xiv THUCYDIDES ship of Euclides^ it is probable that the Ionic alphabet was in literary use when it was not yet employed in public documents. There was a gradual change from slanting to upright forms ; and it is interesting to trace the manner in which some refractory straggling letters, such as M and N, were coerced into regularity. In the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars the archaic style disappears, and the hand of the engraver works with more clearness and precision. Having determined the letters and from them formed a conjecture of the date of the inscription, and assisted by a knowledge of the place in which it is found, the decipherer will now proceed to gather a meaning from the words or syllables which are legible. (The reader must be reminded that in this short outline we are speaking of early imperfect inscriptions, and chiefly of those contemporary with Thucy- dides.) A very few scattered words are sufficient to tell the general subject : it may be a treaty of peace or alliance, the dedication of an offering, a grant of privileges to a state or an individual, an epitaph, an inventory of treasure, a boundary mark, the cost of a public edifice, a catalogue of confiscated goods, a direction for a festival or a sacrifice or the building of a temple, a prohibition, a punishment ; any historical event, any incident of private life, may turn up in an inscription. We are sometimes able to trace a coincidence of names occurring in Thucydides or Xenophon which may serve as a clue. But we can seldom proceed much further. The details which we seek to extract from a fragment are necessarily inco- herent, a food for guesses. A few inscriptions only pre- ser'c a clear and entire meaning, or may receive it from a comparison of contemporary history. We had better begin by moderating our expectations, if we would avoid ' The Ionic forms .appear, often side by side with the others, with Increasing frequency from 446 onwards : or in isolated cases even earher. See Mcistcrhans, Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften, §3; Roberts, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, pp. 103-107.
