etiam: here, still, even now.
213. operari: operarius, day-laborer.
delicias:delights, pleasures.
214. animo et corpore: ABL. OF SPECIFICATION.
appositior: appositus,suitable, suited.
215. ferenda…auferenda: i.e., to carry them on his back as a day laborer rather than to carry them off as a connoisseur, a delightful play on the two forms of fero.
haec…reliquerit (216): the IND. QUEST. is dependent on dici vix potest, it can hardly be said how great.
216. desiderium sui: lit., desire of itself= loss.
217. cum…tum: not only…but also.
epigramma:inscription.
218. basi: abl. sg. of basis, pedestal, base.
quod: conjunctive rel. = et hoc epigramma, obj., along with unam litteram, of scisset, i.e., and if he had understood this epigram, had understood even a single letter of Greek, he would not have….
Graeculus:little Greek, Greekling; the diminutive has contemptuous force.
220. sustulisset: sc. statuam.
221. fuerit: sc. ibi.
“Sappho Playing the Lyre” Leopold Burthe, 1848 Musée des Beaux-Arts Carcassone, France
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
223. quid: what about this?
Paeanis:Paean was an epithet of Apollo the healer, father of Aesculapius, god of medicine.
224. non: = nonne, as also in line 225.
226. Liberi: Liber was the Roman equivalent of Bacchus.
Aristaei:Aristaeus, a son of Apollo and protector of flocks, bees, the grapevine, and olives.
229. simul: adv., at the same time, along with.
230. olei: oleum, (olive) oil.
una: adv., together, along (with).
232. quanto honore: ABL. OF DESCRIPTION, used here in the pred.; lit., of what great esteem = how greatly esteemed.
233. recordari: deponent, to recall, remember.
234. specie: species, appearance; eadem specie ac forma = ABL. OF DESCRIPTION with signum.
235. Capitolio: the Capitolium was the magnificent temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitoline Hill.
Flamininus: the consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus defeated Philip V of Macedon in 197 B.C. and proclaimed the liberty of Greece the following year.
236. ferebantur: ferre often, as here, means to report, say.
uno in genere (237):of one type, of the same type.
238. vidimus: past tense, as the statue and the temple that housed it were both destroyed by fire in 83 B.C.
in Ponti ore et angustiis:at the mouth and narrows of the Black Sea, i.e., where the Black Sea and the Bosporus meet.
240. ita: so, as (he did); ut…poneret (239–40) is a PURPOSE CL., not result.
sua: refers, not to the subj. (Flamininus), as might be expected, but rather to illud (signum), which has been placed at the beginning of the sentence as the focus of Cicero’s point.
hoc est: parenthetical, like id est, that is.
terrestri domicilio: the Romans regarded their capital city, the seat of the Roman empire, as the proper earthly home of Jupiter.
241. introitum: introitus, entrance.
