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Classical Latin

Literary form of the Latin language

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Inscription for 5th century Roman Consul Decius Marius Venantius Basilius in the Colosseum in Rome . CIL VI 1716 c, VI 32094 c.
Wknight94 · CC BY-SA 3.0

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Cicero and his contemporaries of the late republic referred to the Latin language, in contrast to other languages such as Greek, as lingua latina or sermo latinus. They distinguished the common vernacular, however, as Vulgar Latin (sermo vulgaris and sermo vulgi), in contrast to the higher register that they called latinitas, sometimes translated as "Latinity". Latinitas was also called sermo familiaris ("speech of the good families"), sermo urbanus ("speech of the city"), and in rare cases sermo nobilis ("noble speech"). Besides the noun Latinitas, it was referred to with the adverb latine ("in (good) Latin", literally "Latinly") or its comparative latinius ("in better Latin", literally "more Latinly").

Latinitas was spoken and written. It was the language taught in schools. Prescriptive rules therefore applied to it, and when special subjects like poetry or rhetoric were taken into consideration, additional rules applied. Since spoken Latinitas has become extinct (in favor of subsequent registers), the rules of politus (polished) texts may give the appearance of an artificial language. However, Latinitas was a form of sermo (spoken language), and as such, retains spontaneity. No texts by Classical Latin authors are noted for the type of rigidity evidenced by stylized art, with the exception of repetitious abbreviations and stock phrases found on inscriptions.

The standards, authors and manuals from the Classical Latin period formed the model for the language taught and used in later periods across Europe and beyond. While the Latin used in different periods deviated from "Classical" Latin, efforts were periodically made to relearn and reapply the models of the Classical period, for instance by Alcuin during the reign of Charlemagne, and later during the Renaissance, producing the highly classicising form of Latin now known as Neo-Latin.

Philological constructs

Classical

"Good Latin" in philology is known as "classical" Latin literature. The term refers to the canonical relevance of literary works written in Latin in the late Roman Republic, and early to middle Roman Empire. "[T]hat is to say, that of belonging to an exclusive group of authors (or works) that were considered to be emblematic of a certain genre." The term classicus (masculine plural classici) was devised by the Romans to translate Greek ἐγκριθέντες (egkrithéntes) 'the approved ones', and "select" which refers to authors who wrote in a form of Greek that was considered model. Before then, the term classis, in addition to being a naval fleet, was a social class in one of the diachronic divisions of Roman society in accordance with property ownership under the Roman constitution. The word is a transliteration of Greek κλῆσις (klêsis) 'call', used to rank army draftees by property from first to fifth class.

Classicus refers to those in the prima classis ("first class"), such as the authors of polished works of Latinitas, or sermo urbanus. It contains nuances of the certified and the authentic, or testis classicus ("reliable witness"). It was under this construct that Marcus Cornelius Fronto (an African-Roman lawyer and language teacher) used scriptores classici ("first-class" or "reliable authors") in the second century AD. Their works were viewed as models of good Latin. This is the first known reference (possibly innovated during this time) to Classical Latin applied by authors, evidenced in the authentic language of their works.

Canonical

Imitating Greek grammarians, Romans such as Quintilian drew up lists termed indices or ordines modeled after the ones created by the Greeks, which were called pinakes. The Greek lists were considered classical, or recepti scriptores ("select writers"). Aulus Gellius includes authors like Plautus, who are considered writers of Old Latin and not strictly in the period of classical Latin. The classical Romans distinguished Old Latin as prisca Latinitas and not sermo vulgaris. Each author's work in the Roman lists was considered equivalent to one in the Greek. For example, Ennius was the Latin Homer, the Aeneid was the equivalent of the Iliad, etc. The lists of classical authors were as far as the Roman grammarians went in developing a philology. The topic remained at that point while interest in the classici scriptores declined in the medieval period as the best form of the language yielded to medieval Latin, inferior to classical standards.

The Renaissance saw a revival in Roman culture, and with it, the return of Classic ("the best") Latin. Thomas Sébillet's Art Poétique (1548), "les bons et classiques poètes françois", refers to Jean de Meun and Alain Chartier, who the first modern application of the words. According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the term 'classical' (from classicus) entered modern English in 1599, some 50 years after its re-introduction to the continent. In Governor William Bradford's Dialogue (1648), he referred to synods of a separatist church as "classical meetings", defined by meetings between "young men" from New England and "ancient men" from Holland and England. In 1715, Laurence Echard's Classical Geographical Dictionary was published. In 1736, Robert Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius turned English words and expressions into "proper and classical Latin." In 1768, David Ruhnken's Critical History of the Greek Orators recast the molded view of the classical by applying the word "canon" to the pinakes of orators after the Biblical canon, or list of authentic books of the Bible. In doing so, Ruhnken had secular catechism in mind.

Ages of Latin

In 1870, Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel's Geschichte der Römischen Literatur (A History of Roman Literature) defined the philological notion of classical Latin through a typology similar to the Ages of Man, setting out the Golden and Silver Ages of classical Latin. Wilhem Wagner, who published Teuffel's work in German, also produced an English translation which he published in 1873. Teuffel's classification, still in use today (with modifications), groups classical Latin authors into periods defined by political events rather than by style.

Teuffel went on to publish other editions, but the English translation of A History of Roman Literature gained immediate success.

In 1877, Charles Thomas Cruttwell produced a similar work in English. In his preface, Cruttwell notes "Teuffel's admirable history, without which many chapters in the present work could not have attained completeness." He also credits Wagner.

Cruttwell adopts the time periods found in Teuffel's work, but he presents a detailed analysis of style, whereas Teuffel was more concerned with history. Like Teuffel, Cruttwell encountered issues while attempting to condense the voluminous details of time periods in an effort to capture the meaning of phases found in their various writing styles. Like Teuffel, he has trouble finding a name for the first of the three periods (the current Old Latin phase), calling it "from Livius to Sulla." He says the language "is marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength..." These abstracts have little meaning to those not well-versed in Latin literature. In fact, Cruttwell admits "The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us."

In time, some of Cruttwell's ideas become established in Latin philology. While praising the application of rules to classical Latin (most intensely in the Golden Age, he says "In gaining accuracy, however, classical Latin suffered a grievous loss. It became cultivated as distinct from a natural language... Spontaneity, therefore, became impossible and soon invention also ceased... In a certain sense, therefore, Latin was studied as a dead language, while it was still a living."

Also problematic in Teuffel's scheme is its appropriateness to the concept of classical Latin. Cruttwell addresses the issue by altering the concept of the classical. The "best" Latin is defined as "golden" Latin, the second of the three periods. The other two periods (considered "classical") are left hanging. By assigning the term "pre-classical" to Old Latin and implicating it to post-classical (or post-Augustan) and silver Latin, Cruttwell realized that his construct was not accordance with ancient usage and assertions: "[T]he epithet classical is by many restricted to the authors who wrote in it [golden Latin]. It is best, however, not to narrow unnecessarily the sphere of classicity; to exclude Terence on the one hand or Tacitus and Pliny on the other, would savour of artificial restriction rather than that of a natural classification." The contradiction remains—Terence is, and is not a classical author, depending on the context.

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