[p. 281]
XXIV
[24arg] That the most elegant speakers used the expressions die pristini, die crastini, die quarti, and die quinti, not those which are current now.I HEAR die quarto and die quinto, which the Greeks express by εἰς τετάρτην καὶ εἰς πέμπτην, used nowadays even by learned men, and one who speaks otherwise is looked down upon as crude and illiterate. But in the time of Marcus Tullius, and earlier, they did not, I think, speak in that way; for they used diequinte and diequinti as a compound adverb, with the second syllable of the word shortened. The deified Augustus, too, who was well versed in the Latin tongue and an imitator of his father's 1 elegance in discourse, has often in his letters 2 used that means of designating the days. But it will be sufficient to show the undeviating usage of the men of old, if I quote the regular formula of the praetor, in which, according to the usage of our forefathers, he is accustomed to proclaim the festival known as the Compitalia. 3 His words are as follows: “On the ninth day the Roman people, the Quirites, will celebrate the Compitalia; when they shall have begun, legal business ceases.” The praetor says dienoni, not die nono. And not the praetor alone, but almost all antiquity, spoke in that way. Look you, this passage of the well-known poet Pomponius comes to my mind, from the Atellan farce entitled Mevia: 4
For six days now I've done no stroke of work;
The fourth day (diequarte) I, poor wretch, shall starve to death.
