ne district'. The words _ex agro Sabino_
form an attributive phrase qualifying _Romanos_ just as _rusticos_ does. --
NUMQUAM FERE: 'scarcely ever'. -- MAIORA OPERA: 'farm work of any
importance'. This use of _opera_ is common in Vergil's Georgics. -- NON:
the repetition of the negative after _numquam_ is common in Latin; in
English _never ... not_ is found in dialects only. Cf. Lael. 48 _non tantum
... non plus quam_. -- SERENDIS: ablative of respect, 'as regards sowing'.
See Roby 1210; Kennedy, 149. -- PERCIPIENDIS: so 70; cf. N.D. 2, 156 _neque
enim serendi neque colendi, nec tempestive demetendi percipiendi que
fructus, neque condendi nec reponendi ulla pecudum scientia est_. -- IN
ALIIS: see n. on 3 _ceteris_. Notice the proleptic use. -- IDEM: a better
form of the plural than _iidem_, commonly found in our texts. For the use
here cf. n. on 4 _eandem_. -- PERTINERE: present for future. -- SENT ...
PROSINT: the line is given as Ribbeck prints it. He scans it as a
'_bacchius_', consisting of four feet, with the measurement | v - - |, the
last syllable of _saeclo_ seeming to be shortened. Cicero quotes the same
line in Tusc. 1, 31 adding _ut ait (Statius) in Synephebis, quid spectans
nisi etiam postera saecla ad se pertinere? Saeclo_ = 'generation'. For mood
of _prosint_ see A 317; G. 632, H. 497, I. -- STATIUS NOSTER: 'our
fellow-countryman Statius'. So Arch. 22 _Ennius noster_. Caecilius Statius,
born among the Insubres, wrote Latin comedies which were largely borrowed
from the Greek of Menander. The original of the _Synephebi_ was Menander's
[Greek: Syne pheboi] 'young comrades'. See Sellar, Rom. Poets of the Rep.,
Ch. 7.

P. 11. -- 25. DIS: the spellings _diis_, _dii_ which many recent editors
still keep, are probably incorrect, at all events it is certain that the
nominative and ablative plural of deus formed monosyllables, except
occasionally in poetry, where _dei_, _deis_ were used. Even these
_dissyllabic_ forms scarcely occur before Ovid. -- ET: emphatic at the
beginning of a sentence: 'aye, and'. -- MELIUS: _sc. dixit_. -- ILLUD: 'the
following' A. 102, b, G. 292, 4; H. 450, 3. -- IDEM: _idem_, not _idem_. --
EDEPOL: literally, 'ah, god Pollux', _e_ being an interjection, _de_ a
shortened form of the vocative of _deus, pol_ abbreviated from _Pollux_.
The asseveration is mostly confined to comedy. The lines come from a play
by Statius called Plocium ([Greek: plokion] 'necklace'), copied from one by
Menander wit