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While a purist like Cicero was bound to avoid suus sibi, the collocation
continued in writers who are neither colloquial nor vulgar, but whose style
could be described as more inclusive. 23 Cicero’s contemporary Vitruvius
once uses the phrase in suo sibi ‘in its own’ (8.6.3). In the first century ad,
Columella still says suus sibi. Interestingly, three of the four tokens are in
what already seems to be a fixed phrase, suo sibi iure ‘in its own juice’ (12.7.2,
12.42.2, 12.56.2). 24 This phrase must have lived on in everyday language; the
fourth-century collection of recipes that goes under the name of Apicius
has the phrase suo sibi iure once, and ius de suo sibi ‘juice from itself’
seventeen times. 25
The frequency with which the collocation suus sibi recurs in the secondcentury
archaists Gellius and especially Apuleius has in all probability
nothing to do with its survival in everyday language. Rather, they imitate
archaic usages and in particular Plautine ones. Gellius uses the collocation
four times. 26 Apuleius has it fifteen times, that is, more often than Plautus
himself. Two examples deserve special mention:
(31) alios vero suis sibi gladiis obtruncatos reliquere. (Apul. Met. 7.13)
They decapitated others with their own swords and left them there.
(32) cunctisque narratis deprecatur periclitanti sibi ferret auxilium, seque cum
suo sibi asino tantisper occultaret. (Apul. Met. 9.40)
When all was told, he asked him to help him, since he was in danger,
and to hide him together with his ass in the meantime.
The first of these examples is interesting because suis sibi refers to the
object, not the grammatical subject. Apuleius, like the early Latin writers,
uses suus sibi regardless of whether Cicero would have used a reflexive or
a non-reflexive form. The Apuleius passage also invokes example (1) from
Terence, although here the meaning is literal, not metaphorical. The second
example shows that in Apuleius suus sibi is not necessarily emphatic. No
contrast is involved. The meaning is ‘his’ rather than ‘his own’. Apuleius
23 For the term ‘inclusive’ see Adams et al. 2005: 5. However, Petronius’ freedmen speak colloquial
Latin, and here we also once find the phrase panem autopyrum de suo sibi ‘whole-meal bread on its
own’ (Petr. 66.2).
24 The fourth token is suo sibi pampino ‘with its own shoot’ (Col. Arb. 11).
25 Apart from these instances, suus sibi occurs only once in Apicius (4.3.4 cum sua sibi tergilla ‘with its
own rind’).
26 5.10.16 suo sibi argumento ‘with his own argument’; 12.1 (heading) suo sibi lacte ‘with her own
milk’; 16.19.12 sua sibi omnia indumenta ‘all his costume’; 19.12.9 vites suas sibi omnes ‘all his
vines’.