Kitap 20
6
I ASKED Sulpicius Apollinaris, when I was studying with him at Rome in my youth, on what principle people said habeo curam vestri, or I have care for you, and misereor vestri, or I pity you, and what he thought the nominative case of vestri was in such connections. Thereupon he answered me as follows: You ask something of me about which I too have long been in a state of uncertainty. For it seems to me that one ought to say, not vestri, but vestrum, just as the Greeks say e)pimelou=mai u(mw=n and kh/domai u(mw=n, where u(mw=n is translated by vestrum more fittingly than by vestri, having vos for the naming case, or the 'direct' case, as you called it. Yet in not a few places, said he, "I find nostri and vestri, not nostrum or vestrum. Thus Lucius Sulla says, in the second book of his Autobiography: Frag. 3, Peter2. But if it is possible that even now you think of me (nostri), and believe me worthy to be your fellow citizen rather than your enemy, and to fight for you rather than against you, this will surely be due to my services and those of my forefathers. Also Terence in the Phormio: v. 172. Of such a nature are we almost all, That with ourselves (nostri) we discontented are. Afranius wrote in an Italian play: v. 417, Ribbeck3. At last some god or other pitied us (nostri). And Laberius in the Necyomantia: v. 62, Ribbeck3.
