Chapter 21. On critical marks (notae sententiarum).
1. In addition there were certain marks in the writings of celebrated authors, which the ancients set in poems and histories to discriminate among the passages. A mark is a separate form placed like a letter, to indicate some judgment about a word, thought or verse. There are twenty-six marks used in annotating verses, which are enumerated below with their names.[181]
Chapter 22. On shorthand.
1. Ennius[182] first invented 1,100 shorthand signs. The use of the signs was that scribes wrote whatever was said in public meeting or in court, several standing by at one time and deciding among themselves how many words and in what order each should write. At Rome Tullius Tiro, Cicero’s freedman, was the first to invent shorthand, but only for prepositions.[183]
2. After him Vipsanius Philargius and Aquila, Maecenas’s freedman, each added a number of signs. Then Seneca, collecting them all and arranging them and increasing their number, raised the total to 5,000. The signs (notae) are so-called because they denote words or syllables by marks,[184] and bring them again to the notice of readers, and they who have learned them are now properly called notarii.
Chapter 27. On orthography.
1. Orthography is Greek, and it means in the Latin correct writing; for ὀρθή in the Greek means correct, and γραφή means writing. This branch of knowledge teaches us how we ought to write. For as the art[185] treats of the inflection of the parts of speech, so orthography deals with the knowledge of writing, as, for example,
ad, when it is a preposition, takes the letter d; when it is a conjunction, the letter t.
2. Haud, when it is an adverb of negation, is terminated by the letter d and is aspirated at the beginning; but when it is a conjunction, it is written with the letter t and is without aspiration.
7. Forsitan ought to be written with n at the end, because its uncorrupted form is forte si tandem.