Gentlemen and Gentleladies,

This post will make no sense to you unless you view it in text mode,
in a font such as courier new, because the lengths of the vowels must
float directly above those vowels.

I found this strange inscription in the literature a few hours ago.

T1 PROTOGENES • CLOVL
T2 SVAVEI • HEICEI • SITVST
T3 MIMVS • PLOVRVMA • QVE
T4 FECIT • POPVLO • SOVEIS
T5 GAVDIA • NVGES

I cannot see two good hexameters in it; I see a reversed elegiac
couplet, and I must accordingly reverse the order of the lines:

T3|T4|T5 PLOVRVMA QVE | FECIT POPVLO SOVEIS | GAVDIA NVGES
T1|T2|T3 PROTOGENES CLOVL | SVAVEI HEICEI SITVST |
MIMVS

With metrics and minimal modernisation of the rustic spelling, and
without havoc to the wordorder as painted:

- v v| - -|- v v|- - |- vv| -
- T3|T4|T5 PL{OV}<V>R{V}<I>MA QV{E}<I> FECIT POPVLO
S{OV}<V>{EI}<A>S GAVDIA NVG{E}<A>S
- v v|- -| -| * - v
v|- -|v
T1|T2|T3 PROTOGENES CLOVL SVAV{EI}<I>(S)
H{EI}<I>C<C>{EI}<E> SITVST MIMVS

That is:

C3|C4|C5 PLVRIMA QVI FECIT POPVLO SVAS GAVDIA NVGAS
C1|C2|C3 PROTOGENES CLUVisL SVAVIS HICCE SITVST MIMVS

It seems to me that the professors, who comment on the inscription,
take an unwarranted opportunity to thoroughly emend most of the words,
as if to accuse the ancient painter of not enroling first in a
modernday German university before turning to his task.

Anyway, I (hesitantly! but inexorably) identify an Etruscan wordform
CLUVIAL (feminine genitive singular) in this fantastic rigmarole, this
plate of leftovers. Its letters -IA- were omitted in order to get it
into the pentameter:

- v v|- -| -|* - v v|- -|v
C1|C2|C3 PROTOGENES CLUViaL SVAVIS HICCE SITVST MIMVS

Elision of the final -S of SVAVIS, which is SVIS, of course, the
letter -V- in which is consonantal, is common in Quintus Ennius -- how
elisions of letters -S and letters -M could occur, and not lead to
profound corruption of everyones' understandings of the words and
contexts, is a great mystery to me.

The verb SITVST is a perfect reflection of how that verb was
pronounced, scanned, and put in the pentameter.

The spelling of the relative pronoun QVI as QVE is here presumably
rustic.

NVGES CASV ACCVSATIVO PLVRALI PRO NVGAS. HEICEI PRO PRAEPOSITIONE
HICCE.

So, this hodgpodge may contain a Greek slave's name (PROTOGENES), an
Etruscan female slaveowner's name (CLUVI -- the Etruscans eschewd
letters O), associated in a Latin couplet. A salty verse. Does anyone
see it differently?

By the way, ANGLICE it might be:

A3|A4|A5 He-who-made his jokes the-many delights to-the-people,
A1|A2|A3 Protogenes, Ms.-Cluvi's (slave), a-sweet-man, a-mime,
was-put-down at-this-very-place,

Jeff Hill, SYdney, Australia.

