About sixty years after the date of this epitaph,[65] the Senatus-consultum, respecting the Bacchanals, was passed.[66] This monument was discovered A. D. 1692, in the Calabrian village of Terra di Feriolo, and is now preserved in the Imperial Museum of Vienna.[67]
There is scarcely any difference between the Latinity of this inscription and that of the classical period except in the orthography and some of the grammatical inflexions. The expressions are in accordance with the usage of good authors, and the construction is not without elegance. Nor is this to be wondered at when it is remembered that, at the period when this decree was published, Rome already possessed a written literature. Ennius was now known as a poet and an historian, and many of the comedies of Plautus had been acted on the public stage.
Having thus enumerated the existing monuments of the old Roman language and its constituent elements, it remains to compare the Latin and Greek alphabets, for the purpose of exhibiting the variations which the Latin letters have severally undergone.
The letters then may be arranged according to the following classification:—
{ Soft P C K or Q, T. { Mutes { Medial B G D. Consonants { { Aspirates F (V) H — { Liquids L, M, N, R. { Sibilants S, X. Vowels A, E, I, O, U.
Owing to the relation which subsists between P, B, and F or V, as the soft medial and aspirated pronunciation of the same letters, P and B, as well as F and V, in Latin, are the representatives or equivalents of the Greek F sound (φ and Ϝ,) and V also sometimes stands in the place of β. For example (1,) the Latin _fama_, _fero_, _fugio_, _vir_, &c., correspond to the Greek φημή, φέρω, φεύγω (Ϝ)Ἄρης. (2.) _Nebula_, _caput_, _albus_, _ambo_, to νεφέλη, κεφαλή, ἀλφός, ἄμφω. Similarly, _duonus_ and _duellum_ become _bonus_ and _bellum_; the transition being from _du_ to a sound like the English _w_, thence to _v_, and lastly to _b_. The old Latin _c_ was used as the representative of its corresponding medial G, as well as K; for example, magistratus, legiones, Carthaginienses were written on the Columna Rostrata, _leciones_, _macistratus_, _Cartacinienses_. The representative of the Greek κ was c; thus caput stands for κεφαλή: the sound _qu_ also, as might be expected, from its answering to the Greek koppa (Q,) and the Hebrew koph (ק,) had undoubtedly in the old Latin the same sound as C or K, and, therefore, quatio becomes, in composition, cutio; and quojus, quoi, quolonia, become, in classical Latin, _cujus_, _cui_, _colonia_. This pronunciation has descended to the modern French language, although it has become lost in the Italian. A passage from the “Aulularia”[68] of Plautus illustrates this assertion, and Quintilian[69] also bears testimony to the existence of the same pronunciation in the time of Cicero.