3, 36 _error hominum non proborum_. -- ISTA: implying contempt. A. 102, _c_; G. 291, Rem.; H. 450, 1. n. and foot-note 4. -- DELIRATIO: 'dotage'; a rare word, used by Cic. only here and in Div. 2, 90. 37. ROBUSTOS: 'sturdy'; implying that the sons were grown up. -- TANTAM: _sc. quantam habuit_; only a little more emphatic than _magnam_ would have been; see n. on 52. -- APPIUS: see n. on 16. -- REGEBAT: the _pater familias_ in early Roman times was an almost irresponsible ruler over his children and household. For a full discussion of the _patria potestas_ see Coulanges, Ancient City, Bk. II. Ch. 8; Maine, Ancient Law, Ch. 5; Hadley, Introd. to Roman Law, Chapters 5 and 6. -- ET ... SENEX: 'though both blind and old'. -- INTENTUM: commonly used of _animus_, like the opposite _remissus_ (28). -- TENEBAT etc.: the _patria potestas_ is often denoted by the word _imperium_; cf. De Invent. 2, 140 _imperium domesticum_. -- VIGEBAT etc.: 'in him ancestral spirit and principles were strong'. While _animus patrius_ here evidently means the strong will for which the patrician Claudii were proverbial (as _e.g._ in Rosc. Am. 46 _intellegere qui animus patrius sit in liberos_) it indicates the feeling of a particular father for his children. P. 16. -- 38. ITA: = _ea lege_ 'on these conditions, viz. ...', the clause with _si_ being an explanation of _ita_. This correspondence of _ita ... si_ is common in Cicero; see n. on 12 _ita ... quasi_. Here translate 'age can only be in honor if it fights for itself'. -- SE IPSA: cf. Cic. Acad. 2, 36 _veritas se ipsa defendet_; see also the n. on 4. -- SI ... EST: 'if it has passed into bondage to nobody'. _Mancipium_ is a piece of property; _emancipare_ is to pass a piece of property out of its owner's hands. The word acquired two exactly opposite meanings. When used of a slave, or of a son _in patria potestate_, who was legally subject to many of the same ordinances as a slave, it means 'to set free', unless, as in Fin. I, 24 _filium in adoptionem D. Silano emancipaverat_, some person is mentioned to whom the original owner makes over his rights. But in Plaut. Bacchid. 1, 1, 90 _mulier, tibi me emancupo_ the sense is 'I enslave myself to you', _i.e._ 'I pass myself out of my own power into yours'. So in the well-known passage of Horace, Epod. 9, 12 (of Antony) _emancipatus feminae_ 'enslaved to a woman'; cf Cic. Phil. 2, 51 _venditum atque emancipatum tribunatum_. -- SENILE ALIQUID ... ALIQUID ADULESCENTIS: chiasmus. For the sense cf. 33 _ferocitas iuvenum ... senectutis maturitas_. -- QUOD QUI SEQUITUR: 'and he who strives after this', _i.e._ to combine the virtues of age and youth. Cf. Aesch. Sept. 622 γεροντα τον νουν σαρκα δ' ‛ηβωσαν φυει -- MIHI ... EST IN MANIBUS: 'I have on hand', 'am busy with'. Cf. n. on 22. -- ORIGINUM: as to Cato's literary labors see Introd. -- OMNIA COLLIGO: referring to the materials Cato was collecting for his 'Origines'. -- QUASCUNQUE DEFENDI: 'as many as I have conducted'.