THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XVI SLICE III
Latin Language to Lefebvre, François-Joseph

Articles in This Slice

LATIN LANGUAGE. 1. Earliest Records of its Area.—Latin was the language spoken in Rome and in the plain of Latium in the 6th or 7th century B.C.—the earliest period from which we have any contemporary record of its existence. But it is as yet impossible to determine either, on the one hand, whether the archaic inscription of Praeneste (see below), which is assigned with great probability to that epoch, represents exactly the language then spoken in Rome; or, on the other, over how much larger an area of the Italian peninsula, or even of the lands to the north and west, the same language may at that date have extended. In the 5th century B.C. we find its limits within the peninsula fixed on the north-west and south-west by Etruscan (see [Etruria]: Language); on the east, south-east, and probably north and north-east, by Safine (Sabine) dialects (of the Marsi, Paeligni, Samnites, Sabini and Picenum, qq.v.); but on the north we have no direct record of Sabine speech, nor of any non-Latinian tongue nearer than Tuder and Asculum or earlier than the 4th century B.C. (see [Umbria], [Iguvium], [Picenum]). We know however, both from tradition and from the archaeological data, that the Safine tribes were in the 5th century B.C. migrating, or at least sending off swarms of their younger folk, farther and farther southward into the peninsula. Of the languages they were then displacing we have no explicit record save in the case of Etruscan in Campania, but it may be reasonably inferred from the evidence of place-names and tribal names, combined with that of the Faliscan inscriptions, that before the Safine invasion some idiom, not remote from Latin, was spoken by the pre-Etruscan tribes down the length of the west coast (see [Falisci]; [Volsci]; also [Rome]: History; [Liguria]; [Siculi]).

2. Earliest Roman Inscriptions.—At Rome, at all events, it is clear from the unwavering voice of tradition that Latin was spoken from the beginning of the city. Of the earliest Latin inscriptions found in Rome which were known in 1909, the oldest, the so-called “Forum inscription,” can hardly be referred with confidence to an earlier century than the 5th; the later, the well-known Duenos (= later Latin bonus) inscription, certainly belongs to the 4th; both of these are briefly described below (§§ 40, 41). At this date we have probably the period of the narrowest extension of Latin; non-Latin idioms were spoken in Etruria, Umbria, Picenum and in the Marsian and Volscian hills. But almost directly the area begins to expand again, and after the war with Pyrrhus the Roman arms had planted the language of Rome in her military colonies throughout the peninsula. When we come to the 3rd century B.C. the Latin inscriptions begin to be more numerous, and in them (e.g. the oldest epitaphs of the Scipio family) the language is very little removed from what it was in the time of Plautus.

3. The Italic Group of Languages.—For the characteristics and affinities of the dialects that have just been mentioned, see the article [Italy]: Ancient Languages and Peoples, and to the separate articles on the tribes. Here it is well to point out that the only one of these languages which is not akin to Latin is Etruscan; on the other hand, the only one very closely resembling Latin is Faliscan, which with it forms what we may call the Latinian dialect of the Italic group of the Indo-European family of languages. Since, however, we have a far more complete knowledge of Latin than of any other member of the Italic group, this is the most convenient place in which to state briefly the very little that can be said as yet to have been ascertained as to the general relations of Italic to its sister groups. Here, as in many kindred questions, the work of Paul Kretschmer of Vienna (Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache, Göttingen, 1896) marked an important epoch in the historical aspects of linguistic study, as the first scientific attempt to interpret critically the different kinds of evidence which the Indo-European languages give us, not in vocabulary merely, but in phonology, morphology, and especially in their mutual borrowings, and to combine it with the non-linguistic data of tradition and archaeology. A certain number of the results so obtained have met with general acceptance and may be briefly treated here. It is, however, extremely dangerous to draw merely from linguistic kinship deductions as to racial identity, or even as to an original contiguity of habitation. Close resemblances in any two languages, especially those in their inner structure (morphology), may be due to identity of race, or to long neighbourhood in the earliest period of their development; but they may also be caused by temporary neighbourhood (for a longer or shorter period), brought about by migrations at a later epoch (or epochs). A particular change in sound or usage may spread over a whole chain of dialects and be in the end exhibited alike by them all, although the time at which it first began was long after their special and distinctive characteristics had become clearly marked. For example, the limitation of the word-accent to the last three syllables of a word in Latin and Oscan (see below)—a phenomenon which has left deep marks on all the Romance languages—demonstrably grew up between the 5th and 2nd centuries B.C.; and it is a permissible conjecture that it started from the influence of the Greek colonies in Italy (especially Cumae and Naples), in whose language the same limitation (although with an accent whose actual character was probably more largely musical) had been established some centuries sooner.

4. Position of the Italic Group.—The Italic group, then, when compared with the other seven main “families” of Indo-European speech, in respect of their most significant differences, ranges itself thus:

(i.) Back-palatal and Velar Sounds.—In point of its treatment of the Indo-European back-palatal and velar sounds, it belongs to the western or centum group, the name of which is, of course, taken from Latin; that is to say, like German, Celtic and Greek, it did not sibilate original k and g, which in Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Slavonic and Albanian have been converted into various types of sibilants (Ind.-Eur.* kṃtom = Lat. centum, Gr. (ἑ)-κατόν, Welsh cant, Eng. hund-(red), but Sans. ṡatam, Zend satƏm); but, on the other hand, in company with just the same three western groups, and in contrast to the eastern, the Italic languages labialized the original velars (Ind.-Eur. * qod = Lat. quod, Osc. pod, Gr. ποδ-(απός), Welsh pwy, Eng. what, but Sans. kás, “who?”).

(ii.) Indo-European Aspirates.—Like Greek and Sanskrit, but in contrast to all the other groups (even to Zend and Armenian), the Italic group largely preserves a distinction between the Indo-European mediae aspiratae and mediae (e.g. between Ind.-Eur. dh and d, the former when initial becoming initially regularly Lat. f as in Lat. fēc-ī [cf. Umb. feia, “faciat”], beside Gr. ἔ-θηκ-α [cf. Sans. da-dhā-ti, “he places”], the latter simply d as in domus, Gr. δόμος). But the aspiratae, even where thus distinctly treated in Italic, became fricatives, not pure aspirates, a character which they only retained in Greek and Sanskrit.

(iii.) Indo-European ŏ.—With Greek and Celtic, Latin preserved the Indo-European ŏ, which in the more northerly groups (Germanic, Balto-Slavonic), and also in Indo-Iranian, and, curiously, in Messapian, was confused with ă. The name for olive-oil, which spread with the use of this commodity from Greek (ἔλαιϝον) to Italic speakers and thence to the north, becoming by regular changes (see below) in Latin first *ólaivom, then *óleivom, and then taken into Gothic and becoming alēv, leaving its parent form to change further (not later than 100 B.C.) in Latin to oleum, is a particularly important example, because (a) of the chronological limits which are implied, however roughly, in the process just described, and (b) of the close association in time of the change of o to a with the earlier stages of the “sound-shifting” (of the Indo-European plosives and aspirates) in German; see Kretschmer, Einleit. p. 116, and the authorities he cites.

(iv.) Accentuation.—One marked innovation common to the western groups as compared with what Greek and Sanskrit show to have been an earlier feature of the Indo-European parent speech was the development of a strong expiratory (sometimes called stress) accent upon the first syllable of all words. This appears early in the history of Italic, Celtic, Lettish (probably, and at a still later period) in Germanic, though at a period later than the beginning of the “sound-shifting.” This extinguished the complex system of Indo-European accentuation, which is directly reflected in Sanskrit, and was itself replaced in Latin and Oscan by another system already mentioned, but not in Latin till it had produced marked effects upon the language (e.g. the degradation of the vowels in compounds as in cōnficio from cón-facio, inclūdo from ín-claudo). This curious wave of accentual change (first pointed out by Dieterich, Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, i., and later by Thurneysen, Revue celtique, vi. 312, Rheinisches Museum, xliii. 349) needs and deserves to be more closely investigated from a chronological standpoint. At present it is not clear how far it was a really connected process in all the languages. (See further Kretschmer, op. cit. p. 115, K. Brugmann, Kurze vergleichende Grammatik (1902-1904), p. 57, and their citations, especially Meyer-Lübke, Die Betonung im Gallischen (1901).)

To these larger affinities may be added some important points in which the Italic group shows marked resemblances to other groups.

5. Italic and Celtic.—It is now universally admitted that the Celtic languages stand in a much closer relation than any other group to the Italic. It may even be doubted whether there was any real frontier-line at all between the two groups before the Etruscan invasion of Italy (see [Etruria]: Language; [Liguria]). The number of morphological innovations on the Indo-European system which the two groups share, and which are almost if not wholly peculiar to them, is particularly striking. Of these the chief are the following.

(i.) Extension of the abstract-noun stems in -ti- (like Greek φάτις with Attic βάσις, &c.) by an -n- suffix, as in Lat. mentio (stem mentiōn-) = Ir. (er-)mitiu (stem miti-n-), contrasted with the same word without the n-suffix in Sans. mati-, Lat. mens, Ind.-Eur. *mṇ-ti-. A similar extension (shared also by Gothic) appears in Lat. iuventū-t-, O. Ir. óitiu (stem oiliūt-) beside the simple -tu- in nouns like senātus.

(ii.) Superlative formation in -is-ṃmo- as in Lat. aegerrimus for *aegr-isṃmos, Gallic Οὐξισάμη the name of a town meaning “the highest.”

(iii.) Genitive singular of the o-stems (second declension) in -ī Lat. agri, O. Ir. (Ogam inscriptions) magi, “of a son.”

(iv.) Passive and deponent formation in -r, Lat. sequitur = Ir. sechedar, “he follows.” The originally active meaning of this curious -r suffix was first pointed out by Zimmer (Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, 1888, xxx. 224), who thus explained the use of the accusative pronouns with these “passive” forms in Celtic; Ir. -m-berar, “I am carried,” literally “folk carry me”; Umb. pir ferar, literally ignem feratur, though as pir is a neuter word (= Gr. πῦρ) this example was not so convincing. But within a twelvemonth of the appearance of Zimmer’s article, an Oscan inscription (Conway, Camb. Philol. Society’s Proceedings, 1890, p. 16, and Italic Dialects, p. 113) was discovered containing the phrase ůltiumam (iůvilam) sakrafỉr, “ultimam (imaginem) consecraverint” (or “ultima consecretur”) which demonstrated the nature of the suffix in Italic also. This originally active meaning of the -r form (in the third person singular passive) is the cause of the remarkable fondness for the “impersonal” use of the passive in Latin (e.g., itur in antiquam silvam, instead of eunt), which was naturally extended to all tenses of the passive (ventum est, &c.), so soon as its origin was forgotten. Fuller details of the development will be found in Conway, op. cit. p. 561, and the authorities there cited (very little is added by K. Brugmann, Kurze vergl. Gramm. 1904, p. 596).

(v.) Formation of the perfect passive from the -to- past participle, Lat. monitus (est), &c., Ir. léic-the, “he was left,” ro-léiced, “he has been left.” In Latin the participle maintains its distinct adjectival character; in Irish (J. Strachan, Old Irish Paradigms, 1905, p. 50) it has sunk into a purely verbal form, just as the perfect participles in -us in Umbrian have been absorbed into the future perfect in -ust (entelust, “intenderit”; benust, “venerit”) with its impersonal passive or third plural active -us(s)so (probably standing for -ussor) as in benuso, “ventum erit” (or “venerint”).

To these must be further added some striking peculiarities in phonology.

(vi.) Assimilation of p to a qṷ in a following syllable as in Lat. quinque = Ir. cóic, compared with Sans. pánca, Gr. πέντε, Eng. five, Ind.-Eur. *penqe.

(vii.) Finally—and perhaps this parallelism is the most important of all from the historical standpoint—both Italic and Celtic are divided into two sub-families which differ, and differ in the same way, in their treatment of the Ind.-Eur. velar tenuis q. In both halves of each group it was labialized to some extent; in one half of each group it was labialized so far as to become p. This is the great line of cleavage (i.) between Latinian (Lat. quod, quandō, quinque; Falisc. cuando) and Osco-Umbrian, better called Safine (Osc. pod, Umb. panū- [for *pandō], Osc.-Umb. pompe-, “five,” in Osc. půmperias “nonae,” Umb. pumpeḓia-, “fifth day of the month”); and (ii.) between Goidelic (Gaelic) (O. Ir. cóic, “five,” maq, “son”; modern Irish and Scotch Mac as in MacPherson) and Brythonic (Britannic) (Welsh pump, “five,” Ap for map, as in Powel for Ap Howel).

The same distinction appears elsewhere; Germanic belongs, broadly described, to the q-group, and Greek, broadly described, to the p-group. The ethnological bearing of the distinction within Italy is considered in the articles [Sabini] and [Volsci]; but the wider questions which the facts suggest have as yet been only scantily discussed; see the references for the “Sequanian” dialect of Gallic (in the inscription of Coligny, whose language preserves q) in the article [Celts]: Language.

From these primitive affinities we must clearly distinguish the numerous words taken into Latin from the Celts of north Italy within the historic period; for these see especially an interesting study by J. Zwicker, De vocabulis et rebus Gallicis sive Transpadanis apud Vergilium (Leipzig dissertation, 1905).

6. Greek and Italic.—We have seen above (§ 4, i., ii., iii.) certain broad characteristics which the Greek and the Italic groups of language have in common. The old question of the degree of their affinity may be briefly noticed. There are deep-seated differences in morphology, phonology and vocabulary between the two languages—such as (a) the loss of the forms of the ablative in Greek and of the middle voice in Latin; (b) the decay of the fricatives (s, v, ḭ) in Greek and the cavalier treatment of the aspirates in Latin; and (c) the almost total discrepancy of the vocabularies of law and religion in the two languages—which altogether forbid the assumption that the two groups can ever have been completely identical after their first dialectic separation from the parent language. On the other hand, in the first early periods of that dialectic development in the Indo-European family, the precursors of Greek and Italic cannot have been separated by any very wide boundary. To this primitive neighbourhood may be referred such peculiarities as (a) the genitive plural feminine ending in -āsōm (Gr. -άων, later in various dialects -έων, -ῶν, -ᾶν; cf. Osc. egmazum “rerum”; Lat. mensarum, with -r- from -s-), (b) the feminine gender of many nouns of the -o- declension, cf. Gr. ἡ ὁδὸς, Lat. haec fāgus; and some important and ancient syntactical features, especially in the uses of the cases (e.g. (c) the genitive of price) of the (d) infinitive and of the (e) participles passive (though in each case the forms differ widely in the two groups), and perhaps (f) of the dependent moods (though here again the forms have been vigorously reshaped in Italic). These syntactic parallels, which are hardly noticed by Kretschmer in his otherwise careful discussion (Einleit. p. 155 seq.), serve to confirm his general conclusion which has been here adopted; because syntactic peculiarities have a long life and may survive not merely complete revolutions in morphology, but even a complete change in the speaker’s language, e.g. such Celticisms in Irish-English as “What are you after doing?” for “What have you done?” or in Welsh-English as “whatever” for “anyhow.” A few isolated correspondences in vocabulary, as in remus from *ret-s-mo-, with ἐρετμός and in a few plant-names (e.g. πράσον and porrum), cannot disturb the general conclusion, though no doubt they have some historical significance, if it could be determined.

7. Indo-Iranian and Italo-Celtic.—Only a brief reference can here be made to the striking list of resemblances between the Indo-Iranian and Italo-Celtic groups, especially in vocabulary, which Kretschmer has collected (ibid. pp. 126-144). The most striking of these are rēx, O. Ir. rīg-, Sans. rāj-, and the political meaning of the same root in the corresponding verb in both languages (contrast regere with the merely physical meaning of Gr. ὀρέγνυμι); Lat. flāmen (for *flag-men) exactly = Sans. brahman- (neuter), meaning probably “sacrificing,” “worshipping,” and then “priesthood,” “priest,” from the Ind.-Eur. root *bhelgh-, “blaze,” “make to blaze”; rēs, rem exactly = Sans. rās, rām in declension and especially in meaning; and Ārio-, “noble,” in Gallic Ariomanus, &c., = Sans. ārya-, “noble” (whence “Aryan”). So argentum exactly = Sans. rajata-, Zend erezata-; contrast the different (though morphologically kindred) suffix in Gr. ἄργυρος. Some forty-two other Latin or Celtic words (among them crēdere, caesariēs, probus, castus (cf. Osc. kasit, Lat. caret, Sans. šiṣta-), Volcānus, Neptūnus, ensis, erus, pruina, rūs, novācula) have precise Sanskrit or Iranian equivalents, and none so near in any other of the eight groups of languages. Finally the use of an -r suffix in the third plural is common to both Italo-Celtic (see above) and Indo-Iranian. These things clearly point to a fairly close, and probably in part political, intercourse between the two communities of speakers at some early epoch. A shorter, but interesting, list of correspondences in vocabulary with Balto-Slavonic (e.g. the words mentīrī, rōs, ignis have close equivalents in Balto-Slavonic) suggests that at the same period the precursor of this dialect too was a not remote neighbour.

8. Date of the Separation of the Italic Group.—The date at which the Italic group of languages began to have (so far as it had at all) a separate development of its own is at present only a matter of conjecture. But the combination of archaeological and linguistic research which has already begun can have no more interesting object than the approximate determination of this date (or group of dates); for it will give us a point of cardinal importance in the early history of Europe. The only consideration which can here be offered as a starting-point for the inquiry is the chronological relation of the Etruscan invasion, which is probably referable to the 12th century B.C. (see [Etruria]), to the two strata of Indo-European population—the -CO- folk (Falisci, Marruci, Volsci, Hernici and others), to whom the Tuscan invaders owe the names Etrusci and Tusci, and the -NO- folk, who, on the West coast, in the centre and south of Italy, appear at a distinctly later epoch, in some places (as in the Bruttian peninsula, see [Bruttii]) only at the beginning of our historical record. If the view of Latin as mainly the tongue of the -CO- folk prove to be correct (see [Rome]: History; [Italy]: Ancient Languages and Peoples; [Sabini]; [Volsci]) we must regard it (a) as the southern or earlier half of the Italic group, firmly rooted in Italy in the 12th century B.C., but (b) by no means yet isolated from contact with the northern or later half; such is at least the suggestion of the striking peculiarities in morphology which it shares with not merely Oscan and Umbrian, but also, as we have seen, with Celtic. The progress in time of this isolation ought before long to be traced with some approach to certainty.

The History of Latin

9. We may now proceed to notice the chief changes that arose in Latin after the (more or less) complete separation of the Italic group whenever it came about. The contrasted features of Oscan and Umbrian, to some of which, for special reasons, occasional reference will be here made, are fully described under [Osca Lingua] and [Iguvium] respectively.

It is rarely possible to fix with any precision the date at which a particular change began or was completed, and the most serviceable form for this conspectus of the development will be to present, under the heads of Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, the chief characteristics of Ciceronian Latin which we know to have been developed after Latin became a separate language. Which of these changes, if any, can be assigned to a particular period will be seen as we proceed. But it should be remembered that an enormous increase of exact knowledge has accrued from the scientific methods of research introduced by A. Leskien and K. Brugmann in 1879, and finally established by Brugmann’s great Grundriss in 1886, and that only a brief enumeration can be here attempted. For adequate study reference must be made to the fuller treatises quoted, and especially to the sections bearing on Latin in K. Brugmann’s Kurze vergleichende Grammatik (1902).

I. Phonology

10. The Latin Accent.—It will be convenient to begin with some account of the most important discovery made since the application of scientific method to the study of Latin, for, though it is not strictly a part of phonology, it is wrapped up with much of the development both of the sounds and, by consequence, of the inflexions. It has long been observed (as we have seen § 4, iv. above) that the restriction of the word-accent in Latin to the last three syllables of the word, and its attachment to a long syllable in the penult, were certainly not its earliest traceable condition; between this, the classical system, and the comparative freedom with which the word-accent was placed in pro-ethnic Indo-European, there had intervened a period of first-syllable accentuation to which were due many of the characteristic contractions of Oscan and Umbrian, and in Latin the degradation of the vowels in such forms as accentus from ad + cantus or praecipitem from prae + caput- (§ 19 below). R. von Planta (Osk.-Umbr. Grammatik, 1893, i. p. 594) pointed out that in Oscan also, by the 3rd century B.C., this first-syllable-accent had probably given way to a system which limited the word-accent in some such way as in classical Latin. But it remained for C. Exon, in a brilliant article (Hermathena (1906), xiv. 117, seq.), to deduce from the more precise stages of the change (which had been gradually noted, see e.g. F. Skutsch in Kroll’s Altertumswissenschaft im letzten Vierteljahrhundert, 1905) their actual effect on the language.

