________________
534
THE ALPHABET
F (digamma) and h to represent the sound ƒ which was common in Latin, but was wanting in Greek; it was one of the three devices employed by the Etruscans for the sound f (see p. 494). Moreover, the presence in the Præneste fibula of the letters d and o shows that the Latin alphabet was borrowed from the Etruscan in the very early stage of this latter alphabet, when these letters had not yet fallen into disuse.
Not much later than the Preneste fibula is the famous inscription from the Roman Forum (Fig. 239, 2), belonging to the sixth century B.c., if not to the end of the seventh. It is written vertically on the four faces of a cippus, in bous
VASTAAVOINTIAIN
PAEL
ULHEILEDANDON
OMDE
ho
MIZA KEME!
03/20
PPVT VNGRIE LOV DEULOMCEFFOD DIGNOSC
LATIOT
FERONIA STATETIO
DEDE
DESCRIVNI
OSR
INE MANOMET CETHAFRA
3
Fig. 240-Early Latin inscriptions (II)
1. The inscription of Duenos (sixth century B.C.). 2, Dedication to Feronia (fourth century B.C.), 3, Dedication to Juno Lucina, from Norba (fourth century .c.). 4, Roman funerary carmen belonging to the period of Silla
trophedon style, that is, as already explained, in alternating lines from right to left and left to right. Owing to this direction of writing, and to the fragmentary condition of the cippus, not many words can be read with certainty. Face A in Fig. 239,2 reads, beginning at the bottom of the first line of the right-hand side: 1, quoiho... 2, [s]akros es= 3, ed sor[d]...
