Non-Hellenc Portion of the Latin Language. 561 
such word in the language. In taking security, no lawyer re- 
gards the mere person, or cares whether he be absent or present, 
if he be not rich and able to answer when pressed for the debt. 
Pres is therefore equivalent to “ locuples,” full of land, “rich in 
land.” Hence “ locuples reus,” is one “ qui cum se obligarit, 
habet unde solvat, et idoneus est implendo promisso.” Besides 
all this, had the imaginary Praes, or the real Presto, been the 
root of Prees, Predis, it would have applied with equal force to 
one who gave security in criminal cases either to present him- 
self, “se sistere,” or to bring into court him for whose appear- 
ance he had become bail. But, as Forceixry1 properly ob- 
serves, “ differt praes a vade, vas enim est qui pro alio spondet 
in re capitali, pres qui in re nummaria.” 
Preditus, endowed or vested. This we know cannot come 
from Pre, and “do, to give.” First, because there is no such com- 
pound ; secondly, because if it had once existed in the language, 
it would signify that its substantive “ had been given before- 
hand,” since datus and donatus cannot be interchanged. It ap- 
pears to have been first applied to a person invested or endowed 
with landed property, and that it was thence metaphorically 
transferred to all endowments physical and intellectual. We 
have now no hesitation in saying that “a man is possessed of 
many good qualities,” because possideo, at the period when Ro- 
man literature commenced, signified “to possess.” But in older 
times possessio, formed out of pro-sedeo, signified only pre-occu- 
pation, “a sitting,” or as the Americans have it, “a squatting,” 
on ground not legally conveyed. We know what radical mistakes 
in Roman history occurred from a mistake in the meaning of the 
two words, “ Possessores agrorum.” 
Connected with the idea of property are three other words, 
which are also derived from the Cumrian, these are— 
Idoneus, 
Divitie, 
Bonus and bona. 
