(Vol. vii. _passim._)
Under this head the following translation of part of the inscription at
Behistun may be classed. It is, I apprehend, the earliest of this sort of
inscription:
"Darius rex dicit: si hanc tabulam, hasque effigies spectas,
et iis injuriam facias, et quamdiu tibi proles sit non eas
conserves, Oromasdes hostis fiat tibi, et tibi proles non sit,
et quod facias id tibi Oromasdes frustretur."
See Rawlinson's "Translation of the Great Persian Inscription at
Behistun," par. 17. _Asiatic Society's Transactions_.
The following is an extract from Maitland's _Dark Ages_, p. 270., notes 3
and 4:
"Terrible imprecations were occasionally annexed by the donors
or possessors of books; as in a sacramentary which Mastene
found at St. Benoit sur Loire, and which he supposed to belong
to the ninth century. 'Ut si quis eum de Monasterio aliquo
ingenio non redditurus abstraxerit cum Juda proditore, Anna
et Caipha, portionem æternæ damnationis accipiat. Amen, Amen,
Fiat, Fiat.'"
There is a curious instance of this in a manuscript of some of the works
of Augustine and Ambrose in the Bodleian Library:
"Liber S. Mariæ de Ponte Roberti, qui eum abstulerit, aut
vendiderit, vel quolibet modo ab hâc domo absciderit, sit
anathema maranatha. Amen."