Nonius Marcellus, Compendium of Doctrine, Vol. II

V.

BEGINS

ON THE DIFFERENCE OF SIMILAR SIGNIFICATIONS.

Cupido Desire and Amor Love seem to signify the same thing, but there is a difference. For cupido is of thoughtless necessity, whereas amor is of judgment. Plautus in the Bacchides:

Is cruel Cupido with you, or is it Amor?

In the Curculio, he distinguished the same and expressed the force of that difference by saying:

What Venus and Cupido command, and Amor advises.

13 Plautus Bacchides || 16 I, 1, 3.

V. Having finished the most laborious chapter, the matter returns to those books which we used in the first and second parts of the work: that is, to the Lyons, Harley, Wolfenbüttel, and Bamberg manuscripts. 10. 11 after that "Significations" add L, H, Bamb. in capital letters: "by letters, that is, by the letter C." Vatican 3418 omits this, in which there is [a treatise] on differences. In G this is inscribed: "Begins on the differences of words." The same [is in] other books, such as Ottobon 1699; 1725; Vatican 1554. There can be no doubt that these were placed by an interpolator (for many collections under this title or a similar one circulated through the Middle Ages). Mercerus rightly notes that Nonius used good sources in this chapter, which is aptly joined to the fourth, and [that he is] not unlike himself in the following [chapter]. One should especially compare Cicero's books on philosophy, Festus, Gellius, and Servius. For the treatises on the differences of words that are extant, while they sometimes boast famous names, such as Suetonius and Fronto, are for the most part very thin and light. Furthermore, one must pay attention to those things which were added by Reifferscheid to the differences of words that are attributed to Suetonius. Many things could be discussed about the fifth and sixth parts of the work of Nonius and about the twelfth, which is inscribed "On the Investigation of Learned Men." However, we leave these to be pursued by others, content to have proposed a few things. 12 "Cupido and amor"; cf. Servius Daniel. on Aeneid IV, 194; Goetzius rightly notes that he seems to have used the same source as Nonius. rest is M; and v. 15 "cupidon" and Servius. 15 "tecumst saevus" (or "tecum saevust") M; "tecum saevis" C; "te cum sicut" in the Servius codex F; cf. Ovid, Amores I, 6, 34; 37: "I was alone, if cruel Amor were not present; therefore Amor and a little wine about my temples is with me." Pius: "Cupido wears you out"; hence Ritschelius: "Cupidon wears you out." This, however, seems to be excluded by the words of Nonius; nor is Bothius better: "pierces you." 16 f. "he distinguished these and expressed the force of that difference." 18 "quo" correctly in the Plautus codices; "quem" in Servius. 18 "cupido" in the codices of Plautus. 18 "imperat" [is in] the books of Plautus and Servius; but Pylades rightly [has] "imperant"; cf. line 6. 18 "suadet" [is in] the Servius codex; [is in] Plautus B, m. 1.