In the earliest Greek inscriptions and always in Latin the symbol
represented both the short and the long e-sound. In Greek also it was often used for the close long sound which arose either by contraction of two short e-sounds or by the loss of a consonant, after a short e-sound, as in φιλεῖτε, “you love,” for φιλέετε, and φαεινός, “bright,” out of an earlier φαεσνός. The Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, who had altogether lost the aspirate, were the first to use the symbol
for the long e-sound, and in official documents at Athens down to 403 B.C., when the Greek alphabet as still known was adopted by the state,
represented ε, η and the sound arising by contraction or consonant loss as mentioned above which henceforth was written with two symbols, ει, and being really a single sound is known as the “spurious diphthong.” There were some minor distinctions in usage of the symbols
and