Key to Reading Unit 30

1. A lover, like a torch, blazes more by being shaken (torches were shaken to make them burn more brightly; a lover's passion increases when he is subject to stress and doubts).
   
   
2. I do not understand what avarice in an old man (lit. senile avarice) wants for itself; for could anything be more ridiculous than to want more provisions for a journey in proportion as the remaining distance becomes less (lit. less of distance remains)? (Cicero, de Senectute, 66)
   
   

3. Zeno of Elea endured everything rather than betray those privy to [the plan for] destroying the tyranny (the gerundive delendae shows that the destruction has not taken place, and hence we must insert a phrase such as the plan/scheme for; if we had deletae we would translate by privy to destroying because the reference would be something that had happened). (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, II, 52 adapted)

4. Jugurtha arms the largest force possible. (Sallust, Jugurtha, 13, 2)
   
   
5. Philosophy indeed is so far from being praised as it deserves (lit. it is so far [from being the case] that philosophy is praised . . .) that, neglected by most, it is even criticized by many. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, V, 6 adapted)
   
   
6. The impious citizens congratulated each other as though they had won (on inter se see 9.1/4). (Cicero, Philippics, XII, 18)
   
   
7. He does not have more wisdom than a stone. (Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, 236 adapted)
   
   
8. Nothing has been said now which has not been said previously. (Terence, Eunuchus, 41)
   
   
9. There is no grief which length of time does not lessen and soften. (Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, IV, 5, 6)
   
   
10. The soldiers of Pompey accused Caesar's very wretched and long-suffering army of indulgence, although it had always lacked everything of an essential nature (lit. to which everything had always been lacking for necessary requirement; on defuissent see 30.1/2d). (Caesar, de Bello Civili, III, 96, 2 adapted)
    
    
11. Every ground is a motherland for a brave man just as the sea [is a motherland] for fish. (Ovid, Fasti, I, 493)
    
    

12. Through this it happens that if any take pleasure in a supply fuller than [what is] right (lit. if a supply delights any . . .) wild Aufidus snatches and carries them off together with the bank. But a person who needs just so much (tantuli) as is required neither drinks water clouded with mud nor loses his life in the waters. But a large (bona) part of mankind, mistakenly deceived by greed, says, 'Nothing is sufficient since you are worth as much as you possess.' (falso is an adverb; the subjunctives in the last line are potential and express a general sense - cf. 22.1/1b note 2; they could be translated one would be worth as much as one might possess) (Horace, Satires, I, 1, 56-62)

13. [We/you have] as many enemies as [we/you have] slaves (lit. there are [for us/you] so many enemies as many slaves).
    
    
14. For that famous (ille) founder of philosophy (Socrates) used to argue thus: as the state of each man's mind is, so is the man; further, as the man is himself, so is his speech; further, his actions resemble his speech, his life resembles his actions. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, V, 47)
    
    
15. A miser lacks what he has just as [much as] what he does not have (lit. what he has is lacking to a miser . . . i.e. a miser makes no use of the money he has and so it is as much good to him as the further money he covets).
    
    
16. He is of the same value as a rotten toadstool.
    
    
17. The value each person sets on himself is the same as that set on him by others (lit. of what value each himself makes of himself, of so much value he is made by others).
    
    
18. O Romulus, divine Romulus, what a guardian of your country did the gods create you! (Ennius, Annales, 106f.)
    
    
19. He does not have even an obol with which to buy a rope (i.e. to hang himself; hanging was a popular form of suicide in antiquity).
    
    
20. [There are] many who goad oxen [but] few [who are] ploughmen (i.e. there are many who can drive an ox but few who have the skill of a ploughman; simulent is subjunctive in a generalising adjectival clause, 30.1/2b).
    
    
21. I am blind since I did not see these things before! (lit. blind me who did not . . . ; the subjunctive viderim makes the adjectival clause causal). (Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, X, 10, 1)
    
    
22. I am wretched as I was not present! (lit. wretched me who was not . . .) (Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, III, 11, 2)
    
    
23. If you have overcome your inclination (animus) rather than your inclination you, you have a reason to rejoice (lit. there is in respect to what you should rejoice); those who overcome inclination are always reckoned more upright than those whom inclination [overcomes]. (Plautus, Trinummus, 310, 312)
    
    
24. Innocence is such a state of mind as would harm no-one. (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, III, 16)
    
    
25. To marvel at nothing is almost the one and only thing, Numicius, which could make and keep [a person] contented. (Horace, Epistles, I, 6, 1f.)
    
    

26. So, after summoning merchants to him from everywhere, he was able to discover neither how big the island was (lit. how big the size of the island was), nor what or how many communities inhabited it, nor what military practice they followed (lit. what practice of war they had), nor what customs they had (lit. used), nor what ports were suitable for a large number of bigger ships. (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, IV, 20, 4)

27. Philo swears that he has never dined at home and this is [true]; every time no-one invites him, he does not dine. (Martial, V, 47.)
    
    
28. The greater the status of the person who sins, the more glaring the guilt which every vice of the mind entails (lit. every vice of the mind has in itself guilt by so much more conspicuous by how much greater [the person] who sins is considered). (Juvenal, VIII, 140f.)
    
    

29. I, Lais, in my old age (lit. an old woman) dedicate my mirror to Venus. Let eternal beauty have an eternal service worthy of it (i.e. the mirror, which was presumably an expensive one, would serve Venus's beauty forever). But for me there is no [further] use of this (lit. in this) since I do not want to see [myself] such as I am, [and] I am unable [to see myself] such as I was. (Translation of a Greek original by Ausonius, Epigrams, 65; Ausonius (c.AD310 - c.395) belonged to the last period of classical Latin literature and his poetry, of which a good deal survives, continued its traditions despite the fact that he was a Christian)

30. By an ancient custom of Macedonia [some] very noble boys were assisting King Alexander when sacrificing (lit. were ready for K. A.; praesto can be regarded as an adverb or an indeclinable adjective). One of them stood before him with a vessel of incense and a live coal fell on his arm (lit. on to whose arm . . .). Although he was being burnt by it (quo) to such an extent that the smell of burnt flesh (lit. body) reached the nostrils of the bystanders, nevertheless he both suppressed the pain in silence and kept his arm still so that he would neither disturb the king's sacrifice by shaking the vessel of incense nor, by uttering a groan, touch the royal ears with an inauspicious noise. The more the king delighted in the boy's endurance, the more definite a proof he wished to make of his perseverance; for he deliberately sacrificed for a longer time and did not in this way (hac re) deflect the boy from his intention. If Darius had seen (lit. turned his eyes to) this amazing spectacle he would have known that soldiers of this stock whose immature years had been endowed with such strength could not be conquered. (Valerius Maximus, III, 3, 1 adapted; Valerius Maximus, who lived in the first half of the first century AD, wrote a miscellany entitled Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX)

31. On the next day when he came to Vellaunodunum, the town of the Senones, he set about besieging [it] so that he would not leave an enemy behind him [and] so that he might enjoy a readier food supply; and he surrounded it with siege works in two days. On the third day when envoys were sent from the town about surrender he ordered that their arms (i.e. those of the Senones) be collected, their cattle be brought out and six hundred hostages be given. He left the legate Gaius Trebonius to complete these matters (on the two meanings of legatus see 12.2 above). (Caesar, de Bello Gallico, VII, 11, 1f.)

(c) Gavin Betts 2000