often. -- MAIOR ATQUE LONGIOR: 'very intense and protracted'. Superlatives
might have been expected, in view of _quanta percipi posset maxima_ above.
_Longus_ in the sense of 'long-continued' is rare in Ciceronian Latin,
excepting when, as in 66 _longa aetate_, it is joined with a word
distinctly referring to time. For the general drift of the passage cf. Cic.
Hortensius (fragment) _congruere cum cogitatione magna voluptas corporis
non potest; quis enim, cum utatur voluptate ea qua nulla possit maior esse,
attendere animum, inire rationes, cogitare omnino quidquam potest_? --
ANIMI LUMEN: a common metaphor; _e.g._ Cic. Rep. 6, 12 _tu, Africane,
ostendas oportebit patriae lumen animi tui_. Cf. 36 _haec ...
exstinguuntur_; also below, 42 _mentis oculos_. -- C. PONTIO: C. Pontius
Herennius, the father of C. Pontius Telesinus who defeated the Romans at
the Caudine Forks during the Second Samnite war, in 321 B.C. The father is
several times mentioned by Livy 9, cc. 1 and 3; cf. especially 1, § 2 _C.
Pontium, patre longe prudentissimo natum_. -- NEARCHUS: mentioned by
Plutarch, Cato 2, as a Pythagorean and friend of Cato. -- PERMANSERAT:
_i.e._ during the siege of Tarentum. -- INTERFUISSET: not in accordance
with English idiom; cf. n. on 4 _putassent_; also 44 _devicerat_. -- PLATO
etc.: although Plato made two journeys to Italy and Sicily (or, as some
authorities say, three) it is scarcely likely that he was present at
Tarentum in the year mentioned, 349 B.C., two years before his death, when
he was of advanced age. The latest date assigned by other authorities for
Plato's last visit to the West is 361 B.C. -- REPERIO: _sc. in annalibus_;
so in 15; cf. _videmus_ in 26.

42. EFFICERET: _efficeret, liberet_, and _oporteret_ can be properly
rendered into English only by the present tense. Although these verbs
express circumstances which _continue_, since the general effect of old age
is being described, they are thrown into the past to suit the past tense
_dicebam_ or _dixi_ which, though not expressed, is really the principal