Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Again in Cicero's days and a little later, it was the almost universal practice to write a double s , whenever that letter occurred between two long vowels or after a long vowel, as for example in caussae, cassus, diuissiones. That he and Vergil both used this spelling is shown by their own autograph manuscripts.

And yet at a slightly earlier date iussi which we write with a double s was spelt with only one. Further optimnus maximus, which older writers spelt with a u, appear for the first time with an i (such at any rate is the tradition) in an inscription of Gaius Caesar. [*](Caligula, the first of the Caesars to adopt this title.)

We now write here, but I still find in manuscripts of the old comic poets phrases such as heri ad me uenit, [*]( Ter. Phorm. 36. ) and the same spelling is found in letters of Augustus written or corrected by his own hand.

Again did not Cato the censor spell dicam and faciam as dicem

v1-3 p.143

and faciem and observe the same practice in words of similar termination? This is clear from old manuscripts of his works and is recorded by Messala in his treatise on the letter s. Sibe and quase are found in many books, but I cannot say whether the authors wished them to be spelt thus:

I learn from Pedianus that Livy, whose precedent he himself adopted, used this spelling: to-day we make these words end with an i.