The painted inscriptions are practically limited to a period extending over two centuries, from the time at which the primitive methods of painting were slowly emerging into the black-figured style, down to the finest stage of red-figure vases. Rare at first, they rapidly spring into popularity, being constantly found on the sixth-century fabrics; but throughout the red-figure period they gradually become rarer and rarer, until they drop out almost entirely. In the vases of the Decadence they have for the most part fallen into disuse; at any rate, they are comparatively scarce. Some of the latest inscriptions are in the Oscan and Latin languages, showing the increasing influence of the Romans over Southern Italy, and especially Campania. The inscriptions always follow the laws of palaeography of the region and period to which they belong.
Generally speaking, it may be said that they have some reference to the design painted on the vase; at least, the majority are explanatory of the subject represented. Sometimes not only is every figure accompanied by its name, but even animals and inanimate objects, instances of which are given below. On the François vase there are no less than 115 such inscriptions. In almost all cases we can be certain that they are original, and contemporaneous with the vase itself.
The explanatory inscriptions are generally small in size, the letters averaging one-eighth of an inch in height. On B.F. vases they are painted in black; on R.F. vases of the “severe” style, in purple on the black ground, or in black on the red portions; on later R.F. vases, in white. There is no rule for their position, or indeed for their presence; but, as a general rule, it may be said that they are oftener found on the finer and larger vases, and that they are placed in close juxtaposition to the figures to which they refer. The direction in which they are written may be either from left to right or right to left (as generally on Corinthian or Chalcidian vases); on the Panathenaic amphorae are the only known examples of κιονηδόν inscriptions, in which the letters are placed vertically in relation to each other. They are occasionally found on the objects depicted, as on stelae or lavers (see pp. [260], [272]), on shields,[[2097]] or even on the figures themselves.[[2098]] Signatures of artists are occasionally found on the handle or foot of a vase.[[2099]]
Kretschmer (p. 5) illustrates the practice of employing inscriptions on vases from the art of the Semitic nations. He instances clay vases from Cyprus with painted Phoenician inscriptions,[[2100]] for which the same pigment is used as for the decoration of the vases themselves. But none of these are likely to be earlier than the first Greek inscriptions, and it is more than probable that the Cypriote Phoenicians borrowed the practice from the Greeks. In order, therefore, to obtain information as to the date of these painted inscriptions, we are entirely dependent upon internal evidence.
The importance of these inscriptions may, perhaps, be best realised when it is pointed out that they are one of the chief guides to the age of the vases, and have contributed more than any other feature to the establishment of a scientific classification of the earlier fabrics, as will be fully indicated in the succeeding account.
The Greek alphabet, as is well known, is derived from the Phoenician, and this is attested not only by tradition, but by the known existing forms of the latter, the signs being twenty-two in number. The invention of the two double letters, and of the long η and ω, which are purely Greek, was attributed by popular tradition to various personages without any authority. With the question of the introduction of writing into Greece this is not the place to deal. Recent discoveries, especially in Crete, have greatly modified all preconceived notions on the subject, and for the present we are only immediately concerned with the earliest use of the Greek alphabet, as we know it.
This can be traced as far back as the seventh century B.C. on various grounds, and in all probability the traditional view which placed its introduction into Greece at about 660 B.C. is fairly correct. The earliest inscriptions on the vases are certainly not later, perhaps earlier than this (see below, p. [254]). At Abou-Simbel in Egypt, Greek inscriptions have been found in which the name of Psammetichos occurs, and this king is generally supposed to be the second of that name (594–589).[[2101]] In Thera and other Aegean islands, and on the coast of Asia Minor, inscriptions are known which, for various reasons, have been placed even earlier than this, and the vase with Arkesilaos, the inscriptions on which are discussed below, is hardly later, as it can be shown to date between 580 and 550 B.C.
Before proceeding to discuss the early inscriptions, it may be as well to note, for the benefit of those to whom Greek Epigraphy is an unfamiliar subject, the chief peculiarities of the earlier alphabets.[[2102]] They fall into two principal groups, the Eastern and Western, each of which has many subdivisions. Certain forms, such as
for Χ, are characteristic of one or the other division; but the distinction is not so clearly marked on the vases, on which many alphabets, such as the Ionic and Island varieties, are scarcely represented. The vase-inscriptions fall mainly under three heads: Corinthian and Athenian in the Eastern group, Chalcidian in the Western. During the fifth century (or even earlier) there is a rapid tendency to unification in the Greek alphabet, which is chiefly brought about by the growing supremacy of Athens. This acted in two ways: firstly, by the fact that Attic became the literary and therefore the paramount language in Greece; secondly, by the fact of her artistic pre-eminence, which crushed out the other local fabrics. Finally, by the time of the archonship of Eukleides in 403 B.C., the alphabet, if not the language, had become entirely unified, and the Ionic forms universally adopted for public and official purposes. For private use they had, of course, long been known at Athens; but the official enactment of that year only set the seal to a long recognised practice. Throughout the fifth century the old Attic and the Ionic forms are found side by side on R.F. vases.[[2103]]