11. Accent in Time of Plautus.—The rules which have been established for the position of the accent in the time of Plautus are these:

(i.) The quantity of the final syllable had no effect on accent.

(ii.) If the penult was long, it bore the accent (amābấmus).

(iii.) If the penult was short, then

(a) if the ante-penult was long, it bore the accent (amấbimus);

(b) if the ante-penult was short, then

(i.) if the ante-ante-penult was long, the accent was on the ante-penult (amīcítia); but

(ii.) if the ante-ante-penult was also short, it bore the accent (cólumine, puéritia).

Exon’s Laws of Syncope.—With these facts are now linked what may be called Exon’s Laws, viz:—

In pre-Plautine Latin in all words or word-groups of four or more syllables whose chief accent is on one long syllable, a short unaccented medial vowel was syncopated; thus *quínquedecem became *quínqdecem and thence quíndecim (for the -im see § 19), *súps-emere became *súpsmere and that sūmere (on -psm- v. inf.) *súrregere, *surregémus, and the like became surgere, surgémus, and the rest of the paradigm followed; so probably validé bonus became valdé bonus, exterá viam became extrá viam; so *supo-téndo became subtendo (pronounced sup-tendo), *āridére, *avidére (from āridus, avidus) became ārdére, audére. But the influence of cognate forms often interfered; posterí-diē became postrídiē, but in posterórum, posterárum the short syllable was restored by the influence of the trisyllabic cases, pósterus, pósterī, &c., to which the law did not apply. Conversely, the nom. *áridor (more correctly at this period *āridōs), which would not have been contracted, followed the form of ārdórem (from *āridórem), ārdére, &c.

The same change produced the monosyllabic forms nec, ac, neu, seu, from neque, &c., before consonants, since they had no accent of their own, but were always pronounced in one breath with the following word, neque tántum becoming nec tantum, and the like. So in Plautus (and probably always in spoken Latin) the words nemp(e), ind(e), quipp(e), ill(e), are regularly monosyllables.

12. Syncope of Final Syllables.—It is possible that the frequent but far from universal syncope of final syllables in Latin (especially before -s, as in mēns, which represents both Gr. μένος and Sans. matís = Ind.-Eur. mṇtís, Eng. mind) is due also to this law operating on such combinations as bona mēns and the like, but this has not yet been clearly shown. In any case the effects of any such phonetic change have been very greatly modified by analogical changes. The Oscan and Umbrian syncope of short vowels before final s seems to be an independent change, at all events in its detailed working. The outbreak of the unconscious affection of slurring final syllables may have been contemporaneous.

13. In post-Plautine Latin words accented on the ante-antepenult:—

(i.) suffered syncope in the short syllable following the accented syllable (bálineae became bálneae, puéritia became puértia (Horace), cólumine, tégimine, &c., became cúlmine, tégmine, &c., beside the trisyllabic cólumen, tégimen) unless

(ii.) that short vowel was e or i, followed by another vowel (as in párietem, múlierem, Púteoli), when, instead of contraction, the accent shifted to the penult, which at a later stage of the language became lengthened, pariétem giving Ital. paréếte, Fr. paroi, Puteóli giving Ital. Pozzuốli.

The restriction of the accent to the last three syllables was completed by these changes, which did away with all the cases in which it had stood on the fourth syllable.

14. The Law of the Brevis Brevians.—Next must be mentioned another great phonetic change, also dependent upon accent, which had come about before the time of Plautus, the law long known to students as the Brevis Brevians, which may be stated as follows (Exon, Hermathena (1903), xii. 491, following Skutsch in, e.g., Vollmöller’s Jahresbericht für romanische Sprachwissenschaft, i. 33): a syllable long by nature or position, and preceded by a short syllable, was itself shortened if the word-accent fell immediately before or immediately after it—that is, on the preceding short syllable or on the next following syllable. The sequence of syllables need not be in the same word, but must be as closely connected in utterance as if it were. Thus mốdō became módŏ, vŏlūptấtēm became vŏlŭ(p)tấtem, quḯd ēst? became quid ĕst? either the s or the t or both being but faintly pronounced.

It is clear that a great number of flexional syllables so shortened would have their quantity immediately restored by the analogy of the same inflexion occurring in words not of this particular shape; thus, for instance, the long vowel of ấmā and the like is due to that in other verbs (pulsā, agitā) not of iambic shape. So ablatives like modö, sonō get back their -ō, while in particles like modo, “only,” quōmodo, “how,” the shortened form remains. Conversely, the shortening of the final -a in the nom. sing. fem. of the a-declension (contrast lūnă with Gr. χωρᾷ) was probably partly due to the influence of common forms like eă, bonă, mală, which had come under the law.

15. Effect on Verb Inflexion.—These processes had far-reaching effects on Latin inflexion. The chief of these was the creation of the type of conjugation known as the capio-class. All these verbs were originally inflected like audio, but the accident of their short root-syllable, (in such early forms as *fúgīs, *fugītṹrus, *fugīsếtis, &c., becoming later fúgĭs, fugĭtṹrus, fugĕrếtis) brought great parts of their paradigm under this law, and the rest followed suit; but true forms like fugīre, cupīre, morīri, never altogether died out of the spoken language. St Augustine, for instance, confessed in 387 A.D. (Epist. iii. 5, quoted by Exon, Hermathena (1901), xi. 383,) that he does not know whether cupi or cupiri is the pass. inf. of cupio. Hence we have Ital. fuggīre, morīre, Fr. fuir, mourir. (See further on this conjugation, C. Exon, l.c., and F. Skutsch, Archiv für lat. Lexicographie, xii. 210, two papers which were written independently.)

16. The question has been raised how far the true phonetic shortening appears in Plautus, produced not by word-accent but by metrical ictus—e.g. whether the reading is to be trusted in such lines as Amph. 761, which gives us dedisse as the first foot (tribrach) of a trochaic line “because the metrical ictus fell on the syllable ded-”—but this remarkable theory cannot be discussed here. See the articles cited and also F. Skutsch, Forschungen zu Latein. Grammatik und Metrik, i. (1892); C. Exon, Hermathena (1903) xii. p. 492, W. M. Lindsay, Captivi (1900), appendix.

In the history of the vowels and diphthongs in Latin we must distinguish the changes which came about independently of accent and those produced by the preponderance of accent in another syllable.

17. Vowel Changes independent of Accent.—In the former category the following are those of chief importance:—

(i.) ĭ became ĕ (a) when final, as in ant-e beside Gr. ἀντί, trīste besides trīsti-s, contrasted with e.g., the Greek neuter ἴδρι (the final -e of the infinitive—regere, &c.—is the -ĭ of the locative, just as in the so-called ablatives genere, &c.); (b) before -r- which has arisen from -s-, as in cineris beside cinis, cinisculus; serō beside Gr. ἴ(σ)ημι (Ind.-Eur. *si-sēmi, a reduplicated non-thematic present).

(ii.) Final ŏ became ĕ; imperative sequere = Gr. ἔπε(σ)ο; Lat. ille may contain the old pronoun *so, “he,” Gr. ὁ, Sans. sa (otherwise Skutsch, Glotta, i. Hefte 2-3).

(iii.) el became ol when followed by any sound save e, i or l, as in volō, volt beside velle; colō beside Gr. τέλλομαι, πολεῖν, Att. τέλος; colōnus for *quelōnus, beside inquilīnus for *en-quēlenus.

(iv.) e became i (i.) before a nasal followed by a palatal or velar consonant (tingo, Gr. τέγγω; in-cipio from *en-capio); (ii.) under certain conditions not yet precisely defined, one of which was i in a following syllable (nihil, nisi, initium). From these forms in- spread and banished en-, the earlier form.

(v.) The “neutral vowel” (“schwa Indo-Germanicum”) which arose in pro-ethnic Indo-European from the reduction of long ā, ē or ō in unaccented syllables (as in the -tós participles of such roots as stā-, dhē-, dō-, *stƏtós, *dhƏtós, *dƏtós) became a in Latin (status con-ditus [from *con-dhatos], datus), and it is the same sound which is represented by a in most of the forms of dō (damus, dabō, &c.).

(vi.) When a long vowel came to stand before another vowel in the same word through loss of ḭ or ṷ, it was always shortened; thus the -eō of intransitive verbs like candeō, caleō is for -ēḭō (where the ē is identical with the η in Gr. ἐφάνην, ἐμάνμν) and was thus confused with the causative -eiō (as in moneō, “I make to think,” &c.), where the short e is original. So audīuī became audīī and thence audiī (the form audīvī would have disappeared altogether but for being restored from audīveram, &c.; conversely audieram is formed from audiī). In certain cases the vowels contracted, as in trēs, partēs, &c. with -ēs from eḭes, *amō from amā(ḭ)ō.

18. Of the Diphthongs.

(vii.) eu became ou in pro-ethnic Italic, Lat. novus: Gr. νέος, Lat. novem, Umb. nuviper (i.e. noviper), “usque ad Changes of the diphthongs independent of accent. noviens”: Gr. (ἐν-)νέα; in unaccented syllables this -ov- sank to -u(v)- as in dếnuō from dế novō, suus (which is rarely anything but an enclitic word), Old Lat. sovos: Gr. ἑ(ϝ)ός.

(viii.) ou, whether original or from eu, when in one syllable became -ū-, probably about 200 B.C., as in dūcō, Old Lat. doucō, Goth, tiuhan, Eng. tow, Ind.-Eur. *deṷcō.

(ix.) ei became ī (as in dīcō, Old Lat. deico: Gr. δείκ-νυμι, fīdo: Gr. πείθομαι, Ind.-Eur. *bheidhō) just before the time of Lucilius, who prescribes the spellings puerei (nom. plur.) but puerī (gen. sing.), which indicates that the two forms were pronounced alike in his time, but that the traditional distinction in spelling had been more or less preserved. But after his time, since the sound of ei was merely that of ī, ei is continually used merely to denote a long ī, even where, as in faxeis for faxīs, there never had been any diphthongal sound at all.

(x.) In rustic Latin (Volscian and Sabine) au became ō as in the vulgar terms explōdere, plōstrum. Hence arose interesting doublets of meaning;—lautus (the Roman form), “elegant,” but lōtus, “washed”; haustus, “draught,” but hōstus (Cato), “the season’s yield of fruit.”

(xi.) oi became oe and thence ū some time after Plautus, as in ūnus, Old Lat. oenus: Gr. οἰνή “ace.” In Plautus the forms have nearly all been modernized, save in special cases, e.g. in Trin. i. 1, 2, immoene facinus, “a thankless task,” has not been changed to immune because that meaning had died out of the adjective so that immune facinus would have made nonsense; but at the end of the same line utile has replaced oetile. Similarly in a small group of words the old form was preserved through their frequent use in legal or religious documents where tradition was strictly preserved—poena, foedus (neut.), foedus (adj.), “ill-omened.” So the archaic and poetical moenia, “ramparts,” beside the true classical form mūnia, “duties”; the historic Poeni beside the living and frequently used Pūnicum (bellum)—an example which demonstrates conclusively (pace Sommer) that the variation between ū and oe is not due to any difference in the surrounding sounds.

(xii.) ai became ae and this in rustic and later Latin (2nd or 3rd century A.D.) simple ē, though of an open quality—Gr. αἴθος, αἴθω, Lat. aedēs (originally “the place for the fire”); the country forms of haedus, praetor were edus, pretor (Varro, Ling. Lat. v. 97, Lindsay, Lat. Lang. p. 44).

19. Vowels and Diphthongs in unaccented Syllables.—The changes of the short vowels and of the diphthongs in unaccented syllables are too numerous and complex to be set forth here. Some took place under the first-syllable system of accent, some later (§§ 9, 10). Typical examples are pepErci from *péparcai and ónustus from *ónostos (before two consonants); concIno from *cóncano and hospItIs from *hóstipotes, legImus beside Gr. λέγομεν (before one consonant); SicUli from *Siceloi (before a thick l, see § 17, 3); dilIgIt from *dísleget (contrast, however, the preservation of the second e in neglEgIt); occUpat from *opcapat (contrast accipit with i in the following syllable); the varying spelling in monumentum and monimentum, maxumus and maximus, points to an intermediate sound (ü) between u and i (cf. Quint. i. 4. 8, reading optumum and optimum [not opimum] with W. M. Lindsay, Latin Language §§ 14, 16, seq.), which could not be correctly represented in spelling; this difference may, however, be due merely to the effect of differences in the neighbouring sounds, an effect greatly obscured by analogical influences.

Inscriptions of the 4th or 3rd century, B.C. which show original -es and -os in final syllables (e.g. Venerĕs, gen. sing., nāvebos abl. pl.) compared with the usual forms in -is, -us a century later, give us roughly the date of these changes. But final -os, -om, remained after -u- (and v) down to 50 B.C. as in servos.

20. Special mention should be made of the change of -rĭ- and -ro- to -er- (incertus from *encritos; ager, ācer from *agros, *ācris; the feminine ācris was restored in Latin (though not in North Oscan) by the analogy of other adjectives, like tristis, while the masculine ācer was protected by the parallel masculine forms of the -o- declension, like tener, niger [from *teneros, *nigros]).

21. Long vowels generally remained unchanged, as in compāgo, condōno.

22. Of the diphthongs, ai and oi both sank to ei, and with original ei further to ī, in unaccented syllables, as in Achivi from Gr. Ἀχαιϝοί, olīivom, earlier *oleivom (borrowed into Gothic and there becoming alēv) from Gr. ἔλαιϝον. This gives us interesting chronological data, since the el- must have changed to ol- (§ 16. 3) before the change of -ai- to -ei-, and that before the change of the accent from the first syllable to the penultimate (§ 9); and the borrowing took place after -ai- had become -ei-, but before -eivom had become -eum, as it regularly did before the time of Plautus.

But cases of ai, ae, which arose later than the change to ei, ī, were unaffected by it; thus the nom. plur. of the first declension originally ended in -ās (as in Oscan), but was changed at some period before Plautus to -ae by the influence of the pronominal nom. plur. ending -ae in quae? hae, &c., which was accented in these monosyllables and had therefore been preserved. The history of the -ae of the dative, genitive and locative is hardly yet clear (see Exon, Hermathena (1905), xiii. 555; K. Brugmann, Grundriss, 1st ed. ii. 571, 601).

The diphthongs au, ou in unaccented syllables sank to -u-, as in inclūdō beside claudō; the form clūdō, taken from the compounds, superseded claudo altogether after Cicero’s time. So cūdō, taken from incūdō, excūdō, banished the older *caudō, “I cut, strike,” with which is probably connected cauda, “the striking member, tail,” and from which comes caussa, “a cutting, decision, legal case,” whose -ss- shows that it is derived from a root ending in a dental (see §25 (b) below and Conway, Verner’s Law in Italy, p. 72).

Consonants.—Passing now to the chief changes of the consonants we may notice the following points:—

23. Consonant i (wrongly written j; there is no g-sound in the letter), conveniently written ḭ by phoneticians,

(i.) was lost between vowels, as in trēs for *treḭes, &c. (§ 17. 6);

(ii.) in combination: -mḭ- became -ni-, as in veniö, from Ind.-Eur. *Ƨṷ mḭo, “I come,” Sans. gam-, Eng. come; -nḭ- probably (under certain conditions at least) became -nd-, as in tendō beside Gr. τείνω, fendō = Gr. θείνω, and in the gerundive stem -endus, -undus, probably for -enḭos, -onḭos; cf. the Sanskrit gerundive in -an-īya-s; -gḭ-, -dḭ- became -ḭ- as in māior from *mag-ior, pēior from *ped-ior;

(iii.) otherwise -ḭ- after a consonant became generally syllabic (-iḭ-), as in capiō (trisyllabic) beside Goth. hafya.

24. Consonant u (formerly represented by English v), conveniently written ṷ,

(i.) was lost between similar vowels when the first was accented, as in audīui, which became audiī (§ 17 [6]), but not in amāuī, nor in avārus.

(ii.) in combination: dṷ became b, as in bonus, bellum, O. Lat. dṷonus, *dṷellum (though the poets finding this written form in old literary sources treated it as trisyllabic); pṷ-, fṷ-, bṷ-, lost the ṷ, as in ap-erio, op-erio beside Lith. -veriu, “I open,” Osc. veru, “gate,” and in the verbal endings -bam, -bō, from -bhṷ-ām, -bhṷō (with the root of Lat. fui), and fīo, du-bius, super-bus, vasta-bundus, &c., from the same; -sṷ- between vowels (at least when the second was accented) disappeared (see below § 25 (a), iv.), as in pruīna for prusuīna, cf. Eng. fros-t, Sans, pruṣvā, “hoar-frost.” Contrast Minérva from an earlier *menes-ṷā, sṷe-, sṷo-, both became so-, as in sorōor(em) beside Sans. svasār-am, Ger. schwes-t-er, Eng. sister, sordēs, beside O. Ger. swart-s, mod. schwarz. -ṷo- in final syllables became -u-, as in cum from quom, parum from parṷom; but in the declensional forms -ṷu- was commonly restored by the analogy of the other cases, thus (a) serṷos, serṷom, serṷī became (b) *serus, *serum, *serṷi, but finally (c) serṷus, serṷum, serṷi.

(iii.) In the 2nd century A.D., Lat. v (i.e. ṷ) had become a voiced labio-dental fricative, like Eng. v; and the voiced labial plosive b had broken down (at least in certain positions) into the same sound; hence they are frequently confused as in spellings like vene for bene, Bictorinus for Victorinus.

25. (a) Latin s

(i.) became r between vowels between 450 and 350 B.C. (for the date see R. S. Conway, Verner’s Law in Italy, pp. 61-64), as āra, beside O. Lat. āsa, generis from *geneses, Gr. γένεος; eram, erō for *esām, *esō, and so in the verbal endings -erām, -erō, -erim. But a considerable number of words came into Latin, partly from neighbouring dialects, with -s- between vowels, after 350 B.C., when the change ceased, and so show -s-, as rosa (probably from S. Oscan for *rodḭa “rose-bush” cf. Gr. ῥόδον), cāseus, “cheese,” miser, a term of abuse, beside Gr. μυσαρός (probably also borrowed from south Italy), and many more, especially the participles in -sus (fūsus), where the -s- was -ss- at the time of the change of -s- to -r- (so in causa, see above). All attempts to explain the retention of the -s- otherwise must be said to have failed (e.g. the theory of accentual difference in Verner’s Law in Italy, or that of dissimilation, given by Brugmann, Kurze vergl. Gram. p. 242).

(ii.) sr became þr (= Eng. thr in throw) in pro-ethnic Italic, and this became initially fr- as in frīgus, Gr. ῥῖγος (Ind.-Eur. *srīgos), but medially -br-, as in funebris, from funus, stem funes-.

(iii.) -rs-, ls- became -rr-, -ll-, as in ferre, velle, for *fer-se, *vel-se (cf. es-se).

(iv.) Before m, n, l, and v, -s- vanished, having previously caused the loss of any preceding plosive or -n-, and the preceding vowel, if short, was lengthened as in

prīmus from *prismos, Paelig. prismu, “prima,” beside pris-cus.

iūmentum from O. Lat. iouxmentum, older *ieugsmentom; cf. Gr. ζεῦγμα, ζύγον, Lat. iugum, iungo.

lūna from *leucsnā-, Praenest, losna, Zend raoχsna-; cf. Gr. λεῦκος, “white-ness” neut. e.g. λευκός, “white,” Lat. lūceō.

tēlum from *tēns-lom or *tends-lom, trānāre from *trāns-nāre.

sēvirī from *sex-virī, ēvehō from *ex-vehō, and so ē-mittō, ē-līdō, ē-numerō, and from these forms arose the proposition ē instead of ex.

(v.) Similarly -sd- became -d-, as in īdem from is-dem.

(vi.) Before n-, m-, l-, initially s- disappeared, as in nūbo beside Old Church Slavonic snubiti, “to love, pay court to”; mīror beside Sans, smáyatē, “laughs,” Eng. smi-le; lūbricus beside Goth, sliupan, Eng. slip.

