Ω μεγίστης Παλλάδος καλούμεναι Πασῶν ̓Αθῆναι τιμιωτάτη πόλις.

Sophocles, Ed. Col.

"Behold

Where on the Ægean shore a city stands
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flowery hill Hymettus with the sound
Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream; within the walls, then view
The schools of ancient sages; his who bred
Great Alexander to subdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next;

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambic, teachers best
Of moral prudence, with delight received,
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life;
High actions and high passions best describing.
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,

To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne:

To sage philosophy next lend thine ear,

From heaven descended to the low-roofed house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspired the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men.'

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

§ 1. MAN is a social being, formed for the expression of his thoughts and feelings. He expresses them in various ways, but chiefly by means of words. These words constitute what is called LANGUAGE, a term derived from "lingua," the Latin name of the tongue, the busiest organ of speech.

Different words are employed by different nations to denote the same thing. Thus the animal which we name "horse," is named by the French "cheval," by the Germans "ross," &c. Hence arise many distinct languages, which are usually named from the nations that employ them, or the countries where they prevail; as, for example, the Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, English, and Italian languages. The meaning of the term language is sometimes so extended, as to include all the signs of thought and feeling; thus we speak of the language of the eye, the language of flowers, &c.

§ 2. The GREEK LANGUAGE is the language spoken in Greece, and by Greek colonies in other countries. Its most general division is into the Ancient and the Modern Greek. The former, commonly called simply "the Greek," was spoken in Greece during the period of its highest glory; the latter is spoken there at the present day.

§3. Varieties of the same language are termed DIALECTS (from the Greek diaλentos, speech). That variety of the Greek language which was spoken in Athens, the capital of Attica, was called the ATTIC DIALECT; that which was spoken in Ionia, the Ionic; in the Doric states, the Doric; in the Eolic states, the Eolic.

§ 4. The language of Athens, from the intellectual superiority of this city over the rest of Greece, was gradually adopted by the educated classes in all the states, and became the universal language of prose composition. As its use extended, it naturally lost some of its peculiarities, and received many additions; and, thus diffused and modified, it took the appellation of the COMMON DIALECT or LANGUAGE.

The Attic and Common dialects, therefore, do not differ in any essential feature, and may properly be regarded, the one as the earlier and pure, the other as the later and impure, form of the same dialect. In this dialect, either in its earlier or later form, we find written nearly the whole that remains to us of Greek literature. It may claim therefore to be regarded, notwithstanding a few splendid compositions in the other dialects, as the national language of Greece; and its acquisition should form the commencement and the basis of Greek study.

§ 5. The science of language is termed PHILOLOGY (from phoλoyía, love of language). It consists of several parts, as Grammar, Lexicography, Interpretation, and the History of Language.

GRAMMAR (roauμarixń, science of letters,) treats of the laws according to which words are form

ed, and connected in discourse. If it treats of these laws with respect to language in general, it is called GENERAL GRAMMAR; if with respect to a particular language, it receives a corresponding designation; as Greek Grammar, Latin Grammar, &c.

§ 6. That part of grammar which treats of the formation of words is called ETYMOLOGY (Tvμohoyía, doctrine of derivation); that which treats of their connexion in discourse, SYNTAX (oúvτağıs, arrangement). Introductory to these, are ORTHOGRAPHY (ooooygapía, correct writing), which treats. of the characters with which words are written, and ORTHOEPY (ógooέneiα, correct speaking), which treats of the sounds with which words are spoken.

A thought expressed in words forms a sentence, (from the Latin sententia, thought). We may say, therefore, that I. ORTHOGRAPHY treats of characters; II. ORTHOEPY, of sounds; III. ETYMOLOGY, of words; and IV. SYNTAX, of sentences: or, in other words, that ORTHOGRAPHY regards language as addressed to the eye; ORTHOEPY, to the ear; ETYMOLOGY, to the simple apprehension; and SYNTAX, to the judgment.

1*

"A small drop of ink,

Falling like dew upon a thought, produces

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."

§ 7. THE Greek language is written with twenty-four letters, two breathings, three accents, four marks of punctuation, and a few other characters.

CHAPTER I.

THE LETTERS.

§ 8. The characters which denote the elementary sounds of a language are called LETTERS (Lat. littera), and, taken together, form what is termed its ALPHABET (from "Alqa and Bτa, the first two Greek letters). The following table presents the order of the Greek letters, their large and small forms, their corresponding Roman letters, their names, and their power as numeral characters. Below are placed three obsolete letters, retained as numeral characters, and called Episēma (iníanμov, sign, mark).