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The collection of synonymous plant names added to Dioscorides’ De materia medica between the 2nd and the 5th centuries CE contains many glosses in different languages. Among them are seven plant names attributed to the Syrians. The main aim of the paper is to re-examine whether they are of Aramaic origin. Consideration is also given to the possible occurrence of these plant names in other Greek sources and to the botanical identification of individual names. As a result, the paper shows that five plant names can be treated as Aramaic: ἁρμαλά ‘rue (Ruta graveolens L.)’ (Jewish Aramaic ḥrmltʾ ‘wild rue’, Mandaic harmal ‘rue’, Arabic ḥarmal ‘wild rue’), βησσασά ‘rue (Ruta graveolens L.)’ (Jewish Aramaic baššāš, baššāšā ‘wild rue’; Syriac baššāšā, bšwšʾ ‘id.’), λαλλαβιάρια ‘white bryony (Bryonia dioica Jacq.)’ (Syriac ʾālepšrā ‘white bryony’), λοῦφαν ‘a kind of arum (especially Arum maculatum L. and Arum palaestinum Boiss.)’ (Aramaic *lûpā ‘Solomon’s lily’, reconstructed on the basis of the Mishnaic Hebrew lôp or lûp ‘id.’; cf. Syriac lāwpā [or lūpā?] ‘perh. pellitory, parietary; dragon arum; peeled barley’; Arabic lūf ‘sponge gourd; dragon arum’), and σασά ‘white lily (Lilium candidum L.)’ (Jewish Aramaic sôsaʾn, šwšnh ‘lily’, Syriac swsn ‘id.’). The etymology of the Syrian glosses ἀδοριού ‘sea carrot (Daucus carota var. drepanensis [Arcang.] Heywood) or sekakul (Malabaila secacul [Mill.] Boiss.)’ and μεούδα ‘sea beet (Beta vulgaris var. maritima [L.] Arcang.)’ is unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article falls within the field of studies of the aspect-tense system of Latin. It is a case study that deals specifically with the use and meanings of the pf. act. indicative and the impf. act. indicative of the verb amāre ‘to love’, which is seen as the prototypical verb for the category of stative (or non-dynamic) verbs. Using this verb as an example, this paper attempts to show that the lexical-semantic classification of verbs proposed by Vendler (1957) and still widely used today – albeit after various modifications – is not entirely suitable for Latin. The aim of this paper is thus not to report on how one particular verb (amāre) behaves, but rather to point out the methodological problems in the existing account of Latin aspect, which not only needs to be much more rigorously based on the description of the interrelations between grammatical devices and the lexical semantics of verbs, but also must work with a much more refined classification than that at the level of +/− dynamicity, +/− telicity, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of performative verbs meaning “I beg, I ask” and pragmatic markers meaning “please” in the 6th-century Liber vitae patrum by Gregory of Tours. It discusses the frequency of each verb and the possible factors that may have influenced its selection, such as imitation of previous authors, the social status of the communication agents, the requested things, and any difficulty in fulfilling the request. For example, the fact that the highest frequency was found for quaeso (which was perceived as an archaism already in Cicero’s time) suggests that Gregory followed the model of learned men from the 4th and 5th centuries CE who “resuscitated” this verb after its decline in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. The paper also examines other additional devices, such as a formula with digneris, and forms of address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly presents the few ancient testimonies connecting Livy to Thucydides, and the more numerous Thucydidean echoes found in Livy by modern scholars. It then explores the allusions to Thucydides in Livy’s account in Books 24 and 25 of the Roman siege of Syracuse in 213–212. There are several more or less secure echoes of Thucydides, but Livy chose to compose a less Thucydidean account than he could have. There may be some reversals of Thucydidean model situations, and if so, they consistently follow a pattern: Livy’s Syracusans continuously play the part of Thucydides’ Athenians and Livy’s Romans always perform better than Thucydides’ Greeks did. It is suggested that this was a means by which Livy intended to ensure his readers that this siege would end in Roman victory and to suggest the superiority of his own account over that of the Peloponnesian War’s historian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Index scriptorum listed at the end of volume VII of the Grammatici Latini edited by Heinrich Keil (1855–1880) includes four quotations of Cassius Severus, a Roman rhetor who lived during Augustus’ and Tiberius’ reigns. Not all these four fragments (two of which are quoted two times, by two different authors) have a place in Cassius Severus’ modern editions. For this reason, in this paper, even if we cannot always conclude that we are actually dealing with Cassius Severus’ fragments, we will offer an analysis of these previously rather neglected quotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the outcomes of research on elementary Latin grammar textbooks called Donati – or Donatus-based grammars –, which were written/compiled or printed and also used in the upper part of the Kingdom of Hungary (roughly corresponding to present-day Slovakia) in the period between approximately the second half of the 17thcentury and the middle of the 19thcentury. The textbooks fall into two categories: 1) bilingual textbooks originally written by Johannes Rhenius, compiled and printed in Upper Hungary, as well as those that accurately reflected his bilingual concept; and 2) multilingual textbooks that only loosely followed Rhenius’ model and were compiled by Pavel Doležal (1700–1778) and modified again by Imre Dunay (1767–1838). The research aimed first at identifying all bi- and multilingual editions of the given type. In terms of methodology, this research balanced on the boundary between philology and retrospective bibliography. In addition to the primary focus, this research additionally explored areas that emerged in the context of the specific region of Upper Hungary: the changing social-historical, religious, and pedagogical environment in which these textbooks were created and to which they were adapted. In doing so, the article also clarifies the cross-linguistic contexts and selected intertextual relationships into which these texts entered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]