Ct was generally changed by the ancient as by the modern Italians into tt, as Coctius into Cottius, pactum into pattum, factum into fattum, &c.; in Italian, Cottio, patto, fatto, &c.(Cluv.)

WORDS.

Susum (for sursum) ancient Latin; (hence the Italian suso), found in an inscription of the year of Rome 686.

Pusi for sicut, hence the Italian cosi.

Deheberis and Teeberis for Tiberis.

Among such words we may rank Vitello, Toro, Capra, Porco, which occur in the Eugubian tables, and were common in Italy before the formation and general adoption of Latin.

Casino is derived from the Sabine Cascinum.

The Italian come seems to be derived from cume or cum, sometimes spelt quom.

Cima for summit, is found in Lucilius, and seems to have been confined in process of time to popular use.

Basium, basia, used by Catullus only in the purer age of Latin, and afterwards resumed by Juvenal, Martial and Petronius; it seems to have been borrowed, like the word Ploxenum,

used by the same author, from the Venetic dialect. Circa Padum invenit, says Quintilian.

Obstinata mente is used in the Italian sense by the same poet. -Cat. VIII. v. 11.

In Plautus we find several words supposed to be derived from the Sabines, which were gradually retrenched from pure latinity, but preserved probably in the popular idiom, and revived in the modern language. Such are,

Others of the same nature may be collected from Lucilius, as

Mataxa, now Matassa, a skein (of thread).

Spara, a lance (whence our word spear).

Potesse, &c.

Cicero uses the habessit, whence the Italian avesse, as an ancient and legal form. Separatim nemo habessit deos.-De Legi

bus II. 8.

He elsewhere notices the custom which he himself once indulged in, and afterwards corrected as faulty, of sometimes omitting the aspirate H, now universally suppressed in Italian.— Orator 48.

The following passage from Varro (quoted by Muratori) gives the origin of an Italian word tagliare, which without such authority, we should scarce have suspected of being derived from Latin. Nunc Intertaleare rustica voce dicitur dividere vel excidere ramum ex utraque parte æqualibiter præcisum quas alii Calbulas alii Faleas appellant.

In Pliny the Elder we find the word lætamen, in Italian letame. Hist. Nat. XVIII. c. 16.

DECLINE OF LATIN.

Suetonius (in Augusto, 88) alludes to various peculiarities of Augustus, both in writing and speaking; and Quintilian assures us,

that the Roman people assembled in the Circus and in the theatre sometimes exclaimed in barbarous expressions, and concludes, that to speak Latin is very different from speaking grammatically,*— Vulgo imperitos barbare locutos, et tota sæpe theatra, et omnem Circi turbam exclamasse barbare.-Lib. 1. cap. 6.

That the cases required by the rules of syntax in the government of verbs and prepositions were not always observed even in the very family of the abovementioned Emperor, is clear from the following expressions, quod est in palatium, and Dat Fufiae Climene, et Fufiae Cuche sorores, used even in writing by his own freedmen. (Murat.)

Festus observes, that the rustic mode of pronouncing au was like 0, whence so many Italian words are formed in o from the au of the Latins. "Orata," says he, “ genus piscis appellatur a colore auri quod rustici orum dicebant.” Cato, cited by Varro, makes the same observation, or rather uses the rustic pronunciation; a pronunciation so prevalent at a later period, that the Emperor Vespasian seems to have been partial to it, and was reprehended by an uncourtly friend for changing plaustra into plostra.-Suet. in Vespasiano. 22.

Statius, in one single verse, seems to use a very common word in a sense peculiarly Italian.

Salve supremum, senior mitissime patrum!

VOL. II.

Epicedion in Patrem.

* Aliud est Latine, aliud grammatice loqui.---Cap. 10.

3 P

66

Quidquid," says Seneca, "est boni moris extinguimus levitate et politura corporum." The word politura is here taken in a sense purely Italian. Impolitia, taken in the opposite sense, was a word not uncommon among the early Romans, according to Aulus Gellius IV. 12.

The African writers seem to have used a dialect tending more to Italian than any others, whether derived from the early colonists or from some provincial cause of corruption, it is difficult to determine. In Apuleius we find, not only particular words, as totus, russus, patronus, &c. in the Italian sense, but united adverbs, accumulated epithets, and the florid phraseology of Italian poetic prose.

In the Augustan history several phrases bordering upon Italian, and words taken in an Italian sense, may be observed, as a latus instead of a latere, ante fronte for frontem, ballista (now balletta) for saltationes, totum for omnia, intimare, &c. &c.

The word spelta, signifying a certain vegetable, is represented by St. Jerom as purely Italian, and is still in use.-Cap. IV. in Ezech.

The same author alludes to the word parentes, taken in the Italian and French sense, that is, for relations, kindred, as used in his time, militari vulgarique sermone.—Lib. 11. Apol. adv Ruffin.

Mulieri suæ for his wife, is used by St. Augustine-De Catech. rudibus, cap. xxvi. as is jusum, (giu, below, beneath, in Italian) Tract. VIII in Epist. 1. S. Johan.