That's not the way Pliny uses it. Pliny is simply explaining that, according to Cicero, the Iliad had once been enclosed in a nutshell.in nuce = lit. "in a nut(shell) = "briefly stated" (Pliny, Naturalis Historia, VII.85)
Same.the way you formatted that quote I thought it was a line of poetry
Yeah, I started scanning it as an hexametre.Same.
While reading Erasmus: simul flare sorbereque haud facile, to drink and whistle at the same time, i. e. to do two things at once, Plaut. Most. 3, 2, 104.—
In English this also exists as "to burn the candle at both ends"
Heh, that's funny, we've got an expression in French that says literally the same thing as "to burn the candle at both ends", "brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts", but it doesn't mean "to do two things at once", it means like to live in such a way that you're not going to live old, or to spend your money in such a way that it won't last long, things like that...