Kitap 15
3
But I have found in the Commentary of Nigidius Frag. 51, Swoboda. that the verb autumo is formed from the preposition ab and the verb aestumo (estimate) and that autumo is a contracted form of abaestumo, signifying totum aestumo, on the analogy of abnumero. The derivation of autumo is uncertain; some take the original meaning to be divining and connect it with avis; see T.L.L. s.v. Walde rejects that derivation in favour of the one from autem; cf. Fay, Class. Quart. i. (1907) p. 25. Here the original meaning is assumed to be repeat, assert, and in fact autumo and itero are sometimes synonymous. The development of the meanings of autuino was doubtless influenced by aestumo, which has the same suffix. But, be it said with great respect for Publius Nigidius, a most learned man, this seems to be rather bold and clever than true. For autumo does not only mean I think, but also I say, I am of the opinion, and I consider, with which verbs that preposition has no connection either in the composition of the word or in the expression of its meaning. Besides, Marcus Tullius, a man of unwearied industry in the pursuit of letters, would not have said that these were the only two verbs containing au, if any third example could be found. But the following point is more worthy of examination and investigation, whether the preposition ab is altered and changed into the syllable au for the sake of making the pronunciation smoother, or whether more properly the particle au has its own origin, and just as many other prepositions were taken from the Greeks, so this one also is derived from that source. See note 1, p. 66; it is not taken from the Greeks. As in that verse of Homer: Iliad i. 459. First bent them back (au)e/rusan), then slew and flayed the beasts; and: Iliad xiii. 41
