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XXV. Observations on the Inscriptions upon three ancient Marbles[a], said to have been brought from Smyrna, and now in the British Museum. In a Letter from Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq; to Matthew Duane, Esq. Communicated by Mr. Duane

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Thomas Tyrwhitt Esq.
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Extract

The first of these inscriptions, which is as follows,

has been published by Montfaucon, Suppl. T.v. p. 25, and is thus translated by him: Populus Isiadem Metrodori filiam Laodicenam hoc monumento donavit. He supposes, that the words Ο ΔΗΜΟΣ, encircled by a crown of laurel, signify that the monument was erected at the public expence; but they probably mean no more than that the deceased had, upon some occasion or other, had a crown voted to her by the people. They certainly mean no more upon the following monument, where the inscription testifies that the monument was erected at the expence of the family, and not of the public.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 3 , 1775 , pp. 230 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1775

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Footnotes

[a]

These Marbles, which have since been engraved by order of the Society, Pl. XI. were purchased by Mr. Duane and Mr. Tyrwhitt, at an auction in London, in June 1772, and were presented by them to the Museum. Several other marbles with inscriptions (chiefly Latin) were sold at the same auction; and it Were to be wished, for the improvement of this branch of literature, that they were lodged in the same public repository, or at least that the possessors would favour the Society and the world with exact copies of them.

References

page 230 note [a] These Marbles, which have since been engraved by order of the Society, Pl. XI. were purchased by Mr. Duane and Mr. Tyrwhitt, at an auction in London, in June 1772, and were presented by them to the Museum. Several other marbles with inscriptions (chiefly Latin) were sold at the same auction; and it were to be wished, for the improvement of this branch of literature, that they were lodged in the same public repository, or at least that the possessors would favour the Society and the world with exact copies of them.

page 232 note [b] v. 7. cum jusseris salvere. The literal translation would be—cum cecineris salvere. The expression is a very singular one, and scarcely to be illustrated by any other exactly similar. It may, perhaps, in some measure be accounted for, by supposing, that this salutation of the deceased was usually performed in a kind of chant, approaching to that modulation of the voice which is called singing. By a like abuse of the same word Poets and Prophets are commonly said αειδειν, and canere; not because their poems or oracles were really sung, but because they were generally pronounced with greater varieties of time and tone, than can be admitted within the compass of what Aristotle [Poet. c. 4.] calls —the modulation of discourse.