(b) Latin -ss- arose from an original -t + t-, -d + t-, -dh + t- (except before -r), as in missus, earlier *mit-tos; tōnsus, earlier *tond-tos, but tonstrīx from *tond-trīx. After long vowels this -ss- became a single -s- some time before Cicero (who wrote caussa [see above], divissio, &c., but probably only pronounced them with -s-, since the -ss- came to be written single directly after his time).

26. Of the Indo-European velars the breathed q was usually preserved in Latin with a labial addition of -ṷ- (as in sequor, Gr. ἕπομαι, Goth, saihvan, Eng. see; quod, Gr. ποδ-(απός), Eng. what); but the voiced Ƨṷ remained (as -gu-) only after -n- (unguo beside Ir. imb, “butter”) and (as g) before r, l, and u (as in gravis, Gr. βαρύς; glans, Gr. βάλανος; legūmen, Gr. λοβός, λεβίνθος). Elsewhere it became v, as in veniō (see § 23, ii.), nūdus from *novedos, Eng. naked. Hence bōs (Sans. gāus, Eng. cow) must be regarded as a farmer’s word borrowed from one of the country dialects (e.g. Sabine); the pure Latin would be *vōs, and its oblique cases, e.g. acc. *vovem, would be inconveniently close in sound to the word for sheep ovem.

27. The treatment of the Indo-European voiced aspirates (bh, dh, ḡh Ƨh) in Latin is one of the most marked characteristics of the language, which separates it from all the other Italic dialects, since the fricative sounds, which represented the Indo-European aspirates in pro-ethnic Italic, remained fricatives medially if they remained at all in that position in Oscan and Umbrian, whereas in Latin they were nearly always changed into voiced explosives. Thus—

Ind.-Eur. bh: initially Lat. f- (ferō; Gr. φέρω).

medially Lat. -b- (tibi; Umb. tefe; Sans, tubhy-(am), “to thee”; the same suffix in Gr. βίη-φι, &c.).

Ind.-Eur. dh: initially Lat. f- (fa-c-ere, fē-c-ī; Gr. θετός (instead of *θατός), ἔθη-κα).

medially -d- (medius; Osc. mefio-; Gr. μέσσος, μέσος from *μεθιος); except after u (iubēre beside iussus for *ḭudh-tos; Sans. yốdhati, “rouses to battle”); before l (stabulum, but Umb. staflo-, with the suffix of Gr. οτέργηθρον, &c.); before or after r (verbum: Umb. verfale: Eng. word. Lat. glaber [v. inf].: Ger. glatt: Eng. glad).

Ind.-Eur. ḡh: initially h- (humī: Gr. χαμαί); except before -u- (fundo: Gr. χέ(ϝ)ω, χύτρα).

medially -h- (veho: Gr. ἔχω, ὄχος; cf. Eng. wagon); except after -n- (fingere: Osc. feiho-, “wall”: Gr. θιγγάνω: Ind.-Eur. dheiĝh-, dhinĝh-); and before l (fīg(u)lus, from the same root).

Ind.-Eur gṷh: initially f- (formus and furnus, “oven”, Gr. θερμός, θέρμη, cf. Ligurian Bormiō, “a place with hot springs,” Bormanus, “a god of hot springs”; fendō: Gr. θείνω, φόνος, πρόσ-φατος).

medially v, -gu- or -g- just as Ind.-Eur. Ƨṷ (ninguere, nivem beside Gr. νίφα, νείφει; frāgrāre beside Gr. ὀσφραίνομαι [ὀσ- for ods-, cf. Lat. odor], a reduplicated verb from a root Ƨṷhra-).

For the “non-labializing velars” (Hostis, conGius, Glaber) reference must be made to the fuller accounts in the handbooks.

28. Authorities.—This summary account of the chief points in Latin phonology may serve as an introduction to its principles, and give some insight into the phonetic character of the language. For systematic study reference must be made to the standard books, Karl Brugmann, Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der Indo-Germanischen Sprachen (vol. i., Lautlehre, 2nd ed. Strassburg, 1897; Eng. trans. of ed. 1 by Joseph Wright, Strassburg, 1888) and his Kurze vergleichende Grammatik (Strassburg, 1902); these contain still by far the best accounts of Latin; Max Niederman, Précis de phonétique du Latin (Paris, 1906), a very convenient handbook, excellently planned; F. Sommer, Lateinische Laut- und Flexionslehre (Heidelberg, 1902), containing many new conjectures; W. M. Lindsay, The Latin Language (Oxford, 1894), translated into German (with corrections) by Nohl (Leipzig, 1897), a most valuable collection of material, especially from the ancient grammarians, but not always accurate in phonology; F. Stolz, vol. i. of a joint Historische Grammatik d. lat. Sprache by Blase, Landgraf, Stolz and others (Leipzig, 1894); Neue-Wagener, Formenlehre d. lat. Sprache (3 vols., 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1888, foll.); H. J. Roby’s Latin Grammar (from Plautus to Suetonius; London, 7th ed., 1896) contains a masterly collection of material, especially in morphology, which is still of great value. W. G. Hale and C. D. Buck’s Latin Grammar (Boston, 1903), though on a smaller scale, is of very great importance, as it contains the fruit of much independent research on the part of both authors; in the difficult questions of orthography it was, as late as 1907, the only safe guide.

II. Morphology

In morphology the following are the most characteristic Latin innovations:—

29. In nouns.

(i.) The complete loss of the dual number, save for a survival in the dialect of Praeneste (C.I.L. xiv. 2891, = Conway, Ital. Dial. p. 285, where Q. k. Cestio Q. f. seems to be nom. dual); so C.I.L. xi. 67065, T. C. Vomanio, see W. Schulze, Lat. Eigennamen, p. 117.

(ii.) The introduction of new forms in the gen. sing, of the -o- stems (dominī), of the -ā- stems (mēnsae) and in the nom. plural of the same two declensions; innovations mostly derived from the pronominal declension.

(iii.) The development of an adverbial formation out of what was either an instrumental or a locative of the -o- stems, as in longē. And here may be added the other adverbial developments, in -m (palam, sensim) probably accusative, and -iter, which is simply the accusative of iter, “way,” crystallized, as is shown especially by the fact that though in the end it attached itself particularly to adjectives of the third declension (molliter), it appears also from adjectives of the second declension whose meaning made their combination with iter especially natural, such as longiter, firmiter, largiter (cf. English straightway, longways). The only objections to this derivation which had any real weight (see F. Skutsch, De nominibus no- suffixi ope formatis, 1890, pp. 4-7) have been removed by Exon’s Law (§ 11), which supplies a clear reason why the contracted type constanter arose in and was felt to be proper to Participial adverbs, while firmiter and the like set the type for those formed from adjectives.

(iv.) The development of the so-called fifth declension by a re-adjustment of the declension of the nouns formed with the suffix -iē-: ia- (which appears, for instance, in all the Greek feminine participles, and in a more abstract sense in words like māteriēs) to match the inflexion of two old root-nouns rēs and diēs, the stems of which were originally rēḭ- (Sans. rās, rāyas, cf. Lat. reor) and diēṷ-.

(v.) The disuse of the -ti- suffix in an abstract sense. The great number of nouns which Latin inherited formed with this suffix were either (1) marked as abstract by the addition of the further suffix -ōn- (as in natio beside the Gr. γνὴσι-ος, &c.) or else (2) confined to a concrete sense; thus vectis, properly “a carrying, lifting,” came to mean “pole, lever”; ratis, properly a “reckoning, devising,” came to mean “an (improvised) raft” (contrast ratiō); postis, a “placing,” came to mean “post.”

(vi.) The confusion of the consonantal stems with stems ending in -ĭ-. This was probably due very largely to the forms assumed through phonetic changes by the gen. sing. and the nom. and acc. plural. Thus at say 300 B.C. the inflexions probably were:

The confusing difference of signification of the long -ēs ending led to a levelling of these and other forms in the two paradigms.

(vii.) The disuse of the u declension (Gr. ἡδύς, στάχυς) in adjectives; this group in Latin, thanks to its feminine form (Sans. fem. svādvī, “sweet”), was transferred to the i declension (suavis, gravis, levis, dulcis).

30. In verbs.

(i.) The disuse of the distinction between the personal endings of primary and secondary tenses, the -t and -nt, for instance, being used for the third person singular and plural respectively in all tenses and moods of the active. This change was completed after the archaic period, since we find in the oldest inscriptions -d regularly used in the third person singular of past tenses, e.g. deded, feced in place of the later dedit, fecit; and since in Oscan the distinction was preserved to the end, both in singular and plural, e.g. faamat (perhaps meaning “auctionatur”), but deded (“dedit”). It is commonly assumed from the evidence of Greek and Sanskrit (Gr. ἕστι, Sans. asti beside Lat. est) that the primary endings in Latin have lost a final -i, partly or wholly by some phonetic change.

(ii.) The non-thematic conjugation is almost wholly lost, surviving only in a few forms of very common use, est, “is”; ēst, “eats”; volt, “wills,” &c.

(iii.) The complete fusion of the aorist and perfect forms, and in the same tense the fusion of active and middle endings; thus tutudī, earlier *tutudai, is a true middle perfect; dīxī is an s aorist with the same ending attached; dīxit is an aorist active; tutudisti is a conflation of perfect and aorist with a middle personal ending.

(iv.) The development of perfects in -uī and -vī, derived partly from true perfects of roots ending in v or u, e.g. mōvī ruī. For the origin of monuī see Exon, Hermathena (1901), xi. 396 sq.

(v.) The complete fusion of conjunctive and optative into a single mood, the subjunctive; regam, &c., are conjunctive forms, whereas rexerim, rexissem are certainly and regerem most probably optative; the origin of amem and the like is still doubtful. Notice, however, that true conjunctive forms were often used as futures, regēs, reget, &c., and also the simple thematic conjunctive in forms like erō, rexerō, &c.

(vi.) The development of the future in -bo and imperfect in -bam by compounding some form of the verb, possibly the Present Participle with forms from the root of fuī, *amans-fuo becoming amabō, *amans-fṷām becoming amābam at a very early period of Latin; see F. Skutsch, Atti d. Congresso Storico Intern. (1903), vol. ii. p. 191.

(vii.) We have already noticed the rise of the passive in -r (§ 5 (d)). Observe, however, that several middle forms have been pressed into the service, partly because the -r- in them which had come from -s- seemed to give them a passive colour (legere = Gr. λέγε(σ)ο, Attic λέγου). The interesting forms in -minī are a confusion of two distinct inflexions, namely, an old infinitive in -menai, used for the imperative, and the participial -menoi, masculine, -menai, feminine, used with the verb “to be” in place of the ordinary inflexions. Since these forms had all come to have the same shape, through phonetic change, their meanings were fused; the imperative forms being restricted to the plural, and the participial forms being restricted to the second person.

31. Past Participle Passive.—Next should be mentioned the great development in the use of the participle in -tos (factus, fusus, &c.). This participle was taken with sum to form the perfect tenses of the passive, in which, thanks partly to the fusion of perfect and aorist active, a past aorist sense was also evolved. This reacted on the participle itself giving it a prevailingly past colour, but its originally timeless use survives in many places, e.g. in the participle ratus, which has as a rule no past sense, and more definitely still in such passages as Vergil, Georg. i. 206 (vectis), Aen. vi. 22 (ductis), both of which passages demand a present sense. It is to be noticed also that in the earliest Latin, as in Greek and Sanskrit, the passive meaning, though the commonest, is not universal. Many traces of this survive in classical Latin, of which the chief are

1. The active meaning of deponent participles, in spite of the fact that some of them (e.g. adeptus, ēmēnsus, expertus) have also a passive sense, and

2. The familiar use of these participles by the Augustan poets with an accusative attached (galeam indutus, traiectus lora). Here no doubt the use of the Greek middle influenced the Latin poets, but no doubt they thought also that they were reviving an old Latin idiom.

32. Future Participle.—Finally may be mentioned together (a) the development of the future participle active (in -ūrus, never so freely used as the other participles, being rare in the ablative absolute even in Tacitus) from an old infinitive in -ūrum (“scio inimicos meos hoc dicturum,” C. Gracchus (and others) apud Gell. 1. 7, and Priscian ix. 864 (p. 475 Keil), which arose from combining the dative or locative of the verbal noun in -tu with an old infinitive esom “esse” which survives in Oscan, *dictu esom becoming dicturum. This was discovered by J. P. Postgate (Class. Review, v. 301, and Idg. Forschungen iv. 252). (b) From the same infinitival accusative with the post-position -dō, meaning “to,” “for,” “in” (cf. quandō for *quam-do, and Eng. to, Germ, zu) was formed the so-called gerund agen-dō, “for doing,” “in doing,” which was taken for a Case, and so gave rise to the accusative and genitive in -dum and -dī. The form in -dō still lives in Italian as an indeclinable present participle. The modal and purposive meanings of -dō appear in the uses of the gerund.

The authorities giving a fuller account of Latin morphology are the same as those cited in § 28 above, save that the reader must consult the second volume of Brugmann’s Grundriss, which in the English translation (by Conway and Rouse, Strassburg, 1890-1896) is divided into volumes ii, iii. and iv.; and that Niedermann does not deal with morphology.

III. Syntax

The chief innovations of syntax developed in Latin may now be briefly noted.

33. In nouns.

(i.) Latin restricted the various Cases to more sharply defined uses than either Greek or Sanskrit; the free use of the internal accusative in Greek (e.g. ἁβρὸν βαίνειν, τυφλὸς τὰ ὦτα) is strange to Latin, save in poetical imitations of Greek; and so is the freedom of the Sanskrit instrumental, which often covers meanings expressed in Latin by cum, ab, inter.

(ii.) The syncretism of the so-called ablative case, which combines the uses of (a) the true ablative which ended in -d (O. Lat. praidād); (b) the instrumental sociative (plural forms like dominīs, the ending being that of Sans. çivāiş); and (c) the locative (noct-e, “at night”; itiner-e, “on the road,” with the ending of Greek ἐλπίδ-ι). The so-called absolute construction is mainly derived from the second of these, since it is regularly attached fairly closely to the subject of the clause in which it stands, and when accompanied by a passive participle most commonly denotes an action performed by that subject. But the other two sources cannot be altogether excluded (orto sole, “starting from sunrise”; campo patente, “on, in sight of, the open plain”).

34. In verbs.

(i.) The rich development and fine discrimination of the uses of the subjunctive mood, especially (a) in indirect questions (based on direct deliberative questions and not fully developed by the time of Plautus, who constantly writes such phrases as dic quis es for the Ciceronian dic quis sis); (b) after the relative of essential definition (non is sum qui negem) and the circumstantial cum (“at such a time as that”). The two uses (a) and (b) with (c) the common Purpose and Consequence-clauses spring from the “prospective” or “anticipatory” meaning of the mood. (d) Observe further its use in subordinate oblique clauses (irascitur quod abierim, “he is angry because, as he asserts, I went away”). This and all the uses of the mood in oratio obliqua are derived partly from (a) and (b) and partly from the (e) Unreal Jussive of past time (Non illi argentum redderem? Non redderes, “Ought I not to have returned the money to him?” “You certainly ought not to have,” or, more literally, “You were not to”).

On this interesting chapter of Latin syntax see W. G. Hale’s “Cum-constructions” (Cornell University Studies in Classical Philology, No. 1, 1887-1889), and The Anticipatory Subjunctive (Chicago, 1894).

(ii.) The complex system of oratio obliqua with the sequence of tenses (on the growth of the latter see Conway, Livy II., Appendix ii., Cambridge, 1901).

(iii.) The curious construction of the gerundive (ad capiendam urbem), originally a present (and future?) passive participle, but restricted in its use by being linked with the so-called gerund (see § 32, b). The use, but probably not the restriction, appears in Oscan and Umbrian.

(iv.) The favourite use of the impersonal passive has already been mentioned (§ 5, iv.).

35. The chief authorities for the study of Latin syntax are: Brugmann’s Kurze vergl. Grammatik, vol. ii. (see § 28); Landgraf’s Historische lat. Syntax (vol. ii. of the joint Hist. Gram., see § 28); Hale and Buck’s Latin Grammar (see § 28); Draeger’s Historische lat. Syntax, 2 vols. (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1878-1881), useful but not always trustworthy; the Latin sections in Delbrück’s Vergleichende Syntax, being the third volume of Brugmann’s Grundriss (§ 28).

IV. Importation of Greek Words

36. It is convenient, before proceeding to describe the development of the language in its various epochs, to notice briefly the debt of its vocabulary to Greek, since it affords an indication of the steadily increasing influence of Greek life and literature upon the growth of the younger idiom. Corssen (Lat. Aussprache, ii. 814) pointed out four different stages in the process, and though they are by no means sharply divided in time, they do correspond to different degrees and kinds of intercourse.

(a) The first represents the period of the early intercourse of Rome with the Greek states, especially with the colonies in the south of Italy and Sicily. To this stage belong many names of nations, countries and towns, as Siculi, Tarentum, Graeci, Achivi, Poenus; and also names of weights and measures, articles of industry and terms connected with navigation, as mina, talentum, purpura, patina, ancora, aplustre, nausea. Words like amurca, scutula, pessulus, balineum, tarpessita represent familiarity with Greek customs and bear equally the mark of naturalization. To these may be added names of gods or heroes, like Apollo, Pollux and perhaps Hercules. These all became naturalized Latin words and were modified by the phonetic changes which took place in the Latin language after they had come into it (cf. §§ 9-27 supra). (b) The second stage was probably the result of the closer intercourse resulting from the conquest of southern Italy, and the wars in Sicily, and of the contemporary introduction of imitations of Greek literature into Rome, with its numerous references to Greek life and culture. It is marked by the free use of hybrid forms, whether made by the addition of Latin suffixes to Greek stems as ballistārius, hēpatārius, subbasilicānus, sycophantiōsus, cōmissārī or of Greek suffixes to Latin stems as plāgipatidas, pernōnides; or by derivation, as thermopōtāre, supparasītāri; or by composition as ineuschēmē, thyrsigerae, flagritribae, scrophipascī. The character of many of these words shows that the comic poets who coined them must have been able to calculate upon a fair knowledge of colloquial Greek on the part of a considerable portion of their audience. The most remarkable instance of this is supplied by the burlesque lines in Plautus (Pers. 702 seq.), where Sagaristio describes himself as

During this period Greek words are still generally inflected according to the Latin usage.

(c) But with Accius (see below) begins a third stage, in which the Greek inflexion is frequently preserved, e.g. Hectora, Oresten, Cithaeron; and from this time forward the practice wavers. Cicero generally prefers the Latin case-endings, defending, e.g., Piraeeum as against Piraeea (ad Att. vii. 3, 7), but not without some fluctuation, while Varro takes the opposite side, and prefers poëmasin to the Ciceronian poëmatis. By this time also y and z were introduced, and the representation of the Greek aspirates by th, ph, ch, so that words newly borrowed from the Greek could be more faithfully reproduced. This is equally true whatever was the precise nature of the sound which at that period the Greek aspirates had reached in their secular process of change from pure aspirates (as in Eng. ant-hill, &c.) to fricatives (like Eng. th in thin). (See Arnold and Conway, The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, 4th ed., Cambridge, 1908, p. 21.)

(d) A fourth stage is marked by the practice of the Augustan poets, who, especially when writing in imitation of Greek originals, freely use the Greek inflexions, such as Arcaděs, Tethŷ, Aegida, Echūs, &c. Horace probably always used the Latin form in his Satires and Epistles, the Greek in his Odes. Later prose writers for the most part followed the example of his Odes. It must be added, however, in regard to these literary borrowings that it is not quite clear whether in this fourth class, and even in the unmodified forms in the preceding class, the words had really any living use in spoken Latin.

V. Pronunciation

This appears the proper place for a rapid survey of the pronunciation[1] of the Latin language, as spoken in its best days.

37. Consonants.—(i.) Back palatal. Breathed plosive c, pronounced always as k (except that in some early inscriptions—probably none much later, if at all later, than 300 B.C.—the character is used also for g) until about the 7th century after Christ. K went out of use at an early period, except in a few old abbreviations for words in which it had stood before a, e.g., kal. for kalendae. Q, always followed by the consonantal u, except in a few old inscriptions, in which it is used for c before the vowel u, e.g. pequnia. X, an abbreviation for cs; xs is, however, sometimes found. Voiced plosive g, pronounced as in English gone, but never as in English gem before about the 6th century after Christ. Aspirate h, the rough breathing as in English.