Jeff Hill wrote:
> Gentlemen and Gentleladies,
>
> This post will make no sense to you unless you view it in text mode,
> in a font such as courier new, because the lengths of the vowels must
> float directly above those vowels.
>
> I found this strange inscription in the literature a few hours ago.
>
> T1 PROTOGENES • CLOVL
> T2 SVAVEI • HEICEI • SITVST
> T3 MIMVS • PLOVRVMA • QVE
> T4 FECIT • POPVLO • SOVEIS
> T5 GAVDIA • NVGES
>
> I cannot see two good hexameters in it; I see a reversed elegiac
> couplet, and I must accordingly reverse the order of the lines:
>
> T3|T4|T5 PLOVRVMA QVE | FECIT POPVLO SOVEIS | GAVDIA NVGES
> T1|T2|T3 PROTOGENES CLOVL | SVAVEI HEICEI SITVST |
> MIMVS
>
> With metrics and minimal modernisation of the rustic spelling, and
> without havoc to the wordorder as painted:
>
> - v v| - -|- v v|- - |- vv| -
> -
> T3|T4|T5 PL{OV}<V>R{V}<I>MA QV{E}<I> FECIT POPVLO
> S{OV}<V>{EI}<A>S GAVDIA NVG{E}<A>S
> - v v|- -| -| * - v
> v|- -|v
> T1|T2|T3 PROTOGENES CLOVL SVAV{EI}<I>(S)
> H{EI}<I>C<C>{EI}<E> SITVST MIMVS
>
> That is:
>
> C3|C4|C5 PLVRIMA QVI FECIT POPVLO SVAS GAVDIA NVGAS
> C1|C2|C3 PROTOGENES CLUVisL SVAVIS HICCE SITVST MIMVS
>
> It seems to me that the professors, who comment on the inscription,
> take an unwarranted opportunity to thoroughly emend most of the words,
> as if to accuse the ancient painter of not enroling first in a
> modernday German university before turning to his task.
>
> Anyway, I (hesitantly! but inexorably) identify an Etruscan wordform
> CLUVIAL (feminine genitive singular) in this fantastic rigmarole, this
> plate of leftovers. Its letters -IA- were omitted in order to get it
> into the pentameter:
>
> - v v|- -| -|* - v v|- -|v
> C1|C2|C3 PROTOGENES CLUViaL SVAVIS HICCE SITVST MIMVS
>
> Elision of the final -S of SVAVIS, which is SVIS, of course, the
> letter -V- in which is consonantal, is common in Quintus Ennius -- how
> elisions of letters -S and letters -M could occur, and not lead to
> profound corruption of everyones' understandings of the words and
> contexts, is a great mystery to me.
>
> The verb SITVST is a perfect reflection of how that verb was
> pronounced, scanned, and put in the pentameter.
>
> The spelling of the relative pronoun QVI as QVE is here presumably
> rustic.
>
> NVGES CASV ACCVSATIVO PLVRALI PRO NVGAS. HEICEI PRO PRAEPOSITIONE
> HICCE.
>
> So, this hodgpodge may contain a Greek slave's name (PROTOGENES), an
> Etruscan female slaveowner's name (CLUVI -- the Etruscans eschewd
> letters O), associated in a Latin couplet. A salty verse. Does anyone
> see it differently?
>
> By the way, ANGLICE it might be:
>
> A3|A4|A5 He-who-made his jokes the-many delights to-the-people,
> A1|A2|A3 Protogenes, Ms.-Cluvi's (slave), a-sweet-man, a-mime,
> was-put-down at-this-very-place,
>
> Jeff Hill, SYdney, Australia.
Cluvia was a town in ancient Samnium (modern-day Tuscany).
Cluvius was also the name of a Roman gens.
If this Protogenes was an actor in plays, maybe the inscription is in
iambics; perhaps iambic trimeters.
PROTOGENES CLUVI SVAVEI • HEICEI • SITVST
v-/v-/v-/v-/v-/v-
Ed

On Sat, 11 Nov 2023 11:53:32 +0000, Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk>
wrote:

>PROTOGENES CLUVI SVAVEI • HEICEI • SITVST
>v-/v-/v-/v-/v-/v-
>
>Ed

Firstly, I notice that I have miswritten a word, I intended CLUViaL
not CLUVisL. The lowercase letters were intended to indicate that,
according to my conjecture, the letters -IA- were deliberately
omitted, that CLUVL was written (as CLOVL).

Thanks for taking the time to read through my conjectures. Your CLUVI
is quite likely, despite the evident legibility of the letter L. If it
is a letter L, how would you account for it? Inscriptions painted on
walls (or, in this case, more likely neatly scratched on the wall --
Ritschl does not specifically say what the hell the writing technique
was, even though he edits a good reproduction of it, seemingly the
letterstrokes in his reproduction are slender, and Fabretti rushes
through the description at the speed of light and says quite little in
his excessively abbreviated Latin), unless they are photographed for
archiving and later study, are ever subject to the whims and fancies
and wrong assumptions of a viewer. I tend to assume that it is a
letter L, and there is I think only one ancient Italic language
wherein terms of nomenclature (in the feminine genitive caseforms)
terminate in letters -L, Etruscan. I assumed that a Roman name such as
on the pattern of CLOEL(IVS) would have immediately been suggested by
the Latin newsgroup, which would abolish my Etruscan hypothesis -- the
rubbishy, poorly remembered, lines are miswritten by a clown, perhaps
in the wrong order if they are an elegiac couplet; the abrupt
terminating of a Roman name in a letter -L would indicate a dopey
mistake was made, to be added to the other twenty million mistakes
found in ancient Latin inscriptions. I rely, for the nonce, on the
fact that no one can absolutely DISprove my Tuscan idea, which takes
into account the odd wordform which oddly terminates in a letter L,
evidence in the form of an eventual photograph notwithstanding.

I cannot see iambics in it (no one should pay the slightest attention
to the following scribblings which I cannot make plausibly scan
without, as I say, causing havoc, by totally rewriting the poem, which
my more minimalist interpretation seeks to avoid):

- v v|- -|- v|- -| - - v - - v
PROTOGENES CLOVI | SVAVEI HEICEI SITVST | MIMVS
- v v| - -|- v v|- -|- - vv - -
PLOVRVMA QVE | FECIT POPVLO SOVEIS | GAVDIA NVGES

Now, how would you rewrite it, and scan it, as iambics?

By the way, Ritschl suggested that EI is a separable interjection; I
think that Ritschl was pulling our leg.

I have another forty (rustic? or ancient?) inscriptions to study, all
probably similarly refractory like this one has proved to be --
*groan*.

https://archive.org/details/18693