Book 4
16
I LEARN that Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, Fr. 63, Swoboda. the most learned of all the Romans, always said and wrote senatuis, domuis and fluctuis as the genitive case of the words senatus, domus and fluctus, and used senatui, domui, fluctui, and other similar words, with the corresponding dative ending. There is also a line of the comic poet Terence, which in the old manuscripts is written as follows: Heaut. 287. Because, I think, of that old dame (anuis) who died. Some of the early grammarians wished to give this authority of theirs That is, of Varro, Nigidius, and Terence. the sanction of a rule; namely, that every dative singular ending in l, if it has not the same form as the genitive singular, Dative singulars ending in i and having the same form as the genitive singular occur only in the fifth declension (diei, rei, etc.), except for the archaic forms of the first declension in -ai. makes the genitive singular by adding s, as pati patris, duci ducis, caedi caedis. Therefore, they say, since we use senatui as the dative case, the genitive singular of that word is senatuis, not senatus.
