Old Latin (also called Early Latin or Archaic Latin) refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin Classical Latin in simplest terms is the sociolinguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it. Any unabridged Latin dictionary informs moderns that Marcus Tullius Cicero and his contemporaries; that is, all Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native speakers, a small number of scholars can fluently speak it and it continues to be taught in schools and universities and has been, and currently is, used in the process of before 75 BC.^[1] The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications. Latin vocabulary words created during this period for the purpose of expressing scientific ideas form the basis for and Contemporary Latin Contemporary Latin is the form of the Latin language used from the end of the 19th century down to the present. Various kinds of contemporary Latin can be distinguished. On the one hand there is its symbolic survival in areas like taxonomy and others as the result of the widespread presence of the language in the New Latin era. This is normally from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning.

The use of "old", "early" and "archaic" has been standard in publications of the corpus of Old Latin writings since at least the 18th century. The definition is not arbitrary but these terms refer to writings that utilize some spelling conventions and word forms not generally in use in works written under the Roman Empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus. This article presents some of the major differences.

Philological constructs

The old-time language

The concept of Old Latin (Prisca Latinitas) is as old as the concept of Classical Latin Classical Latin in simplest terms is the sociolinguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it. Any unabridged Latin dictionary informs moderns that Marcus Tullius Cicero and his contemporaries, both dating to at least as early as the late Roman republic The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterised by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted 482 years until its subversion, through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period. In that time period Marcus Tullius Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He was member of a wealthy family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, along with others, noted that the language he used every day, presumably the upper-class city Latin, included lexical items and phrases that were heirlooms from a previous time, which he called verborum vetustas prisca,^[2] loosely translated as "the old-time language." The adjective priscus, prisca, priscum, means old-time in the perfective aspect; that is, it is gone and is not coming back.

During the classical period, Prisca Latinitas, Prisca Latina and other expressions utilizing the adjective always meant these remnants of a previous language, which, in the Roman philology, was taken to be much older in fact than it really was. Viri prisci, "old-time men," were the population of Latium Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil on which resided the tribe of the Latins. It was located on the left bank of the Tiber river, northward to the Anio river (a left-bank tributary of before the foundation of Rome.

The four Latins of Isidore

In the Late Latin period, when Classical Latin was behind them, the Latin- and Greek-speaking grammarians were faced with multiple phases, or styles, within the language. Isidore of Seville Saint Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 4 April 636) was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later medieval history-writing of Hispania (the reports a classification scheme that had come into existence in or before his time: "the four Latins" ("Latinas autem linguas quatuor esse quidam dixerunt").^[3] They were Prisca, spoken before the founding of Rome, when Janus In Roman mythology, Janus is the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. His most prominent remnant in modern culture is his namesake, the month of January, which begins the new year.The reason for this is because, one is looking back at the previous year and looking forward to the new year ahead.He is most often depicted as having and Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus the Babylonian Ninurta and to the Hindu Shani. Saturn's symbol represents the god's sickle (Unicode: ♄) ruled Latium Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil on which resided the tribe of the Latins. It was located on the left bank of the Tiber river, northward to the Anio river (a left-bank tributary of, to which he dated the Carmina Saliorum; Latina, dated from the time of king Latinus Latinus was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology, in which period he placed the laws of the Twelve Tables The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centerpiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum (custom of the ancestors). The Twelve Tables must be distinguished from the unrelated, much older "twelve shields"; Romana, essentially equal to Classical Latin; and Mixta, "mixed" Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin, which is known today as Late Latin. The scheme persisted with little change for some thousand years after Isidore.

Old Latin

In 1874 John Wordsworth used the definition:^[4]

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.

Although the differences are striking and can be easily identified by Latin readers, they are not such as to cause a language barrier. Latin speakers of the empire had no reported trouble understanding old Latin, except for the few texts that must date from the time of the kings, mainly songs. Thus the laws of the twelve tables The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centerpiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum (custom of the ancestors). The Twelve Tables must be distinguished from the unrelated, much older "twelve shields", which began the republic, were comprehensible, but the Carmen Saliare, probably written under Numa Pompilius Plutarch tells that Numa was the youngest of Pomponius' four sons, born on the day of Rome's founding . He lived a severe life of discipline and banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, married his only daughter, Tatia, to Numa. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died, precipitating Numa's, was not entirely.

