Or you can take a look at this image, where they even copied the classical look from ancient roman inscriptions - note for example the use of hedera marks. But Mussolini himself preferred to use classical latin.On official documents ordered by his own government for propaganda purposes - he preferred to use classical latin. You can look for example at the Codex Fori Mussolini. Especially in the context the camo is trying to sell (Roman Empire, which spoke classical latin) a j is simply the wrong choice.Īnd here is one more reason why you are wrong about using J here - you are assuming that Mussolini's Italy would have chosen J instead of I, that he would have preferred "modern" latin over "classical" latin. But this is a quote from classical latin, not modern latin. Now somebody who would write a new book in latin during the 20th century might chose to use J when writing latin instead of I. ( ) You also have the same spelling in the Teubner edition (1907). Both editions are the relevant, primarily accepted editions of Suetonius and the quote. Meanwhile here you have the Loeb edition (first 1914) spelling it with I. Your argument is basically "some people decided to change it", but you provide no evidence it was ever the majority spelling or the one that was advanced by classical scholars during the era. Since the boats used in the game were produced in the 20th century, we decided to use this modern spelling, thinking that there was a good chance people at the time would have chosen this spelling over the other. For a history of j in Italian see: - it should be stressed that this orthographic change did however have some level of success, and in fact, some references provide the Latin quote with a modern spelling containing j. This orthographic change had an "inconsistent" success, and nowadays the use of j is only retained in a few arbitrary words of Italian. In these cases, "i" becomes phonetically different from the normal /i/, as it is uttered as a semi-consonant. While it is true that the original Latin quote is written "alea iacta est", the Italian orthography has changed over time and during the 17th century "j" started being used in place of "i", when "i" was part of a diphthong (sequence of two vowels). Here I will provide further insight into the matter. I can go to my bookshelf right now and pick up any of my 100+ books on latin and roman history and I can guarantee you not a single one spells it with a j.ĭo I need to scan and post my degrees here as well?ĮDIT: Even more importantly, it is generally considered best practice to use the original language when citing a quote. No, even modern works use the classical spelling when referring to the famous quote by Caesar attributed to him by Sueton.Ĭitation needed.