Latin language

LATIN LANGUAGE

THE Latin language first appears in history as the language spoken in the plain of Latium (q.vf In the 3d century b,c., at which date it first becomes known to us from extant inscriptions and contemporary history, its range as a vernacular was still limited to this district, although the arms of Rome had carried some knowledge of it to the utmost boundaries of the peninsula of Italy. Of the dialects commonly spoken outside the limits of Latium, two appear to have been entirely distinct in character from the rest. In the extreme south-east, inscriptions have been found in considerable numbers, written in a language known as Iapygian or Messapian; but no progress has as yet been made in their interpretation, and it is quite impossible to determine with certainty even to what stock the language may have belonged. There are indications which seem to point in the direction of some kinship with the Albanian, but these are far too slight and untrustworthy to be accepted with any confidence. In Etruria, and at one time in Campania and in the plain of the Po, a language was spoken the affinities of which have not yet been determined satisfactorily (c∕. vol. viii. pp. 638-39).

The other dialects of the Italian peninsula may be divided into two main groups, the Umbro-Sabellian and the Latin. The former is the more extensive in range in the earlier historic times, and includes Umbrian and Oscau or Samnite, still known to us by inscriptions, and (according to tradition) the language of the Sabines, the Marsians, and the Volscians, of which but scanty traces remain. The latter probably had in prehistoric times a much wider range than that to which we find it afterwards confined. There are no facts to contradict the hypothesis, to which a consideration of the geographical relations of the several tribes seems to point, that at one time, not only Latium, but also Campania, Lucania, Italia proper, and the eastern half of Sicily, were inhabited by tribes belonging to the Latin race. But these regions were early subjected to Hellenizing influences, or conquered by Sabellian invaders, and the only dialect closely akin to the Latin of which any specimens are preserved in inscriptions is that of Falerii in southern Etruria.

The Umbro-Sabellian and the Latin share many characteristics which enable us to unite them as members of a common Italian group; but what is the exact position to be assigned to this group in the Indo-European stock is a question which cannot be regarded as finally determined. Some scholars of eminence, as Schleicher, maintain that its closest affinities are with the Celtic group, mainly on the strength of the agreement of both in the loss of aspirates and retention of spirants, in the form adopted for the expression of the middle or reflexive voice in verbs, and in the dative plural, and on other less significant points. But the more common opinion is that its connexion is closest with the Hellenic group, and that we may safely assume the existence of a common Italo·Hellenic nationality. Hence in vol. xi. pp. 130-131 an attempt was made to reconstruct the main outlines of the language spoken by the ancestors of both Greeks and Romans, and to point out what phonetic-changes and what developments of inflexion must have already taken place. Starting from the basis there laid down, we may now proceed to notice the following leading features, as marking the course of the Italian group of languages after their separation from the Hellenic group. Even for scholars who do not accept this genealogical classification of languages such a survey will not be without its value as a statement of the facts which every theory has to take into account.

1. The vowels remained on the whole unaltered in Latin up to the time of the earliest inscriptions. After that date there was a rapid development of a tendency, of which traces are to be found even earlier, of the degradation of the diphthongs to simple vowels. But in the earlier records we find, e.g., still praidad = praeda (C. I. R., 63), utei = uti (ib., 196), virtutei = virtute (ib., 34), ploirume =plurimi (ib., 32), Leucesius=Lucetius (Carm. Saliar. ), abdoucit= abducit (C. I R., 30). Of these diphthongs ai is found almost exclusively in the inscriptions older than the 7th century of Rome, in words afterwards spelt with ae; ci is found representing an ë or an i as late as the time of Augustus; oi occurs regularly for oe or ΰ up to the time of the Gracchi, and occasionally later; eu is apparently found in the place of a later u only in the one form quoted, although it is probable that in many cases ou represents a still earlier eu, as is shown by Marti Loucekio (O'. I. Rhen., 929) by the side of Marti Leucetio (ib. 930), and by the transliteration of Lucius by Λ∈υκιos; ou is found regularly for u, with rare exceptions, up to the time of the Social War.

Umbrian in this respect shows evidence of a much more rapid decay of the vowel-system, and had reached, at the time at which we learn to know it, a stage of monotony to which Latin only attained several centuries later: e.g., vinu=0. Lat. veinδd, kvestur=O. Lat. quaistor, etu=O. Lat. eito, Aesë=Lat. ärae, tδru≈ Lat. tauros.

On the other hand, Oscan was much more faithful than the contemporary classical Latin to the complex diphthong-system, coming in this respect very near to archaic Latin: e.g., Fluus-aι∙ ≈ Florae, deicum (infinitive, answering to dicere), tozdicom=tuticum (i.e., publicum).

The change of o to u, u to i, and e to i takes place later. Within the history of the Latin language the u retains its full sound, not weakened like the Greek υ to ii.

2. In respect of the consonants the principal change is in the aspirates. While a comparison of Greek shows that they must have retained their character as sonant aspirates up to the time of the separation, none of the Italian languages have preserved them in this form. In Latin the guttural aspirate becomes g in the middle of a word (comp. &γχω and ango, λeiχω and lingo) and before r (comp. grä-tu-s and χdριs, grando and χάλαγα); with a parasitic v frequently appended (angui-s and iχι∙s), which sometimes leads to the loss of the g (brevi-s and βραχύ-s). At the beginning it becomes h (hiemps and χιών, holus and χKo-h) or/(/eland χόλ-os, for-mus and θeρ-μi-s), the two representative letters sometimes alternating dialectically (haedus and faedτιs, our goat; fostis and hostis, our guest). The dental aspirate became medially d (medius and μiσσos for μeθ-yos), or sometimes b (τιber and obθap, ruber and i-pυθ-p6-s; comp, also verbum and word, barba and beard), initially only f (fores and θύρα, ferus and θήρ). The labial aspirate passes medially into b (ambo and &μφω; comp, navibus and vavφιv, containing the same element bhi, although the terminations are not identical), initially into ∕ (fa-ri and Φnμi, fero and φeρω), and rarely into h (perhaps dialectically in horda by the side of forda, and by dissimilation in mi-hi for mi∙bi). Hence it appears that in Latin any one of the three original aspirates may be represented by/; we may compare our laugh (Germ, lachen), dιcαr∕(Germ. zwerg), Middle Eng. dwerth, the Russian Feodor for Theodore, and the change in Greek from p-h (pronounced separately) to ph =f.

The spirants (y, w, s), the loss of which is so marked a feature in the Greek consonant-system, are retained with but few important exceptions. The most important of these is the rhotacism whereby an s between two vowels passes regularly (probably through the intermediate stage of a sibilant pronounced like z) into r between two vowels, as in uro for an earlier usa. The loss of a y (z) between vowels is not uncommon, e.g., sêdo for sedaio through sedao; it is less frequent after consonants, as in obex for ob-iec-s; undeι ’ similar circumstances w (u) disappears, as in amasti for amavisti, canis for cuanis.

With regard to inflexion, the following may be noted as the chief developments subsequent to the stage described in vol. xi. p. 131 :—

1. In substantives there was a considerable extension of the class of z-stems, due partly to new creations, partly to the transformation of stems belonging to other classes. Thus a primitive gamι-s, Gr. βαρΰ-s, in Latin is grau-i-s, a primitive kvan-s becomes cani-s. Very few of the Latin z-stems have corresponding z’-stems in Sanskrit or Greek. In some cases the i appears to have been originally an a; comp, imbri-and oμβpo-.

2. The final -d of the ablative was retained, and (in Latin at any rate) the -bus of the dative plural; on the other hand, the instrumental in -bhi (Gr. φι) does not appear at all on Italian soil.

3. The dual number was lost both in nouns and in verbs, as in the later Greek.

4. An entirely new system of inflexion for the reflexive tenses (the middle, or, as it subsequently became, the passive voice) was created by the use of the reflexive pronoun se as a suffix. (Whether this system is common to the Italian and the Celtic languages, or •whether the apparently similar formations in the latter are of different origin, is a question not yet definitely settled. )

5. In many verbs the compound aorist with an s element was made by the action of analogy into a perfect in si.

6. Numerous verbs adopted for their perfect tenses a suffix in -vi or -ztz'. This has been commonly supposed to represent a new process of combination with the root bhu instead of es; but weighty objections have recently been brought against this explanation, and it can no longer be propounded with confidence.

7. The root bhu was employed to form a past imperfect in -bam, and a future in -bo; but in the case of consonant verbs and t-verbs the latter formation was usually replaced by an optative form used as a future. ·

8. Imperfect and pluperfect tenses of the subjunctive were formed apparently by compounding the present and perfect stems with the optative of the root es, “to be.”

9. The infinitive and participle system received a considerable expansion, especially by the formation of gerundives and supines, which, however, were differentiated in, usage in the various Italian dialects (see below).

10. The pronominal elements, though for the most part the same as in Greek, were commonly used in composition one with another, and thus acquired a different form. ’

11. The «-class also was extended by the more common use of the suffix -tu for verbal nouns.

With regard to the vocabulary, very extensive additions were made, probably in many instances from Celtic sources. Many of the most common Latin words are entirely without demonstrable cognates in the other Indo-European languages; and, even when the common root may be suggested with considerable plausibility, the particular Latin word has evidently behind it a long and independent history, during which its meaning and usage have been greatly modified. Hence all attempts to deal with the etymology of the Latin stock of words are confronted with a residuum which the materials at our command do not allow us to deal with satisfactorily.

The principal distinctions between the Latin branch of the Italian group and the Umbro-Sabellian are the following:—

1. Neither Umbrian nor Oscan had any character for o; for this the former language used v=zz, c.g., puplum<=populum; the latter û (perhaps approximating to o), c.g., pud≈quod, or sometimes u, as in aragetüd=argentδd.

2. The Old Umbrian did not distinguish between surds and sonants in the case of gutturals and dentals, having no g or <Z; but both these letters were used in Oscan.

