Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

And in Latin ancient writers ended a number of words with d, as may be seen on the column adorned with the beaks of ships, which was set up in the forum in honour of Duilius. [*]( The ablative originally terminated in d; e.g. pugnandod, marid, navaled, pracdad, etc., on the base of the column of Duilius. ) Sometimes again they gave words a final g, as we may still see in the shrine of the Sun, close to the temple of Quirinus, where we find the word uesperug, which we write uesperugo (evening star).

I have already spoken of the interchange of letters [*](I. iv. 12–17.) and need not repeat my remarks here: perhaps their pronunciation corresponded with their spelling.

For a long time the doubling of semivowels was avoided, [*](e.g. iusi was written for iussi. ) while down to the time of Accius and beyond, long syllables were indicated by repetition of the vowel.

The practice of joining e and i as in the Greek diphthong ει lasted longer: it served to distinguish cases and numbers, for which we may compare the instructions of Lucilius:

  1. The boys are come: why then, their names must end
  2. With e and i to make them more than one; and later—
  1. If to a thief and liar ( mendaci furique ) you would give,
  2. In e and i your thief must terminate.
But this addition of e is quite superfluous, since t can be long no less than short:

it is also at times inconvenient. For in those words which end in i and have e as their last letter but one, we shall on this principle have to write e twice: I refer to words such as aurei or argentei and the like.

Now such a practice will be an actual hindrance to those who are learning to read. This difficulty occurs in Greek as

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well in connexion with the addition of an iota, which is employed not merely in the termination of the dative, but is sometimes found in the middle of words as in λῄστης, for the reason that the analysis applied by etymology shows the word to be a trisyllable [*]( The noun being formed from ληίζω. ΛΗΙΣΤΗΙ in the text is dative after in. The trisyllable to which Q. refers is the nominative. ) and requires the addition of that letter. The diphthong ae now written with an e, was pronounced in old days as ai;

some wrote ai in all cases, as in Greek, others confined its use to the dative and genitive singular; whence it comes that Vergil, [*](Aen. ix. 26 and vii. 464. ) always a passionate lover of antiquity, inserted pictai uestis and aquai in his poems.

But in the plural they used e and wrote Syllae, Galbae. Lucilius has given instructions on this point also; his instructions occupy quite a number of verses, for which the incredulous may consult his ninth book.