Book 12
13
According therefore to the analogy of the words of Marcus Tullius may not one who is bidden to make a decision within the Kalends lawfully make it before the Kalends and on the Kalends themselves? And this results, not from a sort of privilege conceded to ignorant usage, but from an accurate regard for reason, since all time which is embraced by the day of the Kalends is correctly said to be within the Kalends.
14
The meaning and origin of the particle saltem.
14
WE were inquiring what the original meaning of the particle saltem (at least) was, and what was the derivation of the word; for it seems to have been so formed from the first that it does not appear, like some aids to expression, to have been adopted inconsiderately and irregularly. And there was one man who said that he had read in the Grammatical Notes of Publius Nigidius p. 19, 66, Swoboda. that saltem was derived from si aliter, and that this itself was an elliptical expression, since the complete sentence was si aliter non potest, if otherwise, it cannot be. But I myself have nowhere come upon that statement in those Notes of Publius Nigidius, although I have read them, I think, with some care.
