[p. 103] For in this place Virgil seems to have used that word somewhat irregularly in giving supersit the sense of “be present for a longer or more extended period,” but on the contrary his use of the word in the following line is more nearly the accepted one: 1
They cut him tender grass,for here superesse means to be more than equal to the task and not to be crushed by it. I also used to raise the question whether the ancients used superesse in the sense of “to be left and be lacking for the completion of an act.” For to express that idea Sallust says, not superesse, but superare. These are his words in the Jugurtha: 2 “This man was in the habit of exercising a command independently of the king, and of attending to all business which had been left undone (superaverant) by Jugurtha when he was weary or engaged in more important affairs.” But we find in the third book of Ennius' Annals: 3
Give corn and much fresh water, that his strength
Be more than equal to (superesse) the pleasing toil.
Then he declares one task's left over (super esse) for him,that is, is left and remains undone; but there superesse must be divided and read as if it were not one part of speech, but two, as in fact it is. Cicero, however, in his second Oration against Antony 4 expresses “what is left” by restare, not by superesse. Besides these uses we find superesse with the meaning “survive.” For it is so employed in the book of letters of Marcus Cicero to Lucius Plancus, 5 as
