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treatises on the style of the letters, such as Stinner's and Paul Meyer's, afterwards to be mentioned; as well as elaborate histories of Latin style such as Nägelsbach's Stylistik, and Dräger's Historische Syntax. Having pointed out, therefore, what seem to me to be the distinctive characteristics of the correspondence as a whole, I shall give a general sketch of the broad peculiarities of this branch of literature as regards the use of words, and offer a few observations on the distinctions which may be observed between the letters of Cicero and of his correspondents.

A.

There is a very remarkable characteristic of the style of these letters, not hitherto dwelt on,* so far as I am aware—a very close parallelism between their diction and the diction of the comic drama. † It is, indeed, to be expected a priori that the language of familiar letter-writing would closely resemble the language of familiar dialogue. In both cases the language may be expected to be largely tinged with the idiom of the sermo vulgaris, or colloquialism. Cicero, in an important passage, § recognises the colloquial character of his letters, referring, no doubt, especially to those which we have spoken of as his more private letters, namely, those to Atticus, Trebatius, Caelius, and his brother Quintus. It would be impossible for me here to enter into an elaborate comparison between the language of Cicero's letter and that of the comic stage. But in order to show that the subject well deserves a full treatment (as has been suggested by T. Müller, the able reviewer of the

* Stinner (de eo quo Cicero in Epistolis usus est sermone, Oppeln. E. Franck. 1879) notices this feature in the letters, but does not pursue the subject.

+ Cicero has in a passage already quoted expressed his high opinion of the elegantia of Terence in Off. i. 104, he lays down that there are two kinds of humour—unum illiberale, petulans, flagitiosum, obscaenum; alterum elegans, urbanum, ingeniosum, facetum; and of the latter he makes Plautus a type, in this judgment differing from the verdict of Horace (Ep. in Pis. 270; Epp. ii. 1, 170) and of Quintilian (x. 1, 99); but afterwards corroborated by Gellius (vii. 17, 4), who pronounces Plautus homo linguae atque elegantiae in verbis Latinae princeps.

It must be borne in mind that archaism is a large ingredient in colloquialism, as has been pointed out (p. 127) in the very able treatise of Paul Meyer, Untersuchung über die Frage der Echtheit des Briefwechsels Cicero ad Brutum. Stuttgart, 1881. Quid enim simile habet epistola aut iudicio aut contioni? Quin ipsa iudicia non solemus omnia tractare uno modo; privatas causas et eas tenues agimus subtilius, capitis aut famae ornatius. Epistolas vero cotidianis verbis texere solemus.--Fam. ix.

21, 1.

first edition of this volume in Bursian's Jahresbericht), I will here point out some of the coincidences which have struck me. I will first take one play, the Miles Gloriosus, and note the coincidences; then add such general resemblances as have not been touched.

(1). In the following examples it is not contended that in every case the usage adduced is confined to Cic. Epp. and the comic drama; but that it is far more prevalent there than elsewhere, and that this circumstance is not fortuitous, but arises from the fact that the usage referred to partakes of that colloquial character which the Germans call Vulgarismus.

Mil. i. 1, 11, tam bellatorem: for tam with predic. subst., cp. tam Lynceus, Fam ix. 2, 2; tam corruptrice provincia, Q. Fr. i. 1, 19; tam matula, Pl. Pers. iv. 3, 64; parum leno, Ter. Phorm. 507.

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Mil. i. 1, 44, sic memini tamen: for sic as things now stand,' cp. sed sic me privas, Fam. v. 20, 4; sic vero fallaces sunt, Q. Fr. i. 1, 16. See under sic v. 3 in Lewis and Short.

Mil. i. 1, 67, dare operam, to attend to': see L. S., opera, ii. A 1. Mil. ii. 2, 62, tibi ego dico: cp. narro tibi in Cic. Epp. See n. on Ep. xxii. 10.

Mil. ii. 2, 95, quid agimus: for this emphatic use of pres. indic. instead of delib. subjunc., cp. nunc quid respondemus, Att. xvi. 7, 4. Mil. ii. 3, 1, certo. . . scio: certo is found only in comic poets and in Cic., nearly always in his letters.