An opinion concerning Old Latin, of a Roman man of letters in the middle Republic, does survive: the historian, Polybius Polybius , Greek Πολύβιος) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his book called The Histories covering in detail the period of 220–146 BC. He is also renowned for his ideas of political balance in government, which were later used in Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and in the drafting of the United States,^[5] read "the first treaty between Rome and Carthage", which he says "dates from the consulship of Lucius Junius Brutus Lucius Junius Brutus was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC. He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins and Marcus Horatius, the first consuls after the expulsion of the kings." Knowledge of the early consuls is somewhat obscure, but Polybius also states that the treaty was formulated 28 years after Xerxes I Xerxes the Great, also known as Xerxes I of Persia, (reigned 485–465 BC) was a Zoroastrian Persian Shahanshah (Emperor) of the Achaemenid Empire crossed into Greece; that is, in 452 BC, about the time of the Decemviri Decemviri is a Latin term meaning "Ten Men" which designates any such commission in the Roman Republic (cf. Triumviri, Three Men). Different types of decemvirate include the writing of laws with consular imperium (legibus scribundis consulari imperio), the judging of litigation (stlitibus iudicandis), the making of sacrifices (sacris, when the constitution of the Roman republic The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterised by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted 482 years until its subversion, through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period was being defined. Polybius says of the language of the treaty: "...the ancient Roman language differs so much from the modern that it can only be partially made out, and that after much application by the most intelligent men."

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 later. The end of the republic was too late a termination for compilers after Wordsworth; Charles Edwin Bennett said:^[6]

'Early Latin' is necessarily a somewhat vague term ... Bell, De locativi in prisca Latinitate vi et usu, Breslau, 1889,^[7] sets the later limit at 75 B.C. 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 B.C. did not prevail but rather Bell's 75 B.C. became the standard as expressed in the four-volume Loeb Library and other major compendia. Over the 377 years from 452 BC to 75 BC Old Latin evolved from being partially comprehensible by classicists with study to being easily read by men of letters.

Corpus

Old Latin authored works began in the 3rd century B.C. These are complete or nearly complete works under their own name surviving as manuscripts copied from other manuscripts in whatever script was current at the time. In addition are fragments of works quoted in other authors.

Numerous inscriptions placed by various methods (painting, engraving, embossing) on their original media survive just as they were except for the ravages of time. Some of these were copied from other inscriptions. No inscription can be earlier than the introduction of the Greek alphabet into Italy Italy (pronounced /ˈɪtəli/ ; Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine but none survive from that early date. The imprecision of archaeological dating makes precise dates impossible but the earliest survivals are probably from the 6th century B.C. Some of the texts, however, surviving as fragments in the works of classical authors, had to have been composed earlier than the republic, in the monarchy The Roman Kingdom was the monarchical government of the city of Rome and its territories. Little is certain about the history of the Roman Kingdom, as no written records from that time survive, and the histories about it were written during the Republic and Empire and are largely based on legend. However, the history of the Roman Kingdom began. These are listed below.

Fragments and inscriptions

Notable Old Latin fragments with estimated dates include:

• The Carmen Saliare (chant put forward in classical times as having been sung by the salian brotherhood formed by Numa Pompilius Plutarch tells that Numa was the youngest of Pomponius' four sons, born on the day of Rome's founding . He lived a severe life of discipline and banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, married his only daughter, Tatia, to Numa. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died, precipitating Numa's, approximate date 700 BC)
• The Praeneste fibula (7th century BC The Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the near east during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last two decades of the century, however, the empire began to unravel as numerous enemies made alliances and waged war from all sides. The Assyrians finally left the world stage permanently when, but of authenticity questioned by some experts)
• The Forum inscription (illustration, right circa 550 BC under the monarchy)
• The Duenos inscription The Duenos Inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, dating from the early 6th century BCE. It is inscribed on the sides of a kernos, in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It was found by Heinrich Dressel in 1880 on the Quirinal Hill in Rome. The kernos was held at the Staatliche Museen in (circa 500 BC)
• The Castor-Pollux dedication (circa 500 BC)
• The Garigliano Bowl (circa 500 BC)
• The Lapis Satricanus (early 5th century BC)
• The preserved fragments of the laws of the Twelve Tables The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centerpiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum (custom of the ancestors). The Twelve Tables must be distinguished from the unrelated, much older "twelve shields" (traditionally, 449 BC Year 449 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Third year of the decemviri and the Year of the Consulship of Potitus and Barbatus . The denomination 449 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years, attested much later)
• The Tibur pedestal (circa 400 BC Year 400 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Esquilinus, Capitolinus, Vulso, Medullinus, Saccus and Vulscus . The denomination 400 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming)
• The Scipionum Elogia
  • Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus (c. 280 BC)
  • Epitaph of Lucius Cornelius Scipio (consul 259 BC)
  • Epitaph of Publius Cornelius Scipio P.f. P.n. Africanus (died about 270 BC)
• The Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus (186 BC)
• The Vase Inscription from Ardea
• The Corcolle Altar fragments
• The Carmen Arvale The Carmen Arvale is the preserved chant of the Arval priests or Fratres Arvales of ancient Rome
• Altar to the Unknown Divinity (92 BC)

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