the editing of the Corpus Inscr. Lat., and the present volume is the first-fruits for general readers of that laborious but fruitful task. Without it no such clear and definite account of the provinces could have been produced, and even with its help there is probably no one else who unites sufficient detailed know ledge of the provinces with a mastery of the imperial history as a whole, to have guided us through evidence so intricate into so clear a view of the subject. A chronological history of the Provincial governments indeed we must not look for here, nor do the available authorities suffice for such a work. The historians of the Empire rarely rose above the level of court-chroniclers; above all they never realised how the living development of the Empire was shifting from the centre to the circumference. Their allusions therefore to the provinces are scattered and fragmentary, and even such writers as Strabo or the elder Pliny do not as a rule give us exactly the information that we most want. Still some sort of picture, though vague and blurred at the best, may be drawn of the Empire from the collective testimony of the classical writers. We get from them an impression, if no more, that the provinces during the first two centuries were on the whole flourishing, some of them indeed as they have never been either before or since, that their administration was efficient and continuous, and their Romanisation in many cases complete But it is only by collecting scattered notices and allusions, as well from the 'Texts' as from the often more valuable evidence of inscriptions, coins, and archaeology, that we are enabled, and that incompletely, to fill up this picture, to verify this impression, and to trace the steps and stages of the develop ment of the Empire. This then is Dr. Mommsen's aim. The work of the first three centuries was the ingathering of foreign elements into the Graeco-Roman civilisation. The necessary condition for this was the 'pax Romana,' which again was dependent on the frontier defences of the Empire. The volume therefore naturally falls into two main divisions. Chapters i., iv., v., vi. and ix. give a chronological account of the frontier policy along the great barriers of the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates, and the relations with barbarian tribes which shaped or resulted from that policy. The other chapters deal rather with the inner development in civilisation, commerce, administration, and literature, which was going on meanwhile behind the iron barriers of the legionary camps. The foundation of the frontier policy in the West as laid down by Augustus is described in chapter i. Italy received for the first time a definite boundary, being protected from barbarian tribes and separated from the great military commands by a girdle of small procuratorial provinces reaching from the Maritime Alps to Noricum. Through these provinces ran the great military roads which connected Italy both with Gaul and the armies of the Rhine, but they were not themselves garrisoned with legionary troops till the time of Marcus Aurelius. Towards the Danube the vaguelybounded and loosely-administered Illyricum was replaced by three military provinces, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Moesia, and the great river, from Carnuntum to its mouth, became the political, though not at once the military, boundary of the Empire. On the Rhine the policy of Angustus was less bold, perhaps, as Dr. Mommsen inclines to think, less really prudent. At least, it was influenced more by internal and financial considerations than by military and imperial interests. For years the country up to the Elbe had practically been occupied by Roman legions, and even Roman law and administration were being introduced, when the whole policy of the Empire, superintended as it had been for nearly twenty years by members of the imperial family, was altered apparently in consequence of a single military disaster. In a sense no doubt this step was 'a turning-point in the fate of nations,' but its effects were hardly felt for the first two centuries. Indeed the forward policy was to a certain extent renewed in Upper Germany by Domitian and Trajan, a proceeding on which further light may be thrown when some German Bruce' makes the German limes tell its tale. The chapter on the Danubian provinces is perhaps the most interesting in the book. This was the critical point of the Empire, and as the German armies after the first century were diminished, so those of the Danube were continually being increased. It was here that the Augustan policy was for the first time modified by Trajan's annexation of Dacia, here too that Marcus Aurelius, had he lived, would have supported this outlying province by Marcomannia, in place of the shattered regnum Vannianum, and Sarmatia in the valley of the Theiss. Whether this policy would have saved the Empire from the Gothic wars is perhaps a