(ii.) Palatal.—The consonantal i, like the English y; it is only in late inscriptions that we find, in spellings like Zanuario, Giove, any definite indication of a pronunciation like the English j. The precise date of the change is difficult to determine (see Lindsay’s Latin Lang. p. 49), especially as we may, in isolated cases, have before us merely a dialectic variation; see [Paeligni].

(iii.) Lingual.—r as in English, but probably produced more with the point of the tongue. l similarly more dental than in English. s always breathed (as Eng. ce in ice). z, which is only found in the transcription of Greek words in and after the time of Cicero, as dz or zz.

(iv.) Dental.—Breathed, t as in English. Voiced, d as in English; but by the end of the 4th century di before a vowel was pronounced like our j (cf. diurnal and journal). Nasal, n as in English; but also (like the English n) a guttural nasal (ng) before a guttural. Apparently it was very lightly pronounced, and easily fell away before s.

(v.) Labial.—Breathed, p as in English. Voiced, b as in English; but occasionally in inscriptions of the later empire v is written for b, showing that in some cases b had already acquired the fricative sound of the contemporary β (see § 24, iii.). b before a sharp s was pronounced p, e.g. in urbs. Nasal, m as in English, but very slightly pronounced at the end of a word. Spirant, v like the ou in French oui, but later approximating to the w heard in some parts of Germany, Ed. Sievers, Grundzüge d. Phonetik, ed. 4, p. 117, i.e. a labial v, not (like the English v) a labio-dental v.

(vi.) Labio-dental.—Breathed fricative, f as in English.

38. Vowels.—ā, ū, ī, as the English ah, oo, ee; ō, a sound coming nearer to Eng. aw than to Eng. ō; ē a close Italian ē, nearly as the a of Eng. mate, ée of Fr. passée. The short sound of the vowels was not always identical in quality with the long sound. ă was pronounced as in the French chatte, ŭ nearly as in Eng. pull, ĭ nearly as in pit, ŏ as in dot, ĕ nearly as in pet. The diphthongs were produced by pronouncing in rapid succession the vowels of which they were composed, according to the above scheme. This gives, au somewhat broader than ou in house; eu like ow in the “Yankee” pronunciation of town; ae like the vowel in hat lengthened, with perhaps somewhat more approximation to the i in wine; oe, a diphthongal sound approximating to Eng. oi; ui, as the French oui.

To this it should be added that the Classical Association, acting on the advice of a committee of Latin scholars, has recommended for the diphthongs ae and oe the pronunciation of English i (really ai) in wine and oi in boil, sounds which they undoubtedly had in the time of Plautus and probably much later, and which for practical use in teaching have been proved far the best.

VI. The Language As Recorded

39. Passing now to a survey of the condition of the language at various epochs and in the different authors, we find the earliest monument of it yet discovered in a donative inscription on a fibula or brooch found in a tomb of the 7th century B.C. at Praeneste. It runs “Manios med fhefhaked Numasioi,” i.e. “Manios made me for Numasios.” The use of f (fh) to denote the sound of Latin f supplied the explanation of the change of the symbol f from its Greek value (= Eng. w) to its Latin value f, and shows the Chalcidian Greek alphabet in process of adaptation to the needs of Latin (see [Writing]). The reduplicated perfect, its 3rd sing. ending -ed, the dative masculine in -oi (this is one of the only two recorded examples in Latin), the -s- between vowels (§ 25, 1), and the -a- in what was then (see §§ 9, 10) certainly an unaccented syllable and the accusative med, are all interesting marks of antiquity.[2]

40. The next oldest fragment of continuous Latin is furnished by a vessel dug up in the valley between the Quirinal and the Viminal early in 1880. The vessel is of a dark brown clay, and consists of three small round pots, the sides of which are connected together. All round this vessel runs an inscription, in three clauses, two nearly continuous, the third written below; the writing is from right to left, and is still clearly legible; the characters include one sign not belonging to the later Latin alphabet, namely

for R, while the M has five strokes and the Q has the form of a Koppa.

The inscription is as follows:—

“iovesat deivos qoi med mitat, nei ted endo cosmis virco sied, asted noisi opetoitesiai pacari vois.

dvenos med feced en manom einom duenoi ne med malo statod.”

The general style of the writing and the phonetic peculiarities make it fairly certain that this work must have been produced not later than 300 B.C. Some points in its interpretation are still open to doubt,[3] but the probable interpretation is—

“Deos iurat ille (or iurant illi) qui me mittat (or mittant) ne in te Virgo (i.e. Proserpina) comis sit, nisi quidem optimo (?) Theseae (?) pacari vis. Duenos me fecit contra Manum, Dueno autem ne per me malum stato (= imputetur, imponatur).”

“He (or they) who dispatch me binds the gods (by his offering) that Proserpine shall not be kind to thee unless thou wilt make terms with (or “for”) Opetos Thesias (?). Duenos made me against Manus, but let no evil fall to Duenos on my account.”

41. Between these two inscriptions lies in point of date the famous stele discovered in the Forum in 1899 (G. Boni, Notiz. d. scavi, May 1899). The upper half had been cut off in order to make way for a new pavement or black stone blocks (known to archaeologists as the niger lapis) on the site of the comitium, just to the north-east of the Forum in front of the Senate House. The inscription was written lengthwise along the (pyramidal) stele from foot to apex, but with the alternate lines in reverse directions, and one line not on the full face of any one of the four sides, but up a roughly-flattened fifth side made by slightly broadening one of the angles. No single sentence is complete and the mutilated fragments have given rise to a whole literature of conjectural “restorations.”

R. S. Conway examined it in situ in company with F. Skutsch in 1903 (cf. his article in Vollmöller’s Jahresbericht, vi. 453), and the only words that can be regarded as reasonably certain are regei (regi) on face 2, kalatorem and iouxmenta on face 3, and iouestod (iusto) on face 4.[4] The date may be said to be fixed by the variation of the sign for m between

and

(with

for r) and other alphabetic indications which suggest the 5th century B.C. It has been suggested also that the reason for the destruction of the stele and the repavement may have been either (1) the pollution of the comitium by the Gallic invasion of 390 B.C., all traces of which, on their departure, could be best removed by a repaving; or (2) perhaps more probably, the Augustan restorations (Studniczka, Jahresheft d. Österr. Institut, 1903, vi. 129 ff.).

(R. S. C.)

42. Of the earlier long inscriptions the most important would be the Columna Rostrata, or column of Gaius Duilius (q.v.), erected to commemorate his victory over the Carthaginians in 260 B.C., but for the extent to which it has suffered from the hands of restorers. The shape of the letters plainly shows that the inscription, as we have it, was cut in the time of the empire. Hence Ritschl and Mommsen pointed out that the language was modified at the same time, and that, although many archaisms have been retained, some were falsely introduced, and others replaced by more modern forms. The most noteworthy features in it are—C always written for G (Ceset = gessit), single for double consonants (clases-classes), d retained in the ablative (e.g., in altod marid), o for u in inflexions (primos, exfociont = exfugiunt), e for i (navebos = navibus, exemet = exemit); of these the first is probably an affected archaism, G having been introduced some time before the assumed date of the inscription. On the other hand, we have praeda where we should have expected praida; no final consonants are dropped; and the forms -es, -eis and -is for the accusative plural are interchanged capriciously. The doubts hence arising preclude the possibility of using it with confidence as evidence for the state of the language in the 3rd century B.C.

43. Of unquestionable genuineness and the greatest value are the Scipionum Elogia, inscribed on stone coffins, found in the monument of the Scipios outside the Capene gate (C.I.L.1 i. 32). The earliest of the family whose epitaph has been preserved is L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (consul 298 B.C.), the latest C. Cornelius Scipio Hispanus (praetor in 139 B.C.); but there are good reasons for believing with Ritschl that the epitaph of the first was not contemporary, but was somewhat later than that of his son (consul 259 B.C.). This last may therefore be taken as the earliest specimen of any length of Latin and it was written at Rome; it runs as follows:—

The archaisms in this inscription are—(1) the retention of o for u in the inflexion of both nouns and verbs; (2) the diphthongs oi (= later u) and ai (= later ae); (3) -et for -it, hec for hic, and -ebus for -ibus; (4) duon- for bon; and (5) the dropping of a final m in every case except in Luciom, a variation which is a marked characteristic of the language of this period.

44. The oldest specimen of the Latin language preserved to us in any literary source is to be found in two fragments of the Carmina Saliaria (Varro, De ling. Lat. vii. 26, 27), and one in Terentianus Scaurus, but they are unfortunately so corrupt as to give us little real information (see B. Maurenbrecher, Carminum Saliarium reliquiae, Leipzig, 1894; G. Hempl, American Philol. Assoc. Transactions, xxxi., 1900, 184). Rather better evidence is supplied in the Carmen Fratrum Arvalium, which was found in 1778 engraved on one of the numerous tablets recording the transactions of the college of the Arval brothers, dug up on the site of their grove by the Tiber, 5 m. from the city of Rome; but this also has been so corrupted in its oral tradition that even its general meaning is by no means clear (C.I.L.1 i. 28; Jordan, Krit. Beiträge, pp. 203-211).

45. The text of the Twelve Tables (451-450 B.C.), if preserved in its integrity, would have been invaluable as a record of antique Latin; but it is known to us only in quotations. R. Schoell, whose edition and commentary (Leipzig, 1866) is the most complete, notes the following traces, among others, of an archaic syntax: (1) both the subject and the object of the verb are often left to be understood from the context, e.g. ni it antestamino, igitur, em capito; (2) the imperative is used even for permissions, “si volet, plus dato,” “if he choose, he may give him more”; (3) the subjunctive is apparently never used in conditional, only in final sentences, but the future perfect is common; (4) the connexion between sentences is of the simplest kind, and conjunctions are rare. There are, of course, numerous isolated archaisms of form and meaning, such as calvitur, pacunt, endo, escit. Later and less elaborate editions are contained in Fontes Iuris Romani, by Bruns-Mommsen-Gradenwitz (1892); and P. Girard, Textes de droit romain (1895).

46. Turning now to the language of literature we may group the Latin authors as follows:—[5]

I. Ante-Classical (240-80 B.C.).—Naevius (? 269-204), Plautus (254-184), Ennius (239-169), Cato the Elder (234-149), Terentius (? 195-159), Pacuvius (220-132), Accius (170-94), Lucilius (? 168-103).

II. Classical—Golden Age (80 B.C.-A.D. 14).—Varro (116-28), Cicero (106-44), Lucretius (99-55), Caesar (102-44), Catullus (87-? 47), Sallust (86-34), Virgil (70-19), Horace (65-8), Propertius (? 50- ?), Tibullus (? 54-? 18), Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18), Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 18).

III. Classical—Silver Age (A.D. 14-180).—Velleius (? 19 B.C.-? A.D. 31), M. Seneca (d. c. A.D. 30), Persius (34-62), Petronius (d. 66), Lucan (39-65), L. Seneca (d. A.D. 65), Plinius major (23-A.D. 79), Martial (40-101), Quintilian (42-118), Pliny the Younger (61-? 113), Tacitus (? 60-? 118), Juvenal (? 47-? 138), Suetonius (75-160), Fronto (c. 90-170).

47. Naevius and Plautus.—In Naevius we find archaisms proportionally much more numerous than in Plautus, especially in the retention of the original length of vowels, and early forms of inflexion, such as the genitive in -as and the ablative in -d. The number of archaic words preserved is perhaps due to the fact that so large a proportion of his fragments have been preserved only by the grammarians, who cited them for the express purpose of explaining these.

Of the language of Plautus important features have already been mentioned (§§ 10-16); for its more general characteristics see [Plautus].

48. Ennius.—The language of Ennius deserves especial study because of the immense influence which he exerted in fixing the literary style. He first established the rule that in hexameter verse all vowels followed by two consonants (except in the case of a mute and a liquid), or a double consonant, must be treated as lengthened by position. The number of varying quantities is also much diminished, and the elision of final -m becomes the rule, though not without exceptions. On the other hand he very commonly retains the original length of verbal terminations (essēt, faciēt) and of nominatives in or and a, and elides final s before an initial consonant. In declension he never uses -ae as the genitive, but -ai or -as; the older and shorter form of the gen. plur. is -um in common; obsolete forms of pronouns are used, as mis, olli, sum (= eum), sas, sos, sapsa; and in verbal inflexion there are old forms like morīmur (§ 15), fūimus (§ 17, vi.), potestur (cf. § 5, iv.). Some experiments in the way of tmesis (saxo cere comminuit-brum) and apocope (divum domus altisonum cael, replet te laetificum gau) were happily regarded as failures, and never came into real use. His syntax is simple and straightforward, with the occasional pleonasms of a rude style, and conjunctions are comparatively rare. From this time forward the literary language of Rome parted company with the popular dialect. Even to the classical writers Latin was in a certain sense a dead language. Its vocabulary was not identical with that of ordinary life. Now and again a writer would lend new vigour to his style by phrases and constructions drawn from homely speech. But on the whole, and in ever-increasing measure, the language of literature was the language of the schools, adapted to foreign models. The genuine current of Italian speech is almost lost to view with Plautus and Terence, and reappears clearly only in the semi-barbarous products of the early Romance literature.

49. Pacuvius, Accius and Lucilius.—Pacuvius is noteworthy especially for his attempt to introduce a free use of compounds after the fashion of the Greek, which were felt in the classical times to be unsuited to the genius of the Latin language, Quintilian censures severely his line—

Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus.

Accius, though probably the greatest of the Roman tragedians, is only preserved in comparatively unimportant fragments. We know that he paid much attention to grammar and orthography; and his language is much more finished than that of Ennius. It shows no marked archaisms of form, unless the infinitive in -ier is to be accounted as such.

Lucilius furnishes a specimen of the language of the period, free from the restraints of tragic diction and the imitation of Greek originals. Unfortunately the greater part of his fragments are preserved only by a grammarian whose text is exceptionally corrupt; but they leave no doubt as to the justice of the criticism passed by Horace on his careless and “muddy” diction. The urbanitas which is with one accord conceded to him by ancient critics seems to indicate that his style was free from the taint of provincial Latinity, and it may be regarded as reproducing the language of educated circles in ordinary life; the numerous Graecisms and Greek quotations with which it abounds show the familiarity of his readers with the Greek language and literature. Varro ascribes to him the gracile genus dicendi, the distinguishing features of which were venustas and subtilitas. Hence it appears that his numerous archaisms were regarded as in no way inconsistent with grace and precision of diction. But it may be remembered that Varro was himself something of an archaizer, and also that the grammarians’ quotations may bring this aspect too much into prominence. Lucilius shares with the comic poets the use of many plebeian expressions, the love for diminutives, abstract terms and words of abuse; but occasionally he borrows from the more elevated style of Ennius forms like simitu (= simul), noenu (= non), facul (= facile), and the genitive in -āī, and he ridicules the contemporary tragedians for their zetematia, their high-flown diction and sesquipedalia verba, which make the characters talk “not like men but like portents, flying winged snakes.” In his ninth book he discusses questions of grammar, and gives some interesting facts as to the tendencies of the language. For instance, when he ridicules a praetor urbanus for calling himself pretor, we see already the intrusion of the rustic degradation of ae into e, which afterwards became universal. He shows a great command of technical language, and (partly owing to the nature of the fragments) ἅπαξ λεγόμενα are very numerous.

50. Cato.—The treatise of Cato the elder, De re rustica, would have afforded invaluable material, but it has unfortunately come down to us in a text greatly modernized, which is more of interest from the point of view of literature than of language. We find in it, however, instances of the accusative with uti, of the old imperative praefamino and of the fut. sub. servassis, prohibessis and such interesting subjunctive constructions as dato bubus bibant omnibus, “give all the oxen (water) to drink.”

51. Growth of Latin Prose.—It is unfortunately impossible to trace the growth of Latin prose diction through its several stages with the same clearness as in the case of poetry. The fragments of the earlier Latin prose writers are too scanty for us to be able to say with certainty when and how a formed prose style was created. But the impulse to it was undoubtedly given in the habitual practice of oratory. The earliest orators, like Cato, were distinguished for strong common sense, biting wit and vigorous language, rather than for any graces of style; and probably personal auctoritas was of far more account than rhetoric both in the law courts and in the assemblies of the people. The first public speaker, according to Cicero, who aimed at a polished style and elaborate periods was M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina, in the middle of the 2nd century B.C.[6] On his model the Gracchi and Carbo fashioned themselves, and, if we may judge from the fragments of the orations of C. Gracchus which are preserved, there were few traces of archaism remaining. A more perfect example of the urbanitas at which good speakers aimed was supplied by a famous speech of C. Fannius against C. Gracchus, which Cicero considered the best oration of the time. No small part of the urbanitas consisted in a correct urban pronunciation; and the standard of this was found in the language of the women of the upper classes, such as Laelia and Cornelia.

In the earliest continuous prose work which remains to us the four books De Rhetorica ad Herennium, we find the language already almost indistinguishable from that of Cicero. There has been much discussion as to the authorship of this work, now commonly, without very convincing reasons, ascribed to Q. Cornificius; but, among the numerous arguments which prove that it cannot have been the work of Cicero, none has been adduced of any importance drawn from the character of the language. It is worth while noticing that not only is the style in itself perfectly finished, but the treatment of the subject of style, elocutio (iv. 12. 17), shows the pains which had already been given to the question. The writer lays down three chief requisites—(1) elegantia, (2) compositio and (3) dignitas. Under the first come Latinitas, a due avoidance of solecisms and barbarisms, and explanatio, clearness, the employment of familiar and appropriate expressions. The second demands a proper arrangement; hiatus, alliteration, rhyme, the repetition or displacement of words, and too long sentences are all to be eschewed. Dignity depends upon the selection of language and of sentiments.

52. Characteristics of Latin Prose.—Hence we see that by the time of Cicero Latin prose was fully developed. We may, therefore, pause here to notice the characteristic qualities of the language at its most perfect stage. The Latin critics were themselves fully conscious of the broad distinction in character between their own language and the Greek. Seneca dwells upon the stately and dignified movement of the Latin period, and uses for Cicero the happy epithet of gradarius. He allows to the Greeks gratia, but claims potentia for his own countrymen. Quintilian (xii. 10. 27 seq.) concedes to Greek more euphony and variety both of vocalization and of accent; he admits that Latin words are harsher in sound, and often less happily adapted to the expression of varying shades of meaning. But he too claims “power” as the distinguishing mark of his own language. Feeble thought may be carried off by the exquisite harmony and subtleness of Greek diction; his countrymen must aim at fulness and weight of ideas if they are not to be beaten off the field. The Greek authors are like lightly moving skiffs; the Romans spread wider sails and are wafted by stronger breezes; hence the deeper waters suit them. It is not that the Latin language fails to respond to the calls made upon it. Lucretius and Cicero concur, it is true, in complaints of the poverty of their native language; but this was only because they had had no predecessors in the task of adapting it to philosophic utterance; and the long life of Latin technical terms like qualitas, species, genus, ratio, shows how well the need was met when it arose. H. A. J. Munro has said admirably of this very period:—

“The living Latin for all the higher forms of composition, both prose and verse, was a far nobler language than the living Greek. During the long period of Grecian pre-eminence and literary glory, from Homer to Demosthenes, all the manifold forms of poetry and prose which were invented one after the other were brought to such exquisite perfection that their beauty of form and grace of language were never afterwards rivalled by Latin or any other people. But hardly had Demosthenes and Aristotle ceased to live when that Attic which had been gradually formed into such a noble instrument of thought in the hands of Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato and the orators, and had superseded for general use all the other dialects, became at the same time the language of the civilized world and was stricken with a mortal decay.... Epicurus, who was born in the same year as Menander, writes a harsh jargon that does not deserve to be called a style; and others of whose writings anything is left entire or in fragments, historians and philosophers alike, Polybius, Chrysippus, Philodemus, are little if any better. When Cicero deigns to translate any of their sentences, see what grace and life he instils into their clumsily expressed thoughts, how satisfying to the ear and taste are the periods of Livy when he is putting into Latin the heavy and uncouth clauses of Polybius! This may explain what Cicero means when at one time he gives to Greek the preference over Latin, at another to Latin over Greek; in reading Sophocles or Plato he could acknowledge their unrivalled excellence; in translating Panaetius or Philodemus he would feel his own immeasurable superiority.”

