Association For Latin Teaching

There is a Loeb volume entitled Remains of Old Latin.

There are few complete texts.

It is interesting to compare the development of Latin with that of English:

700

	900 'Old English'
800 Foundation	1000 Norman Conquest
1100 Middle English
600	1200
500 first written records	1300 Chaucer
400	1400 Great vowel shift; first plays
300 First literature; first plays	1500 Overseas expansion
200 Plautus	1600
100 Standardisation of spelling	1700 Standardisation of spelling
0 Science of grammar developed; Petronius wrote non-standard Latin	1800 Dickens wrote non-standard English; science of linguistics developed
100	1900
200 Political and educational collapse	2000 Breakup of Empire
300 Restoration of order; revival of grammar	2100
400 Breakup of Empire	2200
500	2300
600	2400
700	2500
800	2600

The oldest Latin inscriptions

The Fibula Praenestina is a forgery- why? Traces of nitric acid; suspect grammatic form; archaeological context. The inscription is:

MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI

Lapis Satricanus about 500 B.C.

EISTETERAI POPLIOSIO VALESIOSIO SVODALES MAMARTEI

-OSIO genitive is exciting. When did it change to -I?

Mamars=Mars. Dative ending EI.
Praeneste inscriptions: Note Losna (Luna) originally had the s.

Official Latin used archaic forms. The 186 BC Senatus Consultum. This is time of Plautus. Was Plautus modernised by copyists?

Archaic Legal Latin: escit = est (the form doesn't exist; it comes from a misreading of essit.)
Cf Mesnage (from French menage) becomes Messuage, a spurious form.

Cicero De Legibus imitates this old style of the 12 Tables.

Mock-archaic Latin c.f. Ye Olde Teashoppe.

Religious Latin - Cato preserves old-fashioned forms in prayer.
Arval Brethren is AD!! Mock-archaic. They couldn't make sense of it. Does Enos mean nos? Marmar=Mars?

Beginnings of Latin Literature

Livius: insece for ennepe - close parallel
Naevius in Saturnians - 2 beats in each line, leave the rest to chance!!
Plautus: getting it to scan requires restoring old forms.

Ennius - the end of old Latin, the first of the moderns, because he used hexameters.

He really is a good poet.

evitari=unlifed, not avoided
panxit=put into verse
Macrobius, Vergil and Cicero all knew Ennius was a good poet.

Interesting

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