192 Austin Morris Harmon, 



clausulae with the exception of I ii the first unaccented syllable is 

 the penult of a word with antepenultimate accent {Claudius Caesar, 

 opijex callidus etc.) and of necessity is always short, except in rare 

 cases of abnormal accentuation.^ In I [i {sol aestimatur) Ammianus 

 might easily have shortened the syllable in question, but as a matter 

 of fact it is long in all 24 cases and long by position in all but 3.^ 

 In types with y caesura {y and ;' (V in each form) the tendency 

 to avoid positional lengthening manifests itself clearly. These are 



the statistics. 



makes 

 does not make position position total 



100 694 48 32 32 906 



It will be remarked that cases in which a syllable ending in -nt 

 or -ns precedes a vowel (redieruw/ infecto) are registered among the 

 combinations which do not make position. Although according to 

 classical usage -7tt and -ns should suffice in themselves to lengthen 

 the syllable which they terminate, it is certain that they do not in 

 Ammianus, for when such a syllable precedes the ;- csesura it is 

 customarily followed by a word beginning with a vowel, while 

 when it precedes the () ceesura in types in which our second rule 

 is observed it is followed by a word beginning with a consonant.-^ 

 These syllables are therefore treated exactly as if they ended in a 

 single consonant. 



' Five cases are registered under III in our table above : I. 28. 17 

 Amano disparanUtr ; I. 43. 21 in Aegypto trucidantnr ; I. 27. 30 CalycaJmts 

 interscindit ; I. 178. 30 de'inceps prohibcrent ; I. 130. 32 deinde sunt progrcssi. 

 Tliey show how far Ammianus went in his indifference to quantity. 



^ This must not be interpreted as evidence of a desire to lengthcfi the 

 syllable. In this type Ammianus paid no attention at all to quantity. 

 See pp. 193, 196. 



' In the first case there are 27 instances of -nt and 5 of -ns before a 

 vowel (as in redierunt infecto) against 3 of -nt before a consonant 

 {remanerent magistris) : in the second case there are 26 instances of -nt 

 and 7 of -ns before a consonant (as in nesciens missum) against 2 of -nt 

 and 1 of -ns before a vowel {snfficiens aqua). The phenomenon is due 

 to the nasalization of n. 



