Whether affatim, like admodunm, should be pronounced with an acute accent on the first syllable; with some painstaking observations on the accents of other words.

THE poet Annianus, One of the few poets of Hadrian's time. He wrote Falisca, on rural life, and Fescennini. Like other poets of his time, he was fond of unusual metres; see Gr. Lat. vi. 122, 12, K. in addition to his charming personality, was highly skilled in ancient literature and literary criticism, and conversed with remarkable grace and learning. He pronounced affalim, as he did admodum, with an acute accent This seems to mean no more than accent; see note 2, p. 9, above. on the first, and not on the medial, syllable; and he believed that the ancients so pronounced the word. He adds that in his hearing the grammarian Probus thus read the following lines of the Cistellaria of Plautus: 231. Canst do a valiant deed?—Enough (áffatim) there beWho can. I've no desire to be called brave, and he said that the reason for that accent was that affatim was not two parts of speech, but was made up of two parts that had united to form a single word; just as also in the word which we call exadversum he thought that the second syllable should have the acute accent, because the word was one part of speech, and not two. Accordingly, he maintained that the two following verses of Terence Phormio, 88. ought to be read thus: Over against (exádversum) the school to which she wentA barber had his shop. He added besides that the preposition ad was commonly accented when it indicated e)pi/tasis, or as we say, emphasis, as in ádfabre, ádmodum, and ádprobe.

In all else, indeed, Annianus spoke aptly enough. But if he supposed that this particle was always accented when it denoted emphasis, that rule is obviously not without exceptions; for when we say adpotus, adprimus, and adprime, emphasis is evident in all those words, yet it is not at all proper to pronounce the particle ad with the acute accent. I must admit, however, that adprobus, which means highly approved, ought to be accented on the first syllable. Caecilius uses that word in his comedy entitled The Triumph: 228, Ribbeck.3

In those words, then, which we say do not have the acute accent, is not this the reason—that the following syllable is longer by nature, and a long penult does not as a rule Gellius is perhaps thinking of such exceptions as éxinde and súbinde, in which however the penult is not long by nature, but by position. permit the accenting of the preceding syllable in words of more than two syllables? But Lucius Livius in his Odyssey uses ádprimus in the sense of by far the first in the following line: Fr. 11, Bährens.

Livius in his Odyssey too pronounces praemodum like admodum; he says Fr. 29, Bährens. parcentes praemodum, which means beyond measure merciful, and praemodum is equivalent to praeter modum. And in this word, of course, the first syllable will have to have the acute accent.