Neologisms in Augustine's Sermon Super Verbis Apostoli Ad Galatas...

In his introduction to this sermon of Augustine, F. Dolbeau remarks that Augustine uses two words here not found in the TLL. (Sorry, I just noticed that when I pasted this citation in, all the French accents disappeared. I don't have time to fix it right now and don't know how to anyway, so I'm just going to replace them with unaccented letters. Hope that doesn't make it too unintelligible.)

Deux substantifs employes par Augustin sont absent du Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Ce sont des noms d’agent en -tor, dont le sens ne fait pas difficulte. Le premier, obtestator (sec. 5), ne figure apparement dans aucun dictionnaire; le second, decretor (sec. 9), etait jusqu’ici atteste pour la premiere fois chez Raoul Glaber. Tous deux pourraient etre des creations deliberees d’Augustin, car ils fonctionnent en symetrie, repectivement avec praedicator et impletor.

Julian the Apostate Quiz

Via Bread and Circuses, I learned about this fun online quiz on Julian the Apostate. Enjoy!

By the way, Dennis, love the cartoon!

No, Philippos! Not again!

I drew this in my first year of baby Greek while at UMass: an homage to Athenaze's hapless young hero and his trusty dog, Argo. It was supposed to be in the style of Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, but I was lazy and hadn't drawn in a long time, so this was the result. 

Ludi in AD 204

Today the Rogueclassicist asks for information on something called the ludi Latini et Graeci honorarii in AD 204, of which today is supposed to be the fifth day. I'm not sure if these are the same games, but Septimius Severus presided over a 10-day celebration of the ludi saeculares in 204 and, according to this report, he used Augustan calculations; Augustus had first celebrated the ludi saeculares in 17 BC and they took place in late May and early June. Now, I'm assuming that the ludi saeculares and the ludi Latini et Graeci honorarii must be the same games, since the Rogueclassicist also has a listing for the Latini et Graeci on this day in 17 BC, which roughly coincides with the timing for the saeculares in that year (though it is off by a few days).

Mr. Meadows--I'm not sure if any of this is the sort of information you're looking for. If it's all old news and you were inquiring about something different, please ignore!

The Remains of a Senarius in a Letter of Jerome?

In a letter written by Jerome to Augustine (Ep. 68 in editions of Augustine's letters; Ep. 102 in editions of Jerome), dated to 402 (see Fuerst's monograph on the correspondence), Jerome threatens Augustine via classical and proverbial metaphors:

nunc te currente et longa spatia transmittente nobis debetur otium simulque, ut cum venia et honore tuo dixerim, ne solus mihi de poetis aliquid proposuisse videaris, memento Daretis et Entelli et vulgaris proverbii, quod bos lassus fortius figat pedem.

In a brief but interesting note in Wiener Studien 19 (1897) 317, Karl Schenkl makes a case that the 'proverb' (italicized in the above citation) is not merely a proverb, but is a citation of a poet--the 'remains' or the 'left-overs' ('die Reste') of a senarius. For support, he offers four reasons: the balance of the phrase, its 'poetic coloring', the placing of the words, and the prominent (or 'pronounced') alliteration of fortius figat.

He says that he is not able to unravel whence it comes; Schenkl points out that Erasmus, in his Adagia, refers it to the Greek proverb Atremas bous (Diog. III.9, Arsen. VI.8, Apost. IV.24), but he states that this contributes nothing to its explanation. He theorizes that Jerome found the proverb in a Gnomologium, and that it was probably included in the fragmenta adespota of iambic poets.