Noctes Atticae

That Cornelius Nepos was in error when he wrote that Cicero defended Sextus Roscius at the age of twenty-three.

CORNELIUS NEPOS was a careful student of records and one of Marcus Cicero's most intimate friends. Yet in the first book of his Life of Cicero he seems to have erred in writing [*](Frag. 1, Peter2.) that Cicero made his first plea in a public trial at the age of twenty-three years, defending Sextus Roscius, who was charged with murder. For if we count the years from Quintus Caepio and Quintus Serranus, in whose consulship Cicero was born on the third day before the Nones of January, [*](January 3, 106 B.C.) to Marcus Tullius and Gnaeus Dolabella, in whose consulate he pleaded a private case In Defence of Quinctius before Aquilius Gallus as judge, the result is twenty-six years. And there is no doubt that he defended Sextus Roscius on a charge of murder the year after he spoke In Defence of Quinctius; that is, at the age of twenty-seven, in the consulship of Lucius Sulla Felix and Metellus Pius, the former for a second time.

Asconius Pedianus has noted [*](p. xv, Kiessling and Schöll.) that Fenestella also made a mistake in regard to this matter, in writing [*](Frag. 17, Peter2.) that he pleaded for Sextus Roscius in the twenty-sixth year of his age. But the mistake of Nepos is greater than that of Fenestella, unless anyone is inclined to believe that Nepos, led by a

feeling of friendship and regard, suppressed four years in order to increase our admiration of Cicero, by making it appear that he delivered his brilliant speech In Defence of Roscius when he was a very young man.

This also has been noted and recorded by the admirers of both orators, that Demosthenes and Cicero delivered their first brilliant speeches in the courts at the same age, the former Against Androtion and Against Timocrates at the age of twenty-seven, the latter when a year younger In Defence of Quinctius and at twenty-seven In Defence of Sextus Roscius. Also, the number of years which they lived did not differ very greatly; Cicero died at sixty-three, Demosthenes at sixty. [*](In 322 B.C.)

A new form of expression used by Lucius Piso, the writer of annals.

THE two following modes of saying

my name is Julius

are common and familiar: mihi nomen est Iulius and mihi nomen est Iulio. I have actually found a third, and new, form in Piso, in the second book of his Annals. His words are these: [*](Frag. 19, Peter2.)

They feared his colleague, Lucius Tarquinius, because he had the Tarquinian name; and he begged him to leave Rome of his own free will.

[*](Cf. Livy, ii. 2. 3.)

Because,

says he,

he had the Tarquinian name

; this is as if I should say mihi nomen est Iulium, or

I have the Julian name.

Whether the word petorritum, applied to a vehicle, is Greek or Gallic.

THOSE who approach the study of letters late in life, after they are worn out and exhausted by some other occupation, particularly if they are garrulous and of only moderate keenness, make themselves exceedingly ridiculous and silly by displaying their would-be knowledge. To this class that man surely belongs, who lately talked fine-spun nonsense about petorrita, or

four-wheeled wagons.

For when the question was asked, what form of vehicle the petorritum was, and from what language the word came, he falsely described a form of vehicle very unlike the real one; he also declared that the name was Greek and interpreted it as meaning

flying wheels,

[*](Making a hybrid word, from pe/tomai, fly, and rota. See crit. note 1.) maintaining that pelorritum was formed by the change of a single letter from pelorrotum, and that this form was actually used by Valerius Probus.

When I had got together many copies of the Commentaries of Probus, I did not find that spelling in them, and I do not believe that Probus used it anywhere else. For petorritum is not a hybrid word derived in part from the Greek, but the entire word belongs to the people across the Alps; for it is a Gallic word. It is found in the fourteenth book of Marcus Varro's Divine Antiquities, where Varro, speaking of petorritum, says [*](Frag. 108, Agahd.) that it is a Gallic term. [*](Gellius is right; petorrita, like several other words connected with horses and carriages, is borrowed from the Gallic. In Celtic, as also in Oscan and Umbrian, Latin qu is represented by p; hence petor or petora = quattuor.) He also says that lancea, or

lance,

is not a Latin, but a Spanish word.