while leave was to be asked from "the Athenians dwelling in Delos" to place a third copy "in the most conspicuous place" available within Apollo's temenos. The allusion to Homer's eulogy of Cnossus cannot be justified from our Iliad, but clearly refers to that passage of the Homeric hymn which describes how Apollo committed the service of his Pythian shrine to "Cretans from Minoan Cnossus" (Hymn. in Apoll 391–544). Here, then, is a fresh proof that, about 150 B.C, this hymn was still ascribed without question to 'Homer.'
The inscription adds some valuable illustrations to the forms of the Cretan dialect. Thus we have the acc. plur. τὰς καταξίανς χαρίτας: ἐσγόνος = ἀκγόνους: ὀσκίας = οἰκίας: θίνων = θεΐνων, for θείων: both τόνς and τός for τούς. Among the verbal forms, ἀκούσαντεν = ἀκούσαντες: ἴονσα = οὖσα: ποριόμενς = πορεόμενος in sense of ποριζόμενος, and similarly προαιριομένοις: τιμέονσα = τιμέουσα, as if from τιμέω, not τιμάω: ἀπήστελκε = ἀπέσταλκε: and the remarkable αἰτησάθθαι = αἰτήσασθαι. ὅπαι, with subjunctive, has the sense of ὅπως, "in order that." At the end we read, Αἱρέθη ἐπὶ τᾶς ἀναθέσιος τᾶς στάλας Μακκιάδων Θαρυμάχω καὶ Λεόντιος Κλυμενίδα. M. Homolle regards αἱρέθη as 3rd pers. plur., but remarks that we should have expected the termination in -ν, comparing διέλεγεν, C. I. G. 3050. I should take αἱρέθη to be 3rd pers. sing., and the construction to be like that of Lysias in Eratosth. § 12, ἐπιτυγχάνει Μηλόβιός τε καὶ Μνησιθείδης. In v. 18 there is a doubtful reading: M. Homolle gives
