Noctes Atticae

The low and odious criticism with which Annaeus Cornutus befouled the lines of Virgil in which the poet with chaste reserve spoke of the intercourse of Venus and Vulcan.

THE poet Annianus, [*](A name of Celtic origin, according to Schulze, Eigenn. 426.) and with him many other devotees of the same Muse, extolled with high and constant praise the verses of Virgil in which, while depicting and describing the conjugal union of Vulcan and Venus, an act that nature's law bids us conceal, he veiled it with a modest paraphrase. For thus he wrote: [*](Aen. viii. 404 ff.)

1. So speaking, the desired embrace he gave,
2. And sinking on the bosom of his spouse,
3. Calm slumber then he wooed in every limb.

maiden girdle

the right of the couch

love's labours

But Annaeus Cornutus, a man in many other respects, to be sure, lacking neither in learning nor taste, nevertheless, in the second book of the work which he compiled On Figurative Language, defamed the high praise of all that modesty by an utterly silly and odious criticism. For after expressing approval of that kind of figurative language, and observing that the lines were composed with due circumspection, he added:

Virgil nevertheless was somewhat indiscreet in using the word membra.

Of Valerius Corvinus and the origin of his surname,

THERE is not one of the well-known historians who has varied in telling the story of Valerius Maximus, who was called Corvinus because of the help and defence rendered him by a raven. That truly remarkable event is in fact thus related in the annals: [*](e.q. Claud. Quad. Fr. 12, Peter2.) In the consulship of Lucius Furius and Appius Claudius, [*](349 B.C.) a young man of such a family [*](That is, as had been described in what preceded.) was appointed tribune of the soldiers. And at that time vast forces of Gauls had encamped in the Pomptine district, and the Roman army was being drawn up in order of battle by the consuls, who were not a little disquieted by the strength and number of the enemy. Meanwhile the leader of the Gauls, a man of enormous size and stature, his armour gleaming with gold, advanced with long strides and flourishing his spear, at the same time casting haughty and contemptuous glances

To that Corvinus the deified Augustus caused a statue to be erected in his Forum. [*](In the colonnades of his Forum Augustus placed statues of the leaders who had raised the estate of the Roman people from obscurity to greatness: see Suetonius, Aug. xxxi. 5.) On the head of this statue is the figure of a raven, a reminder of the event and of the combat which I have described.

On words which are used with two opposite meanings, both active and passive.

As the adjective formidulosus may be used both of one who fears and of one who is feared, invidiosus of

But the meaning which I gave first surely needs no illustration, so many are there who use infestus in the sense of hostile and adverse; but that second meaning is less familiar and more obscure. For who of the common run would readily call a man infestus to whom another is hostile? However, not only did many of the earlier writers speak in that way, but Marcus Tullius also gave the word that meaning in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Gnaeus Plancius, saying: [*](§ 1.)

I were grieved, gentlemen of the jury, and keenly distressed, if this man's safety should be more endangered (infestior) for the very reason that he had protected my life and safety by his own kindliness, protection and watchfulness.

Infestus is derived from festinare,

for one who threatens anyone, and is in haste to attack him, and hurries eagerly to crush him; or on the other hand one whose peril and ruin are being hastened— both of these are called infestus from the urgent imminence of the injury which one is either about to inflict on someone, or to suffer.

Now, that no one may have to search for an example of suspiciosus, which I mentioned above, and of formidulosus in its less usual sense, Marcus Cato, On the properly of Florius, used suspiciosus as follows: [*](lvii. 1, Jordan.)

But except in the case of one who practised public prostitution, or had hired himself out to a procurer, even though he had been ill-famed and suspected suspiciousus, they decided that it was unlawful to use force against the person of a freeman.

suspected,

suspecting.

To such men consequently no labour was unfamiliar, no region too rough or too steep, no armed foeman to be dreaded (formidulosus).

