FORTINIOS EMIOK AN INSCRIBED KOTYLOS FROM BOEOTIA. BY JOHN C. ROLFE. HE cup which is figured above was purchased by the writer THE in March, 1889, in Kakosia, a village in southwestern Boeotia, on the site of the ancient Thisbe. It was in the possession of a peasant, who said that it had been found in a tomb in the vicinity. No description of the tomb, and no more accurate information about its location, could be obtained, but the technique of the cup, and the alphabet of the inscription, testify to its Boeotian origin. The cup has the following dimensions: height, o.11 m.; width, 0.185; diameter, o.12; circumference, 0.385; height of upper rim, 0.03; height of foot, 0.15. The upper part, including the greater part of the rim and a very little of the body, was broken into nine pieces; but when these were put together it was found to be complete, with the exception of the greater part of one handle, and two small triangular pieces, whose loss does not at all disguise the shape of the cup. The surface without and within was covered with a calcareous deposit, which yielded only to acid. A large part of this has been removed, enough to show that there are no traces of any decoration. The cup at present bears two distinct colors. The inside, the foot, and the greater part of the body are black, while the handles and most of the upper rim are bright red. It was un doubtedly intended that the whole cup should be black, the red being due to unequal heat during the process of firing. In describing another cup, Mr. Cecil Smith, of the British Museum, writes me: "It is covered with a brownish black varnish of rather dull surface, which tends to bright red when overbaked." The inscription is incised on the upper rim, and is complete with the exception of two, or possibly three, letters. The letters are nearly all clear and distinct, and the reading given below is certain. GORDENIOS. CMLOK IVOS RAL K Γοργίνιος ἐμι ὁ κότυλος· καλὸς κ[αλ]ό. MARK OF I am the kotylos of Gorginos; the beautiful cup of a beautiful owner. The letters are those of the Boeotian alphabet, and the inscription therefore belongs to a time previous to the introduction of the Ionic alphabet into Boeotia. More than this cannot be said, for the only really characteristic letters for dating Boeotian inscriptions, theta and the sign for the spiritus asper, do not occur in our inscription. The form of the sigma, as has often been pointed out, is not significant in Boeotian inscriptions. Just when the introduction of the Ionic alphabet into Boeotia took place is uncertain. According to Kirchhoff,1 the epichoric alphabet was still in use down to the time of Epaminondas, and the occurrence of the Ionic alphabet and the Boeotian on exactly similar coins of that time seems to indicate that it was a period of transition. It is then possible that our cup is not earlier than 360 B.C., but the general appearance of both cup and inscription suggests a much earlier date. The inscription forms a somewhat uncouth iambic trimeter. The hiatus in the third foot may perhaps be justified by the caesura. According to Prof. F. D. Allen2 but one other hiatus is found in 1 Studien, p. 143. 2 Greek Versification in Inscriptions, Papers Am. Sch. Class. Stud. at Athens, Vol. IV, p. 107. an inscribed iambic trimeter. A greater blemish is that in the anapaest in the second foot a polysyllabic word ends in the second part of the thesis.1 2 The name of the possessor on Greek vases is not very common. When found, it is sometimes in the nominative, but usually in the genitive, the genitive being sometimes followed by eiuí. Reinach 3 gives eleven cases of the genitive, of which five are followed by ciμí; and several instances of each use might be added to the list. In our inscription, however, we appear to have a unique way of expressing ownership, for Topyívios does not seem to be a genitive, but a proper adjective in the nominative. As a genitive it could only come from a nominative in ɩs, vs, or evs, any one of which would give a proper name wholly anomalous in its formation. As an adjective it would be formed from Topyîvos, which does not occur, it is true, but which would be quite regular in its formation, corresponding to 'Ayalivos, Kparîvos, and other Kosenamen. The use of the adjective in an inscription of this kind is difficult to explain. It avoids the hiatus which the genitive Topyívo would make, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the writer of the inscription preferred this way of avoiding hiatus, to one which would have departed from the invariable order of the owner's name at the beginning, followed directly by eiμí. If we may assume this, the use of the adjective for a genitive in poetry was common enough to suggest that way of avoiding the difficulty. Such expressions as Νεστορέῃ παρὰ νηὶ Πυλοιγενέος βασιλῆος 4 and ̓Αγαμεμνονέην ἄλοχον δ may be mentioned as parallel, and a long list of such uses of proper adjectives could be made without difficulty. That the writer of the inscription thought of it as equivalent to the usual genitive is shown by the κados κado which follows. It has seemed to me barely possible that the use of patronymic adjectives in Boeotian may have helped to suggest such a use of a proper adjective. The transition from a proper adjective meaning "son of" to one denot 1 See Christ, Metrik, p. 346. 