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[10arg] As ususcapio is treated as a compound noun in the nominative case, so pignoriscapio is taken together as one word in the same case.

As ususcapio is treated as a compound word, in which the letter a is pronounced long, just so pignoriscapio was pronounced as one word with a long a. These are the words of Cato in the first book of his Epistolary Questions: 1 “Pignoriscapio, resorted to because of military pay 2 which a soldier ought to receive from the public paymaster, is a word by itself.” 3 From this it is perfectly clear that one may say capio as if it were captio, in connection with both usus and pignus.

1 p. cviii., Jordan. It should be Varro rather than Cato.

2 That is, pay in arrears.

3 Ususcapio or usucapio is a “taking,” or claim to possession, by right of actual tenure (usus); pignoriscapio is a seizure of goods. On the latter see Mommsen, Staatsrecht, i.3, p. 160, and cf. Suet. Jul. xvii. 2. The a is not long in either word, but has the accent, which may be what Gellius means.

The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1927.

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  • Cross-references to this page (2):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), RICINIUM
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), TRIBU´NUS
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