Note 24 — Chapter III

'I, for my part, as I listen to my mother-in-law, Laelia (for women more easily preserve the pure idiom of antiquity, because, from their limited intercourse with the world, they retain always their earlier impressions), in listening, I say to her, I fancy that I am listening to Plautus or Naevius. The very tones of her voice are so natural and simple, that she seems absolutely free from affectation or imitation; from this I gather that her father spoke, and her ancestors all spoke, in the very same way.'—Cicero, De Oratore iii. 12.