The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,061 pages of information about The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5).

1.  A similar change of sound is exhibited in the case of the following formations, all of them of a very ancient kind:  -pars—­portio-, -Mars- -Mors-, -farreum- ancient form for -horreum-, -Fabii- -Fovii-, -Valerius- -Volesus-, -vacuus- -vacivus-.

2.  The —­synoikismos—­ did not necessarily involve an actual settlement together at one spot; but while each resided as formerly on his own land, there was thenceforth only one council-hall and court-house for the whole (Thucyd. ii. 15; Herodot. i. 170).

3.  We might even, looking to the Attic —­trittus—­ and the Umbrian -trifo-, raise the question whether a triple division of the community was not a fundamental principle of the Graeco-ltalians:  in that case the triple division of the Roman community would not be referable to the amalgamation of several once independent tribes.  But, in order to the establishment of a hypothesis so much at variance with tradition, such a threefold division would require to present itself more generally throughout the Graeco-Italian field than seems to be the case, and to appear uniformly everywhere as the ground-scheme.  The Umbrians may possibly have adopted the word -tribus- only when they came under the influence of Roman rule; it cannot with certainty be traced in Oscan.

4.  Although the older opinion, that Latin is to be viewed as a mixed language made up of Greek and non-Greek elements, has been now abandoned on all sides, judicious inquirers even (e. g.  Schwegler, R. G. i. 184, 193) still seek to discover in Latin a mixture of two nearly related Italian dialects.  But we ask in vain for the linguistic or historical facts which render such an hypothesis necessary.  When a language presents the appearance of being an intermediate link between two others, every philologist knows that the phenomenon may quite as probably depend, and more frequently does depend, on organic development than on external intermixture.

5.  That the Quinctian Luperci had precedence in rank over the Fabian is evident from the circumstance that the fabulists attribute the Quinctii to Romulus, the Fabii to Remus (Ovid, Fast. ii. 373 seq.; Vict.  De Orig. 22).  That the Fabii belonged to the Hill-Romans is shown by the sacrifice of their -gens- on the Quirinal (Liv. v. 46, 52), whether that sacrifice may or may not have been connected with the Lupercalia.

Moreover, the Lupercus of the former college is called in inscriptions (Orelli, 2253) -Lupercus Quinctialis vetus-; and the -praenomen-Kaeso, which was most probably connected with the Lupercal worship (see Rom.  Forschungen, i. 17), is found exclusively among the Quinctii and Fabii:  the form commonly occurring in authors, -Lupercus Quinctilius- and -Quinctilianus-, is therefore a misnomer, and the college belonged not to the comparatively recent Quinctilii, but to the far older Quinctii.  When, again, the Quinctii (Liv. i. 30), or Quinctilii (Dion. iii. 29), are named among the Alban clans, the latter reading is here to be preferred, and the Quinctii are to be regarded rather as an old Roman -gens-.

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