virtues. Frequently a funereal
inscription contains only the names of the deceased, that of his
country, and acclamations and votive formulae generally terminate it.

The Sigean marble is one of the most celebrated palaeographical
monuments in existence. It is written in the most ancient Greek
characters, and in the Boustrophedon manner. The purport of the
inscription, which in sense is twice repeated, on the upper and lower
part of the stone, is to record the presentation of three vessels for
the use of the Prytaneum, or Town Hall of the Sigeans. The upper and
lower inscriptions, in common letters, read thus:

The first inscription is thus translated: "I am the gift of
Phanodicus, the son of Hermocrates, of Proconnesus; he gave a vase (a
crater), a stand or support for it, and a strainer, to the Sigeans for
the Prytaneum." The second, which says, "I also am the gift of
Phanodicus," repeating the substance of the former inscription, adds,
"if any mischance happens to me, the Sigeans are to mend me. AEsop and
his brethren made me." The lower inscription is the more ancient. It
is now nearly obliterated. Kirchhoff considers it to be not later than
Olympiad 69 B.C. (504-500).

_The Athenian People erects this Statue of Socrates, the Son of
Socrates of Thoricus._

"The Sons of Athens, Socrates, from thee
Imbibed the lessons of the Muse divine;
Hence this thy meed of wisdom: prompt are we
To render grace for grace, our love for thine."

_Wordsworth's Athens._

To Perpenna the Roman,
of Consular dignity, the Senate and People of Syracuse.

A man by whose wise counsels this city of Syracuse hath breathed from
its labors, and seen the hour of repose. For these services the best
of its citizens have erected to him an image of marble, but they
preserve that of his wisdom in their breasts.

_Museum of Syracuse._

_On a Gateway at Nicaea_ (_Translation_):

"The very splendid, and large, and good city of the Nicaeans [erects]
this wall for the autocrat Caesar Marcus Aurelius Claudius, the pious,
the fortunate, august, of Tribunitial authority, second time
Proconsul, father of his country, and for the Sacred Senate, and the
people of the Romans, in the time of the illustrious Consular Velleius
Macrinus, Legate and Lieutenant of the august Caesar Antoninus, the
splendid orator." A.D. 269.

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