A History of Roman Literature | Page 9

of the old language, the difficulties and uncertainties of which have been greatly diminished by recent research. They are partly inscriptions (for the oldest period exclusively so), and partly public documents, preserved in the pages of antiquarians. Much may be learnt from the study of coins, which, though less ancient than some of the written literature, are often more archaic in their forms. The earliest of the existing remains is the song of the Arval Brothers, an old rustic priesthood (_qui sacra publica faciunt propterea ut fruges ferant arva_), [10] dating from the times of the kings. This fragment was discovered at Rome in 1778, on a tablet containing the acts of the sacred college, and was supposed to be as ancient as Romulus. The priesthood was a highly honourable office, its members were chosen for life, and emperors are mentioned among them. The yearly festival took place in May, when the fruits were ripe, and consisted in a kind of blessing of the first-fruits. The minute and primitive ritual was evidently preserved from very ancient times, and the hymn, though it has suffered in transliteration, is a good specimen of early Roman worship, the rubrical directions to the brethren being inseparably united with the invocation to the Lares and Mars. According to Mommsen's division of the lines, the words are--
ENOS, LASES, IUVATE, (_ter_) NEVE LUE RUE, MARMAR, SINS (V. SERS) INCURRERE IN PLEORES. (_ter_) SATUR FU, FERE MARS. LIMEN SALI. STA. BERBER. (_ter_) SEMUNIS ALTERNEI ADVOCAPIT CONCTOS. (_ter_) ENOS, MARMOR, IUVATO. (_ter_) TRIUMPE. (_Quinquies_)
The great difference between this rude dialect and classical Latin is easily seen, and we can well imagine that this and the Salian hymn of Numa were all but unintelligible to those who recited them. [11] The most probable rendering is as follows:--"Help us, O Lares! and thou, Marmar, suffer not plague and ruin to attack our folk. Be satiate, O fierce Mars! Leap over the threshold. Halt! Now beat the ground. Call in alternate strain upon all the heroes. Help us, Marmor. Bound high in solemn measure." Each line was repeated thrice, the last word five times.
As regards the separate words, enos, which should perhaps be written e nos, contains the interjectional e, which elsewhere coalesces with vocatives. [12] Lases is the older form of Lares. _Lue rue = luem ruem_, the last an old word for ruinam, with the case-ending lost, as frequently, and the copula omitted, as in Patres Conscripti, &c. _Marmar, Marmor_, or Mamor, is the reduplicated form of Mars, seen in the Sabine Mamers. Sins is for sines, as advocapit for advocabitis. [13] Pleores is an ancient form of plures, answering to the Greek pleionas in form, and to tous pollous, "the mass of the people" in meaning. Fu is a shortened imperative. [14] Berber is for verbere, imper. of the old _verbero, is_, as triumpe from triumpere = triumphare. Semunes from semo (_se-homo_ "apart from man") an inferior deity, as we see from the Sabine Semo Sancus (= _Dius Fidius_). Much of this interpretation is conjectural, and other views have been advanced with regard to nearly every word, but the above given is the most probable.
The next fragment is from the Salian hymn, quoted by Varro. [15] It appears to be incomplete. The words are:
"Cozeulodoizeso. Omnia vero adpatula coemisse iamcusianes duo misceruses dun ianusve vet pos melios eum recum...," and a little further on, "divum empta cante, divum deo supplicante."
The most probable transcription is:
"Chorauloedus ero; Omnia vero adpatula concepere Iani curiones. Bonus creator es. Bonus Janus vivit, quo meliorem regum [terra Saturnia vidit nullum]"; and of the second, "Deorum impetu canite, deorum deum suppliciter canite."
Here we observe the ancient letter z standing for s and that for r, also the word cerus masc. of ceres, connected with the root creare. Adpatula seems = clara. Other quotations from the Salian hymns occur in Festus and other late writers, but they are not considerable enough to justify our dwelling upon them. All of them will be found in Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of early Latin.
There are several fragments of laws said to belong to the regal period, but they have been so modernised as to be of but slight value for the purpose of philological illustration. One or two primitive forms, however, remain. In a law of Romulus, we read _Si nurus ... plorassit ... sacra divis parendum estod_, where the full form of the imperative occurs, the only instance in the whole range of the language. [16] A somewhat similar law, attributed to Numa, contains some interesting forms:
"Si parentem puer verberit asi ole plorasit, puer divis parentum verberat? ille ploraverit diis sacer esto."
Much more interesting are the scanty remains of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (451, 450 B.C.). It is true we do not possess the text in its original