Institutio Oratoria

There are special rules which must be observed both by speakers and writers. Language is based on reason, antiquity, authority and usage. Reason finds its chief support in analogy and sometimes in etymology. As for antiquity, it is commended to us by the possession of a certain majesty, I might almost say sanctity.

Authority as a rule we derive from orators and historians. For poets, owing to the necessities of metre, are allowed a certain licence except in cases where they deliberately choose one of two expressions, when both are metrically possible, as for instance in imo de stirpe recisum and aeriae quo congessere palumbes or silice in nuda [*](Aen. xii. 208: cutaway from the lowest root. Ecl. iii. 69: where airy doves have made their nest. Ecl. i. 15: on the naked rock. Stirps, palumbes and silex are usually masculine. ) and the like. The judgment of a supreme orator is placed on the same level as reason, and even error brings no disgrace, if it result from treading in the footsteps of such distinguished guides.

Usage however is the surest pilot in speaking, and we should treat language as currency minted with the public stamp. But in all these cases we have need of a critical judgment, especially as regards analogy (a Greek term for which a Latin equivalent has been found in proportion).

The essence of analogy is the testing of all subjects of doubt by the application of some standard of comparison about which there is no question, the proof that is to say of the uncertain by reference to the certain. This can be done in two different ways: by comparing similar words, paying special attention to their final syllables

Comparison of nouns will reveal either their gender or their declension: in the first case, supposing the question is raised as to whether junis be masculine or feminine, panis will supply a standard of comparison: in the second case, supposing we are in doubt as to whether we should say hac domu or hac domo, domuum or domorum, the standard of comparison will be found in words such as anus or manus.

Diminutives merely reveal the gender: for instance, to return to a word previously used as an illustration, funiculus proves that funis is masculine.

The same standard may be applied in the case of verbs. For instance if it should be asserted that the middle syllable of fervere is short, we can prove this to be an error, because all verbs which in the indicative terminate in -eo, make the middle syllable of the infinitive long, if that syllable contain an e: take as examples such verbs as prandeo, pendeo, spondeo with infinitives prandēre, pendēre, spondēre.

Those verbs, however, which terminate in -o alone, if they form the infinitive in e, have the e short; compare lego, dico, curro, with the infinitives, legĕre, dicĕre, currĕre. I admit that in Lucilius we find—

1. fervit aqua et fervet: firvit nunc ferverit ad annum. [*](In Book IX.)

The water boils and boil it will; it boils and for a year will boil.

But this is not a true comparison: for fervit

It is also possible in certain cases to discover the present indicative of a verb from the study of its other tenses. I remember, for instance, refuting certain scholars who criticised me for using the word pepigi: for, although they admitted that it had been used by some of the best authors, they asserted that it was an irrational form because the present indicative paciscor, being passive in form, made pactus sum as its perfect.

I in addition to quoting the authority of orators and historians maintained that I was also supported by analogy. For when I found ni ita pacunt in the Twelve Tables, I noted that cadunt provided a parallel: it was clear therefore that the present indicative, though now obsolete, was paco on the analogy of cado, and it was further obvious that we say pepigi for just the same reason that we say cecidi.

But we must remember that analogy cannot be universally applied, as it is often inconsistent with itself. It is true indeed that scholars have attempted to justify certain apparent anomalies: for example, when it is noted to what an extent lepus and lupus, which resemble each other closely in the nominative, differ in the plural and in the other cases, they reply that they are not true parallels, since lepus is epicene, while lupus is masculine, although Varro in the book in which he narrates the origins of Rome, writes lupus femina, following the precedent of Ennius and Fabius Pictor.