218 Austin Morris Harmon, 



be due to the influence of the Latin name Milo, but I can see no 

 satisfactory reason for Theodorus. The penultimate accentuation of 

 Nicaea is especially odd in view of the fact that the modern names 

 of the two prominent cities formerly called Nicaea, Isnik in Bith3-nia 

 (to which Ammianus refers), and Nizza in Italy, both testify to an 

 original antepenultimate accent. We cannot suspect Ammianus of 

 ignorance, for having seen much military service in those parts, he 

 probably had visited the city, and certainly had often heard its name 

 spoken. Can it be due to some whim of his own or of his imme- 

 diate circle that the name is not derived from the name of the 

 daughter of Antipater, but from the adjective vr/.aXo^'i^ 



The upshot of our investigations is that words having penultimate 

 or antepenultimate accent in Greek are with few exceptions ac- 

 cented on the same syllable by Ammianus, and that even among 

 words with accented ultima some (apparently such as are less 

 familiar) retain the accent on that S3dlable. 



This result tallies with testimony from two other sources, — from 

 the Latin grammarians and from the language itself. 



The grammarians, to be sure, are not all in agreement. Diomed 

 and Servius, followed by many later and lesser lights, hold that 

 Greek words should be accented in Greek fashion when the Greek 

 inflectional forms are preserved, but in Latin fashion when the Latin 

 terminations are used.- This would sanction Ammianus' pronuncia- 

 tion Persidos, but not Persidis. hi his case no such distinction can 

 be drawn, for if we can put any faith at all in the text tradition 

 he uses Greek and Latin forms indiscriminately and accents all alike 

 in the Greek fashion. 



But this distinction has the ear-marks of pedantry upon it. The 

 pseudo-Sergius, who gives us the fullest discussion of the question 

 (K. IV. 526. 9—528. 27), is at once more liberal and more trust- 

 worthy. His passage is too long to quote in its entirety, though it 

 merits reading as an example of the work of the Roman grammarian 

 at his best, displaying unusually careful observation mingled with 

 a modicum of pedantr}-. According to him, Greek words when 

 they keep the Greek forms of inflection must retain the Greek ac- 



' Cf. Steph. Byz. s. v. 'kiytica Sk nQonaQo^vioyioi. al rf' eari Nixcciog, to 

 i)-riXvxot' N/xaia. Compare also the fact that Nicaea in Phocis had penul- 

 timate accent (Forbiger, A/t Geog. III. 612), and the tradition that Nicaea 

 in Bithynia was founded hj people from this latter Nicaea (Memnon in 

 Photius. Bihl. 233 Bel-heri). 



2 Diomed K. I. 433. 4: Servius in Do7i. K. IV. 427. 10: 525. 8: ad 

 Georg. I. 59. 



