BOOK XII

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ARGUMENT.

The extant Fragments of this book are too few and too varied in their matter to enable us to form any definite idea of the general subject. From a passage in Diomedes (lib. iii, p. 483), which contains the seventh Fragment, Schoenbeck supposes it must have referred to scenic matters; which conjecture he considers farther strengthened by the first Fragment. (Cf. Plaut., Pers., I., iii, 78.) But, as Gerlach observes, "Chorage" in this passage can hardly be understood in its primitive sense, since it is coupled with the word "Quæstore;" and as the quæstors had nothing to do with the Ludi Scenici, except when it fell to them to take the place of the prætors or ædiles, this office could hardly be reckoned among their positive or regular duties.

1 ... that this man stands in need of some quæstor and choragus to furnish gold at the public expense, and from the treasury.

2 ... a hundred yoke of mules, with one strong pull, could not drag him.[1755]

3 Let this be fixed firmly and equally in your breast....

4 ... he is remarkable for bandy-legged and shriveled shanks.[1756]

5 ... of what advantages I deprived myself.[1757]

6 I agreed with the man.

7 At the Liberalia, among the Athenians on the festal day[1758] of father Liber, wine used to be given to the singers instead of a crown--

8 ... whatever had happened while I and my brother were boys.

9 ... wrinkled and full of famine.

FOOTNOTES:

[1755] Cf. vi., 2.

[1756] _Petilis_ is derived by Dacier from πέταλον: i. e., withered and shriveled up like a dead leaf.

[1757] _Decollare_, in its primitive sense, is "to decapitate;" then simply "to deprive."

[1758] This Fragment is given just as it stands in Diomedes (see Arg.), without any attempt on the part of editors or commentators to reduce it to the form of a verse. The whole passage stands thus in the original: "Alii a vino tragœdiam dictam arbitrantur: proptereà quod olim dictabatur τρύξ, à quo τρύγητος hodieque vindemia est, quia 'Liberalibus, apud Atticos, die festo Liberi patris vinum cantoribus pro Corollario dabatur' cujus rei testis est Lucilius in duodecimo." "Others think that Tragedy is so called from wine, because the ancient term was τρύξ; whence even at the present day the vintage is called τρυγητός." For the Attic Dionysia see the second vol. of the Philological Museum. «Probably, like the Sigillaria in lib. vii., Fr. 4, the festival was described by some circumlocution, the whole word being inadmissible into a verse.»

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