The greater number of long syllables, combined with the paucity of diphthongs and the consequent monotony of vocalization, and the uniformity of the accent, lent a weight and dignity of movement to the language which well suited the national gravitas. The precision of grammatical rules and the entire absence of dialectic forms from the written literature contributed to maintain the character of unity which marked the Roman republic as compared with the multiplicity of Greek states. It was remarked by Francis Bacon that artistic and imaginative nations indulge freely in verbal compounds, practical nations in simple concrete terms. In this respect, too, Latin contrasts with Greek. The attempts made by some of the earlier poets to indulge in novel compounds was felt to be out of harmony with the genius of the language. Composition, though necessarily employed, was kept within narrow limits, and the words thus produced have a sharply defined meaning, wholly unlike the poetical vagueness of some of the Greek compounds. The vocabulary of the language, though receiving accessions from time to time in accordance with practical needs, was rarely enriched by the products of a spontaneous creativeness. In literature the taste of the educated town circles gave the law; and these, trained in the study of the Greek masters of style, required something which should reproduce for them the harmony of the Greek period. Happily the orators who gave form to Latin prose were able to meet the demand without departing from the spirit of their own language.[7]

53. Cicero and Caesar.—To Cicero especially the Romans owed the realization of what was possible to their language in the way of artistic finish of style. He represents a protest at one and the same time against the inroads of the plebeius sermo, vulgarized by the constant influx of non-Italian provincials into Rome, and the “jargon of spurious and partial culture” in vogue among the Roman pupils of the Asiatic rhetoricians. His essential service was to have caught the tone and style of the true Roman urbanitas, and to have fixed it in extensive and widely read speeches and treatises as the final model of classical prose. The influence of Caesar was wholly in the same direction. His cardinal principle was that every new-fangled and affected expression, from whatever quarter it might come, should be avoided by the writer, as rocks by the mariner. His own style for straightforward simplicity and purity has never been surpassed; and it is not without full reason that Cicero and Caesar are regarded as the models of classical prose. But, while they fixed the type of the best Latin, they did not and could not alter its essential character. In subtlety, in suggestiveness, in many-sided grace and versatility, it remained far inferior to the Greek. But for dignity and force, for cadence and rhythm, for clearness and precision, the best Latin prose remains unrivalled.

It is needless to dwell upon the grammar or vocabulary of Cicero. His language is universally taken as the normal type of Latin; and, as hitherto the history of the language has been traced by marking differences from his usage, so the same method may be followed for what remains.

54. Varro, “the most learned of the ancients,” a friend and contemporary of Cicero, seems to have rejected the periodic rhythmical style of Cicero, and to have fallen back upon a more archaic structure. Mommsen says of one passage “the clauses of the sentence are arranged on the thread of the relative like dead thrushes on a string.” But, in spite (some would say, because) of his old-fashioned tendencies, his language shows great vigour and spirit. In his Menippean satires he intentionally made free use of plebeian expressions, while rising at times to a real grace and showing often fresh humour. His treatise De Re Rustica, in the form of a dialogue, is the most agreeable of his works, and where the nature of his subject allows it there is much vivacity and dramatic picturesqueness, although the precepts are necessarily given in a terse and abrupt form. His sentences are as a rule co-ordinated, with but few connecting links; his diction contains many antiquated or unique words.

55. Sallust.—In Sallust, a younger contemporary of Cicero, we have the earliest complete specimen of historical narrative. It is probably due to his subject-matter, at least in part, that his style is marked by frequent archaisms; but something must be ascribed to intentional imitation of the earlier chroniclers, which led him to be called priscorum Catonisque verborum ineruditissimus fur. His archaisms consist partly of words and phrases used in a sense for which we have only early authorities, e.g. cum animo habere, &c., animos tollere, bene factum, consultor, prosapia, dolus, venenum, obsequela, inquies, sallere, occipere, collibeo, and the like, where we may notice especially the fondness for frequentatives, which he shares with the early comedy; partly in inflections which were growing obsolete, such as senati, solui, comperior (dep.), neglegisset, vis (acc. pl.) nequitur. In syntax his constructions are for the most part those of the contemporary writers.

56. Lucretius is largely archaic in his style. We find im for eum, endo for in, illae, ullae, unae and aliae as genitives, alid for aliud, rabies as a genitive by the side of genitives in -ai, ablatives in -i like colli, orbi, parti, nominatives in s for r, like colos, vapos, humos. In verbs there are scatit, fulgit, quaesit, confluxet = confluxisset, recesse = recessisse, induiacere for inicere; simple forms like fligere, lacere, cedere, stinguere for the more usual compounds, the infinitive passive in -ier, and archaic forms from esse like siet, escit, fuat. Sometimes he indulges in tmesis which reminds us of Ennius: inque pediri, disque supata, ordia prima. But this archaic tinge is adopted only for poetical purposes, and as a proof of his devotion to the earlier masters of his art; it does not affect the general substance of his style, which is of the freshest and most vigorous stamp. But the purity of his idiom is not gained by any slavish adherence to a recognized vocabulary: he coins words freely; Munro has noted more than a hundred ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and frequentatives; others are directly borrowed from the Greek apparently with a view to sweetness of rhythm (ii. 412, v. 334, 505); others again (forty or more in number) are compounds of a kind which the classical language refused to adopt, such as silvifragus, terriloquus, perterricrepus. He represents not so much a stage in the history of the language as a protest against the tendencies fashionable in his own time. But his influence was deep upon Virgil, and through him upon all subsequent Latin literature.

57. Catullus gives us the type of the language of the cultivated circles, lifted into poetry by the simple directness with which it is used to express emotion. In his heroic and elegiac poems he did not escape the influence of the Alexandrian school, and his genius is ill suited for long-continued flights; but in his lyrical poems his language is altogether perfect. As Macaulay says: “No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans.” The language of these poems comes nearest perhaps to that of Cicero’s more intimate letters. It is full of colloquial idioms and familiar language, of the diminutives of affection or of playfulness. Greek words are rare, especially in the lyrics, and those which are employed are only such as had come to be current coin. Archaisms are but sparingly introduced; but for metrical reasons he has four instances of the inf. pass., in -ier, and several contracted forms; we find also alis and alid, uni (gen.), and the antiquated tetuli and recepso. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives cavĕ and manĕ, in the analytic perfect paratam habes, and in the use of unus approaching that of the indefinite article.

58. Horace.—The poets of the Augustan age mark the opening of a new chapter in the history of the Latin language. The influence of Horace was less than that of his friend and contemporary Virgil; for Horace worked in a field of his own, and, although Statius imitated his lyrics, and Persius and Juvenal, especially the former, his satires, on the whole there are few traces of any deep marks left by him on the language of later writers. In his Satires and Epistles the diction is that of the contemporary urbanitas, differing hardly at all from that of Cicero in his epistles and dialogues. The occasional archaisms, such as the syncope in erepsemus, evasse, surrexe, the infinitives in -ier, and the genitives deum, divum, may be explained as still conversationally allowable, though ceasing to be current in literature; and a similar explanation may account for plebeian terms, e.g. balatro, blatero, giarrio, mutto, vappa, caldus, soldus, surpite, for the numerous diminutives, and for such pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions and turns of expression as were common in prose, but not found, or found but rarely, in elevated poetry. Greek words are used sparingly, not with the licence which he censures in Lucilius, and in his hexameters are framed according to Latin rules. In the Odes, on the other hand, the language is much more precisely limited. There are practically no archaisms (spargier in Carm. iv. 11. 8 is a doubtful exception), or plebeian expressions; Greek inflections are employed, but not with the licence of Catullus; there are no datives in ĭ or sĭn like Tethyĭ or Dryasin; Greek constructions are fairly numerous, e.g. the genitive with verbs like regnare, abstinere, desinere, and with adjectives, as integer vitae, the so-called Greek accusative, the dative with verbs of contest, like luctari, decertare, the transitive use of many intransitive verbs in the past participle, as regnatus, triumphatus; and finally there is a “prolative” use of the infinitive after verbs and adjectives, where prose would have employed other constructions, which, though not limited to Horace, is more common with him than with other poets. Compounds are very sparingly employed, and apparently only when sanctioned by authority. His own innovations in vocabulary are not numerous. About eighty ἅπαξ λεγόμενα have been noted. Like Virgil, he shows his exquisite skill in the use of language rather in the selection from already existing stores, than in the creation of new resources: tantum series iuncturaque pollet. But both his diction and his syntax left much less marked traces upon succeeding writers than did those of either Virgil or Ovid.

59. Virgil.—In Virgil the Latin language reached its full maturity. What Cicero was to the period, Virgil was to the hexameter; indeed the changes that he wrought were still more marked, inasmuch as the language of verse admits of greater subtlety and finish than even the most artistic prose. For the straightforward idiomatic simplicity of Lucretius and Catullus he substituted a most exact and felicitous diction, rich with the suggestion of the most varied sources of inspiration. Sometimes it is a phrase of Homer’s “conveyed” literally with happy boldness, sometimes it is a line of Ennius, or again some artistic Sophoclean combination. Virgil was equally familiar with the great Greek models of style and with the earlier Latin poets. This learning, guided by an unerring sense of fitness and harmony, enabled him to give to his diction a music which recalls at once the fullest tones of the Greek lyre and the lofty strains of the most genuinely national song. His love of antiquarianism in language has often been noticed, but it never passes into pedantry. His vocabulary and constructions are often such as would have conveyed to his contemporaries a grateful flavour of the past, but they would never have been unintelligible. Forms like iusso, olle or admittier can have delayed no one.

In the details of syntax it is difficult to notice any peculiarly Virgilian points, for the reason that his language, like that of Cicero, became the canon, departures from which were accounted irregularities. But we may notice as favourite constructions a free use of oblique cases in the place of the more definite construction with prepositions usual in prose, e.g. it clamor caelo, flet noctem, rivis currentia vina, bacchatam iugis Naxon, and many similar phrases; the employment of some substantives as adjectives, like venator canis, and vice versa, as plurimus volitans; a proleptic use of adjectives, as tristia torquebit; idioms involving ille, atque, deinde, haud, quin, vix, and the frequent occurrence of passive verbs in their earlier reflexive sense, as induor, velor, pascor.

60. Livy.—In the singularly varied and beautiful style of Livy we find Latin prose in rich maturity. To a training in the rhetorical schools, and perhaps professional experience as a teacher of rhetoric, he added a thorough familiarity with contemporary poetry and with the Greek language; and these attainments have all deeply coloured his language. It is probable that the variety of style naturally suggested by the wide range of his subject matter was increased by a half-unconscious adoption of the phrases and constructions of the different authorities whom he followed in different parts of his work; and the industry of German critics has gone far to demonstrate a conclusion likely enough in itself. Hence perhaps comes the fairly long list of archaisms, especially in formulae (cf. Kühnast, Liv. Synt. pp. 14-18). These are, however, purely isolated phenomena, which do not affect the general tone. It is different with the poetical constructions and Graecisms, which appear on every page. Of the latter we find numerous instances in the use of the cases, e.g. in genitives like via praedae omissae, oppidum Antiochiae, aequum campi; in datives like quibusdam volentibus erat; in accusatives like iurare calumniam, certare multam; an especially frequent use of transitive verbs absolutely; and the constant omission of the reflexive pronoun as the subject of an infinitive in reported speech. To the same source must be assigned the very frequent pregnant construction with prepositions, an attraction of relatives, and the great extension of the employment of relative adverbs of place instead of relative pronouns, e.g. quo = in quem. Among his poetical characteristics we may place the extensive list of words which are found for the first time in his works and in those of Virgil or Ovid, and perhaps his common use of concrete words for collective, e.g. eques for equitatus, of abstract terms such as remigium, servitia, robora, and of frequentative verbs, to say nothing of poetical phrases like haec ubi dicta dedit, adversum montium, &c. Indications of the extended use of the subjunctive, which he shares with contemporary writers, especially poets, are found in the construction of ante quam, post quam with this mood, even when there is no underlying notion of anticipation, of donec, and of cum meaning “whenever.” On the other hand, forsitan and quamvis, as in the poets, are used with the indicative in forgetfulness of their original force. Among his individual peculiarities may be noticed the large number of verbal nouns in -tus (for which Cicero prefers forms in -tio) and in -tor, and the extensive use of the past passive participle to replace an abstract substantive, e.g. ex dictatorio imperio concusso. In the arrangement of words Livy is much more free than any previous prose writer, aiming, like the poets, at the most effective order. His periods are constructed with less regularity than those of Cicero, but they gain at least as much in variety and energy as they lose in uniformity of rhythm and artistic finish. His style cannot be more fitly described than in the language of Quintilian, who speaks of his mira iucunditas and lactea ubertas.

61. Propertius.—The language of Propertius is too distinctly his own to call for detailed examination here. It cannot be taken as a specimen of the great current of the Latin language; it is rather a tributary springing from a source apart, tinging to some slight extent the stream into which it pours itself, but soon ceasing to affect it in any perceptible fashion. “His obscurity, his indirectness and his incoherence” (to adopt the words of J. P. Postgate) were too much out of harmony with the Latin taste for him to be regarded as in any sense representative; sometimes he seems to be hardly writing Latin at all. Partly from his own strikingly independent genius, partly from his profound and not always judicious study of the Alexandrian writers, his poems abound in phrases and constructions which are without a parallel in Latin poetry. His archaisms and Graecisms, both in diction and in syntax, are very numerous; but frequently there is a freedom in the use of cases and prepositions which can only be due to bold and independent innovations. His style well deserves a careful study for its own sake (cf. J. P. Postgate’s Introduction, pp. lvii.-cxxv.); but it is of comparatively little significance in the history of the language.

62. Ovid.—The brief and few poems of Tibullus supply only what is given much more fully in the works of Ovid. In these we have the language recognized as that best fitted for poetry by the fashionable circles in the later years of Augustus. The style of Ovid bears many traces of the imitation of Virgil, Horace and Propertius, but it is not less deeply affected by the rhetoric of the schools. His never-failing fertility of fancy and command of diction often lead him into a diffuseness which mars the effect of his best works; according to Quintilian it was only in his (lost) tragedy of Medea that he showed what real excellence he might have reached if he had chosen to control his natural powers. His influence on later poets was largely for evil; if he taught them smoothness of versification and polish of language, he also co-operated powerfully with the practice of recitation to lead them to aim at rhetorical point and striking turns of expression, instead of a firm grasp of a subject as a whole, and due subordination of the several parts to the general impression. Ovid’s own influence on language was not great; he took the diction of poetry as he found it, formed by the labours of his predecessors; the conflict between the archaistic and the Graecizing schools was already settled in favour of the latter; and all that he did was to accept the generally accepted models as supplying the material in moulding which his luxuriant fancy could have free play. He has no deviations from classical syntax but those which were coming into fashion in his time (e.g. forsitan and quamvis with the indic., the dative of the agent with passive verbs, the ablative for the accusative of time, the infinitive after adjectives like certus, aptus, &c.), and but few peculiarities in his vocabulary. It is only in the letters from the Pontus that laxities of construction are detected, which show that the purity of his Latin was impaired by his residence away from Rome, and perhaps by increasing carelessness of composition.

63. The Latin of Daily Life.—While the leading writers of the Ciceronian and Augustan eras enable us to trace the gradual development of the Latin language to its utmost finish as an instrument of literary expression, there are some less important authors who supply valuable evidence of the character of the sermo plebeius. Among them may be placed the authors of the Bellum Africanum and the Bellum Hispaniense appended to Caesar’s Commentaries. These are not only far inferior to the exquisite urbanitas of Caesar’s own writings; they are much rougher in style even than the less polished Bellum Alexandrinum and De Bello Gallico Liber VIII., which are now with justice ascribed to Hirtius. There is sufficient difference between the two to justify us in assuming two different authors; but both freely employ words and constructions which are at once antiquated and vulgar. The writer of the Bellum Alexandrinum uses a larger number of diminutives within his short treatise than Caesar in nearly ten times the space; postquam and ubi are used with the pluperfect subjunctive; there are numerous forms unknown to the best Latin, like tristimonia, exporrigere, cruciabiliter and convulnero; potior is followed by the accusative, a simple relative by the subjunctive. There is also a very common use of the pluperfect for the imperfect, which seems a mark of this plebeius sermo (Nipperdey, Quaest. Caes. pp. 13-30).

Another example of what we may call the Latin of business life is supplied by Vitruvius. Besides the obscurity of many of his technical expressions, there is a roughness and looseness in his language, far removed from a literary style; he shares the incorrect use of the pluperfect, and uses plebeian forms like calefaciuntur, faciliter, expertiones and such careless phrases as rogavit Archimedem uti in se sumeret sibi de eo cogitationem. At a somewhat later stage we have, not merely plebeian, but also provincial Latin represented in the Satyricon of Petronius. The narrative and the poems which are introduced into it are written in a style distinguished only by the ordinary peculiarities of silver Latinity; but in the numerous conversations the distinctions of language appropriate to the various speakers are accurately preserved; and we have in the talk of the slaves and provincials a perfect storehouse of words and constructions of the greatest linguistic value. Among the unclassical forms and constructions may be noticed masculines like fatus, vinus, balneus, fericulus and lactem (for lac), striga for strix, gaudimonium and tristimonium, sanguen, manducare, nutricare, molestare, nesapius (sapius = Fr. sage), rostrum (= os), ipsimus (= master), scordalias, baro, and numerous diminutives like camella, audaculus, potiuncula, savunculum, offla, peduclus, corcillum, with constructions such as maledicere and persuadere with the accusative, and adiutare with the dative, and the deponent forms pudeatur and ridetur. Of especial interest for the Romance languages are astrum (désastre), berbex (brébis), botellus (boyau), improperare, muttus, naufragare.

Suetonius (Aug. c. 87) gives an interesting selection of plebeian words employed in conversation by Augustus, who for the rest was something of a purist in his written utterances: ponit assidue et pro stulto baceolum, et pro pullo pulleiaceum, et pro cerrito vacerrosum, et vapide se habere pro male, et betizare pro languere, quod vulgo lachanizare dicitur.

The inscriptions, especially those of Pompeii, supply abundant evidence of the corruptions both of forms and of pronunciation common among the vulgar. It is not easy always to determine whether a mutilated form is evidence of a letter omitted in pronunciation, or only in writing; but it is clear that the ordinary man habitually dropped final m, s, and t, omitted n before s, and pronounced ĭ like ĕ. There are already signs of the decay of ae to e, which later on became almost universal. The additions to our vocabulary are slight and unimportant (cf. Corpus Inscr. Lat. iv., with Zangemeister’s Indices).

64. To turn to the language of literature. In the dark days of Tiberius and the two succeeding emperors a paralysis seemed to have come upon prose and poetry alike. With the one exception of oratory, literature had long been the utterance of a narrow circle, not the expression of the energies of national life; and now, while all free speech in the popular assemblies was silenced, the nobles were living under a suspicious despotism, which, whatever the advantage which it brought to the poorer classes and to the provincials, was to them a reign of terror. It is no wonder that the fifty years after the accession of Tiberius are a blank as regards all higher literature. Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, Celsus and Phaedrus give specimens of the Latin of the time, but the style of no one of these, classical for the most part in vocabulary, but occasionally approaching the later usages in syntax, calls for special analysis. The elder Seneca in his collection of suasoriae and controversiae supplies examples of the barren quibblings by which the young Romans were trained in the rhetorical schools. A course of instruction, which may have been of service when its end was efficiency in active public life, though even then not without its serious drawbacks, as is shown by Cicero in his treatise De Oratore, became seriously injurious when its object was merely idle display. Prose came to be overloaded with ornament, and borrowed too often the language, though not the genius, of poetry; while poetry in its turn, partly owing to the fashion of recitation, became a string of rhetorical points.

