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Tuesday, August 4, 2026

 


The phrase refers to "De Singularibus apud Ciceronem", a lost ancient Roman grammatical treatise written by the 2nd-century AD grammarian Statilius Maximus.
Your query contains a couple of typos: "spudorato" is a garbled version of the Latin word apud (meaning "in" or "in the works of"), and "ciceronem" is the accusative form of Cicero. The complete, corrected Latin title of the work is De singularibus apud Ciceronem quoque positis, which translates into English as "On the Unique Words Also Found in Cicero" (or "On the Hapax Legomena in Cicero").

Key Information Overview
  • The Author: Statilius Maximus, an Antonine-era Roman grammarian who specialized in textual criticism and archaic or rare vocabulary.
  • The Content: The book was a specialized lexical compilation examining hapax legomena (words or singular grammatical forms used only once) or rare expressions appearing in the speeches and letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Cato the Elder.
  • The Connection to Charisius: The text itself is lost to history, but we know it existed because it is repeatedly cited and preserved in fragments by the 4th-century AD Latin grammarian Flavius Sosipater Charisius in his work Ars Grammatica.
  • The Transmission: Specifically, sections of Statilius's book were adapted into a chapter on adverbs by another ancient grammarian, Julius Romanus, whose material was then copied directly into the surviving pages of Charisius.
Would you like me to look up the specific grammatical fragments or rare words (such as saepenumero) that Statilius Maximus criticized Cicero for using, as recorded in Charisius's text?
L'AI può commettere errori, quindi verifica le risposte 
The surviving fragments of Statilius Maximus's lost work, De singularibus apud Ciceronem, reveal that his "censure" (notatio) focused heavily on Cicero's unusual adverb usage, archaic doublets, and single-occurrence vocabulary choices.
When the 3rd-century grammarian Julius Romanus (and subsequently Charisius in his Ars Grammatica) preserved these notes, they often defended Cicero or exposed flaws in Statilius's rigid theories.
The specific fragments and linguistic anomalies scrutinized by Statilius include the following key examples:
1. Saepenumero (Oftentimes / Repeatedly)
  • The Criticism: Statilius Maximus famously censured Cicero for using the compound adverb saepenumero. Statilius argued that compounding saepe (often) and numero (by number) was redundant or improper formal Latin grammar.
  • The Irony: As Julius Romanus mockingly points out in the text of Charisiussaepenumero appears dozens of times across Cicero’s most celebrated speeches and letters. Romanus actively used the word himself in his opening sentence just to playfully flout Statilius’s rule.
2. Ostiatim and Vicatim (Door-to-door / Street-by-street)
  • The Criticism: Statilius flagged Cicero’s use of distributive adverbs ending in -tim, specifically targeting ostiatim (from house to house) and vicatim (from village to village). Statilius believed these were grammatically flawed or colloquial.
  • The Counter-Argument: The text notes that Statilius criticized these words "unknowingly" (Statilius Maximus notat nesciens). The ancient commentators argued he missed the morphological rule: just as continuo transitions into the frequentative continuatim, nouns like ostium and vicus can legitimately take the frequentative adverbial suffix -tim.
3. Stomachose (Peevishly / Angrily)
  • The Criticism: Statilius marked the adverb stomachose as an irregular or unacceptable anomaly in Cicero's prose.
  • The Context: Cicero utilized this expressive adverb (derived from stomachus, meaning stomach or pride/bile) to describe speaking or acting with irritation. It is heavily documented in his personal correspondence, such as his letters to Atticus.
4. Reduplicated Verb Perfects (Memordii)
  • The Criticism: Though not strictly limited to adverbs, fragments trace Statilius tracking down Cicero’s historical use of archaic reduplicated perfect tense verbs, such as memordii (instead of momordi for "I bit"), pepugi ("I pricked"), and spepondi ("I promised").
  • The Context: While classical standards shifted these forms, Statilius noted that both Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Julius Caesar occasionally wrote these archaic variants in early drafts or specific legal arguments.
Would you like to examine how other Roman grammarians, like Marcus Valerius Probus or Gellius, viewed Cicero's grammar compared to Statilius's strict criticisms?

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