Kitap 4
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To know what penus is, said Favorinus, who was now laughing, is not more a part of my philosophy than of your grammar. For you remember, I suppose, that it is often inquired whether Virgil said penum struere longam or longo ordine; Aen. i. 704 f.: Quinquaginta intus famulae, quibus ordine longo cura penum struere et flammis adolere Penates. The MSS. and Servius have longo; Charisius, longam. for you surely know that both readings are current. But to make you feel easier in mind, let me say that not even those old masters of the law who were called 'wise men' are thought to have defined penus with sufficient accuracy. For I hear that Quintus Scaevola used the following words to explain penus: Jur. Civ. fr. 1, Huschke; II. 5a, Bremer. Penus,' said he, 'is what is to be eaten or drunk, which is prepared for the use of the father of the family himself; or the mother of the family, or the children of the father, or the household which he has about him or his children and which is not engaged in work If the reading is correct, opus must mean field-work, the reference being to the household servants of the paterfamilies and his children. . . . as There is a lacuna in the text. Mucius says ought to be regarded as penus. For articles which are prepared for eating and drinking day by day, for luncheon or dinner, are not penus; but rather the articles of that kind which are collected and stored up for use during a long period are called penus, because they are not ready at hand, but are kept in the innermost part of the house.' Penitus, like Penates, is connected with penus in the sense of an inner chamber. Penus is derived by some from the root pa- of pasco, pabulum, etc.; by others it is connected with pe/nomai and po/nos, as the fruit of labour. Walde, Lat. Etym. Wörterb. s.v., separates penus, an inner chamber, from penus, a store of provisions, connecting the latter with pasco, the former with penes, penetro and Penates. This information, said Favorinus, although I had devoted myself to philosophy, I yet did not neglect to acquire; since for Roman citizens speaking Latin it is no less disgraceful not to designate a thing by its proper word than it is to call a man out of his own name.
