Noctes Atticae

As ususcapio is treated as a compound noun in the nominative case, so pignoriscapio is taken together as one word in the same case.

As ususcapio is treated as a compound word, in which the letter a is pronounced long, just so pignoriscapio was pronounced as one word with a long a. These are the words of Cato in the first book of his Epistolary Questions: [*](p. cviii., Jordan. It should be Varro rather than Cato.)

Pignoriscapio, resorted to because of military pay [*](That is, pay in arrears.) which a soldier ought to receive from the public paymaster, is a word by itself.

[*](Ususcapio or usucapio is a taking, or claim to possession, by right of actual tenure (usus); pignoriscapio is a seizure of goods. On the latter see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, i.3, p. 160, and cf. Suet. Jul. xvii. 2. The a is not long in either word, but has the accent, which may be what Gellius means.) From this it is perfectly clear that one may say capio as if it were captio, in connection with both usus and pignus.