Book 1
1
I was accidentally going along the Via Sacra, meditating on some trifle or other, as is my custom, and totally intent upon it. A certain person, known to me by name only, runs up; and, having seized my hand, "How do you do, my dearest fellow?"
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"Tolerably well," say I, "as times go; and I wish you every thing you can desire."
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When he still followed me; "Would you any thing?" Numquid vis. Donatus tells us in a remark upon a passage in Terence, that it was a polite customary manner of speaking among the Romans, that they might not seem to take their leave too abruptly, to say at parting, "numquid vis?" as in modern phrase, "have you any commands?" "Abituri, ne id dure facerent, ‘numquid vis’ dicebant his, quibuscum constitissent." said I to him.
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But, "You know me," says he: "I am a man of learning."
