Latin commands thread

[Robert Vermaat]

At the risk of getting even more of a reputation for pedantry... I've now had time to digest Mr Amt's fascinating post of the Maurice. The list of commands is interesting not only because it contains singular imperatives where we'd expect plural ones, but because some of the case uses are dodgy, e.g ad conto, ad scuto. Also the pronunciation seems to have moved away from the Classical. e.g. "senestra" for "sinistra"; "depone au dextra au senestra" must be "aut... aut" but the final t has dropped out.
This all strongly suggests to me that these commands are genuine spoken ones, not invented academic ones. Romans, just like us, were more careless in speech than in writing, and by the Medieval period Latin was much simpler and would have made a C1st/C2nd AD Roman author turn in his urn. Maurice's C6th Latin commands seem well on their way to the Medieval.
Which then raises the question as to what one should do for C2 AD re-enactment. Use Maurice's commands verbatim, or rein back a bit and tighten up the grammar to "correct" four centuries of back-sliding?<br>
Shaun

A fascinating thread re-opened.
In fact, I have been discussing this with members of the Herculiani, a French Late Roman re-enactment group. They in fact propose to 'correct' the bad latin to more acceptable forms. For me, I would like to keep it as it is, using 'incorrect' forms above grammatically correct version, of which there seems to be no example.
I found the comparison between Arrina and Maurice also very telling, although I know of course that Maurice uses Arrian almost verbatim at times.

So what's the current opinion? 'Translate' latin until it fits the correct use, or keep it as it is and accept bad Latin? Ad signo or ad signum?