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Hugh Tolhurst, writing of his "nightmares of difficulty" with "decoctoris amica Formiani," gave the following "hot tip": <the man from Formiae was Mamurra, chief engineer of Caesar's army during Gallic campaigns.> What "chief engineer" suggested to me was the famously Roman proclivity to road-building, in association with those infamous "roamin' hands" of my high school daze, to yield an admittedly loose translation of that line as "cul-de-sac of Rome." And then things really got out of hand with the rest of #43: Stop! The race is won not by a nose, a fleet foot, or any come-hither eye, however lustrous--much less by some thumb hitched to a cul-de-sac of Rome. Is this the roadhog the Gauls say shoved smoothe Lesbia into the slow lane? No way, we say, to this crashtest dummy! Candice Ward P.S. Sorry, Hugh--I know you want translations into non-English languages, but my limited fluency in anything but my native tongue makes that _pas possible (excuses, excuses_).... %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%