see there a sculptured figure, in
its lower part a stone, in its upper part a youth with flying hair. Does
this look like Erasmus in any respect? If this is not enough, they see
written on the stone itself _Terminus_: if one takes this as the last
word, that will make an iambic dimeter acatalectic, _Concedo nulli
Terminus_; if one begins with this word, it will be a trochaic dimeter
acatalectic, _Terminus concedo nulli_. What if I had painted a lion and
added as a device 'Flee, unless you prefer to be torn to pieces'? Would
they attribute these words to me instead of the lion? But what they are
doing now is just as foolish; for if I mistake not, I am more like a
lion than a stone.

They will argue, 'We did not notice that it was verse, and we know
nothing about Terminus.' Is it then to be a crime henceforward to have
written verse, because _they_ have not learned the theory of metre? At
least, as they knew that in devices of this kind one actually aims at a
certain degree of obscurity in order to exercise the guessing powers of
those who look at them, if they did not know of Terminus--although they
could have learned of him from the books of Augustine or Ambrose--they
should have inquired of experts in this kind of matter. In former times
field boundaries were marked with some sign. This was a stone projecting
above the earth, which the laws of the ancients ordered never to be
moved; here belongs the Platonic utterance, 'Remove not what thou hast
not planted.' The law was reinforced by a religious awe, the better to
deter the ignorant multitude from daring to remove the stone, by making
it believe that to violate the stone was to violate a god in it, whom
the Romans call Terminus, and to him there was also dedicated a shrine
and a festival, the Terminalia. This god Terminus, as the Roman
historian has it, was alone in refusing to yield to Jupiter because
'while the birds allowed the deconsecration of all the other
sanctuaries, in the shrine of Terminus alone they were
unpropitious.'[109] Livy tells this story in the first book of his
_History_, and again in Book 5 he narrates how 'when after the taking of
auguries the Capitol was being cleared, Juventas [Youth] and Terminus
would not allow themselves to be moved.'[110] This omen was welcomed
with universal rejoicing, for they believed that it portended an eternal
empire. The _youth_ is useful for war, and _Terminus_ is fixed.

Here they will exclaim perchance, 'What ha