MORGAN. — ON THE LANGUAGE OP VITRUVIUS. 501 



the use is equally divided, seven of each (Wolfflin's Index) ; so in Varro's 

 Meuippeans, four of each (Riese's Index), while in his Hes Rusticae it 

 stands first 22 times and after the infinitive 33 times. "With regard to 

 possum, Lupus has observed that in Nepos the infinitive very often fol- 

 lows it and other verbs {Der Sprachgebrauch des Nepos, p. 191). In 

 Vitruvius, the verb possum is used with the infinitive 300 times (Nohl's 

 Index). But in exactly half of these, there is a negative attached to 

 possum, and it is this expression of impossibility which Vitruvius prefers 

 to place before the infinitive. He has 126 instances of it thus placed 

 and in only 24 does it follow the infinitive. Of the other 150 cases 

 where there is no negative with possum, the infinitive precedes 76 times 

 and follows 74 times. In view of such varieties, I do not see how the 

 position of these auxiliaries can be used in discussing the date of Vitruvius 

 until their position in other authors has been carefully studied. 



Thus the linguistic and stylistic phenomena noted by Ussing have been 

 examined, and in summarizing them it appears that there are only a very 

 few which cannot be paralleled either exactly or in principle during the 

 Republican, Augustan, or Silver ages of Roman literature. These few 

 are : the impersonal use of dignum est ut (p. 475), necessitate as an 

 adverb (p. 475), forte meaning 'perhaps' (p. 481), and trans as an adverb 

 (p. 482). And something has been said in explanation of all these except 

 the last. The many heads of Ussing's indictment are therefore reduced 

 to the minimum. But what if it be argued that, although instances of tlie 

 several phenomena may be found in various authors of the earlier time, 

 yet since they are not all found in any one author except Vitruvius, tin's 

 accumulation of them in him points to late authorship? The answer to 

 this cumulative argument is that it begs the whole question. For, as I 

 have pointed out above (p. 468), no other technical treatise written in the 

 better age is extant, and therefore we are not entitled to say that such 

 treatises did not abound in examples of the phenomena which appear in 

 Vitruvius. As for the resemblances between the language of Vitruvius 

 and that of the Romance nations, Krohn 41 has already observed that 

 these are a priori only natural. Latin was not transmitted to Romance 

 lands by the polished works of Cicero, but by the every day writings and 

 the colloquial speech of people like Vitruvius, — professioual men, publi- 

 cum, business men, and soldiers. The resemblances, therefore, are not 

 necessarily evidence of late authorship. In conclusion, I may add that it 



41 Bed. Phil. Woch., 1897, p. 774. 



