Kitap 1
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I once heard Favorinus say that the familiar lines of Euripides: Bacch. 386. Of unrestrained mouth And of lawless folly Is disaster the end, ought not to be understood as directed only at those who spoke impiously or lawlessly, but might even with special propriety be used also of men who prate foolishly and immoderately, whose tongues are so extravagant and unbridled that they ceaselessly flow and seethe with the foulest dregs of language, the sort of persons to whom the Greeks apply the highly significant term kata/glwssoi, or given to talk. I learned from a friend of his, a man of learning, that the famous grammarian Valerius Probus, shortly before his death, began to read Sallust's well-known saying, Cat. v. 4. a certain amount of eloquence but little discretion, as abundant talkativeness, too little discretion, and that he insisted that Sallust left it in that form, since the word loquentia was very characteristic of Sallust, an innovator in diction, It is true that Sallust was fond of new words, but the best MSS. of Sallust are unanimous for eloquentiae. Besides this passage of Gellius, L. and S. cite loquentia only in Plin. Epist. v. 20. 5, Iulius Cordus . . . solet dicere aliud esse eloquentiam, aliud loquentiam. while eloquentia was not at all consistent with lack of discretion.
