MORGAN. — ON THE LANGUAGE OF VITRUVIUS. 491 



elsewhere, either in Greek or Latin in any other than its literal sense 

 as applied to a ' colossal ' statue. Vitruvius has it thus in 50, 3 : statuam 

 colossicam, and 251, 3 : colossici Apollinis. Yet in the more general 

 and derived sense Vitruvius (and no late author) has it twice in the 

 comparative degree, — in the passage cited above (247, 19) where it is 

 used of weights too enormous to be raised by the sucula: sin autem 

 colossicotera amplitudinibus et ponderibus onera in operibus fuerint, non 

 erit suculae committendum ; and in 81, 1 where it is applied to buildings 

 which are, as we might say, somewhat gigantic : opera . . . ipsa colossi- 

 cotera. Here again we must remember what has been said of Greek as 

 the literary argot of the classical period. Cicero in his letters does not 

 shrink from introducing Greek comparatives into Latin sentences : e. g. 

 Att. 12, 45, 2: nam ceteroqui di/e/cToVepa erant Asturae ; Att. 4, 2, 7 : 

 cetera quae me sollicitant fiva-TiKajrepa sunt. Other such comparatives are 

 7roAiTiKwepa. (Att. 14, 14, 1), (^lAoAoyajrepa (Att. 13, 12, 3), iKTO'ecrrepov 

 and (ptAocrTopyoVepoi/ (Att. 13, 9, 1). Caesar also used them, as we see 

 from Cic. Q. F. 2, 15 (16), 5: reliqua ad quendam locum paOvfxorepa : 

 hoc enim utitur (sc. Caesar) verbo. The word aniatrologetos (8, 14) is 

 also a u7ra£ (cf. tarpoAoyew and larpoXoyla). It is worth observing that 

 the whole passage is full of Greek names and words : architectus, gram- 

 maticus, Aristarchus, agrammatos, musicus, Aristoxemts, amusos, Apelles, 

 graphidos, plastes, Myron, Polyclitus, plasticae, Hippocrates — all these 

 occur in the same section. And we may note that in our word the end- 

 ing -os is due to an emendation by Giocondo, the manuscripts giving -us. 

 Finally, of the ending -ois as found in pentadorois, there is no manuscript 

 evidence that Vitruvius used it, but if he did, he was perfectly excusable 

 since the whole passage bristles with Greek, and Pliny N. H. 35, 171 

 shows that, if he was not drawing from Vitruvius, he had the same Greek 

 source before him. . Vitruvius is describing the kinds of bricks used by 

 the Greeks in their buildings : ex his unum 7revTa8(opov, alterum rerpaS^pov 

 dicitur. Swpov autem Graeci appellant palmum quod . . . palmam. Ita 

 quod est quoquoversus quinque palmorum pentadoron, quod est quattuor 

 tetradoron dicitur, et quae sunt publica opera 7rei/raSojpoi?, quae privata 

 TerpaScopots struuntur. I print the passage as Rose gives it. The manu- 

 scripts have only Latin letters. 24 For 7refra8ojpot5 and TerpaSwpoi? they 

 give pentadoros HS, pentatoros G ; tetradoros GS, tetradoro H. If Vitru- 

 vius himself used Latin letters here, it is obvious that he may have 

 written pentadoris and tetradoris with Latin terminations, so that in either 



24 This is also frequently the case in cod. M of Cicero's letters to Atticus, where 

 our editions give Greek letters ; see Tyrrell and Purser to Att. 2, 20, 1 and 14, 3, 2. 



