WE have strung together some additional instances, arranged under their proper heads.

1. Change of termination.-Under this head may be specified Alcestes (Alcesté was mentioned before), Colchos, Tralle for Trælles, Eleusina, otherwise Eleusyna, Leontium for Leontini, Leucadia for the rock of Leucas (Class. Journ. No. LIV. p. 258,), Eolia for Eolis, Bactria for Bactra, Caprea for Capreæ, Mycene for Mycenae, Clazomene (Classical Journal No. LIV. p. 288.), also Clazomenia (XLVIII. p. 338,), for Clazomenæ. The termination ia, signifying the territory of a town, has in many cases superseded the proper termination of the town itself. In the same manner, common terminations have superseded uncommon ones.

2. Change of vowels.-E for E, Emathia, Egeria, Cheronaa, Tegea, Nemaa and the Nemaan games (originating in the frequency of the termination aa), Pagasaan, Eetion: also for E, as Enone, Enotria, &c. and vice versa,

E for Æ may be considered as legitimate in most cases. Y for I, Ilyssus, Thyatyra, phyllyrea, for philyra, Stagy rite, Phygalia, Cyrrha, Tysiphone, Tygris, Syren.

1 for Y, Cariatides, Lestrigon, Troglodite, Phillis.

When these two vowels occur in contiguous syllables, they are not unfrequently interchanged; as in Typhis, Amphyctions, Amphytrion, Tyrinthius, Orythia for Orithyia, Sybil, Sybilline, Sysigambis, Bythinia, Lybia.

A for I, Cataline; and vice versa, Alexipharmic.

3. Dissolution of vowels, &c.-Coos for Cos; Hygeia, Cassiopeia, Teian, and many other forms of the same kind; Alpheus, Peneus, &c. as dissyllables (Pope has Sperchius, II. xxiii.) On the other hand, Briaréüs, otherwise Briáreus. Milton adheres to the Homeric form, only changing it to a quadrisyllable: "Briareos or Typhon." We have also Typhous for Typhoëus.

Sometimes a vowel is interpolated, as Dionysius for Dionysus, Dionysiodorus.

Change of Consonants, &c.-The most common corruption of this kind consists in the insertion and omission of h after a consonant, as in Anthony, Chalcas (originating in the frequent occurrence of compounds with xaλxós). On the other hand, Calchedon; Chorobus, Choryphaus (of which the origin is obvious),

On the other hand, Erectheum or Eryctheum, and Ericthonius, Erictho, Naptha, Riphaan for Rhipaan. We have also Pyrennees, and many similar reduplications.

The English poets (with the exception of those who were themselves scholars, and wrote on the classical model, as Milton, Akenside, Glover, Gray, &c.) are not very scrupulous with regard to the orthography or prosody of ancient names.

We might take this opportunity of touching on a number of prevailing inaccuracies in words of classical origin, as apothegm, dissyllable, suppositious, descendant, dependant, resistance (on the other hand, existence, independence, &c.), dissention, reflection, extacy, apostacy, corruscation, vaccillation, extrinsical, philanthrophy, incontestible, &c. &c. &c. We might also say something on the numberless portents in the shape of Greek and Latin compounds which the daily newspapers offer to our view, as Eidouranion, Kaleidoscope, Dioastrodoxon, Peristrephic, Panorama, Sinumbra, Kalydor, Therapolegia (a curious complication of barbarisms, signifying an office for servants). But we leave this, and other matters of the same description, to more experienced word-mongers than ourselves.

Parallel Passages, &c. (Continued.)

1. Οἴονται γὰρ οἱ μὲν, τῇ ἀπουσίᾳ ἄν τι κτᾶσθαι, ὑμεῖς δὲ τῷ ἐπελθεῖν καὶ τὰ ἕτοιμα ἂν βλάψαι. Thucyd. l.70.

2.

dumque agmina longe,

Dum licet, Hesperiis præceps elabere terris,
Ne nova prædari cupiens, et parta reponas.

Claudian, de Bello Get. 500.

Μισῶ πολίτην, ὅστις ὠφελεῖν πάτραν

βραδὺς φανεῖται, μεγάλα δὲ βλάπτειν ταχὺς,
καὶ πόριμον αὑτῷ, τῇ πόλει δ' ἀμήχανον.

Eurip. ap. Aristoph. Nub. 1464.
cetera segnis,

Ad facinus velox.·

Claudian. in Rufin. i. 239.

preferring such

To offices and honors, as ne'er read
The elements of saving policy,

But deeply skill'd in all the principles
That usher to destruction.

Massinger's Bondman, Act 1. Sc. 3.

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A LETTER on a GREEK INSCRIPTION engraved on an Ancient Helmet of Brass, discovered in the ruins of Olympia in the Peloponnesus; which Helmet has been most graciously accepted by His Majesty, from MAJ. GEN. SIR PATRICK ROSS, K. M. K. J. and placed in the British Museum : also some Observations on the Island of Ithaca, by the CHEVALIER D. BRONSTED, of the University of Copenhagen, Agent of the Court of Denmark, &c.

