Jerzy Linderski

Isto Vilius, Immo Carum : Anecdotes about King Romulus

ISTO VILIUS. Lovers of words will love A. S. Gratwick’s recent piece (2000) on this idiom. Yet this is only part of the puzzle. There exists a complement at the other end of the scale: Immo carum. A brief introduction: At the conclusion of Terence’s Adelphoe, in a comical reversal of roles, the stingy Demea goads the generous Micio into headlong spendthrift spending. Micio drags his feet, and when Demea suggests that in addition to freeing the crafty slave, Syrus, and his female companion, he should also provide them with a loan so that they may start a business, Micio responds, istoc vilius (line 981). This choice of words to express a petulant demurral has for centuries (or rather for millennia, if we begin with the scholia) intrigued philologists, and Gratwick guides us expertly through all the meanders of the argument. He points out that—surprisingly—the commentators of Terence have generally neglected the testimony of Suetonius preserved by the late fourth-century grammarian Charisius. It is to this text that we ought now to direct our attention. We read under the lemma Isto vilius:1

The Constitution of the Roman Republic (review)

example, “describes Tacitus’ Annals and Histories as ‘Lives of the Caesars’ [vitas Caesarum]”), the “list of works which Plutarch groups together under the general terms ‘history and narrative’ . . . in his polemic It is not possible even to live pleasantly according to Epikouros (1093b–c),” and the difficulty of placing the Lives of the Caesars in either category (19). I am not sure I agree about the validity of Duff’s arguments, but I have been thinking about them steadily, and so will Duff’s other readers. Duff’s general thoroughness is one of the book’s strengths. He supports his statements throughout with multiple examples from Plutarch’s Lives as well as from other writers, and he controls the massive bibliography to good effect. This, plus the wealth of ancillary material he provides, makes his book a natural choice for graduate seminars in historiography or Plutarch’s biographies. The book contains a bibliography of modern works, with the very useful addition of a page of works that appeared too late for Duff to consult, something that will help keep the book up to date. There is an index locorum with individual passages differentiated by bold type from multiple passages in extended discussions, an index of Greek words, an index nominum, an index of modern authors, and finally an index of themes. These indexes are themselves extremely thorough: the index of themes, for example, contains an entry on “syphilis,” one speculation about the disease that killed Sulla (197); this same page also sports an entry on “maggots.” Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice belongs in every undergraduate and graduate library, and many specialists will require personal copies. It is an outstanding contribution to the field for both generalists and specialists.