Gaius Calvus also in his poems uses laboriosus, not in the ordinary sense of

one who toils,

1. The hard and toilsome (laboriosum) country he will
2. shun.

1. By Castor! sleepy (somniculosum) wine!

1. As Punic Psyllus doth [*](Some such word as handle is to be supplied.) the sleepy (somniculosam) asp. [*](The Psylli, according to Pliny, Nat. Hist. vii. 14, were an African people whose bodies contained a poison deadly to serpents, and gave out an odour which put snakes to flight; see also Nat. Hist. viii. 93; Dio Cassius, li. 14. Psyllus came to be a general term for snake-charmers and healers of snakebites, as in Suetonius, Aug. xvii. 4.)

Metus also and iniuria, and some other words of the kind. may be used in this double sense; for metus hostium,

fear of the enemy,

the fear of Pompey,

That war was aroused by the fear of the victorious Pompey, who was restoring Hiempsal to his kingdom.

After the fear of the Carthaginians had been dispelled and there was leisure to engage in dissensions.

injuries,

The following passage from Virgil affords a similar instance of this kind of double meaning; he says: [*](Aen. ii. 436.)

1. Slow from Ulysses' wound,

1. In unknown (nesciis) realms are we where hope
2. knows naught (nescia). [*](That is, not knowing what to expect )

With the natural desire of mankind to visit unknown (ignara) places.

1. Unknown (ignarum) the Laurentine shore doth Mimas hold.

A passage from the history of Claudius Quadrigarius, in which he pictured the combat of Manlius Torquatus, a young noble, with a hostile Gaul, who challenged the whole Roman army.

TITUS MANLIUS was a man of the highest birth and of exalted rank. This Manlius was given the surname Torquatus. The reason for the surname, we are told, was that he wore as a decoration a golden neck-chain, a trophy taken from an enemy whom he had slain. But who the enemy was, and what his nationality, how formidable his huge size, how insolent his challenge, and how the battle was fought all this Quintus Claudius has described in the first book of his Annals with words of the utmost purity and clearness, and with the simple and unaffected charm of the old-time style. When the philosopher Favorinus read this passage from that work, he used to say that his mind was stirred and affected by no less emotion and excitement than if he were himself an eye-witness of their contest.

I have added the words of Quintus Claudius in which that battle is pictured:

In the meantime a Gaul came forward, who was naked except for a shield and two swords and the ornament of a neck-chain and bracelets; in strength and size, in youthful vigour and in courage as well, he excelled all the rest. In the very height of the battle, when the two armies were fighting with the utmost ardour, he began to make signs with his hand to both sides, to cease fighting. The combat ceased. As soon as silence was secured, he called out in a mighty voice that if anyone wished to engage him in single combat,

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he should come forward. This no one dared do, because of his great size and savage aspect. Then the Gaul began to laugh at them and to stick out his tongue. This at once roused the great indignation of one Titus Manlius, a youth of the highest birth, that such an insult should be offered his country, and that no one from so great an army should accept the challenge. He, as I say, stepped forth, and would not suffer Roman valour to be shamefully tarnished by a Gaul. Armed with a foot-soldier's shield and a Spanish sword, he confronted the Gaul. Their meeting took place on the very bridge, in the presence of both armies, amid great apprehension. Thus they confronted each other, as I said before: the Gaul, according to his method of fighting, with shield advanced and awaiting an attack; Manlius, relying on courage rather than skill, struck shield against shield, and threw the Gaul off his balance. While the Gaul was trying to regain the same position, Manlius again struck shield against shield, and again forced the man to change his ground. In this fashion he slipped in under the Gaul's sword and stabbed him in the breast with his Spanish blade. Then at once with the same mode of attack he struck his adversary's right shoulder, and he did not give ground at all until he overthrew him, without giving the Gaul a chance to strike a blow. After he had overthrown him, he cut off his head, tore off his neck-chain, and put it, covered with blood as it was, around his own neck. Because of this act, he himself and his descendants had the surname Torquatus.

