Please consider the following sentence form Cicero: Pro M. Caelio, 35:
Accusatores quidem libidines, amores, adulteria, Baias, actas, convivia, comissationes, cantus, symphonias, navigia iactant, idemque significant nihil se te invita dicere.
Here’s the translation from Yonge:
The accusers talk to us about lusts, and loves, and adulteries, and Baiae, and doings on the sea-shore, and banquets, and revels, and songs, and music parties, and water parties; and intimate also that they do not mention all these things without your consent.
It is a contracted form of iīdem, that is, the nominative plural of isdem. Gildersleeve notes (103.2) that it is more common in poetry, but I’m not sure that this can be trusted. The Romans seem to have always been orthographically uncomfortable with writing two letters in a row, especially vowels, which was originally a convention for indicating a long vowel, later replaced by the apex (see Quintilian 1.4.10). Even when the letters represent two different sounds, there were attempts at reforming away the double spelling, e.g. the succesful coniicio → conicio (which still should be pronounced conjicio!), and the less successful seruus → seruos and uulgus → volgus.
At any rate, I haven’t seen Cicero’s handwriting, let alone the extant MSS, but on Quintilian’s authority Cicero is said to have preferred to write aiio and Maiiam with a double i. Should we perhaps read iidem here as the more authentic Ciceronian spelling?
as I understand it, in classical texts that have not been modified, it was common practice to change a U to O after a consonantal U up until the Augustan period.
Is Gildersleeve’s grammar online somewhere? I haven’t seen it here on textkit.
I am not sure, I understand you correctly, Adam: do you think the practice of contracting the vowels into a single one was Cicero’s idea or does it stem from the manuscripts? I just wonder, because confusion is possible with the singular.
Sorry to put a stupid question but what is the “apex”?
In a grammar of mine “eidem” figures as an alternative to “iidem”. Who might have used that form?
Does anyone know of a website with manuscripts, preferably of course with a MS of Pro Caelio?
Is Gildersleeve’s grammar online somewhere? I haven’t seen it here on textkit.
No, but it’s been in print since the end of the 19th century and isn’t too hard to find. On points like this its age means that it shouldn’t be taken as the final word, but it is my favorite reference grammar.
I am not sure, I understand you correctly, Adam: do you think the practice of contracting the vowels into a single one was Cicero’s idea or does it stem from the manuscripts? I just wonder, because confusion is possible with the singular.
Sorry for compressing a lot of dubious information into short compass. I have no idea when the two i’s became contracted in practice, but Quintilian indicates that Cicero wrote uncontracted forms. Later copyists would have imposed later orthographical practices, making two i’s into one. I am only wondering about this out loud, hoping that someone who knows more about Cicero’s orthography and manuscript tradition will correct me.
Sorry to put a stupid question but what is the “apex”?
It is a mark placed over long vowels to indicate their length. Used occasionally both in script and inscriptions from the 1st century (? AD) onwards.
In a grammar of mine “eidem” figures as an alternative to “iidem”. Who might have used that form?
Gildersleeve indicates that it is found in inscriptions. One would like more specific information.
Does anyone know of a website with manuscripts, preferably of course with a MS of Pro Caelio?
There are a number of sites floating around with paleographical samples. Do a search for paleography. The Oxford libraries also have a number of their manuscripts scanned in for public viewing.
According to R. G. Austin’s edition of the Pro Caelio the only important sources of the text are: the Codex Parisinus 7794 (ninth century); variants and marginalia added to the Codex Parisinus 14749 which along with a few excerpts elsewhere represent the lost Codex Cluniacensis (eighth century); a bit of an Oxyrhynchus fragment; and fragments from two fourth century palimpsests. A facsimile of a folio from Cod Par. 7794 is found in Chatelain, Paléographie des classiques latins (Paris, 1884-92) which represents chapters 9 to 11 of the Pro Caelio.