Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Again, we have a number of words which end with M, a letter which suggests the mooing of a cow, and is never the final letter in any Greek word: for in its place they use the letters nu, the sound of which is naturally pleasant and produces a ringing tone when it occurs at the end of' a word, whereas in Latin this termination is scarcely ever found.

Again, we have syllables which produce such a harsh effect by ending in B and D, that many, not, it is true, of our most ancient writers, but still writers of considerable antiquity, have attempted to mitigate the harshness not merely by saying aversa for abversa, but by adding an S to the preposition ab, although S is an ugly letter

in itself Our accents also are less agreeable than those of the Greeks. This is due to a certain rigidity and monotony of pronunciation, since the final

v10-12 p.469

syllable is never marked by the rise of the acute accent nor by the rise and fill of the circumflex, but one or even two grave accents [*](I.e. the last syllable and often the last two syllables have the grave accent. See I. v. sqq. ) are regularly to be found at the end. Consequently the Greek language is so much more agreeable in sound than the Latin, that our poets, whenever they wish their verse to be especially harmonious, adorn it with Greek words.