Primi per figuras animalium Aegyptii sensus mentis effingebant'ea antiquissima monimenta memoriae humanae inpressa saxis cernuntur', et litterarum semet inventores perhibent; inde Phoenicas, quia mari praepollebant, intulisse Graeciae gloriamque adeptos, tamquam reppererint quae acceperant.
The Egyptians, in their animal-pictures, were the first people to represent thought by symbols: these, the earliest documents of human history, are visible to-day, impressed upon stone. They describe themselves also as the inventors of the alphabet: from Egypt, they consider, the Phoenicians, who were predominant at sea, imported the knowledge into Greece, and gained the credit of discovering what they had borrowed.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Annals_Book11.json