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The bovine sound of earthquakes.

Pliny on earthquakes (Naturalis Historia 2.82):

praecedit vero comitaturque terribilis sonus, alias murmuri similis, alias mugitibus aut clamori humano armorumve pulsantium fragori, pro qualitate materiae excipientis formaque vel cavernarum vel cuniculi, per quem meet

Indeed, a terrifying noise goes before and along with it, sometimes a rumbling, sometimes like bellowing or human shouting or the clash of striking arms, depending on the quality of the matter receiving it and the shape of the caverns or the tunnel through which it passes.

I must confess that the first impression I got from this text is that the Romans must have had a greatly different perception of the characteristic sounds made by cattle (mugitus) than we do.  Cattle low and bellow, which works, but the former is obscure on its own without reference to the animal, and the latter doesn’t necessarily carry a bovine reference; unfortunately the everyday word, at least for us city folk, is wholly inappropriate–certainly an earthquake doesn’t moo.

Armorum pulsantium fragor (‘the clash of striking arms’) seemed like a thing that would have a set equivalent in English–the image is familiar enough–though I wasn’t able to find one.   “The clash of resounding arms” is said to have been in Patrick Henry’s famous speech, though resound, like clash, is an auditory image, while pulsare seems to be more of a physical one.

As for qualitas, the word we’re coming to this passage for… this is our first occurrence where it isn’t handled with scare quotes, and its use is very straightforward–if qualitas is literally ‘what-sort-ness’, it carries a lot of that sense here; pro qualitate materiae could be rendered ‘depending on the quality of the matter’ or ‘depending on what kind of matter,’ especially in this context: this extract is followed by several kinds of passages for sound and the effect they are purported to have on the sound of the tremor.

[From  qualitas.]

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Lapicidinae and lapidicinae.

Pliny on pyramids again (Naturalis Historia 36.17)

Pyramis amplissima ex Arabicis lapicidinis constat.

The largest pyramid is made from the Arabian quarries.

This is just about short enough to go without much comment except on the word lapicidinae ‘quarry/quarries’. This word is also found spelled lapidicinae, as indeed some copies of this text have it. The basic meaning, certainly, is a place where stone is cut, from lapis ‘stone,’ -cid- from caedo ‘cut, and -ina (as in officina, fodina, piscina…), though the proper sesquipedalian form one would expect from such components, namely *lapidicidinae, does not appear to occur. Lapicidinae at least can fit into common verses. What lapidicinae has going for it, I’m sure I don’t know.

[For pyramis.]

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Not right away.

Marcus Caelius, writing to Cicero (Ad Familiares 8.4):

Coactus est dicere Pompeius se legionem abducturum sed non statim sub mentionem et convicium obtrectatorum; inde interrogatus de successione C. Caesaris…

Pompey was forced to say his legion would be withdrawn, though not immediately, in response to insinuation and the public outcry of his detractors; then he was questioned about Gaius Caesar’s successor…

The reference translations I checked differ on whether non statim ‘not immediately’ referred to when he said it, or when the legion would withdraw. The former might make sense grammatically (with statim sub as ‘immediately after’) but not so much pragmatically—if he wasn’t compelled to say it immediately after making people upset, then why mention that and not mention what it was that made him say it?

[For interrogo.]

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Put down pain, pick up pain.

Cicero, Ad Atticum 11.21:

accepi VI Kal. Sept. litteras a te datas XII Kal. doloremque quem ex Quinti scelere iam pridem acceptum iam abieceram, lecta eius epistula gravissimum cepi.

On the 27th of August, I received a letter you sent on the 21st, and the pain I received from Quintus’ crime a long time ago, which I had by this time put behind me, I felt again most severely on reading his letter.

I don’t know of a good way offhand to naturally render the pairing of abicere ‘lay aside’ with capere ‘pick up’ in English. We have a lot of metaphors for casting off pains, but not many for assuming them; usually we describe them as being forced on us.

[From abicio.]

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Chance vs. design.

Cicero, in On the Nature of the Gods 2.37, considers the sun and stars. He then states, in a precursor to the infinite monkey theorem, that the works of Ennius are not at all likely to form from the fall of letters thrown in the air, and from this premise he continues:

Isti autem quemadmodum adseverant ex corpusculis non colore, non qualitate aliqua (quam ποιότητα Græci vocant), non sensu præditis, sed concurrentibus temere atque casu mundum esse perfectum?

How, then, do these people insist that it is from particles which, neither endowed with color, nor with any quality—which the Greeks call ποιότης [pœotēs]—nor with sense, but which come together randomly and by chance, that the world is composed?

After this, he launches into a rant against those who, ignorant of the order in things astronomical, would deny intelligent design (ratio) in its composition.

That appears to be the last appearance of qualitas in Cicero. He does not in any instance appear to be comfortable using the word, despite (or possibly due to) having coined it; in most cases he makes reference to it being an invention, or points to the underlying Greek (as here). In short it’s more ‘mention’ than ‘use’, so there is little information useful for the dictionary. It does appear to become much more common after him.

[More at qualitas.]

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Stupid pyramids.

I’ve been wanting to post these little translations I do for my dictionary, partly for feedback on quality, partly to talk about the texts themselves. In his Natural History, 36.16, Pliny gives us his opinion of the pyramids:

Dicantur obiter et pyramides in eadem Ægypto, regum pecuniæ otiosa ac stulta ostentatio.

And the pyramids, also in Egypt, should be mentioned in passing, a useless and foolish exhibition of the wealth of their kings.

The eadem in Ægypto apparently refers to the previous sections on obelisks. The other translations I checked didn’t seem to care to render it.

[More on pyramis.]

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