PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



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used as a substitute for mea in mea refert, for we read in Plautus, quid id ad me ant ad 

 meam refert (Persa. 513). Two of the constructions, then, that can take the place oi mea, 

 in mea refert, are the dative itself and the ordinary substitute for the dative, a fact 

 strongly confirming Verrius' view that mea here is itself a dative. 



But what of the genitive with refert. It appears much later than the genitive with 

 interest, belonging properly to Silver Latinity, while the genitive with interest is very 

 common in the Golden Latinity of Cicero. No instance of a genitive, other than the 

 genitive of value, is found in Archaic Latin in connection with interest or refert, if we 

 except the following example in the Lex Acilia Repetundarum (C. L L. 198. 32), quod 

 eiiis rei quaerundai censeant refere, where the genitive eius rei quaerundai is certainly not 

 parallel to that in eius interest or illorum refert, but seems rather a predicative use of tke 

 genitive of characteristic, parallel to imperium regimn quod initio conservandce libertatis 

 f Herat (SalL Cat. 6, 7). If this is correct, the use of the genitive with refert is the older 

 construction of the two. Hoffmann's view as to its origin we have already noticed, and 

 he is certainly correct in thinking that it cannot be connected in origin with the older 

 construction of the dative with interesse in its personal use, as in interfui praelio. An 

 example in Cicero (ad Fam. 4. 10. 2), suspicarer multum interesse rei familiaris tuae, leads 

 Schmalz to explain it as primarily a partitive genitive, and he evidently understands the 

 passage as meaning, " I should suspect that much of your estate was involved." But 

 this is not a typical example of the construction, being a genitive of the thing, not of the 

 person. Most probable seems a solution suggested to me by Mommsen's version 

 of the Lex Acilia, and which I find hinted at in Allen & Greenough's Grammar (P. 222 

 Remark), that the genitive with interest is formed after the analogy of the predicative 

 genitive with est. The analogy, is, perhaps, best stated in the following way: The idea 

 of possession is originally distinct, in the mind of the Romans, from that of ownership, 

 but later by usucapio, i.e., by possession for a number of years, two at most in Gaius' day, 

 ownership is acquired. Res est aUcuius (jure Quiritium) is the Roman formula for 

 ownership ; res est alicui (in bonis), that denoting possession. But what of the thing 

 that, being in the possession of anyone, is passing into his ownership ? Can we say. Res 

 fit alicuiiis ? We read in the Lex Acilia (66), res populi fiet. Did the Roman, then, 

 come to feel that, in the thing then in his possession and passing into his ownership, he 

 had any proprietary right? Gaius speaks of a thing as being subject to a duplex 

 dominium, that of the person in w\\os,q potestas it is, — its owner in the proper sense, — and 

 that of the person in whose, possessio it is, and into whose potestas it is consequently 

 passing. It seems to be this latter dominium which finds its expression in the phrase 

 interest alicuius. Or, to put it more briefly, est Marci means " it is the property of 

 Marcus"; fit Marci, " it is becoming the property of Marcus" ; interest Marci, "it partly 

 belongs to Marcus," or " Marcus has a proprietary interest in it," — a meaning closely 

 related to the usual meaning of interest eius. That refert, as early as Plautus' day, was 

 not regarded as two separate words, but as one, is clear from such a construction as 

 quae ad rem referunt (Persa, 591), or quoi rei te adsimulare refert (True, 394). In Cicero's 

 day its meaning differs but little, if at all, from that of interest. In such an assimilation 

 of meaning the influence of analogy usually leads to a confusion of constructions origin- 

 ally distinct. The way in which this influence would work may be stated as follows : 

 reft'rt = interest, therefore mea refert = mea interest; and so for mea refert, the only form 

 occurring in Archaic Latin, mea interest comes into use in Cicero's time. In like manner 

 interest = refert, therefore omnium interest = omnium refeH ; and so beside interest with the 

 genitive, the usual construction in the Golden Latinity, there appears in Silver Latinity 

 the genitive with refert. And as interest has thus acquired a regimen that is primarily 

 and really a dative, it is not strange to find it joined with a construction commonly used 

 as a substitute for the dative, viz. the accusative with ad, as in ad honorem nostrum 

 interest. That it is never joined with the dative itself, is probably due to a fear of 

 confusion with the ordinary personal use of interest in interfuit epulis. 



