# Calidio hoc unum,si nihil utilitatis habebat



## Lamb67

Calidio hoc unum,si nihil utilitatis habebat, abfuit,si opus erat,defuit.(Cic. Brut. 80)
_If there was nothing urgent for this particular Calidius, he was absent.
but if there was some work, he was useless.


Here is the search results on hoc unum by _Scholiast.
_ut tibi quidem videri solet_ is in parenthesis, and simply interrupts the main idea, _cum sit opus unum hoc oratorium maxime_, "...since this one form of literary activity [more than any other] is most oratorical [i.e. calls for the skills of one trained in oratorical composition

It doest not seem to be very helpful, but I am doing my best.

any comments please?


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## Quiviscumque

Dear Lamb, you are cheating  That text does not appear in Cicero's "Brutus de claris oratoribus".

Anyway, "hoc unum" means "this alone".

​


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## relativamente

Opus est means almost the same as necesse est, but more than  it is necessary means it is important


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## CapnPrep

Quiviscumque said:


> Dear Lamb, you are cheating  That text does not appear in Cicero's "Brutus de claris oratoribus".


Actually, it does, at 80[276], just as Lamb67 indicated.


Lamb67 said:


> _If there was nothing urgent for this particular Calidius, he was absent._


_Hoc unum_ (*nom*/acc) cannot modify _Calidio_ (*dat*/abl). You must find a different syntactic function for _hoc unum_ in this sentence.


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## Lamb67

Hoc is the subject, another guy maybe.

When he has a minor buzziness for Calidius, he was absent; when there was some serious buzziness, he would fail in the end.


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## Quiviscumque

CapnPrep said:


> Actually, it does, at 80[276], just as Lamb67 indicated.



"Illi", not "Calidio" . I was just kidding.
Dear Lamb, Cicero is saying that in Calidius "nec erat ulla vis atque contentio". "Hoc unum" or "illi abfuit" or "illi defuit".


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## CapnPrep

Lamb67 said:


> Hoc is the subject, another guy maybe.


There are very few situations where you could use neuter _hoc_ to refer to "another guy"…


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## Lamb67

If he was of little use in this one case by staying away, then he would fail when a serious work came.


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## Quiviscumque

Dear Lamb, this one is convoluted, even for Cicero. The meaning flows along the whole paragraph.

"duo summe tenuit, ut et rem illustraret disserendo et animos eorum qui audirent devinciret voluptate;"

I. e., Calidius had got two good qualities.

"aberat tertia illa laus, qua permoveret atque incitaret animos, quam plurimum pollere diximus; nec erat ulla vis atque contentio:"

But he lacked a third one.

"sive consilio, quod eos, quorum altior oratio actioque esset ardentior, furere atque bacchari arbitraretur, sive quod natura non esset ita factus sive quod non consuesset sive quod non nosset". 

Perhaps because Calidius thought it was not really a quality, perhaps because Nature did not give him this gift.

"Hoc unum illi, si nihil utilitatis habebat, afuit; si opus erat, defuit."

This alone was for him an absence (if you think it is not necessary) or a defect (it you think it is necessary).


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