65. Seneca, Persius and Lucan.—In the writers of Nero’s age there are already plain indications of the evil effects of the rhetorical schools upon language as well as literature. The leading man of letters was undoubtedly Seneca the younger, “the Ovid of prose”; and his style set the model which it became the fashion to imitate. But it could not commend itself to the judgment of sound critics like Quintilian, who held firmly to the great masters of an earlier time. He admits its brilliance, and the fertility of its pointed reflections, but charges the author justly with want of self-restraint, jerkiness, frequent repetitions and tawdry tricks of rhetoric. Seneca was the worst of models, and pleased by his very faults. In his tragedies the rhetorical elaboration of the style only serves to bring into prominence the frigidity and frequent bad taste of the matter. But his diction is on the whole fairly classical; he is, in the words of Muretus, vetusti sermonis diligentior quam quidam inepte fastidiosi suspicantur. In Persius there is a constant straining after rhetorical effect, which fills his verses with harsh and obscure expressions. The careful choice of diction by which his master Horace makes every word tell is exaggerated into an endeavour to gain force and freshness by the most contorted phrases. The sin of allusiveness is fostered by the fashion of the day for epigram, till his lines are barely intelligible after repeated reading. Conington happily suggested that this style was assumed only for satiric purposes, and pointed out that when not writing satire Persius was as simple and unaffected as Horace himself. This view, while it relieves Persius of much of the censure which has been directed against his want of judgment, makes him all the more typical a representative of this stage of silver Latinity. In his contemporary Lucan we have another example of the faults of a style especially attractive to the young, handled by a youth of brilliant but ill-disciplined powers. The Pharsalia abounds in spirited rhetoric, in striking epigram, in high sounding declamation; but there are no flights of sustained imagination, no ripe wisdom, no self-control in avoiding the exaggerated or the repulsive, no mature philosophy of life or human destiny. Of all the Latin poets he is the least Virgilian. It has been said of him that he corrupted the style of poetry, not less than Seneca that of prose.

66. Pliny, Quintilian, Frontinus.—In the elder Pliny the same tendencies are seen occasionally breaking out in the midst of the prosaic and inartistic form in which he gives out the stores of his cumbrous erudition. Wherever he attempts a loftier tone than that of the mere compiler, he falls into the tricks of Seneca. The nature of his encyclopaedic subject matter naturally makes his vocabulary very extensive; but in syntax and general tone of language he does not differ materially from contemporary writers. Quintilian is of interest especially for the sound judgment which led him to a true appreciation of the writers of Rome’s golden age. He set himself strenuously to resist the tawdry rhetoric fashionable in his own time, and to hold up before his pupils purer and loftier models. His own criticisms are marked by excellent taste, and often by great happiness of expression, which is pointed without being unduly epigrammatic. But his own style did not escape, as indeed it hardly could, the influences of his time; and in many small points his language falls short of classical purity. There is more approach to the simplicity of the best models in Frontinus, who furnishes a striking proof that it was rather the corruption of literary taste than any serious change in the language of ordinary cultivated men to which the prevalent style was due. Writing on practical matters—the art of war and the water-supply of Rome—he goes straight to the point without rhetorical flourishes; and the ornaments of style which he occasionally introduces serve to embellish but not to distort his thought.

67. The Flavian Age.—The epic poets of the Flavian age present a striking contrast to the writers of the Claudian period. As a strained originality was the cardinal fault of the one school, so a tame and slavish following of authority is the mark of the other. The general correctness of this period may perhaps be ascribed (with Merivale) partly to the political conditions, partly to the establishment of professional schools. Teachers like Quintilian must have done much to repress extravagance of thought and language; but they could not kindle the spark of genius. Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus and Papinius Statius are all correct in diction and in rhythm, and abound in learning; but their inspiration is drawn from books and not from nature or the heart; details are elaborated to the injury of the impression of the whole; every line is laboured, and overcharged with epigrammatic rhetoric. Statius shows by far the greatest natural ability and freshness; but he attempts to fill a broad canvas with drawing and colouring suited only to a miniature. Juvenal exemplifies the tendencies of the language of his time, as moulded by a singularly powerful mind. A careful study of the earlier poets, especially Virgil and Lucan, has kept his language up to a high standard of purity. His style is eminently rhetorical; but it is rhetoric of real power. The concise brevity by which it is marked seems to have been the result of a deliberate attempt to mould his natural diffuseness into the form recognized as most appropriate for satire. In his verses we notice a few metrical peculiarities which represent the pronunciation of his age, especially the shortening of the final -o in verbs, but as a rule they conform to the Virgilian standard. In Martial the tendency of this period to witty epigram finds its most perfect embodiment, combined with finished versification.

68. Pliny the Younger and Tacitus.—The typical prose-writers of this time are Pliny the younger and Tacitus. Some features of the style of Tacitus are peculiar to himself; but on the whole the following statement represents the tendencies shared in greater or less degree by all the writers of this period. The gains lie mainly in the direction of a more varied and occasionally more effective syntax; its most striking defect is a lack of harmony in the periods, of arrangements in words, of variety in particles arising from the loose connexion of sentences. The vocabulary is extended, but there are losses as well as gains. Quintilian’s remarks are fully borne out by the evidence of extant authorities: on the one hand, quid quod nihil iam proprium placet, dum parum creditur disertum, quod et alius dixisset (viii. prooem. 24); a corruptissimo quoque poetarum figuras seu translationes mutuamur; tum demum ingeniosi scilicet, si ad intelligendos nos opus sit ingenio (ib. 25); sordet omne quod natura dictavit (ib. 26); on the other hand, nunc utique, cum haec exercitatio procul a veritate seiuncta laboret incredibili verborum fastidio, ac sibi magnam partem sermonis absciderit (viii. 3, 23), multa cotidie ab antiquis ficta moriuntur (ib. 6, 32). A writer like Suetonius therefore did good service in introducing into his writings terms and phrases borrowed, not from the rhetoricians, but from the usage of daily life.

69. In the vocabulary of Tacitus there are to be noted:—

1. Words borrowed (consciously or unconsciously) from the classical poets, especially Virgil, occurring for the most part also in contemporary prose. Of these Dräger gives a list of ninety-five (Syntax und Stil des Tacitus, p. 96).

2. Words occurring only, or for the first time, in Tacitus. These are for the most part new formations or compounds from stems already in use, especially verbal substantives in -tor and -sor, -tus and -sus, -tura and -mentum, with new frequentatives.

3. Words used with a meaning (a) not found in earlier prose, but sometimes borrowed from the poets, e.g. componere, “to bury”; scriptura, “a writing”; ferratus “armed with a sword”; (b) peculiar to later writers, e.g. numerosus, “numerous”; famosus, “famous”; decollare, “to behead”; imputare, “to take credit for,” &c.; (c) restricted to Tacitus himself, e.g. dispergere = divolgare.

Generally speaking, Tacitus likes to use a simple verb instead of a compound one, after the fashion of the poets, employs a pluperfect for a perfect, and (like Livy and sometimes Caesar) aims at vividness and variety by retaining the present and perfect subjunctive in indirect speech even after historical tenses. Collective words are followed by a plural far more commonly than in Cicero. The ellipse of a verb is more frequent. The use of the cases approximates to that of the poets, and is even more free. The accusative of limitation is common in Tacitus, though never found in Quintilian. Compound verbs are frequently followed by the accusative where the dative might have been expected; and the Virgilian construction of an accusative with middle and passive verbs is not unusual. The dative of purpose and the dative with a substantive in place of a genitive are more common with Tacitus than with any writer. The ablative of separation is used without a preposition, even with names of countries and with common nouns; the ablative of place is employed similarly without a preposition; the ablative of time has sometimes the force of duration; the instrumental ablative is employed even of persons. A large extension is given to the use of the quantitative genitive after neuter adjectives and pronouns, and even adverbs, and to the genitive with active participles; and the genitive of relation after adjectives is (probably by a Graecism) very freely employed. In regard to prepositions, there are special uses of citra, erga, iuxta and tenus to be noted, and a frequent tendency to interchange the use of a preposition with that of a simple case in corresponding clauses. In subordinate sentences quod is used for “the fact that,” and sometimes approaches the later use of “that”; the infinitive follows many verbs and adjectives that do not admit of this construction in classical prose; the accusative and infinitive are used after negative expressions of doubt, and even in modal and hypothetical clauses.

Like Livy, the writers of this time freely employ the subjunctive of repeated action with a relative, and extend its use to relative conjunctions, which he does not. In clauses of comparison and proportion there is frequently an ellipse of a verb (with nihil aliud quam, ut, tanquam); tanquam, quasi and velut are used to imply not comparison but alleged reason; quin and quominus are interchanged at pleasure. Quamquam and quamvis are commonly followed by the subjunctive, even when denoting facts. The free use of the genitive and dative of the gerundive to denote purpose is common in Tacitus, the former being almost limited to him. Livy’s practice in the use of participles is extended even beyond the limits to which he restricts it. It has been calculated that where Caesar uses five participial clauses, Livy has sixteen, Tacitus twenty-four.

In his compressed brevity Tacitus may be said to be individual; but in the poetical colouring of his diction, in the rhetorical cast of his sentences, and in his love for picturesqueness and variety he is a true representative of his time.

70. Suetonius.—The language of Suetonius is of interest as giving a specimen of silver Latinity almost entirely free from personal idiosyncrasies; his expressions are regular and straightforward, clear and business-like; and, while in grammar he does not attain to classical purity, he is comparatively free from rhetorical affectations.

71. The African Latinity.—A new era commences with the accession of Hadrian (117). As the preceding half century had been marked by the influence of Spanish Latinity (the Senecas, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian), so in this the African style was paramount. This is the period of affected archaisms and pedantic learning, combined at times with a reckless love of innovation and experiment, resulting in the creation of a large number of new formations and in the adoption of much of the plebeian dialect. Fronto and Apuleius mark a strong reaction against the culture of the preceding century, and for evil far more than for good the chain of literary tradition was broken. The language which had been unduly refined and elaborated now relapsed into a tasteless and confused patch-work, without either harmony or brilliance of colouring. In the case of the former the subject matter is no set-off against the inferiority of the style. He deliberately attempts to go back to the obsolete diction of writers like Cato and Ennius. We find compounds like altipendulus, nudiustertianus, tolutiloquentia, diminutives such as matercella, anulla, passercula, studiolum, forms like congarrire, disconcinnus, pedetemptius, desiderantissimus (passive), conticinium; gaudeo, oboedio and perfungor are used with an accusative, modestus with a genitive. On the other hand he actually attempts to revive the form asa for ara. In Apuleius the archaic element is only one element in the queer mixture which constitutes his style, and it probably was not intended to give the tone to the whole. Poetical and prosaic phrases, Graecisms, solecisms, jingling assonances, quotations and coinages apparently on the spur of the moment, all appear in this wonderful medley. There are found such extraordinary genitives as sitire beatitudinis, cenae pignerarer, incoram omnium, foras corporis, sometimes heaped one upon another as fluxos vestium Arsacidas et frugum pauperes Ityraeos et odorum divites Arabas. Diminutives are coined with reckless freedom, e.g. diutule, longule, mundule amicta el altiuscule sub ipsas papillas succinctula. He confesses himself that he is writing in a language not familiar to him: In urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui; and the general impression of his style fully bears out his confession. Melanchthon is hardly too severe when he says that Apuleius brays like his own ass. The language of Aulus Gellius is much superior in purity; but still it abounds in rare and archaic words, e.g. edulcare, recentari, aeruscator, and in meaningless frequentatives like solitavisse. He has some admirable remarks on the pedantry of those who delighted in obsolete expressions (xi. 7) such as apluda, flocus and bovinator; but his practice falls far short of his theory.

72. The Lawyers.—The style of the eminent lawyers of this period, foremost among whom is Gaius, deserves especial notice as showing well one of the characteristic excellences of the Latin language. It is for the most part dry and unadorned, and in syntax departs occasionally from classical usages, but it is clear, terse and exact. Technical terms may cause difficulty to the ordinary reader, but their meaning is always precisely defined; new compounds are employed whenever the subject requires them, but the capacities of the language rise to the demands made upon it; and the conceptions of jurisprudence have never been more adequately expressed than by the great Romanist jurists.

(A. S. W.; R. S. C.)

For the subsequent history of the language see [Romance Languages].

[1] The grounds for this pronunciation will be found best stated in Postgate, How to pronounce Latin (1907), Arnold and Conway, The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin (4th ed., Cambridge, 1908); and in the grammars enumerated in § 28 above, especially the preface to vol. i. of Roby’s Grammar. The chief points about c may be briefly given as a specimen of the kind of evidence. (1) In some words the letter following c varies in a manner which makes it impossible to believe that the pronunciation of the c depended upon this, e.g. decumus and decimus, dīc from Plaut. dīce; (2) if c was pronounced before e and i otherwise than before a, o and u, it is hard to see why k should not have been retained for the latter use; (3) no ancient writer gives any hint of a varying pronunciation of c; (4) a Greek κ is always transliterated by c, and c by κ; (5) Latin words containing c borrowed by Gothic and early High German are always spelt with k; (6) the varying pronunciations of ce, ci in the Romance languages are inexplicable except as derived independently from an original ke, ki.

[2] The inscription was first published by Helbig and Dümmler in Mittheilungen des deutschen archaol. Inst. Rom. ii. 40; since in C.I.L. xiv. 4123 and Conway, Italic Dial. 280, where other references will be found.

[3] This inscription was first published by Dressel, Annali dell’ Inst. Archeol. Romano (1880), p. 158, and since then by a multitude of commentators. The view of the inscription as a curse, translating a Greek cursing-formula, which has been generally adopted, was first put forward by R. S. Conway in the American Journal of Philology, x. (1889), 453; see further his commentary Italic Dialects, p. 329, and since then G. Hempl, Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. xxxiii. (1902), 150, whose interpretation of iouesat = iurat and Opetoi Tesiai has been here adopted, and who gives other references.

[4] The most important writings upon it are those of Domenico Comparetti, Iscriz. arcaica del Foro Romano (Florence-Rome, 1900); Hülsen, Berl. philolog. Wochenschrift (1899), No. 40; and Thurneysen, Rheinisches Museum (Neue Folge), iii. 2. Prof. G. Tropea gives a Cronaca della discussione in a series of very useful articles in the Rivista di storia antica (Messina, 1900 and 1901). Skutsch’s article already cited puts the trustworthy results in an exceedingly brief compass.

[5] For further information see special articles on these authors, and [Latin Literature].

[6] Cicero also refers to certain scripta dulcissima of the son of Scipio Africanus Maior, which must have possessed some merits of style.

[7] The study of the rhythm of the Clausulae, i.e. of the last dozen (or half-dozen) syllables of a period in different Latin authors, has been remarkably developed in the last three years, and is of the highest importance for the criticism of Latin prose. It is only possible to refer to Th. Zielinski’s Das Clauselgesetz in Cicero’s Reden (St. Petersburg, 1904), reviewed by A. C. Clark in Classical Review, 1905, p. 164, and to F. Skutsch’s important comments in Vollmöller’s Jahresberichten über die Fortschritte der romanischen Philologie (1905) and Glotta (i. 1908, esp. p. 413), also to A. C. Clark’s Fontes Prosae Numerosae (Oxford, 1909), The Cursus in Mediaeval and Vulgar Latin (ibid. 1910), and article [Cicero].

LATIN LITERATURE. The germs of an indigenous literature had existed at an early period in Rome and in the country districts of Italy, and they have an importance as indicating natural wants in the Italian race, which were ultimately satisfied by regular literary forms. The art of writing was first employed in the service of the state and of religion for books of ritual, treaties with other states, the laws of the Twelve Tables and the like. An approach to literature was made in the Annales Maximi, records of private families, funeral orations and inscriptions on busts and tombs such as those of the Scipios in the Appian Way. In the satisfaction they afforded to the commemorative and patriotic instincts they anticipated an office afterwards performed by the national epics and the works of regular historians. A still nearer approach to literature was probably made in oratory, as we learn from Cicero that the famous speech delivered by Appius Claudius Caecus against concluding peace with Pyrrhus (280 B.C.) was extant in his time. Appius also published a collection of moral maxims and reflections in verse. No other name associated with any form of literature belonging to the pre-literary age has been preserved by tradition.

But it was rather in the chants and litanies of the ancient religion, such as those of the Salii and the Fratres Arvales, and the dirges for the dead (neniae), and in certain extemporaneous effusions, that some germs of a native poetry might have been detected; and finally in the use of Saturnian verse, a metre of pure native origin, which by its rapid and lively movement gave expression to the vivacity and quick apprehension of the Italian race. This metre was employed in ritual hymns, which seem to have assumed definite shapes out of the exclamations of a primitive priesthood engaged in a rude ceremonial dance. It was also used by a class of bards or itinerant soothsayers known by the name of vates, of whom the most famous was one Marcius, and in the “Fescennine verses,” as sung at harvest-homes and weddings, which gave expression to the coarse gaiety of the people and to their strong tendency to personal raillery and satiric comment. The metre was also employed in commemorative poems, accompanied with music, which were sung at funeral banquets in celebration of the exploits and virtues of distinguished men. These had their origin in the same impulse which ultimately found its full gratification in Roman history, Roman epic poetry, and that form of Roman oratory known as laudationes, and in some of the Odes of Horace. The latest and probably the most important of these rude and inchoate forms was that of dramatic saturae (medleys), put together without any regular plot and consisting apparently of contests of wit and satiric invective, and perhaps of comments on current events, accompanied with music (Livy vii. 2). These have a real bearing on the subsequent development of Latin literature. They prepared the mind of the people for the reception of regular comedy. They may have contributed to the formation of the style of comedy which appears at the very outset much more mature than that of serious poetry, tragic or epic. They gave the name and some of the characteristics to that special literary product of the Roman soil, the satura, addressed to readers, not to spectators, which ultimately was developed into pure poetic satire in Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal, into the prose and verse miscellany of Varro, and into something approaching the prose novel in Petronius.

First Period: from 240 to about 80 B.C.

The historical event which brought about the greatest change in the intellectual condition of the Romans, and thereby exercised a decisive influence on the whole course of human culture, was the capture of Tarentum in 272. After Livius Andronicus. the capture many Greek slaves were brought to Rome, and among them the young Livius Andronicus (c. 284-204), who was employed in teaching Greek in the family of his master, a member of the Livian gens. From that time to learn Greek became a regular part of the education of a Roman noble. The capture of Tarentum was followed by the complete Romanizing of all southern Italy. Soon after came the first Punic war, the principal scene of which was Sicily, where, from common hostility to the Carthaginian, Greek and Roman were brought into friendly relations, and the Roman armies must have become familiar with the spectacles and performances of the Greek theatre. In the year after the war (240), when the armies had returned and the people were at leisure to enjoy the fruits of victory, Livius Andronicus substituted at one of the public festivals a regular drama, translated or adapted from the Greek, for the musical medleys (saturae) hitherto in use. From this time dramatic performances became a regular accompaniment of the public games, and came more and more to encroach on the older kinds of amusement, such as the chariot races. The dramatic work of Livius was mainly of educative value. The same may be said of his translation of the Odyssey, which was still used as a school-book in the days of Horace, and the religious hymn which he was called upon to compose in 207 had no high literary pretensions. He was, however, the first to familiarize the Romans with the forms of the Greek drama and the Greek epic, and thus to determine the main lines which Latin literature followed for more than a century afterwards.

His immediate successor, Cn. Naevius (d. c. 200 B.C.), was not, like Livius, a Greek, but either a Roman citizen or, more probably, a Campanian who enjoyed the limited citizenship of a Latin and who had served in the Roman army in the Naevius. first Punic war. His first appearance as a dramatic author was in 235. He adapted both tragedies and comedies from the Greek, but the bent of his genius, the tastes of his audience, and the condition of the language developed through the active intercourse and business of life, gave a greater impulse to comedy than to tragedy. Naevius tried to use the theatre, as it had been used by the writers of the Old Comedy of Athens, for the purposes of political warfare, and thus seems to have anticipated by a century the part played by Lucilius. But his attacks upon the Roman aristocracy, especially the Metelli, were resented by their objects; and Naevius, after being imprisoned, had to retire in his old age into banishment. He was not only the first in point of time, and according to ancient testimony one of the first in point of merit, among the comic poets of Rome, and in spirit, though not in form, the earliest of the line of Roman satirists, but he was also the oldest of the national poets. Besides celebrating the success of M. Claudius Marcellus in 222 over the Gauls in a play called Clastidium, he gave the first specimen of the fabula praetexta in his Alimonium Romuli et Remi, based on the most national of all Roman traditions. Still more important service was rendered by him in his long Saturnian poem on the first Punic war, in which he not only told the story of contemporary events but gave shape to the legend of the settlement of Aeneas in Latium,—the theme ultimately adopted for the great national epic of Rome.

His younger contemporary T. Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184) was the greatest comic dramatist of Rome. He lived and wrote only to amuse his contemporaries, and thus, although more popular in his lifetime and more fortunate than Plautus. any of the older authors in the ultimate survival of a large number of his works, he is less than any of the great writers of Rome in sympathy with either the serious or the caustic spirit in Latin literature. Yet he is the one extant witness to the humour and vivacity of the Italian temperament at a stage between its early rudeness and rigidity and its subsequent degeneracy.

