Book 18
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LUCILIUS in the fifth book of his Satires shows, and indeed most wittily, how silly, useless, and puerile are o(moiote/leuta, or words of the same ending, i)sokata/lhkta, or words of the same sound, pa/risa, or words exactly balanced, o(moio/ptwta, or words of the same case, and other niceties of that kind which those foolish pedants who wish to appear to be followers of Isocrates use in their compositions without moderation or taste. For having complained to a friend because he did not come to see him when he was ill, he adds these merry words: vv. 181 ff., Marx. Although you do not ask me how I am, I'll tell you, since with those I still abide Who of all mortals are the lesser part The poet has been ill, but still lives; cf. abiit ad plures, Petron. 42. . . . You are the slacker friend Marx suggests Tu cessator malus, talis amicus as the sense of the lacuna. who'd wish him dead Whom you'd not visit though it was your debit. But if you chide this visit joined with debit ('Twas writ by chance), if you detest it all, This silly, puerile, Isocratic The homoioteleuta of Isocrates are mentioned, among others, by Cicero, Orator, 38. stuff, I'll waste no time on you, That is, in deleting the jingle. since such you are. Such a friend as he has described.
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The meaning of the word insecenda in Marcus Cato; and that insecenda ought to be read rather than insequenda, which many prefer.
