103
Now the reason is not, as the Greeks believe and lawyers in court are wont to assert, that these children are begotten of some promiscuous and common seed: but Spurius is a first name like Sextus and Decimus and Gaius. They do not write first names in full, but by one letter, as Titus (T.) and Lucius (L.) and Marcus (M.): or by two, as Tiberius (Ti.) and Gnaeus (Cn.): or by three, as Sextus (Sex.) and Servius (Ser.). Spurius, then, is one of those written by two letters: Sp. And by these two letters they also denote children of unknown fathers, sine patre,The mss. have sine patris; did Plutarch, or some Greek copyist, confuse the Latin genitive and ablative, since they are one in Greek? that is without a father: by the s they indicate sine and by the p patre. This, then, caused the error, the writing of the same abbreviation for sine patre and for Spurius.
103
I must state the other explanation also, but it is somewhat absurd: They assert that the Sabines use the word spurius for the pudenda muliebria, and it later came about that they called the child born of an unmarried, unespoused woman by this name, as if in mockery.
104
Why do they call Bacchus Liber Pater (Free Father)? Cf. Petronius, Satyricon, 41, and Housman’s commentary in Classical Review, xxxii. p. 164.
104
Is it because he is the father of freedom to drinkers? For most people become bold and are abounding in frank speech when they are in their cups. Cf.Moralia, 716 b. Or is it because he has provided the means for libations?
104
Or is it derived, as AlexanderMüller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iii. p. 244; Alexander Polyhistor. asserts, from Dionysus Eleuthereus, Cf. the inscription on the chair of the priest of Dionysus in the theatre at Athens,Ἱερεῶς Διονύσου Ἐλευθερέως. so named from Eleutherae in Boeotia?
105
For what reason is it not the custom for maidens to marry on public holidays, but widows do marry at this time? Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i. 15. 21.