3. Oscan distinguished between i and i*, the latter a sound probably intermediate between i and e.

4. In Umbrian d, when occurring between vowels, or at the end of a word after a vowel, was replaced by r, in later Umbrian by rs, e.g., asam ap=aram ad, i.e., ad aram, dupursus=bipedibus. K before e and z acquired a palatal sound, not existing in Latin until long afterwards, which was denoted by f j, i.e., ç; e.g., ςcsna=cena,

5. The Umbro-Sabellian dialects agreed in retaining the earlier genitive in s (becoming afterwards in Umbrian r), e.g., Uιta-s, “of a city,” molta-s = multae, while the Latin has in the case of a-, c-, and o-stems substituted for this a form in z', probably a locative.

6. They retain also the future compounded with cs, e.g., Umb.

heriest, Osc. herest=volet, replaced in Latin either by the optative or by a new form in -bo.

7. Both Oscan and Umbrian allowed the velar guttural (q) to pass into p, as in the Gallo-British branch of Celtic and in Greek, while this is never the case in Latin; comp, qui-s and^zs, Quintius with its Samnite equivalent Pontius ≈ Pompeius.

Three clearly marked stages present themselves in the history of the Latin language (1) the archaic stage, previous to the development of literature; (2) the stage of literary culture, during which the popular spoken language runs, as it were, underground, giving but few traces of its existence; (3) the stage at which the popular language reappears as colouring literature, and finally recasting it in its own mould.

The archaic stage is known to us almost wholly from inscriptions, and from isolated forms and words quoted by the grammarians; although a careful study of the phenomena of the diction and especially the metre of the early Roman dramatists reveals to us many of its characteristic tendencies. It may be said to have lasted until the time of Ennius (d. 169 b.c.), whose growing influence is intimated in the epitaph composed for himself by Naevius (d. 204 b.c.) :—

“itaque postquam est Orci traditus thesauro obliti sunt Romai loquier Latina lingua.”

Perhaps the oldest specimen of the Latin language preserved to us is to be found in two fragments of the Carmina Saliaria preserved by Varro (De ling. Lat., vii. 26, 27), and one in Terentianus Scaurus, but unfortunately they are so corrupt as to be quite unintelligible without the help of very extensive conjectural changes in the reading (<f. Jordan, Frit. Beiträge, pp. 211-224). More valuable 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 Arvai brothers, dug up on the site of their grove by the Tiber, 5 miles from the city of Rome; but this also supplies many points for discussion, and even its general meaning is by no means clear (ib., pp. 203-11; cf. Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens, pp. 157, 158, with the notes).

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, and it is doubtful whether any accurate reproduction of the laws in their primitive form was accessible to our authorities. Hence the language has been much modernized, and any archaic forms which have been preserved are due rather to the citations of the grammarians than to continuous quotations.

Schoell, whose edition and commentary (Leipsic, 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, c.g., ηi it αntestαmino, 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; ast ( = sz)and igitur ( = tum demum) have a different force from that found in later Latin. There are of course numerous isolated archaisms of form and meaning, such as calvitur, pacunt, endo, escit; but on the whole the diction cannot have been accurately preserved.

In the case of inscriptions there is rarely any question of their faithful reproduction of the language at the time at which they were made; but there may be a difficulty about determining their date. Perhaps the oldest fragment of Latin preserved in this way is furnished by a vessel dug up in the valley between the Quirinâl 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 by short broad pipes, so that there is easy communication from one to the other. 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 some signs not belonging to the Latin alphabet proper, but to the other Italian alphabet, e.g., 4 for R, and I for Z, while the M has five strokes and the Q has the form of a Koppa.

The inscription is as follows :—

Jovei Sat deivos qoi med mitat, nei ted endo cosmis virco sied, asted noisi Ope Toitesiai pacari vois.

Dvenos med feced en manom einom dzenoine med maao statod.

The general style of the writing and the phonetic peculiarities make it pretty certain that this work must have been produced not later than 300 B.C.; the characters employed prove that the writer was familiar with one of the dialects spoken in the hilly country to the east of Rome; but on the whole the language may be taken as Latin. Some points in its interpretation are still open to doubt; but the probable interpretation is—

Jovi Saturno divis qui ( = si quis) me mittet, ne te endo ( = in te) comis virgo sit, ast nisi Opi Tutesiae pacari vis.

Duenus me fecit in manum: enim die noni me mano stato.

“If any one brings me to the gods Jupiter and Saturn, let not any maiden be kindly to thee, except unless thou wilt offer a sacrifice to Ops Tutesia.

“Duenus made me for the offering to the dead; therefore on the ninth day place me for the offering for the dead.”

The noteworthy phenomena here are the retention not only of ci but of the much more archaic oi, apparently taking the place of the former by a dialectic variation; ei in einom for a short c i , e for i in feced, g before o, and dz apparently to represent the sound of dy (=H

A bronze tablet recently discovered near the Fucine Lake, and some works of art found at Palestrina, belong to the same period. They are undoubtedly Latin, but the Latin has been mixed with other elements so that it would have been quite unintelligible to a native of Rome.

Of the earlier long inscriptions the most important would be the Columna Rostrata, or column of Duilius, erected to commemorate his victory over the Carthaginians in 260 B.C., but for the uncertainty as to 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 suppose 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 for G (CESET=gess⅛), D retained in the ablative (e.g., in altod marid), o for τι in inflexions (primos, exfodont = exfugiunt), single for double consonants (closes=classes), c 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, -cis, and -is for the accusative plural are interchanged capriciously. The doubts hence arising preclude the possibility of using it with confidence as contemporary evidence for the state of the language.

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. 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. ). The last may therefore be taken as the earliest specimen of any length of Latin as it was written at Rome; it nnιs as follows :—

honcoino . ploirume . cosentiont. τ[omai] duonoro . optumo . fuise . uiro [virorιrm] luciom . scipione . filios . barbati co]nsol . censor . aidilis . hic . fuet a [pud ws] Λe]c . cepit. Corsica . aleriaque . urbe[m pugnandod] de]det . tempestatebus . aide . mereto[d νoturn],

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 ( = u) and ai (∙=ae)∙, (3) -et for -it, hec for his, and -ebus for -ibus∙, (4) the absence of doubled consonants; and (5) duon-for bon-. On the other hand, the dropping of a final m in every case except in Luciom is a sign of the tendency to lighten final syllables, which is a marked characteristic of the language of this period.

In the epitaph on Scipio Barbatus, o nowhere appears where the later language has u, except in the doubtful case of Samnio (?—Samnium). The diphthongs oi and ai, as well as ci, are found in the latest of all the Scipio inscriptions (aid. cur. = aedilis curulis), as well as in the Epistola Consulum ad Teuranos (187 b.c. ), and in the almost exactly contemporary decree of L. Aemilius (Hermes, iii. 243 sg.); but in a somewhat earlier epitaph to a Scipio (L. Cornelius Cn. f. Cn. n. Scipio) we have aetate. Of -et for -it and the like there is another example in dedet (G. I. R., 63), comp, dede in C. I. R., 62; navebous (-bus) of the Duilian column.

Doubled consonants first appear in the decree of Aemilius, though not regularly (comp, posedisent by essent and possidere)·, in the Epist. ad Teur. they are still not used. Buonus is not found elsewhere, except in the Carmen Saliare, but Buelonai for Bellonae appears in the Epist. ad Teur.; and duellum for bellum occurs in Ennius and Plautus, as a legal archaism in Cicero, and as a poetic variation in Horace, Ovid, and Juvenal.

A number of precious indications of archaisms on the one hand and mutilated forms on the other are supplied by dedicatory tablets of about the same age found in Picenum and Latium. As specimens of the former we may select Muurte = Marti, praidad= praeda, Junone=Junoni; of the ∖s∖texfledrot or dedro or dedcri = dederunt, dede=dcdit, cupa=cubat; the omission of a final m is also common.

It was a turning point in the history of the Latin language when Roman literature took its rise under the influence of the Greek culture. It is a reasonable conjecture that the much greater corruption of the Umbrian dialect as compared with the Latin, and of the Latin as compared with the Oscan, in regard to the precise representation of sound, was due mainly to the varying degrees of contact with Greek civilization. The inscriptions dating from the 5th century of the city show the greatest arbitrariness in such points as the insertion or omission of final s and rn, and of n before s, and in the distinction of e and u, e and i. The language of Plautus shows us the struggle of the two tendencies in the plainest manner. On the one hand we have numerous archaisms not only in form but in quantity. Of the old long vowels in final syllables we have the following still retained, not indeed always, but when it is convenient for the verse :—

-â in the nom. and voc. of the first declension:

ne epistula quidem ulla sit in aédibus (Asin., 762).

-bus in dat. and abl. plur. [usually when a pause in the sense affords some justification]:

ùt ego illic oculis exuram lâmpadibüs ardéntibus (Men., 842).

ör in nom. of substantives, and comparatives, and also in verbs: modo, quom dicta in me ingerebas, 6dium non uxor eram

(Asin., 927).

tanto mi aegritùdo auctiιo est in ânimo (bacchiac) (Caph, 782).

pδl id quidem experior ita ut praedicas, Palacstιio (Mil., 633).

-er in nom. :—

méus fuit pat⅛r Antimachus, ego voeôr Lyconides (Aid., 772).

-ït, not only in the subj. (where it is a contraction for -iêt) and in the perf. ind., but even in the present:

potionis aliquid, prius quam percipit insania (Men., 921).

et:

quod quisque in animo habet aut habitunist, sciunt (Trim, 206).

[Ritschl, “in animod habet ’’].

ät:

fùndum alienum arδt, incultum familiarem deserit (Asin., 874).