vain speculation: at least, when the Illyrian emperors replaced anarchy by order, it was proved that the 'Roman state could still only be broken by itself.' On the eastern frontier Rome, since the time of Pompey, was face to face with a great power, and here, more than on the other frontiers, the policy of buffer-states was pursued. Of these the most important was Great Armenia, and Dr. Mommsen points out more clearly than has ever been done before how the relations of Rome with Parthia hinged on Armenian affairs. There were three possible courses to adopt, to annex it to the Empire, to relinquish it to Parthia, or to make it a client state. Augustus, too cautious for the first, too mindful of Roman prestige for the second, adopted the middle course. The result was continual friction, and more than once actual war with Parthia. Nero's government, considering perhaps that prestige was sufficiently saved by Corbulo's campaigns, adopted the second, insisting only on a nominal suzerainty for Rome. Trajan characteristically took the bolder course, and not only annexed Armenia, but by extending the frontier to the Tigris, brought it completely within the Empire. This, in spite of Hadrian's withdrawal and occasional disaster, remained the Roman policy henceforward, and on the whole was justified by its results. Of the more complex contents of the other chapters it is possible in a short notice to glance at one or two points only. Of special interest is the treatment of the various forms assumed by the municipal constitutions established in the various parts of the Empire. Gaul with its large tribal communities still existing, but centering round their principal town or civitas, Spain with a separate town-constitution for each small canton, Africa with its towns of Punic constitution, Asia and Syria with their Macedonian creations, retaining still their Hellenic government, Greece with its numerous gradations of civic autonomy, helpless before a stroke of the proconsul's pen, and lastly, the coloniae and municipia gradually scattered over the whole Empire-all form a striking example of unity of administration. amid diversity of detail. The various native languages again received as a rule similar treatment from the government, though local circumstances gave them different histories. Thus, while all were restricted to private intercourse, the Thracian disappeared, the Celtic, Iberian and Illyrian retreated to mountainous corners, the Berber and Egyptian remained in general use outside the towns, while to the Aramaic even a literary importance was attached, as being the vehicle of Christian propaganda. Very happy and suggestive are Dr. Mommsen's remarks on the literary activity of the provinces. Gaul, 'the land of learning and teaching,' is the producer of panegyric, vers de société, and at last of pious hymns. Asia Minor is the home of the Sophists sent out over all the Empire like lamps all of one pattern. Syria produces epigrams, feuilletons and romances. Africa, once the 'nutricula causidicorum,' at last becomes the seat of Church literature, while Spain alone entered thoroughly into the development of Italian literature. Curious too is the literary activity of Berytus, 'the Latin island in the sea of Oriental Hellenism,' while the little towns in Galatia were attracted to philosophy as the needle to the magnet, and Bithynia in the second century produced some of the best literary work of the Empire. On the commercial policy of Augustus and his successors the chapter on Egypt gives us fresh and valuable information. The expedition of Aelius Gallus was caused by the Arabian competition in the Oriental trade. The abortive mission of C. Caesar to the East was partly to have repeated the same attempt, while Nero's Oriental schemes and Trajan's Arabian policy looked also partly towards commercial ends. The relations of Rome with the Homeritae of Arabia Felix and the Axomitae of Abyssinia are a comparatively unknown, but not unimportant, chapter in its commercial history, on which Dr. Mommsen throws considerable light. It is to be regretted that both in this chapter and more or less throughout the volume, the references to authorities, whether texts,' inscriptions, or coins, are so comparatively rare. The value of the book to students would have been immensely increased if they had been enabled to verify and test many of Dr. Mommsen's statements for themselves. E. G. HARDY. Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indogermanischen Sprachen. Kurzgefasste Darstellung der Geschichte des Altindischen, Altira ischen (Avestischen u. Altpersischen) Altarmenischen, Altgriechischen, Lateinischen, Umbrisch-Samnitischen, Altirischen, Gotischen, Althochdeutschen, Litauischen u. Altkirchenslawischen. Von KARL BRUGMANN, ord. Professor der vergl. Sprachwissenschaft in Freiburg-i.-B. Erster Band. Einleitung u. Lautlehre. Strassburg. Trübner. 1886. 