From this Titus Manlius, whose battle Quadrigarius described above, all harsh and cruel commands are

Manlian;

That Quadrigarius also, with correct Latinity, used facies as a genitive; and some other observations on the inflection of similar words.

THE expression that I quoted above from Quintus Claudius, [*](2 ix. 13. 11)

On account of his great size and savage aspect (facies),

I remember too having found both facies and facii written in the same manuscript of Claudius [*](Frag. 30, Peter2.) in the library at Tibur. But facies was written in the text and facii, with double i, in the margin opposite; nor did I regard that as inconsistent with a certain early usage; for from the nominative dies they used both dies and dii as the genitive, and from fames, both famis and fami.

Quintus Ennius, in the sixteenth book of his Annals, wrote dies for diei in the following verse: [*](Ann. 413, Vahlen 2; Vahlen reads postremo and omits quod.)

1. Caused by the distant time of the last day (dies).

But the knights shall pay the penalty for that day (dies).

1. When Libra [*](The constellation of the Balance.) shall make like the hours of day (dies) and sleep,

But just as in this place Virgil evidently wrote dies, so there is no doubt that he wrote dii for diei in the following line: [*](Aen. i. 636.)

1. As gifts for that day's (dii) merriment,

The women and children were driven out because of the famine (fami causa).

1. Wrinkled and full of hunger (fami).

That the Romans came for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii).

1. O sire supreme of our own race's (progenii) sire.

1. The army's (acii) other part the river's wave had shunned.

1. Or bides in death some semblance of a form (specii)
2. Of those who speak no more.

They say that those measures were taken because of luxury (luxurii casaa)

What is necessarily provided to sustain life is not luxury (luxuries),

We think that none of these things was produced by divine will for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii), but by the very force and greatness of Nature.

But in the dative case those who spoke the best Latin did not use the form faciei, which is now current, but facie. For example, Lucilius in his Satires: [*](1257, Marx, who fills out the second line with naturae dotibus aetas; tantis,w.)

1. Which first is joined to a fair face
2. And youth.

1. Who loves you, and who to your youth and charms (facie),
2. Plays courtier, promising to be your friend.

I have also found die in the genitive case in a manuscript of Sallust's Jugurtha of the utmost trustworthiness and of venerable age. These were the words: [*](Jug. xcvii. 3)

when scarcely a tenth part of the day (die) was left.

On the kind of debate which the Greeks call a)/poros.

WITH the rhetorician Antonius Julianus I had withdrawn to Naples during the season of the summer holidays, wishing to escape the heat of Rome. And there was there at the time a young man of the richer class studying with tutors in both languages, and trying to gain a command of Latin eloquence in order to plead at the bar in Rome; and he begged Julianus to hear one of his declamations. Julianus went to hear him and I went along with him. The young fellow entered the room, made some preliminary remarks in a more arrogant and presumptuous style than became his years, and then asked that subjects for debate be given him.

There was present there with us a pupil of Julianus, a man of ready speech and good ability, who was already offended that in the hearing of a man like Julianus the fellow should show such rashness and should dare to test himself in extempore speaking. Therefore, to try him, he proposed a topic for debate that was not logically constructed, of the kind which the Greeks call a)/poros, and in Latin might with some propriety be termed inexplicabile, that is,

unsolvable.

Seven judges are to hear the case of a defendant, and judgment is to be passed in accordance with the decision of a majority of their number. When the seven judges had heard the case, two decided that the defendant ought to be punished with exile; two, that he ought to be fined; the remaining three, that he should be put to death. The execution of the accused is demanded according to the decision of the three judges, but he appeals.

