In his encyclopedic work Natural History, Pliny the Elder records the sudden and unusual death of Gaius Laecanius Bassus, a prominent Roman senator who had served as an ordinary consul in 64 AD. [1]

Writing in Book 26, Chapter 4, Pliny uses Laecanius as a cautionary medical example: [1]

• The Cause of Death: Pliny states that Laecanius died from a carbuncle (a severe, infected skin boil).[1, 2]
• The Fatal Mistake: Laecanius tragically caused his own demise by taking a needle and trying to prick or tear out a splinter (or small boil) from his left thumb. [1]
• The Tiny Scale: Pliny emphasizes the irony and misfortune of the situation, noting that the initial blemish on his thumb was so incredibly small that it could scarcely be seen. [1]
• Historical Context: Pliny mentions that Laecanius passed away in the very same year that Pliny was composing that specific part of his book (around 77–78 AD). He laments that two men of elite "consular rank"—Laecanius Bassus and Julius Rufus—both died of carbuncles in the span of that single year (Rufus supposedly dying due to the ignorance of his doctors). [1, 2]

Because Laecanius died without a direct heir, his vast family estates and famous amphora-making workshops in Istria were subsequently absorbed by the Emperor Vespasian. [1, 2]

Are you researching the genealogy of the Laecanius family, or are you looking for more details on ancient Roman medical practices and how Pliny viewed them?

 In Book 20, Chapter 11 of the Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights), Aulus Gellius relies heavily on a book by the grammarian Publius Lavinius titled De Verbis Sordidis ("On Vulgar Words"). [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Gellius uses Lavinius's work to explain the origins and usage of the colloquial word sculna (an old, vulgar term for an arbitrator, mediator, or stakeholder). Within this short chapter, the explicit literary examples and quotes cited from or via Lavinius include: [1, 2]

• Marcus Varro's Logistoricus: Lavinius points out that the word sculna was explicitly used by the famous Roman scholar Marcus Varro in his dialogue or philosophical work entitled Catus (subtitled On the Upbringing of Children). [1, 2]
• Cato the Elder's De Ptolomaeo contra Thermum: After establishing that ancient speakers used the adverbial phrase sequestro positum to describe property deposited with a mediator, Gellius provides a specific historical quote from Cato the Elder's speech Against Thermus concerning Ptolemy: "Per deos immortalis, nolite vos atque . . ." ("By the immortal gods, do not allow yourselves and..."). (Note: The remaining text of this specific quotation is lost due to a permanent break in the surviving manuscripts.)[1, 2, 3]

Summary of the Etymology Explained by Lavinius

Through these examples, Lavinius demonstrates that sculna was originally a vulgar corruption of seculna. Both seculna and the more elegant, standard Latin alternatives—sequester and arbiter—share a linguistic root with the verb sequor ("to follow"). They are called this because both disputing parties ultimately agree to "follow" the final judgment of the chosen referee. [1, 2, 3]

If you are researching early Roman legal and grammatical terms, would you like me to find other examples from Gellius where he analyzes vulgar words (verba sordida), or look up more fragments of Varro's Logistorici?

 stands. It may well be true that, for my exceedingly prim Aunt Matilda, the expression "he is a runt" means "he is an undersized person," and yet quite false that she has any degree of readiness to utter the expression in any circumstances whatsoever. What one seems to need is the idea of her being equipped to use the expression, and the analysis of this idea is also problematic.

So for the present I shall abandon the attempt to provide a defini-tion, and content myself with a few informal remarks. There seem to me to be three main types of case in which one may legitimately speak of an established procedure in respect of utterance-type X:

(1) That in which X is current for some group G; that is to say, to utter X in such-and-such circumstances is part of the practice of many members of G. In that case my Aunt Matilda (a member of G) may be said to have a procedure for X, even though she herself would rather be seen dead than utter X, for she knows that some other mem-bers of G do have a readiness to utter X in such-and-such circum-stances.

1. That in which X is current only for U; it is only U's practice to utter X in such-and-such circumstances. In this case U will have a readiness to utter X in such-and-such circumstances.
2. That in which X is not current at all, but the utterance of X in such-and-such circumstances is part of some system of communication which U has devised but which has never been put into operation (like the new highway code which I invent one day while lying in my bath). In that case U has a procedure for X in the attenuated sense that he has envisaged a possible system of practices which would involve a readiness to utter X in such-and-such circumstances.