they called _mere E_ (_E psilon_); to the aspirated Heta, they left its name, but regarded it as _aspirated E_. Its original Semitic value as an aspirate (adaptable to any vowel) was not wholly lost sight of, and this idea of its power survived the stage at which H had become nothing more than _ê_ or _ee_. The necessity of making aspirated letters led to the prefixing or over-writing of the _H_, at first in its full size, then (so as to avoid confusion with Eta) in small, then in half shape, thus |-. This custom produced its complement in the shape of -|, to mark the soft breathing; until in the eleventh century of our era, the two breathings were worn down into semicircular form, thus ( , ). Another rejected symbol was the _vau_, formed like the letter F and sounded like our V. It dropped out of usage, and they forgot its name, although it had been considerably used by the old poets, in connexion with whom it is usually named _digamma_, because of its resemblance to a double gamma, or one gamma superimposed on another. It was found necessary to have a character for _u_, and advantageous to use single symbols for double letters frequently occurring, such as _ph_, _kh_, _ps_ and _oo_ (long o). The old Eastern form of _vau_ supplied the _u_; in fact, having dropped the letter as a consonant out of its sixth place in {15}the alphabet, they put it in its vowel-character at the end. The symbol of the discarded _koppa_ was used for the _Ph_, which was not equivalent in sound to our _ph_, but must have resembled the German _pf_. The discarded _tsada_ (a trident) was used to represent, in some places _ps_, in others _kh_, but finally the symbol fell into two distinct forms, by being written upright as + ([psi]) and leaning sidewise as × ([chi]). By the time of Herodotus the Greek alphabet may be considered as having reached exactly its present form in capital letters. The cursive hand which must have existed at all times of Greek writing was simply a rapid deformation of the capitals, and consequently did not attain to any uniformly distinctive character till much later. The general use of minuscules in any such uniform type is always referred to the eighth century after Christ, but really there is no essential change of form between the cursive letters a hundred years before Christ and those of a thousand years after Christ. The chief difference is in the greater freedom and fluency of the late letters, an air of practised familiarity which is lacking in the earlier cursive. _Writing in Italy from 700 to 100 B.C._