Kirtland, J. C.

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 351final letters of incidit, the usage becomesnormal. After id or other pronoun, adeo isoften little more than an emphasising par-ticle. Id would refer back to quod ohscelus.VIII. 17 § 2: uosinuitos uincere coegero.arrant anum me Catonem.The last words have been variouslyemended, always (so far as I have seen) insuch a way as to depart considerably from theletters in the MSS. I would add one letterand alter another and propose narrant anusme Catonem ' the old ladies babble of me asa very Cato.' The flippancy of the remarksuits well the character of the writer, andan assertion that he is regarded as a secondCato suits well the context. I was led tothis suggestion by a passage in Att. XVI. 1§ 6 where the scapegrace young QuintusCicero announces himself to his uncle as areformed character and ' pollicetur se Cato-nem,' ' undertakes to be a very Cato.' InXV. 29 § 2 the uncle appears to comparethe youth to Favonius, ' Cato's ape,' but thewords are obscure. Cato figures as a stand-ard of uprightness in XVI. 7 § 4 : ergo iderat ineum factum quod Catoni probare nonpossem 1 flagiti scilicet plenum et dedecoris:utinam a primo ita tibi esset uisum 1 tu mihi,sicut esse soles, fuisses Cato.XIII. 69 § 1 : haec ad te eo pluribusscripsi ut intellegeres me non uulgare neeambitiose, sed ut pro homine intimo ac mihipernecessario scribere.The corrections of this passage aim atgetting rid of uulgare, by reading uolgarimore or the like, but leave ambitiose scribereuntouched. The phrase is really meaningless.How can ambitiose scribere apply to a letter ofintroduction 1 I would read, by the slightestof changes, uolgari rue ambitioso. Thesewords form a contrast with intimo ac per-necessario. The idiom scribere alicui withthe sense ' to write with reference to someone' is pretty common. To the instances Ihave quoted in a note on Cic. Academ. I. § 8may be added Ad Qu. Fratrem III . 1 § 11;De Orat. II. § 341; Sen. Suas. II. § 19;Plin. N.H. XVIII. § 24 ; Avian. Fab. I. 16 ;Ovid. Trist. II . 245 and 303; Pont. III . 351;Martial Pref. to I. Similar datives are foundwith other verbs which might take a dativeof a different kind ; so Cic. Sest. § 32 ceterissupplicare. The dative bono is of the samesort in Sest. § 110 cui umquam bene dixitbono? [This is the only passage in Cic.where bene dicere occurs]. Ovid. Trist. V.7, 27 ;nil equidem- feci—tu scis hoc ipse—-theatris, seems correct though the readinghas been disputed; see Mr. Owen's note inhis Appendix. For uolgaris applied to aperson cf. Ad Qu. Fratrem. II . 11 § 4 Callis-thenes uolgare negotium. I do not under-stand the suggestion of C. F. W. Miiller, toread uolgarie.XV. 2 § 6: amicos in patris eius atqueaui iudicio probatos. The in has beengenerally struck out; but it may be rightif Cicero was thinking of some very formalexpression of opinion. For parallels to probariin see my note on Cic. Academ. IL § 75.XVt. 23 § 1 : Antonius de lege quidegerit—liceat modo rusticari. Lehmann inhis work on "the letters to Atticus, brilliantlyproposes 'quod egerit,' an elliptical prover-bial phrase 'anything he pleases' (i.e. I willput up with) and establishes the idiom byparallels. Mendelssohn commends the con-jecture, though he does not print it in histext; it is printed by C. F. W. Miiller andby Messrs. Tyrrell and Purser. But thenext words, liceat modo rusticari, incline meto think that quid is an error for quidlibet.The sentence seems to have been of the sametype as Phil. II. § 84 quidlibet, modo nenauseet, faciat; Acad. II. § 132 quern libet,modo aliquem; pro Quinct. § 97; Tusc. 4,45 and 55; Att. XVI. 2 § 3 ; Ovid. Pont. I.1, 44. Cf. also Mart. IX. 46 (of a man with amania for building): nunc has, mine illas re-ficit mutatque fenestras. | Dum tantum aedi-ficet, quidlibet ille facit; oranti nummos utetc. So I have no doubt the passage shouldbe punctuated; Friedlander puts a commaat fenestras, a full stop at aedificet, and acomma again at facit. So in Ad Att. XV.20 § 1 : Dolabellae mandata sint quaelibet^mihi aliquid, the word mild seems to bei oan error for modo, the contractions m and mhaving been confused.J. S. REID.OR A TOR = PETITIONER, SUPPLIANT.THE lexicographers are probably wrong inlimiting this meaning of orator to Plautusand ecclesiastical Latin (Lewis and Shortgive it only as Plautine). In Ter. Hec. 9,Orator ad vos venio ornatu prologi, moderneditors have followed Donatus in takingorator = ambassador; but the idea of petitionis clearly predominant, as is shown by theavailable at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X00039342Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 10 Jul 2017 at 16:45:20, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,352 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.following Sinite exorator sim. Cf. Prol.Amph. 34, Nam iusta ab iustis iustus sumorator datus, and passim, where again theProhgus (Mercury) has a request to make ofthe audience. In the only other instance ofthe use of the word by Terence, ffeaut. 