De primo dabit alterove nido
Rasum pumice purpuraque cultum
Denaris tibi quinque Martialem[71].
Out of his first or second pigeon-hole, polished with pumice stone, and smart with a purple covering, for five denarii he will give you Martial.
In a subsequent epigram the word occurs with reference to a private library, to which the poet is sending a copy of his works.
Ruris bibliotheca delicati,
Vicinam videt unde lector urbem,
Inter carmina sanctiora si quis
Lascivæ fuerit locus Thaliæ,
Hos nido licet inseras vel imo
Septem quos tibi misimus libellos[72].
O library of that well-appointed villa whence a reader can see the City near at hand—if among more serious poems there be any room for the wanton Muse of Comedy, you may place these seven little books I send you even in your lowest pigeon-hole.
Forulus or foruli occurs in the following passages. Suetonius, after describing the building of the temple of the Palatine Apollo by Augustus, adds, "he placed the Sibylline books in two gilt receptacles (forulis) under the base of the statue of Palatine Apollo"[73]; and Juvenal, enumerating the gifts that a rich man is sure to receive if burnt out of house and home, says,
Hic libros dabit, et forulos, mediamque Minervam[74].
The word is of uncertain derivation, but forus, of which it is clearly the diminutive, is used by Virgil for the cells of bees:
Complebuntque foros et floribus horrea texent[75].
The above-quoted passage of Juvenal may therefore be rendered: "Another will give books, and cells to put them in, and a statue of Minerva for the middle of the room."