Kitap 10
24
I HEAR die quarto and die quinto, which the Greeks express by ei)s teta/rthn kai\ ei)s pe/mpthn, used nowadays even by learned men, and one who speaks otherwise is looked down upon as crude and illiterate. But in the time of Marcus Tullius, and earlier, they did not, I think, speak in that way; for they used diequinte and diequinti as a compound adverb, with the second syllable of the word shortened. The deified Augustus, too, who was well versed in the Latin tongue and an imitator of his father's That is, his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. elegance in discourse, has often in his letters p. 145, Weichert. used that means of designating the days. But it will be sufficient to show the undeviating usage of the men of old, if I quote the regular formula of the praetor, in which, according to the usage of our forefathers, he is accustomed to proclaim the festival known as the Compitalia. A movable festival, celebrated between Dec. 15 and Jan. 5, at cross-roads, in honour of the Lares compitales. His words are as follows: On the ninth day the Roman people, the Quirites, will celebrate the Compitalia; when they shall have begun, legal business ceases. The praetor says dienoni, not die nono.
