United States or Fiji ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At this time Buchanan was beginning the work which filled his closing years his History of Scotland. Seven years afterwards the Melvilles paid him another visit, in Edinburgh, the account of which by the younger is one of the loci classici of Scottish history.
A classic, according to the usual definition, is an old author canonised by admiration, and an authority in his particular style. The word classic was first used in this sense by the Romans. With them not all the citizens of the different classes were properly called classici, but only those of the chief class, those who possessed an income of a certain fixed sum.
Hence, by an obvious analogy, the best authors were rated as "classici," or men of the highest class; just as in English we say "men of rank" absolutely, for men who are in the highest ranks of the state. The mental process by which this title, which would apply rightly to the best authors in all languages, came to be restricted to those only in two, and these two to be claimed, to the seeming exclusion of all others, as the classical languages, is one constantly recurring, making itself felt in all regions of human thought; to which therefore I would in passing call your attention, though I cannot now do more.
A comprehensive measure, with the object of 'rescuing their marine from its condition of impotence, was taken by the Romans in the year 267 B.C. Four quoestores classici in modern naval English we may perhaps call them port-admirals were nominated, and one was stationed at each of four ports. The objects of the Roman Senate, so Mommsen tells us, were very obvious.
Word Of The Day