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Archaic Inscriptions from Crete D. Compaeetti, Leggi antiche delta città di Gortyna, Firenze, 1885 (also in the Museo Italiano, Vol. i) F. Bücheler and E. Zitelmann, Rheinisches Museum (1885) N. F. Bd. 40 (Ergänzungsheft; ‘ Das Recht von Gortyn ’) J. and T. Baunack, Die Inschrift von Gortyn, Stuttgart, 1886 H. Lewy, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, Berlin, 1885 Museo Italiano di Antickità classiche, edited by D. Comparetti, Florence, 1885 sqq. Vols. i, ii.

E. S. Roberts

The Classical Review / Volume 2 / Issue 1-2 / February 1888, pp 9 - 12 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00191802, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00191802

How to cite this article: E. S. Roberts (1888). The Classical Review, 2, pp 9-12 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00191802

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 61.129.42.30 on 08 May 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. of any kind of Orphic literature doubtful. may be an illusion in the sense that "the The known cause is ample to account for the craving after higher things" which Herr effect; but Herr Gruppe prefers to resort to Gruppe and J. S. Mill explain to their own an additional cause, as unnecessary as it is satisfaction, and in entire ignorance of the unsatisfactory; and herein, though not here real cause, as the necessary play of the psy- alone, he shows, as it seems to me, a want of chological mechanism of man, may be itself the judicial faculty, which can in mythology, the " suggestion" of a Mind not our own. of all departments of scholarship, least be Or our explanation of the "suggestion," if dispensed with; for the business of the we explain it as do the believers in religion, mythologist is principally to hold the balance may be illusory in the sense that the way in between hypotheses which differ in their which our minds, conceiving from their very amount of probability, though they may constitution everything under the forms of agree in never reaching certainty. space and time, conceive a Being not in space Long as this notice is, I must add to its and time, must necessarily be illusive though length a remark on Herr Gruppe's theory as not delusive. to religion and its origin. That religion is It has already been said that there is a an illusion will seem to some of us a petitio lack of the judicial faculty in Herr Gruppe; principii. But let us assume for the moment there is also an absence of judiciousness. that it is an illusion; then the whole force His explanation of the origin of religion— of his subsequent argument is derived from the secret which we have hitherto faithfully the assumption that it is the hardest thing kept, and are not now going to reveal—is in the world to understand how a man can not more plausible than half a dozen other delude himself into believing something explanations which a man of Herr Gruppe's which is not a fact. This is simply the ingenuity and learning could, we are con- vulgar fallacy that because man possesses fident, readily have elaborated, and any one reason, therefore he is a rational being. of them would have been less crude and in- But to return to the petitio principii. Herr judicious than the one he has chosen to Gruppe may be right that religion is illusory, advocate. Had the speculation been put and the religious sentiment a mere potential forward, as in itself it might well have been, capacity, and yet the stimulus to it may be in a Programme or Dissertation, it would something far other than that which he hive been enough to point out that the suggests. In a volume of the 'International stimulant which, according to Herr Gruppe, Scientific Series' issued a few weeks ago called into exercise the latent ca/^city for (' Animal Magnetism') we have satisfactory religious illusion was long known to the medical evidence to show that a hypnotised pro-ethnic Indo-Europeans, who yet accord- patient, to whom it is suggested that on ing to him had no religion: every one waking he should do a certain action, not would have accorded him the merit of in- only punctually performs the appointed genuity and would have prophesied that action, in entire ignorance that it was sug- with time and wider reading the author gested to him, but also when questioned is would wax in wisdom and discretion. But, always prepared with an explanation, satis- as it is, his book shows tremendous learning factory to his own mind, of the motive which and must have taken enormous time to write. he erroneously imagines prompted him to the If water chokes us, wherewith shall we wash action. So too it is conceivable that religion it down % F. B. JEVONS.

