L A T I 335
rity. His own innovations in vocabulary are not numerous.
About eighty (
Greek characters) have been noted; but for the most
part there is nothing very distinctive about their character,
and perhaps we should find them almost entirely disappear
ing if the remains of contemporary literature were more
extensive. Like Virgil, he shows his exquisite skill in the
use of language rather in the selection from already existing
stores, than in the creation of new resources: tantum series iuncturaque pollet.' But both his diction and his syntax left much less marked traces upon succeeding writers than did those of either Virgil or Ovid.
Virgil.
In Virgil the development of the Latin language reached its full maturity. What Cicero was to the period, Virgil was to the hexameter; indeed the changes that he wrought were still more marked, inasmuch as the language of verse admits of greater subtlety and finish than even the most artistic prose. For the straightforward idiomatic simplicity of Lucretius and Catullus he substituted a most exact and felicitous choice of diction, rich with the suggestion of the most varied sources of inspiration. Sometimes it is a phrase of Homer's "conveyed" literally with happy bold ness, sometimes it is a line of Ennius, or again some artistic Sophoclean combination. Virgil was equally familiar with the great Greek models of style and with the earlier Latin poets. This learning, guided by an unerring sense of fitness and harmony, enabled him to give to his diction a music which recalls at once the fullest tones of the Greek lyre and the lofty strains of the most genuinely national song. His love of antiquarianism in language has often been noticed, but it never passes into pedantry. His vocabulary and constructions are often such as would have conveyed to his contemporaries a grateful flavour of the past, but they would never have been unintelligible. Forms like iusso, olle, or admittier can have delayed no one.
In the details of syntax it is difficult to notice any peculiarly Virgilian points, for the reason that his language, like that of Cicero, became the canon, departures from which were accounted irregularities. But we may notice as favourite constructions a free use of oblique cases in the place of the more definite construction with prepositions usual in prose, e.g., it clamor caelo, flet noctem, rivis currentia vina, bacchatam iugis Naxon, and many similar phrases; the employment of some substantives as adjectives, like venator canis, and vice versa, as plurimus volitans; a proleptic use of adjectives, as tristia torquebit; idioms involving ille, atque, deinde, haud, quin, vix, and the frequent occurrence of passive verbs in their earlier reflexive sense, as induor, velor, pascor (comp. Dr Kennedy's Appendix on "Virgilian Syntax").
Livy
In Livy's singularly varied and beautiful style we have Latin prose in that rich maturity which seems to portend and almost to necessitate an early decline. To a training in the rhetorical schools, and perhaps professional experience as a teacher of rhetoric, he added a thorough familiarity with contemporary poetry and with the Greek language; and these attainments have all deeply coloured his language. It is probable that the variety of style naturally suggested by the wide range of his subject matter was increased by a half-unconscious adoption of the phrases and constructions, of the different authorities whom he followed in different parts of his work ; and the industry of German critics has gone far to demonstrate a conclusion likely enough in itself. Hence perhaps comes the fairly long list of archaisms, especially in formulæ, which scholars have collected (cf. Kühnast, Liv. Synt., pp. 14-18). These are, however, purely isolated phenomena, which do not affect the general tone. It is different with the poetical constructions and Græcisms, which appear on every page. Of the latter we find numerous instances in the use of the cases, e.g., in genitives like ad Spei (sc. templum), pars altera regiae adulationis erat, oratores pacis petendae, ira praedae omissae, oppidum Antiochiae, aequum campi, qui captivorum, in datives like aeneum pectori tegumen, comitia collegae creando, quibusdam volentibus erat, promptus veniae dandae,[1] in accusatives like iurare calumniam, certare multam, distendere hostem; an especially frequent use of transitive verbs absolutely; and the constant omission of the reflexive pronoun as the subject of an infinitive in reported speech. To the same source must be assigned a very frequent pregnant construction with prepositions, an attraction of relatives, and a great extension of the employment of relative adverbs of place instead of relative pronouns, e.g., quo = in quem. Among his poetical characteristics we may place the extensive list of words which are found for the first time in his works and in those of Virgil or Ovid, and perhaps his common use of concrete words for collective, e.g., eques for equitatus, of abstract terms such as remigium, servitia, robora, and of frequentative verbs, to say nothing of poetical phrases like "haec ubi dicta dedit," "adversum montium," &c. Indications of the extended use of the subjunctive, which he shares with contemporary writers, especially poets, are found in the construction of ante quam, post quam with this mood, even when there is no underlying notion of purpose, of donec, and of cum meaning "whenever." On the other hand forsitan and quamvis, as in the poets, are used with the indicative in forgetfulness of their original force. Among his individual peculiarities may be noticed the large number of verbal nouns in -tus (for which Cicero prefers forms in -tio) and in -tor, and the extensive use of the past passive participle to replace an abstract substantive, e.g., ex dictatorio imperio concusso. In the arrangement of words Livy is much more free than any previous prose writer, aiming, like the poets, at the most effective order rather than at that which is logically suggested. His periods are constructed with less regularity than those of Cicero, and gain at least as much in variety and energy as they lose in uniformity of rhythm and artistic finish. His style cannot be more fitly described than in the language of Quintilian, who speaks of his mira iucimditas and lactea ubertas.
Propertius.
The language of Propertius is too distinctly his own to call for detailed examination here. It cannot be taken as a specimen of the great current of the Latin language; it is rather a tributary springing from a source apart, tinging to some slight extent the stream into which it pours itself, but soon ceasing to affect it in any perceptible fashion. "His obscurity, his indirectness, and his incoherence" (to adopt the words of Professor Postgate) were too much out of harmony with the Latin taste for him to be regarded as in any sense representative; sometimes he seems to be hardly writing Latin at all. Partly from his own strikingly independent genius, partly from his profound and not always judicious study of the Alexandrian writers, his poems abound in phrases and constructions which are without a parallel in Latin poetry. His archaisms and Græcisms, both in diction and in syntax, are very numerous; but frequently there is a freedom in the use of cases and prepositions which can only be due to bold and independent innovations. His style well deserves a careful study for its own sake (cf. Postgate's Introduction, pp. lvii.-cxxv.); but it is of comparatively little significance in the history of the language.
Ovid.
The brief and few poems of Tibullus supply only what is given much more fully in the works of Ovid. In these we have the language recognized as that best fitted for
- ↑ Kühnast (p. 140) holds that of more than three hundred and twenty datives in book xxiii. about thirty show the influence of Greek constructions.
