Ducentesimum Vicesimum Quintum Latinum Verbum Diei: November 1, 2010

[Chris Reffett]

Hi everybody! creffett here, filling in for Christina today since
she's busy. We are pretending that it's still October 31st, so we can
use the October theme. Save this special edition of the LVD, I'm sure
that it will be a collector's item someday.

Theme for this month: Latin hidden in our everyday lives

musculus, musculi m.

Definition: little mouse, rodent; muscle; sea mussel; shed, mantelet
(a shelter used in siege warfare)
Musculus is the diminutive of mus, muris "mouse, rat"

Sententia: Cicero's De Republica 3.25
(Philus) 'praeter Arcadas et Atheniensis, qui credo timentes hoc
interdictum iustitiae ne quando existeret, commenti sunt se de terra
tamquam hos ex arvis musculos extitisse.

Philus: Besides the Arcadians and Athenians who, I believe, fearing
that this prohibition of justice might exist, pretend that they are
from the earth just as little mice from the fields.

N.B. The first part of the above sentence appears to be missing or cut
off, so this was probably a digression from a longer thought.

Cicero's De Republica was a six-volume commentary on politics written
in the format of a Socratic seminar by Scipio Africanus which took
place over the course of three days. Philus, the speaker in the above
sentence, was a Roman consul along with Serranus in 136 BC.

An etymological note: the English word "muscle" comes from musculus
because several muscles, especially the biceps, resemble the shape and
movement of a small mouse.