11,Oratorem esse voluit me,' non prologum, thesame signification is probable ; cf. 26 infra,qua re omnis vos oratos volo. The closeconnection in this passage with actorem(12) and orationem (15) makes it possible tounderstand orator here in a slightly difEerentsense—not ' ambassador,' however, but' advocate/Festus thus understood ffec.9 and Afranius92, and explained the use as pro deprecato-ribus; cf. with this explanation Cic. Imp.Pomp. 12, 35, legatos deprecatoresque misis-sent. Even in the use of the word of anembassy, it is to be noted that it is used notso much with reference to the spokesman orthe fact that the message is oral, as becausethe ambassador is a petitioner. This is noless true that his petition is in behalf ofanother. Accordingly, we find regularlymention of the thing for which he is to treat.Cf. Enn. Ann. 211, orator sine pace redit;Liv. 1, 15, 5, Veientes pacem petitum oratoresRomam mittunt; Verg. Aen. 11,100, lamqueoratores aderant... veniamque rogantes ; Plaut.Poen. 357, the command exora and the retortsed vide sis, ne tu oratorem hunc pugnispectaspostea; Stick. 494-5, Haut aequomst te interoratores accipi, of the ambassadors, and theretort Equidem hercle orator sum, sed proceditparum, of the parasite begging for a dinner.An overwhelming number of like passagesmight be cited to prove that orator wascommonly used of the ambassador as peti-tioner or intercessor, even in the face of thetestimony of Servius (Verg. Aen. 11, 100),of Festus (p. 198 Miill., Orare antiquosdixisse pro agere testimonio est, quod oratoresdicti et causarum actores et qui reipublicaemandatas causas agebant), and even of Varro(L.L. 6, 13, quia verba faoit apud eum adquern kgatur). *J. C. KlBTLAND, JUNB.Bobcat College, Geneva, N. Y.NOTE ON TER. AD. 223-4.THE MS. reading quasi iam usquam tibisint viginti minae, Dum huic obsequare hasbeen generally suspected and variouslyamended. The majority of editors, acceptingthe explanation of Donatns (Quasi numeroin aliquo ducas et in aliqua aestimatione con-stituas: et non, si velis, penitus contemnasviginti minus, dum modo huic obsequaris),have seen in the supposed abnormal use ofusquam the only objection to this under-standing of the passage. The only parallelthat has been cited for this use is found inJSun. 293, Neque virgost usquam neque ego,but here .the local force with which the wordis first introduced is the warrant, as it affordsthe opportunity for the turn. Negativeadverbs of place, however, and equivalentadverbial expressions are not uncommon iathis signification, e.g. nullo loco, ov8a.fi.ov.There may well be, then, two ways ofthinking with regard to the objection urgedon the score of usage against the traditionalinterpretation of this passage, but as to thestrength of the position taken by Dziatzkoagainst the logical inconsequence of thatinterpretation there can be no question.Sannio is to be made to feel that he is ingreat danger of suffering a total loss; thereis no longer any thought of reassuring him,and with age novi tuom animum the work ofintimidating him begins, quasi...obsequareis plainly a threat, and another is conveyedby implication in praeterea.. .Cyprum. I t isstrange that with this definite notion of themeaning to be conveyed and with but thesingle word obsequare not making for thatmeaning, Dziatzko should have been unableto hit upon a satisfactory emendation.Is not the passage as it stands capable ofinterpretation as he would have it inter-preted? The effect sought for may beobtained as well by making dum...obsequarerefer to the future as by substituting a wordthat will represent the actual present stateof affairs. In other words, we have a clausedenoting time 'contemporaneous in limit,'and not a proviso, as we have supposed it onthe authority of Donatus; and the subjunc-tive is anticipatory or due to subordinationto sint.Syrus has taken upon himself the task ofpersuading Sannio that he will do well toaccept what the girl cost him, and he accom-plishes his purpose by threatening the procurerwith the loss even of this, and by lettinghim see that his intended departure foravailable at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X00039342Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 10 Jul 2017 at 16:45:20, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use,

Orator: Petitioner, Suppliant

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