"In templis îsdem;"
but eisdem would be more regular; but yet it would not have been so musical: and iisdem would have sounded ill. But custom has sanctioned our departing from strict rules for the sake of euphony; and I should prefer saying pomeridianas quadrigas to postmeridianas, and mehercule to mehercules. Non scire already appears a barbarism; nescire is sweeter. The word meridiem itself, why is it not medidiem?
I suppose because it sounded worse. There is one preposition, abs, which has now only an existence in account books; but in all other conversation of every sort is changed: for we say amovit, and abegit, and abstulit, so that you cannot now tell whether ab is the correct form or abs. What shall we say if even abfugit has seemed inadmissible, and if men have discarded abfer and preferred aufer? and that preposition is found in no word whatever except these two verbs. There were the words noti, and navi, and nari, and when in was forced to be prefixed to them, it seemed more musical to say ignoti, ignavi, ignari, than to adhere to the strict rules. Men say ex usu and republicâ, because in the one phrase a vowel followed the preposition, and in the other there would have been great harshness if you had not removed the consonant, as in exegit, edixit, effecit, extulit, edidit. And sometimes the preposition has sustained an alteration, regulated by the first letter of the verb to which it is added, as suffugit, summutavit, sustulit.
XLVIII. What are we to say of compound words? How neat is it to say insipientem, not insapientem; iniquum, not incequum; tricipitem, not tricapitem; concisum, not concoesum! and, because of this last instance, some people wish also to say pertisum; but the same fashion which regulates the other changes, has not sanctioned this one. But what can be more elegant than this, which is not caused by nature, but by some regular usage?—we say inclytus, with the first letter short; insanus, with the first letter long; inkumanus, with a short letter; infelix, with a long one: and, not to detain you with many examples, in those words in which the first letters are those which occur in sapiente and felice, it is used long; in all others it is short. And so, too, we have composuit, consuevit, concrvpuit, confecit. Consult the truth, it will reprove you; refer the matter to your ears, they will sanction the usage. Why so? Because they will say that that sound is the most agreeable one to them; and an oration ought to consult that which gives pleasure to the ears. Moreover, I myself, as I knew that our ancestors spoke so as never to use an aspirate except before a vowel, used to speak in this way: pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem; when at last, and after a long time, the truth was forced upon me by the admonition of my own ears, I yielded to the people the right of settling the rule of speaking; and was contented to reserve to myself the knowledge of the proper rules and reasons for them. Still we say Orcivii, and Matones and Otones, Coepiones, sepulchra, coronas, lacrymas, because that pronunciation is always sanctioned by the judgment of our ears.
Ennius always used Burrum, never Pyrrhum: he says,—
"Vi patefecerunt Bruges;"
not Phryges; and so the old copies of his poems prove, for they had no Greek letters in them. But now those words have two; and though when they wanted to say Phrygum and Phrygibus, it was absurd either to use a Greek character in the barbarous cases only, or else in the nominative case alone to speak Greek, still we say Phrygum and Phrygibus for the sake of harmonizing our ears. Moreover (at present it would seem like the language of a ploughman, though formerly it was a mark of politeness) our ancestors took away the last letter of those words in which the two last letters were the same, as they are in optumus, unless the next word began with a vowel. And so they avoided offending the ear in their verse; as the modern poets avoid it now in a different manner. For we used to say,—
"Qui est omnibu' princeps," not "omnibus princeps;"
and—
"Vitâ illâ, dignu' locoquc," not "dignus."