Book 10
10
I HAVE heard that the ancient Greeks wore a ring on the finger of the left hand which is next to the little finger. They say, too, that the Roman men commonly wore their rings in that way. Apion in his Egyptian History says F.H.G. iii. 511. that the reason for this practice is, that upon cutting into and opening human bodies, a custom in Egypt which the Greeks call a)natomai/, or dissection, it was found that a very fine nerve proceeded from that finger alone of which we have spoken, and made its way to the human heart; that it therefore seemed quite reasonable that this finger in particular should be honoured with such an ornament, since it seems to be joined, and as it were united, with that supreme organ, the heart.
11
The derivation and meaning of the word mature, and that it is generally used improperly; and also that the genitive of praecox is praecocis and not praecoquis.
11
MATURE in present usage signifies hastily and quickly, contrary to the true force of the word; for mature means quite a different thing. Therefore Publius Nigidius, a man eminent in the pursuit of all the liberal arts, says: Fr. 48, Swoboda. Mature means neither 'too soon' nor 'too late,' but something between the two and intermediate.
