This book presents an exhaustive treatment of a long-standing problem of Proto-Indo-European and Italic philology, the development of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirates in the ancient languages of Italy. In so doing, it tackles a central issue of historical linguistics, the plausibility of explanations for sound change. The book argues that a solution to the problem can only be offered by combining the results of a traditional philological investigation with the resources of a neighbouring discipline, experimental phonetics. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of historical and comparative linguistics, the languages of ancient Italy, and Indo-European, as well as phoneticians and phonologists.