Carolvs Praechter, uir clarissimus, optime exposuit quo modo rumores et fabulae de Platoni s itineribus gradatim orerentur, augerentur, firmarentur.1 Inter scriptores, qui nobis tales narrationes tradiderunt, est Valerius Maximus, qui her Aegyptiacum et Italicum his uerbis narra: (III 7, Ext. 3.)

<Quoque tempore a studiosis iuuenibus certatim

Athenae Platonem doctorem quaerentibus petebantur, ipse Nili

fluminis inexplicabiles ripas uastissimosque campos,

teffusam barbariam et flexuosos fossarum ambitus

Aegyptiorum senum discipulus lustrabat.>

It has usually been held, on the strength of several passages in Thucydides, that the Athenian army which was besieging Syracuse in 414–413 b.c. contained a contingent of Etruscans desirous of retaliating upon the Syracusans for losses inflicted upon them in past days—e.g., in 474 at Cumae and in 453 at Elba.

Was the above-named bill, which was brought forward in 122 b.c. by the tribune M. Liuius Drusus, and provided that the Latins should under all circumstances be exempt from the penalty of scourging, duly passed by the Roman Assembly and entered upon the statute-book?

In analyzing for composition I start in the most obvious way with (from gwm-ti-) in the sense of ‘gang’ (i° ‘uia’ 2° ‘ caterua’), while must be a root-noun from *lew-s, and is perhaps immediately cognate with Skr. lu-nati ‘caedit.’1 This analysis makes mean something like ‘ uiam-muniens,’ i.e. a sort of ‘ ponti-fex.’ I think more particularly of the sacrificial leader, the , the Rex Sacrificulus, who, while he may have been concerned with the making of ways on earth, also made paths for man to the gods. But this aside, he who ‘ blazed the trail,’ who ‘ loosed’ or ‘ solved ’ (the problem of) the ‘ ways,’ was ‘ explorer, guide, leader,’ i.e. ‘dux.’

In Plautus and elsewhere in old Latin there is an imperative suffix -mino of medio-deponential meaning: opperimino, PL True. 188 (Ambr.), progredimino, id. Pseud. 859, arbitramino, id. Epid. 695, praefamino, Cato, RR. 141, 2, famino Paul. Fest. 62, 10, Th., all 2 sg.; in legal documents, antestamino (si in ius uocat, ni it, antestamino, igitur em capito), in the XII Tables, fruimino (is eum agrum habeto niue fruimino), CIL. 1, 199, profitemino in Lex Iulia Municipalis, all 3 sg. The generally accepted explanation of the form is that it arose from a contamination of the ordinary 2 pl. medio-passive imperative in -mini and the 2, 3 sg. forms in -to, Lindsay, Latin Language, p. 517, Von Planta, Gramm. d. oskisch-umbr. Dial. II, pp. 310 sqq., Buck, Elementarb. d. oskisch-umbr. Dial. p. 112, Sommer, Hdb. d. lat. Laut- u. Formenlehre, p. 366, Stolz, Lat. Gramm*. p. 158. The Oskan and the Umbrian forms in -mo, -mu, U. spahamu, eturstahmu, persnimu, O. censamur, all of 2 or 3 sg., and U. arsmahamo, caterahamo of 2 or 3 pi., are identified with the Lat. -minō forms on the assumption that the Osk-Umbr. -mu represents an older *-mnō which in turn arose by syncope from -*menō Von Planta, l.c. This explanation is the most satisfactory that has been given, and we may suppose that Latin, Oskan, and Umbrian had an imperative form in *-menō.