LATIN INSCRIPTION AT CIRTA. 381 



has been suppressed ; so that Cornelio stands equally for nominative, dative, accusative and 

 ablative. But probably on the whole the changes which had taken place up to this time were 

 beneficial. As we know it, the Latin compared with the Greek labours with an undue propor- 

 tion of long vowels and accumulations of consonants. And had its forms been stereotyped by 

 a learned literature much sooner than they were, rhythm would have been almost swamped 

 under the dead weight of ponderous long syllables. Musa the nominative would have been as 

 long as the ablative. When the language then had probably reached the proper stage of 

 development, perhaps because it had done so, there arose a succession of great and brilliant 

 writers, Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, Terence, Pacuvius and others; who fixed the grammar and 

 prosody of the language, and made it what it was and is, one of the master languages of the 

 world. But these writers, proceeding all of them of course on the basis of quantity, the only 

 one which could have had any meaning to them or their hearers, fixed this quantity in certain 

 cases, according to the style of verse they were writing, on different principles. Ennius, in 

 introducing from the Greeks the learned hexameter, observed stricter rules of prosody than he 

 did in his tragedies and satires, and than did his predecessors or contemporaries Naevius, 

 Plautus and others. Of course the Greek and Latin poets alike, in order to have a definite 

 metre, are obliged to divide syllables into long and short, and to say that all long and all short 

 shall be of the same value respectively, and that every long syllable shall be twice the length 

 of every short. Yet all long syllables and all short syllables are not in reality of exactly the 

 same lengths respectively. There are also many doubtful syllables which may at pleasure be 

 either long or short. When then a syllable had become decidedly and indisputably short, as 

 the final e in bene and male, though originally long, Ennius in his hexameters determined it 

 should be short; but he would not suffer the e in probe to be so. Thus also he allowed 

 dederunt and dedere to remain side by side, though the final syllable of darent was made 

 irrevocably long. He wrote at pleasure tnagnus or magnu, but he in no case would permit 

 the last consonant in pater or datur to be neglected. His rules, with only slight Modifications, 

 were observed through the whole flourishing period of Latin literature and gave to the learned 

 poetry a finish and precision which it could not otherwise have had. And to attain this end 

 he sacrificed much. For a large proportion of the noblest words and forms in the language 

 were thus altogether excluded from the hexameter : all the innumerable cases for example 

 where a short vowel came between two long ones. Ennius on the other hand as tragedian and 

 satirist, Naevius, Plautus and others constructed their verses on the same essential principles 

 of prosody, but gave a far wider latitude to doubtful syllables. Thus not only were bene, 

 male short, but probe might be, though it was not necessarily so. Again pater, datur, darent, 

 and hundreds of similar forms might have their full metrical value, or the final consonants 

 might be slurred over and neglected, as in scripsere for scripserunt. We must not suppose 

 however for a moment that pater could be a monosyllable, a sound impossible for an old 

 Roman tongue. The French pere, like mere and frere arose in a widely different way. 



Even in the middle of many common words position might be neglected, and voluptatem 

 might have the second syllable short, although it as often has its full metrical value. So in 

 many prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs, ad, in, enim, quidem etc., the last consonant 

 might at pleasure be suppressed or not ; and in hundreds of words like domi, manu, seqvi. 



