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In these and many other passages mile is used in the singular number, and that is not, as some think, a concession to early usage or admitted as a neat figure of speech, but it is obviously demanded by rule. For the word mille does not stand for the Greek xilioi, thousand, but for xilia/s, a thousand ; and just as they say one xilia/s, or two xilia/des, so we say one thousand and two thousands according to a definite and regular rule. Therefore these common expressions are correct and good usage, There is a thousand of denarii in the chest, and There is a thousand of horsemen in the army. Furthermore Lucilius, in addition to the example cited above, makes this point still clearer in another place also: for in his fifteenth book he says: 506 ff., Marx, who punctuates with a comma after succussor, with a slight change in the meaning, taking nullus seqetur in the sense of non sequetur. On the Campanian horses see Livy, viii.11.5 and xxvi.4.3, 6; Val. Max. ii.3.3. This horse no jolting fine Campanian steed, Though he has passed him by one thousand, aye And twain, of paces, can in a longer course Compete with, but he will in fact appear To run the other way. So too in the ninth book: 327, Marx. With sesterces a thousand you can gain A hundred thousand. Lucilius wrote milli passum instead of mille passibus and uno milli nummum for unis mille nunmis, thus showing clearly that mille is a noun, used in the singular number, that its plural is milia, and that it also forms an ablative case. Nor ought we to expect the rest of the cases; for there are many other words which are declined only in single cases, and even some which are not declined at all. Therefore we can no longer doubt that Cicero, in the speech which he wrote In Defence of Milo, §53. used these words: Before the estate of Clodius, where fully a thousand of ablebodied men was employed on those crazy substructures, not were employed, as we find it in less accurate copies; for one rule requires us to say a thousand men, but another, a thousand of men.
