1. cunctando: by biding his time.—Sellar. rem equals rem publicam. 2. noenum equals ne, not + oenum, old form of unum, one. This eventually contracts into non. rumores: what men said of him.—Sellar.
5. One of the grandest lines in Latin poetry. Cicero says of it (De Republica, 5.1): 'For brevity and for truth it is like the utterance of some oracle.'
1. Moribus…virisque: By olden custom and great men Rome stands. virisque: of. Sir William Jones, An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus:
What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement, nor labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate:
Not cities fair with spires and turrets crowned:
No;—men, high-minded men,—…
Men, who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain.
6. From the Telamo, spoken by Telamon on receiving tidings of his son's death. Sellar describes the passage as 'this strong and scornful triumph over natural sorrow.'
Prose translation in Sellar, Roman Poets of the Republic, p. 113.
1. ei re sustuli: to that end (i.e. with full knowledge of the fact) I bred them. re: dative, B. 52, 3; A. & G. 98, d, NOTE.
7. From the Telamo. This is Epicurean doctrine. Cf. Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters, Choric Song at end:
like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying
hands.
But they smile, etc.
Prose translation in Sellar, Roman Poets of the Republic, p. 78.