The Greeks in Bactria and India c30.9

c30.9

Athenaeus,⁷ in discussing various substitutions of San (*sh*) for Sigma (*s*), says that Aristoxenus (end of the fourth century B.C.) frequently remarked on the tendency of singers to make that substitution; Aristoxenus' words as quoted (Kaibel's text) are τὸ σίγμα λέγειν παρητοῦντο διὰ τὸ σκληρόστομον εἶναι...τὸ δὲ ῥῶ διὰ τὸ εὔκολον πολλάκις παραλαμβάνουσι. Now the MS of Athenaeus, Codex Marcianus, in the second clause of the passage cited has τὸ δὲ ϸ, which the Epitome, followed by Kaibel, has corrected to ῥῶ (see Kaibel's note). But that Aristoxenus meant San (the *sh* sound) is certain, not only from the manner in which Athenaeus quotes the passage in the midst of a discussion of San, but because the tendency of singers to sing San for Sigma had previously offended both Pindar⁸ and his teacher Lasus of Hermione, who wrote an ode and a hymn without a Sigma in them⁹ so as to give singers no excuse for singing the hated *sh* sound; and it is clear that it is this tendency to which Aristoxenus is alluding. This means that, if Athenaeus quotes Aristoxenus correctly and if Codex Marcianus represents Athenaeus correctly, San at the end of the fourth century was written ῥ (Rho). But it is incredible that such a wonderful instrument as Greek in its prime should have made one sign do duty for both the sh sound and the r sound, even though the sh sound was no longer used in speaking. What Aristoxenus must really have written was not ῥ but ϸ, which a copyist who no longer understood turned into ῥ; there were two signs, ϸ (San) and ῥ (Rho), perhaps with a very slight difference between them, i.e. the upper limb of San very short (compare the very slight difference in the German alphabet between the signs for f and s); and in some times and places, especially where knowledge of Greek was imperfect or failing, much confusion might result; one might be used where the other should have been, sometimes perhaps owing merely to a slight error of an engraver’s tool. But unquestionably the sign ϸ on the Kushan coinage is generally sh;¹ this is proved by the Indian pronunciation Kanishka of the Greek Kavepkɩ. The same is the case on some coins of the earlier Saca king Spalirises; his name is certain from the Kharoshthi Spalirisa, but in the Greek form, though the first letter is usually Sigma, it is also sometimes either ϸ or a form indistinguishable from a capital Rho;² actually the first instance in the East of a sign which looks like a capital Rho having the value sh appears on the Greek coins of the Kushan Miaos (App. 17).