On the other hand we have much more commonly traces of the destructive influence which was beginning to affect so powerfully the form of Latin words, especially in their final syllables. From causes which it is now impossible to discover, the freer accentuation of earlier times, the existence of which was proved incidentally by Verner in his famous paper on some exceptions to the law of “Lautverschiebung” (Kuhn’s Zeitschrift, xxiii. 97-138), had been given up in favour of a more rigid system, which never allowed the accent to fall on the final syllable. Hence there was a constant struggle between the desire to preserve the older quantity of the final vowel and the tendency to shorten an unaccented syllable. This difficulty of preserving the quantity of the final vowel is naturally greatest when the accented syllable is short; hence we are led to the formula that for Plautus, and therefore for the spoken language of his time“^ .

This holds good for all vowels, whether in nouns or in verbs, c.g.: a: satis si futurumst; rogä me viginti minas (Pseud., 114).

e: cave praéterbitas ιillas aedis quin roges (Epid., 433).

i: meri bellatores gignuntur, quas hic praegnantis fecit(JΛ7., 1077).

o: ηόνδ liberto opus est quod pappet, dabitur, praebebo cibum (Epid., 727).

u: quod manù nequeunt tangere, tantum fas habent, quo manus apstineant (Trim, 288).

The last case is a rare one; the others are very common.

But further, forms like those quoted above from the inscriptions, e.g., dedro, oino, cuba, <tc., led Ritschl and his followers to the recognition of the fact that even at this early time there was a strong tendency to drop the final consonant in Latin; and this at once furnished a clue to the proper interpretation of many metrical phenomena in Plautus, which had previously been explained on wholly incorrect assumptions.

In the case of a line like Trim, 306, né tibi aegritùdinem pater parerem, parsi sédulo, it was assumed that pater was pronounced like p'ere, in order to avoid the apparent neglect of the law of position, which would, according to the practice of the classical poets, have lengthened the syllable -ter. Two considerations suffice to dispose of this hypothesis :—first, there is no evidence whatever that a mute between two vowels was ever dropped in early Latin; secondly, if pater become by “compression” père, it would be natural to find mater becoming mère; but in no case does a form with the first syllable long and the second lengthened by position take the place of one long syllable. On the other hand, there is positive evidence of a varied and unquestionable character to show that a final consonant was frequently dropped in pronunciation, especially in an iambic word. Hence it is clear that pater was pronounced pâté, notiere. This shows too that it was not the case, as has been asserted, that a final r was dropped only when it took the place of an earlier s, although this is doubtless the most common instance of its omission. The consonants most commonly dropped are the following :—

s: e.g., nimi(s) lépide fecit verba ad parsimoniam (Aid., 493).

This licence is retained by Ennius (e.g., Ann., 601, turn laterali(s) dolor, certissumu(s) nuntiu(s) mortis), and is common even in Lucretius. Cicero (Orat., 48, 161) speaks as if it had been the usual pronunciation in his own earlier days, and he admits it seven or eight times in his version of Aratus, e.g., magnu(s) Leo, &c.

m: e.g., dιim quide(m) ne quid perconteris quod mi haud lubeat prôloqui.

The practice of eliding a syllable ending in m before a tollowing vowel shows how lightly this consonant was pronounced even by the classical poets. It is very frequently omitted in inscriptions of every period (comp. Corssen, i. 267-74). As Quintilian (ix. 4, 40) says, ‘ ‘ m parum exprimitur . . . neque enim eximitur, sed obscuratur.” In this respect Umbrian quite agreed with popular Latin, but Oscan and Volscian carefully preserved the m (Corssen, i. 276).

t: e.g., set ârraboni dédi(t) quadraginta minas (Most., 648).

So in inscriptions dede (C. I. L., i. 621&).

d: e.g., his apu(d) nos magna tfirba ac magna fâmiliast (Aul., 340).

r: as above; or, e.g., pater vénit. sed quid pertimui autem, bélua (Ter., Phοrm., 601).

l: e.g., et simu(l) conficiam facilius ego quôd volo (Ter., Heaut., 803).

n: e.g., aùt quid istuc est quôd vos agitis? non licet, tame(n) sùs-picor (Ter., Ilee., 874).

It'is doubtful whether the last two licences occur in Plautus.

Occasionally we find these two tendencies concurring, and producing a short final syllable by the loss of a final consonant and the shortening of a vowel naturally long under the influence of the accent; so that we have forms like οves, bονes, vides, rogas, manus, scanned as two short syllables, not only (a) before vowels, but (b) even before consonants, e.g. :—

(a) âsini mordicùs me scindunt, b<5ves incursent côniibus (Aul., 232).

(b) foräs foras lumbrice qui sub terra erepsisti modo (Aul., 620). viros nostros quibus tii nos voluisti ésse matres familias (Stich.,

98).

âd papillas manus ferat, labra à labris nusquam aùferat (Bacch., 480).

The tendency to drop the final consonant of an iambic word is further extended to groups of words of the same scansion, especially when the second is a preposition, as in quis ad fores est? &c. (Amphitr., 1014).

opta id, quod iit contingat tibi vis (Asin., 713).

Accent had also an important effect in inducing the voice to hurry over unaccented syllables, even though long by position, in order to lay full stress upon an accented syllable. But this naturally took place only when the syllable thus shortened was itself preceded by a short syllable so that the formula for this process is v -- = v "" . Under this head we may bring a large number of instances of apparent neglect of quantity. Many of these are cases where the usual spelling is with a double consonant. Some have argued that as doubled consonants were not used in writing before the time of Ennius (Fest., s. v. “Solitaurilia,” p. 293, confirmed from inscriptions by Ritschl, P, L. Μ. E., p. 123), this is an indication that the pronunciation fluctuated; but it is doubtful whether this was ever the case except under the influence of the accent; and this influence was quite as powerful over syllables followed by two different consonants as by a doubled consonant.

Thus, per annonam caram dixit me natιim pater (Stich., 179) does not differ in principle from quia omnis bonas bonâsque adcurare addecet (Trim, 78); and the unusual quantity of the last two words in nos potius onerémus nosmet vieïssatim voliiptatibus (Stich., 532) is to be explained in precisely the same way, except that in the latter the voice is hurrying on to dwell upon a long accented syllable, in the former the accent has already fallen on a short accented syllable, a fact which naturally tends to shorten the following unaccented one. Compare for this configo sagittis fures thensaurârios (Aul., 395) where Goetz after Fleckeisen reads “sagitis.”

The combinations before which position is most commonly neglected are the following :—

nt: si id mea voluntate factumst (Trim, 1166).

pt: voluptatem inesse tântam (Rud., 459).

st: magistratus, si quis me hanc habere viderit (Rud., 477).

rn: cassidem in capfit,dormiboplacided in tabernaculo (Trim,726).

ps: scio apsûrde dictum hoc dérisores dicere (Capt., 69).

rg: séd sine argento fnistra es . . . (Pseud., 378).

It is needless to dwell further upon the details of Plautine scansion. The foregoing instances will have made it clear that, while there are some archaisms still retained, on the whole the language was beginning to suffer from that process of disintegration, which has left such marked traces upon almost every modern language.

The introduction of Greek metres for the drama doubtless did much to check this process, and it is probable that, even in the earliest Roman comedies, licences of pronunciation are much less common than they were in the popular language of the time. But the iambic and trochaic measures, especially as employed by the Roman poets, admitted of a free treatment, which left room for much laxity. It was not until the hexameter came to be used for poetry that the laws of prosody were definitely fixed. The rigid canons of dactylic verse required that the pronunciation should be strictly determined; and hence Ennius, although he does not appear to have introduced any marked changes in generally recognized rules of quantity, was compelled to settle positively much which had previously been fluctuating, and so to lay down the lines to which subsequent poetical works had to conform. From this time forward the literary language of Rome parted company from the popular dialect. It has been said with truth that even to the classical writers Latin was in a certain sense a dead language. Its vocabulary was not identical with that of ordinary life. Literary works, whether in prose or in verge, had to conform to a fixed standard. Now and again a writer of fresh originality 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 lost to view with Plautus and Terence, and reappears only in the semi-barbarous products of the early Romance literature.

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

I. Consonants. —1. Guttural, (a) Sonant G, pronounced as in English, but never softened before about the 6th century after Christ. (b) Surd C, pronounced always as k (except that in some early inscriptions the character is used 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 followed by the vowel u, e.g., pequnia. X, an abbreviation for cs; xs is, however, sometimes found. (c) Aspirate H, the rough breathing as in English.

2. Palatal. The spirant J, like the English y; it is only in late inscriptions that we find, in spellings like Zamιari, Giove, any indication of a pronunciation like the English.

3. Lingual, (a) R as in English, but probably produced more with the point of the tongue, (δ) L as in English, (c) S, always surd when initial, but at one time sonant between vowels, and possibly when final, (d) Z only found in the transcription of Greek words in and after the time of Cicero.

4. Dental, (a) Sonant, D as in English; but by the end of the 4th century di before a vowel was pronounced like our j (comp. diurnal and journal). (δ) Surd, T as in English, (c) 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.

5. Labials, (a) Sonant, B as in English; but occasionally in inscriptions of the later empire υ is written for b, showing that in some cases b had already acquired the soft sound of the contemporary β. B before a sharp s was pronounced p, e.g., in urbs. (b) Surd, P as in English, (c) Nasal, M as in English, but very slightly pronounced at the end of a word, (d) Spirant, V like the oit in Fr. oui, but probably often approximating to the South German w, i.e., a labial, not (like the English ν) a labio-dental v.

6. Labio-dental. Spirant, F as in English.

II. Vowels.— <i, ü, î, as the English ah, oo, ee∙, δ, a sound coming nearer to aw than the English ö; ê, an open Italian e, nearly as the vowel of pet lengthened. The short sound of each vowel was probably identical in quality with the long sound, differing only in quantity. Hence a was pronounced as in the French chatte, U nearly as in pull, ï nearly as in pit, o as in dot, é nearly as in p?t. The diphthongs were produced by pronouncing the vowels of which they were composed very rapidly 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 sound intermediate between o and e; ei, nearly as in feint, with the greater stress on the i; ui, as the French oui.

