De Abusu linguae Graecae

we would conjecture for our little dinner not delicacies of food, but refinements of questions. And with a very few words interposed: "There were sought, however, neither heavy nor fearful things, but certain pleasant and small enthymemata reflections/arguments, which incite the mind flowering with wine." After he proposed examples of these, he finally closes the chapter with those words, "Such were at the house of Taurus," etc. Since these things are so, I do not see how anyone can deny that "such" can or rather ought to be referred to those things which were being sought, which were also called by him enthymemata. So that, by apposition (as the grammarians say), he says that "such" were symbolae—that is, they were accustomed to be contributed as symbolae, or in the place of symbolae. And thus it was not necessary to write "such symbola" nor "such symbolae." But it is credible that a copyist, otherwise bold, was made even bolder to change symbolae into symbola by the preceding word "such." Furthermore, it is worthy of observation in passing in that passage of Gellius that he used the verb "we conjectured," which he used rather than the verb "we contributed," as if to place before our eyes the native force of symballein to contribute/throw together, from which symbolē contribution originated. He uses the compound word asymboloi after Terence's Phormio: