8, 5, 2 _tu fasciculum_ (bundle of letters)
_qui est inscriptus 'des M'. Curio', velim cures ad eum perferendum_. Cf.
also De Or. 2, 61 _deceptus indicibus librorum qui sunt fere inscripti_
('to which the authors--once for all--have given the titles') _de virtute,
de iustitia_, etc.; so Div. 2, 1 _eo libro qui inscriptus Hortensius_. --
DICIT: the 'Panathenaicus', an encomium of Athens written for recitation at
the great festival of the Panathenaea, is among the works of Isocrates
which we still possess. In c. 1 Isocrates says [Greek: tois etesi
enenekonta kai tettarsin, hon ego tynchano gegonos]. -- VIXITQUE: 'and yet
he lived'. The _que_ here has a slight adversative force, as is often the
case with _et_. Cf. n. on 28, 43, 73. -- GORGIAS: the greatest of the
sophists, born at Leontini in Sicily about 485 B.C.; his death took place,
according to the varying accounts, in 380, 378, or 377. In his old age he
lived in Thessaly where Isocrates studied with him; see Or. 176; Fin. 2, 1.
For the adjective _Leontinus_ placed before the name rather than after cf.
43 _Thessalo Cinea_. -- CENTUM ET SEPTEM ANNOS: Kennedy, Gram., Sec. 34, vii,
_c_, says, 'in compound numbers above 100 the larger number, with or
without _et_, generally precedes the smaller'; cf. Roby, Vol. 1 p. 443. --
CESSO: does not correspond in meaning with our 'cease', _i.e._ '_to come
to_ a standstill'; _cesso_ is 'I am in a state of rest', 'I am idle'. --
QUAERERETUR: the past tense, though the principal verb _inquit_, is in the
present, because the present is the _historical_ present and so equivalent
to a past tense. Cf. Roby, 1511-1514; Kennedy 229, 2. A. 287, _e_; G. 511,
Rem. 1; H. 495, II. The idiom by which the imperfect stands where we should
expect a tense of completed action, should be noticed; cf. Tusc. 2, 60
_quem cum rogaret, respondit._ The explanation of the imperfect in such
cases is that it marks out, more clearly than the pluperfect would, the
fact that the action of the principal verb and the action of the dependent
verb are practically contemporaneous. In our passage if _quaesitum esset_
had been written it would have indicated merely that at some quite
indefinite time after the question was put the answer was given. Cf. N.D.
1, 60 _auctore ... obscurior_. -- CUR ... VITA: a hint at suicide, which
the ancients thought a justifiable mode of escape from troubles,
particularly those of ill health or old age. See n. on 73 _vetat
Pythagoras. Esse