The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Viereck's Ofcial Greek Sermo Graecus quo Senatus populusque Romanus magistratusque populi Romani usque ad Tiberii Caesaris aetatem in scriptis publicis usi sunt examinatur: scripsit Paulus Viereck, Dr. Ph. Gottingae, MDCCCLXXXVIII. (5 Mark). E. L. Hicks The Classical Review / Volume 4 / Issue 1-2 / February 1890, pp 37 - 39 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00189486, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00189486 How to cite this article: E. L. Hicks (1890). The Classical Review, 4, pp 37-39 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00189486 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 132.239.1.230 on 13 Apr 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 37 One advantage of treating Greek and fort and the accent coincide, as in 'rura Latin metres side by side is that the con- manebunt,' ' lumine caelum,' and such like tinuity of development pervading them can common types. But Havet (Metrique, p. 60) be better seen. The way the pentameter will not allow this to have been intentional, forms a connecting link between the Kara and he decides that ' le r61e de 1' accent est arixov and the lyric metres (p. 100), the absolument nul dans la versification latine.' gradual restrictions on its last syllables Weil and Benloew, in their Theorie generate (p. 116), and the slow but subtle influence of de VAccentuation latine (a treatise unfortu- accent (pp. 295-6), are clearly brought out. nately now out of print), come to much the The subject of accent, indeed, as affecting same conclusion (p. 241), on the ground of and affected by metre, is an interesting one, the tendency of the Latin accent to coincide and one which has not received in English with the stress (the Romans having for text-books the attention it deserves. Dis- example no words accented like A«rxvA.os), carding the use of the terms arsis and thesis, and of stress again to coincide with quantity. as being now generally understood in a sense In the long run accent carried the day, and exactly contrary to their original one, the made possible' the metres of the Christian author adopts a notation (p. 3) slightly dif- poets. fering from that of Havet and others to Not the least valuable part of the book is designate the temps fort, or stress, as distin- that in which the writer treats of archaic guished alike from quantity and the tonic, prosody (Excurs. Ma.), especially as affecting or true, accent. The first of these three the scansion of Plautus. The book is care- he makes equivalent to the modern fully printed, and we have noticed very accent (p. 34), while the last was little to add to the list of errata. On p. simply a momentary raising of the pitch, a 222, in the first line of note 2, ' sur la 'note musicale plus elevee.' Such lines as : finale' should be ' sur l'initiale,' and the last number on p. 279 should be 42 instead Italiam fato prdfugus Lavinaque venit of 41. We think the work will be found show how unaffected the metrical stress was very serviceable in the higher forms of by the accent proper. The fact no doubt, classical schools. remains that in the last two feet of the J. H. LUPTON. hexameter we often find the stress or temps VIERECK'S OFFICIAL GREEK. Sermo Graecus quo Senatus populusque late in the first century A.D. (C.I.G. 5836, Romanus magistratusque populi Romani 5838, 5843). But in Greece proper, and usque ad Tiberii Gaesaris aetatem in scriptis over those large tracts of the world which pvhlicis usi sunt examinatur : scripsit had been Hellenised under the Diadochi, PAULUS VIEEECK, Dr. Ph. Gottingae, Greek was the official language: even in MDCCCLXXXVIII. (5 Mark). Palestine the Roman decree or treaty was inscribed in Greek as well as Latin (p. xii). THE subject of this careful and scholarly The writer first addresses himself to the prize-essay (' praemio regio ornata ' ) may at task of collecting and arranging the texts of first sight appear to be of narrow range, but all the inscribed documents which come the reader will find it opening out in various within his scope. These are set out in full, interesting directions. When Rome became the readings being subjected to careful mistress of the Eastern world, she had to criticism. First come ten Letters from treat with her subjects in their own tongue, Roman magistrates, the earliest being and that tongue was Greek : Graecia capta Flamininus's letter to Cyretiae (circ. 196 B.C.) ferum victorem cepit. In the West, indeed, and the latest (p. 47) a letter of Cn. Lentulus the Roman official might usually employ his Augur to Nysa (B.C. 1). Next follow eleven native Latin, although