Transactions. 125 



Ammiaiius xv., 3, 3 : — Unde rttmorum aucupes subito exstitere 

 coinpliu'es, honorum vertices ipsos ferinis morsibus adpetentes, 

 posteaque pauperes et divites indiscrete. Compare Plautus 

 {Miles gloriosus, 4, 1, 9). 



10. If either serpentiferani or sarmentiferam are the right read- 

 ing in Virgil's Ciris, 477, serpentifer snake-prodticing, or sarmen- 

 tifer britshwood hearing must be inserted in the Latin dictionaries 

 as new words : — Prospicit incinctam spumanti litore Cythnum, 

 marmoreamque Paron, vidiremque adlapsa Donysam Aeginamque 

 simul serpentiferanique Seriphum. I have been favoured by 

 receiving the following note from Dr Robinson Ellis, the 

 famous Oxford Latinist, on this point : — " In Ciris, ill, the 

 MSS. give salutijeramque or sementiferamque. Serjjentiferamqice 

 is a conjecture of Scaliger's. R. C. Jebb, in a letter he wrote to 

 me on the passage, conjectured sarmentiferamque. This might 

 agree with the modern description of Seriphus in Bent's 

 " Cyclades," p. G. " The island, except near the town, is bare ; 

 ^or at this time of year the vineyai'ds were brown, and the long 

 straggling vines, which in this island are trained along the ground 

 *o get what protection they can from the summer winds, do not 

 in winter present a very lovely appearance." (See " American 

 Journal of Philology," viii., p. 13.) But I am quite uncertain as 

 to the right reading, and the MSS. are wretched." Trinity College, 

 Oxford, May 29, 1892. Bachrens prints the Ciris in his edition 

 of Catullus, and reads serpenti/eram with Scaliger. The poem is 

 supposed to be one of Virgil's early works. Some ascribe it to 

 Cornelius Gallus, a fampus poet of the Augustan era, whose works 

 have perished. 



11. The word statics, evidently the oiugin of the French etat and 

 our state has never, so far as I am aware, in Classical Latin the 

 meaning of state in the sense of commonwealth. It seems, how- 

 ever, to bear this meaning in Ammianus Marcellinus iii., 8, 11, 

 in the letter of Julian to Constantius, explaining his reasons for 

 having assumed the title of Augustus, and defending his course 

 of action : — Et conditionum sequitatem, quam propono, bona-iide 

 suscipito, cum animo disputans, haec statui Romano prodesse, 

 nobisque qui caritate sanguinis, et fortunte superioris culmine 

 sociamur. This seems to be the earliest use of the word in the 

 sense of reinMic, now one of its common meanings. 



12. .4 socco ad cotlmrmtm ascendere (to mount fi'om comedy to 



