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History and Language At Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Ronald Syme

Extract

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The impact of war accelerates many processes in the development of a language that otherwise might have been slow, gradual and imperfect. First and most palpable, the enrichment of the vocabulary—novelties and the new words to describe them. But change may go deeper and further.

The struggle for Sicily in the first Punic War engaged a large proportion of the Roman manpower for more than twenty years. Returning, the soldiers brought with them the words they had used in Sicily day by day. Hence the wide knowledge of Greek revealed by Roman comedy a generation later, before the end of the second war. Then, in a few years Rome became protector of Hellas and arbiter of the civilized world; the language and the literature of the Greeks at once permeated the upper classes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 22 , Issue 85 , March 1974 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Thucidides 3, 82, 4.

2 Thucydides 3, 82, 4 ff.

3 Thucydides 3, 82, 8.

4 Sallust, Bellum Catilinae.

5 Sallust, Hist.

6 See the entry in the O.E.D.

7 Compare the observations of F. Brunot, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, 1937, 47 ff.

8 A person called Domergue even proposed to substitute "loyaume" for "royaume."

9 Appian, Bella civilia, 1, 2, 7.

10 Cf. Cicero, Brutus, 45: "pacis est comes otiique socia et jam bene constitutae civitatis quasi alumna quaedam eloquentia."

11 Cf. Thucydides 3, 82, 2.

12 Suetonius, Divus Aug. 88, 2: " tradidisse aliquos legato cum consulari successorem dedisse ut rudi et indocto, cuius manu ‘ixi' pro ‘ipsi' scriptum animadverterit…"

13 Suetonius, Divus Aug. 80, 1.

14 Livy, Praef. 5.

15 In Epodes 16; but that poem is in no way cloudy or mystical.

16 Cf. E. Norden, "Vergils Äneis im Lichte ihrer Zeit," Neue Jahrbücher VII (1901), 249 ff.; 313 ff.

17 Cf. E. Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa 2 (1909), 236; A. Klotz, P-W XIII, 850.

18 As, for example, E. Norden.

19 For example, Horace in the Odes shuns the archaic passive infinitive in "ier."

20 Cf. E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VI3 (1934), 176 f.

21 Compare the observations of the present writer, The Roman Revolution (1939), c. XI, "Political Catchwords."

22 Cicero, Ad Atticum, 14, 21, 2.

23 Cicero, Ad Atticum 15, 7; Ad fam. 10, 27, 2. Note also the new coinage "pacificatorius" (Phil. 12, 3).

24 Cicero, Pro Milone 68: "sed quis non intellegit omnis tibi rei publicae partis aegras et labantes, ut eas his armis sanares et confirmares, esse commissas? " Cf. Appian, Bella civilia 2, 28, 107; Plutarch, Pompeius 55; Cassius Dio 54, 39, 2.

25 Suetonius, Divus Aug. 42, 1.

26 At the Battle of Munda in 45 B.C., cf. Appian, Bella Civilia 2, 104, 430. Then coins of Ser. Pompeius, BMC, R. Rep. II, 370 ff.

27 BMC, R. Rep. II, 400 ff.; Cassius Dio 48, 5, 4.

28 Tacitus, Ann. 1, 9.

29 For this interpretation, cf. The Roman Revolution 462 f.; 470.

30 Cicero, In Cat. 3, 24; Post reditum ad Quirites 9. For "custos" applied to Augustus, cf. Horace, Odes 4, 5, 2.

31 For the use of "dux," cf. The Roman Revolution 311 f.

32 Cicero, Phil. II, 36: "dominatum et principatum."

33 Cf. Cicero, De oratore 3, 154, For "tempestas," Livy 1, 18, 1. On "proles" note the observation of Norden, P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VI3 (1934), 321.

34 Suetonius, Divus Aug. 89, 5.

35 In Epodes 16, 66, the word means "prophet." But cf. Odes 1, 31, 2; 4, 6, 44; 9, 28.

36 Livy, Praef. 5: "dum prisca illa tota mente repeto."

37 The word had a religious atmosphere, and it suggested Romulus' founding of Rome, "augusto augurio" (Ennius, quoted by Varro, RR 3, 1, 2.).

38 Suetonius, Tib. 71, 1.

39 Cf. S. G. Stacey, "Die Entwicklung des livianischen Stiles," Archiv. für lat. Lex. X (1898), 17 ff.

40 Quintilian 8, 3, 24.

41 Donatus 44: "M. Vipsanius a Maecenate suppositum appelabat novae cacozeliae repertorem, non tumedae nec exilis, sed ex communibus verbis atque ideo latentis."

42 Quintilian 10, 1, 96.