Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
John C. Rolfe, Ed.

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[p. 39]

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VII

[7arg] Whether affatim, like admodunm, should be pronounced with an acute accent on the first syllable; with some painstaking observations on the accents of other words.

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THE poet Annianus, ¹ in addition to his charming personality, was highly skilled in ancient literature and literary criticism, and conversed with remarkable grace and learning. He pronounced affalim, as he did admodum, with an acute accent ² on the first, and not on the medial, syllable; and he believed that the ancients so pronounced the word. He adds that in his hearing the grammarian Probus thus read the following lines of the Cistellaria of Plautus: ³

Canst do a valiant deed?—Enough (áffatim) there be
Who can. I've no desire to be called brave,

and he said that the reason for that accent was that affatim was not two parts of speech, but was made up of two parts that had united to form a single word; just as also in the word which we call exadversum he thought that the second syllable should have the acute accent, because the word was one part of speech, and not two. Accordingly, he maintained that the two following verses of Terence ⁴ ought to be read thus:

Over against (exádversum) the school to which she went
A barber had his shop.