Attic Nights, Vol. II

praetor, help me, assist me! How long will this bovinator shuffler/tergiversator delay us?" And he shouted this out with a loud voice three or four times: "He is a bovinator." A murmuring began to arise from most of those present, as if they were marveling at the monstrosity of the word. But he, boasting and gesturing, said: "Have you not read Lucilius, who calls a tergiversator shuffler/staller a bovinator?" This verse of Lucilius is in book XI:

VIII

M. Cato is said to have rebuked Aulus Albinus quite justly and gracefully. Albinus, who was consul with L. Lucullus, wrote of Roman affairs in the Greek language. In the beginning of his history, it is written to this effect: that no one should be angry with him if something in these books were written less composedly or less elegantly; "for," he says, "I am a Roman man born in Latium, and the Greek language is most foreign to us," and therefore he asked for indulgence and favor regarding his poor reputation if any error had been made. When M. Cato had read this, he said: "Truly, Aulus, you are a great trifler, since you preferred to ask for pardon for a fault than to be free of fault. For we are accustomed to ask for pardon either when we have erred imprudently or when we have sinned under compulsion. But tell me," he said, "who forced you to commit that which, before you even did it, you had to ask to be pardoned for?" This is written in the fourteenth book of Cornelius Nepos regarding illustrious men.