THE BLACK STONE.

THE BLACK STONE. There is a shrine referred to as the Black Stone (the “Lapis Niger” in Latin) in the Roman Forum which contains the oldest known Latin inscription. It is written “boustrophedon”— the lines alternating left to right and right to left, in the fashion of oxen plowing a field. The site goes back to a period near the time when Rome was a monarchy (it refers to a “king”) and is dated to a time between the seventh century and the fifth century B.C. This was the site in the Forum that made the biggest impression on me because it reached so far back into the past. The Romans in Augustan times identified the newly discovered Lupercal that I posted on yesterday with a period even earlier, the time of the founding of Rome.