Book 9
14
But just as in this place Virgil evidently wrote dies, so there is no doubt that he wrote dii for diei in the following line: Aen. i. 636. As gifts for that day's (dii) merriment, where the less learned read dei, Making munera dei = the gifts of the god (Bacchus). doubtless shrinking from the use of so uncommon a form. But the older writers declined dies dii, as they did fames fami, pernicies pernicii, progenies progenii, luxuries luxurii, acies acii. For Marcus Cato in his oration On the Punic War wrote as follows: xxxvii. 1, Jordan. The women and children were driven out because of the famine (fami causa). Lucilius in his twelfth book has: 430, Marx, who completes the line with distendere ventrem, to fill a belly. Wrinkled and full of hunger (fami). Sisenna in the sixth book of his History writes: Fr. 128, Peter2. That the Romans came for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii). Pacuvius in the Paulus says: i, p. 325, Ribbeck3. O sire supreme of our own race's (progenii) sire. Gnaeus Matius in the twenty-first book of his Iliad: Fr. 7, Bährens; Iliad xxi. 3 f. The army's (acii) other part the river's wave had shunned. Again Matius in Book xxiii writes: Fr. 8, Bährens; Iliad xxiii. 103 f. Or bides in death some semblance of a form (specii) Of those who speak no more. Gaius Gracchus, On the Publishing of the Laws has: O.R. F., p. 235, Meyer2. They say that those measures were taken because of luxury (luxurii casaa) and farther on in the same speech we find: What is necessarily provided to sustain life is not luxury (luxuries), which shows that he used luxurii as the genitive of luxuries. Marcus Tullius also has left pernicii on record, in the speech in which he defended Sextus Roscius. These are his words: Pro Rose. Amer. 131. We think that none of these things was produced by divine will for the purpose of dealing destruction (pernicii), but by the very force and greatness of Nature. We must therefore suppose that Quadrigarius wrote either facies or facii as the genitive; but I have not found the reading facie in any ancient manuscript.
