The old-time tradition credits the introduction of the alphabet in Greece to Cadmus, and fixes the date of the first Hellenic spelling-school at about the fifteenth century before Christ. I believe the authorities are divided as to whether this mythical Cadmus represents a Phœnician or an Egyptian influence, but this is a question which need not be considered here. I understand the philologists are in accord in the conclusion that the Cadmus story represents, not a first instituting of a Greek alphabet, but merely certain important modifications in the form of letters already in use. Birt asserts, as if it were now a settled fact, that while the Greeks derived their written characters from the Phœnicians, they were indebted to Egypt for their first ideas in the making of books. There is a very distinct family resemblance between the Greek characters as known in literature and those of the Hebrew, Phœnician, and Syriac alphabets, while the names of the Greek letters _Alpha_ and _Beta_ are found in all the Semitic dialects. It seems further to be certain that the earlier peoples of Greece, after for a time having written perpendicularly according to the fashion of the Chinese, began later to write from right to left according to the Oriental manner. The so-called _Boustrophedon_, a term meaning “turning like oxen when they plough,” was a method of writing from left to right, and from right to left in alternate lines. Among the earlier specimens of this method were the laws of Solon (about 610 B.C.) and the Sigean inscription (about 600 B.C.). This system represents a period of transition between the earliest style and that of which the invention is credited to Pronapides, and is simply the modern European fashion of writing from left to right. The inscriptions of the Etruscans are largely written in _Boustrophedon_. Neither in Greece, however, nor elsewhere, did this method remain in use for any writings which are to be classed as literature. While Greek literature, as far as known to us, must be considered as beginning with the Homeric poems, the date of which is estimated by the majority of the authorities at about 900 B.C., there appears to be no trustworthy example of Greek writing earlier than about 600 B.C. Curiously enough, this specimen was found not in Greece but in Egypt. Jevons describes it as follows: “On the banks of the Upper Nile, in the temple of Abu Simbel, are huge statues of stone, and on the legs of the second colossus from the south are chipped the names, witticisms, and records of travellers of all ages, in alphabets known and unknown. The earliest of the Greek travellers who have thus left their names were a body of mercenaries, who seemed to have formed part of an expedition which was led up the Nile by King Psammitichus.”[22]