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Theodorit, Græcorum affectuum Curatio: ἡμεῖς δὲ τῶν ἀποστολικῶν καὶ προφητικῶν δογμάτων τὸ κράτος ἐναργώς ἐπιδείκνυμεν. πᾶσα γὰρ ἡ ὑφήλιος τῶνδε τῶν λόγων ἀνάπλεως. καὶ ἡ Ἑβραίων φωνὴ οὐ μόνον εἰς τὴν Ἑλλήνων μετεβλήθη, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰς τὴν Ῥωμαίων καὶ Αἰγυπτίων καὶ Περσῶν καὶ Ἰνδῶν καὶ ̓Αρμενίων καὶ Σκυθῶν καὶ Σαυροματῶν, καὶ συλλήβδην εἰπεῖν, εἰς πάσας τὰς γλώττας αἷς ἅπαντα τὰ ἔθνη κεχρημένα διατελεί

The same writer, explaining the word μαραναθά, observes 5, τοῦτο οὐ τῆς Ἑβραίας, ὥς τινες ὑπέλαβον, ἀλλὰ τῆς Σύρων ἐστὶ φωνῆς· ἑρμηνεύεται δὲ, ὁ Κύριος ἦλθε.

The Alexandrine mob called the poor buffoon, whom they dressed up in mockery of Herod Agrippa, as Philo Judaeus tells ush, by this name of Μάρις: οὕτως δέ φασι τὸν κύριον ὀνομάζεσθαι παρὰ Σύροις. But they would not have so called him, in ridicule and contempt of Herod Agrippa, if the same word had not also been a vernacular Hebrew term.

Laurentius, De Mensibus, in an extract relating to the death of Julian, the emperor, tells us in like manneri, εἷς δὲ ἐκ τῆς Περσικῆς φάλαγγος, τῶν λεγομένων Σαρακηνῶν, ἐκ τῆς ἁλουργίδος βασιλέα ὑπολαβὼν, ἀνέκραγε πατρίως, Μαλχάν, οἱονεὶ, βασιλεύς *.

ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἑλληνιστί φθεγγόμενος, Σύρος ἦν τὴν φωνήν: E. H. vi. xi. 316. D. Cf. Sozomen, E. H. viii. x. 770. A. The history of the compositions of Bardesanes Syrus, and those of his son Harmonius, in the second and third century; and of those of Ephraim Syrus, a native of Nisibis, and inhabitant of Edessa, in the early part of the fourth century, is a clear proof of the distinctness of the Syriac from the Greek language, from the ear

liest to the latest times. See
Sozomen, E. H. iii. xvi. 525.
A.-526. D. and Cf. Theodorit,
E. H. iv. xxix. 192.

* Thus too, Eunapius, Vitæ Sophistarum, Πορφύριος, page 7, explains the original name of Porphyry, which was Malchus: Μάλχος δὲ κατὰ τὴν Σύρων πόλιν ὁ Πορφύριος ἐκαλεῖτο τὰ πρῶτα, (τοῦτο δὲ δύναται βασιλέα λέγειν) κ.τ.λ. Porphyry was born in Tyre.

f Operum iv. 839. Disputatio v. Cf. ibid. 900. Disputatio viii. g iii. 285. In 1. ad Cor. xvi. 21. h Operum ii. 522. 1. 47. Adversus Flaccum.

i iv. 75.

It is recorded of Mithridates, that he spoke twentytwo different languages, as reigning over so many different nations. Yet his dominions embraced the principal parts of the East in which the Greeks were settled, and Grecian empires had been founded.

Strabo informs us that, according to some authorities, seventy, and according to others, three hundred different nations, inhabitants of mount Caucasus, all speaking a distinct language, were wont to meet and to trade together at Dioscurias on the Pontus1. In the time of Pliny, also, though as a mart, it was considerably decayed, yet business was still transacted there by the help of one hundred and thirty interpreters; which implies as many distinct languagesTM.

Strabo, de Mysis : μαρτυρεῖν δὲ καὶ τὴν διάλεκτον· μιξολύδιον γάρ πως εἶναι, καὶ μιξοφρύγιον de Cibyratis : τέτταρσι δὲ γλώτταις ἐχρῶντο οἱ Κιβυράται, τῇ Πισιδικῇ, τῇ Σολύμων, τῇ Ἑλληνίδι, τῇ Λύδωνη.

