Lexitechnia

Cicero, Ad Atticum 7.13:

Ænigma […] plane non intellexi; est enim numero Platonis obscurius.

I didn’t quite understand your riddle; it’s more obscure than Plato’s number.

I’m not sure if ‘obscure’ is the best word to describe a riddle.

“Plato’s number,” or the nuptial number, is given as either 6³ or 60⁴, both of which are understood as being described in a complicated passage of his Republic (book 8, 545–547).

[For numerus.]

Cicero, De Lege Agraria 2.97:

Singularis homo privatus, nisi magna sapientia praeditus, vix cancellis et regionibus offici magnis in fortunis et copiis continetur.

A private individual, unless he is endowed with great wisdom, is hardly restrained by the bars and boundaries of his position when among great wealth and power.

I’ve been posting these less often chiefly because I haven’t really had much to say about them.    The reason I do post them is less to talk about the content itself than about translating it; it makes a much more interesting post when the passage itself is interesting, but it discourages me from posting everything else.   I’ll try and work on that.

The bits I stumbled over most here were:

• singularis homo privatus, which doesn’t seem to have any graceful word-for-word rendering, and
• officium, which could have been translated by ‘office’ in 1913ese, but not in modern English, and for which I don’t know a good all-purpose replacement.
• economically joining magnis in fortunis et copiis to the rest of the sentence.

As usual, any suggestions for improvement would be welcome.

[For cancelli.]

Plautus (Captivi 4.4):

Dĭēs|pĭtēr | tē dī|qu(e), Ērgăsĭ|lĕ, pēr|dānt ēt | vēntrēm | tŭūm,
părăsī|tōsqu(e) ōm|nīs, ēt | quī pōs|thāc cē|nām pără|sītīs | dăbīt.

May Jupiter and the gods destroy you and your belly, Ergasilus—and all freeloaders—and whoever from now on offers dinner to freeloaders!

I think I’ve gotten the hang of scanning these Plautine lines.  This one had stumped me before, and I’m not sure why.

[For tuus venter, not yet posted.]

Plautus (Mostellaria, 490–5).

―Ăĭt vē|nīss(e) īl|l(um) īn sōm|nīs ād | sē mōr|tŭōm.
―Nēmp(e) er|g(o) īn sōm|nīs? ―Ĭtă. |Sēd āus|cūltā | mŏdŏ.
Ăĭt īl|l(um) hōc pāc|tō sĭbĭ | dīxīs|sĕ mōr|tŭōm.
―Īn sōm|nīs? ―Mī|rūm quīn | vĭgĭlān|tī dī|cĕrēt,
qu(i) ăbhīnc | sēxā|gīnt(a) ān|nōs ōc|cīsūs | fŏrēt.
Īntēr|d(um) ĭnēp|tē stūl|tŭs ēs. | Quīn tū | tăcēs?

“He said a dead man came to him in his sleep.”
“So it was a dream, then?”
“Yes. But just listen.  He said the man told him he died by—”
“In the dream?”
“Yes, it’s a wonder that a man who was murdered sixty years ago didn’t announce it to someone who was awake… You can be ridiculously stupid sometimes.  Why don’t you shut up?”

This shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did.  I still don’t think it’s just right yet.

[For abhinc.]

Pliny the Elder, quoting Varro (Naturalis Historia 36.19):

supra id quadratum pyramides stant quinque, quattuor in angulis et in medio una, imæ latæ pedum quinum septuagenum, altæ centenum quinquagenum ita fastigatæ, ut in summo orbis aëneus et petasus unus omnibus sit inpositus […] supra quem orbem quattuor pyramides insuper singulæ stant altæ pedum centenum, supra quas uno solo quinque pyramides.

Above the square stand five pyramids, four at the corners and one in the center,each seventy-five feet across at the base and a hundred and fifty feet tall, and tapered in such a way that at their peak a bronze circle and a petasus were placed over the whole set. […] Over and above this circle four individual pyramids stand, each a hundred feet tall, above which are five pyramids on one floor.

Fergusson's reconstruction of Porsena's tomb.

The tomb of Lars Porsena, as described here, contains fourteen pyramids, essentially stacked in three layers. Pliny never saw the monument and is incredulous of the description; he claims Varro’s omission of the height of the final set of pyramids is due to embarrassment at the number, which according to Etruscan tradition were equal to the rest of the structure—making it at least six hundred feet tall, and thus much taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The tomb has not been discovered, if it ever existed to begin with.  There are various fanciful reconstructions of what it may have looked like, based on this description; probably the most sensible I’ve run across so far is Fergusson’s reconstruction, which is depicted here and based on remains of the similar tomb of Alyattes and the structure called alternately the Tomb of Aruns or the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii (Sepolcro degli Orazi e Curiazi).  To produce this reconstruction, however, the word pyramis ‘pyramid’ is taken not to refer to the pure geometrical figure—which would be rather difficult to tier in the manner described—but to a tapered column.  (Fergusson also suggests these had varying heights as an alternative reason they were unmentioned by Varro.)

[For pyramis.]