As soon as the young man had heard this, without any reflection and without waiting for other subjects to be proposed, he began at once with incredible speed to reel off all sorts of principles and apply then to that same question, pouring out floods of confused and meaningless words and a torrent of verbiage. All the other members of his company, who were in the habit of listening to him, showed their delight by loud applause, but Julianus blushed and sweat from shame and embarrassment. But when after many thousand lines of drivel the fellow at last came to an end and we went out, his friends and comrades followed Julianus and asked him for his opinion. Whereupon Julianus very wittily replied

Don't ask me what I think; without controversy [*](Sine controversia is of course used in a double sense: without question, and without an opponent (i.e., when there is no one to argue against him).) this young man is eloquent.

How Plinius Secundus, although not without learning, failed to observe and detect the fallacy in an argument of the kind that the Greeks call a)ntistre/fon.

PLINIUS SECUNDUS was considered the most learned man of his time. He left a work, entitled For Students of Oratory, which is by no manner of means to be lightly regarded. In that work he introduces much varied material that will delight the ears of the learned. He also quotes a number of arguments that he regards as cleverly and skilfully urged in the course of debates. For instance, he cites this argument from such a debate:

'A brave man shall be given the reward which he desires. A man who had done a brave deed asked for the wife of another in marriage, and received her. Then the man whose wife she had been did a brave deed. He demands the return of his wife, but is refused.' On the part of the second brave man, who demanded the return of his wife,

this elegant and plausible argument was presented: ' If the law is valid, return her to me; if it is not valid, return her.'

a convertible proposition.

If the law is valid, I do not return her; if it is not valid, I do not return her.

Whether one ought to say tertium consul or tertio; and how Gnaeus Pompeius, when he would inscribe his honours on the theatre which he was about to dedicate, by Cicero's advice evaded the difficulty as to the form of that word.

I SENT a letter from Athens to a friend of mine in Rome. In it I said that I had now written him for the third time (tertium). In his reply he asked me to give my reason for having written tertium and not tertio. He added that he hoped I would at the same time inform him what I thought about the question whether one should say tertium consul, meaning

consul for the third time,

In reply to these questions, to decide both matters about which he had written to me, I contented myself with quoting Marcus Varro, a more learned man in my opinion than Coelius and Claudius together. For Varro has made it quite plain what ought to be said, and I did not wish, when at a distance, to enter into a dispute with a man who had the name of being learned.

Marcus Varro's words, in the fifth book of his Disciplinae, are as follows: [*](p. 202, Bipont.)

It is one thing to be made praetor quarto, and another quartum; for quarto refers to order and indicates that three were elected before him; [*](That is, that he was fourth in order of election.) quartum refers to time and indicates that he had been made praetor three times before. Accordingly Ennius was right when he wrote: [*](Ann. 295, Vahlen2.)

1. Quintus, his sire, a fourth time (quartum) consul is,

and Pompeius was timid when, in order to avoid writing consul tertium or tertio on his theatre, he did not write the final letters.

What Varro briefly and somewhat obscurely hinted at concerning Pompey, Tullius Tiro, Cicero's freedman, wrote at greater length in one of his letters, substantially as follows: [*](p. 12, Lion.)

When Pompey was preparing to consecrate the temple of Victory, the steps of which formed his theatre, [*](Because of the sentiment against a permanent theatre at Rome, Pompey placed a temple of Venus Victrix at the top of his theatre, so that the seats of the auditorium formed an approach to it. It was built in 55 B.C.) and to inscribe upon it his name and honours, the question arose whether consul tertium should be written, or tertio. Pompey took great pains to refer this question to the most learned men of Rome, and when there was difference of opinion, some maintaining that tertio ought to be written, others tertium, Pompey asked Cicero,

to decide upon what seemed to him the more correct form.

He accordingly advised Pompey to write neither tertium nor tertio, but to inscribe the first

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four letters only, so that the meaning was shown without writing the whole word, but yet the doubt as to the form of the word was concealed.

But that of which Varro and Tiro spoke is not now written in that way on this same theatre. For when, many years later, the back wall of the stage had fallen and was restored, the number of the third consulship was indicated, not as before, by the first four letters, but merely by three incised lines. [*](That is, by the Roman numeral III.)

