which the first of these practices had been abfolutely abolished. It can only be time, refearches, and fome happy events which can procure us an explication of all thefe difficulties. The Phoenician writing, in paffing from Afia into Greece, received a change ftill more confiderable than what I have fpoke of. The Phoenicians, like most of the eastern people, did not exprefs the vowels in writing; they contented themfelves with afpirating them in pronunciation. The Greeks, whofe language was more foft than that of the Phoenicians, had not occafion for fo many afpirations: they converted them then into vowels which they expreffed in their writing. This change was very eafy: the name of the principal afpirations used in the Phoenician language must naturally have furnished that of the Greek vowels. This manner of writing could not certainly have taken place at the beginning when Cadmus inftructed Greece in the art of writing. There must have paffed fome time before they could have thought of making changes in the Phoenician writing. It would be difficult to affign the epoch in which the vowels had been introduced into the Greek writing. We may perhaps, after an ancient hiftorian, attribute that innovation to Linus k, the master of Orpheus, of Thamyris, of Hercules, &c. This perfon fo famous in antiquity was of Thebes in Boeotia, a city founded by Cadmus, and where, of confequence, writing must have been fooner perfected. But, moreover, this is only a conjecture on which I do not pretend to infift. The Greeks, in their common bufinefs, ufed originally to write on tablets of wood covered with wax m. It was with a ftyle of iron that they drew their characters". With refpect to laws, treaties of alliance or of peace, it was their custom to ingrave them on stone or on brafs. They preserved in See Bochart, chan. 1. t. c. 20. p. 493. We may neverthelefs ftill believe that anciently the Phoenicians expressed the vowels in their writing. This conjecture is not void of foundation. But it would draw us into too long a difcuffion. * Dionyf. apud Diodor. 1. 3. p. 236. Ifidor. orig. 1. 6. c. 8.. Pauf. 1. 9. c. 29. " Id. ibid. Pauf. 1. 4. c. 26.; Tacit. annal. 1.4. n. 26.&43.; Suid.in’Axxoiλaos, t.1. p.89. the the fame manner the remembrance of events which interested the nation, and the fucceffion of princes who had governed them P. Befides, it appears, that it has been anciently with the Greeks the fame as with all other people of antiquity, that is to fay, that, in early times, they made very little ufe of writing. We fee by Homer, that, in the heroic ages, they did not use it in the most neceffary acts of civil life. They decided proceffes and differences by the verbal depofition of fome witneffes 9. We have even room to doubt whether treaties of peace were then reduced to writing. In the Iliad, the Greeks and the Trojans ready, to en gage, propose to terminate their differences by a fingle combat between Paris and Menelaus: they ftipulate what shall be the conditions on each fide according to the event of the battle. Priam and Agamemnon advance to the middle of the two armies. They bring lambs to facrifice, and wine to make libations: Agamemnon cuts the wool from the head of the lambs: the heralds of the Greeks and Trojans divide it between the princes. Agamemnon declares with a loud voice, the conditions of the treaty. They cut the throats of the lambs, they make libations; the treaty is ratified; and it is not faid, that the conditions were couched in writing. On another occafion, Hector challenges to fingle combat, the most valiant of the army of the Greeks. Many princes present themselves, to accept the defiance: they agree, that chance fhall determine who fhall fight the fon of Priam. The manner in which they proceed is remarkable: inftead of writing his name, each of the princes makes a mark which he cafts into the helmet of Agamemnon . If they were to erect a monument, Homer does not fay that they put any infcription upon it: we fee, that they then contented themselves to put on the monuments a column, or fome other characteristic mark". Laftly, there is not 9 Iliad. 1. 18. v. 499. &c. P Acad. des infcript. t. 15. p. 397. fpoken 1poken of by this poet any correfpondence, or any order given in writing. They gave all their inftructions and all their commiffions verbally. The only time that mention is made of writing in Homer is with relation to Bellerophon: he says, that Prætus fent that prince to carry to Jobate, a letter which contained an order to put him to death v. This letter, as far as we can judge, was written on tablets covered with wax ». It muft be notwithstanding, that the error of writing fo rarely as they did in the heroic times, was not continued, and writing must neceffarily become more common between the fpace of time that paffed from the war of Troy to the age of Homer. The degree of perfection to which we fee in the time of that poet the Greek language was already brought, is a certain proof of it. It had then all the characters of a rich language, polished, regular, in a word, capable of all kinds of writing. But the Greek language could never have come to that purity and that elegancy, if, from the war of Troy to the age of Homer, the Greeks had not writ much *. Iliad. 