Note 30 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS

hoc bene sit: The formula in drinking a health. Comp. Plaut., Pers., 5, 1, 20. Here used also as a kind of grace.—tunicatum | caepe: πολύλοπον κρόμμυον (Casaubon). Tunicatum caepe, ‘bulbous or coated onion,’ as opposed to the sectile porrum, or ‘chives’ (Pretor). It may be going too far to exclude epitheta ornantia from Persius, but he certainly uses them sparingly. Tunicatum is commonly understood to mean ‘skin and all,’ as we say of a potato, ‘jacket and all.’ Comp. Juv., 14, 153: tunicam mihi malo lupini. But as the skin of an onion is not very ‘filling,’ and as tunica may be used in the sense of ‘coat’ or ‘layer,’ the slight change to tunicatim—‘layer by layer’—has suggested itself to me. It is not a whit more exaggerated than Juvenal’s filaque sectivi numerata includere porri (14, 133).