Thus far Latin literature, of which the predominant characteristics are dignity, gravity and fervour of feeling, seemed likely to become a mere vehicle of amusement adapted to all classes of the people in their holiday mood. But a new spirit, which henceforth became predominant, appeared in the time of Plautus. Latin literature ceased to be in close sympathy with the popular spirit, either politically or as a form of amusement, but became the expression of the ideas, sentiment and culture of the aristocratic Ennius. governing class. It was by Q. Ennius (239-169) of Rudiae in Messapia, that a new direction was given to Latin literature. Deriving from his birthplace the culture, literary and philosophical, of Magna Graecia, and having gained the friendship of the greatest of the Romans living in that great age, he was of all the early writers most fitted to be the medium of conciliation between the serious genius of ancient Greece and the serious genius of Rome. Alone among the older writers he was endowed with the gifts of a poetical imagination and animated with enthusiasm for a great ideal.

First among his special services to Latin literature was the fresh impulse which he gave to tragedy. He turned the eyes of his contemporaries from the commonplace social humours of later Greek life to the contemplation of the heroic age. But he did not thereby denationalize the Roman drama. He animated the heroes of early Greece with the martial spirit of Roman soldiers and the ideal magnanimity and sagacity of Roman senators, and imparted weight and dignity to the language and verse in which their sentiments and thoughts were expressed. Although Rome wanted creative force to add a great series of tragic dramas to the literature of the world, yet the spirit of elevation and moral authority breathed into tragedy by Ennius passed into the ethical and didactic writings and the oratory of a later time.

Another work was the Saturae, written in various metres, but chiefly in the trochaic tetrameter. He thus became the inventor of a new form of literature; and, if in his hands the satura was rude and indeterminate in its scope, it became a vehicle by which to address a reading public on matters of the day, or on the materials of his wide reading, in a style not far removed from the language of common life. His greatest work, which made the Romans regard him as the father of their literature, was his epic poem, in eighteen books, the Annales, in which the record of the whole career of Rome was unrolled with idealizing enthusiasm and realistic detail. The idea which inspired Ennius was ultimately realized in both the national epic of Virgil and the national history of Livy. And the metrical vehicle which he conceived as the only one adequate to his great theme was a rude experiment, which was ultimately developed into the stately Virgilian hexameter. Even as a grammarian he performed an important service to the literary language of Rome, by fixing its prosody and arresting the tendency to decay in its final syllables. Although of his writings only fragments remain, these fragments are enough, along with what we know of him from ancient testimony, to justify us in regarding him as the most important among the makers of Latin literature before the age of Cicero.

There is still one other name belonging partly to this, partly to the next generation, to be added to those of the men of original force of mind and character who created Latin literature, that of M. Porcius Cato the Censor (234-149), Cato. the younger contemporary of Ennius, whom he brought to Rome. More than Naevius and Plautus he represented the pure native element in that literature, the mind and character of Latium, the plebeian pugnacity, which was one of the great forces in the Roman state. His lack of imagination and his narrow patriotism made him the natural leader of the reaction against the new Hellenic culture. He strove to make literature ancillary to politics and to objects of practical utility, and thus started prose literature on the chief lines that it afterwards followed. Through his industry and vigorous understanding he gave a great impulse to the creation of Roman oratory, history and systematic didactic writing. He was one of the first to publish his speeches and thus to bring them into the domain of literature. Cicero, who speaks of 150 of these speeches as extant in his day, praises them for their acuteness, their wit, their conciseness. He speaks with emphasis of the impressiveness of Cato’s eulogy and the satiric bitterness of his invective.

Cato was the first historical writer of Rome to use his native tongue. His Origines, the work of his old age, was written with that thoroughly Roman conception of history which regarded actions and events solely as they affected the continuous and progressive life of a state. Cato felt that the record of Roman glory could not be isolated from the story of the other Italian communities, which, after fighting against Rome for their own independence, shared with her the task of conquering the world. To the wider national sympathies which stimulated the researches of the old censor into the legendary history of the Italian towns we owe some of the most truly national parts of Virgil’s Aeneid.

In Naevius, Plautus, Ennius and Cato are represented the contending forces which strove for ascendancy in determining what was to be the character of the new literature. The work, begun by them, was carried on by younger contemporaries and successors; by Statius Caecilius (c. 220-168), an Insubrian Gaul, in comedy; in tragedy by M. Pacuvius (c. 220-132), the nephew of Ennius, called by Cicero the greatest of Roman tragedians; and, in the following generation, by L. Accius (c. 170-86), who was more usually placed in this position. The impulse given to oratory by Cato, Ser. Sulpicius Galba and others, and along with it the development of prose composition, went on with increased momentum till the age of Cicero. But the interval between the death of Ennius (169) and the beginning of Cicero’s career, while one of progressive advance in the appreciation of literary form and style, was much less distinguished by original force than the time immediately before and after the end of the second Punic war. The one complete survival of the generation after the death of Ennius, the comedy of P. Terentius Terence. Afer or Terence (c. 185-159), exemplifies the gain in literary accomplishment and the loss in literary freedom. Terence has nothing Roman or Italian except his pure and idiomatic Latinity. His Athenian elegance affords the strongest contrast to the Italian rudeness of Cato’s De Re Rustica. By looking at them together we understand how much the comedy of Terence was able to do to refine and humanize the manners of Rome, but at the same time what a solvent it was of the discipline and ideas of the old republic. What makes Terence an important witness of the culture of his time is that he wrote from the centre of the Scipionic circle, in which what was most humane and liberal in Roman statesmanship was combined with the appreciation of what was most vital in the Greek thought and literature of the time. The comedies of Terence may therefore be held to give some indication of the tastes of Scipio, Laelius and their friends in their youth. The influence of Panaetius and Polybius was more adapted to their maturity, when they led the state in war, statesmanship and oratory, and when the humaner teaching of Stoicism began to enlarge the sympathies of Roman jurists. But in the last years during which this circle kept together a new spirit appeared in Roman politics and a new power in Roman literature,—the revolutionary spirit evoked by the Gracchi in opposition to the long-continued ascendancy of the senate, and the new power of Roman satire, which was exercised impartially and unsparingly against both the excesses of the revolutionary spirit and the arrogance and incompetence of the extreme party among the nobles. Roman satire, though in form a legitimate development of the indigenous dramatic satura through the written satura of Ennius and Pacuvius, is really a birth of this time, and its author was the youngest of those admitted into the intimacy of the Scipionic Lucilius. circle, C. Lucilius of Suessa Aurunca (c. 180-103). Among the writers before the age of Cicero he alone deserves to be named with Naevius, Plautus Ennius and Cato as a great originative force in literature. For about thirty years the most important event in Roman literature was the production of the satires of Lucilius, in which the politics, morals, society and letters of the time were criticized with the utmost freedom and pungency, and his own personality was brought immediately and familiarly before his contemporaries. The years that intervened between his death and the beginning of the Ciceronian age are singularly barren in works of original value. But in one direction there was some novelty. The tragic writers had occasionally taken their subjects from Roman life (fabulae praetextae), and in comedy we find the corresponding togatae of Lucius Afranius and others, in which comedy, while assuming a Roman dress, did not assume the virtue of a Roman matron.

The general results of the last fifty years of the first period (130 to 80) may be thus summed up. In poetry we have the satires of Lucilius, the tragedies of Accius and of a few successors among the Roman aristocracy, who General results from 130 to 80. thus exemplified the affinity of the Roman stage to Roman oratory; various annalistic poems intended to serve as continuations of the great poem of Ennius; minor poems of an epigrammatic and erotic character, unimportant anticipations of the Alexandrian tendency operative in the following period; works of criticism in trochaic tetrameters by Porcius Licinus and others, forming part of the critical and grammatical movement which almost from the first accompanied the creative movement in Latin literature, and which may be regarded as rude precursors of the didactic epistles that Horace devoted to literary criticism.

The only extant prose work which may be assigned to the end of this period is the treatise on rhetoric known by the title Ad Herennium (c. 84) a work indicative of the attention bestowed on prose style and rhetorical studies during the last century of the republic, and which may be regarded as a precursor of the oratorical treatises of Cicero and of the work of Quintilian. But the great literary product of this period was oratory, developed indeed with the aid of these rhetorical studies, but Oratory. itself the immediate outcome of the imperial interests, the legal conflicts, and the political passions of that time of agitation. The speakers and writers of a later age looked back on Scipio and Laelius, the Gracchi and their contemporaries, L. Crassus and M. Antonius, as masters of their art.

In history, regarded as a great branch of prose literature, it is not probable that much was accomplished, although, with the advance of oratory and grammatical studies, there must have been not only greater fluency of History. composition but the beginning of a richer and more ornate style. Yet Cicero denies to Rome the existence, before his own time, of any adequate historical literature. Nevertheless it was by the work of a number of Roman chroniclers during this period that the materials of early Roman history were systematized, and the record of the state, as it was finally given to the world in the artistic work of Livy, was extracted from the early annals, state documents and private memorials, combined into a coherent unity, and supplemented by invention and reflection. Amongst these chroniclers may be mentioned L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133, censor 108), C. Sempronius Tuditanus (consul 129), Cn. Gellius, C. Fannius (consul 122), L. Coelius Antipater, who wrote a narrative of the second Punic war about 120, and Sempronius Asellio, who wrote a history of his own times, have a better claim to be considered historians. There were also special works on antiquities and contemporary memoirs, and autobiographies such as those of M. Aemilius Scaurus, the elder, Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul 102 B.C.), and P. Rutilius Rufus, which formed the sources of future historians. (See further [Annales]; and [Rome]: History, Ancient, § “Authorities.”)

Although the artistic product of the first period of Latin literature which has reached us in a complete shape is limited to the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the influence of the lost literature in determining the spirit, form Summary of the period. and style of the eras of more perfect accomplishment which followed is unmistakable. While humour and vivacity characterize the earlier, and urbanity of tone the later development of comedy, the tendency of serious literature had been in the main practical, ethical, commemorative and satirical. The higher poetical imagination had appeared only in Ennius, and had been called forth in him by sympathy with the grandeur of the national life and the great personal qualities of its representative men. Some of the chief motives of the later poetry, e.g. the pleasures and sorrows of private life, had as yet found scarcely any expression in Latin literature. The fittest metrical vehicle for epic, didactic, and satiric poetry had been discovered, but its movement was as yet rude and inharmonious. The idiom of ordinary life and social intercourse and the more fervid and elevated diction of oratorical prose had made great progress, but the language of imagination and poetical feeling was, if vivid and impressive in isolated expressions, still incapable of being wrought into consecutive passages of artistic composition. The influences of Greek literature to which Latin literature owed its birth had not as yet spread beyond Rome and Latium. The Sabellian races of central and eastern Italy and the Italo-Celtic and Venetian races of the north, in whom the poetic susceptibility of Italy was most manifest two generations later, were not, until after the Social war, sufficiently in sympathy with Rome, and were probably not as yet sufficiently educated to induce them to contribute their share to the national literature. Hence the end of the Social war, and of the Civil war, which arose out of it, is most clearly a determining factor in Roman literature, and may most appropriately be taken as marking the end of one period and the beginning of another.

Second Period: from 80 to 42 B.C.

The last age of the republic coincides with the first half of the Golden age of Roman literature. It is generally known as the Ciceronian age from the name of its greatest literary representative, whose activity as a speaker and writer was unremitting during nearly the whole period. It is the age of purest excellence in prose, and of a new birth of poetry, characterized rather by great original force and artistic promise than by perfect accomplishment. The five chief representatives of this age who still hold their rank among the great classical writers are Cicero, Caesar and Sallust in prose, Lucretius and Catullus in verse. The works of other prose writers, Varro and Cornelius Nepos, have been partially preserved; but these writers have no claim to rank with those already mentioned as creators and masters of literary style. Although literature had not as yet become a trade or profession, an educated reading public already existed, and books and intellectual intercourse filled a large part of the leisure of men actively engaged in affairs. Even oratory was intended quite as much for readers as for the audiences to which it was immediately addressed; and some of the greatest speeches which have come down from that great age of orators were never delivered at all, but were published as manifestoes after the event with the view of influencing educated opinion, and as works of art with the view of giving pleasure to educated taste.

Thus the speeches of M. Tullius Cicero (106-43) belong to the domain of literature quite as much as to that of forensic or political oratory. And, although Demosthenes is a master of style unrivalled even by Cicero, the literary Cicero. interest of most of Cicero’s speeches is stronger than that of the great mass of Greek oratory. It is urged with justice that the greater part of Cicero’s Defence of Archias was irrelevant to the issue and would not have been listened to by a Greek court of justice or a modern jury. But it was fortunate for the interests of literature that a court of educated Romans could be influenced by the considerations there submitted to them. In this way a question of the most temporary interest, concerning an individual of no particular eminence or importance, has produced one of the most impressive vindications of literature ever spoken or written. Oratory at Rome assumed a new type from being cultivated as an art which endeavoured to produce persuasion not so much by intellectual conviction, as by appeal to general human sympathies. In oratory, as in every other intellectual province, the Greeks had a truer sense of the limits and conditions of their art. But command over form is only one element in the making of an orator or poet. The largeness and dignity of the matter with which he has to deal are at least as important. The Roman oratory of the law courts had to deal not with petty questions of disputed property, of fraud, or violence, but with great imperial questions, with matters affecting the well-being of large provinces and the honour and safety of the republic; and no man ever lived who, in these respects, was better fitted than Cicero to be the representative of the type of oratory demanded by the condition of the later republic. To his great artistic accomplishment, perfected by practice and elaborate study, to the power of his patriotic, his moral, and personal sympathies, and his passionate emotional nature, must be added his vivid imagination and the rich and copious stream of his language, in which he had no rival among Roman writers or speakers. It has been said that Roman poetry has produced few, if any, great types of character. But the Verres, Catiline, Antony of Cicero are living and permanent types. The story told in the Pro Cluentio may be true or false, but the picture of provincial crime which it presents is vividly dramatic. Had we only known Cicero in his speeches we should have ranked him with Demosthenes as one who had realized the highest literary ideal. We should think of him also as the creator and master of Latin style—and, moreover, not only as a great orator but as a just and appreciative critic of oratory. But to his services to Roman oratory we have to add his services not indeed to philosophy but to the literature of philosophy. Though not a philosopher he is an admirable interpreter of those branches of philosophy which are fitted for practical application, and he presents us with the results of Greek reflection vivified by his own human sympathies and his large experience of men. In giving a model of the style in which human interest can best be imparted to abstract discussions, he used his great oratorical gift and art to persuade the world to accept the most hopeful opinions on human destiny and the principles of conduct most conducive to elevation and integrity of character.

The Letters of Cicero are thoroughly natural—colloquia absentium amicorum, to use his own phrase. Cicero’s letters to Atticus, and to the friends with whom he was completely at his ease, are the most sincere and immediate expression of the thought and feeling of the moment. They let us into the secret of his most serious thoughts and cares, and they give a natural outlet to his vivacity of observation, his wit and humour, his kindliness of nature. It shows how flexible an instrument Latin prose had become in his hand, when it could do justice at once to the ample and vehement volume of his oratory, to the calmer and more rhythmical movement of his philosophical meditation, and to the natural interchange of thought and feeling in the everyday intercourse of life.

Among the many rival orators of the age the most eminent were Quintus Hortensius Ortalus and C. Julius Caesar. The former was the leading representative of the Asiatic or florid style of oratory, and, like other members of Caesar. the aristocracy, such as C. Memmius and L. Manlius Torquatus, and like Q. Catulus in the preceding generation, was a kind of dilettante poet and a precursor of the poetry of pleasure, which attained such prominence in the elegiac poets of the Augustan age. Of C. Julius Caesar (102-44) as an orator we can judge only by his reputation and by the testimony of his great rival and adversary Cicero; but we are able to appreciate the special praise of perfect taste in the use of language attributed to him.[1] In his Commentaries, by laying aside the ornaments of oratory, he created the most admirable style of prose narrative, the style which presents interesting events in their sequence of time and dependence on the will of the actor, rapidly and vividly, with scarcely any colouring of personal or moral feeling, any oratorical passion, any pictorial illustration. While he shows the persuasive art of an orator by presenting the subjugation of Gaul and his own action in the Civil War in the light most favourable to his claim to rule the Roman world, he is entirely free from the Roman fashion of self-laudation or disparagement of an adversary. The character of the man reveals itself especially in a perfect simplicity of style, the result of the clearest intelligence and the strongest sense of personal dignity. He avoids not only every unusual but every superfluous word; and, although no writing can be more free from rhetorical colouring, yet there may from time to time be detected a glow of sympathy, like the glow of generous passion in Thucydides, the more effective from the reserve with which it betrays itself whenever he is called on to record any act of personal heroism or of devotion to military duty.

In the simplicity of his style, the directness of his narrative, the entire absence of any didactic tendency, Caesar presents a marked contrast to another prose writer of that age—the historian C. Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (c. 87-36). Sallust. Like Varro, he survived Cicero by some years, but the tone and spirit in which his works are written assign him to the republican era. He was the first of the purely artistic historians, as distinct from the annalists and the writers of personal memoirs. He imitated the Greek historians in taking particular actions—the Jugurthan War and the Catilinarian Conspiracy—as the subjects of artistic treatment. He wrote also a continuous work, Historiae, treating of the events of the twelve years following the death of Sulla, of which only fragments are preserved. His two extant works are more valuable as artistic studies of the rival parties in the state and of personal character than as trustworthy narratives of facts. His style aims at effectiveness by pregnant expression, sententiousness, archaism. He produces the impression of caring more for the manner of saying a thing than for its truth. Yet he has great value as a painter of historical portraits, some of them those of his contemporaries, and as an author who had been a political partisan and had taken some part in making history before undertaking to write it; and he gives us, from the popular side, the views of a contemporary on the politics of the time. Of the other historians, or rather annalists, who belong to this period, such as Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, Q. Valerius Antias, and C. Licinius Macer, the father of Calvus, we have only fragments remaining.

The period was also remarkable for the production of works which we should class as technical or scientific rather than literary. The activity of one of these writers was so great that he is entitled to a separate mention. This Varro. was M. Terentius Varro, the most learned not only of the Romans but of the Greeks, as he has been called. The list of Varro’s writings includes over seventy treatises and more than six hundred books dealing with topics of every conceivable kind. His Menippeae Saturae, miscellanies in prose and verse, of which unfortunately only fragments are left, was a work of singular literary interest.

Since the Annals of Ennius no great and original poem had appeared. The powerful poetical force which for half a century continued to be the strongest force in literature, and which created masterpieces of art and genius, first Lucretius. revealed itself in the latter part of the Ciceronian age. The conditions which enabled the poetic genius of Italy to come to maturity in the person of T. Lucretius Carus (96-55) were entire seclusion from public life and absorption in the ideal pleasures of contemplation and artistic production. This isolation from the familiar ways of his contemporaries, while it was, according to tradition and the internal evidence of his poem, destructive to his spirit’s health, resulted in a work of genius, unique in character, which still stands forth as the greatest philosophical poem in any language. In the form of his poem he followed a Greek original; and the stuff out of which the texture of his philosophical argument is framed was derived from Greek science; but all that is of deep human and poetical meaning in the poem is his own. While we recognize in the De Rerum Natura some of the most powerful poetry in any language and feel that few poets have penetrated with such passionate sincerity and courage into the secret of nature and some of the deeper truths of human life, we must acknowledge that, as compared with the great didactic poem of Virgil, it is crude and unformed in artistic design, and often rough and unequal in artistic execution. Yet, apart altogether from its independent value, by his speculative power and enthusiasm, by his revelation of the life and spectacle of nature, by the fresh creativeness of his diction and the elevated movement of his rhythm, Lucretius exercised a more powerful influence than any other on the art of his more perfect successors.