Mil. ii. 6, 103, irae: for abstract substantives in plural, cp. in Pl. opulentiae, Trin. ii. 4, 89; parsimoniae, ib. iv. 3, 21; perfidiae, Capt. iii. 3, 7; industriae, Most. ii. 1, 1; paces, Pers. v. 5, 1; superbiae, Stich. ii. 2, 27. In Cic. Epp. we find iracundiae, Q. Fr. i. 1,39; admurmurationes, Q. Fr. ii. 1, 3; aestimationes, Fam. ix. 18, 4; apparitiones, Q. Fr. i. 1, 12; compellationes, Fam. xii. 25, 2; compotationes and concenationes, Fam. ix. 24, 3; dementiae, Att. ix. 9, 8; desperationes, Fam. ii. 16, 6; iocationes, Fam. viii. 16, 7; avaritiae, Q. Fr. i. 1, 40; iucunditates, Att. x. 8, 9; tranquillitates, Att. vi. 8, 4; urbanitates, Fam. xvi. 21, 7.

Mil. iii. 1, 41, nota noscere: cp. actum agere, Ter. Phorm. 419; inventum inveni, Capt. ii. 3, 81; perditum perdamus, Fam. xiv. 1, 5. Mil. iii. 1, 148, odiorum Ilias: cp. malorum impendet 'Iλiás, Att. viii. 11, 3.

Mil. iii. 2, 38, loculi: Pl. affects strange diminutives, like this from locus; e. g. recula, from res; specula, from spes; ralla, for

rarula; celocula; nepotulus; uxorcula. Vid. infra, pp. 68 and 69, for a list of dimin. in Cic. Epp.

Mil. iv. 2, 102, tago; old form of tango: cp. tagax, Att. vi. 3, 1. Mil. iv. 3, 17, nihil huius: op. quod huius, quod eius, &c., in Cic. Epp., passim. This expression is also common in legal formulae.

Mil. iv. 5, 43, hariolatur: used in Att. viii. 11, 3; very frequent in comic poets; elsewhere only in Cic. de div. i. 134. The dialogues of Cic. naturally presents points of contact with the letters; for instance, the tmesis of per with adjectives and verbs is common to the letters and dialogues of Cic. and the comic drama, but does not occur elsewhere in classical Latin.

(2). Thus the examination of one play of Plautus yields a dozen coincidences between the drama and the letters. I now add such general stylistic resemblances as have not been necessarily suggested by the Miles.

(a) The prevalence of such interjections as st, hui, sodes, amabo te; ast for at; absque for sine; mi for mihi.

(b) Such phrases as nullus venit, 'not a bit of him came'; ab armis nullus discedere, 'not to move an inch from one's post'; Corumbus nullus adhuc, not a sign of Corumbus yet'; nullus tu quidem domum, don't stir a foot to visit him."*

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(c) Teneo, habeo in sense of scio, especially in imper. sic habeto, tantum habeto with accus. and infin. ; and habeo = possum with infin. (d) Copious use of ejaculatory phrases: at te Romae non fore! Att. v. 20, 7; O tempora! fore cum dubitet, Att. xii. 49, 1; facinus indignum! epistolam . . . neminem reddidisse, Att. ii. 13, 1; esse locum tam prope Romam ubi, Att. ii. 6, 2; hui! totiensne me dedisse, Att. v. 11, 1; me miserum! te incidisse, Fam. xiv. 1, 1; hem! mea lux, Fam. xiv. 2, 2.

(e) Isolated agreements in the employment of a peculiar word (or phrase), as susque deque est, which is found only in Plautus and Cic. Epp. among classical writers. Paul Meyer (Untersuchung, p. 127) defends expedire = narrare in Epp. ad Brut. i. 15, 1, on the ground that it is an archaism. On similar grounds I would introduce accuderim in Att. i. 1, 2, as a Plautine word, and PIPULO ac convicio for populi convicio in Q. Fr. ii. 10 (12), 1. On a like principle

* Att. xi. 24, 4; xv. 22, 1; xiv. 3, 1; xv. 29, 1. For similar usage in the comic poets, Ter. Eun. ii. 1, 10; Hec. i. 2, 4; Andr. ii. 2, 33; Plaut. Trin. iii. 1, 5.

Meyer (p. 134) vindicates tardare intrans. in Att. vi. 7, 2 by durare intrans. in Plautus. Such cases as these will be noticed in the notes where they occur.

