BOOK IV
I
[1arg] A discourse of the philosopher Favorinus carried on in the Socratic manner with an over-boastful grammarian; and in that discourse we are told how Quintus Scaevola defined penus 1 ; and that this same definition has been criticized and rejected.IN the entrance hall of the palace on the Palatine a large number of men of almost all ranks had gathered together, waiting an opportunity to pay their respects to Caesar. 2 And there in a group of scholars, in the presence of the philosopher Favorinus, a man who thought himself unusually rich in grammatical lore was airing trifles worthy of the schoolroom, discoursing on the genders and cases of nouns with raised eyebrows and an exaggerated gravity of voice and expression, as if he were the interpreter and sovereign lord of the Sibyl's oracle. Then, looking at Favorinus, although as yet he was hardly acquainted with him, he said: "Penus too is used in different genders and is variously declined. For the early writers used to say hoc penus and haec penus, and in the genitive peni and penoris; Lucilius in his sixteenth satire also used the word mundus, which describes women's ornaments, not in the masculine gender, as other writers do, but in the neuter, in these words: 3