14 M. AT last we have the first instalment of a complete official statement of the new IndoEuropean grammar. The main principles of the neo-grammarians (junggrammatiker) fast theories, and when the facts will not may be taken as proved, and the time has come for an authoritative manual. To those who still remain unconvinced that phonetic laws have no exceptions, that reconstruction by analogy is many times more common than direct transmission, that Indo-European vowels were very much like Greek vowels and very little like Sanskrit vowels,-to such sceptics this book has no proofs to offer; the proofs have come in the previous writings which Dr. Brugmann enumerates in his long list of literature.' But the book is itself a proof, to those who have any feeling for the analogia fidei. I cannot understand how any unbeliever can read it and fail to come out an adherent. A coherent and detailed system, following up all the facts and providing for them within its own limits, must be true so far as it goes. It may be reinterpreted, enlarged, subsumed, even inverted; but it can never be abolished. It is well to emphasize that the new grammar is not a contradiction but a development of the old 'comparative grammar.' When Georg Curtius talked about 'sporadic variations,' he did not really mean that they were uncaused; he only meant that the causes were undiscoverable. And when we talk about 'phonetic laws with no exceptions,' we do not mean that we have discovered all the phonetic laws and all the cases where their products have disappeared, but only that we have faith that they would be discovered in an ideal system. It is one thing to say that original gh appears in Latin sometimes as h, sometimes as g,' and another to say that 'original gh appears in Latin as h between two vowels (veho) and g after a nasal (fingo).' If after that we are confronted with figura, we call it not 'an exception,' but a reconstruction for an earlier *fihura, on the analogy of fingo.' And if we cannot similarly unravel the history of the 'velar' gh, or gh (why does ngh appear as ngu in ninguit, but as v in levis ?), we have faith that something has happened below the surface; either the phonetic law is more subtle than we know, or an analogical product has extruded the strictly phonetic word. The scoffer might say that this is only a difference of terminology; and in one sense it is; but it is the difference between the terminology which acquiesces in ignorance and the terminology which strives after knowledge. This is the justification of the 'pedantry' and 'unpractical doctrinairism' of the new method. It is found in practice that the way to get new knowledge is to have precise, hard-and agree with them, to add new developments and riders till the facts are taken in. If the Ptolemic astronomy had been content with a genial latitude of statement, it would have remained Ptolemaic to the end of time. But it insisted on a fresh epicycle for every irregularity, and its reward was the Copernican system. The same thing is true of every science. People begin with rough statements, from these they go on to precise statements, and then make great transforming discoveries. Of course it is easier to be wrong in precise statements than in rough statements; where you only profess to know one fact there is only room for one mistake, but where you profess to know ten facts there is room for ten mistakes. And even when we are right, it is harder to carry conviction in comparative philology than in other sciences, because the matter is so delicate and so fleeting. · This first volume is an account of the phonetic laws' only. That is, it gives a list of the Indo-European sounds as far as we know them, and an account of the form which they have taken, under all circumstances for which laws have been ascertained, in the oldest language (or pair of languages) of each group. It is this, and nothing else. Schleicher used to strike the English reader as wanting in general information,' but there is much less in Dr. Brugmann. His introduction of nineteen pages is chiefly taken up with the definition of the languages in question; he just refers to the Asia or Europe' controversy, without expressing an opinion. He does, however, commit himself in favour of the agglutinative theory of inflexions, with no mention of any other view (p. 14). What we put together under the heads of word-formation and flexion arose by composition, that is, by the following process: a group of words which formed a syntactical complex was fused into a unity, in which the whole was in some way isolated as against its elements. This word-fusion from the beginning onwards completed itself in the same way, as afterwards, in the age of separate languages (partly even in historical times) the final members of compounds became suffixes.' And then he gives the instances of Indo-European ge, Latin mente, German heit, Irish mor, becoming mere suffixes in Gothic mik, French fièrement, German Schönheit, Irish buadhmhar. But