Key to Reading Unit 29

1. While fools avoid vices they run into their opposites (i.e the opposite vices). (Horace, Satires, I, 2, 24)
   
   

2. Round about, many bodies of oxen are sacrificed to Death, and they slaughter over the flame bristly pigs and flocks carried off from every field; then over the whole shore they watch their comrades burn (lit. burning comrades - the soldiers recently killed in battle are being cremated) and they keep guard over the half-burnt ashes. nor can they be torn away until the moist night inverts the sky, fitted with blazing stars (it was thought that the evening sky and stars turned around a stationary earth once in an evening). (Vergil, Aeneid, XI, 197-202)

3. While men teach they learn. (Seneca, ad Lucilium, 7, 8)
   
   
4. There will be vices while there are men. (Tacitus, Histories, IV, 74, 2)
   
   

5. For why do you hasten to remove things that are hurting your eyes [but] if anything is eating your mind, you put off the time for attending [to it] for a year? He who has begun has half the deed. Dare to be wise, begin! He who puts off the hour for correct living (lit. living correctly) is like the peasant who waits for a river to flow away (lit. [like] a peasant, waits . . . ; a condensed comparison - the subject of expectat is the antecedent of qui, i.e. [he], and rusticus is in apposition to this subject); but it flows and will flow onward (volubilis lit. flowing onwards) forever. (Horace, Epistulae, I, 2, 37-43)

6. What anyone sees often, he does not wonder at, even if he does not know why it happens. (Cicero, de Divinatione, II, 49, 18)
   
   
7. Wait until [a person] whom you see as a private citizen ruling with strength and boldness becomes consul or dictator. (Livy, III, 11, 13)
   
   
8. The Romans, although they were tired from the journey and battle, nevertheless, drawn up [in battle order] and alert, went to meet Metellus. (Sallust, Jugurtha, 53, 5 adapted)
   
   
9. Even if death were to be sought, I would prefer [to do this] at home and in my country [rather] than in foreign and unfamiliar places. (Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, IV, 7, 4)
   
   

10. About Antonius, I have already written to you previously that I did not meet him (lit. he was not met by me); for he came to Misenum when I was on my estate at Pompeii (lit. in my Pompeian [estate]); he set out from there before I learnt that he had come. (Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, XV, 1, 2)

11. Milo was in the senate on that day until the senate was dismissed. (Cicero, pro Milone, 28, 1 adapted)
    
    

12. However, the grief of a person consuming himself with sorrow because he is not allowed to order free men is shameless. Indeed, Dionysius, the tyrant, when driven out of Syracuse taught boys at Corinth; to such an extent (usque eo lit. right up to that point) was he unable to do without authority. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, III, 26f.

13. Many neglect everything right and honourable provided they attain power. (Cicero, de Officiis, III, 82, 8 adapted)
    
    

14. Our ancestors well named the reclining of friends at a banquet (lit. the banquet-reclining of friends) a convivium on the grounds that it involved a joining of lives (lit. life, but English requires the plural; convivium is compound of con- and vivo). (Cicero, de Senectute, 45, 9)

15. You know how I was unable to set out for Gaul while I was waiting for an escort from the city. (Sallust, Catiline, 58, 4 adapted)
    
    
16. The Petelini were not overcome before their strength for standing on the walls and bearing arms failed. (Livy, XXIII, 30, 4 adapted)
    
    
17. In this way every work was completed before Afranius could learn (lit. it might be learnt by Afranius) that the camp was being fortified. (Caesar, de Bello Civili, I, 41, 5)
    
    
18. That which is disgraceful can in no way be made honourable, although it is hidden. (Cicero, de Officiis, III, 87)
    
    
19. Although they all roar, I shall say what I feel. (Cicero, de Oratore, I, 195)
    
    

20. Have you regrets on the grounds that I moved the army safely? On the grounds that on arriving I scattered the enemy's fleet with my first attack? On the grounds that I was victorious in cavalry fighting twice within two days? (Caesar, de Bello Civili, II, 32, 12 adapted)

21. Lay the charge against Plato that he asked for money, against Aristotle that he accepted it, against Democritus that he neglected it, [and] against Epicurus that he spent it (the quod clauses are followed by the subjunctive because they express allegations which may not turn out to be true). (Seneca, Dialogi, VII, 27, 5)

22. You recite nothing and you wish, Mamercus, to appear a poet. Be whatever you want, provided you do not recite. (Martial, II, 88)
    
    

23. Why, biting Malice, do you charge me with lazy years and call poetry the work of a slothful intellect, and [say] that, while the vigorous time of life sustains [me], I do not, according to the custom of our fathers, follow the dusty rewards of military life and that I do not learn off wordy laws and that I have not prostituted my voice in the ungrateful forum? What you seek is a mortal work. I seek immortal fame (lit. immortal fame is sought by me; mihi dative of agent, 28.1/1c) so that I may be sung forever in the whole world (i.e. that my poems are read . . .). Maeonides (Homer) will live while Tenedos and Ida stand, while Simois rolls its swift waters into the sea. The poems of sublime Lucretius are going to perish at the time (tunc) when one [single] day will give the earth to destruction. Tityrus and crops and the Aenean arms (i.e. the three poems of Vergil, 8.2) will be read while Rome is the head of the world it has conquered (lit. triumphed over). While there are passions and bows, [which are] the arms of Cupid, your verses, elegant Tibullus, will be learnt. So, although flints, although the tooth of the patient plough are destroyed with age, poetry (lit. poems) has no death. To poetry let kings and the triumphs of kings yield, and let the fortunate bank of the gold-bearing Tagus yield (et is postponed; see note on 29.2.16). Let the mob marvel at cheap things; let golden Apollo give me cups full of Castalian water; and on my hair let me support myrtle which fears the cold (i.e. wear a wreath of myrtle as symbolic of poetic achievement) and let me be read much (multus) by a troubled lover. Malice feeds on the living; after death it grows quiet when each person is defended by his glory as he deserves (lit. his own glory defends each person; the reflexive possessive adjective (suus) is used, somewhat illogically, in such sentences; ex merito, lit. from [what is] deserved). Therefore I shall live even when the last fire has consumed me, and a great part of me will survive. (Ovid, Amores, I, 15 with omissions)

(c) Gavin Betts 2000