Key to Reading Unit 26

1. That saying of those who affirm that they do not object that a conflagration of the whole earth should follow after they themselves die is considered uncivilised and criminal. (Cicero, de Finibus, III, 64,)
   
   
2. I am afraid that I am coming late, after the battle has been fought. (Plautus, Menaechmi, 989)
   
   
3. A person whom many fear must fear many.
   
   
4. A word when dispatched does not know how to come back. (Horace, Ars Poetica, 390)
   
   
5. No-one forbids a person (lit. anyone) to go by a public way.
   
   
6. Necessity knows nothing else than to conquer.
   
   
7. Nothing given to a man by the gods (divinitus) is so successful that there is not some difficulty combined with it (lit. nothing anything (i.e. nothing at all) has been given . . . so successful). (Apuleius, Florida, 18, 30)
   
   
8. Truth fears nothing except to be hidden.
   
   
9. May the earth cover your tomb with thorns, you procuress, and may your shade feel thirst, something you do not want (procuresses were by tradition supposed to be fond of wine; the quod clause is in apposition to the rest of the second line). (Propertius, IV, 5, 1f.)
   
   
10. You will never make crabs walk straight (lit. bring it about that . . .).
    
    
11. They believe that if they expel us nothing will prevent them from putting all Italy (Hesperia) completely under their yoke (nihil abest quin nothing is absent but that, i.e. nothing prevents [something from happening]). (Vergil, Aeneid, VIII, 147f.)
    
    
12. Further, fierce Juno, who now wearies sea and lands and sky with terror, will change her plans for the better and with me will cherish the Romans, the masters of the world and the togaed race (see note on 10.2.14). (Vergil, Aeneid, I, 279-282)
    
    
13. An hour often gives back (lit. is accustomed to return) what many years have taken away.
    
    
14. I do not know what you write, Faustus, to so many girls; I know this, [viz the fact] that no girl writes to you. (Martial, XI, 64)
    
    
15. Add [the fact] that to have properly learnt liberal arts refines character and does not allow it to be wild. (Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, II, 9, 47f.)
    
    
16. Therefore this indeed is not doubtful, [viz] that all things that are considered misfortunes are more serious [when] unforeseen. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, III, 30, 6)
    
    

17. Milo of Croton, the famous athlete, whom the year-books record (lit. whom it is written in the year-books to have . . .) to have first been crowned in the sixty-second Olympiad (532BC), had a terrible and remarkable departure from life. When, already old, he had given up athletics and was by chance making a journey by himself in wooded parts of Italy, he saw near the road an oak-tree with broad and open cracks in its middle trunk (lit. gaping with broad cracks in its middle part). Next (tum), wishing even then (tunc) to make trial as to whether (an 23.1/3 note 3) he had any strength remaining, he put his fingers into the gap of the tree and tried to pull the oak-tree apart and split it; and indeed he did split and pull apart the middle section. However, when he loosened his grip (lit. hands) as though what he had striven [to do] was finished, the oak-tree, after being divided into two parts, returned to its natural position (lit. [its] nature) as the pressure (lit. violence) [on it] ceased; and it kept Milo's hands enclosed (lit. the hands of that man having been kept and enclosed) and, coming together tightly again (lit. again drawn tight and stuck together), gave the man to wild beasts to tear apart. (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, XV, 16 adapted)

18. When Hannibal, after having been banished from Carthage, had come as an exile to [King] Antiochus at Ephesus (lit. to Ephesus to Antiochus) and, because (lit. because of this, [viz] that . . .) his name enjoyed great fame everywhere (lit. was with great fame with all), he had been invited by his hosts to hear the Peripatetic [philosopher] Phormio if he wished; and when he had said that he was not unwilling, the eloquent man is said to have spoken for several hours about the duty of a commander and about military practice. Then, when the others who had heard him had been particularly delighted, they asked Hannibal what he himself thought about that philosopher. At this point (hīc not hic) the Carthaginian is said to have replied, not in very good Greek but nevertheless with freedom, that he had often seen many crazy old men, but he had seen no-one who was crazier than Phormio. Nor indeed [did he reply] unjustly. For what could have been (lit. was able to be done) either more presumptuous or more prolix than for a Greek who had never seen an enemy or a camp, never, in short, been engaged in the smallest part of any public office, to lay down (lit. give) rules on military practice to Hannibal, who over so many years had contended for dominion with the Roman people, the conquerors of the entire earth (lit. the victor of all peoples)? (Cicero, de Oratore, II, 75)

19. The Gauls declare that they are all descended from Father Dis and they say that this has been handed down by the druids. For this reason they reckon lengths of any [period of] time not by the number of days but [by the number] of nights; birthdays and the beginnings of months and years they note in such a way that day follows night (i.e. a Gaul had a birthnight, not a birthday etc.; as the Gauls supposed that they were descended from Dis, the king of the Underworld, where there was perpetual night, they considered that night should take precedence over day. The Germans used a similar system, and hence our 'fortnight'). In the other practices of life they differ from pretty much the rest of mankind (lit. the others) in this, [viz] that they do not allow their sons to approach them openly except when they have grown [sufficiently] to be able to support the duty of military service, and they consider it disgraceful that a son when still a boy (lit. at boyish age) should be present in public in his father's sight. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, VI, 18)

20. But Father Anchises was reviewing the souls who were hidden away (penitus inclusas) in a green valley and were destined to go (lit. going to go) to the upper light. And when, opposite [him], he saw Aeneas walking through the grass, he stretched out his two eager palms, and tears flowed from his eyes (a rare meaning of gena, which normally means cheek) and words (lit. voice) fell from his mouth, 'Have you come at last and has the piety which your father looked for (lit. expected by your father; parenti is dative of agent 28.1/1c) overcome the hard journey? Is it granted to look at your face, my son, and hear and return familiar voices? Thus indeed I considered in my mind and thought it would happen as I counted the time, and my concern has not deceived me. I [now] receive you after being carried over what lands and what huge seas! (per is to be taken with terras and aequora; quas and quanta here introduce exclamations what lands . . . how great seas . . .!; cf. 30.1/1 note 1(iii)) [And] tossed, my son, by what great dangers! How I feared that the kingdom of Libya might bring you some harm!' (lit. harm you in some way; a none too subtle reference to Aeneas's dalliance with Dido. On quam see 30.1/1 note 4(iii)) (Vergil, Aeneid, VI, 679-681, 684-694)

(c) Gavin Betts 2000