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{ Category Archives } Latin

The cranes of Ibycus.

I was working with the Lexicon Universale and ran across the story of Ibycus, a Greek lyric poet, as cribbed from a Latin version of Plutarch‘s Περὶ ἀδολεσχίας (De garrulitate): Ibycus cùm in latrones incidisset iam occidendus, grues fortè supervolantes obtestatus est. Aliquanto pòst tempore, cùm iidem latrones in foro sederent, rursumque grues supervolarent, per […]

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Nomes of Lower Egypt, VI-X.

Continued from Monday’s post. So half the hard part about these nome names is that the data I collected is in somewhat of a disorganized form. Rather—to look at it more positively—it’s organized in too many different ways. I had one file where the few data I was absolutely certain of were marked in green, […]

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Nomes of Lower Egypt, I-V.

I started writing this egons ago—late January—but it got enormous and unwieldy and I never managed to whip it into much of a presentable shape.  But then, this is a blog—there’s nothing wrong with posting incomplete ideas per se.  If this ever gets finished, it’ll be a page of its own on the sidebar here. […]

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Abhinc – Terence

Terence, Hecyra 5.3: Nam mÄ•mi|ni abhÄ«nc | mensÄ«s | decÄ“m | fere ād | me nōc|te prÄ«|mā confÅ­ge|re anhÄ“|lantÄ“m | domÅ«m | sinÄ• co|mitÄ•, vi|ni plÄ“|nÅ«m, cum hoc ănu|lo. ————— Because I remember, about ten months ago, that he ran up to me at my house early one night, out of breath, all alone, full […]

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Regum rex regalior.

Today’s dictionary work, for acies (Cicero, Ad Atticum 10.7): Mea causa autem alia est, quod beneficio vinctus ingratus esse non possum, nec tamen in acie [me] sed Melitæ aut alio in loco simili [oppidulo] futurum puto. My case, though, is different, because I’m bound by a favor and can’t be ungrateful, but nevertheless I’m not […]

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Incitat me.

(Yeah, I know I haven’t posted here in a while — I’ve been working on a large blog post and have been neglecting the smaller ones.) Horace, Epode 8: sÄ“d Ä«ncÄ­tāt | mÄ“ pÄ“ctÅ­s Ä“t | māmmÇ£ pÅ­trÄ“s    Ä•quÄ«nă quā|lÄ“s Å«bÄ•ră vÄ“ntÄ“rquÄ• mōl|lÄ­s Ä“t fÄ•mÅ«r | tÅ­mÄ“ntÄ­bÅ«s    Ä“xÄ«lÄ• sÅ«|rÄ«s āddÄ­tÅ«m. But your chest excites me, […]

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Abkhaz in Latin.

Okay, here’s a fun problem from the Latin Wiktionary: trying to sort out category and page titles and needing decent translations for language names. Fun because there are large portions of the world that have one Latin name… and large portions that have many Latin names, muddled together. For ‘Abkhaz’, for example, I have: Abchasius, […]

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Tamquam nudus nuces legeret.

Cicero, giving examples of the use of comparison to be witty, quoting a man responding to doubts that money was given to Magius because Magius was so poor, De Oratore 2.66: “Erras,” inquit, “Scaure; ego enim Magium non conservasse dico, sed tamquam nudus nuces legeret, in ventre abstulisse.” “Scaurus,” he said, “you are mistaken; I’m […]

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The Lazy Argument

Cicero, De Fato, 12.28-29, showing once again that ‘nihil tam absurde dici potest quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum’: Sic enim interrogant: “Si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo convalescere, sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, convalesces; item, si fatum tibi est ex hoc morbo non convalescere, sive tu medicum adhibueris sive non adhibueris, […]

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Pliny on the formation of selenite.

Pliny the Elder, on selenite mined near Segóbriga (Segobriga near modern Saelices, Cuenca in Spain), Naturalis Historia 36.45: Umorem hunc terræ quadam anima crystalli modo glaciari et in lapidem concrescere manifesto apparet, quod cum feræ decidere in puteos tales, medullæ in ossibus earum post unam hiemem in eandem lapidis naturam figurantur. It is patently obvious […]

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