File:Athanasius Kircher - Turris Babel - 1679 (page 245 crop - Ionic inscription from the Appian Way).png

English: Copy of an inscription in (presumed) Ionic Greek letters, from Athanasius Kircher's 1697 book Turris Babel.

According to Kircher, this inscription was on a stone originally located along the Appian Way, and subsequently moved to the Farnese Gardens, where it still was during the Jesuit's life. In Kircher's words: Inscriptio Ionicarum literarum, (...) lapidi incisa, ex via Appia in hortos Farnesianos translata fuit; ubi etiamnum spectatur ("the inscription on a stone engraved of Ionic letters was moved from the Appian Way to the Farnese Gardens, where it is even now seen").

The Latin translation of the words on the inscription is given by Kircher as:
Nemini liceat movere (transferre) ex hoc trivio, quod est juxta tertium, scilicet lapidem, in via Appia, in agro Herodi; melius tamen erit, melius est ei qui moverit, est enim sub protectione dæmonis viarum. Et canes Cereris, et puellæ anathema, et deorum terrestrium.
Which can be translated in English as:
"To no one is permit to move from this crossroad that which is next to the third [mile], namely the stone, in the Appian Way, in the farm of Herodes; [nothing] good there will be for the one who moves [it that] is in fact under the protection of the spirits of the road. And the dogs of Ceres, and the malediction of the young girl, and of the terrestrial gods".

Extracted and cut out from page 245 of the book file.