The changes which may be detected in the Latin language during the period of its literary development may be arranged under the heads of (1) vocabulary, (2) inflexion, (3) word formation, (4) syntax.

These will be best regarded separately in connexion with the four principal stages in the history of the language, which may be given, with their chief writers, as follows :—

I. Ante-Classical (240-80 b.c.). —Naevius (1 269-204), Plautus (254-184), Ennius (239-169), Cato (234-149), Terentius (1 195-159), Pacuvius (220-132), Accius (170-94), Lucilius (? 168-103).

II. Classical—Golden Age (80 b,c.-14 a,d.). —Varro (116-28), Cicero (106-44), Lucretius (99-55), Caesar (100-44), Catullus (87-? 47), Sallust (86-34), Virgil (70—19), Horace (65-8), Propertius (1 50- 1), Tibullus (? 54-Î18), Ovid (43 b.c.-18 a.d.), Livy (59 b.c.-18 a.d.).

III. Classical—Silver Age (14-180 A.D.).—Velleius (? 19 B.c.-? 31 a.d.), M. Seneca (died c. 30 a.d.), Persius (34-62), Petronius (died 66), Lucan (39-65), L. Seneca (died 65 a,d.), Plinius major (23-79 a.d.), Martial (40- 101), Quintilian (42—118), Plinius minor (61-1113), Tacitus (?60—? 118), Juvenal (? 47-? 138), Suetonius (75-160), Fronto (c. 90-170).

IV. Post-Classical.

The additions made to the vocabulary of the Latin language from the Greek belong to four different stages (Corssen, ii. 814). The first corresponds to 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, Karthago, Poenus; and also names of weights and measures, articles of industry, and terms connected with navigation, as drachuma, mina, talentum, purpura, machina, patina, ancora, aplustre, nausea. To these may be added names of gods or heroes, like Apollo, Pollux, and perhaps Hercules. These were all freely adapted to the phonetic laws of the Latin language.

A second stage is marked by the closer intercourse resulting from the conquest of southern Italy, and the wars in Sicily, and by the contemporary introduction of imitations of Greek literature into Rome, with its numerous references to Greek life and culture. In this stage, also, Greek words were freely adapted to the forms familiar to Roman ears: we find words like pessulus, scutula, amurca, fungus, balineum, bucina, techina, comissari, canistrum, career, sona (ζώνη), tarpessita, &c. In many cases hybrid forms are freely employed, whether by the addition of Latin suffixes to Greek stems as ballistarius, hepatarius, subbasilicanus, sycophantiosus, or of Greek suffixes to Latin stems as plagipatidas, pernonides ; or by derivation, as thermopo-lare, supparasitari ; or by composition as ineuscheme, thyrsigerae, flagritribae, scrophipasci. The character of many of these words shows that the comic poets who indulged in 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 sq.), where Sagaristio describes himself as

Vaniloquidorus, Virginisvendonides, Nugi·palamloquides, Argentumexterebronides, Tedigniloquides, Nummosexpalponides, Quodsemelarripides, Nunquampostreddonides.

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

But with Accius 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 poemasin to the Ciceronian poematis. By this time also y and z were introduced, and words newly borrowed from the Greek were faithfully reproduced.

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 Arcades, Tethy, Aegida, Echus, &c. Horace probably always used the Greek form in his Odes, the Latin in his Satires and Epistles. Later prose writers for the most part followed the example thus set.

In Plautus we have the best example of the vigorous native Italian idiom, enriched, but in no way fettered by imitation of the Greek. His constructions are sometimes free, and do not square with the canons of later grammarians; but there is much life and freshness, and it is very rarely that the right phrase is lacking to set forth his meaning with telling vigour.

The chief peculiarities of his grammar are :—

1. The use of some substantives with a gender different from that afterwards usual, c.g., dorsus, collus, nasum.

2. The retention of inflexions afterwards obsolete or retained only in archaic phrases: -iin the subj. pres., duint, creduis, posivi, die septimi. With regard to some of these archaic inflexions it is still a question how far they may be safely restored to the text of Plautus; e.g., homoncm, cubi, tunde, &c., the ablative d, nom. plur. in -is, as fundis.

3. The use of words excluded from the language of classical literature, but reappearing in the popular dialect: e.g., suppetias iri, bakuere, clepere, bellus, exinterare, cxanclare, nautea, saυium, &c. Under this head we may place the very frequent employment of diminutives, e.g., papillarum horridularum oppressiunculae, especially as terms of endearment, “maim corculum, melculum, verculum, ,, passerculum, haedillum, vitellum, aneticulam, monerulam, catellum, putellum, &c., the use of con, ad, and de as strengthening particles, and of abstract words, especially in the plural,—all marks of the plebeius sermo.

4. Syntactical constructions afterwards unusual: e.g., the accusative after verbs like fungor and utor; the accusative of the object after the gerundive (agitandumst vigilias'); the indicative in indirect questions and with cum signifying “since” or “although”; present infinitive instead of future after verbs of promising; quia after verbs of feeling, instead of quod, quoniam “since,” “after”; infinitive with purpose of motion; consulo and condono with double accusative; decorus, aequus, and expers with ablative; vereor with genitive; similis with genitive; quid hoc est hominis; facere tueri, compendi; faxo with a future logically dependent; the frequent use of figura etymologica, satin ut, praequam, praeiit. There is a free use of verbals in -tio: quid tibi hanc curatio est rem aut muttitio. By a laxity common in popular language verbs of seeing, knowing, asking, &c., are followed by a direct, not an indirect, question: scire volo, quoi reddidistii Asyndeton is very frequently employed to give life and rapidity to the style: e.g. (Pseud., 168), lepido victu, vino, unguentis, inter pocula pulpamentis.

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 ; shortenings do not seem so numerous. The number of archaic words preserved is perhaps due to the fact that εo large a proportion of his fragments have been preserved only by the grammarians, who cited them for the express purpose of explaining these. 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 {ponνt, esset, faciet) 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 ; he has an inflexion Mettoeo Fufetioeo, probably intended for a dative; the 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 irregularities like morimur, fuimus, ρotestur, contudit, &c. 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 took root in the language. His syntax is simple and straightforward, with the occasional pleonasms of a rude style, and conjunctions are comparatively rare. 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 regarded as free from the taint of provincial Latinity, and it may be regarded as reproducing the language of the educated circles in ordinary life; even 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 of his language too much into prominence. It is to be feared that the disgusting coarseness of many of his lines did not lose them favour with the circle for whom he wrote. He 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), ηoenu ( = non), facul ( = facile), and the genitive in -ai, 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 τιrbanus for calling himself pretor, we see already the beginning of the confusion of ae and e, which afterwards became universal. He shows a great command of technical language, and (partly owing to the nature of the fragments) a∙πaζ λeγogeνα are very numerous.

The treatise of Cato De Re Rustica would have afforded invaluable material, but it has unfortunately come down to us in a text greatly modernized. As it is, it is of interest from the point of view of literature rather than of language. We find in it instances of the accusative with υti, of the old imperative praefarnino, and of the fut. subj. servassis, pτohibessis ; but there is nothing which can be added to what we learn from Plautus.

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 2d century b.c. 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 of all orations of the time. No small part of the urbanitas consisted in a pronunciation equally removed from boorish roughness and from foreign affectations; 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 lias 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, free from hiatus, alliteration, rhyme, the repetition or displacement of words, and too long sentences. Dignity depends upon the selection of language and of sentiments.

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 sq.) 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 that are 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. Mr 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 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 the Latin prose were able to meet the demand without departing from the spirit of their own language, and the periods of Cicero and Livy, though very different in structure from those of Plato and Demosthenes, are not less satisfying to the ear, or less adequate to the full expression of thought. 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 newfangled 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. These qualities make it pre-eminently the language of legislation and of commerce. There is no haziness about a Latin sentence; directness, concreteness, and lucidity stamp it as the utterance of men who knew precisely what they wished to say, and said it with all the force at their command.

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.

Μ. Terentius 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 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.

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 ⅛ense 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 fréquentatives, which he shares with the early comedy; partly in inflexions which were growing obsolete, such as semati, solui, comperior (dep.), neglegisset, vis (acc. pl.), nequitur. In syntax his constructions are for the most part those of the contemporary writers.

In Lucretius and Catullus we have examples of the language of poetry of the same period. The former is undoubtedly 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, lacère, 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 practical 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; Mr Munro has noted more than a hundred aτrαξ λeγo∕x∈vα, or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and fréquentatives; 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. In Catullus we have 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 alls and alid, uni (gen.), and the antiquated tetuli and recepso. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives cave and mane, in the analytic perfect paratam habes, and perhaps in the use of unus approaching that of the indefinite article.

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 comparatively slight; he 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, and nummum 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, garrio, 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 inflected 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 inflexions are employed, but not with the licence of Catullus; there are no datives in i or sin like Tethyi 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 aπaξ λ∈γop,evαhave been noted; but for the most part there is nothing very distinctive about their character, and perhaps we should find them almost entirely disappearing if the remains of contemporary literature were more extensive. 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.

In Virgil the development of 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 choice of 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 (comp. Dr Kennedy’s Appendix on “Virgilian Syntax ”).

In Livy’s singularly varied and beautiful style we have Latin prose in that rich maturity which seems to portend and almost to necessitate an early decline. 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, which scholars have collected (c∕. Kühnast, Liv. Syηt., 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 ad Spei (sc. templum), pars altera regiae adulationis erat, oratores pacis petendae, ira praedae omissae, oppidum Antiochiae, aequum campi, qui captivorum, in datives like aeneum pectori tegumen, comitia collegae creando, quibusdam volentibus erat, promptus veniae dandae f in accusatives like iurare calumniam, certare multam, distendere hostem ; 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 a very frequent pregnant construction with prepositions, an attraction of relatives, and a great extension of the employment of relative adverbs of place instead of relative pronouns, e.g., quo = in quern. 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 purpose, 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 rather than at that which is logically suggested. His periods are constructed with less regularity than those of Cicero, and 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 iuσunditas and lactea ubertas.

