CoLLOQUIAL CITATIONS 205 
Macer’s MAGNA-GRAECIAN NAMES 
Usually Macer begins each new plant with two or more lines 
stating its Greek name as well as its accepted Latin name and 
sometimes a third Latin or Greek name of popular use; introduc- 
ing the alternative name, the Latin name, by /atine, nos, nostri, or 
simply by d@cimus ; or the vernacular name by vulgi more, vulgari 
more, nostri vulgariter, or by nostra lingua, vulgi lingua, or romana 
lingua; but never by /talico sermone, a phase first used by Arno- 
bius Afer, about 295 A.D., and then used of Latin; occurring 
later in the sense of Italian, after Macer’s period. His Greek 
names are usually introduced by Graect dicere, Graecus vocat, 
Graece dicitur, or Graeco sermone; but of some he makes his 
reference to the Greek mainland positive by saying Aitica dicere, 
apud Argos, Argi or Argivi vocant. Three of the Greek names 
cited by Macer were names, Meyer suggests, which he was ac- 
customed to in his youth, hearing them as current Greek names 
in Magna Graecia. They are Brassica, Elna and Lolium (see 
note, p. 196). Line 1201 reads 3 
Caulis romana, Graecorum Brassica lingua 
Dicitur. 
A native Roman might have said “ Caulis vulgariter, sed Latine 
Brassica.’’ To most men using Latin, Brassica would have seemed 
the more natural term and as much a Roman word as Caulis 
(whence our cauliflower). Cato, Varro, Cicero and Pliny had all 
called it Brassica. But its name among the Greeks of Magna 
Graecia was Bodoxy or foucotxy, as we know from express state- 
ment of Hesychius,* and as Macer seems to have known by his 
early nurture, Bedoexy did not occur in classic Greek at home, 
fide Hesychius, and Dioscorides used instead xpd yin, Theophrastus 
bdgavoc, 
The Magna Graecian form Bodoxy has given direct form to 
the Italian brasca, a cabbage, though the Latin caw/is has sup- 
plied the name in recognized use, cavolo. 
* Hesychius, the lexicographer, who wrote his lexicon at Alexandria perhaps about 
vd A.D. It represents the surviving portion of the great lexicon in 95 books wrought 
tat Alexandria by the school of Aristarchus, about 150 B, C. 
