Spurius Carvilius Ruga

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Spurius Carvilius Ruga (fl. 230 BCE) was a freedman living in Rome who allegedly invented the letter G. His invention would have been quickly adopted in the Roman Republic because the letter C was, at the time, confusingly used both for the /k/ and /g/ sounds. Ruga was also the first man in recorded history to open a private elementary school.

Plutarch is our main source for these inventions, and Quintus Terentius Scaurus confirms the former in De Orthographia. The letter G was already in use before 230 BCE; Wilhelm Paul Corssen theorized in Über Aussprache that what Plutarch really meant was that Ruga's elementary school was the first place to assign the C and G to their current phonemes of /k/ and /g/. G was imported from the Greek zeta, which stood for quite a different sound, and usually confused with C and Z. This is the reason G is in the middle of the alphabet rather than at the end; at whatever point the confusion was stamped out, probably Ruga's doing, it replaced the Z used in the Old Latin alphabet.

1 Other people with the same name
- 1.1 Spurius Carvilius Maximus
- 1.2 Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga
2 Sources

[edit] Other people with the same name

[edit] Spurius Carvilius Maximus

A novus homo, he was consul in 293 BC, and celebrated a triumph over the Samnites. He founded a temple of Fors Fortuna and dedicated a colossal statue of Jupiter Capitolinus made from captured Samnite armour. (Pliny N.H. 34.43; Livy 10.43; Fasti Capit.). According to Velleius Paterculus (2.128), he was censor, probably in 289 BC. In 272 BC he had a second consulship, again campaigning against the Samnites (Front. Aq. 10.6).

[edit] Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga

Perhaps son of the above, was consul in 234 BC, celebrating a triumph for his victories in Corsica and Sardinia. He was consul again in 228 BC, and augur in 211 BC. A tradition cited by Valerius Maximus claimed that he was the first Roman to divorce his wife. Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Aulus Gellius also attest to the story of the divorce. According to Dionysius' account,

Spurius Carvilius, a man of distinction, was the first to divorce his wife ... yet because of his action, though it was based on necessity, he was ever afterwards hated by the people.

However, their date of 230 BC for Ruga's divorce is somewhat absurd, because the Twelve Tables written in 450 BC include a provision for divorce.

His freedman is the Spurius Carvilius Ruga of this article.