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Catvllvs VI. 1 sqq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

H. C. Nutting*
Affiliation:
The University of California

Extract

Sentences of the form si sitesset crop out at rare intervals in the literature of classical Latin, deviating so sharply from what might be called the standard forms of conditional speaking that they have commonly been regarded with more or less suspicion.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1926

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References

page 86 note 1 Vorlesungen über lateinische Sprachwissenschaft, § 302.

page 86 note 2 De enuntiatis condicionalibus Plaulinis, Göttingen, 1874, p. 48 Google Scholar.

page 86 note 3 Cf. Munro on Lucretius I. 356, footnote.

page 86 note 4 ‘Hier offenbar wegen des Metrums sint statt essent,’ Ausj. Gram, der lat. Sprache, II., s. 924 (omitted in 2nd ed., § 215.3).

page 86 note 5 L.c., Anm. 464b.

page 86 note 6 The stultifying effect of unquestioning acceptance of conventional generalizations is well illustrated in a different field by the treatment of the case-use with similis in the Tischer-Sorof edition of the Tusculan Disputations. There, on I. 34, the note reads: ‘sui similem. Der Gen. bei similis bez. eine völlige Ebenbildlichkeit, der Dat. eine nahe kommende Ähnlichkeit oder Verwandtschaft.’ As a matter of fact, Cicero is here alluding to the story of Phidias and the shield of Minerva. Not being allowed to record his name, the artist included in the group scene on the shield a figure that suggested himself (sui similem speciem inclusit). It is altogether unlikely that Cicero means to say that he carved an exact likeness of himself—that would have been too bold (and cf. Plutarch, , Pericl. 31 Google Scholar. αύτο τίνα μορϕήν). This single note is made to do duty for the whole book; hence there is merely a cross-reference at v. 56 on the phrase hunc illi duco simillimum. Cicero is now comparing Catulus and Laelius, and, since the dative is used, the cross-reference points to a less degree of likeness, quite overlooking the fact that the adjective is in the superlative degree (simillimum).

page 87 note 1 American Journal of Philology, XXII., pp. 297 sqq.

page 87 note 2 The Latin Conditional Sentence. University of California Publications in Classical Philology, VIII., pp. 122 sqq.

page 87 note 3 MSS. mihist.

page 87 note 4 Cf. also the converse arrangement in Plautus, , Sti. 510 Google Scholar (si fuisset … sit).

page 87 note 5 Hence such a contrary to fact conditional sentence is said to exhibit the indirect causal mode; see, further, The Latin Conditional Sentence, I.c., pp. 136 sqq.

page 88 note 1 So, too, Lucretius, V. 276 sqq.