i. 8, 5 optime institutum est ut ab Homero atque Vergilio lectio

inciperet.

auspicatissimum. Cp. Tac. Germ. 11 agendis rebus hoc anspicatissimum initium credunt: Plin. ad Traian, xvii. 3 cum mihi contigerit, quod erat auspicatissimum, natalem tuum in provincia celebrare. Cp. the opening words of Pliny’s Panegyricus: Bene ac sapienter, patres conscripti, maiores instituerunt ut rerum agendarum ita dicendi initium a precationibus capere, quod nihil rite, nihil providenter homines sine deorum immortalium ope consilio honore auspicarentur. Cicero, de Div. i. 16, 28 Nihil fere quondam maioris rei nisi auspicato ne privatim quidem gerebatur.

dederit: v. on §37.

haud dubie: see Crit. Notes.

I:86 Utar enim verbis isdem quae ex Afro Domitio iuvenis excepi: qui mihi 83 interroganti quem Homero crederet maxime accedere, ‘secundus,’ inquit, ‘est Vergilius, propior tamen primo quam tertio.’ Et hercule ut illi naturae caelesti atque immortali cesserimus, ita curae et diligentiae vel ideo in hoc plus est, quod ei fuit magis laborandum; et quantum eminentibus vincimur fortasse aequalitate pensamus.

§ 86. Afro Domitio. The order is characteristic of the silver age, though examples are found also in Cicero’s letters (Introd. p. lv.): cp. Atacinus Varro, below, and §103. Domitius Afer (cp. §24) was a distinguished orator who flourished under Tiberius and his successors, and died in the reign of Nero, A.D. 59 (Tac. Ann. xiv. 19). He was a native of Nemausus (Nismes), and first rose to fame by the prosecution of Agrippina’s cousin Claudia Pulchra: Tiberius avowed that he was a ‘born orator’ (suo iure disertum, Tac. Ann. iv. 52). Being of an unscrupulous character (quoquo facinore properus clarescere, ibid.) he placed his rhetorical powers at the disposal of the government: mox capessendis accusationibus aut reos tutando prosperiore eloquentiae quam morum fama fuit, ibid. Quintilian’s connection with him (cp. v. 7, 7 quem adolescentulus senem colui) comes out in the story he told to Pliny about Afer: ‘adsectabar Domitium,’ Plin. Epist. ii. 14. Below (§118) he speaks of him, along with Iulius Africanus, (to whom he prefers him) as the best orator he had ever heard: though he tells us elsewhere that Afer lost much of his reputation by continuing to speak in public after he should have retired: vidi ego longe omnium quos mihi cognoscere contigit summum oratorem, Domitium Afrum, valde senem, cotidie aliquid ex ea quam meruerat auctoritate perdentem, cum agente illo quem principem fuisse quondam fori non erat dubium alii, quod indignum videatur, riderent, alii erubescerent; quae occasio fuit dicendi, malle eum deficere quam desinere. Cp. Tac. Ann. iv. 52 ad fin. aetas extrema multum etiam eloquentiae dempsit dum fessa mente retinet silentii impatientiam.

excepi. As distinguished from _accipere_, 83 which, when used in this sense, means to get some information at second-hand, _excipere_ always refers to what is said in one’s presence, whether one is meant to hear, as in this passage, or not; as Livy ii. 4 sermonem eorum ex servis unus excepit.

Homero. The same dative with _accedere_ occurs §68 magis accedit oratorio generi (Euripides). With the name of a person Cicero also uses the dative,—e.g. Crasso et Antonio L. Philippus proximus accedebat, Brut. §173, and so ad Fam.