Isidore Etymologiae Vol. II. Books XI-XX.

Professor Lindsay [Class. Rev. XLII. , p. 20] has drawn attention to a Celtic paralle to Aquilo, the Black Wind . A less remote parallel was found by Salmasius [Plin. Exerc. in Solinum , p. 1258D] in the gloss melatnboros uulturnus, on which he makes the following comment: ‘Glossae nostrae nondum editae: ‘ Septenirio, ΚЄρκίίας, Circius, Χωρupbs, Chaurus. Eaedem Glossae Volturnum Graece exponunt. An Volturnum quasi Volturinum idest nigrum dictum earum putauit auctor? Sed haec expositio conuenit Aquiloni, qui est (...) μέλαςβορέαςƋς, unde et Aquilo id est aquilus uentus, casco uocabulo niger. ’He adds that the wind Volturnus was really so called because it blew towards Rome from Volturnum. (shrink)

Since Teuffel's Römische Literatur mentions s.v. Varius the famous entry in the Monte Cassino MS. incipit thvestes varii, but ignores its occurrence in a Benevento MS. , it may be well to give some account of the latter codex. For I read with amusement a recent article in this journal in which the writer severely censured Mr. Garrod's ignorance of the entry in Paris 7530, but revealed his own ignorance by assuming that it was the scribe of the Paris MS. (...) who had the lost tragedy of Varius before him. (shrink)

The line is preserved in a passage of Consentius ‘De Barbarismis et Metaplasmis’ : sicut Lucilius ‘ore corupto’; dempsit enim unam litteram per metaplasmum, r; et Ennius ‘huic statuam,’ etc.

Charisivs, in his chapter on Adverbs, cites for Hispane a line of Ennius' Annals : Hispane, non Romane memoretis loqui me. Professor Norden , the apostle of Combinations-forschung, combines this fact with another fact mentioned by Livy , the celebre per Hispaniam responsum of a Spanish town to a Roman embassy. But why does he ignore a third fact which must be brought into any combination that can be convincing—the quotation of this line of Ennius by Festus in a paragraph (...) which apparently deals with Graeco-Roman affinities ? (shrink)

Caper in his section on the preposition ex cited Ennius, Ann. 309:nauibus explebant sese terrasque replebant,and declared that Virgil used the verb with this antique sense in Aen. 6, 545:discedam; explebo numerum reddarque tenebris,i.e. ‘minuam vestrum numerum.’This we are told in Servius' note, which begins: Ut diximus supra, explebo est minuam. Thilo gives no reference to any such previous words of Servius, and I have failed to find them. Can it be that Servius has carelessly transcribed a note of Donatus, (...) and that Donatus had discussed ex minuens at Geo. 2, 65, or 4, 145? Donatus' note on Terence, Hec. 755, is Explere exinanire Terentianum est; the passage of Terence is:eas ad mulieres huc intro atque istuc iusiurandum idempolliceare illis: exple animum îs teque hoc crimine expedi,i.e., relieve their mind of suspicion against Pamphilus and free yourself from this charge. The phrase recurs in the next Scene :illis modo explete animum.i atque exple animum îs, coge ut credant. (shrink)

The Oxford Classical Texts, or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, are renowned for their reliability and presentation. The series consists of a text without commentary but with a brief apparatus criticus at the front of each page. There are now over 100 volumes, representing the greater part of classical Greek and Latin literature. The aim of the series remains that of including the works of all the principal classical authors. Although this has been largely accomplished, new volumes are still being published (...) to fill the remaining gaps, and old editions are being revised in the light of recent research or replaced. (shrink)

The Placidus Glossary was hailed in Ritschl's time as a new clue to Plautus' true text. And Buecheler, Ritschl's pupil, seized on its Alapari est alapas minari, etc., and foisted this verb on Plaut. True. 928. The great Latin Thesaurus quotes the line with this piece of new cloth put on an old garment: nil alapari satiust, miles, instead of the correct philippiari satiust, miles.

Cicero defines gloria as frequens de aliquo fama cum laude, ‘much talk about a person to his praise.’ When the talk is by the person himself, the word takes the signification ‘boast’.

How any editor of Plautus can become one of the slash-cut-and-carve critics I cannot understand. The fair garden-beds of Plautus are scored all over with the hoof-prints of the reckless emender. Take this line of the Poenulus for example. Hanno gets a sight of his two long-lost daughters and is surprised to find how they have grown:Haecine meae sunt filiae?Quantae e quantillis iam sunt factae!His would-be son-in-law, not a very refined youth, says with a smile:Scin quid est?Thraecae sunt: in celonem (...) sustolli solent. (shrink)

Professor Postgate speaks of ‘the regrettable silence of the principal editors of Plautus upon the subject.’ As a minor editor, I beg to defend my colleagues by pointing out that the scansions dĭŭtíus and dyūtius are subject of a note in Dziatzko's and Hauler's editions of the Phormio of Terence and in the Plautus Report in Bursian of 1879 . Also that a reference to the index of my larger edition of the Captiui will show that the word is discussed (...) in my section on Prosody : ‘The same doubt exists regarding the scansion of diutius , the by-form of the fuller form dĭūtĭŭs .’. (shrink)

May I call the attention of English scholars to a remark by Professor Heinze in his review of Professor Frank's Virgil, a Biography, viz. that the Culex was a favourite present for schoolboys in Martial's time ? How all the difficulties vanish if we regard it as Virgil's first publication, a mere tale for a schoolboy, written to help young Octavian in the Greek Mythology class-work! A peg on which to hang this memoria technica had been, we may suppose, supplied (...) to Virgil by a recent incident in Octavian's neighbourhood, the wonderful escape of a goatherd from a serpent. (shrink)

Lvcilivs 11191 is preserved for us in Isid. Etym. XIX, iv, 10, where, amongst the articles of a ship's equipment, the plummet of Herodotus is mentioned, with this illustration from Lucilius:Hunc catapiratem puer eodem deforet unctum,plumbi paucillum rudus linique mataxam.

The abbreviation-symbols of the Romans, found in ancient uncial MSS., may be roughly divided into three classes: Those peculiar to juristic writing, e.g. R.P. ‘res priuata’ , Q.D.R.A. ‘qua de re agitur.’ They are properly called ‘notae iuris.’ They abound in the famous Verona MS. of Gaius. A few used in histories, etc., e.g. R.P. 'respublica' , Q. ‘Quintus’ . Valerius Probus, who compiled a manual of ancient Notae, calls this class ‘notae publicae’. They appear in such MSS. as the (...) codex Puteanus of Livy ; and since they have been transferred into modern editions of the Latin historians, etc., no one is at a loss to interpret them nowadays, although they puzzled mediaeval scribes. Symbols of ordinary words of frequent occurrence in any type of literature, e.g. Q. ‘que.’ It is this class which is the subject of this article. (shrink)