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 Professor 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 (c∕. Postgate’s Introduction, pp. lvii.-cxxv.); but it is of comparatively little significance in the history of the language.

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, but it is not less deeply affected by the rhetoric of the schools. His never-failing fertility cf 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 rather than to give them full rein. 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 subjectas 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 is the pattern of the poet of society, never rising above that which was readily intelligible to the circle in which he moved, but achieving what all were attempting with consummate ease and grace. He has no deviations from classical syntax but those which were coming into fashion in his time (e.g., forsitan and quamvis with the indie., 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.

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 ρlebeius 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 — Vr. sage), rostrum ( = os), ipsimus ( = master), scordalias, baro, and numerous diminutives like camella, audaculus, potiuncula, savunculum, ofia, 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 (brebis), 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 there must have been a great tendency to drop final m, s, and t, to omit η before s, and to dull the vowel sounds, e and i being especially frequently interchanged, and u taking the place of i even in inflexions. There are already signs of the confusion of ae and e, which later on became almost universal. The additions to our vocabulary are slight and unimportant (cf. Corpus Inscr. Lat., vol. iv., with Zangemeister’s Indices).

To return 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.

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 striking and popular as it was 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 reflexions, but charges the author justly with want of selfrestraint, jerkiness, frequent repetitions, and tawdry tricks of rhetoric. He 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, that besets so many young writers, 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 is 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 Latiuity. 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, so that Merivale remarks “he had never studied, one is almost tempted to believe that he had never read, Virgil.” It has been said of him that he corrupted the style of poetry, not less than Seneca that of prose. It may be doubted whether his influence was ever great enough to produce such an effect; it is safer to say that he is the earliest poet in whom the characteristics of the silver Latinity are clearly marked.

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 s 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.

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. Teacher’s 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 licences common to his age, especially the shortening of the final -o in verbs, but as a rule they are as correct as they are sonorous. In Martial the tendency of this period to witty epigram finds its most perfect embodiment, combined with finished versification. The typical prose-writers of this time are Pliny the younger and Tacitus. A study of their diction and syntax will best disclose the characteristics of the silver Latinity. Some of the 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 arrangement 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” (il>. f 25); “sordet omne quod natura dictavit” (ιδ., 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” (⅛, 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.

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 according to the same authority number eighty-eight, for the most part new formations or compounds from stems already in use, especially verbal substantives in -tor and -sor, -lus and -sus, -tura and -mentum, with new fréquentatives..

3. Words used with a meaning (a) not found in earlier prose, but sometimes (in more than eighty instances) borrowed from the poets, e.g., componere, “to bury”; scriptura, “a writing”; ferratus, “armed with a sword”; (δ) peculiar to later writers, e.g., numerosus, “numerous”; famosus, “famous”; decollare, “tobehead”; imputare, “to take credit for,” &c.; (c) restricted to Tacitus himself, e.g., dispergere ≈ divolgare; of these Boetticher quotes one hundred and twenty-two.

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 employing the present and perfect conjunctive 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 “absolute” is shared by Tacitus with Livy; the dative of purpose and the dative with a substantive in place of a genitive are more common with him 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 conjunctive 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, tanquamf, tanquam, quasi, and vel·ut 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 participle 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.

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.

A new era commences with the accession of Hadrian (117 A.D.). 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 Appuleius 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. His latest editor is quite pathetic in lamenting the worthlessness of his author, and says that it would have conduced to his reputation if his works had never been unearthed. He deliberately attempts to go back to the obsolete diction of writers like Cato and Ennius. We find compounds like altipendulus, nudiustertianus, tolutilo-quentia, diminutives such as matercella, anulla, ρassercula, studiolum, forms like congarrire, disconciηηus, pedetemptius, desiderantissimus (passive), conticinium ; gaudeo, oboedio, and perfungor are used with an accusative, modestus with a genitive; and, if our MS. is to be trusted, the interchange of b and v has already begun. On the other hand he actually attempts to revive the form asa for ara. In Appuleius 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 beati- tudinis, cenae pignerarer, iηcoram 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 et altiuscule sub ipsas papillas succinctula. He confesses himself that he is writing in a language not familiar to him:—“Inurbe 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 Appuleius 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.

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 Roman jurists.

It is needless to trace in detail the gradual impoverishment and disorganization of literary Latin. After the time of Gellius, there is no writer who deserves in any sense to be called classical. The true literary tradition was lost; and even the poets who aimed at imitating the best models, by far the best of whom was Claudian, were led into many faults by the defective taste of their time. The sense of quantity was lost, and the practice of regarding accent as the ruling principle in metre, which had doubtless never been extinct in popular songs, and which has left plain traces in a poem quoted by Gellius (xix. 11), became gradually predominant. Its effects are sometimes to be observed even in the poems of Ausonius (flor. 350 A.τ>. ), and are plain in those of Sedulius in the next century.

In Gaul the rhetorical schools, which flourished greatly in the 4th century, maintained a tradition of learning, which preserved some classical tinge of language, but it sank by degrees into bornbastic extravagance, and the style of Sidonius Apollinaris displays, with a profusion of erudition, an entire absence of correctness. Latin was to him no living language; his natural medium of expression was the sermo rusticus, and this has left its mark on every page.

The influence of the Christian church in the development of the Latin language was mainly in two directions. In the first place the new conceptions introduced brought about a large extension of the vocabulary. As the most important of the early Latin fathers belonged to Africa (Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, Augustine), this extension was made under the influence of the African Latinity; the newly-coined terms took an awkward and almost barbarous form; and the tendency of the time to abstract expressions and clumsy compounds was heightened by the needs of the writers. Secondly, the Christian teachers, as several of them expressly say, thought little of the grammatical exactness of their language, provided they could make themselves readily intelligible to the common people; e.g., Augustine confesses “Melius est reprehendant vos grammatici quam non intelligant populi,” and again, “Saepe enim et verba non Latina dico, ut vos intelligatis.” Hence in the writings of the early fathers we find a large element of plebeian Latinity introduced into the clumsy and affected rhetoric and the bold linguistic experiments of the African schools. Perhaps it is Tertullian who represents this stage of the language in its most extravagant form. He has genitives like imbrium utilia, accusatives like Campania erepta Pompeios, adverbs used for adjectives, metaphorical terms employed in the boldest fashion (e.g., adulter, aestum, census, contentiosus funis, communicare, &c.), numerous abstract words, often in the plural, like corpulentiae, discentiae, inexperientiae, and finally the most extraordinary compounds, such as interibilis, elementicius, concupiscentivum, ethnicalis, extractorius, famulatorius, &c.

The language of the Vetus Itala (a version of the Bible, made in Africa) an<l of the Vulgate has been made the subject of an admirable study by Hermann Ronsch (Itala und Vulgata, 2d. ed., Marburg, 1875), from whom the following sketch of its leading characteristics has been mainly derived (comp, also Bernhardy, Röm. Lit., pp. 334, 335). Many of the phenomena are common to the plebeian language generally, and have been already noticed as appearing occasionally in ea⅛er writings.

1. In the formation of substantives there appears a preference for full-sounding forms, constructed by a free use of the suffixes •mentum, -minium, -arium, -orium, -culum, -bulum, -aneum, -inium, -ura, -udo, ∙ntia, -itas∙. e.g., nugamentum for nugae, sessimonium, sessibulum, or sessorium for sedes, calcanium for calx, poenitudo for poena, dolositas for dolus.

2. Plebeian terms take the place of their classical equivalents: e.g., caballus (≈cheυal), mansio (=*maison), bucca ( = bouche), testa ( = tête), in gyrum ( = environ).

3. Substantives in -tor and -io receive large additions (Ronsch gives more than one hundred and eighty of the first kind, and more than two hundred and seventy of the second kind, found either now for the first time, or previously only in writers like Plautus and Petronius).

4. Adjectives are turned into substantives. From this class are formed many Romance words: e.g., montana (≈ montagne), hibernum (≈ hiver), diurnum ( = giorno), volatile (= volatili, volaille), matutinum ( = 'mat tino, matin), murale ( = muraille).

5. Adjectives in -alis and -bilis, -umus, -lnmdus, -lentus, and -osus are largely introduced, often replacing simpler forms: e.g., placibilis = placens, aeternalis = aeternus, longiturnus, amarulentus, meticulosus, dignitosus ; and verbals in -or give rise to participial forms like expudoratus, intimoratus, caloratus.

6. The terminations -im and -iter largely replace e in adverbs: e.g., inordinatim, pressim, avariter, improbiter.

7. Verbs of secondary derivation take the place of simple verbs, thus meeting the love for fuller forms, as mensurare, amaricare, taediare, potionare, deteriorare ; an intensive force is given by composition with ad, de, cum, ex, in, and ob ; e.g., adminari, coinquinare, confortare, deplanare, elonginquare, incrassare, obdulcare; and sometimes, in imitation of the Greek, there is a double prefix, as in adincrescere, per conterrere, obrelinquere, discooperire ( = découvrir).

8. Intensive and frequentative verbs are especially common, and have given rise to many Romance words; e.g., compressare, proiectare, recollectare.

9. In composition there is great freedom, and the use of the negative in- is very common, e.g., imbonitas, disconvenientia, indicto-audientia, quaterducatus ( = tetrarch), admanumdeductor. Hybrid forms are common, like thelodives, accidia (for ακηδία), cataplectatio (κaτaτληyμ0s), aporiari (iπopeiσθai). Especially noteworthy is the use of two prepositions or an adverb with a preposition, as de mane ( = demain), de foris ( = dehors), de intus, and ab intus (dans =de ab intus), de retro (≈ derrière), de sursum ( = dessus), ab ante ( = avant).

