[36]
But those
who collected such derivations in book form, put
their names on the title page; and Gavius thought
himself a perfect genius when he identified caelibes,
“bachelors,” with caelites, “gods,” on the ground
that they are free from a heavy load of care, and
supported this opinion by a Greek analogy: for he
asserted that ἠΐθεοι “young men,” had a precisely
similar origin. Modestus is not his inferior in
inventive power: for he asserts that caelibes, that is
to say unmarried men, are so called because Saturn
cut off the genital organs of Caelus. Aelius asserts
that pituita, “phlegm,” is so called quia petat uitam,
because it attacks life.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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