he gives up the attempt to discover the origin of the Indo-European suffixes, only allowing that some verb-inflexions may contain pronouns. Quite rightly, Dr. Brugmann avoids the attempt to convert historical grammar into phonetic physiology. There are two pages on the distinctions between 'voiced and voiceless,' sonorous and noised' (Sonorlaute und Geräuschlaute), 'sonant and consonant'; and a line or two at the head of each class of sounds, and a few remarks in the section on accents, and that is all. The object of comparative grammar is historical, not physiological; given certain languages, which are interesting on literary and historical grounds, to reconstruct their past history and common origin, for the sake of adding to our knowledge of the peoples who spoke them. All that physiology can do for us is to picture to us the facts which we establish from our documents; but physiology can never give us our linguistic facts; and conversely, when we have our linguistic facts, we can state them without physiology. If we could not trace the physiological process by which ns became the Umbrian ƒ, the fact would be just as certain, and the resulting etymologies would be just as valid. Where physiology comes in, is in recalling us to real life. In dealing with dead languages, we are all in danger of becoming paper etymologists; and if we do not check our processes by actual phonetic reproduction, we shall come back to the vowels that counted for nothing and the consonants that counted for very little.' Even the Indo-Europeans were human beings, and they must have talked like human beings. But this physiological groundwork is not part of the matter of our comparative grammar; it is one of the natural causes by which our matter is conditioned. There is every reason to study the physiology of speech, but no reason to put it into a book about any given set of languages. Of course, we have not yet attained finality or unanimity. There are many points on which it is possible to disagree with Dr. Brugmann. In particular, his general theory of vowel-gradation is a little inconsistent. He professes, very wisely, to enumerate the different kinds of vowel-gradation which are actually found, and to take a quite agnostic line about their morphological parallelism with each other. He gives them as 1 e-series 0, ǝ, o, ē, ō (πα-тр-òs, πа-τéр-a, φρά-τορα, πατὴρ, φράτωρ) 2 ē-series 0, 0, ē, ō (da-dh-más, hi-tás, τίθημι, θω-μός) 4 ō-series 0, e, ō (da-d-más, Sá-vos, diδωμι) 5a-series 0, a (o?), ā, ō (j-mán-, ẵy-w, στρατ-αγός) 6 o-series 0, 0, ō (0 doubtful, ỏdμý, εὐώδης); to where is a neutral vowel' inferred from a Sanskrit i, corresponding to a Greek e, o, or a, and 0 is the stage in which the vowel vanishes altogether. Then he goes on (pp. 248, 249): We distinguish six gradation-series (Ablantsreihen). . . . Attempts have been made by many systematise these series morphologically, that is, to put together those phases out of the different series which correspond to a given morphological category, e.g. to the root-syllable in the participle formed with -to-, or in the indicative formed with the so-called thematic vowel. . . . The investigations instituted in this direction have not yet gone far enough to let us give a system of gradation-series completely worked out on this principle. And it is questionable whether we have a right to aim at the attainment of such a system at all, in the sense in which it is usual to do so. Several strata of formations, distinct in their time of origin, seem to overlie each other. In those which arose earlier, much may have been obliterated by transference of forms before the new cause of gradation came into activity; and the later phonetic law which called new distinctions into being did not act in the same way as the older law or laws. In this case it is from the outset impossible to expect that parallels can be found everywhere.' (Italics are the spaced type of the original.) This is reasonable. But, in practice, Dr. Brugmann commits himself (pp. 257, 259) to Dr. Hübschmann's view that a is a 'weak-stage' vowel in bhames and si-stames, but a first-high-stage' vowel in ago and aidho, so that bha-mi bhames is like ei mi i-mes, and aidho idhros show an exactly parallel gradation. This may be so, but in a professedly non-committed treatise it is decidedly taking a side to omit all mention of M. de Saussure's vew that gradation is always epsilon-gradation (substituting e and o for his a, and a2). M. de stitution) that idh and aidh are phonetic Saussure would say (with the above subvariations of the same weak stage, and that the two high stages are eaidh and oaidh, just as the high stages of bha are bhea and φαμί, φωνή). 