BOOK II. XIV. 14-19
ought to understand the meaning of terms.15—So you imply that I do not now understand the meaning of terms?—You do not.—How comes it, then, that I use them?—Why, you use them as the illiterate use written speech, as the cattle use external impressions; for use is one thing, and understanding another. But if you think you understand terms, propose any term you please, and let us put ourselves to the test, to see whether we understand it.—But it is unpleasant to be subjected to an examination when one is already somewhat advanced in years, and, if it so chance, has served his three campaigns.[1]—I realize that myself. For now you have come to me like a man who stood in need of nothing. But what could anyone even imagine you to be in need of? You are rich, you have children, possibly also a wife, and many slaves; Caesar knows you, you have many friends in Rome, you perform the duties incumbent upon you, and when a man has done you either good or harm you know how to pay him back in kind. What do you still lack? If, therefore, I show you that what you lack are things most necessary and important for happiness, and that hitherto you have devoted your attention to everything but what was appropriate for you to do, and if I add the colophon,[2]
- ↑ By the municipal law of Caesar (C.I.L. I², 593 = Dessau, Inscr. Lat. 6085, § 89), a man to be eligible to the Senate of a municipality must have served three campaigns in the cavalry, or six in the infantry, and it is probable that this provision is referred to here. Cf. IV. 1, 37-40, and on the tres militiae equestres see Mommsen: Römischces Staatsrecht, III. (1887), 543, n. 2-4; 549, n. 1. On the other hand the scholiast (probably Arethas, see Schenkl, pp. lxxii. ff.) on § 17 apparently took this to mean that Naso had once been a commanding officer (for the corrupt διὰ τὸν ἄσωνα λέγει κ.τ.λ, one ought probably to read something like στρατηγὸν Νάσωνα λέγει, ἦν γὰρ τῶν μεγάλων τῆς Ῥώμης) although this can hardly have been more than a guess on his part.
- ↑ i.e. the finishing touch; a word (sometimes derived from the ancient city Colophon because of a tradition that its efficient cavalry gave the finishing stroke in every war in which it was engaged [Strabo, XIV. i, 28], but more probably a common noun in the sense of "tip," "summit," "finishing point,") used to indicate the title and other explanatory data when entered at the end of a work.
