The discovery of eleven bronze rams belonging to war-ships off western Sicily, near the Egadi Islands, has produced an invaluable addition to our record of 3rd century BC Latin inscriptions. The archaeological and historical background as well as the palaeography and language of the Latin texts have been examined by J. Prag in three exemplary discussions (2014; 2017), which are expanded in this chapter. The question informing the present inquiry is whether these texts contribute to our knowledge of early Latin, or merely confirm what we know already about early pronunciation, morphology or syntax. The answer is not simple. Palaeographically and orthographically, the texts are very much in line with what one might expect of inscriptions of that time period. The many abbreviations mean that we cannot say much about their morphology. In principle, we should be able to say more about their pronunciation; but again, results are inconclusive. The texts are neither excessively archaic in appearance, nor excessively modern, and already at this early stage it is difficult to deduce pronunciation from orthography. But that in itself is a worthwhile result.

Cato’s de Agricultura was an important source for Pliny’s Naturalis Historia. Cato himself appears sixteen times in Pliny’s lists of sources, and in the text proper (Pliny tells us explicitly more than eighty times that he is reproducing Catonian material; most of it comes from the de Agricultura. A dozen or so passages are or purport to be direct quotations, but most are paraphrases; Catonian content in Plinian words. The present paper is a study of the linguistic features of Cato’s text that Pliny rewrites. Especially interesting features include cases in which concrete expressions are replaced by abstract nouns, simple verbs become compound (or the compounding prefix changes), a term is replaced by a synonym or synonymous expression, or the syntax is made more compact. Pliny’s adaptations of Cato’s language is read in light of his several general remarks about Cato’s style: he comments, for example, on Cato’s verbosity, diction and habitual censoriousness. The discussion shows how one ancient reader reacted to Cato’s early Latin.

This chapter examines the use of ecquis in Roman comedy, especially in Plautus. Although formally belonging to the class of adjectives, pronouns or adverbs, the interrogative markers in ec-, introducing independent as well as subordinate clauses, function as particles introducing “total” questions. The ambiguity needs to be clarified by taking into account the fact that the second constituent qu- plays the role of an indefinite, not of an interrogative element, and that its value tends to fade leaving the prefix ec- as the main semantic determinant of the term. In this respect, it is useful to compare numquis, which, unlike ecquis, is still rarely used in the early period. The controversial etymology of ec- is discussed in the light of the semantic and pragmatic nuances that are revealed in different contexts in relation to the previous or following utterance. While in most cases ec- confers on the question a character of insistence and urgency, thus producing different effects of rhetorical meanings, the value of the questions introduced by ecquis seems fundamentally neutral; ecquis, therefore, does not per se orient the interrogation either in a positive or in a negative sense.

Handbooks of Latin usually draw attention to the presence of Greek loanwords from the very earliest stages of the Latin language. Greek loans feature in texts of all types, in a wide range of different spheres: words for flora and fauna, food and drink, aspects of trade, law and administration. The last major study of the Greek loanwords in Latin (Biville ) concentrated on the ways in which Greek sounds were represented in Latin, but did not have so much to say about the place of Greek loanwords within the vocabulary of Latin as a whole. This chapter gives a survey of Greek loanwords in republican Latin, in both literary and epigraphic documents, with several different research questions in mind. Is it possible to unearth different chronological strata of loanwords? Can learned and vulgar loans be separated in republican Latin, and how well integrated were Greek loans into Latin? Do phonological and semantic aspects of the words reveal anything about the source of the loans? Why do some Greek loanwords make it into the higher registers of Roman poetry (and sometimes prose) and others not, and how do these conventions come about?

Among the most characteristic lexical features of Early Latin drama is its rich system of exclamations and interjections, prominently including expressions based on theonyms: hercle/mehercle ‘by Hercules!’, ēcastor/mēcastor ‘by Castor!’, edepol/pol ‘by Pollux!’, and others. Considerable linguistic interest attaches to these forms, concerning their syntax, their gender-differentiated usage, and in some cases their phonological, morphological, and etymological background. The background of Lat. edepol as an imprecation to Pollux has been clear at least since Varro (ap. Gell. 11.6). Alternative etymologies—e.g. “[m]ed Apoll[o]” (Speyer) and others (see LEW s.v. ēcastor)—can be discarded; but they point to indeterminacies that remain neglected. The modern understanding of edepol assumes a three-part univerbated structure: e- is a particle; -de- is a shortened form of the word for ‘god’ (Class. Lat. deus); and -pol is a shortened form of Pollux (or older Pollūcēs, borrowed from Gk. Πολυδεύκης). Each element incorporates interesting problems, and there is also a problem concerning the word as a whole.

The chronology of borrowing is investigated; Latin words were being borrowed much earlier than previously thought, with less borrowing in the late antique period than previously argued. Republican-era borrowings(especially in Polybius andinscriptions) are given particular attention. Latin words first (or exclusively) attested in Greek are noted. The survival of the ancient loanwords is examined, first within antiquity, then in the Byzantine period (when some additional Latin words were borrowed), and finally in modern Greek. The borrowing and survival rates of Latin loanwords in Greek are compared with those of Greek loanwords in Latin.

The findings of previous chapters are pulled together, and new directions for research suggested.

The distribution of loanwords between papyri, inscriptions, and literature is investigated: more appear in literature than in other sources, but papyri have the highest density of Latinisms. Local and regional loanwords existed, and these can be seen not only in papyri and inscriptions, but also in literature, which preserves traces of loanwords specific to the city of Rome. Special attention is paid to the New Testament (especially Acts of the Apostles), Atticising writers (especially Athenaeus and Lucian), the Edict of Diocletian, Roman historians, medical writers (especially Galen), Hesychius, the antiquarian John Lydus, and texts on Roman law (especially Theophilus Antecessor, the Scholia Sinaitica, and Modestinus).

This chapter consists of a lexicon of all Latin loanwords in Greek, as well as many of the codeswitches and words that have been claimed to be Latin borrowings but do not meet our criteria for loanwords (because they are very rare, unintegrated, marked as foreign, not necessarily ancient, not necessarily derived from Latin, semantic extensions, superseded readings, etc.). Evidence for (or against) considering the word a Latin loanword is provided, with references to further discussions (both elsewhere in this book and in other scholarship).

The scope of the investigation is clarified: ‘ancient Greek’ refers to extant texts in the Greek language written before AD 600, ‘Latin’ excludes other languages of ancient Italy, and ‘loanword’ includes derivatives of borrowings but excludes codeswitches and semantic extensions. The criteria for distinguishing loanwords from codeswitches are investigated, with a focus on frequency, integration, and not being marked by Greek speakers as foreign.

Previous claims of suffix borrowing are investigated, particularly for -arius, -aria, -arium, -ianus, -atum, -atus, -ensis, -tor, -ator, -atio, -ura, -inus, and -ella. Some of these were borrowed, others werenot, and in a few cases Greek speakers had not borrowed a suffix but believed that they had done so. Not all Latinate suffixes found in Byzantine and modern Greek go back to antiquity.

The main questions about Latin loanwords in Greek are raised, with the help of a passage from Athenaeus, and the evidence that will be used to answer them is explained.