Book 4
17
What I have said leads also to a knowledge of this, that in the line which we find in the sixth book of Virgil: Aen. vi. 365. Unconquered chieftain, save me from these ills; Or do thou earth cast on (inice) me, iniice is to be written and pronounced as I have indicated above, unless anyone is so ignorant as to lengthen the preposition in in this word too for the sake of the metre.
17
We ask then for what reason the letter o in obicibus is lengthened, since this word is derived from the verb obiicio, and is not at all analogous to motus, which is from moveo and is pronounced with a long o. I myself recall that Sulpicius Apollinaris, a man eminent for his knowledge of literature, pronounced obices and obicibus with a short o, and that in Virgil too he read in the same way the lines: Georg. iii. 479. And by what force the oceans fathomless Rise, bursting all their bounds (obicibus); but, as I have indicated, he gave the letter i, which in that word also should be doubled, a somewhat fuller and longer sound.
