Lucius Afranius (poet)

Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman comic poet who lived at the beginning of the 1st century BC.

Quotes

• Si possent homines delenimentis capi,
  Omnes haberent nunc amatores anus.
  Aetas et corpus tenerum et morigeratio,
  Haec sunt uenena formosarum mulierum:
  Mala aetas nulla delenimenta inuenit.
  • If one might capture men with magic philtres,
    Lovers would swarm round every toothless crone.
    A dainty body, youth, obliging ways—
    These be the philtres handsome women use:
    Old age has none of these—and these are all.
  • Fragment of Vopiscus; Kirby Flower Smith, "Note on Satyros, Life of Euripides, Oxyr. Pap. 9, 157–8", American Journal of Philology, Vol. 34 (1913), p. 64
  • Cp. Euripides, Andromache, 205; Lucretius, IV, 1278; Tibullus, I, 5, 43 & I, 8, 23; Ovid, Medicamina Faciei Femineae, 35 & Ars Amatoria, II, 99; Plutarch, Moralia, 141B

• Alius est amor, alius cupido.
  • Love is one thing, lust another.
  • Fragment of Cinerarius; Jon R. Stone, Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (2005), p. 367

• Amabit sapiens, cupient caeteri.
  • Wise men love, others are mere lechers.
  • Fragment of Omen; Richard A. Branyon, Latin Phrases & Quotations (1994), p. 12

• Isto parentum est vita vilis liberis,
  Ubi malunt metui, quam vereri se ab suis.
  • Children hold a sire's life cheap,
    Where rather feared than honoured he would be.
  • Fragment of Consobrinis, quoted by Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, XV, xiii, 3; John C. Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 3, LCL 212 (1927), pp. 92–3

• Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria.
  Sophiam vocant me Grai, vos Sapientiam.
  • My sire Experience was, me Memory bore,
    In Greece called Sophia, Wisdom in Rome.
  • Fragment of Sella, quoted by Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, XIII, viii, 3; John C. Rolfe, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, Vol. 2, LCL 200 (1927), pp. 430–1

• Formosa virgo est; dotis dimidium vocant
  Isti, qui dotes neglegunt uxorias.
  • The girl is pretty; this is half a dowry, say men who aren't interested in a dowry.
  • Unassigned fragment; Norbert Gutterman, A Book of Latin Quotations (1966), p. 47