Book 7
16
Our good man thought that deprecor in this passage was used in the sense that is commonly given the word by the vulgar; that is, I pray earnestly, I beseech, I entreat, where the preposition de is used intensively and emphatically. And if that were so, the verses would indeed be flat. But as a matter of fact the sense is exactly the opposite; for the preposition de, since it has a double force, contains two meanings in one and the same word. For deprecor is used by Catullus in the sense of denounce, execrate, drive away, or avert by prayers; but it also has the opposite meaning, when Cicero In Defence of Publius Sulla speaks as follows: § 72. How many men's lives did he beg off (est deprecatus) from Sulla. Similarly in his speech Against the Agrarian Law Cicero says: ii. 100. If I do any wrong, there are no masks of ancestors to intercede (deprecentur, beg off) for me with you by their prayers.
