Every dialect has peculiar words; but it is remarkable when these are radical forms, expressing very common ideas, and when they are quite foreign to the other dialects of the same language. This at least is true of the Laconian word χάος, χάϊος, ἀχαῖος, “good” (Aristoph. Lys. 90, 1157. Hesychius in ἀχαία, where Heinsius would without reason omit the α, Theocrit. VII. 4.), of κόος, “large” (Etymol. M. p. 396. 29.), which words stand quite isolated in the common language: also λῆν, “to wish” (Koen. p. 252. Maittaire p. 278.), and μάω, “I think,” “I seek,” are pure Doric forms; the latter a Laconian and Sicilian word, see Toup Emend, in Suid. vol. I. p. 462. Meineke Euphorion. p. 162.(1981) 11. As yet we have considered the Doric dialect in general, as spoken by the whole race, only marking out the Laconian as its purest variety; we will now annex a brief list of those shades of difference which can be perceived in the language of the several states. The broad peculiarities of the Doric dialect of _Laconia_ are partly known from the remains of Alcman (who however avoided in his poetry such harsh forms as μῶἁ for μῶσα, λιπῶἁ for λιπῶσα or λιποῖσα, and never uses Σ for Ρ, &c.); and more fully from the Spartans in the Lysistrata. On comparing these with the Spartan and Argive treaty in Thucydides V. 77., there is indeed a general agreement; yet in this document the contractions ἀναιροῦντας, πεντηκονταέτη, δοκῇ, πόλει (but πολίεσι and αὐτοπόλιες), also ἐρίζοι and δικάζεσθαι, together with ως in the accusative of the substantives, but ους of the adjectives, can hardly be considered as pure Doric; nor is there any instance of the change of Σ into the aspirate, and Σ for Θ only in the word σιῶ. With regard to the indiscriminate use of Ω and ΟΥ our copies of Thucydides are not much authority: for these two sounds were not distinguished in the writing of the time, being both expressed by Ο; and it is probable that some forms have been modified either by Thucydides or his copyists, or both. On the whole, however, it is probable that the popular dialect of Peloponnesus, which is preserved in all its harshness in the famous treaty of the Eleans, was about the time of the Peloponnesian war softened down in public documents and treaties. Thus in a Lacedæmonian inscription of later date, we still find the ancient forms στατερας, αιγιναιος, αργυριο, Ϝικατι, δαρικος οκτακατιος, from a restoration, but also χιλιους δαρ[ικους], Corp. Inscript. No. 1511. In the Spartan decree preserved by Plutarch in his Life of Lysander c. 14., we should probably write, ταῦτα ΚΑ δρῶντες τὰν εἰράναν ἔχοιτε, ἃ χρὴ ΔΟΝΤΕΣ καὶ τὼς φυγάδας ἀνέντες. περὶ τᾶν ναῶν τῶ πλήθεος ὁκοῖόν τι ΚΑΤΗΝΕΙ δοκέοι, ταῦτα ποιέετε, as has been partly emended by Haitinger Act. Monac. vol. III. p. 311. In the time of Pyrrhus much of the ancient peculiarity of the dialect was still in existence, although in the following saying all the forms are not those of the ancient Laconian language, αἂ μὲν ἔσσι