5 2 Four instances given by Dumont, Rev. Arch. 1873, 1, p. 325, and others by Jahn, Vasensammlung zu München, p. cxxix. 8 Traité d'Epigraphie Grecque, p. 448. 4 Iliad, 2. 54. 5 Od. 3. 264. ing possession simply, is not a violent one. Professor Merriam, of Columbia College, has suggested to me to compare the use of proper adjectives in the Delian inventories,' and while in some cases the adjective seems to denote the type of cup, in others it clearly denotes the donor. In the inventory of Demaratus, v. 99,2 we have σκάφιον φιλωνίδειον, ἐπ ̓ ἄρχοντος Ξενομήδου Φιλωνίς Ἡγησαγόρου. Here a particular type of cup made by Piλwvís may be meant, but it seems very unlikely, and M. Homolle understands her to be the donor. Another example in the same inventory is more explicit. It reads κύλικα μικύθειον, ἐφ ̓ ἧς ἐπιγραφή· ἄρχοντος Εμπέδου, Μίκυθος. As a cup dedicated by Mikythos is called Mikythian, a cup owned by Gorginos might be called Gorginian. kadós on Greek vases is extremely common; more common than any other inscription, according to Jahn. kaλo's κaλoû is, I believe, unique, but we have a similar form of expression in the inscription on a kylix published in the Jour. of Hellenic Studies for 18855: 6 Another interesting feature of our vase is that it is designated as a kotylos. The question of the names of the different forms of Greek vases has been much discussed. The first to make it the object of special investigation was Panofka, whose Recherches sur les véritables noms des Vases Grecs was published in 1829. Ussing comments on his work as follows: "ille, centum et sex Graecis nominibus productis, quae ex Athenaeo fere omnia sumpsit, suam cuique nomini formam 1 Bull. Cor. Hell. 6 (1882), p. 6 sqq.; especially p. 112. 8 6 In the J.H.S. the form ATŵs is given, but according to Prof. F. D. Allen, Greek Versification in Inscriptions, p. 70, it should be iλtós, a Doric genitive. The inscription itself gives O. 7 It is barely possible that we should read κaλòs kaλós, which occurs occasionally in vase inscriptions (see C.I.G. 7458, 7468, 7479, 7848, 7852, 7881, 7908, 8018), but there is no trace of a final sigma. [Compare Míλwvos tóď byarμa καλοῦ καλόν, Simonides frag. 156, Bk.4; and παῖς ̓Ασκληπιάδεω καλῶι καλὸν eloaTo Poíßwi, Rhianus Anth. Pal. VI, 278. — F. D. A.] 8 De Nominibus Vasorum Graecorum, p. 21. tribuit tanta temeritate, ut fere miremur, si uno et altero loco forte fortuna verum invenerit." He was made the object of a special criticism by Letronne.1 Gerhard, in Berlin's Antike Bildwerke, is more cautious than Panofka, but though he considerably diminished the number of forms to which he ventured to assign names, he also was criticised by Letronne.2 The latter considers the whole subject an unprofitable one, and does not believe that the ancients themselves attached any fixed and definite meaning to most of the terms. Ussing, however, who took the subject for his inaugural dissertation, says, "Sed mihi quidem eripi non potest suam cuique vocabulo vim inesse, nisi linguae natura mutetur." Others who have discussed the subject are Krause, Jahn, and the various dictionaries and handbooks of antiquities. 5 6 The more recent writers on Greek vases seem to be of the opinion of Letronne. They use only a few of the Greek names, those in common use, whose application they believe to be unquestionably established. Furtwängler distinctly states that this is his usage, and of the many Greek names for drinking-cups he uses only kantharos, which he seems to apply consistently to the type generally agreed on as that of the kantharos; in other cases he uses the German names. Kantharos seems to be used by many writers as a general term for a drinking-cup. Reinach even speaks of an inscribed kotylos as a kantharos, and at the end of the account of the excavations in the theatre at Thoricos 10 the name is applied to a vessel which has none of the characteristics of the usual type. 8 12 Lau" follows the same course as Furtwängler. In his plates 12 he gives various forms of drinking-cups, but of the Greek names he uses only kantharos, which he applies to vessels of the type of Fig. 7. 1 Observations philologiques et archéologiques sur les noms des Vases Grecs. 2 Supplement aux Observations sur les noms des Vases Grecs. 8 1.c. p. 22. Angeiologie. 5 Vasensammlung zu München. 6 Vasensammlung zu Berlin, p. ix. 7 See Fig. 7. 8 1.c. p. 447. 9 It ought to be said that this cup, which is represented in Fig. 7, though designated in its inscription as a kotylos, has the form generally agreed on as that of the kantharos. 10 Papers of the Am. Sch. of Class. Stud. at Athens, Vol. IV, p. 10. 11 Die Griechischen Vasen. 12 XVI, XVIII, XXIII, and XXIV. |