LATIN INSCRIPTIONS. THE study of Inscriptions is a most important branch of Archæological research, throwing its light on History, Institutions, Buildings, and Philology, all alike. It is also a most attractive pursuit to a mind enquiring after knowledge at the fountain-head; and it is probable that no one who has made any progress in it can ever cease to be interested in it: it takes him into the whole field of antiquities, and continually opens up fresh sources of information. A slight sketch of the principal features of this branch of study may be acceptable to the members of this Association: and indeed it would not be fitting that so eloquent and powerful a handmaid to Archeology should from year to year be passed over unnoticed in their sittings. Perhaps the time may come when the dissection and unfolding of the apparent enigmas of an old Latin stone may cause as great an interest and pleasure in these rooms as novelty in the exhumation of Rome's old glories. Let us hope that it may be so. No scholar, at least, can fail to find in this city abundance of objects whereon to exercise his philological acuteness and ingenuity of interpretation, in the countless inscribed stones which are crowded into the galleries of collections, or are scattered upon the walls, or on the fronts of buildings, or along the miles of monuments lining the Sepulchral Way. But at first, even to the scholar, the greater mass of them are as sealed documents. As Pindar says of the inspirations of poetry, that though having a voice for the learned, épμnvéws deî, they need an interpreter for the multitude, so here a key is required for all who approach our written stones, to unlock their meaning and make the men of old speak intelligible things. Some abbreviated marks will remain for ever hopelessly obscure, but nearly all fairly preserved inscriptions are decipherable, and will yield a reasonable sense. Some are again, of course, hopelessly corrupt in their text from being mangled by their transcribers, or half erased, or very faultily cut originally; but these very difficulties, exercising ingenuity and calling forth the spirit of research, afford a most pleasing exercise of the faculties, and a delight in overcoming them proportionate to the obscurity. There are some names revered as the mighty among scholars, whose renown has been in no small degree owed to the skill with which they have unravelled intricate stone-writings, corrected their mistakes, and woven into harmonious clear statements the disjointed and semibarbarous utterances of citizens of the Roman State on Hungarian plains or in Gallic towns, to whom Latin was manifestly anything but their native language. Now it was the genius of Rome to erect a durable record of everything she did or produced; what we do by parchments and printing, her people did by engraving. Not only public works and private benefactions, treaties and purchases, the honours of the great and brave, the tribute of affection or the idolatry of adulation, religious offerings or spectacles of amusement, made the subject of marble writings,—but passing events, like election placards, Vote for So and So, or a successful boar-hunt, were rendered perpetual in stone. No wonder that these documents swarm over all countries where the Roman eagle flew; and hence they give us much collateral insight into the religion, government, domestic usages, and nomenclature of the different provinces of the Empire. And from the Indus to the Wall of Antonine on the Firth of Forth, fragmentary records of the great people are gathered; everywhere "Te Saxa loquuntur," the stones tell us of Rome. A very large proportion of Latin Inscriptions are of a personal character; they contain the name, title, and office of an individual citizen: and a rule pervades them, which shall be our first rule in framing a key for interpretation. First in order comes the prænomen, answering to our Christian name, and denoting the individual member of the gens or clan; the gens itself takes the second place, and is distinctively called Nomen, 'the name,' as knowing to whom he belonged; third comes the father's name, and both this and the first are designated by one or two letters. Then, fourth, follows the tribe in which he was enrolled, in other words, his place as a citizen; next, in the fifth place, comes the cognomen, or name of the family forming part of the clan; next his home; lastly, his rank or office in the service of the State. A familiar illustration of this order of names would be C. Jul. Cæsar, Caius is the man; Julius shews the Julia gens; Cæsar the particular family springing from the gens. Now take a whole inscription and dissect it. One turns up at York: L. DUCCIUS. L. F. VOL. RUFINUS. VIEN. Lucius Duccius, Lucii Filius, Voltinia Rufinus Vienna. SIGNIF. LEG. VIII. AN. XXVIII. H S E. Signifex Legionis Octavæ-annorum duodetriginta hic situs est. "Lucius is the man, Duccius is his clan, Lucius was his father; the tribe was the Voltinian. Rufinus was the family. Vienna, in Gaul, his birthplace. He was standardbearer in the eighth Legion; died at the age of 28, and is here buried. Certain things, therefore, must be pretty well understood before any one, however well he may construe Latin, can divine the reading of an epitaph. He must be familiar with the usual Roman prænomina (the list is not very long), and with the various ways of spelling them. Thus the common name Aulus frequently appears as Olus; a proof by the way that neither the German nor Italian pronunciation of the diphthong au answers to the ancient; the French is the true one, au being equivalent to long o. Aurum, 'gold,' is found as orum. Another necessary step is to learn the names of the Roman tribes, and the different abbreviations denoting them. All citizens were divided into thirty-five tribes, and they were |