A note on archaic Latin forms in our texts 📜

If you’ve been read­ing Sal­lust’s Bel­lum Catili­nae, you may have noticed some unfa­mil­iar spellings—forms like max­u­mus instead of max­imus, or accusative plu­rals end­ing in -īs instead of -ēs. These are not typos or errors!

Sal­lust is just one exam­ple: archa­ic Latin forms appear across a num­ber of authors, includ­ing Cicero. The -īs accusative plur­al is espe­cial­ly fre­quent in poet­ry.

These forms are part of the authors’ lan­guage, and our texts pre­serve them faith­ful­ly.

How­ev­er, we know that unfa­mil­iar spellings can be a stum­bling block, espe­cial­ly when lis­ten­ing. That’s why our nar­ra­tors often nor­mal­ize archa­ic forms to their clas­si­cal equiv­a­lents, mak­ing it eas­i­er to fol­low along by ear.

So if you’re read­ing and lis­ten­ing at the same time, this is ful­ly inten­tion­al: the text keeps the archa­ic lan­guage intact, while the audio gives you the clas­si­cal form. Two lay­ers of Latin in one! 🏛️