Book 11
15
However, in noting this criticism of Scaurus it occurred to me that Sisenna, in the fourth book of his Histories, used a word of the same form. He says: Fr. 55, Peter. He came to the town, laying waste the fields (populabundus), which of course means while he was laying waste the fields, not, as Sisenna says of similar words, when he played the part of, or imitated, one laying waste.
15
But when I was inquiring about the signification and origin of such forms as populabundus, errabundus, laetabundus, ludibundus, and many other words of that kind, our friend Apollinaris—very appositely by Heaven! —remarked that it seemed to him that the final syllable of such words indicated force and abundance, and as it were, an excess of the quality belonging to the primitive word. Thus laetabundus is used of one who is excessively joyful, and errabundus of one who has wandered long and far, and he showed that all other words of that form are so used that this addition and ending indicates a great and overflowing force and abundance In general these words in-bundus have the same force as the pres. participle; the intensive force in a few words comes originally from forms like versabundus, formed from intensive verbs. See Stolz, Hist. Lat. Gr. i, p. 570.
16
That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called polupragmosu/nh. The word means being busy about many things, often with the idea of officiousness or meddling.
