Linguistic Society of America

THE INSCRIPTION OF DVENOS
vase precedes the monophthongizing of the diphthong, and there is no
other likely etymology for mitto than that which derives it from *mito,
and this from a still earlier *meito, presumably from *smeito. The early
subjunctive would then be *MEITAD, not MITAT. Even the concession
of an entering variation in the ending does not free us from the problem
of the diphthong.
But it is possible that there were two present formations from this
root.25 We find d1cere indicere and dicare indfcdre, ducere educere and
educdre; there may have been a *mXtdre alongside *meitere *mtere
mittere. This *mtdre yields a present indicative mltat, properly represented
in our text; there is no difficulty about the final T, nor about
the radical I, nor about the syntax of the mood.26
The remainder of this line of the inscription was quite properly divided
by the first editors, and was interpreted by them ne te intus comes virgo
sit, wherein te is object of the phrase comis sit=comitetur: 'let not a
maid accompany thee within (to the ceremonies)'. Osthoff 27 and Jordan28
recognized that COSMIS could not be the old form of comes, but
was the old form of comis, and Jordan29 and Breal30 independently took
TED ENDO as in te. The VIRCO, with all the earlier editors, was a
human maiden; Conway31 first noted that this whole clause is a translation
of the Greek g7 eiXaroa6s ?oL d Kop71, which may reasonably be
inferred from its converse /'1 TVrXOL Ac/Iarpos Kal [K]6pas JLsjC Oe.v irap&
A6Ltiarpos eviXarcow and other like phrases in the Cnidian curses.32 VIRCO
therefore means Proserpina, as goddess of Hades; and though this
interpretation has been accepted only by Lindsay,33 Hempl,34 Miss
25 Cf. P. G. Goidanich, Riv. di storia antica, n.s., 5. 233 [1900].
26 Perhaps such a formation lurks in the deponent imftdri, which may be for *in-mltari,
even as *ob-mittere has become omittere; for the meaning, *in-mitdri may well mean 'to let
one's self go into (something), to identify one's self with, to imitate', cf. Plaut. Cas. 443
recessim dabo me ad parietem, imitabor nepam 'I'll draw off backwards to the wall, I'll
imitate a crab'. Of course, such an etymology of imitdrl separates it from aemulus and
imago.
27 RhM 36. 482-4 [1881].
28 Hermes 16. 233-8 [1881].
29 Hermes 16. 235.
213
30 Mel. 2. 155 =Rev. Arch. 44. 89 [1882].
31 AJP 10. 453 [1889].
32 A. Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae, pp. 5-19, esp. No. 4; Paris, 1904.
33 Short Historical Latin Grammar, ed. 1, 175, Oxford [1897], ed. 2, p. 199 [1915];
Handbook of Latin Inscriptions 19-23, Boston, 1897.
34 TAPA 33. 150-69 [1902].