first, by the style of the book, and secondly, by the obsolescence of the grammatical form. Down to the end of the exile we need not be surprised to find it freely used at any time in books characterized by elevated and solemn style; and as to the ordinary prose, the facts warrant us in supposing that the older the book the more frequent wil be the un, and that its non-occurrence is a mark of late date. We might go into a particular examination of the several books, prose and poetical, and inquire, for exampl, why the form is found more frequently in Exodus than in Genesis, and not at al in Leviticus and the Song of Songs; but this would require more space than can here be commanded, and it must suffice to hav establisht the general principl, leaving the special applications to be made to the particular passages.

III.-The Beginning of a Written Literature in Greece.

BY LEWIS R. PACKARD,

HILLHOUSE PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN YALE COLLEGE.

An article on the above subject by Professor F. A. Paley in Frazer's Magazine for March, 1880, furnishes an occasion for some criticism and for a statement of the grounds of an opinion differing somewhat from the one there maintained. I will first state as briefly as possible the arguments and conclusions of Paley's article, with comments, and then present what evidence I can in favor of a different view.

Mr. Paley's general proposition is, that there is no evidence of the use of writing to multiply copies of books until a much later date than is ordinarily supposed. It is difficult to determine precisely to what date he would bring it down, for his statements do not agree with one another. In one place he speaks of "the times of the Alexandrine school of learning, when, for the first time (the italics are his), the use of papyrus and the practice of transcription became common."

But a page or two later he says, "Books were no sooner introduced than they became both popular and cheap. Treatises on eloquence, as those by Tisias and Corax, mentioned in the 'Phaedrus,' the stories of Aesop, and the philosophical dogmas of Anaxagoras, could be bought at Athens, in the time of Plato, for a very small sum." It is not easy to see how books could be "popular and cheap in the time of Plato," a hundred years before the time when first "the use of papyrus and the practise of transcription became common." But we will take the alternative which involves least divergence from the common opinion, and suppose Mr. Paley to mean, as indeed the whole drift of the article indicates, that the use of writing for books did not become common in Greece until after 400 B. C., and in fact was hardly known at all before that date. I may say here at the outset that my own belief is, that it was introduced as much as fifty years earlier, and was fully established and familiar for some years before 400 B. C.

The first argument for Mr. Paley's view is drawn, he says, from "the singular, significant, and most important fact which, so far as I am aware, has never been noticed, that the Greek language, so copious, so expressive, not only has no proper verbs equivalent to the Roman legere and scribere, but has no terms at all for any one of the implements or materials so familiar to us in connection with writing (pen, ink, paper, book, library, copy, transcript, etc.), till a comparatively late period of the language." Then in a note he explains that "the Greek equivalent to legere means, to speak, and that to scribere means properly, to draw or paint." The latter "came to be used of writing because it (i. e., writing) was at first an adjunct to descriptive painting." "The Greek had two verbs which indirectly express reading, but they are clumsy shifts, unworthy of so complete a language, the one meaning recog ́noscere, the other sibi colligere." I have quoted this in full because it seems so strange a process of reasoning that I could hardly trust myself to summarize it correctly. If it proves anything, it proves that the Romans began to read and write earlier, or at least earlier relatively to the development

of their language, than the Greeks. No language, of course, can have a word for either of these ideas (or any other) before the thing expressed by the word is known to the speakers of the language, but it does not appear that the use of the compound form (Eriλéyouai) proves any less frequency or familiarity with the thing than the use of the simple form (legere). Further, legere has other senses besides to read, and apparently does not mean to read before the time of Cicero. On the other hand, as was suggested to me by Mr. F. B. Tarbell, Aéyw, at least once in Plato (Theaet. 143 C.), and repeatedly in the orators, has the sense to read aloud, to recite from a manuscript. No such inference as is here drawn from the use of different stems or simple and compound forms in kindred languages has any validity. One might as well argue from the fact that the same stem in modern German means to speak (reden) and in modern English to read, that the Germans talked more than the English, and the English read more than the Germans. to scribere and ypápɛv, Mr. Paley arbitrarily assumes, without any reason, I think, that all the uses of ypápa and its derivatives, before the Periclean age, refer to painting or to scratching on a hard surface. The truth is rather that yрáp means both of these, and after writing with ink is introduced, means that too, and the special meaning in each case must be determined by other considerations. That scribere means only to write, indicates merely that the literature from which we learn its meaning belongs to a period when writing was a familiar art. The alleged absence of the words for pen, ink, paper, etc., will be referred to below.