However, in the fourth book of Marcus Cato's Origines we find: [*](Fr. 84, Peter2.)

The Carthaginians broke the treaty for the sixth time (sextum).

What Aristotle has recorded about the number of children born at one time.

THE philosopher Aristotle has recorded [*](Cf. Hist. Anim. vii. 4, p. 584, 29.) that a woman in Egypt bore five children at one birth; this, he said, was the limit of human multiple parturition; more children than that had never been known to be born at one time, and even that number was very rare. But in the reign of the deified Augustus the historians of the time say that a maid servant of Caesar Augustus in the region of Laurentum brought forth five children, and that they lived for a few days; that their mother died not long after she had been delivered, whereupon a monument was erected to her by order of Augustus

A collection of famous passages from the speeches of Gaius Gracchus, Marcus Cicero and Marcus Cato, and a comparison of them.

GAIUS GRACCHUS is regarded as a powerful and vigorous speaker. No one disputes this. But how can one tolerate the opinion of some, that he was more impressive, more spirited and more fluent than Marcus Tullius? Indeed, I lately read the speech of Gaius Gracchus On the Promulgation of Laws, in which, with all the indignation of which he is master, he complains that Marcus Marius and other distinguished men of the Italian free-towns were unlawfully beaten with rods by magistrates of the Roman people.

His words on the subject are as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 236, Meyer3.)

The consul lately came to Teanum Sidicinum. His wife said that she wished to bathe in the men's baths. Marcus Marius, the quaestor of Sidicinum, was instructed to send away the bathers from the baths. The wife tells her husband that the baths were not given up to her soon enough and that they were not sufficiently clean. Therefore a stake was planted in the forum and Marcus Marius, the most illustrious man of his city, was led to it. His clothing was stripped off, he was whipped with rods. The people of Cales, when they heard of this, passed a decree that no one should think of using the public baths when a Roman magistrate was in town. At Ferentinum, for the

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same reason, our praetor ordered the quaestors to be arrested; one threw himself from the wall, the other was caught and beaten with rods.

In speaking of such an atrocious action, in so lamentable and distressing a manifestation of public injustice, has he said anything either fluent or brilliant, or in such a way as to arouse tears and pity; is there anything that shows an outpouring of indignation and solemn and impressive remonstrance? Brevity there is, to be sure, grace, and a simple purity of expression, such as we sometimes have in the more refined of the comedies.

Gracchus also in another place speaks as follows: [*](O.R.F., p. 236, Meyer.2)

I will give you a single example of the lawlessness of our young men, and of their entire lack of self-control. Within the last few years a young man who had not yet held a magisterial office was sent as an envoy from Asia. He was carried in a litter. A herdsman, one of the peasants of Venusia, met him, and not knowing whom they were bearing, asked in jest if they were carrying a corpse. Upon hearing this, the young man ordered that the litter be set down and that the peasant be beaten to death with the thongs by which it was fastened.

Now these words about so lawless and cruel an outrage do not differ in the least from those of ordinary conversation. But in Marcus Tullius, when in a similar case Roman citizens, innocent men, are beaten with rods contrary to justice and contrary to the laws, or tortured to death, what pity is then aroused! What complaints does he utter! How he brings the whole scene before our eyes! What a mighty surge of indignation and bitterness comes seething forth! By Heaven! when I read those

The man himself came into the forum, blazing with wickedness and frenzy. His eyes burned, every feature of his face displayed cruelty. All were waiting to see to what ends he would go, or what he would do, when on a sudden he gave orders that the man be dragged forth, that he be stripped in the middle of the forum and bound, and that rods be brought.

he ordered that he be stripped and bound, and rods brought

But Gracchus plays the part, not of one who complains or implores, but of a mere narrator:

A stake,

was planted in the forum, his clothing was stripped off, he was beaten with rods.

he was beaten,

a citizen of Rome was being beaten with rods in the middle of the forum at Messana, while in the meantime no groan, no sound was heard from that wretched man amid his torture and the resounding blows except these words, 'I am a Roman citizen.' By thus calling to mind his citizenship he hoped to avert all their stripes and free his body from torture.

