Abstract

A Famous group of heraldic dedications, with inscriptions in the Oscan dialect, the iovilae-inscriptions as, in the uncertainty that prevails as to their real character, scholars have generally been content to call them, have long been a standing puzzle to students of the Italic dialects. A visit made in the spring of 1922 to the Museo Nazionale at Naples, where a number of the iovilae are now preserved, provided an opportunity of reconsidering, with the actual objects before me, a new explanation of these most interesting dedications which I now venture to publish.