On this Dr. Gow, in his excellently businesslike school edition, remarks: ‘The MSS are divided between publicum, Apulicum, and Ponticum. Of these readings, the first is nonsensical; the second unmetrical; the third incredible,’ and he therefore adopts Palmer's sublicis. To that alteration there are strong objections: (1) the position of the merely conjunctive et: (2) the fact that sublicae do not suggest wealth: (3) the technical improbability of the termination in -is being converted into one in -um.