O beloved name of liberty! O

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eminent justice of our country! O Porcian and Sempronian laws! O authority of the tribunes, earnestly desired and finally restored to the Roman commons! Pray, have all these blessings fallen to this estate, that a Roman citizen, in a province of the Roman people, in a town of our allies, should be bound and flogged in the forum by one who derived the emblems of his power from the favour of the Roman people? What! when fire and hot irons and other tortures were applied, although your victim's bitter lamentation and piteous outcries did not affect you, were you not moved by the tears and loud groans even of the Roman citizens who were then present?

These outrages Marcus Tullius bewailed bitterly and solemnly, in appropriate and eloquent terms. But if anyone has so rustic and so dull an ear that this brilliant and delightful speech and the harmonious arrangement of Cicero's words do not give him pleasure; if he prefers the earlier oration because it is unadorned, concise and unstudied, yet has a certain native charm, and because it has, so to say, a shade and colour of misty antiquity—let such a one, if he has any judgment at all, study the address in a similar case of Marcus Cato, a man of a still earlier time, to whose vigour and flow of language Gracchus could never hope to attain. He will realize, I think, that Cato was not content with the eloquence of his own time, but aspired to do even then what Cicero later accomplished. For in the speech which is entitled On Sham Battles he thus made complaint of Quintus Thermus: [*](ix, Jordan.)

He said that his provisions had not been satisfactorily attended to by the decemvirs. [*](The local magistrates.) He ordered them to be stripped and scourged. The

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Bruttiani [*](See § 18, below.) scourged the decemvirs, many men saw it done. Who could endure such an insult, such tyranny, such slavery? No king has ever dared to act thus; shall such outrages be inflicted upon good men, born of a good family, and of good intentions? Where is the protection of our allies? Where is the honour of our forefathers? To think that you have dared to inflict signal wrongs, blows, lashes, stripes, these pains and tortures, accompanied with disgrace and extreme ignominy, since their fellow citizens and many other men looked on! But amid how great grief, what groans, what tears, what lamentations have I heard that this was done! Even slaves bitterly resent injustice; what feeling do you think that such men, sprung from good families, endowed with high character, had and will have so long as they live?

When Cato said

the Bruttiani scourged them,

floggers

How Publius Nigidius with great cleverness showed that words are not arbitrary, but natural.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS in his Grammatical Notes shows that nouns and verbs were formed, not by a chance use, but by a certain power and design of nature, a subject very popular in the discussions of the philosophers; for they used to inquire whether words originate by

nature

When we say vos, or 'you,'

we make a movement of the mouth suitable to the meaning of the word; for we gradually protrude the tips of our lips and direct the impulse of the breath towards those with whom we are speaking. But on the other hand, when we say nos, or 'us,' we do not pronounce the word with a powerful forward impulse of the voice, nor with the lips protruded, but we restrain our breath and our lips, so to speak, within ourselves. The same thing happens in the words tu or 'thou,' ego or ' I,' tibi ' to thee,' and mihi 'to me.' For just as when we assent or dissent, a movement of the head or eyes corresponds with the nature of the expression, so too in the pronunciation of these words there is a kind of natural gesture made with the mouth and breath. The same principle that we have noted in our own speech applies also to Greek words.

Whether avarus is a simple word or, as it appears to Publius Nigidius, a compound, made up of two parts.

PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in the twenty-ninth book of his Commentaries,[*](Fr. 42, Swoboda.) declares that avarus is not a simple word, but is compounded of two parts:

For that man,

is called avarus, or 'covetous,' who is avidus aeris, or 'eager for money;' but in the compound the letter e is lost.

rich,

many possessions.

