Book 19
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"But this word would have been given citizenship by you, or established in a Latin colony, if you had deigned to use it, and it would be very much more acceptable than the low and vulgar words which Laberius introduced into the Latin language." See xvi. 7. Thereupon Postumius Festus said to a Latin grammarian, a friend of Fronto's: Apollinaris has told us that nam is a Greek word; do you inform us whether it is good Latin, when it is used, as it commonly is, of small mules or ponies, and in what author it is found. And that grammarian, a man very well versed in knowledge of the early literature, said: If I am not committing sacrilege in giving my opinion of any Greek or Latin word in the presence of Apollinaris, I venture to reply to your inquiry, Festus, that the word is Latin and is found in the poems of Helvius Cinna, a poet neither obscure nor without learning And he gave the verses themselves, Frag. 1, Bährens. which I have added, since I chanced to remember them:
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That Marcus Varro and Publius Nigidius, the most learned Romans of their time, were contemporaries of Caesar and Cicero, and that the commentaries of Nigidius, because of their obscurity and subtlety, did not become popular.
