63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

160 john briscoe
is common in old Latin, including Ennius and Accius; it occurs in Varro
Men. and not again before Suetonius. 26
(v) 95e (Gel.6.3.37) nobis impune est ‘we are not punished’. Till (1935:
15 = 1968: 38) declares that this is very probably colloquial, but adduces no
arguments. impune esse occurs at Agr. 5.2, twice in Plautus, twice in Cicero,
four times in Livy and three times in Ovid. 27
We thus see that of the eleven items discussed, four (95 transvorsum trudere,
si quis + plural, derepente,andimpune esse) have no claims to be colloquial,
and in two (74 pulmentum, pulmentarium, 78 cohortes) Cato was dealing
with subjects where he had no alternative to employing words which were
normally used in the spoken language, but which were not colloquialisms.
In two more (83 detached nominative and 95 nemo homo) wehaveusages
which were, indeed, no doubt used in conversation, but are also found in
high literature. In the case of 28, 136 pedatus/-um Cato may have taken
a word from the language of soldiers, using it once in its original sense
and once innovatively, while at 83 verruca it is possible that he employed a
rural metaphor. The attractio inversa in 7 is a clear case of a colloquialism
employed for emphasis. But in all cases Cato’s aim was to write impressively,
not to impart a colloquial flavour to his history. That is not, of course,
to deny that if we had the whole work, one might come to a different
conclusion.
26 Cf. Calboli 1978: 300, though it is unclear whether or not he agrees with Till. Calboli’s statement
that it occurs at Tac. Hist. 1.63 (sc. §1) is an error, presumably deriving from TLL v/1.629.16–17,
where it is, apparently, a conjecture based on the misapprehension that the second Medicean has
raptisae repente. Calboli misses the passages of Suetonius (Tib. 23, Ves. 23.4).
27 TLL vii/1.721.29 ff.; Calboli (1978: 316–17) is misleading.