The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here 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 Request Permissions : Click here 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 <rO to $d A brief resume therefore of the course of (yrpoOOa = TrpocrOa, aTrofeiwdOOto = — dcrOoy) discovery, with a statement of the most affords strong support to those who maintain important results, is the most that we shall that, at least in certain districts, the 6 had attempt. at a very early period not an aspirate but a In the Louvre is a marble slab, inscribed spirantic pronunciation. fiovoTpo<f)r)86v, measuring 0. 60m. by 0. 50m, The date of the long inscription has been found by Messrs G. Perrot and L. Thenon in with probability assigned to the latter part 1857 in the wall of a mill on the site of the of the seventh century B.C. But this is ancient Gortyn. This was seen, chiefly thanks plainly not the date of the building on the to the interpretation of Mons. Breal, to be wall of which the inscription is found. The in- part of an ancient law dealing with the sub- scribed portion of the wall had been trans- ject of Adoption. In 1879 a fragment was ported block by block from some more ancient discovered by M. Haussoullier in the wall of building, and this circumstance explains the a house near the mill. The inscription on presence of certain letters, belonging to a this fragment contained kindred matter to later period of the Greek alphabet, inscribed ' that of the slab first found. Both fragments in the intercolumnar spaces of the inscription. had come from the bed of a sluice that flowed There are four strata of stone, the blocks of from the mill, the stream of which had which were numbered consecutively A, B, V been carried through and over an ancient <fce. from right to left, before the demolition wall at a spot not far from the classic river began. The strata are numbered from top Lethaeus. Then followed in 1884 a gigantic to bottom in such a way as to insure the discovery. Drs. Halbherr and Fabricius in preservation of the inscribed columns in face of great difficulties, occasioned partly their proper relative position in the recon- by the necessity of diverting the stream and struction. The conversion of the structure, partly by the objections of the landowners, originally circular, into a theatre dates succeeded in effecting an excavation which probably from Roman imperial times. brought to light the concave surface of a On another site, known under the name heavy circular wall of grayish limestone, Vigle (V Tcrrj /JiyAms), within the periphery of formed of square blocks accurately fitted in the ancient city, near a building called by archaic fashion without cement. The wall Spratt (Travels <fec. ii. 33) the Brick Ruin, a was subsequently (1886-7) seen to extend countryman, digging in January 1885 after much farther in both directions and to have the fashion of the district in search of ancient in fact formed part (as the continued excav- ruins for the supply of building materials, ations show) of a small ancient theatre. On struck upon a large wall formed of fine blocks this circular wall was found a monster in- of hewn stone, many of which were inscribed. scription, twelve columns long, each column He proceeded to cut and sell these blocks ac- consisting of 53-55 lines, covering four layers cording to the demand of purchasers, till the of stone (in height about five feet in all). news of the discovery reached Candia and the The columns are read in succession from executive of the Syllogos aided by local au- right to left and the first line in each column thority succeeded in putting a stop to the is also written retrograde or right to left.