3 a-series 0, a, a, ō (ta-sth-úsi, sthi-tás, bhoa (papèr, pāμì, pwvn). This is at least sta-men, φωνὴ) possible. As to jmán- and its compounds, which are adduced to prove that gag::8: es, the demoralized vowel-system of Sanskrit can never prove that a vowel was left out in Indo-European. But I am not here defending the universal epsilon; I only insist that Dr. Brugmann should have mentioned it. On two other vowel-groups Dr. Brugmann has taken the view which appears to me to be against all the evidence. I cannot understand how he can give up the precise testimony of Greek and Latin to the rootvowels of τίθεμεν and ἀφετός, δίδομεν and TOTÓν, in favour of the colourless residuuni of Sanskrit. I should explain dadhmás and hitás and their like, on the simple principle that the Indians found a constantly disappearing in places where it represented e, and so they got into a habit of leaving out a wherever it came; but in some of these cases they re-inserted i as a connecting vowel. This must be the history of pita, because no European language shews any trace of any vowel but a in the first syllable; in érós-satus and Sorós-datus, we have before our eyes Indo-European vowels intermediate in pronunciation between e and a, o and a, which should be added, as M. de Saussure has added them, to the Indo-European alphabet. Dr. Brugmann's a is a very good vowel in its place, where it comes between a root and a suffix (μeverós, genitus); but it should be kept to its place. Many parts of the book cannot be judged until it is finished. On the treatment of (the i-consonant which English books call y or j), for instance, Dr. Brugmann's statements have no claim to completeness until he has accounted for the 8 and έ which he will not accept as phonetic successors of i. On p. 202 (note) he suggests that the adstems may be t-stems in disguise, but only as an obiter dictum. The d-stems remain, and the duo-stems, and the verbs in -w. In the next volume he must give an account of their formation independent of . Till then, the parasitic dental' must hold its ground, as a possible explanation, for which future knowledge may supply the distinctive phonetic conditions. In the same way, all that is said (pp. 256, 463) about the shortening of the first element of the original ōi, eu, and similar groups, before a consonant, may be true, but it depends on the treatment of formations like ἔψευσα, τοῖς, νης, φέρωσι, about which Dr. Brugmann incidentally expresses opinions that will require discussion in the next volume. It is a timehonoured custom, and it seems scientific, to begin with phonetic laws, and go on to suffixes and terminations, but I am not sure NOS. II. & III. VOL. I. that it would not be better to reverse the order. The order of discovery has certainly been grammar first, and phonetics after; all the brilliant discoveries which are embodied in this book were made in turning over grammatical formations. And in the order of exposition, whichever end you begin at, you must bring in something from the other. Would it be any more illogical to say the accusative ended in m; the Greek a and v represent Indo-European m after a consonant and a vowel respectively,' than to say, as the current method does, Indo-European m-after a consonant it was a vowel, and is represented in Greek by -a, e.g. accusatives in -a-after a vowel it was a consonant, and is represented in Greek by v, e.g. accusatives in -v' The practical advantage of the reversed order would be that phonetic laws coming incidentally in grammar can be stated more concisely and remembered more easily, and have more self-proving power, than grammatical formations coming incidentally in phonetics. But of course this is an objection to established custom, not to Dr. Brugmann. 'Can this book be used by schoolmasters?' the practical Englishman asks. It not only can, but it must. In conjunction with the author's Greek and Dr. Stolz's Latin gram mars in Iwan-Müller's Handbuch der Klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft, it forms a compendious and complete guide to our present knowledge of Greek and Latin grammar. The two or three points on which I have indicated a possible divergence of opinion are only a drop in the bucket; no great harm will be done if a teacher takes Dr. Brugmann as infallible on all of them. If schoolboys are to be taught any comparative grammar at all, they must be taught it on rigorous principles. Everywhere else in education we take pains to tie the youthful mind down to precise, measured, verifiable statements; in comparative philo logy alone we are content with hollow spaces planked over with the wordy ignorance which we call knowledge.' It is not, perhaps, possible as yet to teach our more minute and complicated formulae to schoolboys; the immediate necessity is to get rid of the old indiscriminate formulae. It is better to say nothing about vowels than to call them Indo-European a,' better to leave Bábos-Béréos unexplained than to talk about 'nasal insertion.' It is to be hoped that, for the present, colleges will cease to tempt schoolboys with questions on comparative philology in their scholarship papers; but let me assure teachers that a candidate F |