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HAVE the pleasure of sending to your Excellency some information from these classical rocks, where I have passed the last days of a brilliant and truly Greek spring with my patron and friend Lord Guilford.

Among us the pre-eminence will be always given to our venerable master, Greek Antiquity, to whom we owe so much.

First, then, I will speak of an ancient and interesting Greek monument, which I had lately the pleasure of examining in the island of Zante.

It is A HELMET OF BRASS, DISCOVERED IN 1817,

AMONG THE RUINS OF OLYMPIA IN THE PELOPONNESUS. It is now in the possession of Colonel Ross, the English resident in the island of Zante; a soldier of a cultivated mind, in whose house I was received with the sincerest hospitality.

Mr. Cartwright, the English Consul-general at Constantinople, who travelled in the Morea in 1817 with Signor Pouqueville, found, near the site of the ancient Olympia, three antique helmets of brass, one of which was the helmet I have mentioned; the two others were more ornamented, but without inscriptions: he afterwards gave that with an inscription to Colonel Ross, who now possesses it. It is of a common oval form, in good preservation, and has on the front, nearer to the upper extremity than to the lower, the following inscription perfectly legible;

BIARONO EINOMENEOZ

KAITOIZV RAKOZIOI

TOI ITIRANAI OKVMAZ

Will your Excellency permit me to request the assistance of your penetration in the explanation of these curious lines, and to give your opinion in writing (before you continue to read my letter) on the singular word TOIAITVPAN, which has not a little embarrassed me.

For my own part, I have no doubt that this helmet is a fragment of some work of the celebrated ONATAS, a sculptor of Egina, who in the fifth century before the Christian era was the glory of his country, as Albert Thorvaldsen forms that of ours in the present time; and of the same Onatas of whom Pausanias speaks so frequently in his itinerary of Greece. If I was the fortunate possessor of the incomparable statues discovered among the ruins of the temple of Egina in 1811, by my friends Messrs. Haller and Linekh, Cockerell and Foster, I would give much to add this helmet to those admirable relics of the ancient Eginian school of art, as the fragment of a great work of the same family.

2

I find myself, although in an island extremely classical, destitute of Greek books, except three or four faithful companions which never abandon me; Homer, Strabo, and Pausanias.

Perhaps the aid lent me by these my masters, will be sufficient to support the opinion which I have advanced on the origin of this helmet, furnishing at the same time the necessary historical illustrations on the great engraved works of which the helmet appears to me to be a fragment.

Two passages in Pausanias are particularly interesting, as containing the history of the noble Olympic monument, to which, in my opinion, this helmet belongs.

The first passage is found in the sixth book of his Itinerary, chap. 12.

"Near this (the statue of Theagenes, a Thasian hero, in Olympia), is a car of brass with a man in it; near the car are two horses running, one on each side, with boys on their backs. They are monuments of the Olympic victories of HIERO, Son of Dinomenes, who was king of Syracuse after Gelo his brother. These offerings were not sent by Hiero, but they were present

1 Pausan. lib. v. cap. 25.; cap. 27.; lib. vi. cap. 12.; lib. viii. cap. 42.; lib. x, cap. 13, &c.

2 I presume that it is known to the true lovers of the fine arts, that these precious marbles are in the possession of His Serene Highness the hereditary Prince of Bavaria, and that it is two years since the Chev. Thorvaldsen terminated the successful restoration of these statues, which are still at Rome.

ed to Jupiter by Dinomenes. The car is the work of Onatas of Egina. The horses and the boys by Calamis."

The second important passage in Pausanias, is in b. viii. chap. 42. where the new statue of the black Demeter (Ceres) is mentioned, which was made of brass by Onatas the son of Micon, and a celebrated sculptor of Egina, for the Figalesi, a people of Arcadia. I explain elsewhere my opinion of this mystical object of the worship of the Figalesi; it is sufficient at present to observe, that Pausanias wishes to prove by chronological combinations, that the brazen statue of the black Ceres was made by Onatas in such a century (yeveal), at least half a century after the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. This he shows in the following observations, which are singularly applicable to our present object :

"Because at the time of the European expedition by Xerxes, Gelo, son of Dinomenes, was king of Syracuse and other parts of Sicily. After the death of Gelo the kingdom came to Hiero his brother he died before he could send the offerings to Jupiter Olympius, which he had vowed to make for the victory of horses; Dinomenes, his son, offered them instead of his father. These are likewise the works of Onatas, and may be found in Olympia with the following inscriptions.

This on the gift:

"For having in thy sacred contests,

Jupiter Olympius, gained many victories,

Once with four swift horses,

And twice with a noble horse, invincible in the course,

Hiero dedicates these gifts to thee;

But Dinomenes the son offers them to thee,

A monument of his Syracusan father."

"The other inscription says:

"Onatas the son of Mico made these,
Who dwells in the island of Egina."

After these clear indications from Pausanias, and the discussions of the celebrated Schelling, it appears to me useless to

2

Of the edition of Fucius, (Lipsiæ, 1795. 8vo.) vol. ii. page 167.
Edition of Facius, vol. ii. page 483.

3 In the book published by him with Sig. Wagner on the statues discovered in Egina: (" Uber die Æginatischen Bildwerke.")

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