IX
Order of the Alphabet or "ABC" and Numeral Value of Letters
The order of our modern alphabet in the "ABC" is that of the Roman alphabet of the later empire, which was based upon that of the Cadmean Phœnician of the Pre-Roman rulers in Italy, the Etruscans, who, we have seen, were a colony of Lydians from Asia Minor who were Phœnicians or kinsmen of the Phœnicians. And through the imperial policy and prestige of the Romans this order of the alphabet became generally current throughout Europe.
The earliest-known alphabetic lists or "abecedaria" have been found in Etruscan settlements in Italy, scribbled as school-exercises on a child's ink-bottle, on vases or drinking-cups or other treasured articles buried in children's or other owners' tombs. The oldest of these is on a vase bearing also an Etruscan inscription of the owner from a tomb at Formello, near the ancient Etruscan city of Veii, about ten miles north of Rome, and dated from the archaic type of the letters to between the sixth and seventh century B.C.,[1] though it may be earlier.
Significantly the letters are of the Cadmean non-reversed Phœoenician kind, and are 26 in number as seen in Fig. 1 (p. 57), where their equivalents in modern letters are placed underneath.
It gives the order generally as in the late Greek alphabet—four letters following the T, which is the last letter in the
56
- ↑ TA. 2 73-78.
