I.wildness, fierceness, savageness, roughness.
I. Lit., of beasts or men (rare but class. in prose and poetry): “ista in figura hominis feritas et immanitas beluae, etc.,” Cic. Off. 3, 6, 32: “tauri,” Ov. F. 4, 103: “leonis,” id. ib. 4, 217: “magnitudo animi, remota a communitate conjunctioneque humana feritas est quaedam et immanitas,” Cic. Off. 1, 44, 157; cf. id. Div. 1, 29, 60: qui primi dissipatos unum in locum congregarunt eosque ex feritate illa ad justitiam atque mansuetudinem transduxerunt, from the savage state, id. Sest. 42, 91; cf. Ov. F. 3, 281: “quorum civitas . . . cultu et feritate non multum a Germanis differebat,” Hirt. B. G. 8, 25 fin.; Sen. Clem. 2, 4: neque ipse manus feritate dedisset, * Verg. A. 11, 568 al.—
II. Transf., of things (perh. only poet. and in post-Aug. prose): “Scythici loci,” Ov. Pont. 2, 2, 112; cf.: “inamoena viae,” Stat. S. 2, 2, 33: “mitigata arboris,” Plin. 16, 12, 23, § 61: “mentae,” Col. 11, 3, 37: “nimia musti,” Plin. 14, 20, 25, § 124.
