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THE INSCRIPTION OF DVENOS ROLAND G. KENT UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA The archaic Latin inscription known as the Inscription of Duenos, from a word occurring in it which may be a personal name, stands on a small triple jar found in Rome in 1880 and first published by its finder, H. Dressel,l apparently in collaboration with F. Biicheler, who also wrote on it.2 Scholars have been busying themselves with it ever since, until we find the forty-first interpretation in a recent monograph of E. Goldmann of Vienna.3 l Annali dell'Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 52.158-95 [1880]. 2 Rheinishes Museum 36.235-44 [1881]. 8 Die Duenos-Inschrift (Indogermanisches Bibliothek III.8), Winter, Heidelberg, 1926. Rich as this volume is in bibliographical references, I fail to find the following items, which might be listed for completeness: 1881: H. Jordan, Bull. dell'Inst. di corr. arch. (Roma) per 1881, 84-5; F. Gamurrini, ib. 85-6; P. K. in T., Correspondenzblatt f. d. Gelehrten- u. Realschulen Wiurttembergs 28. 104-09. 1882: C. G. Cobet, Mnemosyne, new series, 10.239; L. Havet, Revue Critique, n.s., 13.211-12, 220; K. Sittl, d. lok. Verschiedenheiten d. lat. Spr. 34-5, Erlangen; E. G. Sihler, Amer. Journal of Philol. 3.107; B. L. Gildersleeve, ib. 107 n.; C. D. Morris, ib. 146. 1883: M. Breal, Comptes rendus d. seances de l'Ac. d Insc. et Belles-Lettres, 4th series, 10. 23-5; W. Deecke, Bursians Jahresber. 28.233-6; H. Jordan, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 8.11; H. Jordan, Observationes Romanae subsicivae, 8-9, Konigsberg; C. D. Morris,AJP 4.116-17; J. R. Wheeler, ib. 354, 360; 0. Keller, d. saturn. Vers, 40-2, Leipzig-Prag; F. Ramorino, Riv. difilol. 11.512-18. 1884: W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 32.365-6, 369-71. 1886: L. Ceci, Giorn. ital. di fil. e ling. clas. 1.48-9; I. Zwetaieff. Insc. Italiae inferioris dialectae, 80-3, Moscow-Leipzig; E. Schneider, Dialectorum Italicarum aevi vetustioris exempla selecta 1.1.2-3, Leipzig. 1887: W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 44. 239-40. 1889: R. S. Conway, Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. May 23, 1889. 1890: C. Zander, Versus italici antiqui, 50-1, Lund. 1896: J. C. Egbert, Intr. to Study of Latin Insc. 346-7, New York. 1897: R. von Planta, Gramm. d. osk.-umb. Dialekte, 2.587, Strassburg; W. Deecke, Burs. Jahresb. 87. 21-2. 1906: J. C. Egbert, Supplement to Intr. to Study of Lat. Insc., 494. 1912: H. Ehrlich, Untersuchungen u. d. Natur d. griech. Betonung, 72, Berlin. 1913: J. E. Sandys, Companion to Latin Studies, 733-4, Cambridge. 1915: W. M. Lindsay, Short Hist. Lat. Gr.2, 199, Oxford. 1916: A. Emout, Recueil de Textes Latins Archa*ques, 7-9, Paris. 1921: F. Hartmann, Glotta, 11. 113. 207
208 ROLAND G. KENT The original editors took the inscription to pertain to the Novendial offering, and in this they have been followed by the greatest number of subsequent scholars. C. Pauli,4 in 1883, took it to be a love-charm, and this interpretation was placed on a firmer basis by R. Thurneysen5 in 1899 and others, mostly German scholars. R. S. Conway, in 1889, interpreted the inscription as an execration.6 There are a few other versions which do. not fall into these classes, and some which take the inscription as a falsification of later ancient times, or of modern times. All these interpretations are listed in Goldmann's monograph.7 In examining them, one wonders whether philological imagination has not outstripped philological judgment and common sense; and whether if self-scrutiny had been more potent the scholars might not have been more restrained. Certainly many a view has been expressed that is inherently unlikely, and many another that is impossible philologically (such as DEIVOS as nominative or dative plural, andCOSMIS = cmes). Even the best of the recent etymologists disagree on critical points, such as the form and meaning of NOISI, of PARARI, of VOIS.8 Yet after all may we not examine the vase and its inscription, and get some evidence which will appeal to most scholars as really valid? May we not come to some interpretation of the text which will, in its es- sentials, be satisfying to those who are not led away by their personal intellectual fancies and strivings after originality? I think that we can; and even if there is little that is new and nothing that is startling in what I have to say, therein even may lie whatever merit it possesses. The jar or vase in question is compounded of three jars, forming a small triangle, about six inches on the side. The cavities, about 35 mm. deep and 45 mm. in diameter, are independent, not communicat- ing with one another. The inscription runs around the outside of the whole vase, in three lines, separated from one another by gaps, but overlapping at the ends, as the three lines go around nearly twice. When the vase is standing on its base, the letters are upside down and the inscription runs from left to right; but it is very clear that the vase should be inverted, and the letters, then right side up, should be read * Altitalische Studien 1. 1-57; Hannover. 5 Kuhn's Zeitschriftf. vergl. Sprachforschung 35. 193-212. 6 Amer. Journal of Philology 10. 445-59; cf. also Proc. Cambridge Philol. Soc. May 23, 1889, and Academy 35. 400. 7 Pp. 1-18. 8 Cf. W. M. Lindsay, Short Hist. Latin Gram.2 199; F. Sommer, Handbuch der lat. Laut- und Formenlehre 2-3 413, 533, 594 f.; F. Stolz, Lat. Gram., Laut- und Formenlehre' 79, 124, 157; A. Walde, Lat. etym. Worterbuch2 s.vv. nisi, vis, invitus.
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