He looks as if he knew a great deal that can never be any use to him

[sovay]

Signs of Incipient Geekdom #1381: A friend signs an e-mail "SC" and your first thought is, "Who signs an e-mail 'scilicet'?"

I suppose it should follow without saying that I spent this afternoon researching Roman laws on citizenship and resident aliens for no project of my own, except that someone asked me a question to which I did not know the answer and I was curious. The process turned out to involve rather more Cicero than I had bargained for. Why does no one ever ask me questions that involve rather more Anakreon, or Lucan, or even Lykophron?

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Comments

Re: ObIrrelevant

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

I'm sure.

If you ever have trouble getting to sleep, try my scintillating account, "Catiline and the Date of the Consular Elections of 63 B.C.," Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History IV (Collection Latomus, vol. 196), 1986:234-246. "Without coming to some conclusion, however, tentative, about when Catiline finally lost all hope of coming to power by constitutional means, it is impossible to assess the degree to which he was involved in the conspiracy that bears his name." This was my only journal article in ancient history before I started my new career, in survey research.

Re: ObIrrelevant

[larryhammer]

If I have occassion to track that down, I will. I've always been curious what the professionals thought of the hypothesis.

---L.