10. In inflexion there are many irregularities, largely due to the reappearance of forms which had long been obsolete in the literary language, but partly produced by the love of fuller forms, often resulting in heteroclite words. To the first class belong ιt-stems inflected according to the second declension, e.g.,fmcti, victi, strepiti, &c.; masculine for neuters, e.g.,fanus, foenus, lignus, &c., and, on the other hand, nasum, populum, &c.; numerous pronominal forms, such as .alis, ipsud, alio and illo (dat. ), &c. To the second class belong ossum for os (comp. August., L>oct. Christ., iii. 3: mallem quippe cum barbarismo dici “non est absconditum a te ossum meumf quam ut ideo esset minus apertum, quia magis Latinum est), princi-pens for princeps, praesepium for praesepe, lampada for lampas, retia for rete, &c. Comparatives and superlatives are largely invented, often with the aid of magis and7√us, sometimes used pleonastically’ as plus lucidiores. In verbs analogy has often replaced the classical forms by others which seemed more regular: odio is inflected throughout like audio ; verbs are transferred from one conjugation to another, e.g., floriet, fugiit, linies, extergunt ; compare perfects like contcrui, porregi, collexi, prandiderunt, futures like augeam, persuadeam, metuebitis, peries, scibo, sepelibo. Many deponents appear with active forms, as so commonly in archaic Latin, and less frequently vice versa.

11. In the meaning of words there are many changes, especially in the way of giving a concrete force to abstract and figurative forms. Some of these preserve their acquired force in the Romance languages: e.g., cortina (curtain), focus (fuoco, feu), exhibitio ( = maintenance), papilio (pavillon), sella (selle), spatula (épaule), substantia ( = property), venatio (venaison), gentes (gens), exterminare (exterminate), instaurare (store), involare (embler), rememorari (remember), renuntiare (renounce), traducere (traduce), recuperari (recover), stare (être). Ad and apud are treated as equivalent; de is constantly used with an instrumental force, and as equal to ex: it replaces the partitive genitive (de colentibus multitudo magna ; tantum de chartis), and sometimes forms with its case a substantive used as a nominative (ampulla in qua de oleo [de l' huile] continebatur).

12. In syntax there is everywhere visible a negligent simplicity of structure, careless of grammatical rule, but aiming at directness and ready intelligibility. Hence the tendency to analytic rather than synthetic construction, observable in earlier stages, is extended. Prepositions are constantly used instead of the simple cases, often with entire neglect of their classical construction: e.g., ab, cum, de, ex, in, and sub (of rest), prae, pro, sine, with acc.; in and sub (of motion), intra, post, &c., with abl.). Verbs are construed κατά συveσιv, instead of according to classical usage: e.g., egere c. acc., misereri and impedire c. dat. llle, his, and is are used for the definite article, unus for the indefinite. Quod, quia, and quoniam are constantly used for the accusative with the infinitive; the indicative follows ut and indirect interrogatives. Sometimes (as at times in modern German) the subjunctive is used in expressing astonishment. The infinitive follows a preposition, as quomodo potest his nobis dare carnem cui manducare (à manger)·, non habuit linde reddere (comp, de quoi vivre). The pluperfect conj ιιnctive frequently replaces the imperfect (comp, que je punisse), and the perfect infinitive the imperfect, especially with∕><wιwn and debeo. The ablative gerund often takes the place of a participle, and the gerundive of a future infinitive.

Of Graecisms, which are very numerous in the literal versions of the Bible, the only one requiring notice here is the frequent use of habco with the infinitive (not unknown even to Cicero), which has given rise to the Romance future.

The changes of pronunciation which had been effected by this time consisted partly in the λvider extension given to tendencies previously existing in the popular speech, partly in that gradual disintegration and weakening of sounds always observable in the history of a language. Our knowledge of them has to be derived almost wholly from inscriptions; for, although the conclusions derived from these may sometimes be usefully supplemented by the evidence of manuscripts, there is usually a doubt possible in the latter case whether the forms occurring bear witness to the pronunciation of the author or to that of the copyist in a later age. Interesting evidence is sometimes furnished by the rhymes found in the poets who discarded the classical forms of verse for rhyming metres. For instance, the tendency to drop a final consonant, shown in inscriptions of every period, comes out plainly in the verses of Sedulius, who has the following rhymes: pectoris—dei, impie —times, viderant — praeviam, personat — pignora, millia— victimam, fundere—originem, torridi—obstruit. The following table (mainly from Schuchardt, Vokalismus des Vulgärlatein, i. 104-5) gives the principal facts of the popular pronunciation, with an indication of the periods at which the change can be proved to have taken place. It will be understood that it is always possible that the more correct pronunciation may have been retained side by side with the corruption long after the latter makes its first appearance. [table]

[table]

The assibilation of cl commenced in Africa, not before the time of Alexander Severas (222-235 a.d.), and was late in extending to Italy; in Gaul it was common in the 7th century; that of ti was generally adopted even by the educated in the 5th century. In the 6th and 7th century g was dropped after vowels before e or i (vinti = viginti) in Africa. This phenomenon had been common in Umbrian and Oscam

The exact date of some of these changes is open to question; but it Would be impossible to attempt to determine it without a fuller discussion of the evidence than is here possible. Ou the whole, it may be asserted with confidence that all these changes had been fully established before the end of the 6th century after Christ. The question of the relation of the Latin language to the various Romance tongues which have been derived from it is one which can be discussed in detail only under the head of· the several languages. The general character of the relation is all that can be touched upon here. But it is of importance to notice that the metaphor which is embodied in the phrase “mother and daughter languages” holds good only for literature. From this point of view Μ. Littré writes with justice: “Latin alters without doubt towards the end of the empire and after the arrival of the barbarians, and the style of Gregory of Tours is very far removed from the puritv of Livy; but after all it is Latin, and not one of the Neo-Latin languages. Then all at once it disappears, and we see arising, as if from under the ground, the various idioms to which it has given birth. It dies suddenly and without transformation, so that these secondary languages cannot be considered as the metamorphosis or expansion of it. We have no right to say that Latin is continued in the new languages; it died without developing itself, but it died leaving children and heirs.” Such a breach of continuity is wholly inconceivable as an historical procedure. From the popular Latin various dialects were gradually fonned, assuming forms differing with the various influences which were brought to bear upon them. 11 is true that there is much in the derived languages which cannot be shown to have existed in the popular Latin; but if we set aside what is evidently due to the action of foreign, especially Teutonic idioms—and this is to be found far more in the vocabulary than in the syntax—there is nothing which may not fairly be ascribed to the operation of tendencies already existing in the plebeian speech. By degrees the custom grew up of confining the name Latina to the literary language, while the popular speech was known as lingua Romana. As early as 660 a.d. St Mummolinus was elected bishop of Noy on, “quia praevalebat, non tantum in Teutonica, sed etiam in Romana lingua.” In the middle of the next century the Acta Sanctorum, speaking of St Adalhard, abbot of Corbey, brings out the distinction still more clearly: “qui si vulgari, id est, Romana lingua loqueretur, omnium aliarum putaretur inscius; si vero Teutonica, enitebat perfectius, si Latina, in nulla omnino absolutius.” The famous “glosses of Reichenau” of the same date explain some words of the Latin vulgate in the popular language: c.g., caementarii =∙macioni (maçons). In the beginning of the 9th century the church ordered the priest to preach, not in literary Latin, but in the popular tongue. The oath of Strasburg (842 a.d.), happily preserved in a contemporary record, gives us what may be called with equal justice the latest specimen of the Latin or the earliest example of the French language.

Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro (Latin) Bro Bei amore ct pro Christiano populo et nostro (French) Pour l’amour de Dieu, et pour le salut du peuple chrétien et de notre

Commun salvament, d’ist di en avant, in quant Deus Communi salvamento de isto die in ab-ante in quantum Deus Commun salut de ce jour en avant, autant que Dieu

Savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Sapere et posse mihi donabit, si salvare habeo ego ecc’istum meum fratrem He donne savoir et pouvoir, je sauverai mon frère

Karlo et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per Garolum et in adjutu et in quaque una causa, sic quomodo homo per Charles et en aide et en chaque chose, ainsi qu’on doit

Dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi Directum suum fratrem salvare debitus est, in eo quod ille mihi alterum sic Selon la justice sauver son frère, à condit ion qu’il en fasse autant

Fazet; et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai Faciet, et ab Lothario nullum placitum nunquam prehendere habeo Pour moi, et je ne ferai avec Lothaire aucun accord Qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit.

Quod mea voluntate ecc'isto meo fratri Car olo in damno sit. Qui par ma volonté porte préjudice, à mon frère Charles ici présent.