probably Greek was Senatusconsulta, most of them in excellent the channel of communication between preservation and of considerable length, their Rome and Carthage in the times of Hannibal; number being swelled by several more in while in Magna Graecia we find Senatus- the Addenda. A third class is formed by consulta inscribed in Greek, and not in Latin, the Treaties. None of these documents are 38 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. new, and many of them have long been studies, affects a verbose and grandiloquent familiar. But they gain greatly in interest manner, not always strictly grammatical by being thus grouped together, and the (p. 77). The literary revival of the student of Roman history may perhaps find Augustan age is reflected in the elegant in this collection some documents that have Greek of Augustus's own letters (p. 78) : and escaped his notice amid the scattered liter- very curious ones they are, as illustrating ature of epigraphy. Some of the Senatus- Provincial life and government. consulta were first published by me in Part In the course of this discussion of points iii. of the Greek Inscriptions in the British of style, some interesting illustrations occur Musevm, and if this Essay had then lain of the change of meaning which some Greek before me it would have saved me much words underwent in later days : e.g. dvurc-epco trouble in restoring the texts. The collec- ' before' of time, or ' above' in a book ; tion might have been greatly enlarged, had Karax<opl^eiv ' to put on record in a book' ; the author wished to proceed further than <j>i\av6po>iros of kindness generally; KwraXoyri, the reign of Tiberius. Imperial letters ' distinction,' ' notice,' ' honour'; etc. These addressed to the Greek cities are being pages (72 foil.) are of value to the student of brought to light in almost every excavation. Hellenistic Greek. I doubt the statement Some are the merest ' notelets ' : but Greek made on p. 56 about the revived observance servility inscribed them all. At this day of the iota adscriptum in the Augustan age however they have a certain value, if only giving rise to its insertion where it was not in the chronological data furnished by their wanted. Long before the Augustan age, in headings. Few however are so curious as purely Greek documents of the time of the the document discovered at Acraephiae last Diadochi, such otiose insertion of the iota year {Bulletin de Correspondance Hett&nique was not [unknown : Mr. Roberts agrees with xii, 1888, p. 510), which gives us a verbatim me in reading bpKuio\ai\ in line 20 of the report of the high-flown address of the Lygdamis inscription. Viereck does well, Emperor Nero to the Greeks at Corinth, in however, in declining to call forms like proclaiming the liberty of Hellas, Nov. 28, airriXjBocrav, ciiracrav ' Alexandrian,' since they A.I>. 66. are found equally in other parts of Greece Our author, after placing the documents (p. 59). before us, proceeds next (pp. 55 foil.) to A separate discussion is reserved (p. 85) criticise their language, under the various for the Greek version of the Marmor heads of orthography, inflexions, syntax, Ancyranvm, which departs so far from vocabulary and style. There is no doubt ordinary standards of grammar and style, whatever that these Romano-Greek docu- that Nissen believed it to have been made ments received their Greek dress at Rome, from the Latin by a Gaul of Ancyra. and were transmitted in Greek to the Pro- Viereck suggests that the inferior style of vinces. In grammar and diction they differ this document may readily be accounted for but little from each other, or from the by its length and the great complexity of Greek commonly spoken by educated persons its contents. These afforded more oppor- in that day. Latinisms, indeed, of idiom tunity for the exhibition of ignorance than abound, but the number of Latin words the much more simple and formal documents bodily transferred into the Greek tongue is we have hitherto been discussing. He con- remarkably small: nearly every Roman cludes that the Greek of the Marmor official term received at once its official Ancyranwm was drafted by a Roman official Greek translation. We must remember in Rome itself, and was transmitted to that it was as essential for a Roman states- Galatia, by order of Tiberius upon the man, even under the Republic, to speak , request of the people of the province, to be Greek as for an English public man to-day inscribed on the walls of temples dedicated to speak French (cp. Livy, xlv, 29); it was to Caesar-worship. usual for Greek envoys to address the Senate The examination of so many authentic in their own tongue.