a case of private dedicatio dis, dedication to the gods. The epithet duenos should therefore be interpreted as used in its original technical sense. The restitution of the text should thus be: "A party acting in the way sanctioned by religious law made/consecrated me for a good end. That no harm/fraud be done to me and to one who is a party (equally) religiously sanctioned by the gods". The vase is a speaking token that after the celebration of the ritual consecrates the content of the action, of which it is "the form in its probatory function and the matter as a constituent element". Vine quotes German authors who still follow the erotic thread of interpretation. They think of the vase as a container for beauty products and interpret the last phrase as 'let no evil person steal me'. " would be a form of a Latin verb *stare that failed to survive for its homonymie fâcheuse [unfortunate homonymy] with the ordinary verb for 'stand, as found in Hittite tāyezzi 'steals', Vedic stená-stāyú 'thief'. Both Sacchi and Vine remark the striking parallelism between the formula of the Duenos inscription: and the inscription on a pedestal (probably of a votive statue) from Tibur: . Vine finds in it support for his interpreting of as meaning munus. Cosmis Sacchi rejects the interpretation of cosmis as agreeable in the first section that is traditionally accepted in the scholarly literature, on the grounds of considerations of history of the language and semantics. He proposes to interpret the term as referring to the peculiar style of hairdressing of brides, known as seni crines which would find support in Festus: "Comptus id est ornatus ... qui apud nos comis: et comae dicuntur capilli cum aliqua cura compositi", 'Comptus, that is adorned, ... what we call comis; and comae is named the hair dressed with a certain care'. In the inscription the use of this word would be an explicit allusion to the fact that the girl shall be ready to marry. Festus gives it as a most ancient custom for marriage ceremonies. An analogous usage of the word comis is to be found in Gellius while relating the custom of flaminica dialis on the occasion of the Argei. Earlier specimens of Old Latin The Praenestine fibula is generally thought to be the earliest surviving evidence of the Latin language, dating to the 7th century BC, but