56. _Lucretius_ is largely archaic in his style. We find _im_ for _eum_, _endo_ for _in_, _illae_, _ullae_, _unae_ and _aliae_ as genitives, _alid_ for _aliud_, _rabies_ as a genitive by the side of genitives in -_ai_, ablatives in -_i_ like _colli_, _orbi_, _parti_, nominatives in _s_ for _r_, like _colos_, _vapos_, _humos_. In verbs there are _scatit_, _fulgit_, _quaesit_, _confluxet_ = _confluxisset_, _recesse_ = _recessisse_, _induiacere_ for _inicere_; simple forms like _fligere_, _lacere_, _cedere_, _stinguere_ for the more usual compounds, the infinitive passive in -_ier_, and archaic forms from _esse_ like _siet_, _escit_, _fuat_. Sometimes he indulges in tmesis which reminds us of Ennius: _inque pediri_, _disque supata_, _ordia prima_. But this archaic tinge is adopted only for poetical purposes, and as a proof of his devotion to the earlier masters of his art; it does not affect the general substance of his style, which is of the freshest and most vigorous stamp. But the purity of his idiom is not gained by any slavish adherence to a recognized vocabulary: he coins words freely; Munro has noted more than a hundred [Greek: hapax legomena], or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and frequentatives; others are directly borrowed from the Greek apparently with a view to sweetness of rhythm (ii. 412, v. 334, 505); others again (forty or more in number) are compounds of a kind which the classical language refused to adopt, such as _silvifragus_, _terriloquus_, _perterricrepus_. He represents not so much a stage in the history of the language as a protest against the tendencies fashionable in his own time. But his influence was deep upon Virgil, and through him upon all subsequent Latin literature.
57. _Catullus_ gives us the type of the language of the cultivated circles, lifted into poetry by the simple directness with which it is used to express emotion. In his heroic and elegiac poems he did not escape the influence of the Alexandrian school, and his genius is ill suited for long-continued flights; but in his lyrical poems his language is altogether perfect. As Macaulay says: "No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans." The language of these poems comes nearest perhaps to that of Cicero's more intimate letters. It is full of colloquial idioms and familiar language, of the diminutives of affection or of playfulness. Greek words are rare, especially in the lyrics, and those which are employed are only such as had come to be current coin. Archaisms are but sparingly introduced; but for metrical reasons he has four instances of the inf. pass., in -_ier_, and several contracted forms; we find also _alis_ and _alid_, _uni_ (gen.), and the antiquated _tetuli_ and _recepso_. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives _cave_ and _mane_, in the analytic perfect _paratam habes_, and in the use of _unus_ approaching that of the indefinite article.