Book 2
26
Then Fronto, replying to Favorinus, said: "I do not deny that the Greek language, which you seem to prefer, is richer and more copious than ours; but nevertheless in naming these colours of which you have just spoken we are not quite so badly off as you think. For russus and ruber, which you have just mentioned, are not the only words that denote the colour red, but we have others also, more numerous than those which you have quoted from the Greek. For fihlvus, flavus, rubidus, poeniceus, rutilus, luteus and spadix are names of the colour red, which either brighten it (making it fiery, as it were), or combine it with green, or darken it with black, or make it luminous by a slight addition of gleaming white. For poeniceus, which you call foi=nic in Greek, belongs to our language, and rutilus and spadix, a synonym of poeniceus which is taken over into Latin from the Greek, indicate a rich, gleaming shade of red like that of the fruit of the palm-tree when it is not fully ripened by the sun. And from this spadix and poeniceus get their name; for spadix in Doric is applied to a branch torn from a palm-tree along with its fruit. But the colour fulvus seems to be a mixture of red and green, in which sometimes green predominates, sometimes red. Thus the poet who was most careful in his choice of words applies fulvus to an eagle, Virg. Aen. xi. 751. to jasper, id. iv. 261. to fur caps, id. vii. 688. to gold, id. vii. 279, etc. to sand, id. v. 374, etc. and to a lion; ii. 722, etc. and so Ennius in his Annals uses fulvus of air. 454 Vahlen.2 Ennius has fulva; and is so quoted by Gellius in xiii. 21. 14. Flavus on the other hand seems to be compounded of green and red and white; thus Virgil speaks of golden hair as flava Aen. iv. 590. and applies that adjective also to the leaves of the olive, Aen. v. 309. which I see surprises some; and thus, much earlier, Pacuvius called water flava and dust fulvus. v. 244, Ribbeck.2 I am glad to quote his verses, for they are most charming: Give me thy foot, that with the same soft hands With which oft times I did Ulysses soothe I may with golden (flavis) waters wash away The tawny (fulvum) dust and heal thy weariness."