ARCHAIC INSCRIPTIONS FROM CRETE. D. COMPAEETTI, Leggi antiche delta citta di THE appearance of a new number of the Gortyna, Firenze, 1885 (also in the Museo Museo Italiano affords a fitting opportunity Italiano, Vol. i); F. BUCHELER and E. for a short notice of the recent epigraphical ZITELMANN, Rheinisches Museum (1885) N. discoveries in Crete. Our sketch must F. Bd. 40 (Erganzungsheft; ' Das Recht necessarily be a very imperfect one. A mere von Gortyn ') ; J. and T. BAUNACK, Die glance at the list given above of the literature Inschrift von Gortyn, Stuttgart, 1886 ; H. called into existence by the discoveries will LEWY, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, Berlin, 1885 ; suffice to show that no one article can give Museo Italiano di Antickita classiche, edited an adequate account of them, whether as by D. COMPARETTI, Florence, 1885 sqq. concerns their bearing upon the history of Vols. i, ii. the Greek Alphabet, the history of Ancient 10 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.

Greek Law, or the history of Greek dialects. the almost constant change of Louvre is a marble slab, inscribed spirantic pronunciation. fiovoTpoHomer have not a definite enough value to sign for ft is 0; digamma takes the forms admit of their serving as units of measure, 7\ ?\ q ; rj has the closed form B ; I for £ but at Gortyn they have already reached is in use, though in inscriptions of the later this stage. It is not likely then that these Cretan inscriptions, which exhibit so primi- stamp it is generally replaced by 8 or 88. tive a usage, anterior to that of coined An equally remarkable form" of digamma, /V, money, can be much if at all later than the is found at Eleutherna and Axos; on a coin generally received date for the introduction of the latter place indeed it has been known of coined money into Greece, or 660 B.C., the for some time, though it waa misread N, and 12 THE CLASSICAL EEVIEW. the coin attributed to Naxos. At both Phoenician alphabet (Lenormant, Essay, &c, Eleutherna and Axos the ir and t are P and Table II.) The resemblance indeed of the /? £ instead of £ and $ Further, at Eleu- and certain varieties of the digamma in the # older inscriptions at Gortyn to their Phoeni- therna the 77 takes the unusual forms \ and ft, cian prototype* is startling, and fully bears and the sign for « has the unique differen- out the arguments given above for the high tiation P~, a form not without parallel in the antiquity of these inscriptions. E. S. KOBEETS.

NOTES ON THE HOMERIC GENITIVE.

I INTEND to prove the following five Now the fourth and last of these occur in propositions : passages admitted by the majority of critics I. In the Odyssey a genitive in -ov does not to be later than the genuine Odyssey, and agree with a genitive in -oio except where therefore are not opposed to my rule. The one of the two is at the end of a line. This other five are at first sight a serious objec- applies to nouns, adjectives, participles, tion, though only five in the whole Odyssey pronouns. is a very small proportion, as we shall see, compared with the practice of the later II. By the later epic poets this rule is poets. But in reality they are no exception abundantly violated. at all, for, as Mr. Leaf has suggested to me, III. Genitives in -010, -ao, -eio may be in all these cases the genitive in -00 may be elided in Homer. read for that in -ov. As that genitive is IV. Rule I. holds good in the older parts necessitated by the metre in not a few of the Iliad with the further exception when places in Homer, I do not imagine that any one of the words is a monosyllable. one will object to this method of solving the difficulty. For myself I am convinced that V. This rule tends to confirm a belief in Mr. Leaf is perfectly right, for it cannot be the antiquity of the smaller Homeric poems, accidental that the -ou in all these cases and and certain theories about the Hesiodic in so many of those in the Iliad as we shall poems. see is in tlwsi and can therefore be resolved into -00. The latter poets bear out the inference, for they use the -ou in arsi in In the Odyssey there are fifty-six instances violating the rule (see below), which shows of a genitive in -ov agreeing with one in -010. that it is not by accident that in Homer it is Of these forty-nine are cases in which one of thus in thesi. The two spurious passages, 6. the words is at the end of a line, viz.: a. 126, 360 and w. 124, have it in arsi; all the more 436, /?. 30, 42, y. 364, 402, 8. 2, 16, 23, 46, proof of their voOtia. Read therefore in p. 124, 217, 304, 718 e. 1, v. 70, 346, 6. 287, 340 iraAaioo, in y. 391 011/00, in e. 60 Ke'Spod, 1. 434, K. 138, 168, A.. 13, 278, 414, 634, M. 94 in p. 8 KXavO/wo, in I/?. 296 iraXaido. 269, 274, v. 363, & 162, 182, o. 5, 141, 358, £07, 528,