Scholars are now well equipped with treatises upon the corruptions which are found in manuscripts, and upon the manner in which editors must proceed as they make up a corrected text.

The Inscription of Darius the Great, cut high up on the face of the cliff at Behistan in Western Persia, records the accession of Darius to the throne of Persia and his successful suppression of a number of revolts against his power. It is engraved in a cuneiform syllabary, the conventions of which are well determined and familiar to scholars (cf., for example, E. L. Johnson, Historical Grammar of the Ancient Persian Language, 29-35; also R. G. Kent, JAOS 35.325-9, 332, on special points). The text is presented in the cuneiform syllabary, with transliteration, translation, and critical annotations, by L. W. King and R. C. Thompson, The Sculptures and Inscription of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistûn in Persia, 1-91 (1907), a publication of the British Museum embodying the results of their reexamination of the rock and its inscription; this is the definitive text. A transliteration and translation, with critical notes and vocabulary, is contained in H. C. Tolman, Ancient Persian Lexicon and Texts (1908); and the same scholar's Cuneiform Supplement (1910) contains an autographed copy of the text in the cuneiform, and as an appendix E. L. Johnson's Index Verborum to the Old Persian Inscriptions, which is a complete word concordance : these two volumes are Nos. VI and VII in the Vanderbilt Oriental Series. These will be referred to hereafter by easily recognizable abbreviations.

As examples of Greek inscriptions, two bronze tablets have been selected, of which one bears a treaty between Naupactus and the Hypocnemidian Locrians, and the other a treaty between the Oeantheans and the Chaleians.

The Tabula Baritina is a small bronze tablet inscribed on both sides; the inscription on the one side is composed in Latin, and that on the other side is in the Oscan language, but in the Latin alphabet. The two inscriptions are of different subject matter.

The Iguvine Tables are seven bronze plates, which are inscribed on both sides with a document in the Umbrian language, giving the ritual of the Atiedian Brothers; except the third and the fourth plates, which are inscribed on one side only. They were found in 1444 at Gubbio, the ancient Iguvium, where they are still kept in the town-hall. Two other similar tables were found at the same time, but have been lost.

The Lex Julia Municipalis is a document of the year 45 B.C., on a bronze tablet which has been broken into two pieces of almost equal size. One piece was found in 1732, near Heraclea in South Italy, and has been since 1754 in the Naples Museum; the other, found 1735 at the same place, is also in the Naples Museum, after having been for some years in private possession in England. The other side of the Tablet bears a Greek inscription, CIG 3.5774-75.

In the year 301 A. D., the Emperor Diocletian issued an elaborate edict fixing maximum prices for all salable articles and for personal services. The Edict was nominally to apply to the whole empire; but the various fragments of copies which have been found have all been discovered in the eastern quarter of the empire, which was under the special administration of Diocletian, and the Edict seems therefore to have been intended only for that portion.

It is time now to sum up the results of this investigation, which has been carried through seven inscriptions (one of them in three copies), in five languages, and has listed the presence of about 450 errors. Such a summary is the more necessary, because the study has inevitably advanced item by item, without any generalizations except those implied by the tabulations at the end of each chapter.