eated.

=456.= Athenian victory at OEnophyta; the Boeotians defeated by Myronides,
who also secures the submission of Phocis and Locris.

=455.= End of the third Messenian war.

=451.= Ion of Chios, historian and tragedian, exhibits his first drama.

[E] Date uncertain.

END OF VOLUME I

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Sabine women--now mothers--suing for peace between
the combatants (their Roman husbands and their Sabine relations).

Painting by Jacques L. David]

[Illustration: Sphinx with Great and Second Pyramids of Gizeh

From an original photograph.]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION OF THE ROSETTA STONE. IN
HIEROGLYPHIC, DEMOTIC, AND GREEK CHARACTERS. BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON.

(FOR DESCRIPTION OF THIS CUT, SEE OTHER SIDE.)]

THE ROSETTA STONE

Almost as interesting as the Rosetta Stone itself is the story of its
discovery. During the French occupation of Egypt soldiers were digging
out the foundations of a fort, and in the trench the famous tablet was
found. At the peace of Alexandra the Rosetta Stone passed to the
English, who (1801) housed it in the British Museum, where it remains.
The text when translated showed that the inscription is a "decree of the
priests of Memphis, conferring divine honors on Ptolemy V, Epiphanes,
King of Egypt, B.C. 195," on the occasion of his coronation. Further it
commands that the decree be inscribed in the sacred letters
(hieroglyphics); the alphabet of the people (enuchorial or demotic); and
Greek.

It was recognized by the trustees of the British Museum that the problem
of the Rosetta Stone was one which would test the ingenuity of the
scientists of the world to unfathom, and they promptly published a
carefully prepared copy of the entire inscription. Scholars of every
nation exhausted their learning to unravel the riddle, but beyond a few
shrewd guesses (afterward proved to be quite incorrect) nothing was
accomplished for a dozen years. The key was there, but its application
required the inspired insight of genius.

Dr. Thomas Young, the demonstrator of the vibratory nature of light, who
had perhaps the most versatile profundity of knowledge and the keenest
scientific imagination of his generation, undertook the task.

Accident had called Young's attention to the Rosetta Stone, and his
rapacity for knowledge led him to speculate as to the possible aid this
trilingual inscription might offer in the solution of