Note 31 — CICERO’S LETTERS TO ATTICUS BOOK I

Supposed to allude to the election of a king by boys at the Saturnalia, using beans to vote with; but it is rather dubious Latin. In Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis 9 the same proverbs seem to be referred to in the phrase “olim” inquit “magna res erat deum fieri: iam famam mimum fecisti”: whence it has been suggested that Faba or Fama was the name of some well-known farce. Cf. Laserpiciarius mimus (Petronius 33).