Cato Maior de Senectute with Introduction and Notes by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 143 of 168 (85%)
page 143 of 168 (85%)
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of the _tesserae_ and _tali_. The two best known are _canis_, when all the
dice turned up with the same number uppermost; and _venus_, when they all showed different numbers. The word _alea_ was general and applicable to games of chance of every kind. These games, which were forbidden by many ineffectual laws ('_vetita legibus alea_') were held to be permissible for old men; see Mayor on Iuv. 14, 4. -- ID IPSUM: sc. _faciunt_; the omission of _facere_ is not uncommon. Roby, 1441; H. 368, 3, n. 1. -- UT: em. for ordinary readings _unum_ and _utrum_. 59. LEGITE: 'continue to read'. Cf. De Or. 1, 34 _pergite, ut facitis, adulescentes_. In Tusc. 2, 62 it is stated that Africanus was a great reader of Xenophon. P. 25. -- LIBRO QUI EST DE: so in Fat. 1 _libris qui sunt de natura deorum,_ and similarly elsewhere; but the periphrasis is often avoided, as in Off. 2, 16 _Dicaearchi liber de interitu hominum_. -- QUI: _quique_ might have been expected, but the words above, _qui ... familiari,_ are regarded as parenthetical. -- OECONOMICUS: Cicero translates from this work c. 4, 20-25. -- INSCRIBITUR: see n. on 13. -- REGALE: 'worthy of a king'; different from _regium_, which would mean 'actually characteristic of kings'. Yet Cic. sometimes interchanges the words; thus _regalis potestas_ in Har. Resp. 54 is the same as _regia potestas_ in Phil. 1, 3. -- LOQUITUR CUM CRITOBULO etc.: 'discourses with Critobulus of how Cyrus etc.'. The construction of _loqui_ with acc. and inf. belongs to colloquial Latin, as does the construction _loqui aliquam rem_ for _de aliqua re_; cf. Att. 1, 5, 6 _mecum Tadius locutus est te ita scripsisse_; ib. 9, 13, 1 _mera scelera loquuntur_. -- CYRUM MINOREM: Cyrus the younger (cf. 79 _Cyrus maior_), well known from Xenophon's _Anabasis_. As Cyrus never arrived at the throne (having been killed at Cunaxa in 401 in his attempt to oust his brother the king with the help of the 10,000 Greeks) _regem_ is used in the |
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