While the imaginative and emotional side of Roman poetry was so powerfully represented by Lucretius, attention was directed to its artistic side by a younger generation, who moulded themselves in a great degree on Catullus. Alexandrian models. Such were Valerius Cato also a distinguished literary critic, and C. Licinius Calvus, an eminent orator. Of this small group of poets one only has survived, fortunately the man of most genius among them, the bosom-friend of Calvus, C. Valerius Catullus (84-54). He too was a new force in Roman literature. He was a provincial by birth, although early brought into intimate relations with members of the great Roman families. The subjects of his best art are taken immediately from his own life—his loves, his friendships, his travels, his animosities, personal and political. His most original contribution to the substance of Roman literature was that he first shaped into poetry the experience of his own heart, as it had been shaped by Alcaeus and Sappho in the early days of Greek poetry. No poet has surpassed him in the power of vitally reproducing the pleasure and pain of the passing hour, not recalled by idealizing reflection as in Horace, nor overlaid with mythological ornament as in Propertius, but in all the keenness of immediate impression. He also introduced into Roman literature that personal as distinct from political or social satire which appears later in the Epodes of Horace and the Epigrams of Martial. He anticipated Ovid in recalling the stories of Greek mythology to a second poetical life. His greatest contribution to poetic art consisted in the perfection which he attained in the phalaecian, the pure iambic, and the scazon metres, and in the ease and grace with which he used the language of familiar intercourse, as distinct from that of the creative imagination, of the rostra, and of the schools, to give at once a lifelike and an artistic expression to his feelings. He has the interest of being the last poet of the free republic. In his life and in his art he was the precursor of those poets who used their genius as the interpreter and minister of pleasure; but he rises above them in the spirit of personal independence, in his affection for his friends, in his keen enjoyment of natural and simple pleasures, and in his power of giving vital expression to these feelings.

Third Period: Augustan Age, 42 B.C. to A.D. 17.

The poetic impulse and culture communicated to Roman literature in the last years of the republic passed on without any break of continuity into the literature of the succeeding age. One or two of the circle of Catullus Influence of imperial institutions. survived into that age; but an entirely new spirit came over the literature of the new period, and it is by new men, educated indeed under the same literary influences, but living in an altered world and belonging originally to a different order in the state, that the new spirit was expressed. The literature of the later republic reflects the sympathies and prejudices of an aristocratic class, sharing in the conduct of national affairs and living on terms of equality with one another; that of the Augustan age, first in its early serious enthusiasm, and then in the licence and levity of its later development, represents the hopes and aspirations with which the new monarchy was ushered into the world, and the pursuit of pleasure and amusement, which becomes the chief interest of a class cut off from the higher energies of practical life, and moving in the refining and enervating atmosphere of an imperial court. The great inspiring influence of the new literature was the enthusiasm produced first by the hope and afterwards by the fulfilment of the restoration of peace, order, national glory, under the rule of Augustus. All that the age longed for seemed to be embodied in a man who had both in his own person and by inheritance the natural spell which sways the imagination of the world. The sentiment of hero-worship was at all times strong in the Romans, and no one was ever the object of more sincere as well as simulated hero-worship than Augustus. It was not, however, by his equals in station that the first feeling was likely to be entertained. The earliest to give expression to it was Virgil; but the spell was soon acknowledged by the colder and more worldly-wise Horace. The disgust aroused by the anti-national policy of Antony, and the danger to the empire which was averted by the result of the battle of Actium, combined with the confidence inspired by the new ruler to reconcile the great families as well as the great body of the people to the new order of things.

While the establishment of the empire produced a revival of national and imperial feeling, it suppressed all independent political thought and action. Hence the two great forms of prose literature which drew their nourishment from the struggles of political life, oratory and contemporary history, were arrested in their development. The main course of literature was thus for a time diverted into poetry. That poetry in its most elevated form aimed at being the organ of the new empire and of realizing the national ideals of life and character under its auspices; and in carrying out this aim it sought to recall the great memories of the past. It became also the organ of the pleasures and interests of private life, the chief motives of which were the love of nature and the passion of love. It sought also to make the art and poetry of Greece live a new artistic life. Satire, debarred from comment on political action, turned to social and individual life, and combined with the newly-developed taste for ethical analysis and reflection introduced by Cicero. One great work had still to be done in prose—a retrospect of the past history of the state from an idealizing and romanticizing point of view. For that work the Augustan age, as the end of one great cycle of events and the beginning of another, was eminently suited, and a writer who, by his gifts of imagination and sympathy, was perhaps better fitted than any other man of antiquity for the task, and who through the whole of this period lived a life of literary leisure, was found to do justice to the subject.

Although the age did not afford free scope and stimulus to individual energy and enterprise, it furnished more material and social advantages for the peaceful cultivation of letters. The new influence of patronage, which in other times has chilled the genial current of literature, become, in the person of Maecenas, the medium through which literature and the imperial policy were brought into union. Poetry thus acquired the tone of the world, kept in close connexion with the chief source of national life, while it was cultivated to the highest pitch of artistic perfection under the most favourable conditions of leisure and freedom from the distractions and anxieties of life.

The earliest in the order of time of the poets who adorn this age—P. Vergilius Maro or Virgil (70-19)—is also the greatest in genius, the most richly cultivated, and the most perfect in art. He is the idealizing poet of the hopes Virgil. and aspirations and of the purer and happier life of which the age seemed to contain the promise. He elevates the present by associating it with the past and future of the world, and sanctifies it by seeing in it the fulfilment of a divine purpose. Virgil is the true representative poet of Rome and Italy, of national glory and of the beauty of nature, the artist in whom all the efforts of the past were made perfect, and the unapproachable standard of excellence to future times. While more richly endowed with sensibility to all native influences, he was more deeply imbued than any of his contemporaries with the poetry, the thought and the learning of Greece. The earliest efforts of his art (the Eclogues) reproduce the cadences, the diction and the pastoral fancies of Theocritus; but even in these imitative poems of his youth Virgil shows a perfect mastery of his materials. The Latin hexameter, which in Ennius and Lucretius was the organ of the more dignified and majestic emotions, became in his hands the most perfect measure in which the softer and more luxurious sentiment of nature has been expressed. The sentiment of Italian scenery and the love which the Italian peasant has for the familiar sights and sounds of his home found a voice which never can pass away.

In the Georgics we are struck by the great advance in the originality and self-dependence of the artist, in the mature perfection of his workmanship, in the deepening and strengthening of all his sympathies and convictions. His genius still works under forms prescribed by Greek art, and under the disadvantage of having a practical and utilitarian aim imposed on it. But he has ever in form so far surpassed his originals that he alone has gained for the pure didactic poem a place among the highest forms of serious poetry, while he has so transmuted his material that, without violation of truth, he has made the whole poem alive with poetic feeling. The homeliest details of the farmer’s work are transfigured through the poet’s love of nature; through his religious feeling and his pious sympathy with the sanctities of human affection; through his patriotic sympathy with the national greatness; and through the rich allusiveness of his art to everything in poetry and legend which can illustrate and glorify his theme.

In the Eclogues and Georgics Virgil is the idealizing poet of the old simple and hardy life of Italy, as the imagination could conceive of it in an altered world. In the Aeneid he is the idealizing poet of national glory, as manifested in the person of Augustus. The epic of national life, vividly conceived but rudely executed by Ennius, was perfected in the years that followed the decisive victory at Actium. To do justice to his idea Virgil enters into rivalry with a greater poet than those whom he had equalled or surpassed in his previous works. And, though he cannot unroll before us the page of heroic action with the power and majesty of Homer, yet by the sympathy with which he realizes the idea of Rome, and by the power with which he has used the details of tradition, of local scenes, of religious usage, to embody it, he has built up in the form of an epic poem the most enduring and the most artistically constructed monument of national grandeur.

The second great poet of the time—Q. Horatius Flaccus or Horace (68-8) is both the realist and the idealist of his age. If we want to know the actual lives, manners and ways of thinking of the Romans of the generation succeeding Horace. the overthrow of the republic it is in the Satires and partially in the Epistles of Horace that we shall find them. If we ask what that time provided to stir the fancy and move the mood of imaginative reflection, it is in the lyrical poems of Horace that we shall find the most varied and trustworthy answer. His literary activity extends over about thirty years and naturally divides itself into three periods, each marked by a distinct character. The first—extending from about 40 to 29—is that of the Epodes and Satires. In the former he imitates the Greek poet Archilochus, but takes his subjects from the men, women and incidents of the day. Personality is the essence of his Epodes; in the Satires it is used merely as illustrative of general tendencies. In the Satires we find realistic pictures of social life, and the conduct and opinions of the world submitted to the standard of good feeling and common sense. The style of the Epodes is pointed and epigrammatic, that of the Satires natural and familiar. The hexameter no longer, as in Lucilius, moves awkwardly as if in fetters, but, like the language of Terence, of Catullus in his lighter pieces, of Cicero in his letters to Atticus, adapts itself to the everyday intercourse of life. The next period is the meridian of his genius, the time of his greatest lyrical inspiration, which he himself associates with the peace and leisure secured to him by his Sabine farm. The life of pleasure which he had lived in his youth comes back to him, not as it was in its actual distractions and disappointments, but in the idealizing light of meditative retrospect. He had not only become reconciled to the new order of things, but was moved by his intimate friendship with Maecenas to aid in raising the world to sympathy with the imperial rule through the medium of his lyrical inspiration, as Virgil had through the glory of his epic art. With the completion of the three books of Odes he cast aside for a time the office of the vates, and resumed that of the critical spectator of human life, but in the spirit of a moralist rather than a satirist. He feels the increasing languor of the time as well as the languor of advancing years, and seeks to encourage younger men to take up the rôle of lyrical poetry, while he devotes himself to the contemplation of the true art of living. Self-culture rather than the fulfilment of public or social duty, as in the moral teaching of Cicero, is the aim of his teaching; and in this we recognize the influence of the empire in throwing the individual back on himself. As Cicero tones down his oratory in his moral treatises, so Horace tones down the fervour of his lyrical utterances in his Epistles, and thus produces a style combining the ease of the best epistolary style with the grace and concentration of poetry—the style, as it has been called, of “idealized common sense,” that of the urbanus and cultivated man of the world who is also in his hours of inspiration a genuine poet. In the last ten years of his life Horace resumed his lyrical function for a time, under pressure of the imperial command, and produced some of the most exquisite and mature products of his art. But his chief activity is devoted to criticism. He first vindicates the claims of his own age to literary pre-eminence, and then seeks to stimulate the younger writers of the day to what he regarded as the manlier forms of poetry, and especially to the tragic drama, which seemed for a short time to give promise of an artistic revival.

But the poetry of the latter half of the Augustan age destined to survive did not follow the lines either of lyrical or of dramatic art marked out by Horace. The latest form of poetry adopted from Greece and destined to gain and permanently to hold the ear of the world was the elegy. From the time of Mimnermus this form seems to have presented itself as the most natural vehicle for the poetry of pleasure in an age of luxury, refinement and incipient decay. Its facile flow and rhythm seem to adapt it to the expression and illustration of personal feeling. It goes to the mind of the reader through a medium of sentiment rather than of continuous thought or imaginative illustration. The greatest masters of this kind of poetry are the elegiac poets of the Augustan age—Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid.

Of the ill-fated C. Cornelius Gallus, their predecessor, we have but a single pentameter remaining. Of the three Tibullus (c. 54-19) is the most refined and tender. As the poet of love he gives utterance to the pensive melancholy Tibullus] rather than to the pleasures associated with it. In his sympathy with the life and beliefs of the country people he shows an affinity both to the idyllic spirit and to the piety of Virgil. There is something, too, in his fastidious refinement and in his shrinking from the rough contact of life that reminds us of the English poet Gray.

A poet of more strength and more powerful imagination, but of less refinement in his life and less exquisite taste in his art, is Sextus Propertius (c. 50-c. 15). His youth was a more stormy one than that of Tibullus, and was Propertius. passed, not like his, among the “healthy woods” of his country estate, but amid all the licence of the capital. His passion for Cynthia, the theme of his most finished poetry, is second only in interest to that of Catullus for Lesbia; and Cynthia in her fascination and caprices seems a more real and intelligible personage than the idealized object first of the idolatry and afterwards of the malediction of Catullus. Propertius is a less accomplished artist and a less equably pleasing writer than either Tibullus or Ovid, but he shows more power of dealing gravely with a great or tragic situation than either of them, and his diction and rhythm give frequent proof of a concentrated force of conception and a corresponding movement of imaginative feeling which remind us of Lucretius.

The most facile and brilliant of the elegiac poets and the least serious in tone and spirit is P. Ovidius Naso or Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18). As an amatory poet he is the poet of pleasure and intrigue rather than of tender sentiment or Ovid. absorbing passion. Though he treated his subject in relation to himself with more levity and irony than real feeling, yet by his sparkling wit and fancy he created a literature of sentiment and adventure adapted to amuse the idle and luxurious society of which the elder Julia was the centre. His power of continuous narrative is best seen in the Metamorphoses, written in hexameters to which he has imparted a rapidity and precision of movement more suited to romantic and picturesque narrative than the weighty self-restrained verse of Virgil. In his Fasti he treats a subject of national interest; it is not, however, through the strength of Roman sentiment but through the power of vividly conceiving and narrating stories of strong human interest that the poem lives. In his latest works—the Tristia and Ex Ponto—he imparts the interest of personal confessions to the record of a unique experience. Latin poetry is more rich in the expression of personal feeling than of dramatic realism. In Ovid we have both. We know him in the intense liveliness of his feeling and the human weakness of his nature more intimately than any other writer of antiquity, except perhaps Cicero. As Virgil marks the point of maturest excellence in poetic diction and rhythm, Ovid marks that of the greatest facility.

The Augustan age was one of those great eras in the world like the era succeeding the Persian War in Greece, the Elizabethan age in England, and the beginning of the 19th century in Europe, in which what seems a new spring Livy. of national and individual life calls out an idealizing retrospect of the past. As the present seems full of new life, the past seems rich in glory and the future in hope. The past of Rome had always a peculiar fascination for Roman writers. Virgil in a supreme degree, and Horace, Propertius and Ovid in a less degree, had expressed in their poetry the romance of the past. But it was in the great historical work of T. Livius or Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) that the record of the national life received its most systematic exposition. Its execution was the work of a life prolonged through the languor and dissolution following so soon upon the promise of the new era, during which time the past became glorified by contrast with the disheartening aspect of the present. The value of the work consists not in any power of critical investigation or weighing of historical evidence but in the intense sympathy of the writer with the national ideal, and the vivid imagination with which under the influence of this sympathy he gives life to the events and personages, the wars and political struggles, of times remote from his own. He makes us feel more than any one the majesty of the Roman state, of its great magistracies, and of the august council by which its policy was guided. And, while he makes the words senatus populusque Romanus full of significance for all times, no one realizes with more enthusiasm all that is implied in the words imperium Romanum, and the great military qualities of head and heart by which that empire was acquired and maintained. The vast scale on which the work was conceived and the thoroughness of artistic execution with which the details are finished are characteristically Roman. The prose style of Rome, as a vehicle for the continuous narration of events coloured by a rich and picturesque imagination and instinct with dignified emotion, attained its perfection in Livy.

Fourth Period: The Silver Age, from A.D. 17 to about 130.

For more than a century after the death of Augustus Roman literature continues to flow in the old channels. Though drawing from the provinces, Rome remains the centre of the literary movement. The characteristics of the great Characteristics of post-Augustan age. writers are essentially national, not provincial nor cosmopolitan. In prose the old forms—oratory, history, the epistle, treatises or dialogues on ethical and literary questions—continue to be cultivated. Scientific and practical subjects, such as natural history, architecture, medicine, agriculture, are treated in more elaborate literary style. The old Roman satura is developed into something like the modern prose novel. In the various provinces of poetry, while there is little novelty or inspiration, there is abundance of industry and ambitious effort. The national love of works of large compass shows itself in the production of long epic poems, both of the historic and of the imitative Alexandrian type. The imitative and rhetorical tastes of Rome showed themselves in the composition of exotic tragedies, as remote in spirit and character from Greek as from Roman life, of which the only extant specimens are those attributed to the younger Seneca. The composition of didactic, lyrical and elegiac poetry also was the accomplishment and pastime of an educated dilettante class, the only extant specimens of any interest being some of the Silvae of Statius. The only voice with which the poet of this age can express himself with force and sincerity is that of satire and satiric epigram. We find now only imitative echoes of the old music created by Virgil and others, as in Statius, or powerful declamation, as in Lucan and Juvenal. There is a deterioration in the diction as well as in the music of poetry. The elaborate literary culture of the Augustan age has done something to impair the native force of the Latin idiom. The language of literature, in the most elaborate kind of prose as well as poetry, loses all ring of popular speech. The old oratorical tastes and aptitudes find their outlet in public recitations and the practice of declamation. Forced and distorted expression, exaggerated emphasis, point and antithesis, an affected prettiness, are studied with the view of gaining the applause of audiences who thronged the lecture and recitation rooms in search of temporary excitement. Education is more widely diffused, but is less thorough, less leisurely in its method, derived less than before from the purer sources of culture. The precocious immaturity of Lucan’s career affords a marked contrast to the long preparation of Virgil and Horace for their high office. Although there are some works of this so-called Silver Age of considerable and one at least of supreme interest, from the insight they afford into the experience of a century of organized despotism and its effect on the spiritual life of the ancient world, it cannot be doubted that the steady literary decline which characterized the last centuries of paganism was beginning before the death of Ovid and Livy.

The influences which had inspired republican and Augustan literature were the artistic impulse derived from a familiarity with the great works of Greek genius, becoming more intimate with every new generation, the spell of Rome over the imagination of the kindred Italian races, the charm of Italy, and the vivid sensibility of the Italian temperament. These influences were certainly much less operative in the first century of the empire. The imitative impulse, which had much of the character of a creative impulse, and had resulted in the appropriation of the forms of poetry suited to the Roman and Italian character and of the metres suited to the genius of the Latin language, no longer stimulated to artistic effort. The great sources of Greek poetry were no longer regarded, as they were by Lucretius and Virgil, as sacred, untasted springs, to be approached in a spirit of enthusiasm tempered with reverence. We have the testimony of two men of shrewd common sense and masculine understanding—Martial and Juvenal—to the stale and lifeless character of the art of the Silver Age, which sought to reproduce in the form of epics, tragedies and elegies the bright fancies of the Greek mythology.

The idea of Rome, owing to the antagonism between the policy of the government and the sympathies of the class by which literature was favoured and cultivated, could no longer be an inspiring motive, as it had been in the literature of the republic and of the Augustan age. The spirit of Rome appears only as animating the protest of Lucan, the satire of Persius and Juvenal, the sombre picture which Tacitus paints of the annals of the empire. Oratory is no longer an independent voice appealing to sentiments of Roman dignity, but the weapon of the “informers” (delatores), wielded for their own advancement and the destruction of that class which, even in their degeneracy, retained most sympathy with the national traditions. Roman history was no longer a record of national glory, stimulating the patriotism and flattering the pride of all Roman citizens, but a personal eulogy or a personal invective, according as servility to a present or hatred of a recent ruler was the motive which animated it.

The charm of Italian scenes still remained the same, but the fresh and inspiring feeling cf nature gave place to the mere sensuous gratification derived from the luxurious and artificial beauty of the country villa. The idealizing poetry of passion, which found a genuine voice in Catullus and the elegiac poets, could not prolong itself through the exhausting licence of successive generations. The vigorous vitality which gives interest to the personality of Catullus, Propertius and Ovid no longer characterizes their successors. The pathos of natural affection is occasionally recognized in Statius and more rarely in Martial, but it has not the depth of tenderness found in Lucretius and Virgil. The wealth and luxury of successive generations, the monotonous routine of life, the separation of the educated class from the higher work of the world, have produced their enervating and paralysing effect on the mainsprings of poetic and imaginative feeling.

New elements, however, appear in the literature of this period. As the result of the severance from the active interests of life, a new interest is awakened in the inner life of the individual. The immorality of Roman society not New literary elements. only affords abundant material to the satirist, but deepens the consciousness of moral evil in purer and more thoughtful minds. To these causes we attribute the pathological observation of Seneca and Tacitus, the new sense of purity in Persius called out by contrast with the impurity around him, the glowing if somewhat sensational exaggeration of Juvenal, the vivid characterization of Martial. The literature of no time presents so powerfully the contrast between moral good and evil. In this respect it is truly representative of the life of the age. Another new element is the influence of a new race. In the two preceding periods the rapid diffusion of literary culture following the Social War and the first Civil War was seen to awaken into new life the elements of original genius in Italy and Cisalpine Gaul. In the first century of the empire a similar result was produced by the diffusion of that culture in the Latinized districts of Spain. The fervid temperament of a fresh and vigorous race, which received the Latin discipline just as Latium had two or three centuries previously received the Greek discipline, revealed itself in the writings of the Senecas, Lucan, Quintilian, Martial and others, who in their own time added literary distinction to the Spanish towns from which they came. The new extraneous element introduced into Roman literature draws into greater prominence the characteristics of the last great representatives of the genuine Roman and Italian spirit—the historian Tacitus and the satirist Juvenal.