Talk:Aetius

Aëtius??

Why did you change Aetius in Aëtius? "ë" was not part of Latin alphabet, neither it is currently used in English. He is widely known as Aetius.--Panairjdde 10:44, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Both Aetius and Aëtius are used. "aë" has the advantage of clarifying that it is not "æ", unlike say Aesop = Æsop, and that it corresponds to Greek ε or η rather than ι. But I defer to the classicists in choosing the more frequent form. --Macrakis 18:44, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Are you sure it is not Æ? I have no proof about this, but in Italian, which heavly derives from Latin, all the occurency of diphtongs ae and oe became e, while hiatus ae and oe had been preserved; Aetius became Ezio, so I think it is Ætius rather than Aetius.--Panairjdde 09:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The Italian for Ahenobarbus is Enobarbo, but ahenus certainly had three syllables. Presumably the a and e were slurred together before the early Romance vowel shifts. Septentrionalis 22:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

In French, the Grande Encyclopédie writes Aétius for all three persons, and systematically uses Æ when appropriate, cf. Ætna.--Macrakis 12:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

The new Pauly-Wissowa confirms that the Greek spelling Αέτιος, found under Aëtius Amidenus, the Byzantine physician, is correct for all of these, including the general. It cannot be a diphthong. Four of the five Aetii listed in Pauly are Greeks, and the general may be; he was born in Moesia.

There is also Aeetius, since the name is derived from Greek aietos, 'eagle'. I am not sure which is most common.

May you cite a source? I did not find any relationship between Aetius and aietios.--Panairjdde 09:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Does it require a source to derive Αέτιος from αέτειος? the word is from LSJ, citing Suidas Septentrionalis 16:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

There is a very old, and still current, convention of using the diaeresis to mark vowels which might otherwise be mistaken for part of a diphthong (as in Pasiphaë ) or be wrongly silenced (as in Berenicë ). It has been partly obscured; one of the aspects of our modern barbarism is the loss of competent typesetting. Septentrionalis 19:11, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

And Tolkien's Fëanor and Elwë. Two of the other Aëtius references also have the ë. This one should too for consistency. Evertype 05:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

If Aetius comes up to be without dieresis, it should be kept without it, no matter of consistency.--Panairjdde 09:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

My copy (Modern Library) of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has Aëtius. So does the Norwegian version of Carl Grimberg's world history, and Ernst Kornemann's Geschichte der Spätantike. Jon kare 23:10, 30 December 2006 (UTC)