LATIN INSCRIPTION AT CIRTA. 395 



though quite subordinate and indirect influence on Latin versification. Quantity was as yet 

 altogether intact, and in full possession of all its rights ; and the accent was as yet no 

 stress, but a mere heightening of the intonation. Quantity was still in full force in the 

 early half of the second century, as we know from the poets of that period and such critics 

 as A. GelHus. After that time there is a great break in the extant Latin literature; and 

 during the century that followed the language must have grievously degenerated. In the third 

 century quantity was far other than it had been. When the boys of Rome salute Aurelian 

 in his triumph, their verse is no more like that of Caesar's veterans. 



Unus homo mille mille mille decollavimus, 

 Tantum vini h^bet nemo quantum fudit sanguinis, 



are virtual accentual verses. In better times the accent had no power to prevent the 

 accentuated i of Jierem and Jieri, which once had been long and in the time of Plautus 

 was yet common, from becoming necessarily short in the time of Virgil ; while the unac- 

 centuated i in fiebam and fiebamus was still long. But now the accent has become a 

 stress, and can render a short syllable long. The passage has been made from the 

 ancient to the new. Of course for some centuries after in learned schools the knowledge 

 of the old quantity was kept up by artificial means. But we can see from the greatest 

 grammarians, Servius, Priscian, etc., that it was acquired, as we acquire it ; wag no longer 

 a living reality ; and that a writer when left to his own resources wrote like Praecilius or 

 Commodian. We see too that, with the exception of Claudian and one or two other 

 happy imitators, the artificial verse was less poetical, less vivid than the accentual popular 

 songs and Church hymns, which by degrees more and more confirmed themselves in a 

 total rejection of quantity and a full acceptance of the power of the accent, now become 

 purely a stress like our own or the Italian. Rhyme was soon added ; until we come 

 at length to the Dies irae, Stabat mater and to the poems of Mapes, many of them 

 beautiful enough in their simplicity. These are really the same rhythms, as the song 

 of the Roman boys in Aurelian's time. A large part of their impressiveness is owing 

 to the trochaic rhythm which suits admirably the accentual unquantitative Latin. The 

 other accentual imitations of old metres, such as the many written in mimicry of the 

 Asclepiad Maecenas atavis, are for the most part far less successful ; as the writers 

 were unable to distinguish between this and a dactylic rhythm. 



To make the subject at all complete, it ought to be shewn as could easily be done, that 

 about the same time or soon after the same strange change came over the Greek language. 

 It likewise completely lost its quantity. A very few words on this head must suffice. 



Why it was that in the third century such a complete revolution occurred in the speech 

 and the whole life of the old classical peoples, I cannot tell. Ancient things then seemed 

 to be passing away. Almost continual wars, pestilences and famines oppressed the human 

 race; and when at the end of that century some vigorous rulers appeared for a while 

 to uphold and restore the perishing empire, the new order of things was far other than 

 the old. The modern world had already begun. 



It seems to be with languages as with other things : when they cease to grow, they 

 begin to decay ; and after the period of the Attic orators the Greek underwent a rapid 



