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W. N. Bates, in the American Journal of Archaeology, xxix. (1925) pp. 239-246, tries to show that the E had its origin in a Minoan character E associated with Ge (as is shown by the evidence of a Cretan gem in the Metropolitan Museum of New York) and later transferred to Delphi. Since the character was not understood, it, like other things at Delphi, came to be associated with Apollo. This character has been found on the old omphalos discovered in 1913 at Delphi in the temple of Apollo.It might also be recorded that J. E. Harrison, in Comptes Rendus du Congres International d’Archeologie (Athens, 1905), thinks that the E was originally three betyl stones or pillars placed on a basis and representing the three Charites! Moreover, C. Fries, in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, lxxix. (1930) 343-344, offers as nodi explicatio the fact that in Sumerian inscriptions E means house or temple, and so may be connected with Babylonian ritual (note the Chaldean in chap. iv.)!
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Interesting are the two coins reproduced in Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias, plate x. nos. xxii. and xxiii. (text, p. 119), which show the E suspended between the middle columns of the temple. Learned scholars should note that the letter represented is E, not EI: therefore such explanations as are based on the true diphthong are presumably wrong.
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The title of the essay is included in the catalogue of Lamprias, where it appears as No. 117. It is not infrequently quoted or referred to by later writers. It has been separately edited by Bernardakis in the volume of essays in honour of Ernst Curtius, Leipzig, 1894. Of interest is also The Delphic Maxims in Literature, by Eliza Gregory Wilkins, Chicago, 1929.
