By Water & Blood

Book 1, Chapter 4: Archaic Forms of Speech

Here, when all had praised Albinus's memory as a storehouse of antiquity, Praetextatus, seeing Avienus whispering to Rufius, said: "What is this, my Avienus, that you wish indicated to Albinus alone and kept secret from the rest?" Then he: "I am indeed moved by Caecina's authority, and I am not unaware that error does not fall upon so great learning. Yet that novelty of words has struck my ears, when he preferred to say 'noctu futura' and 'die crastini' rather than 'futura nocte' and 'die crastino,' as the rules approve. For 'noctu' is not a noun but an adverb. Further, 'futura,' which is a noun, cannot agree with an adverb, and there is no doubt that 'noctu' and 'nocte' stand to each other as 'diu' and 'die.' And again 'die' and 'crastini' are not of the same case, and unless the case is the same it does not join nouns in this kind of expression. Then why we should prefer to say 'Saturnaliorum' rather than 'Saturnalium' I wish to discern."

To this, when Caecina smiled and was silent, and Servius had been asked by Symmachus what he thought of these things, he said: "Although in this gathering, to be revered no less for learning than for nobility, it is more for me to learn than to teach, yet I will serve the judgment of him who commands, and I will first introduce concerning the Saturnalia, afterward concerning the rest, whence there is thus no novelty of speaking.

"He who says 'Saturnalium' rests on the rule: for nouns that send the dative plural into '-bus' never allow the genitive of the same number to have grown by a syllable, but either it has as many, as 'monilibus monilium,' 'sedilibus sedilium,' or it is less by one syllable, as 'carminibus carminum,' 'liminibus liminum': so therefore from 'Saturnalibus' more rightly 'Saturnalium' than 'Saturnaliorum.' But those who say 'Saturnaliorum' are fortified by the authority of great men. For Sallust also in the third book says 'Bacchanaliorum,' and Masurius in the second of the Fasti says, 'The day of the Vinalia (Vinaliorum) is sacred to Jupiter, not, as some think, to Venus.' And that I may cite the grammarians themselves also as witnesses, Verrius Flaccus in that little book which is entitled Saturn says, 'The days of the Saturnalia (Saturnaliorum) are held as festivals among the Greeks also,' and in the same book, 'I think,' he says, 'that I have written clearly about the constitution of the Saturnalia (Saturnaliorum).' Likewise Julius Modestus on holidays: 'the holidays of the Saturnalia (Saturnaliorum),' he says; and in the same book, 'Antias,' he says, 'reports Numa Pompilius as the discoverer of the Agonalia (Agonaliorum).'

"Yet this authority, you will say, I ask whether it can be defended by any reason. Clearly, inasmuch as it is not foreign to set a grammarian against his own analogy, I will try by suspicions to dig out what it is that has twisted them from the accustomed pronunciation, so that they preferred to say 'Saturnaliorum' rather than 'Saturnalium.' And first I judge that they wished these nouns which are of festival days, neuter and lacking the singular number, to be of a different condition from those nouns which are shaped in both numbers. For 'Compitalia' and 'Bacchanalia' and 'Agonalia' and 'Vinalia' and the rest like these are names of festival days and are not named in the singular; or if you say them in the singular number, you will not signify the same unless you add 'festum,' as 'Bacchanale festum,' 'Agonale festum,' and the rest, so that it is now not a positive but an adjective, which the Greeks call epitheton (ἐπίθετον). They have therefore been moved to make a distinction in the genitive case so that from this declension they might express the name of a solemn day, knowing that in not a few nouns often, though the dative ends in '-bus,' the genitive is nonetheless finished in '-rum,' as 'domibus domorum,' 'duobus duorum,' 'ambobus amborum.' So also 'viridia,' when they are taken in place of an adjective (ἀντὶ ἐπιθέτου), make the genitive in '-um,' as 'viridia prata, viridium pratorum'; but when we wish to signify the very greenness of a place, we say 'viridiorum,' as when it is said 'the beautiful appearance of the greens (viridiorum)': for then 'viridia' is put as a positive, not as an accident. But so great among the ancients was the license of this genitive that Asinius Pollio frequently uses 'vectigaliorum,' although 'vectigal' is said no less than 'vectigalia.' But also when we read, 'and with his left he bore the ancile,' yet 'anciliorum' also is related.

