[p. 111] flight, since Nigidius said that the praepetes were contrasted with the inferae. In my youth in Rome, when I was still in attendance on the grammarians, I gave special attention to Sulpicius Apollinaris. Once when there was a discussion about augural law and mention had been made of praepetes aves, I heard him say to Erucius Clarus, the city prefect, that in his opinion praepetes was equivalent to Homer's τανυπτέρυγες, or “wide-winged,” since the augurs had special regard to those birds whose flight was broad and wide because of their great wings. And then he quoted these verses of Homer: 1
You bid me trust the flight of wide-winged birds,
But I regard them not, nor think of them.
VII
[7arg] On Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia; and on the origin of the priesthood of the Arval Brethren.THE names of Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia, or Fufetia as she is sometimes called, are frequent in the early annals. To the former of these after her death, but to Taracia while she still lived, the Roman people paid distinguished honours. And that Taracia, at any rate, was a Vestal virgin is proved by the Horatian law which was laid before the people with regard to her. By this law very many honours are bestowed upon her and among them the right of giving testimony is granted her, and that privilege is given to no other woman in the State. The word testabilis is used in the Horatian law itself, and its opposite occurs in the Twelve Tables: 2 “Let him be ”
