Seven Books of Arguments Against the Pagans, Vol. II

[Herald.] Nothing should be changed. For Arnobius opposes unadorned speech not to rhythmic, but to composed speech, that is, to the artificial, elegant structure and arrangement of words. Opposed to incomptus unadorned is horridus rough. See Cicero, De Oratore I, 11, Quintilian, Institutio X, Chapter 1, § 44, and J. Ch. Th. Ernesti, who writes much on this word in his Lexicon Technologiae Latinae Rhetoricae, s.v. Compositio, Compositus. [O.]

Fornicem Lucilianum] The Fornix Arch seems to have been the title of an uncertain book of Lucilian Satires, of an obscene argument, as it seems. For fornix is the same as lupanar brothel. Isidorus, Origines, Book X, page 1075, in the collection of authors of the Latin language edited by Godefroy: "Fornicarius and fornicatrix is one whose body is public and common. These were prostituted under vaulted structures, which places are called fornices." From this were born the words of more recent Latin, fornicare to fornicate and fornicatio fornication. See Vossius, Etymologia Romana, s.v. fornix, and Oudendorp on Apuleius, page 465. Thus Horace, I, Satires II, 30: "standing in the foul-smelling arch." For Lucilianum, Meursius thinks one should read Caecilianum. But no comedy by a Caecilius of this name is cited by the ancients, as far as I know. Scriverius, in the same Meursius, page 51, conjectures Licinianum. [O.]

Marsyam Pomponii] Two poets named Pomponius are celebrated: one, L. Pomponius Bononiensis, a very ancient author of Atellan farces, famous for his sense, rude in words, and commendable for the novelty of the work invented by him, says Velleius Paterculus. The other is L. Pomponius Secundus, a tragic poet and most distinguished citizen, in the times of the Emperors Gaius and Claudius, of whom there is frequent mention in Seneca, Pliny, and Tacitus. I think the epigrammatist, whom Varro names (De Lingua Latina, Book VI, page 86, Bipont edition), is different from both; to whom the poem Marsyas should perhaps be referred, which Arnobius notes as lewd. He seems to have treated of nocturnal debauchery and various kinds of lust, for which the statue of the god Marsyas was infamous in the most celebrated part of the forum, where cases were pleaded. Seneca, De Beneficiis, Book VI, Chapter 32, concerning Julia, daughter of Augustus: "The city wandered through by nocturnal revelries, the forum itself and the rostra, from which her father had passed a law concerning adultery, were pleasing to the daughter for debauchery; the daily rushing to Marsyas, when, having turned from an adulteress into a common prostitute, she sought the right of every license under an unknown adulterer." [Popma on the aforementioned work of Varro, p. 190, Bipont edition.] For my part, I do not see why that Marsyas should be denied to the Pomponius who wrote the Atellan farces. For Varro cites the epigram of Papinius, not Pomponius, which is Scaliger's conjecture, and I conjecture from Cicero, Epistle IX, 16, that those Atellan plays were of a most obscene argument and corresponded to the satyric drama of the Greeks. Furthermore, the title Marsyas itself seems to indicate a larger poem. The Pomponius who Arnobius seems to join with his contemporary Lucilius flourished in the times of Sulla, in the year of the City 666. See Velleius Paterculus II, 9, and Eusebius, Chronicle at Olympiad 173. 1. [O.]