The details of the changes which the popular Latin experienced in passing into the Romance languages cannot be given in this connexion; but a few of the leading features may be not improperly noticed. It is to be remarked at the outset, however, that these concern only those portions of the vocabulary which have come by direct descent from the Latin; in all the Romance languages there is a large element which is due to borrowing at a later stage by the learned; for this portion the tendencies to be mentioned do not come into play. The Italian cagione, Spanish velar, French fréle, are examples of the first class; I tai. occasione, Span, vigilar, French fragile, are instances of the second. We notice then that (1) the accented vowel, “the soul of the word,” as it is called by Diez, is always retained, subject to phonetic changes: comp. rdbiem≈rage, crétam=craie. (2) An unaccented vowel in the immediate neighbourhood of an accented one is usually lost: comp, au,rtcula≈ oreille = orccchio, or changed for another, especially«, almost arbitrarily, e.g., silvaticus =>salvaggio = sauvage. (3) Diphthongs are rarely retained; the tendency noticed already in Latin to change them into simple vowels continued to operate; and the numerous diphthongs in the Romance languages are usually of later origin, arising either from contraction, or from the modification of simple vowels. (4) A mute between two vowels is commonly lost: comp, frigidus =froid≈freddo; laudarc = louer. Hiatus thus caused is usually removed by contraction. (5) When two mutes are brought into contact, by the loss of the intermediate vowel, the former is generally sacrificed: manducare =mangiare, manger; berbicarius=∙ berger. (6) C before a, o, and u, before a consonant, or at the end of a word, commonly remains, but occasionally is softened; it is only in French that as a rule ca becomes cha or ehe, as in caballus = cheval, cambiare = changer, while co, cu are retained, as in collum = cou, cuneus == coin. When medial, it is softened usually in Spanish, and frequently in Italian; in French it passes into y or i, as in doyen= decanus, braie = braca, or is lost, as in mie—mica, prior ≈ precari. C before e, i, ae, oe, is almost invariably assibilated, in accordance with a linguistic law, examples of which might be adduced from the most diverse quarters. G has passed through precisely analogous changes. (7) The liquids l and r freely interchange; and, while in Latin itself l rarely if ever becomes r, except under the influence of dissimilation, in the Romance languages this change is apparently quite as common as the reverse: e.g., lusciniola = rosig- nuolo≈ rossignol. L regularly becomes i after c (ch) f in Italian, and al before a mute becomes au in French. Both r and l are especially liable to metathesis, as also in Latin and English: e.g., Span, blago from baculus, Ital. frugare from furca. N frequently becomes r, as in pampre for pampinus·, but the reverse rarely happens. (8) Before sp, st, sc, Spanish always, French and Provençal usually, but Italian never prefixes e∙. comp, spiritus·, Span, espiritu, French esprit, Prov. csperit, Ital. spirito.

It is needless to add that assimilation, syncope, and the avoidance of a harsh concurrence of consonants, either by the rejection of one or more of them, or by the insertion of a vowel, have all played a great part in the consonantal system of the Romance languages. A table of the chief changes of consonants in combination will be found in Diez, Grammaire des Langues Romanes, vol. i. p. 282.

In nouns the inflexions denoting cases were generally lost and their functions supplied in the genitive, dative, and ablative by the use of prepositions, and this in two ways. On the one hand French and Provençal, following a tendency common in popular Latin, took the accusative as the typical oblique case, and used forms thence derived for the objective case, while forms derived from the nominative constituted the subjective case: eg., sing, subj. murs (=rnurus), obj. mur ( = murum), plur. subj. mur ( = muri), obj.

murs [= muros). But by the 14th century this distinction, no longer corresponding to any facts in the pronunciation of the French language, fell into disuse, and the objective form alone was used, the last trace of inflexion thus disappearing. On the other hand, Italian and Spanish seem never to have passed through the former stage, but to have adopted from the first the accusative form as the basis of their own subjective as well as objective case, although in the plural [cor one, anni) a desire to avoid confusion has led the Italian to adopt forms pointing rather to the nominative. Again, the neuter gender is lost entirely in the Romance languages; neuter words have become masculine as a rule, not, however, without many exceptions, due in some cases to false analogy, in others to the corruptions of the popular Latin. We may notice also the development of the article out of the popular use of ille and unus found in all the Romance languages.

The comparison of adjectives shows the steady growth of the preference for analytic over - synthetic forms, which is a characteristic of Romance grammar generally. The use of magis and plus, comparatively rare, especially the latter, in Latin, has become quite normal, the former in Spanish, Portuguese, and Roumanian, the latter in the other language, while the suffixed forms -ior and -issimus have left but few traces, and the definite article has been generally employed to form the superlative on quite a new principle.

In the case of pronouns some of the most common (e.y., his, is, uter) are lost altogether, and many new ones are created by composition.

In the conjugation of verbs, the principal changes are due to the disintegration of the old forms, leading to their replacement by compound forms. In popular Latin there was already a strong tendency to analytic forms, such as habeo compertum, habeo dicere, which supplied the model for numerous similar expressions. Thus the passive inflexions have been entirely replaced by the use of auxiliary verbs; the perfect is formed with the aid of habere (for which Spanish and Portuguese often employ tenere [tener, ter]), the future is compounded with habeo (j’aimer-ai, &c.); a new mood, the conditional, is formed by a termination borrowed from the past imperfect; and supines and gerunds are entirely lost. In regard to the inflexion of particular verbs, it is of especial importance to notice the distinction between strong and weak forms, the accent in the former falling on the root (créscere), and in the latter on the termination (amdre); comp, tiens ∙=ttneo, but tenons=tenirnus.

In adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions, the chief point to notice is the extent to which, as in pronouns, simple forms have been replaced by .compound forms, either as a result of the indistinguishable shape assumed by the latter in course of time, or with a view to a more complete expression of meaning. The former cause has led, for example, to the loss of adverbs distinguished from adjectives merely by a termination, worn away by the lapse of time; the latter to compounds like désormais [-=de ex hora magis), beaucoup ( = bellum colaphum, “a fine stroke ”).

In derivation the Romance languages are especially rich, the loss of numerous simple Latin words, which either were too short to bear the abbreviating effects of time, or would have assumed an inconvenient form under the influence of the necessary phonetic changes, being compensated by new creations. Thus in the place of res, vis, ius, os, rus, sus, crus, rnus, we find derivatives from causa, fortia, directum, bucca, campania, troia, gamba, sorex ; and diminutives very frequently replace their primitives. We may notice finally how frequently it was necessary to adopt new forms in order to avoid homonyms, thus bellum was driven out by bellus, aequus by cquus, puer by purus, sol by solum. Frequently words of nonLatin origin were employed for this purpose.

But the formation of the Romance languages, and their occasional employment in popular songs and stories, at first hardly affected at all the use of Latin as the language of literature. Its adoption as the means of utterance of the Christian church lent to it, in the days of its most marked decay, a new though a strangely transformed life. So appropriated, it became familiar to all who had even the elements of education throughout western Europe; it was universally retained in the services of the church, if not in the discourses with which these services were sometimes, but by no means always, accompanied; all philosophy and theology to which the new and unformed popular idioms could give no expression was necessarily expressed in its terminology; and it remained, as it is at the present day, the official language of the ecclesiastical authorities. In France it is not until the 10th century that we find any considerable remains of the vernacular in the form of charters and other muniments, and literary prose does not begin until the 12th century, when French versions of the chronicles, originally written in Latin, are fairly common. In Italy, as was perhaps natural, the use of Latin for literature was retained still more tenaciously, and the development of the national language in its new form was extremely slow. It was not before the 13th century that there was any serious attempt at writing in Italian; the earliest prose work, the Gomposizione del Mundo, dating from the middle of that century, quite in accordance with the spirit of Italian thought at the time, was a scientific treatise. Numerous novelle are preserved to us from about the same period; but the use of Italian as an organ of literary expression was still so little established that Dante found it natural to write, not only his political treatise De Monarchia, but also his defence of the vulgar tongue De Vulgari Eloquio, in Latin. Even in the sixteenth century sermons addressed to a mixed audience in Italy were frequently delivered in Latin. The fact that so large a proportion of the chronicles of the Middle Ages proceeded from the monasteries serves to explain the continued use of a language familiar to the writers alike in their religious exercises and in their theological studies; and in our own English chronicles we have perhaps a unique instance of the history of a nation recorded for centuries in its own vernacular. Further, as the clergy supplied the secretaries and often the ministers of state in every court in western Europe, Latin continued to be the language of diplomacy and public business; and, as all science and learning was confined to them or to their pupils, works appealing to a learned audience were of necessity clothed in the same garb. Of the vast mass of Latin poetry produced in the cloisters of the Middle Ages, perhaps it is enough to say, with a scholar whose studies made him exceptionally familiar with it, “It offers no one exception to the eternal irrepealable law, that no great poet is inspired but in his native language.” Even the Latin hymns, some of which have taken their place among the perennial treasures of the church, owe their charm almost wholly to the intensity of their religious emotions, and to the lofty or plaintive music to which they were wedded, and not to any power in wielding the resources of the language, or happy artistic skill. It is perhaps in the De Imitatione Christi that ecclesiastical Latin is seen in its most perfect form. The style is of course wholly unlike that of the classical writers; but the Hebraic individualism, which in the Latin fathers often seems to clash inhar-moniously with the general tone of the diction, has here proved strong enough to absorb the whole into its own key. Its terse and pregnant vigour, its direct simplicity, its profound thought, and its intense passion of self-devotion give it a place in the history of literature hardly inferior to that which it has always held among works of religious edification. It was one of the happy effects of a universal language.that such a book, embodying, as none other did, the whole spirit of mediaeval Christianity, should at once be accessible to the whole of Christendom.

