The same power of accenting the first syllable is "particularly the case in those words in which the vowel i can assume the power of y. Latin scholars are divided as to the proper accentuation of mulieres, Tulliola, and others: though custom is in favour of mulíeres, mul´ieres appears to be more correct." Be it so. Let mulieres be múlyeres. What becomes, however, of the fourth syllable? The word is no quadrisyllable at all. What is meant is this:—not that certain quadrisyllables with two short vowels in the middle are difficult to accentuate, but that they are certain words of which it is difficult to say whether they are trisyllables or quadrisyllables.
For all practical purposes, however, words like Cassiope are quadrisyllables. They are, in the way of metre, choriambics; and a choriambic is a quadrisyllable foot. They were pronounced Cassíope, &c., by English writers of Latin verses—when Latin verses were written well.
Let the pronunciation which was good enough for Vincent Bourne and the contributors to the Musæ Etonenses be good enough for the entomologists, and all that they will then have to do is not to pronounce cratægum like stratagem, cardamines like Theramenes, and vice versâ. Against this, accent will ensure them—accent single-handed and without any sign of quantity—Cardamínes, Therámenes, cratæ´gum, strátagem.
[V.]
CHRONOLOGICA.
ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD [a]ΣΑΡΟΣ].
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
APRIL 11, 1845.
The words [a]σάρος] and sarus are the Greek and Latin forms of a certain term used in the oldest Babylonian chronology, the meaning of which is hitherto undetermined. In the opinion of the present writer, the sarus is a period of 4 years and 340 days.
In the way of direct external evidence as to the value of the epoch in question, we have, with the exception of an unsatisfactory passage in Suidas, at the hands of the ancient historians and according to the current interpretations, only the two following statements:—