I owe to the Honourable Roger North a gloss on sabinically — that it was a Northism meaning conceitedly, after the proverb of Festus, that “the Sabines dream what they will.”

This spurred my search for Festus Shakesword, the person who had to dream what he will, and was then held in the grip of death by the hero who sowed the seeds that undermined the Sabines.

As for Festus, his comment on the proverb “Sabuni quod volunt somnians” was badly mutilated by Gnaeus Gellius in fragment number seven.