lightest, E the heaviest, and O of intermediate weight: F was an aspirated labial, H an aspirated guttural, and ℗ an aspirated dental: so that the nine mutes stood thus, each set being preceded by its appropriate breathing or vowel:—

and the liquids A, M, N, Σ stood between the aspiratæ and the tenues, because they probably completed a still shorter Semitic alphabet of only twelve characters.

26 When F fell out, and H, the double aspirate, was taken to represent the double e, the first letters added to the above were v and 4, two representatives of F, and x, the substitute for H in its original use. The other additional letters were borrowed, as their names denote, from corresponding letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and from this was also taken the obsolete Záv, of which we have spoken above. The Greeks added, for their own convenience, a double o (called & péya, and written w), and two combinations of Ziyua or Záv with II, in one of which the π preceded, while in the other it followed the sibilant. These combinations were called Vi and Σaμπî, and were represented by the same sign in different postures. Y preceded and Σaμmî followed 'n. Under the form

, the Lauri was used to represent the number 900.

27 The Ionians in Asia Minor were the first to adopt the complete alphabet of twenty-four letters, arranged as we now have it. The Samians have the credit of being the earliest employers of this extension of the written characters, and it was from them that the Athenians derived the additional letters, although they were not used in public monuments until the Archonship of Euclides, Ol. 94, 2. Β. C. 403. Hence we read of τὰ γράμματα τὰ ἀπ ̓ Εὐκλείδου aρxovтos. Of course Herodotus, who was an important contributor to the literary intercourse between Samos and Athens, had brought the improved alphabet into use among men of education at a much earlier period, and Euripides expressly distinguishes between 7 and e as vowels in spelling the name Onoe's (apud Athen. p. 454 c).

n

28 The earliest extant approximation to anything like a handwriting is the inscription on the prize vase brought from Athens by Mr Burgon, which cannot be later than 600 B. C. (see Böckh, Corp. Inscr. I. p. 49). It is written as follows, from right to left:

М3: ИОЛОА ИОЗИЗОА ИОТ

The only abbreviation observable in this is the omission of e in the termination -θεν; for the true transcription is: τῶν ̓Αθήνηθεν ἄθλων εἰμί, not, as Böckh supposes, τῶν ̓Αθηνέων ἆθλον εἰμί. The later Greeks used a number of contractions in their MSS., the commonest of which are given in the accompanying table.

SV. Syllables.

29 A syllable (ovλλaßý) is simple when it consists of a single vowel with or without a breathing. It is compound when it consists of a vowel or diphthong with one or more consonants. A word (Mégis) consists of one or more syllables. No syllable or monosyllabic word contains more than six or seven consonants, as in στράγξ.

30 In regard to words of more than one syllable, the following rules apply to the division of the syllables':

a. A solitary consonant, whether single or double, between two vowels, properly belongs to the second of them: as in e-xe, σῶμα, ἱ-κα-νόν, ὕψη-λος.

B. Two consonants are divided between the syllables which precede and follow, except in the case of a tenuis or aspirated mute followed by any liquid, or a medial mute followed by p, when, as the articulation is not divided, the compound sound passes on to the following vowel; thus we divide words as follows: ȧ-πρɩɣ-dó-πλŋêτα, ἐ-μασ-χα-λίσθη, βα-ρυ-βρόμος, ἔβ-λα-ψε. For the applica tion of this rule to the quantity of syllables, see below, 36, 37.

7. The first of three consonants belongs to the syllable which precedes; thus we divide as follows: ἐσθλός, ἐχθρός, ὀμ-πνή, μάκτρα, &c.

31 Etymology sometimes interferes with this rule respecting the division of syllables. In regard to the roots of verbs, the vocalization will often show that one or more consonants have been thrown back upon the root syllable. Thus a comparison of στpép and πέμπω with their perfects ἔστροφα, πέπομφα, will show us that the first syllable of the present must be στρεφ-, πεμπ-, and the second syllable of the perfect orро-, поμ- (above, 20). For the same reason, compound words are divided according to their constituent parts: as in κυνὸς-οὐρά, ἐκ-τίθημι.

1 It is proper to observe that these are not the rules given by other grammarians. The German scholars in particular lay it down that only the liquids, and the first of two doubled letters, can be tolerated at the end of a syllable, and that all combinations of letters which can begin a word must begin a syllable with rare exceptions.

32 By a special rule the converse is made to apply to compounds with eis, è§, πpós, dvo-, which carry on their final sibilant to the next syllable when it begins with a vowel: thus they divided é-§áyew, dv-σápeσtos (Anecd. Bekk. p. 1128). But the correctness of this rule may be doubted.

§ VI. Prosody, or the Quantity and Accentuation of Syllables.

33 Prosody (poo@día) teaches, besides the breathings (above, 24), the quantity of syllables, or the time (xpóvos) occupied in their utterance, and the accentuation of syllables, or the tone (Tóvos) with which they are pronounced.

34 The shortest time in which a syllable can be pronounced is called a mora, or single time. A short syllable has one mora: a long syllable contains two mora.

35 The quantity of syllables is determined either by the nature of the vowel, or by that of the consonants which follow: in the former case the quantity is said to depend on the nature of the vowel; in the latter, on the position of the consonants.

36 A Syllable is long by nature, when it contains a long vowel or diphthong; by position, when it is followed by a composite consonant, §, or for by two or more consonants in which the articulation is divided (above, 30, B).

Obs. The lengthening of short syllables by position applies not only to the concurrence of syllables in a word, but also to the case of two contiguous words in a metrical line. The position invariably produces a long syllable (a) when the former word ends and the latter word begins with a consonant; (b) when the former word ends with a short vowel and the latter begins with a composite consonant, with a consonant preceded by σ, or one of those combinations, which inevitably make a vowel long by position in the middle of a word. In the case of a mute followed by a liquid the preceding short vowel generally becomes long if the ictus or emphasis of the metre falls upon it, and this applies also to the initial p, which is doubled in the concurrence of syllables (below, 105). In Epic poetry the position is sometimes neglected before such words as Zákuvos, Ζέλεια, Σκάμανδρος, σκέπαρνον, &c., and it has been proposed by Payne Knight (Prol. Hom. p. 79) to write Δάκυνθος, Δέλεια, Κάμανδρος, κέπαρνον in these cases, a change supported by philological considerations, and by the reading ovxì pápaydov in Asclep. VII. 1 (see below, 116).