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 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.

What shall I say of uorlices, uorsus and the like, which Scipio Africanus is said to have been the first to spell with an e?

My own teachers spelt seruus and ceruus with a uo, in order that the repetition of the vowel might not lead to the coalescence and confusion of the two sounds: to-day however we write these words with a double u on the principle which I have already stated: neither spelling however exactly expresses the pronunciation. It was not without reason that Claudius introduced the Aeolic digamma to represent this sound. [*](cp. I. iv. 8.) It is a distinct improvement that to-day we spell cui as I have written it: