Kitap 5
17
Many also avoid the fourth day before the Kalends, Nones and Ides, as ill-omened. It is often inquired whether any religious reason for that observance is recorded. I myself have found nothing in literature pertaining to that matter, except that Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, in the fifth book of his Annals, says that the prodigious slaughter of the battle of Cannae occurred on the fourth day before the Nones of August. August 2, 216 B. C.
18
In what respect, and how far, history differs from annals; and a quotation on that subject from the first book of the Histories of Sempronius Asellio.
18
SOME think that history differs from annals in this particular, that while each is a narrative of events, yet history is properly an account of events in which the narrator took part; and that this is the opinion of some men is stated by Verrius Flaccus in the fourth book of his treatise On the Meaning of Words. p. xiv. Müller. He adds that he for his part has doubts about the matter, but he thinks that the view may have some appearance of reason, since i(stori/a in Greek means a knowledge of current events. But we often hear it said that annals are exactly the same as histories, but that histories are not exactly the same as annals; just as a man is necessarily an animal, but an animal is not necessarily a man.
