486 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



as several times in Bell. Afr. as cited by Kohler, Act. Erlang. I. p. 439. 

 See also Pomp. Mela, 2, 21. 



Passing next to conjunctions Ussing says: 'With regard to conjunc- 

 tions, Drager (II, p. 153) has already pointed out that aut and sive are 

 used quite indiscriminately by Vitruvius. A critic in the Athenaeum, Jan. 

 1, 1898, says : " the misuse of aut or sive is no great matter." I had not 

 expected this declaration from "a skilled reader." Most Latin scholars 

 would have the contrary view.' — But the remark of the critic in the 

 Athenaeum must not be judged apart from its context. He does not mean 

 that the confusion of aut and sive is no great matter as a point of style, or 

 that it would be found in a polished writer. His whole contention is that 

 one should expect to find such errors in unpolished writers, and that con- 

 sequently this error cannot be used in settling the date of Vitruvius. And 

 this contention is borne out by the facts found in the Thesaurus in the 

 treatment of the use of aut. Drager, also, in the passage cited by Ussing, 

 shows how the Elder Pliny employs aut and sive as synonyms, so that 

 this confusion cannot be held to be evidence of very recent authorship. 

 And for the Vitruvian employment of aut . . . sive or sive . . . aut in 

 the same sentence, parallels are quoted from the Aetna, from Manilius and 

 from Celsus in the Tliesaurus (s. v. aut, p. 1571, 11 ff., and 78; cf. the 

 somewhat similar seu . . . aid in Plautus, .Ps. 543, cited on p. 1570, 5G), 

 with the following general remark on such combinations in prose writers, 

 p. 1571, 55 : ( increbrescunt apud eos qui poetarum sermonem etiam alias 

 imitantur et apud minus cultos (Vitr. Cels.).' 



Ussing proceeds : ' Equally unclassical is the use of negatives in sen- 

 tences consisting of two alternatives. The word neve does not occur in 

 Vitruvius. He always puts ne . . . neque instead of ne . . . neve, as 

 5, 16: ne sit cupidus neque in muneribus accipiendis habeat animum 

 occupatum. As for negations, it is also to be observed that he likes to 

 place them foremost in the sentence. He says non putavi praetermitten- 

 dum (1, 14) instead of putavi non praetermittendum ; non puto dubium 

 esse (124, 1), etc. This is done occasionally in other authors, but in 

 Vitruvius very frequently. A striking example is 48, 22 : non enim 

 quae sunt e molli caemento subtili facie venustatis, non eae possunt esse in 

 vetustate non ruinosae.'' — With regard to Ussing's first point, it is suffi- 

 cient to quote Schmalz, Lat. Oramm., 3 p. 358 : ' Selten ist die Ankniipf- 

 ung mit nee statt mit nere ; bei Cicero wird nee nach ne nie angetroffen 

 (vgl. C. F. W. Milller zu Cic. Off. 1, 91), auch nicht bei Caesar und 

 Sail., aber bei Nepos, bei Vitruv, und Sen. Phil., welche neve gar nicht 

 kennen, bei Liv., Flor., nach Liv. vereinzelt, haufig bei Dichtern, so 