(f) A very striking coincidence with the diction of the comic stage is illustrated by the phrase quid mi auctor es, Att. xiii. 40, 2; quid sim tibi auctor, Fam. vi. 8, 2, where auctor es is treated as a verb and takes an object in the accusative. This construction is very common in Plautus, e. g. ubi quadruplator quempiam iniexit manum, Pers. i. 2, 18; sitis gnarures hunc rem, Most. i. 2, 17; quod gravida est, Amph. iii. 1, 18, where see Ussing's note.

(g) In Plautus, words like videlicet, scilicet, ilicet, are, as it were, resolved into their component elements and govern a case, as if (e.g.) videlicet were videre licet. A very good example of this is found in Pl. Stich. iv. 1, 49, 51:

videlicet, parcum fuisse illum senem

...

videlicet, fuisse illum nequam adolescentem.

Hence, I believe it is unsound criticism to change tum videlicet datas, the ms reading in Att. v. 11, 7, to datae, which, indeed, would not stand without sunt, as Boot observes.

(h) Another use of the accus., which the letters and the comici have in common, is illustrated by scelus hominis, a villain,' Att. xi. 9, 2. This usage is pushed very far by Pl., who not only has scelus viri, Mil. v. 41, but even hallex viri, Poen. v. 5, 31; hominum mendicabula mendicos, Aul. iv. 8, 3.

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(i) An accusative of cognate or homogeneous objects is very common both in the letters and in comedy. Under this head come such accusatives as si quidquam (i.e. ullum amorem) me amas, Att. v. 17, 5: cp. id gaudeo, Ter. And. ii. 2, 25; quid gaudeam, Pl. Capt. iv. 2, 62. An excellent example of a cognate accus. is to be found in a letter of Caelius to Cicero: ut suum gaudium gauderemus, Fam. viii. 2, 1. Cp. also quidquid valebo . . . valebo tibi, Fam. vi. 6, 13, where T badly gives conciliabo tibi.

(j) The use of the ethical dative is far more common in the letters and in comedy than elsewhere in classical literature. In fact the ethical dative without en or ecce is very rare in the other writings of Cicero. For this reason I would defend TIBI of the mss in Att. iv. 2, 4, vix tandem TIBI de mea voluntate concessum est, after all, at last, lo and behold you with my consent, the point was con

ceded.' The vigorous exclamation is justified by the unexpected announcement that Cicero himself was for conceding the request of Serranus, which was so adverse to his interests. It seems to me most unscientific to read illi, or id ei, or homini for tibi. Surely no copyist, however stupid, finding any of these readings, all of which yield an obvious sense, would have written tibi, which at first sight seems to give no sense at all.

(k) A passage in the letters ad Fam. affords an example, in my opinion, of a characteristic idiom borrowed from the comic stage. The passage, Fam. vii. 1, 1, runs thus:

Neque tamen dubito quin tu ex illo cubiculo tuo, ex quo tibi Stabianum perforasti et patefecisti Misenum, per eos dies matutina tempora lectiunculis consumpseris.

All editors have either changed ex to in or changed lectiunculis to spectiunculis. But the ms reading as given above is right. What Cicero means is this: he had said above that the leisure of Marius (gained by absenting himself from the games) would not be rightly employed unless he did something useful. Now to take little dips into books' might fairly be called useful as compared with dozing over hackneyed farces. Spectiunculis, 'taking little peeps' at the beauties of the bay of Naples would hardly satisfy this condition; again, spectiunculis is against the mss; finally, the word spectarent would not have been used after spectiunculis. Accordingly, nearly all the edd., retaining lectinculis, change ex to in before illo cubiculo. But if Cicero wrote the easy in illo cubiculo, why do all the mss give us the difficult ex illo cubiculo? The fact is, that in ex illo cubiculo tuo ex quo we have an example of that inverse attraction which is common in Plautus: cp. indidem unde oritur facito ut facias stultitiam sepelibilem. Pl. Cist. 1. 1. 63.

ego te hodie reddam madidum si vivo probe
tibi quoi decretumst bibere aquam.

Aul. 3. 6. 38.

quid illum facere vis qui tibi quoi divitiae domi maximae sunt

. . amicis numum nullum habes.

Epid. 3. 1. 8.

A familiar example in Greek of this inverse attraction is ẞnvaι

κεῖθεν ὅθενπερ ἥκει.—Soph. Ο. C. 1226.

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