[p. 311] had used them, to liars, deceivers, and those who cleverly devised light and empty statements in place of those which were true and earnest. But that those were called stolidi who were not so much foolish and witless as austere, churlish and disagreeable, such men as the Greeks called μοχθηροί, “ugly fellows,” and φορτικοί, “common” or “vulgar folk.” He also said that the roots and derivations of these words were to be found in the books of Nigidius. 1 Having sought for these words and found them, with examples of their earliest meanings, I made a note of them, in order to include them in the notes contained in these Nights, and I think that I have already introduced them somewhere among them. 2
V
[5arg] That Quintus Ennius, in the seventh book of his Annals, wrote quadrupes eques, and not quadrupes equus, as many read it.A NUMBER of us young men, friends of his, were at Puteoli with the rhetorician Antonius Julianus, a fine man in truth and of distinguished eloquence, and we were spending the summer holidays in amusement and gaiety, amid literary diversions and seemly and improving pleasures. And while we were there, word was brought to Julianus that a certain reader, a man not without learning, was reciting the Annals of Ennius to the people in the theatre in a very refined and musical voice. “Let us go,” said he, “to hear this ' Ennianist.' whoever he may be”; for that was the name by which the man wished to be called.