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How, then, it will be asked, is the existence of the earlier Greek literature, or rather the preservation of it to later times, to be explained? How is it that we have any fragments of the early historians, and the whole work of Herodotos and Thukydides? Mr. Paley anticipates this question, and answers that in his opinion, "authors of works laboriously wrote them on strips of wood, probably on a surface prepared with wax." These autograph copies were the only ones in existence, and the only way of publishing a book was by

public readings from these copies. He doubts whether it would be possible to procure for money a copy of Herodotos or Thukydides in the lifetime of the author. His reason for this view is that he finds no proof that the earlier Greeks had any writing material equivalent to our paper or parchment. There are, to be sure, several passages, to be cited presently, where the words for papyrus, paper, and parchment occur, but because they are brief passages, or the only instances, he seems to think they have no weight. Yet it would seem as if a single occurrence of the word kerosene in a book printed before 1846, or of wigwam in a book earlier than the discovery of America, would be enough to show knowledge of the existence of the thing denoted by the word.

Mr. Paley's next argument is the absence of reference in the writers of the Periklean age, particularly Herodotos, Thukydides, and Plato, to the works of their predecessors. Such reference, he thinks, would certainly have been made, if the later writers had had access to copies of the earlier works, and the comparative absence of it proves that no such copies were within their reach.

There are, it is true, remarkably few references by name to previous writers in the early Greek literature, but Mr. Paley seems to have overlooked several passages in Herodotos, where it is clearly implied that he consulted some kind of records or accounts of the events he narrates, or descriptions of states whose form of government he speaks of. They are as follows: 6:55. καὶ ταῦτα μέν νυν περὶ τούτων εἰρήσθω· ὅτι δὲ ἐόντες Αἰγύπτιοι, καὶ ὅτι ἀποδεξάμενοι ἔλαβον τὰς Δωριέων βασιληίας, ἄλλοισι γὰρ περὶ αὐτῶν εἴρηται, ἐάσομεν αὐτά· τὰ δὲ ἄλλοι οὐ κατελάβοντο, τούτων μνήμην ποιήσομαι, and then he goes on to speak of the privileges and functions of the Spartan kings. 9:81. ὅσα μέν νυν ἐξαίρετα τοῖσι ἀριστεύσασι αὐτῶν ἐν Πλαταιῇσι ἐδόθη, οὐ λέγεται πρὸς οὐδαμῶν, δοκέω δ ̓ ἔγωγε καὶ τούτοισι δοθῆναι. A similar expression occurs in 8:133. ὅ τι μὲν βουλόμενος ἐνετέλλετο, οὐκ ἔχω φράσαι· οὐ γὰρ λέγεται· δοκέω δ' ἔγωγε κτλ. These passages plainly indicate that he had access, not merely to inscriptions and formal public records, but to writings prepared for the information of inquirers and discussing the

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motives of actions as well as describing the early history of states. (The use of authorities by Herodotos is treated by Rawlinson in his Introduction, chapter II.) But it remains true, as Mr. Paley says, that there are exceedingly few quotations by name of these earlier writers.

Plato quotes Akousilaos once, Thukydides quotes Hellanikos once, Herodotos refers to Hekataios three or four times—but beyond these few instances there is no recognition by these writers of the many persons who are said to have written prose before their time. Here he touches upon a singular fact, which certainly is not easy of explanation. The most striking instance of it perhaps is the case of Thukydides, who is not mentioned, I believe, by any writer whose works we have, earlier than Dionysios of Halikarnassos, in the last century before the Christian era. But this fact will not bear the interpretation Mr. Paley puts upon it. It is true also in the next century when books were common. Aristotle does not mention Hekataios, Hellanikos, Akousilaos, Thukydides, or Xenophon. Plato does not quote from Xenophon, nor Xenophon from Plato.* A similar failure appears in the argument which Mr. Paley bases upon the statement in the Phaedros of Plato, that Lysias was taunted with being a Xoyoypapos, speech-writer, as almost the same with being a sophist. Mr. Paley regards this as "satirizing a practice which was then beginning to come into vogue." But the same contempt for λογογράφοι and σοφισταί together is expressed in Dem. de Falsa Legatione, a speech delivered in 342 B. C., long after the use of writing must have been familiar. It is plain that it is not the mere writing of the speech that is objected to, but the professional composition of speeches for others to use.

The lack of reference to previous writers is mere negative evidence, so Mr. Paley supplements it by the fact that

*Westermann (on Dem. Ol. 3: 21) remarks upon the habit of the orators of referring for matters of history to tradition rather than to written records, and explains it as due to a desire to identify themselves as much as possible with the average hearer, assuming no more knowledge than he would have.