Book 13
21
VALERIUS PROBUS was once asked, as I learned from one of his friends, whether one ought to say has urbis or has urbes and hanc turrem. or hanc turrim. If, he replied, you are either composing verse or writing prose and have to use those words, pay no attention to the musty, fusty rules of the grammarians, but consult your own ear as to what is to be said in any given place. What it favours will surely be the best. Then the one who had asked the question said: What do you mean by 'consult my ear'? and he told me that Probus answered: Just as Vergil did his, when in different passages he has used urbis and urbes, following the taste and judgment of his ear. For in the first Georgic, which, said he, I have read in a copy corrected by the poet's own hand, he wrote urbis with an i. These are the words of the verses: Georg. i. 25. O'er cities (urbis) if you choose to watch, and rule Our lands, O Caesar great. But turn and change it so as to read urbes, and somehow you will make it duller and heavier. On the other hand, in the third Aeneid he wrote urbes with an e: Aen. iii. 106. An hundred mighty cities (urbes) they inhabit. Change this too so as to read urbis and the word will be too slender and colourless, so great indeed is the different effect of combination in the harmony of neighbouring sounds. Moreover, Vergil also said turrim, not turrem, and securim, not securem: A turret (turrim) on sheer edge standing, Aen. ii. 460. and Has shaken from his neck the ill-aimed axe (securim). Aen. ii. 224. These words have, I think, a more agreeable lightness than if you should use the form in e in both places. But the one who had asked the question, a boorish fellow surely and with untrained ear, said: I don't just understand why you say that one form is better and more correct in one place and the other in the other. Then Probus, now somewhat impatient, retorted: Don't trouble then to inquire whether you ought to say urbis or urbes. For since you are the kind of man that I see you are and err without detriment to yourself, you will lose nothing whichever you say.
