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[p. 151] “of everything that pains,” but “of everything that is painful” ; for it is the removal of pain, he explains, that should be indicated, not of that which causes pain.

In bringing this charge against Epicurus Plutarch is “word-chasing” with excessive minuteness and almost with frigidity; for far from hunting up such verbal meticulousness and such refinements of diction, Epicurus hunts them down. 1


X

[10arg] The meaning of favisae Capitolinae; and what Marcus Varro replied to Servius Sulpicius, who asked him about that term.


SERVIUS SULPICIUS, an authority on civil law and a man well versed in letters, wrote 2 to Marcus Varro and asked him to explain the meaning of a term which was used in the records of the censors; the term in question was favisae Capitolinae. Varro wrote in reply 3 that he recalled that Quintus Catulus, when in charge of the restoration of the Capitol, 4 had said that it had been his desire to lower the area Capitolina, 5 in order that the ascent to the temple might have more steps and that the podium might be higher, to correspond with the elevation and size of the pediment 6 ; but that he had been unable to carry out his plan because the favisae had prevented. These, he said, were certain underground chambers and cisterns in the area, in which

1 There is an obvious word-play on sectatur and insectatur.

2 p. 140, Bremer.

3 p. 199, Bipont.

4 After the destruction of the temple by fire in 83 B.C. In spite of Caesar's opposition (Suet. Jul. xv), Catulus dedicated the new temple in 69 B. C.

5 The open space in front of and around the temple of Jupiter.

6 Sulla and Catulus in their restorations of the Capitoline temple used columns that were taller than those of the earlier building. Catulus wished to make the podium (or elevated platform) higher, to correspond with the greater elevation and size of the pediment (or gable). This he could have done most easily by lowering the area about the temple.

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