Messius who is chiefly spoken of in the above passage, is in the first place represented as an Oscan by birth. Now the whole race of the Oscans was, as _Festus_ informs us, notorious for its unnatural excesses in matters of Love; we read in him, p. 191: “_Obscum_ duas diversas et contrarias significationes habet. Nam Cloatius putat eo vocabulo significari sacrum, quo etiam leges sacrae Oscae dicuntur, et in omnibus fere antiquis commentariis scribitur _Opicum_ pro Obsco, ut in Titini fabula quinta: Qui Obsce et Volsce fabulantur, nam Latine nesciunt. A quo etiam verba impudentia, et elata appellantur obscena, _quia frequentissimus fuit usus Oscis libidinum spurcarum_.” (_Obscum_ has two different and contrary meanings. For Cloatius considers _sacred_ to be signified by the word, in which sense sacred laws are spoken of as leges Oscae (_Oscan_ laws), and in almost all the old commentaries _Opicum_ is written for _Obscum_, as in the fifth Fable of Titinius: “Who converse in _Obscan_ and Volscian, because they know not how in Latin.” Whence also indecent words, and swelling ones, are called _obscene_, _because the practice of unclean lusts was most frequent among the Oscans_[120].) Again on p. 194., “Oscos, quos dicimus, ait Verrius Opscos ante dictos, teste Ennio, cum dicat: De muris res gerit Opscus. Adiicit etiam, quod _stupra inconcessae libidinis obscena dicantur, ab eius gentis consuetudine inducta_. Quod verum esse non satis adducor, cum apud antiquos omnes fere obscena dicta sint, quae mali ominis habebantur.” (The _Oscans_, as we call them, Verrius says were formerly called _Opscans_, on the evidence of Ennius, for he says: “The Opscan directs his attack upon the walls.” He adds further that _debaucheries of lawless love are called “obscene”, as taking this name from the habits of the nation in question_. But I am not sufficiently convinced of the truth of this, inasmuch as in nearly all the ancient writers things are called _obscene_ that were held to be of evil omen). However what the _spurca libido_ (unclean lust) consisted in may be readily conjectured from the following explanations of _Festus_: _Oscines aves_ Appius Claudius esse ait, quae _ore canentes_ faciant auspicium, ut _corvus_[121], cornix, noctua, (Divinatory birds—_Oscines_ aves—are, says Appius Claudius, such as give an augury by _singing with the mouth_, as _the raven_, the crow, the owl); if only we remember how the _fellator_, as was shown on a previous page, was nicknamed _corvus_ (raven). Again in an Epigram of _Ausonius_ already quoted a _cunnilingue_ is called _Opicus magister_; so that we cannot doubt the question is here of that vice which is practised with the mouth. In another Epigram of _Ausonius_ quoted and explained above, where the different forms of the _obscoena Venus_ (obscene Love) are specified, Crispa there mentioned practises, _Et quam Nolanis capitalis luxus inussit_,