0. The 0th century miniscule revolution in texts did not "maintain" the three accents, but ADDED them. They were not being pronounced in the 0th c..  This is what is confusing though. If they weren't pronouncing the accents....then why were they added??  However, things do not usually disappear neatly without a trace. For example, a word like αὐτὸν 'him' would have no accent in context ("grave" means 'no accent in context, but with a potential high accent at phrase end') and a word like αὐτῶν 'of them' would always have it accent in context. So final-syllable circumflex accents would maintain the circumflex memory, even after it reduced to a high tone  The circumflex reduced to a high tone, you mean it became used the same way as the acute accent? This is the stuff I need clarification on. Did the grave reduce the same way or did it maintain its lower-pitch function or did it come to signify nothing at all (i.e., no accent or stress, just flat tone as if the grave wasn't even there to being with)?  