Key to Extra Reading: Units 16 - 20

1. Nothing is easier than talking (dictu here is functioning as a normal noun, not as a supine)
   
   
2. Like mix with like very easily.
   
   
3. For sailors there is no greater pleasure than when at a distance they see land from the deep [sea].
   
   
4. A law should be brief.
   
   
5. Hidden hostilities are more to be feared that open ones.
   
   
6. How much more endurable is it to perish by another's sword than by our own!
   
   
7. Nothing dries more quickly than a tear.
   
   
8. When Fortune's wheel has turned, any fortunate person can be most wretched before evening.
   
   
9. Nothing is truer than the truth.
   
   
10. Nothing is more dangerous to a man than a woman, and to a woman than a man.
    
    
11. For wise men the knowledge itself of noteworthy deeds is the greatest reward of virtue.
    
    
12. Nothing is more useful than salt and sun.
    
    
13. The quarrels of brothers between themselves are the most bitter [of quarrels].
    
    
14. A stutterer understands a stutterer better [than anyone else].
    
    
15. Eyes should be trusted more than ears (lit. faith should be placed more in eyes . . .)
    
    
16. It is not allowed to make a mistake twice in war (i.e. because the first time is fatal).
    
    
17. [You are explaining] the unknown by [something] more unknown.
    
    
18. At Sparta boys are received at the altar with lashes in such a way that much blood flows from their bodies (lit. innards), sometimes even to the point of killing them (lit. to death), as I heard when I was there. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, II, 34)
    
    

19. After living many years in Rome where, according to the normal practice for clientes, he was obliged to rise in the early morning and go around the houses of wealthy patroni for charity, Martial has returned to his native Bilbilis in Spain, which was famous for its gold and iron mines. The Juvenal to whom the poem is addressed is almost certainly the poet (31.3).

    While you, Juvenal, are perhaps anxiously wandering in noisy Subura or are treading the hill of Lady Diana (the Aventine), while a sweaty toga fans you over the thresholds of the great (lit. more powerful [people]), and the Greater and Lesser Caelian (the two peaks of the Mons Caelius) weary you as you roam (vagum), after many Decembers my Bilbilis, proud in its gold and iron, to which I have returned (lit. having been sought back), has received me and made me a rustic. Here sluggishly in pleasant toil I visit Boterdus and Platea - these are the somewhat uncouth names in Celtiberian lands. I enjoy an enormous and shameless [amount of] sleep which often not even the third hour (see note on 29.2.9) breaks and I now pay back to myself all the time I had remained awake over thrice ten years. The toga is unknown [here] but the nearest garment from a broken chair is given when I ask (lit. to [me] asking; the toga, which was awkward to wear and difficult to keep clean, was the source of much trouble for clientes, who were obliged to wear it on their morning visits). A fireplace, maintained with a proud pile from the neighbouring grove of holm-oaks, receives me as I rise; the bailiff's wife crowns it (i.e. the fireplace; lit. which the bailiff's wife . . .) with many a pot. Thus [it pleases] me to live, thus it pleases [me] to die. (Martial, XII, 18, 1-21, 25-26)

20. Greedy time feeds on everything, plucks everything, moves everything from its place, [and] allows nothing to last (lit. be) for long. Rivers fail, shores dry the retreating sea, mountains sink, and lofty peaks fall. Why do I speak of things so small? The very beautiful and massive structure (lit very beautiful massive structure; moles means massive structure) of the heavens will all suddenly burn with its own flames. Death asks for everything. To die is a law, not a punishment; at some time this universe will be nothing. (Seneca in Baehrens, Poetae Latini Minores, IV, p.55.)

(c) Gavin Betts 2000