ABSTRACT
Epigraphy is defined as the study of texts written on hard and durable surfaces (usually stone, but other materials occur).1 These texts were in their time, as they are now, only a very small portion of what people wrote; they relate, moreover, only to certain matters, for most sorts of things that human beings say or write they would never inscribe on stone. But unlike the texts written on papyrus and other perishable substances, many of these texts remain, and they are the oldest Greek and Roman texts that we have in their original form, with the precise wording, spelling (including spelling errors), letter-forms and visual layout that they had when first written. Because they tell us the same story that they told the ancients, they are invaluable historical sources; because they tell it in the very form that the ancients used, they are invaluable linguistic sources. And lastly, because many more people are mentioned in stone inscriptions than are mentioned in history books, they are invaluable economic and sociological sources. They may be broken, eroded or erased; they may be unclear or indecipherable; they may refer to matters of which we have no knowledge in frustratingly impenetrable terms. But they offer us the
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with new stories to tell.