Xenophon, Ephesiaca: the Kаππаdокŵν þwvǹ, as such, is mentioned, as that of Lycaonia is, in the Acts, xiv. 11. In Hispania Bætica, though the native language was extinct in Strabo's time, yet it had been superseded not by the Greek, but by the Latin P. In Phrygia, also, and the contiguous parts of Asia, there was still a native dialect9; though the Latin language had done more to supersede it than the Greek*.

Gaul must have retained a language of its own, or

*The continued existence of the Phrygian, as a distinct language, as much as the Gothic, is recognised by Socrates, E. H. v. xxiii. 291. D. as late as A. D. 394. Cf. Ibid. 292. B: and also

Sozomen, E. H. vii. xvii. 730. C. Suidas, Evoî σaßoî, observes upon these words, that they were Phrygian, denoting in Greek τοὺς μύστας.

k Valerius Max. viii. vii. 16. Pliny, H. N. vii. 24. xxv. 3. Auctor De Viris Illustribus, lxxvi. Quintilian, xi. ii. 50. Solinus, Polyhistor, cap. i. §. 109. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 17. 1 Strabo xi. 2. §. 16. 400. still a place of note in Ammianus Marcellinus' 7. §. 3. 204. xiii. 4. §. 17. 493. o iii. 254.

m Pliny, H. N. vi. 5. Yet it was time: see xxii. 8. 313. n xii. p iii. 2. 404. q xii. 4. §. 6. 169.

Philostratus would not record it of Phavorinus", o0ev ὡς παράδοξα ἐπεχρησμώδει τῷ ἑαυτοῦ βίῳ τρία ταῦτα, Γαλάτης ὢν Ἑλληνίζειν, κ, τ. λ. Irenæus speaks of it as existing in his own times. Jerome, Præf. lib. 2di in Epistolam ad Galatas, observes, Massiliam Phocæi condiderunt: quos ait Varro trilingues esse, quod et Græce loquantur, et Latine et Gallicet. And again, Unum est quod inferimus, et promissum in exordio reddimus, Galatas, excepto sermone Græco, quo omnis Oriens loquitur*, propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros, nec referre, si aliqua exinde corruperint; quum et Aphri Phoenicum linguam, nonnulla ex parte mutaverint, et ipsa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et tempore tu.

Corsica, in like manner, had its own dialect when Seneca was in banishment there; Cogita.. quam non facile Latina ei verba homini succurrant, quem barba

* That is, not so as to supersede every other language in the East, but so as to be understood and spoken, more or less, even where other languages might be spoken too, and perhaps better understood.

+ Apuleius, De Magia Oratio, ii. 102. bears witness that the Punic dialect had been superseded in parts of Africa at least, neither by the Greek nor by the Latin. This oration was pronounced in the reign of Antoninus Pius. The Latin, Greek, and Punic are mentioned in the Epitome of Aurelius Victor, De Severo, as contemporary languages, yet distinct from each other: Latinis litteris sufficienter instructus.

Græcis sermonibus eruditus. Punica eloquentia promptior, quippe genitus apud Leptim provincia Africa. There is a well known anecdote of Augustin's, which relates how his father having accidentally overheard the conversation of two Carthaginian peasants, was forcibly struck by the pronunciation of the word for three in that language, resembling salus in Latin, as the corresponding word in the Hebrew really does. Procopius, too, (De Bello Vandalico, ii. 10.) testifies to the continued existence of the same language among the Maurusii or Moors of his own time; which was the reign of Justinian, A. D. 527. and upwards.

r Vita Sophistarum, i. 493. D. Phavorinus. ad Lib. i. t Operum iv. pars i. 253, 254,

s Opera, 3, 1. 23-25. Præfatio u Ibid. 255, 256.

rorum inconditus et barbaris vis fremitus circumsonetx.

quoque humanioribus.

gra

The Greek language in many instances, so far from superseding the native or aboriginal dialects, had fallen a victim to their predominance, and become extinct. Athenæus mentions an example of this change in the case of the settlers at Posidonium, or Pæstum, in Italy: from Aristoxenus, ἐν τοῖς Συμμικτοῖς Συμποτικοῖς. Dionysius Halicarnassensis observes, ἐπεὶ ἄλλοι γε συχνοὶ (τῶν Ἑλλήνων) ἐν βαρβάροις οἰκοῦντες, ὀλίγου χρόνου διελθόντος, ἅπαν τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἀπέμαθον, ὡς μήτε φωνὴν Ἑλλάδα φθέγγεσθαι, μήτε ἐπιτηδεύμασιν Ἑλλήνων ἔτι χρῆ σθαι, μήτε θεοὺς τοὺς αὐτοὺς νομίζειν, μήτε νόμους τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς, ᾧ μάλιστα διαλλάσσει φύσις Ἑλλὰς βαρβάρου, μήτε τῶν ἄλλων συμβολαίων (μηδ' ὅ τι εἰσίν.) And he cites the instance of the Achæans, settled in the neighbourhood of the Pontus, ὅλον μὲν ἐκ τοῦ Ἑλληνικωτάτου γενόμενοι, βαρβάρων δὲ συμπάντων νῦν (ὄντων) ἀγριώτατοι? *.

