The History of Roman Literature - Charles Thomas Cruttwell

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24. senatuosque sententiam utei scientes esetis—eorum | sententia ita fuit:

       25. Sei ques esent, quei arvorsum ead fecisent, quam suprad | scriptum

       adversum ea

       26. est, eeis rem caputalem faciendam censuere—atque utei | hoce in

       27. tabolam abenam inceideretis, ita senatus aiquom censuit; | uteique eam

       aequum

       28. figier ioubeatis ubei facilumed gnoscier potisit;—atque | utei ea Ba-

       29. canalia, sei qua sunt, exstrad quam sei quid ibei sacri est | ita utei

       suprad scriptum est, in diebus x. quibus vobis tabelai datai

       30. erunt, | faciatis utci dismota sient—in agro Teurano."

       Tauriano

      We notice that there are in this decree no doubled consonants, no ablatives without the final d (except the two last words, which are probably by a later hand), and few instances of ae or i for the older ai, ei; oi and ou stand as a rule for oe, u; ques, eeis, for qui, ii. On the other hand us has taken the place of os as the termination of Romanus, Postumius, &c., and generally u is put instead of the older o. The peculiarities of Latin syntax are here fully developed, and the language has become what we call classical. At this point literature commences, and a long succession of authors from Plautus onwards carry the history of the language to its completion; but it should be remembered that few of these authors wrote in what was really the speech of the people. In most cases a literature would be the best criterion of a language. In Latin it is otherwise. The popular speech could never have risen to the complexity of the language of Cicero and Sallust. This was an artificial tongue, based indeed on the colloquial idiom, but admitting many elements borrowed from the Greek. If we compare the language and syntax of Plautus, who was a genuine popular writer, with that of Cicero in his more difficult orations, the difference will at once be felt. And after the natural development of classical Latin was arrested (as it already was in the time of Augustus), the interval between the colloquial and literary dialects became more and more wide. The speeches of Cicero could never have been unintelligible even to the lowest section of the city crowd, but in the third and fourth centuries it is doubtful whether the common people understood at all the artificially preserved dialect to which literature still adhered. Unfortunately our materials for tracing the gradual decline of the spoken language are scanty. The researches of Mommsen, Ritschl, and others, have added considerably to their number. And from these we see that the old language of the early inscriptions was subjected to a twofold process of growth. On the one hand, it expanded into the literary dialect under the hands of the Graecising aristocracy; on the other, it ran its course as a popular idiom, little affected by the higher culture for several centuries until, after the decay of classical Latin, it reappears in the fifth century, strikingly reminding us in many points of the earliest infancy of the language. The lingua plebeia, vulgaris, or rustica, corrupted by the Gothic invasions, and by the native languages of the other parts of the empire which it only partially supplanted, became eventually distinguished from the Lingua Latina (which was at length cultivated, even by the learned, only in writing,) by the name of Lingua Romana. It accordingly differed in different countries. The purest specimens of the old Lingua Romana are supposed to exist in the mountains of Sardinia and in the country of the Grisons. In these dialects many of the most ancient formations were preserved, which, repudiated by the classical Latin, have reappeared in the Romance languages, bearing testimony to the inherent vitality of native idiom, even when left to work out its own development unaided by literature.

      APPENDIX.

      Examples of the corrupted dialect of the fifth and following centuries. [20]

      1. An epitaph of the fifth century.

      "Hic requiescit in pace domna

       domina

      Bonusa quix ann. xxxxxx et Domo

       quae vixit Domino

      Menna quixitannos … Eabeat anatema a Juda si quis alterum

       qui vixit annos Habeat anathema

      omine sup. me posuerit. Anatema abeas da trecenti decem et

       hominem super habeas de trecentis

      octo patriarche qui chanones esposuerunt et da s ca Xpi

       patriarchis canones exposuerunt sanctis Christi

      quatuor Eugvangelia"

       Evangeliis

      2. An instrument written in Spain under the government of the Moors in the year 742, a fragment of which is taken from Lanzi. The whole is given by P. Du Mesnil in his work on the doctrine of the Church.

      "Non faciant suas missas misi portis cerratis: sin peiter seratis (minus) pendant

      decem pesantes argenti. Monasterie quae sunto in eo mando … faciunt nummos Monasteriae faciant

      Saracenis bona acolhensa sine vexatione neque forcia: vendant sine

       vectigalia? vi

      pecho tali pacto quod non vadant tributo foras de nostras terras."

       nostris terris

      3. The following is the oath of fealty taken by Lewis, King of Germany, in 842 A.D.

      "Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poble et nostro comun salvament

       Dei amore Christiano populo nostra communi salute

      dist di enavant in quant

       de isto die in posterum quantum

      Dis saver et podirme dunat: si salverat eo cist meon fradre Karlo

       Deus scire posse donet: sic (me) servet ei isti meo fratri Carolo

      et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa si cum om per

       adjumento qualicunque caussa sic quomodo homo per

      dreit son fradra salvar distino: quid il mi altre

       rectum (=jure) suo fratri salvare destine: quod ille mihi ex altera (parte)

      si fazet; et abludher nul plaid nunquam prendrai, qui

       sic faciet; ab Lothario nullum consilium unquam accipiam, quod

      meon vol cist meon fradra Karlo in damno sit."

       mea voluntate isti meo fratri Carolo damnum

       Table of Contents

      ON THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

      Mommsen has truly remarked that the culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no literature. Had the Roman people continued to move in the same lines as they did before coming in contact with the works of Greek genius, it is possible that they might have long remained without a literature. Or if they had wrought one out for themselves, it would no doubt have been very different from that which has come down to us. As it is, Roman literature forms a feature in human history quite without a parallel. We see a nation rich in patriotic feeling, in heroes legendary and historical, advancing step by step to the fullest solution then known to the world of the great problems of law and government, and finally rising by its virtues to the proud position of mistress of the nations, which yet had never found nor, apparently, even wanted, any intellectual expression of its life and growth, whether in the poet's inspired song or in the sober narrative of the historian.

      The cause of this striking deficiency is to be sought in the original characteristics of the Latin race. The Latin character, as distinguished from the Greek, was eminently practical and unimaginative. It was marked by good sense, not by luxuriant fancy: it was "natum rebus agendis." The acute intellect of the Romans,

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