Metellus Scipio

Someone just phoned to ask if I’m Metellus Scipio. I am not. Wikipedia says:

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica – also known as Metellus Scipio, consul 52 BC, adopted son of Metellus Pius, with whom he campaigned against Sertorius. He became father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. He commanded the “Republican” army at Thapsus, and was killed in battle against Gaius Julius Caesar’s legions.

The new Metellus Scipio has published three book reviews on amazon.de. They all award between one and two gold stars out of five. So much for my reputation as a bearer of sweetness and light.

Metellus Scipio reviews

I must admit to some partial agreement with MS. On Fisher’s The German Legal System and Legal Language:

The writing is only relatively mediocre (unlike “German Legal System and Laws” from Oxford University Press, which is full of horrid Denglish). If you already know what he’s trying to say, you understand what he means. But if you already know how the German legal system is set up, why would you read this book?

I might have slipped such a comment in brackets in myself! I must say I possess Fisher, in one edition (it keeps being expanded and there’s a new edition), but I haven’t studied it in depth. I tend to disagree with some of its suggestions, but I don’t know it well enough to review it.

Zahn is great, but the criticism here is of the electronic version and in particular the software. Similarly with Herbst, which I find never contains what I want either, although I’m usually looking for Swiss or Austrian terms, and I would not make do with Schäfer either, unlike the reviewer – my Schäfer and Herbst are in a pretty pristine condition, for obvious reasons.

3 thoughts on “Metellus Scipio

  1. The phrase that comes to mind for me is “Rooster in the hen house”. But googling doesn’t suggest it’s very common.

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