India also has its inscriptions. The oldest (250 n.c.) and most interesting are the religious edicts of King Piyadassi, known as the Asoka Edicts, which are engraved on rocks and pil lars. They inculcate the religion and morals adopted by this king after his conversion to Buddhism. These inscriptions, in two un known alphabets (Karosthi and Brahmi), were deciphered chiefly by James Prinsep, who, in the winter of 1837-38, single-handed, unraveled the Brahmi script. He guessed that in certain brief Brahmi inscriptions, plainly of a votive character, a frequently recurring final group of letters must stand for the notion ((gift)) and be equivalent, if the language was Sanskritic, to damson. He further surmised that the conso nant preceding dation must be the genitive (pos sessive) sign —s. He thus isolated the three consonants s, d, n, and with this start, soon identified the entire alphabet.
Greek and Roman inscriptions have been more studied and are accordingly more sys tematized for study than any others. The an cient Greeks were themselves conscious of the importance of inscriptions. Herodotus used them as sources, and Thucydides and Xeno phon quoted them. Decrees are sparingly mentioned by Isocrates, but freely quoted by Demosthenes, who probably made use of the papyrus originals from the department of ar chives, not all decrees being promulgated on stone. Euripides alludes to the custom of in scribing formal compacts on tripods and dedi cating them in temples. Greek antiquaries and scholars even made collections of Inscriptions and Polemon (300 s.c.), who was neither the first nor the last of these collectors, owing to his zeal as an inscription hunter, got the nick name of stelokopas, "tablet-picker.* Roman writers also—Cicero, Livy, Pliny the Elder, Suetonius — occasionally mentioned inscrip tions of historical interest. Verso, the quary, and the lexicographer, Verrius Flaccus; commented on the diction of inscriptions; while Polybius- the Greek historian of Rome, actu4 ally cited inscriptions, making a fuller use of them than Livy. But no interest in collecting inscriptions, comparable to the Greek interest, ever developed among the Romans. From the Revival of Learning on, scholars were not lack ing to show an interest in classical inscrip tions, but the modern impulse may be said to have had its point of departure in the first quar ter of the 19th century when the Prussian Acad etny, under the promptings of August 'Boeckh, inaugurated the great collection known as the Inscriptionum (4 vols., 1825,56), which contained nearly 10,000 num bers. But fresh inscriptions are ever coming to light —dies diem and in 1891 the number was estimated at 50,000. There has been a steady increase ever since. Excavations
are now pursued in Greece and Grecian coun tries with a diligence and at an outlay never before known. Almost all the great nations have established archeological institutes in Athens, and all of these issue some form of learned journal devoted in part to the publica tion of the new inscriptions discovered; for ex ample, 'Papers of the American School of Clas sical Studies at Athens,' American Journal of Archeoiogy, Bulletin de Correspondence Het lesigue, Ephemeris Archaiologike, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Mittheilungen des deutschen Archeologischen Institut, Archceologisch-Epi graphische Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich, etc. Further great collections like Boeckh's have been issued, for example, the 'Corpus Inscrip tionum Atticarum) and the Dia lekt-Inschriften) (in progress). A similar ac tivity has been exhibited, at Rome also, with the same establishment of archeological institutes. In 1863 the first volume of the 'Corpus Inscrip tionun Latinaritun,) also supported by the Prussian Academy, was issued Since then 15 volumes, with numerous supplements, have been published, new inscriptions being first provi sionally printed in the 'Ephemeris Epigraphica.' In all, some 150,000 Latin inscriptions are now accessible in print.
Classical inscriptions require two classes of investigator, the field collector and the closet student. A knowledge of Greek and Latin ac quired from printed books does not equip the student for field collecting, It is true that the decipherment of the known script of classical inscriptions does not present problems like those solved by the ingenuity of Grotefend and Prinsep but, for all that, training is needed for the accurate reading and copying of the in scription. Absolute accuracy in copying is difficult of attainment, but a made of (unshed) paper, wetted and packed into every crevice, or a copy made by covering the in scription with a sheet of dry and rub bing the same with •powdered graphite secure excellent results. America has produced one collector of large and successful experience, Mr. J. R. Sitlington Sterrett, whose collections are to be found chiefly in the 'Papers of the American School.' After correct copies have been secured it remains intelligently to divine words and letters lost by mutilation and to ex-. pand the abbreviations, but the latter have been so thoroughly listed in works on epigraphy (= the science of inscriptions) as now to present little difficulty. The same works have so clas sified the script-forms as greatly to simplify the act of reading the inscription, and their topical arrangement of the subject matter of inscrip tions is a great aid to interpretation.