…F and Liquid

It used to be thought that, just as word-initialfl…andfr…behaved likepl…, pr…, tr…, etc., in not producing a long syllable when following a word-final short vowel, just so word-internal…fl…and…fr…allowed both the short and, except for the pre-classical scenic poets, the long scansion. It was implied that these clusters oscillated with the same degree of freedom which is the well-known characteristic of the stop-and-liquid clusters. The difficulty is, of course, that evidence can be no more than minimal since in truly Latin (i.e. neither dialectal nor foreign) materialfoccurs only at the beginning of words or after a compounding seam. In fact, the argument, explicit or implicit, has turned on Horace,Sat.1.2.98:custodes lectica ceniflones parasitae; Horace,Sat.2.2.131:ilium aut nequities aut uafri inscitia iuris; Ov.Ars3.332:cuiue pater uafri luditur arte Getae; Martial 6.64.26:stigmata nec uafra delebit Cinnamus arte; 12.66.3:arte sed emptorem uafra corrumpis Amoene; Phaedrus 2.6.14:inducta uafris(cj. Festa)aquila monitis paruit; Silius 8.566:et quos aut Rufrae(cj. Heinse)quos aut Aesernia quosue, and Martial 4.71.1:quaero diu totam Safroni Rufe per urbem