Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

So too we get the Latinised genitives Ulixi and Achilli together with many other analogous forms. More recent scholars have instituted the practice of giving Greek nouns their Greek declension, although this is not always possible. Personally I prefer to follow the Latin method, so far as grace of diction will permit. For I should not like to say Calypsonem on the analogy of Iunonem, although Gaius Caesar in deference to antiquity does adopt this way of declining it. Current practice has however prevailed over his authority.

In other words which can be declined in either way without impropriety, those who prefer it can employ the Greek form: they will not be speaking Latin, but will not on the other hand deserve censure. Simple words are what they are in the nominative, that is, their essential nature.

Compound

v1-3 p.109

words are formed by the prefix of a preposition as in innocens, though care must be taken that two conflicting prepositions are not prefixed as in imperterritus: [*]( Quintilian regards the negative in as a preposition. His objection to imperterritus (which is used by Vergil) seems to lie in the fact that while interritus is a natural way of expressing unterrified, it is unreasonable to negative perterritus, which means thoroughly terrified. The presence of the intensifying per conflicts with the force of the negative in. ) if this be avoided they may in certain cases have a double prefix as in incompositus or reconditus or the Ciceronian subabsurdtim. They may also be formed by what I might term the combination of two independent units, as in maleficus.

For I will not admit that the combination of three is possible at any rate in Latin, although Cicero asserts that capsis [*](Orat. xlv. 154. ) is compounded of cape si vis, and there are to be found scholars who contend that Lupercalia likewise is a compound of three parts of speech, namely luere per caprum.

As for Solitaurilia it is by now universally believed to stand for Suovelaurilia, a derivation which corresponds to the actual sacrifice, which has its counterpart in Homer [*]( As in Od. xi. 130. The word means sacrifices of a pig, sheep and bull. ) as well. But these compounds are formed not so much from three words as from the fragments of three. On the other hand Pacuvius seems to have formed compounds of a preposition and two vocables ( i.e. nouns) as in

Nerei repandirostrum incurvticervicum pecs:

The flock
Of Nereus snout-uplifted, neck-inarched

the effect is unpleasing.