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A Note on the Duenos Inscription Brent Vine 0. Introductory The well-known Arch

A Note on the Duenos Inscription Brent Vine 0. Introductory The well-known Archaic Latin “Duenos Inscription”,1 conventionally dated to the 6th or early 5th c. B.C.E.,2 requires no detailed introduction; nor is there any question of surveying the immense bibliography devoted to the many enigmas — archeological, cultural, epigraphical, linguistic — surrounding this celebrated and frustrating text and the unique object on which it is inscribed.3 It will be helpful for present purposes, however, to provide several preliminary remarks by way of orientation. Apart from one or two unresolved paleographical indeterminacies (such as the interpretation of the vertical stroke between IOVE and SAT in the initial sequence), it is generally agreed that the text consists of three units (here referred to, for convenience, as “lines”), to be read as follows: 1 IOVESATDEIVOSQOIMEDMITATNEITEDENDOCOSMISVIRCOSIED 2 ASTEDNOISIOPETOITESIAIPACARIVOIS 3 DVENOSMEDFECEDENMANOMEINOMDVENOINEMEDMALOSTATOD Whereas the word-division and (partly in consequence) the interpretation of most of line 2 remain opaque, lines 1 and 3 are composed almost entirely of recognizable Latin vocabulary, and now yield more or less acceptable sense. Thus for lines 1 and 3, roughly: 1 CIL I2 4 = Ernout Recueil 3, ILLRP 2, Gordon Intro. 3, Wachter 1987: §§27-8, Pisani Testi A4. 2 See e.g. Solin (1969: 252-3). 3 The most recent detailed study known to me is that of G. Pennisi (1992), which, however, is highly problematic in a number of respects. [1 beg.] IOVESAT()DEIVOS()QOI()MED()MITAT iurat deos qui me ‘mittit’ “The person who ‘sends’ (?) me swears by the gods: ...” [1 concl.] NEI()TED()ENDO()COSMIS()VIRCO()SIED ni in te [= erga te] comis virgo sit “... if the/a ‘girl’ is not kind/friendly towards you, ...” [3 beg.] DVENOS()MED()FECED()EN()MANOMEINOM()DVENOI Bonus/bonus me fecit in MANOMEINOM bono “Mr. Good/A good man made me EN()MANOMEINOM for a good man;” [3 concl.] NE()MED()MALOS()TATOD or NE()MED()MALO(S)()STATOD ne me malus [tollito, clepito]4 “... Let an evil person not steal me.” The purpose of this paper is to explore the two remaining problems in lines 1 and 3, namely MITAT (1 beg.) and EN()MANOMEINOM (3 beg.). I will suggest, moreover, that these two portions of the text may in fact be related to each other. 1. MITAT 1.1. Despite, for example, the arguments of H. B. Rosén (1957: 244), which ignore the evidence of KAPIAD in the Forum Inscription (CIL I2 2), it now seems fairly clear that MITAT is indicative and not subjunctive, and that it must mean some- thing like ‘gives’ or ‘offers’. This emerges with particular clarity from the use of the same form near the beginning of the (probably slightly later) “Tibur Pedestal Inscription” (CIL, I2 2658; HOI()MED()MITAT...), as discussed in detail by A. 4 TATOD or STATOD: cf. Hitt. tâyezzi ‘steals’, Ved. stená-/stâyú- ‘thief’, etc.; H. Rix (1985: 193ff.), H. Eichner (1988-90: 216). Mancini (1981).5 There is less agreement, however, as to the precise formal and semantic interpretation of MITAT. According to the majority view, the form is related to Class. Lat. mittere: thus recently Eichner (1988-90: 223n33, cf. his initial gloss “übersendet (zur Aufstellung)”, followed by “präsentiert, widmet, dediziert”), as well as Mancini, who suggests that MITAT reflects a zero-grade “intensive” or “durative” *mitâre (beside mittere < *meitere), of the type occupâre (: capere), êducâre (: dûcere), etc. Even though these intensives normally appear with “perfectivizing” preverb, the existence of archaic uncompounded intensives of the type dicâre ‘consecrate’ (beside dêdicâre, praedicâre etc.) renders such an account for MITAT not only possible, but even attractive, if not for two further considerations (apart from the suspicious absence of forms like **praemitâre, **êmitâre, etc.). First, there is the problem of how to interpret MITAT semantically according to this theory: it is exceedingly difficult to envision how an intensive of mittere could yield the semantics required for MITAT in both the Duenos Inscription and (still more clearly) the Tibur Pedestal Inscription, even granting for mittere an Urbedeutung along the lines of ‘let go, release’ (see e.g. Ernout-Meillet s.v.). Secondly, the comparison of MITAT with mittere involves a somewhat troubling phonological indeterminacy, as noted by Eichner (1988-90: 223n33): “Ein Problem, aber sicherlich kein unüberwindliches, stellt lediglich der Anlaut von MITAT bei etymologischer Verknüpfung mit mittere dar (vgl. cosmittere bei Paulus ex Festo). Die betreffende Wurzel hat anscheinend s mobile, weswegen die Frage der Datierung des Anlautwandels sm zu m hier nicht virulent ist.” But to dismiss the testimony of cosmittere in Festus by appealing to s-mobile is neither methodologically nor theoretically satisfactory, even if the sole extra-Latin comparandum (Av. maêE- ‘werfen’, cf. hamista- ‘niedergeworfen’, allegedly < *ham-[h]mista-) is itself phonologically ambiguous on this point. For medial -sm-/-sn- clusters, the material preserved in “Festus” is otherwise generally accurate (e.g. cesna, cesnas ‘cena’ 222.26L, 228.10L, cf. Osc. kersnu, Umbr. `sesna), and COSMIS itself, in our text, urges caution. 