[Footnote 36: Cicero, De Finibus, v. 5, 12. "De summo autem bono,
quia duo genera librorum sunt, unum populariter scriptum, quod
[Greek: e)xôteriko\n] appellabant, alterum limatius, quod in
commentariis reliquerunt, non semper idem dicere videntur: nec in
summâ tamen ipsâ aut varietas est ulla, apud hos quidem quos
nominavi, aut inter ipsos dissensio."
The word _limatius_ here cannot allude to high polish and ornament of
style (nitor orationis), but must be equivalent to [Greek:
a)kribe/steron], _doctius_, _subtilius_, &c. (as Buhle and others
have already remarked, Buhle, De Libris Aristot. Exoter. et Acroam.
p. 115; Madvig, ad Cicero de Finib. v. 12; Heitz, p. 134), applied to
profound reasoning, with distinctions of unusual precision, which it
required a careful preparatory training to apprehend. This employment
of the word _limatius_ appears to me singular, but it cannot mean
anything else here. The _commentarii_ are the general heads--plain
unadorned statements of facts or reasoning--which the orator or
historian is to employ his genius in setting forth and decorating, so
that it may be heard or read with pleasure and admiration by a
general audience. Cicero, in that remarkable letter wherein he
entreats Lucceius to narrate his (Cicero's) consulship in an
historical work, undertakes to compose "commentarios rerum omnium" as
materials for the use of Lucceius (Ep. ad Famil. v. 12. 10). His
expression, "in commentariis reliquerunt," shows that he considered
the exoteric books to have been prepared by working up some naked
preliminary materials into an ornate and interesting form.]
[Footnote 37: Cicero, Ep. ad Att. iv. 16.]
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