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Old Latin

Latin language in the period before 70 BC

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Through Roman Empire

The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The definition is not arbitrary, but the terms refer to spelling conventions and word forms not generally found in works written under the Roman Empire. This article presents some of the major differences.

The earliest known specimen of Latin seems to be on the Praeneste fibula. An analysis done in 2011 declared it to be genuine "beyond any reasonable doubt" and dating from the Orientalizing period, in the first half of the seventh century BC. Other Old Latin inscriptions dated to either the late Roman Kingdom or early Roman Republic include the Lapis Niger stone, the Duenos inscription on a kernos vase, and the Garigliano bowl of Bucchero type.

Philological constructs

Old-time language

The concept of Old Latin (Prisca Latinitas) is as old as the concept of Classical Latin – both labels date to at least as early as the late Roman Republic. In that period Cicero, along with others, noted that the language he used every day, presumably upper-class city Latin, included lexical items and phrases that were heirlooms from a previous time, which he called verborum vetustas prisca ("the old age/time of language"). In the classical period, Prisca Latinitas, Prisca Latina and other idioms using the adjective always meant these remnants of a previous language, which, in Roman philology, was taken to be much older than in fact it really was. Viri prisci, "former men", meant the population of Latium before the founding of Rome.

Four Latins of Isidore

In the Late Latin period, when Classical Latin was behind them, Latin- and Greek-speaking grammarians were faced with multiple phases, or styles, within the language. Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins", (saying in his Etymologiae, "moreover, some people have said that there are four Latin languages"; "latinas autem linguas quattuor esse quidam dixerunt"). These were:

  • Prisca, spoken before the founding of Rome, when Janus and Saturn ruled Latium, to which period Isidore dated the Carmen Saliare
  • Latina, dated from the time of king Latinus, in which period he placed the laws of the Twelve Tables
  • Romana, essentially the same as Classical Latin
  • Mixta, "mixed" Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin, known today as Late Latin.

This scheme persisted with little change for some thousand years after Isidore.

Old Latin and Very Old Latin

In 1874, John Wordsworth used this definition: "By Early Latin I understand Latin of the whole period of the Republic, which is separated very strikingly, both in tone and in outward form, from that of the Empire." However, the term "Old Latin," encompassing the whole of six centuries of pre-Classical Latin, includes vastly distinct stages of the language. Native speakers of Latin evidently felt as if the earliest phases of the Latin language were distinct from the later varieties of pre-classical Latin. Latin speakers of the empire had no reported trouble understanding much of Old Latin, except for the few texts that must date from the time of the kings, mainly songs. However, Polybius, a 2nd-century BCE Greek historian, writes that the text of the earliest treaty between Rome and Carthage, dated to around 508-507 BCE, was nearly incomprehensible to the Romans of his day, even after the "most intelligent men" had sought to decipher it. Other ancient Roman authors commented upon the obscure nature of the Carmen Saliare, itself an archaic Latin text. For instance, Horace—a lyric poet of the 1st-century BCE—writes that whoever "cries up Numa’s Salian hymn" would " alone seem to understand what he knows as little of as I do." Likewise, the 1st-century CE rhetorician Quintilian mentions "now forgotten ages" of Latin and states that the Carmen Saliare was, by his day, hardly understood by even the Salian priests.

Michael Weiss, an Indo-Europeanist scholar, argues for a division between Old Latin and Very Old Latin, the split between which dates to around 330 BCE. According to Weiss, this date was chosen to match with the rhotacism of s, which was a sound change that—besides significantly affecting the phonology of the language—was also recognized by the ancient Romans as a specific different between their contemporary language and that of archaic periods. Alternatively, the linguists James Clackson and Geoffrey Horrocks establish a distinction between "Archaic Latin," which ended at around 400 BCE, and "Old Latin," which denotes the rest of pre-Classical Latin. John Penney, a classicist who accepts this alternative model, argues that placing the dividing line at 400 BCE is convenient for scholarly discussion due to the severe dearth of evidence for Latin in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BCE. Even more specifically, the Latinist Béla Adamik dates the end of "Archaic Latin" at the last quarter of the 4th-century BCE, by which time the syncope of the 5th-century and the vowel weakening and rhotacism of the 4th-century had been completed, thus rendering the preceding centuries of Latin mutually unintelligible with the ensuing "Old Latin" era. Regarding the terminology, the name "Very Old Latin" has been criticized as somewhat awkward, though Weiss and de Vaan argue that the alternative name "Archaic Latin" creates unnecessary ambiguity, as the chronological distinction between the words "archaic" and "old" is not self-evident.

The philologist Michiel de Vaan adopts the same terminology as Weiss, utilizing "Very Old Latin" and "Old Latin," though he places the end of the "Very Old Latin" period at 240 BCE. This same date is also supported the Indo-Europeanist Gerhard Meiser, who distinguished between "Early Latin" (Frühlatein) and "Old Latin" (Altlatein). According to this model, the first period lasts from the 7th or 6th centuries to 240 BCE, with that specific date chosen to represent the completion of Livius Andronicus's first drama and consequently the beginning of attested Latin literature. The second phase lasts from 240 BCE to the first half of the 1st-century BCE, with Classical Latin beginning at 81 BCE, when Cicero began writing. This particular model is popular amongst German scholarship, though it has been criticized for segmenting Latin chronology on the basis of particular authors rather than linguistic differences. Moreover, adopting a date of 240 BCE necessitates that the elogium of Scipio Barbatus, which dates to 260 BCE, be assigned to the Very Old Latin period, despite being closer in language to Old Latin texts than extremely archaic Latin inscriptions such as the Forum inscription.

There is no sharp distinction between Old Latin, as it was spoken for most of the Republic, and Classical Latin, but the earlier grades into the latter. The end of the republic was too late a termination for compilers after Wordsworth; Charles Edwin Bennett said, "'Early Latin' is necessarily a somewhat vague term... Bell, De locativi in prisca Latinitate vi et usu, Breslau, 1889, sets the later limit at 75 BC. A definite date is really impossible, since archaic Latin does not terminate abruptly, but continues even down to imperial times." Bennett's own date of 100 BC did not prevail; rather Bell's 75 BC became the standard as expressed in the four-volume Loeb Library and other major compendia. Over the 377 years from 452 to 75 BC, Old Latin evolved from texts partially comprehensible by classicists with study to being easily read by scholars.

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