AND BYZANTINE GREEK. 47 



examples employed by the Latin grammarians, however, it would seem that this prac- 

 tice was restricted to oxytones and perispomena ; as Thyds, Ovw, Nats, Nah, Neret, 

 Nripel. It appears also that a Greek oxytone with a long final syllable -was changed 

 into a perispomenon ; as Atreus, Themisto, for ^Arpeix;, &e/j.i(Tru>.^^ 



The Greeks, for some reason or other, sometimes prefixed an E silent to long I.^^ 

 The Romans, in their eagerness to imitate them in everything relating to letters, did 

 the same.^^ Thus, the former wrote rei/j-rj for n/j,-^ ; the latter, capteivei for captivi. 

 Again, the Boeotians, in order to denote the original sound of T, prefixed an O to it ; 

 as Tovx"-, dcrovXia, for Tw^a. d<7v\ta ; the Romans, without the least necessity, sometimes 

 wrote OU for U ; as loumen, nountios, for lumen, nuntios?'° 



But nothing proves more clearly the great influence of the Greek upon the Latin, 

 than the fact that Latinized Greek nouns often retained their Greek inflection ; as ^ 

 epitome, rrj'; epitomes, 6 Aeneas, top Anchisen, toO Androfjeo, rov Menandru, tov a'cra, tov 

 Orphea, t^? lampados, rrj^ Argus, rSiv metamorphoseon. 



THE TEUTONIC ELEMENT. 



§ 32. 



The Goths, Vandals, and Gepidte were different tribes of the same race.^" The 

 Goths made their first appearance in Greece in the middle of the third century.^" In 

 the latter part of the fourth, they overran Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly ; '^^ and 

 under Alaric they devastated Megaris and Peloponnesus.^^ In the latter half of the 

 fifth, we find them in lUyria.™ 



The Vandals under Genseric plundered the greater part of Greece in the fifth 



°^ QuiNTiL. 1, 5, 22 seq. Donatus, 1, 5, 2. Maximus Victouinus, 17. 



'^ NiGiDius apud A. Gell. 19, 14 Graecos non tantae inscitiae arcesso qui OY ex O et Y scripserunt, 

 quantae qui EI ex E et I : illud tamep inopia fecerunt ; hoc nulla re subacti. Terentian. IVIauk. 165 Netxoj, 

 iota solum sufficit. Sext. Adv. Gram. 1,9 Eip^dXifov koI el a> b iv a s tuI fiovov ypawriov, fj Ttj EI. 



^* QciNTiL. 1, 7, 15. Priscian. 1, 50. 

 '5 Marius Victorintjs, p. 2459. 



°^ Peoc. I, 312. Dexitpus and Eukapius apply to them the generic tei-m Scythians, which means little 

 else than Northern Barharicms. 

 " Zos. 28 (A. D. 253). 



«8 EuNAP. 51 (A. D. 37G). Id. 77 (A. D. 378). Id. 79 (A. D. 380). 

 ^ Zos. 252. 253 (A. D. 396). 

 w Prisc. 160 (A. D. 467). 



