[p. 81] And no less pointedly did our forefathers also call men of that kind, who were drowned in words, "babblers, gabbllers and chatterboxes.
XVI
[16arg] That those words of Quadrigarius in the third book of his Annals, “there a thousand of men is killed,” are not used arbitrarily or by a poetic figure, but in accordance with a definite and approved rule of the science of grammar.QUADRIGARIUS in the third book of his Annals 1 wrote the following There a thousand of men is killed," using occiditur, not occiduntur. So too Lucilius in the third book of his Satires,
From gate to gate a thousand of paces is.has mille est, not mille sunt. Varro in the seventeenth book of his Antiquilies of Man writes: 3 “To the beginning of Romulus' reign is more than a thousand and one hundred years,” Marcus Cato in the first book of his Origins, 4 “From there it is nearly a thousand of paces.” Marcus Cicero has in his sixth Oration against Antony, 5 “Is the middle Janus 6 so subject to the patronage of Lucius Antonius? Who has ever been found in that Janus who would lend Lucius Antonius a thousand of sesterces?” In these and many other passages mile is used in the singular number, and that is not, as some think, a concession to early usage or admitted as a neat figure of speech, but it is obviously demanded
Thence to Salcrnum six, 2
