Book 1
7.17
Now such a practice will be an actual hindrance to those who are learning to read. This difficulty occurs in Greek as well in connexion with the addition of an iota, which is employed not merely in the termination of the dative, but is sometimes found in the middle of words as in λῄστης, for the reason that the analysis applied by etymology shows the word to be a trisyllable The noun being formed from ληίζω. ΛΗΙΣΤΗΙ in the text is dative after in. The trisyllable to which Q. refers is the nominative. and requires the addition of that letter. The diphthong ae now written with an e, was pronounced in old days as ai;
7.18
some wrote ai in all cases, as in Greek, others confined its use to the dative and genitive singular; whence it comes that Vergil, Aen. ix. 26 and vii. 464. always a passionate lover of antiquity, inserted pictai uestis and aquai in his poems.
7.19
But in the plural they used e and wrote Syllae, Galbae. Lucilius has given instructions on this point also; his instructions occupy quite a number of verses, for which the incredulous may consult his ninth book.
7.20
Again in Cicero's days and a little later, it was the almost universal practice to write a double s , whenever that letter occurred between two long vowels or after a long vowel, as for example in caussae, cassus, diuissiones. That he and Vergil both used this spelling is shown by their own autograph manuscripts.