But his statement about locuples is the stronger and more probable. As to avarus there is doubt; for why may it not seem to be derived from one single word, namely aveo, [*](This is, of course, the accepted etymology. The derivation of amarus is uncertain; it is perhaps connected with Greek w)mo/s, raw (cf. crudus and crudelis). Sanscrit âma-s.) and formed in the same way as amarus, about which there is general agreement that it is not a compound?

That a fine was imposed by the plebeian aediles on the daughter of Appius Caecus, a woman of rank, because she spoke too arrogantly.

PUBLIC punishment was formerly inflicted, not only upon crimes, but even upon arrogant language; so necessary did men think it to maintain the dignity of Roman conduct inviolable. For the daughter of the celebrated Appius Caecus, when leaving the plays of

What, pray, would have become of me, and how much more should I have been crowded and pressed upon, had not my brother Publius Claudius lost his fleet in the sea-fight and with it a vast number of citizens? [*](In 249 B.C. He was warned not to fight by the refusal of the sacred chickens to eat; but he threw them overboard, saying that they might drink, since they would not eat. See Suet. Tib. ii. 2.) Surely I should have lost my life, overwhelmed by a still greater mass of people. How I wish,

that my brother might come to life again, take another fleet to Sicily, and destroy that crowd which has just knocked poor me about.

Marcus Varro, I remember, writes that of the rivers which flow outside [*](This was true in Varro's time.) the limits of the Roman empire the Nile is first in size, the Danube second, and next the Rhone.

OF all the rivers which flow into the seas included within the Roman empire, which the Greeks call

the inner sea,

That among the ignominious punishments which were inflicted upon soldiers was the letting of blood; and what seems to be the reason for such a penalty.

THIS also was a military punishment in old times, to disgrace a soldier by ordering a vein to be opened, and letting blood. There is no reason assigned for this in the old records, so far as I could find; but I infer that it was first done to soldiers whose minds were affected and who were not in a normal condition, so that it appears to have been not so much a punishment as a medical treatment. But afterwards I suppose that the same penalty was customarily inflicted for many other offences, on the ground that all who sinned were not of sound mind. [*](Muretus, Var. Lect. xiii, p. 199, thought it was in order that they night lose with ignominy the blood which they had been unwilling to shed for their country.)

In what way and in what form the Roman army is commonly drawn up, and the names of the formations.

THERE are military terms which are applied to an army drawn up in a certain manner:

the front,

reserves,

wedge,

ring,

mass,

shears,

saw,

wings,

towers.

The reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans wore a ring on the next to the little finger of the left hand.

I HAVE heard that the ancient Greeks wore a ring on the finger of the left hand which is next to the little finger. They say, too, that the Roman men commonly wore their rings in that way. Apion in his Egyptian History says [*](F.H.G. iii. 511.) that the reason for this practice is, that upon cutting into and opening human bodies, a custom in Egypt which the Greeks call a)natomai/, or

dissection,

The derivation and meaning of the word mature, and that it is generally used improperly; and also that the genitive of praecox is praecocis and not praecoquis.

MATURE in present usage signifies

hastily

quickly,

Mature means neither 'too soon' nor 'too late,' but something between the two and intermediate.

Publius Nigidius has spoken well and properly. For of grain and fruits those are called matura, or

mature,

untimely.

That limitation of the word, and of the action itself, which was made by Nigidius was very elegantly expressed by the deified Augustus with two Greek words; for we are told that he used to say in conversation, and write in his letters, speu=de brade/ws, that is,

make haste slowly,

1. Whenever winter's rains the hind confine,
2. Much is there that at leisure may be done (maturare),
3. Which in fair weather he must hurry on (properanda).

But when we wish to indicate that anything has been done under too great pressure and too hurriedly, then it is more properly said to have been done praemature, or

prematurely,

1. With madness premature (praemature) you seek a hasty power.