5 Note also Mancini’s discussion (1981: 367n7) of praeciamitatores (Festus 292.3L; P.F. 293.1L), which may also point to an â-verb “mitâre”. 1.2. The above considerations lead to the following preliminary conclusions about MITAT: it is a 3sg. pres. indic. form of a “first conjugation” verb, meaning roughly ‘gives’; and it is at least as likely to have initial *m- (as opposed to *sm-), therefore deriving from a stem *mitâ- or *mîtâ-. These features converge on an alternative root etymology, which (like almost every idea one might raise in connection with this text) has already been proposed on occasion, i.e. comparing the familiar IE root “*me8-” (IEW 2. mei-, 710; cf. LIV 383), with meanings centering on the notion of ‘exchange’ (thus e.g. S. Ferri, 1965: 46; Pisani Testi p. 7; P. Flobert 1991: 529). The formal and semantic details of this suggestion, however, have never been satisfactorily elucidated, and so the remainder of this section is devoted to that task. There are, to begin with, two phonological indeterminacies surrounding the structure of the root traditionally notated “*me8-”, although neither crucially affects the interpretation of MITAT here proposed. If the root actually began with a laryngeal (thus “*¤mei-”), as some data suggest (cf. Mayrhofer EWAia Lief. 14 [1993], II.315 and LIV loc. cit.: Ved. apâmítya- ‘loan, debt’, Gk. éme¤bv ‘exchange’), a laryngeal in this position would not in any case vocalize in Latin (i.e. *¤m- > Lat. m-, cf. [from the same root] Lat. meâre/-mêtâre ‘go back and forth’ and migrâre ~ éme¤bv, with non-vocalization as in Nerô < *¤n-, etc.). And if the root ended with a laryngeal, as other data may suggest (e.g. Pâli -minâti, Latv. m∆t; see Mayrhofer loc. cit.), MITAT in my view derives from a zero grade (see next paragraph), in which case <MIT-> is ambiguous between ani† *mi-t- (> MIT-) and se† *miH-t- > *mît- (> MIT-). The somewhat fanciful interpretation of Ferri (loc. cit.) — “‘Si impegna dinanzi agli dei chi mi cambia’ (con un altro oggetto)” — operates with a form mitat that is “una parola in veste sicula”, adducing the well-known Sicilian material provided by Varro (“si datum quod reddatur, mutuum, quod Siculi moeton”, L.L. V.179) and Hesychius (mo›ton ént‹ mo¤tou: paroim¤a Sikelo›w); and for the morphology, Ferri does no more than comment (46n8), somewhat con- fusingly, on the “interessante ..., del resto regolarissima” vowel gradation in “mitat—moetat—mutat” (sic; a moetâ- is nowhere attested [except for the obscure moetas/motas in Cato’s incantation, Ag. 160], although this would be the regular precursor of mûtâ-, on which further below). Pisani merely offers the descriptive observation that “[q]uesto mitâre è forma in -â- con vocalismo radicale 0 (cfr. §435) accanto a mûtâre da *moith-”, while the cross-reference (to Pisani 1952: §435) specifies a zero-grade intensive (more on this point below); and as for the meaning, Pisani believes (also fancifully) that “il significato dev’esser ‘vendere’”. What remains is to provide a plausible morphological account for a verb mitâ- meaning ‘give’ (vel sim.), and this can be accomplished quite straightforwardly. MITAT would be based, in the first instance, on a tó-participle *(¤)mi(H)-tó- (to *(¤)mei(H)- ‘exchange’), thus meaning ‘exchanged’, i.e. ‘given (in exchange)’; a participle of precisely this type is almost certainly attested in Av. fra-mita- ‘verwandelt’ (Yt. 19.29; see Mayrhofer EWAia loc. cit.). Indirect evidence for such a form in Latin comes from mûtâre ‘(ex)change’ and mûtuus ‘interchangeable’, which can most easily be taken as based on a substantivization *mó8-to- ‘something given in exchange, tit for tat’ (directly comparable to the Sicilian material, which may even be borrowed from Italic; see Solmsen 1894: 89n2), itself derived from a zero-grade ptcple. *mi-tó-.6 It is also conceivable that at bottom, SPi. meitimúm ‘Dankesmal’ (AP. 2) and meitims ‘Dank’ (TE. 5) could show a parallel e-grade substantivization *mé8-to- (cf. the suggestively similar formation, though with o-grade, in Go. maiKms ‘Geschenk’; see on these forms Eichner 1988-90b: 200). The participle *mi-tó-, at any rate, could have regularly produced a “frequentative” *mi-t-e¤(8e/o)- (> Lat.-t-âre), whence “mitâre” and 3sg. MITAT. As for the semantics, one must assume, as often, that the “frequentative” formation was in this case actually factitive; as is well known, the “frequentative” (based on verbal adjectives) partly incorporates formations built with the deadjectival factitive suffix *-e¤- otherwise seen in forms of the type (re)nouâre ‘make new’ uploads/Management/ vine-duenos.pdf