Book 12
13
Then he proceeded to discourse, in my hearing and that of several others, in about this fashion: When the time, said he, "is so defined that the judge is to render a decision 'within the Kalends, everyone at once jumps to the conclusion that there is no doubt that the verdict may lawfully be rendered before the Kalends, and I observe that the only question is the one which you raise, namely, whether the decision may lawfully be rendered also on the Kalends. But undoubtedly the word itself is of such origin and such a nature that when the expression 'within the Kalends' is used, no other day ought to be meant than the Kalends alone. For those three words intra, citra, ultra (within, this side, beyond), by which definite boundaries of places are indicated, among the early writers were expressed by monosyllables, in, cis, uls. Then, since these particles had a somewhat obscure utterance because of their brief and slight sound, the same syllable was added to all three words, and what was formerly cis Tiberim (on this side of the Tiber) and uls Tiberim (beyond the Tiber) began to be called citra Tiberim and ultra Tiberim; and in also became intra by the addition of the same syllable. Therefore all these expressions are, so to speak, related, being united by common terminations: intra oppidum, ultra oppidum, citra oppidum, of which intra, as I have said, is equivalent to in; for one who says intra oppidum, intra cubiculum, intra ferias means nothing else than in oppido (in the town), in cubiculo (in the room), in feriis (during the festival)."
