Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin. Nicholas Ostler
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AD INFINITUM
A Biography of Latin and the World it Created
NICHOLAS OSTLER
To the memory of my parents
Kenneth MacLachlan Ostler
Yvonne Louise Ostler, née Jolly
DOS EST MAGNA PARENTIVM VIRTVS
The virtue of parents is a great endowment.
Horace, Odes, iii.24
HISTORIAM VERO, QVA TOT SIMVL RERVM LONGA ET CONTINVATA RATIO SIT HABENDA CAVSAEQVE FACTORVM OMNIVM SINGVLATIM EXPLICANDAE ET DE QVACVMQVE RE IVDICIVM IN MEDIO PROFERENDVM, EAM QVIDEM VELVT INFINITA MOLE CALAMVM OBRVENTE TAM PROFITERI PERICVLOSVM EST QVAM PRAESTARE DIFFICILE.
But a history, in which a long, continuous account must be given of so many things at once, and the causes of all the events explained singly, and a judgment offered on each, with its infinite-seeming mass bearing down on the pen, is as dangerous to propose as it is difficult to deliver.
Leonardo Bruni, Historia Populi Florentini, preface
IDEO AVTEM PRIVS DE LINGVIS, AC DEINDE DE GENTIBVS POSVIMVS, QVIA EX LINGVIS GENTES, NON EX GENTIBVS LINGVAE EXORTAE SVNT.
Therefore we have first discussed languages, and only then peoples, because peoples have arisen from languages, not languages from peoples.
Isidore, Etymologiae, ix.1.14
LECTOR INTENDE: LAETABERIS.
Reader, pay attention. You will enjoy yourself.
Apuleius, Metamorphoseon, i.1
Table of Contents
Part III : Worlds Built On Latin
Part IV : Latin In A Vernacular World
NOWADAYS LATIN SEEMS A comical language. Its antiquity overwhelms us and we are embarrassed. The thing to do with it is make laconic remarks (mea culpa ‘my fault’, carpe diem ‘pluck the day’, veni vidi vici ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’, tu quoque ‘you too’), cast spells (reparo ‘I repair’ (my spectacles), expecto patronum ‘I await the master’), or translate children’s classics (Winnie Ille Pu, Alicia in Terra Mirabili, Harrius Potter). Modern English students of Latin receive their lessons by courtesy of a Roman mouse, Minimus Mus. The sheer ponderosity of the Latin word-endings calls forth guffaws in English speakers, whether it is Monty Python’s Pontius Pilate defending