During the long period for which Latin continued to be the language of learning and science, we find the writers who used it dividing themselves broadly into two great classes, according as they were accustomed to employ the current language of the cloister and the court, or aimed at a reproduction of the rhythm and diction of classical times. Of course the line cannot be drawn sharply, and all degrees of purity in idiom and syntax are represented, from the barbarous expressions which teem in many of the chroniclers to the purism of the Ciceronians. But it is not hard, as a rule, to determine in the case of any particular writer whether his style is merely derived from the traditional teachings of the schools, or drawn from a fresh study of the great models; and, while it is impossible to trace in detail the fluctuations in the greater or less badness of the former group, it may not be improper to sketch in outline the origin, the development, and it is to be feared that we must add the decline, of the art of using the Latin language with purity and grace. The attempt to return to something like the classical standard may perhaps have originated in the schools of Charles the Great, but it was least unsuccessful where, as in England, Latin was never a living language, and all knowledge of it had to be obtained from regular grammatical instruction. In the 9th and 10th centuries reference is very rarely made to the classical writers; it was only in the 11th century, under the influence of the schools of Lanfranc and Anselm, that a purer taste and a wider knowledge begin to show themselves. If the impulse came from Italy, the scholars of England and France soon surpassed their masters, and there is probably no Italian scholar who can be placed by the side of John of Salisbury, or (in the next century) of Abelard and Bernaιd of Clairvaux. But the influence of the mendicant friars, and the corruption of the monastic houses, led to a decline at least as marked as the revival; and the Latin of the 13th century was not less barbarous, as a rule, than that of the 10th. A far more enduring movement for reform is connected with the name of Petrarch (1304-1374). According to his own account the sweetness and sonorousness of the periods of Cicero charmed his ears, when a boy, and made all other Latin seem to him harsh and discordant. Of course he was unable to escape altogether the influences of his time, and the more accurate scholars of a later age, aided by the vast improvement in the subsidia of learning, such as dictionaries and grammars, find much to censure in his diction. But at least he set the example of that enthusiastic study of the great ancient models which is the only possible road to a finished and harmonious Latin style; and the lesson that he taught was not destined to be forgotten, until it had borne its due fruits. His favourite pupil, John of Ravenna, was himself the teacher of the best scholars of the next generation; and to one of these, Gasparino of Barziza (died 1431), has commonly been assigned the distinction of being the father oi the pure and elegant Latinity of the Renaissance. His devotion to the study of Cicero is shown by the plan which he formed to fill up, by conjectural links, the numerous deficiencies in the MSS. of the De Oratore then known to scholars, a design happily superseded by the discovery of the famous Codex Laudianus. Additional material was furnished by the recovery of not a few authors or portions of authors of the best period by the unwearied diligence of Poggio Bracciolini; and from henceforward the study of the Latin classics was pursued with the happiest results. Throughout the 15th century no literary acquirement was more valued than a good Latin style; the patronage extended to scholarship by the learned Pope Nicholas V. and the grammatical teaching of scholars like Laurentius Valla combined to encourage its pursuit with energy and success. Towards the latter part of the century Politian at Florence, and Hermolaus Barbaras at Venice, showed a mastery over the Latin language which won for them the enthusiastic admiration of their contemporaries; and, though the learning of these eminent scholars proved not unfrequently injurious to their style by inducing an affectation of obsolete or unfamiliar words, there is no reason to deny that on the whole this admiration was well deserved. In Germany they had a worthy rival, by some even ranked before them, in Agricola; in France and England there was as yet no one who, in the judgment afterwards expressed by Erasmus, could be said to write Latin at all. As far as purity of style went, the highest pitch of excellence was doubtless reached by the Italians towards the beginning of the 16th century. Sadolet, Bembo, Paulus Manutius, and, we must in justice add, Longolius in France, wrote Latin with a grace and finish which place their works in respect of style almost on a level with those of their great model Cicero. But it cannot be denied that their fastidiousness of language often led them to sacrifice the fruits to the flowers of learning, and justly drew down upon them the witty and biting censures of Erasmus in his Ciceronianus. In the controversy between the men of learning and the men of taste, the best tendencies of the age were decidedly on the side of the former; and the Italian scholars whose object, as Hallam well expresses it, was “to write pure Latin, to glean little morsels of Roman literature, to talk a heathenish philosophy in private, and to leave the world to its own abuses,” had little influence on the next generation in comparison with the wider culture and loftier aims of scholars like Erasmus and Melanchthon. The rapid extension of a knowledge of Greek literature, especially in England, France, and Germany, had its effects in the same direction. Men threw themselves into the new world of thought thus revealed with an eager avidity which left little leisure for that elaborate polishing of periods which had been the delight of the Ciceronianists. The 16th century saw enormous advances in the knowledge of antiquity; but the most learned scholars were by no means always equally famous for their skill in the use of the Latin language. Even in Italy itself the most eminent writers on classical subjects approach rather to the German than to the Ciceronian type, and are more distinguished for the width of their erudition and the abundance of their quotations than for elegance or purity of style. On this side of the Alps the prevalence of the same type was, as might have been expected, all but universal. Muretus alone perhaps maintained in this generation the best traditions of style, and was pronounced, even by the judgment of the censorious Scaliger, to have written better Latiu than any one since Cicero; in Italy, however, he had a formidable rival in the last of the Ciceronians, Paulus Manutius. It shows how little Latin was now a living language that the latter, like all his school, refused to speak in Latin, for fear that the necessities of daily conversation should make him familiar with barbarous phrases, which would hardly fail to taint his written style. Others for a similar reason always recited the breviary in Greek, just as in later days some have refused to read the New Testament in the original language for fear of spoiling the purity of their Attic prose. In Germany especially the influence of Lipsius founded a new school of Latinists, based on the imitation of the silver Latinity of Tacitus and Seneca, and conspicuous for some of the merits, and more than all the faults, which have been noticed above as marking those authors. In Britain the only scholar whose style merits especial notice is George Buchanan, whose prose is hardly less admirable than his famous poetical version of the Psalms. On the whole it must be said that, while the improvement in works of reference, and in methods of education generally (especially through the activity of the Jesuits), raises the average of correctness and purity, there is less grace and power than may be found among the best of the writers of an earlier time. As yet the use of Latin as a means of literary expression and of public business showed no signs of decline, except perhaps in Germany, where the version of the Bible by Luther and his popular works in the vernacular had given a model for literary German, and in England, where some of the great works of controversial theology, notably Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, were already published in English, doing thereby incalculable service to the dignity and the enrichment of the native tongue. But during the 17th century, as a consequence of the steady development of the various national literatures, Latin came to be more and more merely the language of the learned. Some of the most eminent scholars belong to this period; and among them Heinsius, Grotius, Salmasius, and his more illustrious antagonist Milton are all famous for the elegance of their diction; while Scioppius and V^ossius contributed largely to the scientific knowledge of grammar. But towards the end of the century complaints as to the general decay of learning frequently occur. In Germany it was almost extinct. In France the Jesuit colleges maintained the traditions of a pure Latinity with some success, and were noted for the polished though sometimes too rhetorical style in which their exercises were conducted. In England the decay of Latin was never so complete as that of Greek; and the great name of Bentley shines out conspicuous, set off, it must be admitted, by the school-boy darkness of most of his rivals. Even he did not escape the ferule of the schoolmaster, Richard Johnson of Nottingham, who claims in his Anti-Aristarchus to have pointed out more than ninety errors in the great scholar’s Latinity. In the 18th century we still find Latin used for works on science and philosophy, which appealed to the learned in all countries; to say nothing of Newton’s Principia (1689), Burnet’s Theoria Telluris Sacra (1694), and Ray’s Synopsis Methodica (1693), and subsequent botanical works, we find even Linnaeus in 1760 issuing his Systema Naturae in Latin. But as an organ of general literature it may be said to have expired in the course of the 17th century. The last great philosopher who habitually employed Latin for his works was Leibnitz (1646-1716); perhaps the last important work in English theology written in Latin was Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicenae (1685).

The use of Latin in diplomacy died out towards the end of the 17th century. The Spanish embassy sent to the court of James I. in 1605 used sometimes Latin and sometimes French; the Latin state-papers written by Mil ton during the Commonwealth are well known; and in the negotiations at Miinster (1644) even the French representative, Μ. d’Avaux, prided himself on his skill in writing Latin. But at Nymegen (1677) the Danish ambassador’s claim that the Latin language should be used between the French representative and himself was rejected as an impertinence; and he was obliged to agree that, while he might employ Latin himself, the French should use their own language. At Ryswick, Temple opened the proceedings in French; he was answered by the bishop of Gurk in Latin; but the French envoys pleaded that they had forgotten their Latin, and the subsequent proceedings were conducted in French (c∕. Bernard’s Lectures on Diplomacy, pp. 153-155). Long after this date the German empire insisted that all negotiations with it should be conducted in Latin; and, although Joseph II. attempted to make German the official language of Hungary in its place, he was compelled to give way, and it was only in 1825 that Latin was for the first time displaced by Magyar in the debates of the diet (c∕. vol. xii. p. 371). It is now the universal practice that written communications from any European power should be made in the language of that power, but oral intercourse is carried on in French, with rare exceptions.

Authorities.— For the earliest stage of the Latin language the Corpus Discriptionum Latinarum, vol. i., or Garrucci’s Sylloge Inscriptionum Latinarum, is indispensable. Wordsworth’s Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin is very useful. Hiibner’s Grundriss zu Vorlesungen uber die Lateinische Grammatik (Berlin, 1880, p. 104) contains a very complete list of all works of value upon the language. Corssen’s Aussprache Vokalismus und Betonung der Lateinischen Sprache (2 vols., Leipsic, 1870) contains a valuable collection of the evidence as to the history of the pronunciation. Neue’s Formenlehre (2 vols., Berlin, 1877) is a complete storehouse of the inflexional forms. Dräger’s Historische Syntax (2 vols., Leipsic, 1880) is extremely valuable, especially for the classical writers. Kiihner’s Ausführliche Grammatik der Lateinischen Sprache (2 vols., Hanover, 1877-78) is the most complete of recent grammars. In English the best grammars are those of Madvig, Dr Kennedy, and Mr Roby. The first is excellent in the syntax, and well represents the most complete knowledge of the Latin language in its classical form to be gained without the aid of comparative philology; the second in respect of etymology too frequently adopts not only the facts but the less trustworthy theories of Corssen, while in syntax the full collection of examples is sometimes encumbered by an awkward terminology; the last is equally admirable for the clearness and fulness of its discussion of phonetics, the careful historical treatment of inflexions, and the freshness and precision of its syntax. For later Latin and its connexion with the Romance languages, Schuchardt’s Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins, Rönsch’s Itala und Vulgata, and Diez’s Grammaire des Langues Romanes are the chief text-books. The diction of the most important writers can best be studied in the numerous German treatises and programmes devoted to them severally, most of which will be found mentioned in Dräger’s Syntax and in Professor Mayor’s edition of Hiibner’s Guide to Latin Literature. Beruhardy’s Grundriss der Römischen Litteratur and TeuffeΓs History of Roman Literature have many useful hints as to the growth of the language. (A. S. W. )