"We must therefore see lest variety rather delighted the ancients than that it be exactly true that the names of festival days are so called. For lo, besides the vocabularies of solemn days we also find others declined thus, as the preceding discourse has made plain—'viridiorum' and 'vectigaliorum' and 'anciliorum.' But I also find the very names of festivals declined according to the rule among the ancients, since indeed Varro says the day of the Feralia (Feralium) is so called from carrying feasts to the tombs. He did not say 'Feraliorum,' and elsewhere he says 'Floralium,' not 'Floraliorum,' although there he meant not the Floral games but the festival Flora itself. Masurius also in the second of the Fasti says, 'The day of the Liberalia (Liberalium) is called by the pontiffs the Martial agonium,' and in the same book, 'that night and then the following day, which is the Lucaria (Lucarium)'—he did not say 'Lucariorum.' And likewise many have said 'Liberalium,' not 'Liberaliorum.' Whence it is to be pronounced that the ancients indulged abundance through variety, as they said 'exanimos' and 'exanimes,' 'inermes' and 'inermos,' then 'hilaros' and 'hilares,' and therefore it is certain that both 'Saturnalium' and 'Saturnaliorum' are lawfully said, since the one the rule with authority defends, the other, though authority alone, yet of many.

"But the remaining words which seemed new to our Avienus must be asserted for us by the testimonies of the ancients. For Ennius—unless to someone he seems to be rejected amid the more polished elegances of our age—said 'noctu concubia' in these verses: 'where the Gauls stealthily by night (noctu) attacked the top of the citadel's walls at bedtime (concubia) and suddenly stained the watchmen with blood.' In which place it is to be noticed not only that he said 'noctu concubia' but also that he said 'qua noctu.' And he put this in the seventh of the Annals, in the third of which he said the same more clearly: 'On this night (hac noctu) all Etruria will hang by a thread.' Claudius Quadrigarius also in the third of the Annals: 'But the Senate assembled from the night, and at night (noctu) many were dismissed home.' I think it not beside the point to remind also in this place that the decemvirs in the Twelve Tables most unusually said 'nox' for 'noctu.' These are the words: 'If he shall have committed theft by night (nox), if he shall have killed him, let him be lawfully slain.' In which words this also is to be noted, that from that which is 'is' they said not 'eum' in the accusative case but 'im.'

"But neither was 'diecrastini' brought forth by a most learned man without the authority of the ancients, whose custom was to say now 'diequinti,' now 'diequinte,' joined as an adverb: of which an indication is that the second syllable is shortened, which by nature is lengthened when 'die' alone is said. And as for what we said, that the last syllable of that word is written now through 'e,' now through 'i,' it was customary with the ancients to use these letters for the most part indifferently at the end, as 'praefiscine' and 'praefiscini,' 'proclive' and 'proclivi.' Lo, that verse of Pomponius comes to mind, which is from the Atellan farce entitled Maevia: 'This is the sixth day since I have done nothing: on the fourth day (diequarte) I shall die of hunger.' 'Diepristine' was said in the same way, which meant 'on the former day' (die pristino), that is the previous, which is now said 'pridie,' with the order of the composition reversed, as if 'pristino die.' Nor do I deny that 'die quarto' is read among the ancients: but this is found put of the past, not of the future. For Cn. Mattius, a man intensely learned, in the Mimiambi says for that which we say 'nudius quartus' in these verses lately—'on the fourth day (die quarto), as I recall, and certainly—he broke the one water-jar at home.' This then will be the difference, that we say 'die quarto' indeed of the past, but 'diequarte' of the future. But lest we seem to have related nothing about 'diecrastini,' that passage of Coelius from the second book of Histories is at hand: 'If you will give me the cavalry and yourself follow with the rest of the army, on the fifth day (diequinti) at Rome on the Capitol I will see that a cooked dinner is ready for you.'"

Here Symmachus said: "Your Coelius received both the history and the word from the Origins of M. Cato, in whom it is thus written: 'Therefore the master of the horse admonished the dictator of the Carthaginians: "Send the cavalry with me to Rome: on the fifth day (diequinti) on the Capitol a cooked dinner will be ready for you."'" And Praetextatus: "I judge that the words of the praetor also contribute something to demonstrating the custom of the ancients, with which by ancestral custom he is wont to proclaim the holidays which are called Compitalia. Those words are these: 'On the ninth day (dienoni) there will be Compitalia for the Roman people, the Quirites.'"