Jump to content

De analogia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

De analogia(full title:De analogia libri II ad M. Tullium Ciceronem,"Two Books onAnalogies,[dedicated] to Marcus Tullius Cicero ") are two lost books of a grammatical work on theLatin languagewritten byJulius Caesarand dedicated toCicero.Only a few fragments from this important work have survived.[1]Suetoniusmentions that Caesar wroteDe analogiawhile he and his army were crossing theAlps.[2]

Contents

[edit]

De Analogiadenotes the adherence to grammatical rules while not changing one's diction with current demotic usage. After the composition of hisCommentarii de bello GallicoCaesar felt obligated to devise certain grammatical principles in reference to his commentaries, writing that "the choice of words is the fountain-head of eloquence."[3]Parts of this work could have also been triggered by comments in Cicero'sDe oratore.[4]Cicero himself mentioned that Caesar'sDe Analogiahad been written with the greatest accuracy.[5]

Examples

[edit]
  • harēnashould only be used in the singular (singular form: "sand"; plural form: "grains of sand" )
  • quadrīgae( "four-horse chariot" ) should only be used in the plural
  • the variantCalypsōnemis to be used for thedeclensionof the Latinized Greek nameCalypsō[6]
  • turbonemis to be preferred overturbinem,whereturbomeans "storm"[7]

In the ancient Latin dictionaryDe Verborum SignificatubySextus Pompeius Festus,which was a new edition ofFlaccus' homonymous work, Festus quotes a fragment of theDe analogiain the discussion of the doubleconsonant.[8]Caesar limits the ancient, primitive Latinalphabetto eleven letters. A comparison with the parallelVarronianfragment however has shown that Caesar here only meant the ancient consonants.[9]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^Gaius Iulius Caesar:fragmentsfromDe analogia libri II
  2. ^Suetonius,Julius56.5;disputed byMarcus Cornelius Frontoin hisDe bello Parthico9:Quod te vix quicquam nisi raptim et furtim legere posse prae curis praesentibus scripsisti, fac memineris et cum animo tuo cogites C. Caesarem atrocissimo bello Gallico cum alia multa militaria tum etiam duos De analogia libros scrupulosissimos scripsisse, inter tela volantia de nominibus declinandis, de verborum aspirationibus et rationibus inter classica et tubas.Translation (abridged): "Think of C. Caesar in that appalling Gallic War writing about noun declensions as weapons flew past."Contra:O.A.W. Dilke, "The Literary Output of the Roman Emperors", in:Greece & RomeIV 1, 1957
  3. ^Gaius Iulius Caesar,De Analogia Libri II,quoted in: Marcus Tullius Cicero,Brutus253
  4. ^G.L. Hendrickson, "TheDe Analogiaof Julius Caesar — Its Occasion, Nature and Date with Additional Fragments ", in:Classical Philology,Vol. I 2, pp. 97–120
  5. ^accuratissime(Marcus Tullius Cicero,Brutus253)
  6. ^Marcus Fabius Quintilianusthought it an archaic rule "in deference of antiquity"; in:Institutio OratoriaI.5.63
  7. ^Dilke (1957) finds this "very odd", although the formturbonemwas in most frequent use in ancient Rome. The Latin wordturbois known for describing a "whirlwind" and a "tornado", the wordturbedo( "storm" ) being a derivative.
  8. ^Sextus Pompeius Festus,De Verborum SignificatuV 108.7–13, (Grammatici Latini,ed. Keil 2002)
  9. ^Alessandro Garcea, "César et l'alphabet: Un fragment du De Analogia (frg. 4 p. 148 funaioli = 5 p. 179 s. Klotz)", in:Histoire épistémologie langage,Vol. XXIV No. 2 (2002), pp. 147–164

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Alessandro Garcea, ed. (2012).Caesar’s De Analogia.New York: Oxford University Press.

This article incorporates material from theCitizendiumarticle "De analogia",which is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licensebut not under theGFDL.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=De_analogia&oldid=1223347548"