Ovid says the same of the people of Tomos, also on the Pontus, though Greeks originally; and of himself who had lived so long among them.

Nesciaque est vocis quod barbara lingua Latinæ ;
Grajaque quod Getico victa loquela sono.

* The sophist Himerius, Opera, 480. Oratio v. 6. observes of the city of Thessalonica in Macedonia, in his own time (the reign of Julian more particularly): πρέπει (δὲ) ταύτῃ τῆς τε ἄλλης ἀρετῆς εἵνεκα, ἀτὰρ οὐχ ἥκι στα τῆς σπουδῆς ἣν ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ παρέχεται, μέση ἐν μέσοις κειμένη μια κροῦ πᾶσιν ὡς ἐν κύκλῳ, τοῖς τὴν

:

Tristium v. ii. 67.

φωνὴν βαρβαρίζουσιν. Of this number he reckons up the Poonians, Illyrians, Moesians, Thracians in the midst of whom, says he, the city itself, μόνη καθ άπερ τινὰ χρυσοῦν ἐμφαλὸν τὴν Ἑλλάδα γλῶτταν ἀνέχουσα, καθαρὰν ταύτην φυλάττει τῆς ἐπιμιξίας τῆς γείτονος.

y xiv. 31.

z Ant. Rom.

x Operum i. Ad Polybium, xxxvii. 7. ad fin. 1. 89. 231. 1. 8. Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 8. 313.

In paucis remanent Graja vestigia linguæ:

Hæc quoque jam Getico barbara facta sono.
Ullus in hoc vix est populo, qui forte Latine
Quælibet e medio reddere verba queat.

Ibid. v. vii. 51.

And this being the case, we shall know what allowance to make for the rhetorical flourish of Aristides, where he is complimenting the Athenians on the universal prevalence of the Attic dialecta: πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν τύχῃ τινὶ θείᾳ ζῆλος ἐπέρχεται τῆς ὑμετέρας σοφίας καὶ συνηθείας, καὶ ταύτην μίαν φωνὴν κοινὴν ἅπαντες τοῦ γένους ἐνόμισαν, καὶ δι ̓ ὑμῶν ὁμόφωνος μὲν πᾶσα γέγονεν ἡ οἰκου μένη, ἴδοις δ ̓ ἂν καὶ τοὺς ἡνιόχους, καὶ τοὺς νομέας, καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάττης ζῶντας, καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἔθνη, καὶ κατὰ πόλεις καὶ κατὰ χώρας, τῆς παρ ̓ ὑμῶν φωνῆς ἐχομένους, καὶ πειρωμένους τῆς γῆς ἀνθάπτεσθαι, καθάπερ τοὺς νεῖν ἀδυνάτους.

It was, however, in the East, as such; in Egypt, Syria, and Upper Asia; that the aboriginal or native dialects had maintained themselves most securely, against the encroachments of any foreign and exotic language. The existence of the native dialect in Egypt, in his time, is implicitly attested by Aristides b*. Ammianus Marcellinus observes upon the names of the cities founded by Seleucus . . . . quarum ad præsens pleræque licet Græcis nominibus appellentur, quæ iis

Philostorgius, E. H. iii. 6. 479. A. asserts that a colony of Syrians, planted by Alexander the Great (about B. C. 332.) on the borders of Egypt and Ethiopia, retained their original language in his own time, the end of the fourth century. The Hieroglyphica of Horapollo were written in the native language of Egypt, and translated into

a Oratio xiii. 294. 15.

the present Greek, by one Philip; though the writer himself, Horapollo, according to Suidas, fourished only ἐπὶ Θεοδοσίου. Vide the short title prefixed to the work. Egyptian words occur in it repeatedly. The continued existence of the native Egyptian is attested by Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iv. 9. 324, 325. iv. 10. 329.

b Oratio xlviii. AlyúπTios, 443. line 14.

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