Book 4
17
IN the eleventh book of Lucilius are these lines: 394, Marx. Thus base Asellus did great Scipio taunt: Unlucky was his censorship and bad. I hear that many read obiciebat with a long o, and they say that they do this in order to preserve the metre. The point is, that the syllable ob, being a closed syllable, is long, while the vowel o is short. Hence o is pronounced short, but the first three syllables of obiciebat form a dactyl (_ u u). Gellius' explanation in §§ 7–8 is correct, although not so clear as it might be. Again farther on he says: 411, Marx. I'd versify the words the herald Granius spoke. In this passage also they lengthen the prefix of the first word for the same reason. Again in the fifteenth book: 509, Marx, who reads suffert citrus, following Lion. Subicit huic humilem et suffercitus posteriorem, The reading is uncertain and the meaning doubtful. The line is an hexameter, since final s (as in suffercitus) did not make position in early Latin. they read subicit with a long u, because it is not proper for the first syllable to be short in heroic verse. Likewise in the Epidicus of Plautus 194. they lengthen the syllable con in Haste now, Epidicus, prepare yourself, And throw (conice) your mantle round about your neck. In Virgil too I hear that some lengthen the verb subicit in: Georg. ii. 18. Parnassian laurel too Lifts (subicit) 'neath large mother-shade its infant stem. But neither the preposition ob nor sub is long by nature, nor is con long either, except when it is followed by the letters which come directly after it in constituit and confecit, Cf. ii. 17. or when its n is lost, as in Sallust's faenoribus copertus. Loaded with debt, Hist. fr. iv. 52, Maur.; see note on ii. 17. 11, p. 168. Copertus is from co- (not con-) opertus, and there is no loss of n. But in those instances which I have mentioned above the metre may be preserved without barbarously lengthening the prefixes; for the following letter in those words should be written with two i's, not with one. For the simple verb to which the above-mentioned particles are prefixed, is not icio, but iacio, and the perfect is not icit, but iecit. When that word is used in compounds, the letter a is changed into i, as happens in the verbs insilio and incipio, and thus the first i acquires consonantal force. Gellius is partly right. As in + capio and in + salio became incipio and insilio, so ob + iacio became obiicio. As the Romans disliked the combination ii, only one i was written, but both were pronounced, and the syllable ob was thus long by position. In the early Latin dramatists the scansion ăbicio indicates that the i was syncopated and the semi-vowel changed to a vowel. See Sommer, Lat. Laut- und Formenlehre, p. 522. Accordingly, that syllable, being pronounced a little longer and fuller, does not allow the first syllable to be short, but makes it long by position, and thus the rhythm of the verse and the correct pronunciation are preserved.
