Saturday, 22 September 2007

Pingue atque peregrinum

Marcus Tullius Cicero made at least eighty-eight speeches during his career (fifty-eight still survive)

One of his judicial speeches is called Pro Archia Poeta
This speech is on behalf of the poet Aulus Licinius Archias who in 62 BC was accused by a certain Gratius of having assumed the citizenship illegally. The speech, which furnishes nearly all the information concerning Archias, states that he had celebrated the deeds of Gaius Marius and Lucullus in the Cimbrian and Mithridatic Wars, and that he was engaged upon a poem of which the events of Cicero's consulship formed the subject.

I wish to highlight a part of it:
<26> Quid? a Q. Metello Pio, familiarissimo suo, qui civitate multos donavit, neque per se neque per Lucullos impetravisset? qui praesertim usque eo de suis rebus scribi cuperet, ut etiam Cordubae natis poetis, pingue quiddam sonantibus atque peregrinum, tamen auris suas dederet. Neque enim est hoc dissimulandum (quod obscurari non potest) sed prae nobis ferendum: trahimur omnes studio laudis, et optimus quisque maxime gloria ducitur. Ipsi illi philosophi, etiam in eis libellis quos de contemnenda gloria scribunt, nomen suum inscribunt: in eo ipso, in quo praedicationem nobilitatemque despiciunt, praedicari de se ac nominari volunt.

You can read the translation here.
Pay attention to the "pingue quiddam sonantibus atque peregrinum" (though their style sounded coarse and outlandish).

Lol, it seems the problems to learn new languages come from far away in time. My ancestors had the same problems in learning Latin that I have in learning English.

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