Book 7
5
An error of the jurist Alfenus in the interpretation of early words.
5
THE jurist Alfenus, a pupil of Servius Sulpicius and a man greatly interested in matters antiquarian, in the thirty-fourth book of his Digests and the second of his Miscellanies, says: Fr. 1, Huschke; Resp. 14, Dig. 99, Bremer (i, pp. 287,322, 330). In a treaty which was made between the Roman people and the Carthaginians the provision is found, that the Carthaginians should pay each year to the Roman people a certain weight of argenti puri puti, and the meaning of puri puti was asked. I replied, he says, that putus meant very pure,' just as we say novicius for novus (new) and propicius for proprius (proper), when we wish to augment and amplify the meaning of novus and proprius.