1. 6. v. 168. &c. We might perhaps remove the doubts about the fignification of the terms ufed by Homer on this occafion; and it must be confeffed, that these doubts are not without foundation. For Homer defigns what Bellerophon fhewed to Praetus, only by the yague word ouare, literally, marks, figns. This manner of expreffion is fingular enough, and does not design alpha. betic writing but very vaguely. The word rate would agree better with hieroglyphics. Nevertheless I have thought I ought to follow the common manner of interpreting this paffage. See Plin. 1. 13. fect. 20. & 27.1. 33. fect. 4. *We must obferve, that Homer was born and brought up in Afiatic Greece: it was then in thofe countries that the Greek language began to be formed and -perfected. BOOK 237 I воок III. of Sciences. Have treated of the origin of sciences in the first part of this work, I have even tried to unfold their progrefs: I often could not do it, but by the help of many conjectures. There now remains to us fcarce any detail about the events that happened in that high antiquity: the ages which we now run over, will furnish us with more matter for our researches. The facts are fufficiently known, and even circumstantial enough. We shall see among some nations a remarkable progress, which must be attributed probably to the invention of alphabetic writing *. 'Before the discovery of that admirable art, the people had, it is true, fome means to preserve the memory of their discoveries. But thefe fuccours were fo imperfect, that they could contribute but weakly to the advancement of the sciences, and, if I may use the word, to their propagation. Alphabetic writing has removed all obftacles: the fciences are extended and multiplied. Different colonies, coming from Egypt and Afia, brought the sciences into Greece, and drew that part of Europe from barbarifm and ignorance. The fciences did not find at their first beginnings a foil or minds properly difpofed. The fruits which they bore, were in small abundance, and came very late. It was by length of time that Greece was indebted for all forts of knowledge which has fo greatly diftinguished * The reader will perceive without doubt, that I here recall nearly the fame ideas which I have already presented in the beginning of the preceding book. But as it is important, that he should not lose the view of the plan and the gradation which I have proposed in this work, I thought these repetitions necef, fary. I even forefee, that I fhall be forced ftill to make use of it more than once. them them from other countries. But that flowness has been compenfated by the beauty and the abundance of the productions of every fort which she has brought forth fince. CHA P. I. Of Afia. WE have feen before, that the hiftory of Afia was al moft entirely unknown to us in the ages which make our object at present. The little that we have been able to collect, only regards the people who inhabited the coafts of that part of the world which are washed by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians have been almoft the only ones about whom history has furnished us at this time with any lights: they shall also be the only ones of whom I will fpeak in this article. : a It is in Phoenicia that we find the first traces of a philofophic fyftem of the origin and the formation of the world. We ought in effect to put in the rank of the first philofophers that Afia has produced, Sanchoniatho, of whom Eufebius has preferved for us à valuable fragment This author wrote about the beginning of the ages we are at prefent running over his work is, after the books of Mofes, the most ancient monument which remains to us of antiquity. Sanchoniatho has tranfmitted to us, as well as a philofopher as an hiftorian, the ancient traditions of the Phoenicians; I have often made ufe of the little that remains of his writings. It is one of the fources from whence I have drawn, in a great measure, the hiftory of the arts and the difcoveries in the firft ages. It is com monly thought, that Sanchoniatho was cotemporary with Joshua . See at the end of the first vol. our differtat, on the fragment of Sanchoniatho. b See, ibid. what we think of this work. • See Bochart, chan. 1. 2. c. 2.; Fourmont, reflex. critiq, fur l'hift. des anc. peuples, t.1.p. 36. & 37. We |